Igniting the Inner Rebel Through Entrepreneurial Education with Henry Nicholson | The Rebel School

Ever wondered what it takes to mold an unsatisfying career into a beacon of innovation and personal triumph? Henry Nicholson, CEO of The Rebel School, joins me to share his transformative journey from a disenchanted web designer to an educational disruptor. His story is a testament to the power of entrepreneurship and finance in rewriting the script of our lives, proving that the mundane can indeed be reshaped into the extraordinary.

This episode isn't just about business; it's a deep dive into the essential human skills of empathy and listening that underpin every successful venture and fulfilling life. We unravel how the art of genuine connection can break through barriers, both personal and professional. The Rebel School stands as a shining example, with its unconventional approach to business education—focusing on actionable customer interactions and inclusivity, it demonstrates that anyone can grasp the reins of their destiny.

As we wrap up, I reflect on my own experiences and how personal growth is intertwined with entrepreneurial spirit. From sharing insights on free entrepreneurship courses to stories of self-belief and bold actions, this episode is at the sign you've been looking for if you've been wanting to start a business but not known how. Join us as we break the rules and bust the myths on everything you think you need to be an entrepreneur... 

Transcript

Henry Nicholson: 0:00

We want people to realise that they do have a choice across all of their life and if we can enable them and empower them to fix some of those deeper rooted challenges by using entrepreneurship or finance as a vehicle, then we can truly, truly unlock some super, super purposeful people that can really make a difference and shift the needle.

Zoe Greenhalf: 0:21

Hello, it's Zoe coach, creator and mischief maker behind The MISCHIEF Movement Podcast, your weekly inspo for people looking for more hell yeah in their life. I'm on a mission to help you rediscover that rebellious speak, find your confident in a badass and stop holding yourself back from the amazing life you've been dreaming of. Join me each week as I discuss mindset, share stories or develop strategies Sometimes alone, but most often through interviewing adventurous, unconventional guests who are shaking up the status quo, living life on their terms and impacting the world by doing things differently. Not long ago, I woke up one day and thought this isn't the life I'd imagined for myself. I felt disconnected and unfulfilled, but I set my intention firmly on adding more fun, getting out of my comfort zone and becoming curious about what truly lit me up. And then magical things started to happen, including this podcast. As that famous quote goes, she remembered who she was and the game changed. I've always loved the word missed you, because it's cheeky, playful and a little bit rebellious, and that's exactly what I hope this podcast brings to the table. Let's rewrite the rules, throw two fingers up to society and do more of the things we love. So I'm here to empower you to boldly rebel against the ordinary and support you as you design a life you don't want to escape from. If you feel called to activate your own adventure and make unconventional your new normal, I dare you to jump in with me. I've been looking forward to this conversation for so many months, so I'm really excited for you to finally be able to hear this week's guest, Henry Nicholson, CEO of The Rebel School.

Zoe Greenhalf: 2:10

Now, on paper, they deliver exceptional free training on how to start a business, but, as you'll find out, this is not your ordinary business course. The Rebel School message goes much further than just taking an idea and figuring out how to make money from it. They've taken the traditional business model and completely rewritten the rule book on what it looks like to launch a business. In doing so, they are rearming and empowering people with a choice for what they want to do with their life, which ultimately translates as enabling freedom. In this episode, we discuss their purpose in wanting to help unlock people's potential by teaching them how to create lasting change.

Zoe Greenhalf: 2:54

Henry's own journey from a serendipitous meeting with one of the Rebel co-founders, alan Donaghan, and how walking out on his unfulfilling web design job was the beginning of not just a new career but a whole personal development journey through the Rebel School. If you've ever thought that starting a business seemed egotistical, seemed exciting but too difficult, if you've been put off by a bad careers advice at school or the idea of writing a business plan makes you physically sick, you're in great company, but don't let other people choose your future for you. Instead, listen up as Henry explains how starting a business is much less about the money and much more about the right mindset. This week I am with Henry Nicholson from the Rebel School and I'm very curious to hear what your mischief is.

Henry Nicholson: 3:49

Yes, my mischief. Well, the thing that gets me in the trouble the most is how I'm going to answer. That is just complete and utter, relentless inability to deal with injustice, and that's something that's kind of followed me throughout my entire life, but definitely in Rebel and what I do day to day now. It's just why I find myself in these weird and wonderful conversations and usually getting in trouble with a bunch of people that I shouldn't be getting in trouble with. Basically, yeah, exactly, but that's what it's all about. That's what it's all about. If we're not disrupting, what are we doing?

Zoe Greenhalf: 4:21

Exactly, exactly. So, okay, we know that you're with this organization called the Rebel School. What's your involvement and how did you get there?

Henry Nicholson: 4:32

Yeah, absolutely so, starting from the beginning. So the Rebel School, the whole purpose that we exist, is to give people a choice. And what we have learned and what we have found and what we're really how we were born, is because in society we are pretty much told from the get go the route that we have to take, and it doesn't matter if that is in business, it doesn't matter if that's in finance. We see it across every single ethnicity, every single gender, every single any kind of box that anyone could ever possibly be put in there is a societal like this is the route that you have to take. And now what that does.

Henry Nicholson: 5:12

Some people that works for, because some people love structure and some people need a route, but for the vast majority of us it puts us in a box and it takes away any choice that we have to do, the things that we were really born to do and what we were here for. So I think what we spend that time doing at Rebel is by providing free, like world-class free education. We are rearming people with a choice for what they want to do, and that is through any aspect of life. We deliver predominantly, we deliver entrepreneurship courses and finance courses, so they don't sound very exciting on their own, but I promise they are.

Zoe Greenhalf: 5:51

Yes, but you still have the name the Rebel School, so it is exciting.

