Our Development Lead, Lesley Naylor, was delighted to recently meet Mr Paul Bassi, the co-founder of Bond Wolfe, an award-winning property business and the Chief Executive of Real Estate Investors (REI) Plc. As a businessman, mentor, author, philanthropist and father, Paul makes an interesting role model for young people today. And he genuinely believes that every young person can be everything they’ve ever wanted to be.
You’ve always championed improving social mobility. Why is that important to you?
My father arrived in England as a Punjabi immigrant with just £ 2 to his name and found work helping the UK rebuild its battered post-war economy in 1957. Like most immigrant groups, the work-as-hard-as-you-can ethic that is characteristic of the Sikh community shaped my life early on.
You don't ask to be a role model but I like helping youngsters improve. I genuinely enjoy it so I’ve mentored for colleges and universities, and it's just good to feel good. I felt good doing that, much more so than making a lot of money and that is actually where my book ‘Brick by Brick’ (2019) came from, because I thought, well, how do I share this?
Have you received formal coaching yourself?
Like many people, I’m well-read. I had coaching in how to speak publicly in a boardroom, but not life coaching. I’ve just learned a lot along the way. The thing that I try to impress upon people - rather than impress them with - is that honestly, anyone can be successful. Young people in particular just need to: 1. Believe. 2. They have to want it, and when I say ‘want’, it isn't a casual liking of something; it's got to be an all-encompassing need, almost an obsession.
What inspired you to found Sandwell Valley, the specialist school for young people with additional social, and emotional support needs?
Someone I knew from college, who I remembered but didn't see again for about 20 years, rang me in the financial crisis out of the blue. Her name is Mim and she was working for the local authority but had a vision for a school. I put her in touch with one of my tenants which was also an education charity. We gave them some accommodation and it got more momentum until the accommodation wasn’t big enough.
So I bought the building up the road and offered the building rent-free along with some capital support until the school was on its feet and quite quickly it was on its feet because the need for that particular provision was strong.
So now there’s a school, a board of governors and their finances are in good shape and the truth is they could probably open up a few more schools.
Why do you think those children's needs weren't being met elsewhere?
I think most big cities have the same problem. These children are a bit lost, but it's not because they've landed from Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, China or wherever. They could just as well be born in Birmingham, white, Scottish or Irish. But their parents move around, and so these children go from house to house, to school to school, with their parents, and never really settle. Their education and their achievement start to drag, so they fall a year behind in the first couple of years, and then they’re two years behind, and then three and then they've lost their confidence. It's lost at that point but if you get them back into very small groups and work with them, they can quite quickly catch up.
How does Sandwell Valley School help with that?
Some of these kids have gone from not wanting to speak to or meet anyone, and not being able to read or write, to then going to university because they now want to be a surgeon. So it does prove everyone's got it in them and it's a good project.
Also, they keep to small classes of 6-10. Often, in a big, mainstream school, they’re just sat in the back of the class and written off. And their parents then keep them at home because they don't want to go to school, and so they're just lost. But bring them into Sandwell Valley and they start going to school and they like going to school.
Now they've suddenly got a purpose. I've read a lot about the subject of purpose. There’s a Netflix documentary called ‘Live to a Hundred, Secrets of the Blue Zones’. The number one reason why people live to a hundred and beyond is down to purpose; having a reason to get out of bed. The ones who retire and stop doing anything tend to fall ill and die. There are people in these blue zones, five or six around the world, who might finish one job as a teacher, but then they immediately start a new job - it might not be a job but it's got a purpose. It’s just like that for these children. They had no purpose and that's what school can give them. Also, if you help one member of a family, there’s bound to be a positive knock-on effect on other family members.
How did you personally develop confidence?
I think being brought up in a Sikh family helps because of various cultural traits. I was told from a young age that I was strong, and that I should respect everybody but also that everybody should respect me; no one was better than me and no one was worse than me. So I got confidence from my family, being Sikh and being good at sports which was an advantage at school.
What are the most important core skills for a young person?
Number one is confidence. Number two is to give them a goal. Number three is to encourage them to educate themselves.
Have you ever felt impostor syndrome?
Not at all! I was in business with someone for a long time, who sadly passed away. He used to feel uncomfortable about the way people perceived us because we weren’t quite where people perceived us to be. But in my case, I thought, well, if they’re positively perceiving us, let’s keep our heads down and get on with it and we’ll get there. And we have got there.
There are times when people upset you or disappoint you and it can be hurtful and it's nearly always massively inaccurate. We’re all human beings and it registers but then brush it off if it’s not true. And wish people good luck. Manage the manageables.
You said in your book that we need a healthier definition of success. What would you do to encourage that?
If I could encourage the educational system to do anything, it wouldn't be to improve their geography, IT, maths or any other subject. I would have personal development classes where you teach young people how to believe in themselves and how to have and set goals. If I was a teacher it would be the one lesson in the week when everybody would look forward to seeing me!
I had a teacher in my 6th form called Mr Levitt; he was a Buddhist who always wore black and he was always encouraging and helping young people to develop themselves. I used to listen to everything he said and the worst behaved kids in the school were always the best behaved in his class.
How would you engage them?
The worst behaved kids in school tend to be those who just lack a purpose, so they will run with whatever is annoying them if they don’t have anything else. They might not allow themselves to be tucked away quietly in a corner. They’ll stand up and be heard. They’ll make a noise and be a nuisance - but what if we just harnessed, and engaged with that energy instead?
I do a lot of sports and the most troublesome footballers in the team, whether it’s Georgie Best or Paul Gascoigne, two very good examples, are the most talented as well. You’ve just got to manage that talent, and when you do, you end up with a Beckham. Who probably had less talent but has achieved more.
Young people need role models, coaches, and mentors to show them how to have and achieve goals, then when they experience a little bit of success they need to be reminded of that feeling of success whenever they hit a rough patch, which spurs them on. We need to guide young people a bit more until we can get every young person to understand that they can be everything they’ve ever wanted to be and that it isn’t just someone else’s domain. That they can have it as well.
Thank you very much Mr. Paul Bassi.