Today Charlie talks to Ben about the destructive power of booze,  pushing demons aside, and getting sober. 

Ben shares his twisted road to building his empire… from getting kicked out of school, to stacking shelves in Tesco,  to running a million-pound construction business with 12 employees.

And he shares why he burnt it to the ground and started afresh for more happiness and more profit. 

WARNING: This episode is not for the faint-hearted. 

Discover more about One Man Empire here:

https://www.theonemanempire.com/

gentlemen, today here inside of the bunker.

I've got a good friend of mine with me, fellow high school criminal.

Ben sheriff now, quick word of warning.

This one's going to get deep and it's going to get deep fucking quickly.

As we go into the destructive demons of booze, the dangers of growing

a business to fucking quickly.

And actually we're going to go into why it probably, ain't a good idea to throw one

of the members of your team into a fucking cement mixer on top of all of that.

I'm going to be quizzing Ben or why, but a multimillion pound

construction business, all literally to the fucking ground and overnight.

I'll be honest with you, his reasoning.

It might come as a bit of a shocker.

Let's get to this.

Two months sober, man.

That's fucking amazing.

Yeah.

It's been a bit of a journey, actually.

Maybe a decade long.

I was really struggling with depression and anxiety.

I have been a heavy drinker since in my teens, it's always been an obstacle

and I started drinking again and learned behold, my mindset turned to shit again.

So I thought, right, there's a common denominator here.

Isn't it.

I've gotta put them demos aside and do what I gotta do and that's

about looking in the mirror and that person in that mirror, that's the

only person that you've gotta beat

. Mate.

. I think couldn't, be a better mantra for money for men in our shoes

and not only, uh, you're two months over there, but married as well.

. Marriage is on the card.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Monday.

Fuck.

I didn't realize it was that soon.

What's going on?

cause you, ,you and Jenna been together a while.

Haven't you?

19 years.

Wow.

What's made that switch now.

Why are you doing it?

There's a few reasons we did try and get engaged.

Uh, Maybe, I don't know, six years ago . And we had two young

kids and life just passed by.

And then my Nan said to me, my Nan's quite ill.

She said to me, she said, it's a dying whi for me and Jen to get married.

And it was something that I wanted to do as well.

I've been very um, Selfishly focused almost.

I decided that I wanted that change , so it's about a new chapter for me where

I wanna be more committed to my family.

I want to slow down a bit now.

I think um, that's happened naturally with what I've been doing with the business

recently, the construction business.

I've put the brakes on a little bit.

It's less of a monster.

That's been great for my mental health.

And I've spent so much more time in my family, which

is really, really important.

And you forget how important that that is when you, are encompassing

this world of trying to make money.

Mate.

That sounds amazing, cuz I mean, with all the other shit that kind of

goes on, especially with weddings, I think that kind of gets lost.

Doesn't it about, about who it's really about?

So is isn't there a story about you, being taught how to take a

punch at a young age or something?

Yeah.

My dad used to make sure that we could look after ourselves.

So that was our mentality.

It did something great for self confidence when I was younger, I

believe that I could fucking do anything.

There was nothing in this world I couldn't do.

You're so much more capable , than you believe . People will tell

you that you can't do something.

They judge you by their own standards.

And it's important to be a strong firm believer in your own standards

and what you are capable of.

And if you've got that.

You can do anything.

It's screams volumes for your attitude and , how you approach it.

You've got the construction business now.

You've also got she's kitchen.

I'm interested in how things started for you.

How the fuck did you first start making money and what did that look like?

Well the first ever business scheme was way back at school.

I think I was in year seven, so what's that about 11,

Yeah.

So, my dad's self employed and we used to go to the cash and we used

to buy loads of Cokes and stuff like that outta our pocket money.

And then we'd take 'em to school and sell 'em in school.

. And.

, that progress as I got older, cause I sort of hit puberty a

lot earlier than everyone else.

And I had a beard by the time I was 14.

So then I was going into the shop buying loads of cigarettes and selling them.

and I made some real good money on, um, cigarettes.

And the other thing that I did, I got in a lot of trouble

suspended from school for this.

So remember when Pokemon came out on game boy.

Yeah,

We emulated it and put it on a floppy disc.

And we were selling it around school for 14 pound

each and we made a forking killing.

We'd sold emulated, copies, Pokemon to half the school.

And the teachers got wind of it and I fucking suspended from school for.

, and then when I was sort of leaving school, I really got into my

music and I got my first banner that stage called corrosive.

And, We were, sort of trying to get gigs your trouble is when you're

that young, the pubs don't want you to play in there unsupervised.

And my mom and dad, weren't really the ones to come and sit into, sit

in a pub and come and listen to me play our hardcore punk music when

they were like into the carpenters and the BGS, you know what I'm saying?

So we thought, fuck it.

You know what we'll do?

We'll put on our own show.

So hired out the local church hall, which had a stage.

It was actually a pretty decent venue and We put on our own gig, we've got

a load of local uh, bands together.

We charged three pound, 50 a ticket, made the tickets ourselves.

and We sold the venue out to full capacity.