Henry Nicholson: 5:54

Exactly. There's a thread there somewhere. So through entrepreneurship and financial education, essentially what we're able to do is empower people to have choice back in their life about all of it. Because if you're empowered to make your own money and make your own decisions, suddenly you aren't financially tied to specific individuals who may be making your life a misery. You're not specifically tied to an organisation who might be making yourself your life a misery. You're not tied to a specific environment that might be making your life a misery. So for us, it goes further than just being able to figure out how to go from an idea through to sales and money. It's about enabling freedom by knowing that there is always a choice, there is always an option that you can follow. You just might need to hunt around for it first and then, similarly, through the financial education, it's the newer part of what we're delivering Because, let's face it, nobody ever teaches you finance. No.

Henry Nicholson: 6:54

If you're lucky, you had parents who were good at it and if you were really lucky, you followed suit and did the same thing. But, much like the alcoholic dad challenge, if you've got an alcoholic dad and two brothers or two siblings, one is going to be an alcoholic and one is not. One will never drink. And it's very, very similar with finance, where you get. If you have a parent who is just ruthlessly brilliant at saving, you're likely to go one of two ways You're either going to spend every single penny you ever earn because they never did and they were boring, or you're going to model off of that and you'll never spend any money and you'll lose out.

Zoe Greenhalf: 7:29

That's really interesting.

Henry Nicholson: 7:30

It's really, really fascinating and all of the other problems that are going on in the world with finance, like 66% of young people in the UK are barreling towards poverty and retirement Because there isn't anything in place to protect their pension, their state pension is probably never even going to happen and nobody's educating them on how to look after themselves in the long term. So basically all of that stuff which I could talk about hours can press that down into one real purpose. It's that we want people to realize that they do have a choice across all of their life, and if we can enable them and empower them to fix some of those deeper rooted challenges by using entrepreneurship or finance as a vehicle, then we can truly, truly unlock some super, super purposeful people that can really make a difference and shift the needle.

Zoe Greenhalf: 8:19

So does that mean that it looks like an entrepreneurial journey in terms of people maybe come to you because they've got an idea that they want to start a business, but you're telling me that, actually, what you deliver is so much more than that. It's not just about starting the business. I think you said it there. You said it's like the vehicle, didn't you?

Henry Nicholson: 8:37

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. So you know if somebody was already running a business or they had an idea and they wanted to learn what does the tax look like? You know what's the financial bit On the surface. We will absolutely deliver that and we will enable anybody, anyone who's got an idea and I'll talk about how we teach it in a minute anybody can start a business doing whatever it is they want to do.

Henry Nicholson: 8:57

We'll just find out what the model is, but in a deeper level, because how we deliver so we tend to deliver over short-term intensive courses, so we'll hang out with people for 10 days in a row from like 10 till 3, and people will fully, fully immerse. They'll run their businesses in that 10 days and the distance that you see people travel because they get to spend time living in that site, whereas you know, when you run a course, you know a day a month, like a lot of the public available trainings. It's like a day a month from someone who maybe cares about presenting it, maybe not, if you're lucky, and what happens is we always describe this. The best way I can describe this is about being able to snap steel, and this is something that Simon, our co-founder, always, always talks about. If you give someone the ability to snap steel, what you're doing is giving them ability to create lasting change.

Henry Nicholson: 9:50

So, let me explain what that means. So, if you've got a steel rod, if you do a day a week, you are flexing that steel rod, but then, because you're sending people back into their normal everyday lives, that steel rod goes straight back to where it was, because you go back into the family situation, you go back into the relationships, you go back into the work scenario, whatever the thing that's holding you back is, whereas when you put people intensively into a scenario where they live, breathe, eat, drink, everything in that new life, that's when you give them the real power to snap that steel rod and they will never, ever be able to go back and they will forever have that impact in them.

Zoe Greenhalf: 10:29

That's really interesting.

Henry Nicholson: 10:30

It's fascinating and we've delivered a mix Sometimes we've done.

Zoe Greenhalf: 10:35

I was going to ask you that if you tried the different, yes, if you experimented a bit, yeah.

Henry Nicholson: 10:38

Yeah, we definitely have, and what we tend to find when we do the one session a month or one session a week, we end up having to recover a lot of stuff and people don't make nearly as much distance. It's still helpful. I'm not completely discounting courses that are like that, especially for those of us who are in work full-time. It doesn't work doing intensive all the time. However, when you really really want to do something and you really want to make some change, the only way of doing it is immersion. The people who are fluent in languages, who learn second languages, and the people that are moving over to the UK because their home countries are in complete disaster, they've had to immerse and that's how they've learned and the distance that we're seeing. People from Ukraine have traveled not only literally but also emotionally. They're speaking completely fluent and they're doing business and they're starting businesses in the UK, having never even thought about stepping foot here last year. That's incredible and it's because of that immersion that it's able to happen. So, all of that packaged up because we immerse, back to actually what you asked me. But when we fully enable people to immerse, it means that we're able to really get to the root cause of what's going on, because actually, even though you're a business course, it might not be starting a business you're trying to do. You might actually be trying to find a way out, and so we tend to work.

Henry Nicholson: 12:02

We work with a complete mix of people. About 50% of the people that attend our courses are unemployed. About 70% are female About on well, in our London events it's like 89% not white. It's a super, super diverse room and then throughout that group it's a mixture of business experience. Some people have been trading for seven years. Some people have never even thought about it. But what is congruent, what we've found through all of this, is that there's a whole bunch of people who just need activating because they're waiting, as someone, to understand the situation they're in and understand the sort of person they are, and it's actually, you know, what we do and the people we engage with is very, very similar to what you're doing. So it's about really connecting with that deeper level, with people who know that they don't quite fit in, but they don't quite know themselves how to talk about it and how to say it and all of this sort of stuff. So, yeah, I could talk for hours, as I say.

