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Bart Merrell: The Money Already Sitting in Your Own Backyard
EPISODE OVERVIEW
Duration: Approximately 38 minutes
Best For: Trapped entrepreneurs who wait for permission, a qualification, or the "right time" before acting on what they already know how to do
Key Outcome: You will start seeing the skills, stories, and setbacks already inside your business as income and freedom, instead of waiting for something you do not have yet
You have been sitting on the thing that sets you free, and you sold it for scrap.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Bart Merrell has never had a job in the way you would recognise one. He took the first commercial bungee jump to Japan, helped launch thrill rides, got disqualified from the FBI, and when he lost his lower left leg in 2024, he turned even that into a way to help other people. Running through all of it is one habit. Whatever crosses his path, good, bad or ugly, he asks how he can monetise it. That matters to you because you already carry more value than you charge for. You built this thing from nothing, and somewhere along the way you started treating the things you are best at as ordinary. Bart's story of his father, a pig farmer who sold the farm and died still searching for his next big thing while the new owner found a fortune buried in the ground, is a mirror. The freedom you are chasing is often already sitting in your own backyard. You just stopped looking at it.
WHY THIS EPISODE MATTERS TO YOU
You keep telling yourself you need a qualification, a certificate, or someone's blessing before you act. That belief is one of the quiet reasons you feel stuck. Bart became a bungee jump master in Japan and imported vehicles he had never imported before, all by saying yes and learning as he went.
If you are the bottleneck because everything runs through your head, the fix is not always more delegation. Sometimes it is recognising that what feels effortless to you is exactly what other people would pay for. That reframe is what opens up new income without adding more hours.
The things you do because you have to, the hard experiences, the setbacks, often carry the most value. Bart turned his amputation into a business helping others through limb loss. What you have lived through is something AI can never take from you.
The cost of ignoring this is quiet and expensive. You keep grinding on the low value work while the real opportunity sits untouched, the way pig poop worth a dollar a pound sat under a farm for years.
KEY INSIGHTS YOU CAN IMPLEMENT TODAY
Say yes, then figure it out. Roy sent out a CV with his brother's name typed over, walked into interviews for jobs he barely knew, and phoned for help from client bathrooms for two and a half months. He bought that company in 2017. Confidence to learn beats waiting to feel ready.
Sell it before you build it. Roy's client David got asked if he could do a Barry Manilow tribute act. He said yes, made a leaflet, and turned it into around £400,000 in bookings across theatres, Vegas, and cruise ships within a year. He committed first, then delivered.
Knowledge used to be the bottleneck. It is not anymore. Bart rebuilt his own website for £25 in credits rather than paying £1,500. The gap now is not knowing, it is being willing to do. That said, you have to put the work in. The seven prompts that replace a team are noise.
Value what feels ordinary to you. Roy's partner reads astrology for free at parties and calls herself unqualified, while people with less knowledge charge happily online. You are probably doing the same thing with something in your own business right now.
Look at the light, not the shadow. So much fear surrounds AI. The better question is which parts of your week drain you, and how you free yourself and your team to do more of the work that feels human.
GOLDEN QUOTES WORTH REMEMBERING
"You do not need the qualifications, you just need to know a little bit more than the next person in the room." - Roy Castleman
"When someone comes to you with a good opportunity and you don't know how to do it, say yes and figure it out." - Bart Merrell, quoting Richard Branson
"Knowledge used to be the bottleneck. Now it's not. You just got to be willing to learn it and do it." - Bart Merrell
"We're paying way more attention to the shadow that's being cast than the light that's being created." - Bart Merrell
"Don't be like my dad and overlook the things that are right there within your reach, right in your own backyard. They might even look like a pile of pig poop." - Bart Merrell
QUICK NAVIGATION FOR BUSY LEADERS
00:00 - Introduction: Why every idea dies if you cannot answer one question, how will you monetise it
03:15 - The bungee jump in Japan: what a little brilliant and a little crazy teaches you about running a business
08:30 - You do not need the qualification: Roy's story of walking into jobs he had never done and learning on the phone
14:00 - Say yes then figure it out: David's Barry Manilow act and £400,000 in a year
19:20 - Knowledge is now £20 a month: rebuilding a website for £25 and why doing beats knowing
25:10 - Monetise Your Mindset: turning what you like, what you need to do, and even an amputation into income
31:40 - Valuing yourself: why you devalue the things you are best at, and how to stop
35:00 - Conclusion: Acres of pig poop and the fortune buried in your own backyard
GUEST SPOTLIGHT
Name: Bart Merrell
Bio: Bart Merrell has never had a job in the ordinary sense and does not believe you need one either. He teaches people to build financial security by monetising what they already know and do, an approach he calls the Monetised Mindset. From a pig farm in New Mexico to launching thrill rides in Japan, and turning the loss of his lower left leg in 2024 into a business helping others, Bart shows trapped entrepreneurs how to find income and purpose in what is already right in front of them.
