Brad Burton - From Rock Bottom to Entrepreneurial Triumph

Full transcript: Brad Burton on London Real

7:12 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Brad Burton, who is the founder of For Networking, the UK’s largest joined-up business network. You are the author of the highest-rated business book on Amazon, which is called Get Off Your Arse. If you’re from the States, call Get Off Your Ass.

7:29 I want to hear about the second book as well. are the UK’s number one motivational business speaker aka the Tony Robbins of the North we’re gonna find out if you still like that handle or not you tweet relentlessly Brad you’re you’re an amazing social media I guess guru is the right thing which is your handle on Twitter your previous an episode on London Real a year ago hugely received everyone loved it or hated it we’re gonna talk about that but it’s something that people always ask about including all of my guests from the North, we just had Danny Jones from McBusted and McFly, and he was asking me about Brad. Everyone asked me about you.

8:04 I have to say, Brad, welcome back to London Real. Thank you, Brian. It’s great to have you here. You know, I rewatched one of your videos when I was in Belgium over New Year’s, and I was just like, I fucking love Brad. I just, I can’t stop watching you when you get in front of people.

8:18 You know, you just, you motivate me, and our backgrounds couldn’t be any different, right? I’m from California, and I was surfing. You’re from the North, you know, whatever our businesses was. I was in the city. But there was something there that makes us human together.

8:32 And it’s just really motivating. And it’s in a pure sense. I meet a lot of people, you know that. And I see riffraff from not. I see fake from not.

8:40 And I like your stuff a lot. So let me ask you a question for people that haven’t watched the first video, haven’t followed you on Twitter, haven’t bought your books. What do you say to someone who meets you for the first time when they ask what you do? How do you describe yourself? Good question, as always, Brian.

8:55 Great to be back, genuinely. You guys hit me with a completely different audience. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I’ll talk about it later, but… I won’t talk about that.

9:01 So in essence, I started my first business off, which was this networking thing, and people said you can’t possibly do it, it’s a closed shop. Fast forward now, nine years, I now run 5,000 networking events across the UK. I wrote my first book called Get Off Your Ass, and informed people, said you can’t call a book Get Off Your Ass. It’s now the highest rated business book on Amazon. Nuts.

9:21 And I checked it. No, no, no, it’s not. Yeah, it’s not. It is, yeah, yeah. And also, you know, people are not going to take you seriously being a motivational speaker wearing jeans, t-shirt and Adidas, Brad.

9:31 I’ve just been booked by… Yeah, and the shaved head and the tattoos, if you’re not watching, I’m saying. I’ve also been booked by Bentley, JCB and so forth. So I think that’s… You’re speaking for Bentley.

9:39 Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. So I think… Listen, I’m waiting to be found out, but I think that’s the point is that all these things that I’ve just said I do, which is my achievements over the last 10 years, no one give me a chance.

9:51 No one give me a chance and I need these three things and I’ve come from a background which is not a great background, a counter state background, broken home, effective, let me dad left one of six months old, blah, blah, blah, no qualifications, addicted to drugs twice. This is a recap for you people who’ve not seen it. I love it though, I love it. And I got, oh, that’s right, and I got two bullets put through my window back in 1993. Hence I left Manchester to move away.

10:12 Done a dole for four years, sort of signed on. I’ve been unemployed for four years and I’ve done sporadic things throughout my life. And it’s only in the last 10 years that I’ve actually got control of my life in some sensible semblance. So that’s who I am. That’s an amazing summer. I remember you were here last time and you were talking about like with those bullet holes that came through your window And then you woke up the next morning and you’re like, okay, I gotta make some changes Let me tell you something. I never woke up. Trust me. Okay. Trust me I never woke up the next morning at which point Oh, that was it finished when you’ve got police in the middle of your street with MP5s And the only reason another MP5s is a play called the duty on my PlayStation now But they had MP5s in the middle of the street scary time So it wasn’t you know joking aside and being flippin about it. It wasn’t a fun time And that was 20 years ago 20 years 93 I think it was 93 94 can remember but that’s kind of thing But what’s interesting about that and we did talk about in the previous episode we did was if it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t be sat in front of Brian Rose now for London Real TV and sometimes stuff makes no sense Into the senior rearview mirror best thing ever happened to me best thing ever happened to me best thing ever happened to me Is that something that people should try to remember when they’re having those hard times?

11:21 Is that you can’t tell anyone that when they’re having the tough times you can’t say this is gonna be the time to grow You’re gonna use this pain. I mean, do you tell people that? Yes, you do People dig in and pissed off and you say look, let me explain you think back at the worst day of your life right now Think about out for a second and just forget that now Actually, the pain that you felt at the day is not as great as it is now so it’s things time sort stuff out and and humanity has a way of fixing things and And honestly, genuinely, best thing that ever happened to me.