Zoe Greenhalf: 13:03

I love it, though I love it. I'm just sat here listening. That's where we're at, and how do you do that? How do you build that connection with people?

Henry Nicholson: 13:12

Well, the big secret is listening. There isn't anything powerful, anything more powerful. It really comes down to empathy. And empathy is unblocked by really listening. And I don't mean therapist counselor listening, I mean truly, truly listening, without judgment, without any filter and without anywhere else to be. Yeah, those moments, you know, we've all had one of those moments where we've had true, true, true, true connection with someone. Usually, if you're from my kind of background, they're usually at four in the morning, after a few too many beers around a garden table, when you're sitting outside in a cold for some reason. But they're the best kind of conversations because you are so uber present in the moment, there's nothing else going on. That is how you truly get to that deeper level, because even if you don't solve anything, you're not there to give solutions, you're just there to hear and really listen and care for people. People show up in a very different way. They really, really do.

Zoe Greenhalf: 14:13

Yeah, I think that's a really good point, actually, because when you are in that kind of role of listening to people and connecting with people, it's not necessarily about giving them a solution. It's helping them arrive, isn't it?

Henry Nicholson: 14:26

Exactly, yeah, it's facilitating. Yeah. It really is. I think our job as Rebel is to create that safe container for people to feel like they can. Yeah, we want people to experiment, we want people to try new stuff. A big part of that is also opening up what I think is quite fascinating. But just talking to the point that we have a 70% female attendance, 30% male, it's really fascinating. Looking at that male demographic, for example. It's no secret, men do not open up nearly as much.

Henry Nicholson: 14:59

Yeah, they're not used to it. There's all those different reasons why that might be. What we find is that 30% that do come and hang out with us because they're in a female dominated environment. In those two weeks it forces them into that space and you actually see, some of these dudes are making just ridiculous progress emotionally when we're talking about building websites. It's really crazy. It's really quite an amazing environment to find ourselves.

Zoe Greenhalf: 15:28

It must be so rewarding as well, though.

Henry Nicholson: 15:31

Yeah, it's ace, it's absolutely ace. I ran a session yesterday in Camden. We're running quite a lot of stuff in central London. We run this stuff across the world now, which I didn't think I'd be saying three years ago when I was in Camden. It was really, really fascinating because we've got so many people there and all of them are from. They're all sitting in a box somewhere, sometimes that is. There was a couple of people there and first thing they said, yeah, yeah, my name's Vicky, I've got autism. That was it. Straightaway. First thing, bang. What was really fascinating is that when she was talking to us about it, you could kind of tell it wasn't her words, it was what she'd been told, is what she'd been made to believe. We had again.

Henry Nicholson: 16:18

About 50% were unemployed. They were at the job center. They were engaging with work coaches who I would comfortably say 80% don't really care. They're there because they've got their outputs and there's all that other stuff going on. You've got a whole bunch of people and everything else that's going on. You've got this whole bunch of people that are basically used to not being listened to. They're used to being spoken at. They're there because they think business is the next step.

Henry Nicholson: 16:45

What was fascinating is the first thing I said. I was like how many of you are here because someone else has told you you need to start a business? Third of the room, straightaway Third of the room. That's not including the ones who didn't say that, because there's always some of them. My dad said I should back in the day and that's what my dad wants me to do, and what something. Then the other two thirds were like no, this is my decision, I want to do this, but also about half of them weren't sure if it's the right thing or not. Either You've got these three groups of people and when you go to something that is public funded, so we're actually public funded, so we will sell to councils and things like that, but most of them are tied to specific outcomes, so the specific things have to happen. So traditional business education usually has a business plan is the first thing you have to do.

Henry Nicholson: 17:36

We don't each business plans. I think they're a complete waste of time.

Zoe Greenhalf: 17:40

They just put people off, don't they?

Henry Nicholson: 17:42

Yeah, like come on 16 pages of fiction. Yeah.

Henry Nicholson: 17:47

Like people write fictional books. I could just go and read one. I don't need to write my own thing. But as soon as you're not academic, business ain't for you because you can't write a business plan. As soon as you're in financial hardship, business ain't for you because no one's going to lend you money. So the way we teach it is we say like sod all that, you don't need any of that. All you need is a good idea and a customer. Go and sell them something, use their money to build the business. That's essentially what we're talking about. We're activating people, giving people permission.

Henry Nicholson: 18:16

What was really fascinating is that these people are turning up for a business workshop, so they're all expecting there to be a. You have to do this, you have to do this, you have to do this. So when we start and my first thing is I don't care if you start a business or not, I really, really don't care Some of you will About 30% of you will start a business in the next two weeks. The rest of you will feel a little bit better because you've come along, because you've immersed yourself in a cool environment, you've hung out with some new people. For me, as long as people leave that room feeling a bit more empowered, more in control of their life and know that they have a choice. That's the hard work done, because then everything else can happen. Naturally, the challenge you get is when you get people that are really, really stuck and they're emotionally stuck. It's got nothing to do with any of the other stuff that's going on.

Henry Nicholson: 19:01

Obviously you know money and poverty and all that stuff is real and there are real factors. But when you're emotionally stuck and you're in that rut and really deep in that rut, and that can be for anything it can be abusive partners, that can be abusive parents, it can be abusive system that's missed you completely. If you can unlock that person to seeing where there's possibility, when there's opportunity, that's when you fully, fully unlock someone's potential, Then they're unstoppable. But whilst we keep them in these little boxes because that's how our system needs it to work, that's when people really really start falling off and that's where we need to protect people.

Zoe Greenhalf: 19:34

Is that where the listening really comes into play? Or you know, I guess you have different ways of tuning into people and getting them to open up. How do you go about that?