Connect with Bart:
Website: TheSideHustleSamurai.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bart-merrell-2440148/
YOUR NEXT ACTIONS
This Week: Write down three things you do for free or barely think about, the skills people always ask you for. Pick one and put a price next to it. That is the value you have been giving away.
This Month: Take one idea you have been sitting on because you do not feel qualified, and say yes to a first small version of it. Sell it before you build it, then learn your way through, the way Roy did on the phone.
This Quarter: Look at your week honestly. Find the low value work that drains you and start moving it off your plate, using AI or your team, so you free up hours for the work only you can do.
EPISODE RESOURCES
Monetize Your Mindset by Bart Merrell, a how to think book about turning what you like, need, and already do into income
Identify Your Ideal Side Hustle, Bart's signature workshop
Who Not How, the book Roy references on valuing yourself and your time
Acres of Diamonds, the classic story Bart retells at the close
Lovable, the tool Bart used to rebuild his website
Suno, ElevenLabs, ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, the AI tools discussed for creating music, voice, and content
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
READY TO ESCAPE THE TRAP?
Take the Freedom Score Quiz: https://scoreapp.atpbos.com/freedom
Discover how trapped you are in your business and get your personalised roadmap to freedom in under 5 minutes.
Book a Free Strategy Session: https://www.allthepower.co.uk/contact
Let's discuss how to build a business that works WITHOUT you.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CONNECT WITH YOUR HOST, ROY CASTLEMAN
Roy is the founder of All The Power Limited and creator of The Owner's Thrive Method, a business coaching system for entrepreneurs ready to grow without burnout. As a certified Wim Hof Method Instructor and the UK's first certified BOS UP coach, Roy combines AI as a thinking methodology, wellness practices, and business operating systems to help trapped entrepreneurs reclaim their freedom.
Website: www.allthepower.co.uk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roycastleman/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@allthepowerltd
View all episodes
By Roy CastlemanEPISODE OVERVIEW
Duration: Approximately 38 minutes
Best For: Trapped entrepreneurs who wait for permission, a qualification, or the "right time" before acting on what they already know how to do
Key Outcome: You will start seeing the skills, stories, and setbacks already inside your business as income and freedom, instead of waiting for something you do not have yet
You have been sitting on the thing that sets you free, and you sold it for scrap.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Bart Merrell has never had a job in the way you would recognise one. He took the first commercial bungee jump to Japan, helped launch thrill rides, got disqualified from the FBI, and when he lost his lower left leg in 2024, he turned even that into a way to help other people. Running through all of it is one habit. Whatever crosses his path, good, bad or ugly, he asks how he can monetise it. That matters to you because you already carry more value than you charge for. You built this thing from nothing, and somewhere along the way you started treating the things you are best at as ordinary. Bart's story of his father, a pig farmer who sold the farm and died still searching for his next big thing while the new owner found a fortune buried in the ground, is a mirror. The freedom you are chasing is often already sitting in your own backyard. You just stopped looking at it.
WHY THIS EPISODE MATTERS TO YOU
You keep telling yourself you need a qualification, a certificate, or someone's blessing before you act. That belief is one of the quiet reasons you feel stuck. Bart became a bungee jump master in Japan and imported vehicles he had never imported before, all by saying yes and learning as he went.
If you are the bottleneck because everything runs through your head, the fix is not always more delegation. Sometimes it is recognising that what feels effortless to you is exactly what other people would pay for. That reframe is what opens up new income without adding more hours.
The things you do because you have to, the hard experiences, the setbacks, often carry the most value. Bart turned his amputation into a business helping others through limb loss. What you have lived through is something AI can never take from you.
The cost of ignoring this is quiet and expensive. You keep grinding on the low value work while the real opportunity sits untouched, the way pig poop worth a dollar a pound sat under a farm for years.
KEY INSIGHTS YOU CAN IMPLEMENT TODAY
Say yes, then figure it out. Roy sent out a CV with his brother's name typed over, walked into interviews for jobs he barely knew, and phoned for help from client bathrooms for two and a half months. He bought that company in 2017. Confidence to learn beats waiting to feel ready.