11:52 There’d be no Brad Burton in the motivational speaker, no Brad Burton in the author, no full networking, then the list goes on. Right, you would’ve just kept on coasting and getting by and doing the minimum and blah, blah, blah. And doing the whatever, you know, and this is the thing, I was on the bad tracks. And look, best thing that ever happened. And that makes no sense, it made no sense back then.

12:13 Fast forward 20 years, makes so much sense. Right, you know, I’m gonna do something which I normally wouldn’t do here, And I want to read you Brad Burton’s 150 word bio because this thing’s just, it’s just awesome. And so I’m just gonna roll through this as quick as possible. It is what I just said at it. Here we go.

12:28 1973, born, salford, dad left, primary school, computer games, role playing games, class clown, no qualifications, shop boy, BMX bikes, girls, chalet cleaner, night clubbing, pot head, more girls, games, journalist, dad, shot at, moved away, depressed, dull, more pot, shop manager, black CV, head of marketing, dull, director, Oxford sucked, Dole, three days away from bankruptcy. Father again, depressed, masonette over a chippy. Married, employed, shoved job up arse.

12:55 Self-employed, depression, skint, skint, skint. Winging wife, author, dad again, stop smoking pot, founded for networking. Bluffing, struggling, speaking, still, skint, skint, skint. Dad, 5,000 plus for networking events a year. Uh-oh, keynote speaker, bought Dream Range Rover, still waiting to be found out.

13:12 Sold Dream Range Rover, author again. People are buying them. highest-reviewed five-star Amazon business author, scratches head, burned out, near divorce, crisis averted, just, snapped up by top publisher, UK’s number one motivational speaker, still waiting to be found out. 150-word bio, get in! You know, that’s funny because my life flashed before me then, it’s amazing.

13:34 You know, anyone can do that with your own life, actually do all this, it’s pretty good exercise actually for your audience to write 150 words that would describe to anyone that when you’re saying that then, hearing that back, and they’re my words, right? Yeah, just just mind-blowing to think that was my life and actually you look at any of those forks on the road Where I could have stayed where I was but somewhere along the way and the road to success Is littered with you know, the with just problems and trouble and actually you’ve got to keep going But that comes down to your why and way destination is which is what I’ve sort of kind of stuffed out right now You know my destination I don’t know if you want to get to it now But my destination is wanting to be happy because that’s what people every single person who’s watching this right now now wants to be happy, right?

14:16 They might say they want a new car, they want this, that, and the other, but ultimately it all boils down to them wanting happiness and I think I’ve found it for the first time in my life at 41, 42 in another week’s time. Yeah, and I wanna talk about that cause we were here a year ago and I wanna find out what changes. What I love about when I read that is it, say for example, you’d seen Brad rolling down the street with his Range Rover, he’d be like, oh, that guy always had it made, he’s always been in control and that kind of thing, but like this, I mean, and Brad gives it to you real like a hip hop artist here, I mean, you know, skint, above the chippy, all this bad stuff happening and even when you think he’s got it you know he gets the range over then he sells a range over and then you think you have success and then you don’t and it’s look goosebumps goosebumps he’s got the box as well. Seriously you can’t make that shit up. Jesus he really does like goosebumps. Right and this is what I’m trying to say because I’m reading mate you cannot make that up you cannot make that open actually what you’re reading back to me is exactly what I try to do to inspire people when you said about hip-hop then I grew up on hip-hop and I just wonder it’s funny because the only thing that I can’t do is spit bars. I can’t do that. But funny enough, that is all I’ve ever done. All I’ve ever done is tell fucking stories about my

15:19 Life and stories that inspire people and fire people up. That’s all I’ve ever done in my life. Even before I was a motivational speaker. And bear in mind, look, the thing about being a motivational speaker, I wasn’t born with that as a birth certificate. It said you’re a motivational speaker. I’ve somehow morphed into it. But I’ve always done that. I’ve always motivated people. I’ve always drove people. I’ve always tried to get people the best even when I’ve been at my worst you know and that’s yeah when you just flew that back to me then bro and that was goosebumps you know that’s mind-blowing because that’s you’ve nailed it what I stand for yeah which is which is the underdog I fight for the underdog every single time I fight for the underdog but ultimately the underdog needs to fight for itself because you know this is the thing I can’t do your press-ups for you and I say this to all these people and there’s lots of questions that you get in there about people say hey guess what how do you motivate you know isn’t it a short-lived well yes it is but it’s down to you And it’s got to come from within and this is what happened to me. I switched that on I switched that on what my target was Where I was going because without that we just meander those guys again Brad’s pointing across the room through the window which I left open these days If you’re on YouTube, you can see I left the window open and you can see people that are working in the office next door

16:23 It’s around 5 30. So they’re thinking about leaving right now and last time Brad was here. He was making some comments about them What do you see when you look over there? Well, listen, I see people People who are conforming to a life that you don’t want to do, people that are working later and longer for a business or a taskmaster that’s not really, doesn’t give too shits about them to then go and spend that money that they’ve earned tonight to dampen down their feelings about the job.