Henry Nicholson: 19:45

Good question. It's one of those things. So all of this stuff comes down to presence. When you're truly, truly present, you know there's nothing else going on in your mind, your head's not thinking about anything else, you're not worried about what you've got for dinner or you're not taking the dog out for a walk. You're not thinking about all this other than noise, and there's always noise. Life is full of noise. People make money, they're being so much noise. But when you block all of that stuff out and you just zone in, even for five minutes, and you just listen to what people are really really caring about, you start to uncover what their needs are.

Henry Nicholson: 20:16

One book that I read recently which really really put this stuff into a really good like more scientific light, was called Nonviolent Communication by something Rosenberg I can't remember his first name. Feel bad. It's a very good book. I listen to it on Audible. He's one of the most boring human things I've ever heard in my life. It's very, very slow. It's the only book I've ever listened to on two and a half times speed.

Henry Nicholson: 20:38

But it talks about people not actually knowing how to use the words they need to use to tell people what their needs are, because we haven't been trained in how to properly communicate stuff. So when you're really, really present and you're truly, truly listening, you start to uncover through what people are talking about and their blame will go outwards. It will go to other things. The job center has stopped me being able to do that. The system's stopped me doing that. It's because my manager doesn't want me to.

Henry Nicholson: 21:10

There's all of this stuff that makes us feel better because it gives us a reason.

Henry Nicholson: 21:15

But actually, in between all of that, you can often find what the need is and there's a need that's not being met somewhere. And if we can figure out what that need is and that could be as easy as going, it sounds like you're not appreciated enough at home, do you think that's one of the problems? And then immediately, even if you get it wrong, immediately they're interested, they're listening, they're unlocking it and then slowly you start to learn what these people are like and what that really has going on. Then they have the power. They need to start shifting it, because once they're aware and once they know what it is, suddenly they can start pointing at it. Because we're so obsessed with boxes, labels and all of this kind of stuff, we tend to hide the need and people don't really know how to talk to it anymore and they don't know how to identify that, in other words, to use to be able to express it. And so that book, nonviolent Communication, I'd really recommend it if you're struggling to connect with people or someone.

Zoe Greenhalf: 22:10

I know of it. It's one of those that sat on my sort of wish list but I haven't actually pressed the button bought it yet. But having had this conversation, I think I will.

Henry Nicholson: 22:21

Yeah, it's fascinating. It's a short book Perhaps.

Zoe Greenhalf: 22:22

I'll buy the book, though not the audible.

Henry Nicholson: 22:25

I'd recommend it. Yeah, because then you get to read it in your voice, and your voice is much more exciting than his.

Zoe Greenhalf: 22:30

Tell me about how you got involved with the Rebel School then.

Henry Nicholson: 22:35

Yes, so, oh yeah, what a story. So Rebel School started. The company itself started about 13 years ago. I met Alan, so we've got two co-founders, alan and Simon. I took over as the CEO last year, so this is still very new for me. I'm learning all of this amazing stuff. Yeah, it's exciting.

Zoe Greenhalf: 22:55

Amazing.

Henry Nicholson: 22:56

I thought I'd been doing it for a while. You know when you're like going up for a promotion and you're like, oh, I'm already doing the job anyway, I really wasn't. I really wasn't. It's been a real big step. I can talk about what I mean by that in a minute. So I met Alan about 17 years ago and I met Alan. So I'm from a small town in Hampshire called Basingstoke, so it's down south.

Zoe Greenhalf: 23:18

I know Basingstoke. I've lived in Basingstoke.

Henry Nicholson: 23:20

Oh, I'm so sorry. It's all right, it's good. So I was in a band. I was in a rock band throughout school and throughout college. I had long hair and everything. It was crazy. I played the drums and Alan had a radio show. And Alan is like proper, proper entrepreneur, where he'll just throw his energy at stuff randomly as it happens, as it's exciting, and he'll try it and if it works it carries on, if it doesn't, it just drops it. And the radio show was one of those projects at the time. So I got introduced to Alan. We went on the radio show, had this wonderful interview, we played some of the music and all that and it was in Alan's flat by Basingstoke train station. It was just in this random guy's flat. Now, at the time I remember going. This guy is really weird. This guy is probably weird.

Zoe Greenhalf: 24:10

Presumably you've told him this since.

Henry Nicholson: 24:12

Yes, many times, and I just had this feeling and I didn't really know where it came from. So I didn't fully understand myself at that point. But I just thought I need to keep in touch with this guy. He's just interesting, he's doing stuff and he's free. Like I need to keep in touch. And then fast forward. Like five years I was a web designer and I walked out of my web design job and on the day and I don't know what I was sitting in my baby blue Persho on the front drive of this web design office where I just left my little square gray cubicle.

Henry Nicholson: 24:42

I was being hugely underpaid and hugely underappreciated, still had long hair. And I rang Alan and I didn't really know why I'd rang Alan. We've had a few conversations since and I just rang him and I said I don't know what I'm doing. I've walked out of my job and I just feel like I need to talk to you. And I knew that Alan was doing this rebel thing, but I didn't know what it was. I didn't know anything about it and basically all I knew is that working for someone else wasn't my thing. It hadn't worked out. I'd had a few jobs at that point and every time it had not ended well for someone. And we met for coffee.