So we just continued to do it.

Until we got old enough to be able to do the pubs and club circuit.

But by that stage, I'd been kicked outta college then.

And my dad was like, look, you coming to work with me?

He, he had a construction firm, so I kind of fell into construction.

. I absolutely loved it.

My dad was the best boss he gave me , so much great training

. and, um, In hindsight, realize that he was

Uh, Long story short, the recession came and I could see my dad was

really struggling to keep me on.

So I just got a job working with my mate in a factory.

So that I could take the pressure off me.

Dad did that hated working in this factory.

Absolutely fucking detested it.

So I thought, you know what, fuck it.

I'd rather be broke.

Plus do what I enjoyed doing.

So I started my first building company.

And I did all right.

But cause we were still in the recession it was quite a struggle.

So I ended up getting a job on night at TECO

.

And I really enjoyed that job , but I've said to myself, this is not you.,

I wanted to do my own thing or whatever.

Anyway, I decided I was gonna learn to be a teacher.

Cause when I was a kid, I had this idea that I wanted to be a primary

school teacher, but it never happened.

So at this stage, I've got my little construction business, which

I'm working during the daytime.

I'm then working nights at Tesco to make some extra money.

And then my Mrs is working at the day at supermarket so I

have to have the baby as well.

So I'm getting about three hours sleep a day.

just fucking crazy.

I dunno how I did it..

Um,

So let let's fast forward and talk, last three, four years business side

of things, construction business.

When the pandemic struck, talk through that big fucking pivot that you make?

Cause it's really instructive.

So we been going like a rocket ship and I'd got 12 employees . at

one point We were doing a million pound a year at one stage.

And to be honest, they were probably the most unhappy times I've had in business

it was so stressful and really, really difficult.

with you, , I was conscious things needed to change and I couldn't

carry on the way where I was going.

We'd grown too big, too quickly.

My business skills hadn't grown , cuz I was out on site and doing.

I hadn't become the businessman that I needed to be able to run

12 employees in a business that's turning over a million pounds.

It was just load of stress, hassle, and memory me really unhappy.

And that sort of led me to, wanted to become a better businessman, which

is why I come into the one man empire really , to learn from others and

to improve the skills that I'd got.

I knew I've got business in me because I I'd been doing it.

Do you know what I mean?

But it was about making that more professional and knowing what I

got to do and how I could do things easy without having to work so

There's no fucking handbook.

Isn't there.

That's the thing , you start shit up and , you do stuff from a long age.

You go, , I can make some money here.

And then, as you get big, as you scale, you're like, holy fuck.

There, there's more to this game than than transactions.

Yeah, I created a beast and it consumed me , because I wasn't happy.

And the business suffered , my customers weren't as happy.

And it all started to fall down.

And part of that was , in that lockdown, I was at this stage,

where do I wanna do this anymore?

I didn't know whether I wanted to continue with it.

I thought that maybe that mansion we were doing could have been the last

job that I ever did in construction.

And maybe go back into teaching or whatever.

What we did, because the only thing you could do in lockdown was go and get food.

yeah.

We went to loads of street, food places, me and my mate, looking

at how much they were charging for what they were churning out.

I've always been a big on cooking.

My mom's got multiple psoriasis and so we had to be quite independent as kids.

So I was like, I can fucking do 10 times better than this.

So me and Tom were like, you know what, fuck it.

We're gonna start our own street food still.

So we went and we bought a trailer off eBay so we were going round all the pubs.

And, did fantastically well And ended up going into a pub

permanently becoming a restaurant.

And I carried on with the building as well, cause it was my main bread

and butter, but I didn't really know which direction I wanted to go.

And as things have slowed down and now I've got one job

at a time with a construction.

I know what I wanna do and where I'm going with.

I'm being a better businessman with the way I doubt I do it and

picking and choosing my jobs and making sure that they're very, very

profitable and worth my world because We're extremely good at what we do.

And, and we want that to be reflected in what we get out of it as well.

I think there's so, so much misinformation about , how, if you just keep

growing that makes things better.

And actually , it's sometimes it's taking stock.

Isn't it been like, , how, how can I make this simpler?

How can I make this more effective?

How can I make this, , give, give me better situation in life, business

pleasure and all that sort of shit that, that goes along with it.

What I think, um, would be a cool thing to, uh, to get into you.

You told the story once before about putting someone in a cement mixer.

Cause I'm not a huge fan of fucking employees.

I try and minimize employees and I know you've gone from a

journey, with a bunch of employees

Yeah.

So When I've got my employees as well, particularly when it was big, you know,

they, they ended up fuck about me.

I'd DEC Ely open the God to me, not, not a problem.

I don't believe in employee rights and all that BOLs.

I'll work for you.

I pay you the money you do.

As I fucking say, don't gimme we bullshit if you don't like it fuck off.

So that's as simple as how I business.

If you don't like it, fuck off.

And that's kind how I do things.

It's a bit hard, but yeah, I've been known to put people on their

ass or, Chuck in and cement mixer

but I am learning

, and yeah you can run a business

got to be there 100% of the time.