Sell it before you build it. Roy's client David got asked if he could do a Barry Manilow tribute act. He said yes, made a leaflet, and turned it into around £400,000 in bookings across theatres, Vegas, and cruise ships within a year. He committed first, then delivered.
Knowledge used to be the bottleneck. It is not anymore. Bart rebuilt his own website for £25 in credits rather than paying £1,500. The gap now is not knowing, it is being willing to do. That said, you have to put the work in. The seven prompts that replace a team are noise.
Value what feels ordinary to you. Roy's partner reads astrology for free at parties and calls herself unqualified, while people with less knowledge charge happily online. You are probably doing the same thing with something in your own business right now.
Look at the light, not the shadow. So much fear surrounds AI. The better question is which parts of your week drain you, and how you free yourself and your team to do more of the work that feels human.
GOLDEN QUOTES WORTH REMEMBERING
"You do not need the qualifications, you just need to know a little bit more than the next person in the room." - Roy Castleman
"When someone comes to you with a good opportunity and you don't know how to do it, say yes and figure it out." - Bart Merrell, quoting Richard Branson
"Knowledge used to be the bottleneck. Now it's not. You just got to be willing to learn it and do it." - Bart Merrell
"We're paying way more attention to the shadow that's being cast than the light that's being created." - Bart Merrell
"Don't be like my dad and overlook the things that are right there within your reach, right in your own backyard. They might even look like a pile of pig poop." - Bart Merrell
QUICK NAVIGATION FOR BUSY LEADERS
00:00 - Introduction: Why every idea dies if you cannot answer one question, how will you monetise it
03:15 - The bungee jump in Japan: what a little brilliant and a little crazy teaches you about running a business
08:30 - You do not need the qualification: Roy's story of walking into jobs he had never done and learning on the phone
14:00 - Say yes then figure it out: David's Barry Manilow act and £400,000 in a year
19:20 - Knowledge is now £20 a month: rebuilding a website for £25 and why doing beats knowing
25:10 - Monetise Your Mindset: turning what you like, what you need to do, and even an amputation into income
31:40 - Valuing yourself: why you devalue the things you are best at, and how to stop
35:00 - Conclusion: Acres of pig poop and the fortune buried in your own backyard
GUEST SPOTLIGHT
Name: Bart Merrell
Bio: Bart Merrell has never had a job in the ordinary sense and does not believe you need one either. He teaches people to build financial security by monetising what they already know and do, an approach he calls the Monetised Mindset. From a pig farm in New Mexico to launching thrill rides in Japan, and turning the loss of his lower left leg in 2024 into a business helping others, Bart shows trapped entrepreneurs how to find income and purpose in what is already right in front of them.
Connect with Bart:
Website: TheSideHustleSamurai.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bart-merrell-2440148/
YOUR NEXT ACTIONS
This Week: Write down three things you do for free or barely think about, the skills people always ask you for. Pick one and put a price next to it. That is the value you have been giving away.
This Month: Take one idea you have been sitting on because you do not feel qualified, and say yes to a first small version of it. Sell it before you build it, then learn your way through, the way Roy did on the phone.
This Quarter: Look at your week honestly. Find the low value work that drains you and start moving it off your plate, using AI or your team, so you free up hours for the work only you can do.
EPISODE RESOURCES
Monetize Your Mindset by Bart Merrell, a how to think book about turning what you like, need, and already do into income
Identify Your Ideal Side Hustle, Bart's signature workshop
Who Not How, the book Roy references on valuing yourself and your time
Acres of Diamonds, the classic story Bart retells at the close
Lovable, the tool Bart used to rebuild his website
Suno, ElevenLabs, ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, the AI tools discussed for creating music, voice, and content
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
READY TO ESCAPE THE TRAP?
Take the Freedom Score Quiz: https://scoreapp.atpbos.com/freedom
Discover how trapped you are in your business and get your personalised roadmap to freedom in under 5 minutes.
Book a Free Strategy Session: https://www.allthepower.co.uk/contact
Let's discuss how to build a business that works WITHOUT you.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CONNECT WITH YOUR HOST, ROY CASTLEMAN
Roy is the founder of All The Power Limited and creator of The Owner's Thrive Method, a business coaching system for entrepreneurs ready to grow without burnout. As a certified Wim Hof Method Instructor and the UK's first certified BOS UP coach, Roy combines AI as a thinking methodology, wellness practices, and business operating systems to help trapped entrepreneurs reclaim their freedom.
Website: www.allthepower.co.uk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roycastleman/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@allthepowerltd