Henry Nicholson: 25:17

That day I remember him just going like come into town, come for a coffee, let's go. And we sat and we chatted probably for two hours and again, I think that was probably my first experience of properly present listening, because I just vented, I just went out, I just fully went in. I didn't really like coffee either. So Alan was sat there with a black coffee. I had the biggest, most flamboyant raspberry frappuccino you've ever seen in your entire life. I can't imagine what he was thinking. This guy with long hair and a necklace is like sitting drinking this thing and basically we were talking about all the skills that I had. I was just talking about what I could do, what I'm excited about, and he just said I'm running a course next week. Do you want to come and hang out? The website stuff might be out of help, because the website skills. So I was like, yeah, sure, okay, I don't really know. I mean, so we went into London and we went to this place called South Kilburn which is in Brent, north London, which I now live in.

Zoe Greenhalf: 26:08

I'm now living in Brent, I know, are you still living in Willsden?

Henry Nicholson: 26:11

Oh, there we go, there we go. Yeah, I'm in Wembley currently and this incredibly bizarre, properly weird experience where we had this room, we had probably had about 70 people in this room that I'd never been to I've never been to London really before either, especially like the outer parts of London, and it was just insatiable. It was just amazing the vibrance, the opportunity and again, alan was fully in flow. He'd been teaching this stuff for five years at this point, fully, fully in, and I'm still here. And what's amazing is it's been about 10 years now It'll be 10 years in March and I have not once thought what am I doing here? I've not once had a thought of there's something else I should be doing. Really, it's just from moment one felt like I was in the right place. That's incredible.

Henry Nicholson: 26:59

And I'm only really well. I don't think I'm even close to understanding why, but I'm uncovering. I'm slowly becoming obsessed over why. That is because I think anyone who's worked in a like a social enterprise, I guess, sort of social business we're here to help people, but anyone who's worked in that will know what I mean when you just find a way of making it work even if the money's not there, even if the pay's not great, even if you've got to travel length of the country. Right, this is one thing that I will say. I've got a problem with Alan with is that he didn't want to spend money on hotels for like Sunday nights, so we would wake up at 3am to drive to Liverpool on Monday to start a course at 10. I've never forgiven him for that. I've told him that.

Zoe Greenhalf: 27:45

I hope he's changed now.

Henry Nicholson: 27:48

Yeah, you weren't. No, I don't know. I don't think he ever will.

Zoe Greenhalf: 27:56

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Henry Nicholson: 29:13

No, and it's just this incredible connection straight away with what I now understand to be the purpose and that idea of making sure everybody has a choice. And there are several points in life that I can track back to probably to go. There are times before Rebel that I could see I got involved in a scenario because somebody's choice was being taken away, and what's really fascinating is I've spoken to the whole team because this is new language. I've come up with this, that particular line, probably about a month ago, and I've talked to everybody in the team about it, and all of them, every single one of them, somewhere in their life has some things happened that directly links them to that purpose, which makes them feel like they're in the right place, because that's what we're doing. So, yeah, that's like a whistle sort of tour of how I got involved.

Zoe Greenhalf: 30:07

I love that, though, there were two things from what you just said that I really loved. The first one was that Alan clearly saw something in you and in where his skills were for the fact that he invited you along. He knew that you would get something out of that experience. And the second thing I loved about that was you didn't really know what you were letting yourself in for, but you trusted him enough, and you trusted yourself enough to just say do you know what? I'm just going to say yes, I'm going to do it, which is bold. I like that.

Henry Nicholson: 30:42

It's really bold, isn't it? It could have gone completely the opposite way. I think what you just highlighted is and I think a lot of your listeners and I know that you're like this as well is that we have a love for uncertainty, and that love for uncertainty that's why people go traveling and don't really book anything in advance. They just figure it out. But what is fascinating is that you can only fully be in love with uncertainty when you are fully certain in yourself that you can survive any situation, because nobody would throw themselves out of an airplane in a lino suit with a parachute attached to their back if they didn't feel like they could survive and get through. That. If they were certain in themselves, anything is possible.

Zoe Greenhalf: 31:24

Have you ever done that?

Henry Nicholson: 31:26

No, not yet.

Zoe Greenhalf: 31:27

One for your bucket list, then it's amazing. Okay, yeah it's good.

Henry Nicholson: 31:31

I went to just this year. I went to the States and I went hiking. I did a hike in Zion National Park up in Utah called Angels Landing, possibly one of the most ridiculous things I've ever done. You're essentially scrambling up a meter-wide bit of rock with 2,000 feet drop either side of you. Wow, you know when something so far, it just looks like a JP, it just looks like a picture. It doesn't look real and I've heard that about skydiving.

Henry Nicholson: 32:00

Yeah, it's just reminding me of that. It was so ridiculous that it wasn't scary because it didn't look real.

Zoe Greenhalf: 32:06

Yeah, I get that completely.

Henry Nicholson: 32:09

Yeah, I think there's something big about and I see this in a lot of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship, obviously, is super uncertain, yeah, and it is really in our ability to create ruthless certainty in ourselves. That's the bit that carries people through, especially when things get difficult. Because if you trust in yourself that you know what to do in the moment and this again comes back to that empathy piece we were talking about earlier Me and the team, the Rebel team all of us are able to sit in front of somebody who's going through some really deep shit and, in our certainty, knowing that we can be fully present and we'll know what to say in the moment, if anything at all, that's what enables us to create the opportunity for people to do that.

Henry Nicholson: 32:50

And I think, if you look back to any time, you have taken a risk and things have gone really, really well. It's because you were filled with ruthless self-confidence that nothing was going to go wrong, because you were going to figure it out. And there's just something unreal, unreal powerful in that, yeah, that if we can tap into that, we've all got it contextually. If we can tap into that, anything's possible.

Zoe Greenhalf: 33:12

Yeah, completely, I'm just. I'm just sat here thinking like I was expecting to have a conversation about you know what it is that you do, but about setting up a business, and what I'm really learning about you and about the organization is that there's a huge self-development piece in this, and perhaps that's why I'm so excited by it. This is the stuff that really gets me excited. It's so much more than setting up a business, because you're giving people. You're giving people their confidence, like I mean, you said it yourself you're empowering people and it really feels like that. So what kind of training do you guys go through? Because I'm sure that you must have done some of this work on yourselves to be able to understand what's going on here.