16:47 So they’ll go out tonight as soon as they finish here and go and spend £100 in the bar. Right, and then the cycle continues. Correct. So none the lousy feelings, don’t make any changes with your life, none the lousy feelings and go back and back. Correct.

16:58 And then, you know, and guess what? Great news, Brian. You’ve got a 3% pay rise. much and you continue on that process and it takes a brave person, stupid, brave so stupid depending you know delete is applicable to actually go you know what I’m gonna walk away from that which is what I did and people said I was mad and every step of the way when we started this interview you said to me you know what I’ve done networking you know you’re mad bread you’ve got no chance you can’t call a book that you’re mad you’ve got no chance no one’s gonna take you seriously you’re mad actually now every single one of those mad mad mad mad I’m now a genius genius genius so you’ve got to go through that so So somebody walking out of that job going, you know what, fuck this now.

17:33 I’ve worked here for three years, I’m not feeling it. I’m going, I’m leaving, I’m walking. Everyone’s saying, oh, you’re mad, don’t go on, keep your head down, don’t say. And this is it, at some point, at some point in your life, where that point’s now, you’re watching this right now, at some point in your life, you’re gonna have to make a stand or don’t. But be honest with yourself, if you’re never gonna go for it, stop looking wistfully out the window of self-employment.

17:53 If you can’t be bothered going to the gym and you’re overweight, don’t keep talking about it. Either accept that you don’t wanna go to the gym and it’s not a big enough deal for you and you’re quite happy overeating, or whatever it be, I’ll do something about it. But you can’t go to both because these two directions, they don’t go in the same way. And this is what we do, we end up, as I did, for 31 years, looking at people with range over sports and going, God, it’s all right for them.

18:15 Right, they must be different than me. They must be smarter, or they must have gone to a better school. Or their parents are giving money, or they’ve got an education, or whatever, bullshit. So I don’t have a qualification to my name, not one. Not a single qualification, not one.

18:27 Dad was a herring addict. I started my business off with 25 grand in debt, blah, blah, blah, blah, I walked out a newborn baby boy that I had, you know, I walked out of a job with no money, her wife telling me to go and get a proper job. What’s your excuse? And that’s what I say to people, what’s your excuse? You know, vast majority of people have not had the worst, you know, upbringing or baseline that I have.

18:49 So that’s the point, what’s your excuse? Because that excuse that you’re telling yourself, and you will be telling your excuse, well, you know, with this economic climate right now and the interest rates, it’s shut up, Get on with it, get on with it. Well, what investment, yeah, you know what I want? I want a wife with a button on her forehead that when I press it, she makes me a cup of tea. So should everybody be self-employed?

19:06 Is there any corporate job or is that always a dead end? Listen, no, it’s not a dead end, it’s far from it. But if you look at this whole situation, a friend of mine is on 180,000 quid a year, something like that, deeply unhappy. Deeply unhappy, I think, unhappy. So he’s ended up doing, I don’t know, 40 hours a week, so let’s say this is 120 hours a week, whatever it is, he does a third of his time on the job that is deeply unhappy for money that he got more money than he can sensibly spend.

19:32 Right, and this is a great point. I used to work in the city for 10 years and I had clients, right? And so I was an inter-dealer broker and I would take out the head traders for Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan and RBS, all the big banks. And after dinner, I would sit down and we’d be having a chitchat and I’d say, why are you doing this? Why are you doing this?

19:49 They’d be like, it’s for the money. And I’d be like, okay, why are you doing this? I would dig, dig, dig, and then finally it would come down to, I wanna show my dad that I’m not useless. I wanna show my friends from school that I’m really mean something. I want to get a girl.

20:02 Cause I’d be like, why you wanna buy that Porsche? Why? And it all comes down to some core need they’re trying to feel or just the society pressure. I wanna be a blah blah blah. But that’s the point that I made earlier, which is people do not tell you the reason from the outset.