And the minute I stepped off the site, whatever that's

when these lads fucked about.

Cause the only thing that kept them in line was me.

And that's all part of what I've wanted to learn and move forward with . And

looking back over the last 12 months of how I've developed and changed my

psyche, and I'm trying to think, well, how can I make my employee's happy?

And when I made all these changes and started progression towards more

professional attitude and everything else, I lost all my employees, basically.

Now I was going in this professional direction and those

type of people don't want that.

But in the same sense, I didn't need those type of people that I'd once had I needed.

New people to be the face of this business . If, if you're gonna put

in systems and processes you need the person that's,, that's gonna follow them.

And I've got it with it professional from day one.

And that's how I'll keep it.

So hopefully moving forward now in these next four years,

um you see this change where I distanced myself, I've become the

boss because I wanna move off from, you know, my joints are enacted and

I've got a bad back and whatever.

I wanna spend more time with my family, which is me coming off the

tools and to do that, I need people in place that I can trust to do the work.

. I'll be building back up slowly, very slowly, but with these systems and

procedures in from day one, so all these new employees will know no different.

And that's it.

fucking awesome.

, it's interesting that isn't it in terms of when, you're trying to put new things

in place if you've got legacy people there that there's that fucking rub and

that fucking tension and people look at you like, what the fuck's going on?

Why are we doing this?

They don't see the bigger picture.

And sometimes that purge is needed.

So you can actually push it in the direction that you need

to push it in as the man that's at the home of the business.

Yeah.

It just feels like the company's been born again.

And , my invigoration and everything for the business.

I'm so back in love with it, whereas I was ready to give it up two years.

Yeah.

I, I think it's that real resilience, isn't it?

And I don't think unless you run a business and you know, the real ups

and downs that go along with it, that, that resilience that's needed to

fucking , keep forging on and keep going.

And it's why I believe it's so important to refuel.

You You were saying that you've been at the gym this morning.

Yeah, I, I am, I'm very much a morning person.

Fitness is becoming my little hobby at the minute.

Now I'm now my drinking.

Hobby's gone and I'm not at the pub.

I need something to fill that void.

So I thought, you know what?

I may as well get yourself a six pack while I

oh, that's amazing.

I find, I have that, Ben, I feel like if I find that it something stops

or I stop doing something, I find it really, really hard to just , have an

empty void, I need something to focus my energy and focus my attention on.

Do you find that's a pattern with yourself as well.

Yeah.

That is the biggest thing.

If you come into business solely to make money, then that's great.

You'll probably do that, but you'll never be happy.

And you'll never have that resilience.

When, when shit goes south, you'll give up, you won't have

the determination to keep going.

My best advice is to people is to find something that you enjoy

doing and then just fucking find a way to make money outta it.

And that's the secret to life aint.

That right there, was a fucking golden shower.

, I'm a huge believer of that as well.

If you enjoy what you do, it ain't fucking work.

It's just fun.

Isn't it?

, it's the best way to live life.

And it stops you getting into fucking 50, 60, 70, or whatever retirement's gonna be,

and going, oh, I've got this old knackered body that I can't do anything with.

So I'm just gonna sit in a fucking chair and watch TV till, till our diet.

It's like, we are in now.

Let's fucking make the most of it.

And we might as well do shit and get paid for stuff that we enjoy doing.

I think that's fucking awesome.

Yeah, hun hundred percent.

I always, remember this phrase, this phrase, um, when, when is it that you die?

Most people like when you stop breathing, like when your

body's dead, I'm like no ain.

When you die is when the last person on this planet speaks

your name long after you gone.

That is when you die.

mate, that's fucking amazing.

, how do you feel that you can best impact legacy from your kid standpoint?

Well, I'm trying, trying to do that.

, I'm not to influence them to do anything that I want them to do

or anything I feel they should do.

Good for you.

The only way I influence him is , he wants to be a DJ.

. I said, look, whatever you do, don't

Not me, not your mom, not anybody don't distract from plan a with a

plan B .. And you go for that with everything in your fucking soul.

You live it, you breathe it.

And then if it don't work out and you, end up doing some outs, great,

but you've got no fucking regrets.

And that's, that's how I wanna leave.

My legacy this mindset that if you believe that you can do

something, you can fucking do it.

And there ain't nobody gonna talk you out of it.

And if you can do that, then you've got alpha fucking Chan.

Well, fuck me, I told you we were going to get deep and that we

were going to get deep quickly.

There's so much stuff that we talked about there.

I think for me, the biggest takeaway.

It's the fact that even if you have created a beast of a fucking

business, Well, let's remember if it's a pain in the ass.

If

Fucking shit up at home.

You can burn that shit to the ground and you can rebuild it back up without staff

and for more profit and more happiness that my friend has got to be the key

to the kingdom and a golden chair of inside that came out of that one today.

Anyway, you've been listening to beat Charlie Horton with the main man Ben,

sheriff, and all of that to catch up with you guys on the next episode.