Henry Nicholson: 34:03

A huge amount, a huge amount, and so there are some big ones, like the big expensive courses that we send everybody on the team through. One of them is the Tony Robbins Unleash the Power Within. No way.

Henry Nicholson: 34:19

Very good course, like park what your feelings are towards him. The course is astronomical, Amazing. You get to walk on hot coals Like you come out of that thing, you are absolutely indestructible and there are key learnings in all of it, obviously. But we send people on that because it is for two reasons actually One, because people don't fully know what they are capable of until you put them into a scenario like that, and two, it's also really cool, Like for us internally. So one of my goals since taking over as CEO is to make this an unbelievable place to work. Not only do we already do that, because what we do is brilliant, but I want people to really look at the company and go. I'm really, really happy that I'm here and experiences like that are a key part for me. So that one. So the Tony Robbins UPW is very good. We've also recently certainly recently started doing the Landmark Forum, if you've come across that.

Zoe Greenhalf: 35:17

Yeah, I've heard of it. I had a friend who went through it.

Henry Nicholson: 35:19

Yeah, yeah, like it's kind of like a weird sleeper cell, because everybody knows someone who's been through it, everyone's heard of it, but nobody really knows what it is. It's fascinating. So we've done that recently. That one's very good. That one is focuses on if I was to sum it up, which is a very challenging thing to do it's about adjusting the filter in which we listen to the rest of the world. So, for example, if you go into a conversation with your mother in law and you go in expecting it to be a fight, because she's always judgmental and everything's always wrong, if you go in with that mindset, that's what you're going to get, because you'll find the evidence to be right. Yeah, so it's about figuring out, and that's only one part of it, but it's essentially about how you show up in the world for yourself, also for everybody else. Yeah.

Henry Nicholson: 36:03

And then on top of that we kind of make it free reign. So if anyone in the team spots something they want to give it a go, then we will find the budget and we'll make that happen. But we also educate each other. So the nonviolent communications, the last book I read. I have then presented it to the team as well and I've taught what I've learned from that book to everyone else. Brilliant.

Henry Nicholson: 36:26

James, our head of sales. He dove fully into the Netflix book. I can't remember what it's called, but the Netflix book is very, very good. He taught us what we learned from that and then we started implementing from it as well. So it's kind of a. I love that.

Henry Nicholson: 36:38

There's some staple ones, and then we also really peer support the other one, I will say actually is. So financial education is a very, very key part of what we do because, again, for all the reasons we've already talked about, freedom like finance is one of the big things. There's a book called the Simple Path to Wealth by a guy called Jim Collins very, very clever man and it talks about essentially, financial independence. So how can you save up a bunch of money, make it work for you so that you can cover yourself later? We buy a copy of that for everyone in the team because we want everyone in the team to be able to work towards that, and also it enables us to support people who are in a bit of a financial peak or two. So I'd recommend that. That's a very, very good one.

Zoe Greenhalf: 37:25

Brilliant. Thanks for that.

Henry Nicholson: 37:26

Yeah, no worries, it's cool. I think we could have spoken about starting businesses and financial education and all that kind of stuff. But I think what I love about these kinds of interviews where we're not going in with a set topic necessarily, we're just going in and finding our way around I think it's when we've really did get to some of the really juicy stuff. I can talk about what we do, how people can benefit from it. If you want, yeah, why not?

Henry Nicholson: 37:52

Okay cool, so yeah, so for anyone listening, who's up for it? And business is either what you were doing now or what you're thinking, or there's some stats like 7% of the population at any one time have a business idea and only 3% of them will actually do anything about it.

Henry Nicholson: 38:08

So the way we teach business, as I mentioned earlier, is we don't do business plans, we don't do loans. Anyone should be able to start this business. It's not a boys club, it's not an exclusive thing. Anyone should be able to do this without any limitation. So all of the courses that we run are completely for free. We get them paid for by someone else so that we can give them way to the people that need it, and then our mission really is to create a whole bunch of people who are excited about creating opportunity for others as well.

Henry Nicholson: 38:35

So we tend to get a lot of social businesses, a lot of that kind of thing, but also lifestyle, also big business, yeah, you name it. So if you head over to the rebel schoolcom, you can access any of our courses. Some of them are online, some of them are in person. We've got an online platform now called Rebel Plus, where everything's free and self-paced, you can do what you want, and we run a finance course twice a year as well, and that's like a 10-week thing we do in the evenings because we know that so many people need it. So that's all there, and I think that's up on YouTube still as well as you can dive in, but basically anything that you. If you want to get unstuck, we've probably got something that can help Come and hang out. We'd love to see.

Zoe Greenhalf: 39:14

Lovely. I love that I've actually had listeners contact me about wanting to start a business and just feeling like they have zero idea where to begin. So just the fact that you're saying it is possible to start something without the business plans, without all the financial knowledge and with your support I know it's going to be so useful to so many people it just doesn't feel that accessible. It's been a really long time since I was looking into starting a business I don't know, like 20 years ago probably, and they had me at the business plan part. I just kind of went. I don't know. I feel like I'm going to have to make up all of these numbers and because you've got no experience, you don't know where to start, do you? No, exactly, you're a movement to democratise entrepreneurship, exactly, and that, to me, just says everything. It's that accessibility that I find so incredible, and I don't know anybody else who's really doing what you're doing. I mean, there are other social enterprises, yeah.

Henry Nicholson: 40:23

But I think, yeah the.

Henry Nicholson: 40:24

Thing that's the same way. No, we are. We're finding more. There are more people that are sort of latching on. Put it this way some of the biggest companies we know Amazon started in a debt-free way. Hp, apple, like some of the biggest companies we know all started in this model, and what amazes me is how long we have taught the traditional model in this. Well, not even in this country. Around the world, every country teaches this. We ran a course in 2018. We went to Namibia to run like a half-day session it was meant to be a half-day session the Namibian women's summit and we ended up running three days because it was so wanted and so asked after. But we're walking around there and there were posters on the walls for paying support to write your business plan and get the money that you need and raising capital, and just in a society that normalises debt and suffering and pain, I'm just not here for it. Yeah.

Henry Nicholson: 41:23

I'm not having it. So there are some people that are doing it. We're not the only ones. I think we are the only ones that are able to engage in a particular way. I think we've been clever with our branding. We've worked really, really hard on our brand so we're able to access and the way we do it as well. We're not trying to do things at arm's length. We're going and sitting in job centres and we're sitting in community centres and we are getting really into the weeds of people before they attend a course and that's the extra mile that it really brings.

Henry Nicholson: 41:56

But just talking to what you were saying about the business plan, with a bit that they lost you that's actually how we started, just to give you a whistle. Stop of that. So Alan wanted to start a presentation skills workshop and you don't really need anything to do that. You need maybe a laptop and a projector and that's about it and a room of people. He went to a government funded organisation about 20 years ago and they did more to put him off. Now Alan is white, male, middle class, private school education, cash in the bank, six figure owning wife, loving family, and it was putting him off. What is that doing for the rest of the world. Yeah.

Henry Nicholson: 42:35

So Alan being Alan. Now this is where we get into the real interesting part, because hundreds and hundreds of people had that experience. You had that experience. Yeah. But something in Alan made him do something, and I've uncovered what that is and I'll tell that in a minute. So, alan being Alan, he wrote a four-page handwritten letter of complaint to not the guy at the top of the organization, the guy in central government who funded it.

Zoe Greenhalf: 43:01

Wow, Like he doesn't do anything about it. No, no yeah.

Henry Nicholson: 43:04

Yeah, I'll get you guys on a call. One point, you'll be blown away. He's amazing and that letter caused a ruckus. It went all the way down to the local office, which was in Winchester, I think at the time, and it landed on Simon's desk, who's our other co-founder. Ok.

Henry Nicholson: 43:20

But Simon's role within it was what they called the hard-to-reach department. So he was going into difficult postcodes like the private areas to help people start businesses, but he was teaching them business plans and loans because that was the outcome, that's what they needed. So and Simon was seeing this at the front line he knew this wasn't working. He knew this wasn't the right way of doing it, but it's just where they were and so, anyway, he got sent on service recovery. So he's reading this letter going what kind of a guy am I? I've had to go and maybe this is going to be disastrous, and end up having one of the most inspiring conversations about how you can properly help people in communities to get unstuck and start stuff. So that's when Rebel was born. Amazing and.

Henry Nicholson: 44:01

Rebel kind of went on from there. The bit that made Alan have that what I would call a violent reaction, emotionally violent, like 400 in page letter I'd be sad if someone sent me that and the thing that did that is that when Alan was younger his dad was a serial entrepreneur. Serial entrepreneur Loads of different stuff, always had a project on the go, moving fast, and Alan sort of mirrors that in some ways, in a lot of ways. But the difference was that in an overnight crash Alan's dad went bankrupt for 13 and a half million pounds, ran off and left Alan and his mom and his little brother to deal with it, and that debt was only tied to the family home. There was nothing else to it. So Alan then spent the next 10 years of his life fighting the bank. So as soon as this organization told him that he needed to save a loan to go and make money, that was it. There was no chance, not a single chance now. Yeah.

Henry Nicholson: 44:59

And I think all of us like all of us that are running businesses and all of us that are doing our own projects have all got. There's a reason that you are the person doing this, and it will link back to something that you probably even haven't thought of for a long time. It's not an obvious link, but there is something there's the Landmark Forum calls it the winning formula. There's something that's happened a few times in your life that's made you have a knee-jerk reaction into something that makes things happen. And for.

Henry Nicholson: 45:27

Alan, that was what that was. It was standing up to the authority telling him there's only one way of doing things. Yeah, so yeah it's just fascinating that you'd gone through a similar experience and it put you off. Totally. And you're all quite clever, like there's a whole bunch of people that.

Zoe Greenhalf: 45:43

Yeah, no I mean it's that classic thing of oh, because I'm a creative, I obviously can't get my brain around it.

Henry Nicholson: 45:50

That's how I felt. I'm a business person, I'm an artist. Yeah, I get it. Yeah, but you know what.

Henry Nicholson: 45:55

Like most of us don't even want to run businesses anyway, because a business is something that's got a bunch of employees that owns over millions and millions of pounds. Nobody wants that anymore. People will be happy with five grand a month in their back pocket and done. I want control. I want freedom. I don't want this joint massive conglomerate that changes the world. I want to change my world. I want to change the world of the people around me. That's it.

Zoe Greenhalf: 46:18

Yeah, do you think that you have found your sort of purpose, your guiding north star now?

Henry Nicholson: 46:25

I think so, I think well, no, I know I have. I just haven't figured out exactly how to portray it yet. Ok.

Henry Nicholson: 46:32

Someone we had. We ran a workshop internally. We were doing this purpose thing Because you see, all these amazing huge companies like Patagonia and Toms and who Gives a Crap They've got these amazing messages. They're like we're solving water sanitation by selling bog roll and it's just this incredible stark thing. And they're so easy to spot what it is. And we never really had that.

Henry Nicholson: 46:55

So we ran an internal conversation with the whole team and I'm like what is our purpose? What is it? And the person who is running it went well, rebel doesn't really have a purpose. And then all of us immediately got our backup. We were like what are you on about? Of course we've got a purpose. We're doing it every day. We're helping people, we're here to make the world a better place. And they're like, yeah, but we don't have a purpose. And it was just this amazing circle as soon as then we're out of it, they're out of it. And then we didn't really get anywhere. But what I did uncover there is that we know we have a purpose. We just didn't know what words to say, we didn't know how to articulate it, and that's kind of where I'm at. I think I've gotten close with Rebel. My next step is figuring out what my purpose is, because there's a reason that I massively, massively link with what we're doing. I just need to figure out what that thing is and it might be making sure that people have a choice.

Henry Nicholson: 47:47

It might be defending people, I don't really know. I'm sort of workshopping that myself, but that's an ongoing journey.

Zoe Greenhalf: 47:54

There's always work to do. Exactly, henry, it's been such a fascinating conversation this evening. Thank you so much. Where can people find out more about the Rebel School?

Henry Nicholson: 48:05

Yeah, thank you for having me, so best thing to do just head over to rebelschoolcom. We've got all of our information there. If you happen to be in other countries, we have got a business in Colombia, we've got New Zealand, we've got France and Morocco as well. So if you need it in any of those languages, you can come to the team.

Zoe Greenhalf: 48:23

Well, I could really do with one in Italy, but if you're looking for somebody to start one, you know we're able to find you. Oh, we can make that real.

Henry Nicholson: 48:28

We can make that real, anything's possible, and yeah, so rebelschoolcom really is the best thing to do, and what I would advise as well is connect with the individual people in the Rebel team. We're a small team, we're only about 12 people, but connect with all of us individually, because we all again, one of the things that I'm really passionate about is everybody has their own tone of voice, everyone's got their own character, everyone's their own energy, and that is what makes Rebel so fascinating and incredible, because we've got all of these brilliant minds all pulling in different directions, all to the same goal. So connect with me, connect with Alan, connect with Simon, connect with Jack, connect with James, connect with Halima, but whoever you want to connect with in the business, you just get this really nice, slight, colorful experience when you see all of us. But, yeah, just head over to rebelschoolcom. We're more than happy to help with whatever it is.

Zoe Greenhalf: 49:17

Amazing. And if there's one sort of thing that you'd like people to walk away with from this conversation, if you could just I don't know put it into one sentence, what do you think it would be?

Henry Nicholson: 49:28

I talk a lot. That's a really hard question. That's the hardest question you've asked me all night, I think. If I was to put it and I'm not going to put it in a sentence I can promise I'm going to put it into a monologue maybe. That's all right.

Henry Nicholson: 49:41

I think that how I would sum it up is that you are massively capable of doing anything you possibly want, as long as you can figure out how to channel your inner certainty. But do not let anyone else tell you what your journey needs to be, because you are the only person that knows what that is, and all you need to do is take your first step, because you can figure out your second step later. But channel that inner confidence, find out what it is. Take that first step quickly, because the size of the action you take directly corresponds to the success that you're able to have. Start now, because you will wish in a year's time. You will wish you started yesterday.

Henry Nicholson: 50:16

Yes Is that all right.

Zoe Greenhalf: 50:18

That is absolutely perfect. Thank you so much. I can't wait to see where Rebel School goes and I can't wait to see where you take it as CEO.

Henry Nicholson: 50:31

Yeah, well, let's keep chatting, let's stay up to date and yeah, I'm sure there's a whole bunch of ways that we can collaborate on stuff as well. So yeah, excited, thank you.

Zoe Greenhalf: 50:39

Thank you so much, zoe, thanks for having me Right, don't go anywhere. Here are my takeaways from this episode. Number one immersing yourself is a great way to explore that thing that lights you up in a way that delivers fast results, just like learning another language when you live, sleep and breathe it in an intensive way. You're not only more likely to acquire the skills but actually turn them into action by applying them straight away. Two just something to think about, but ask yourself am I one of those people Henry mentioned who feels like they don't quite fit in and that just needs to be activated because they're waiting for someone to understand them? Three this should come as no surprise to you by now, but being a good listener and getting present is the foundation of creating meaningful connections. You don't need to tell someone what to do or even offer any advice. Just listening alone is enough to make a difference to someone. Four below the surface of each block or problem is usually a deeper need. So pause to ask more questions and listen more and you'll get to the real root of the problem and the need that's not being met. Five you can only learn to love uncertainty when you are fully certain in yourself that you can survive any situation. Six there's a reason that you are the person doing or wanting to start that particular thing. You'll be able to connect it back to a moment or series of moments in your life where something happened that made you have a knee jerk reaction that then kicks you into action. Seven you are massively capable of doing anything you possibly want, so don't let anyone else tell you what your journey needs to be, because you are the only person who knows what that is. Eight you only have to be able to figure out your first step, because the others you can figure out later. And number nine start now, because in a year's time, you will absolutely wish that you started yesterday.

Zoe Greenhalf: 52:49

Well, I hope you loved today's episode and it made you think differently or perhaps lodged you into changing something in your life that's not working for you. I'd love to give you a shout out right here on the podcast too, so let me know what you think, what you'd like to hear more of, or how you've been inspired to take bold action. Let's keep in touch over on Instagram at the Mischief movement, or click the link in the show notes to sign up to my Mischief Mail newsletter, where you'll get exclusive insights on upcoming episodes and your chance to submit questions to future guests. But shh, don't tell anyone. It's our secret. Please keep spreading the word about the podcast. You're doing such an amazing job and I'm also super grateful for your five star ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, which seriously helped my mission to inspire and empower more people like us to choose Mischief over Mediocre. Have a great week and keep making Mischief. Ciao.