20:16 What do you do? You’ve got to dig deeper. Oh Brad, on your feedback on your YouTube channel about me, brilliant. You know, mixed reviews, not mixed reviews. around, 80-90% was in favour, but there’s some people on there, excuse me bran, there’s some people on there that will turn their ass out on me, and actually maybe, just maybe, I’d actually say the reason that they turn their ass out on me is one, because I’m northern maybe or whatever it be, or maybe they’ve gone to university and they’ve spent seven years getting a university degree and they can’t get a job and then you look at someone like me, a northern monkey, your words not mine, right, no, no, no, I’ll take a second there, but you know, you look at someone like me who doesn’t have a qualification to be naming it, running these businesses, and actually, they’re not telling anyone that.

20:54 They’re not saying that the reason that they dislike me is because they’ve got a degree and they’re not doing that. They’re trying to, whatever, and people do that. Now, you’re a motivational speaker, which puts a big target on your chest because that’s a tough title to have because people always say, oh, I mean, the first reaction to that is, oh, really? No, most of it. Yeah. And I mean, in Britain, like people are hard on each other in Britain, but they’re hard. Look, in Britain, we, and I’m saying we, because I’m a British citizen, the camera just as much as you are and when you you know we like to kind of tear down our stars in Britain a little bit and when you say you’re a motivational speaker people are like oh really I mean like okay so let me explain how this works right because at no point I set out and I said I’m gonna call myself the UK’s number one motivational speaker all right and I said to the wife watch this right I said I’m the UK’s number one motivational speaker on a flyer or whatever it was and we just kept banging it on on social media, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and lazy journalists, they’d put it in there, the UK someone.

21:50 Me. No, no, no, no, no, but the reality is, it’s somewhere along the way, I fill those shoes. It’s self-fulfilling, yeah, it’s self-fulfilling. And this is what I’ve done every step of the way. I said I’m gonna have the largest joined up business breakfast network in the UK, and people laughed in my face, guess what?

22:03 I’ve got the largest joined up network. You know, I’m gonna write a book, and then I call Get Off Your Ass, it’s gonna get to number one, ha-ha, of course it is. I did it. So, what I’ve always done, is I’ve always sort of put it out there,

22:16 Motivational speaker? What makes me the UK’s number one motivational speaker? Easy for me to say. What makes me the UK’s number one motivational speaker? I put a fucking website out there and said the UK’s number one motivational speaker, but somewhere along the way, that’s happened.

22:27 That’s the reality. I’ve got a proper agent now, I’m getting booked by all these high-level companies, high-level international brands. What is that saying about today’s social media age? No qualifications, no formal training, no blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, or self-talk? You can be anything you want.

22:42 And like I said, look at my CV. This is not a guy. I just read your CD. Right, right. Well, this is not a guy that’s been blessed with good luck or good fortune, but what this guy’s been blessed with, me, talking in third person, you know, I’m making it now, but what I’ve been blessed with is tenacity.

22:58 Tenacity to keep going where every one normal person would give up and often the difference between success and failure is not quitting. And this is the thing, but it’s all too easy to quit, right, and I worked to quit three years ago. We talked about it last time, I had an interview, I had a nervous breakdown, and I worked to quit. I’ve got as close as anyone can possibly get to quit. And you know, the reason they didn’t quit is because several reasons, but primarily is I couldn’t show my face anywhere in the UK if I quit.

23:24 You can’t be as ballsy and as choppy as me and fall on your sword and then walk around. I mean, I’m a man of pride. So that’s what kept me going. Right, peer pressure in a good way. Absolutely.

23:36 So maybe that’s what people need to do. They need to put themselves, give themselves a target, give themselves some reason to keep going. My reason was to set my children to Disney World, which I’m booked again to go and do. This is amazing, 31 year old, no qualifications, no money, 25 grand in debt, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. List goes on.

23:52 How the hell was I gonna set my kids to Disney World? But I promised them that I would do that to the wife and we did that. Right, and so you didn’t quit three years ago. What I find interesting about you, Brad, is that if you read this bio that we just read, is that you’re constantly evolving. So it’s funny, when people come on my show, a lot of times, and I’m guilty of this, it’s like, look at all these things that happened and now they’ve made it.

24:11 But we all know that life is constantly changing, it’s fluid, and that now, now was a year ago when I saw you. And so everyone, the problem with success is that, you know, as soon as you get it now, it’s like, now what? So you have to constantly challenge, especially successful people that got there because they like the challenge and they want the buzz, they want the rush. And so, you know, you have to kind of deal with that success in plateau and then find new things that interest you.

24:32 That bang on. Absolutely correct. Because in some respects, my goals, I’d hit every single one of them. Now what I did want to be, say when I first started on my entrepreneurial journey, is I wanted to be a millionaire. I wanted a Lamborghini, I expected a lot of mental air.

24:48 People say go and get a dream board and put your cork board in there, what is a Lamborghini? Nonsense, right? Stop wasting your time with cork boards. You don’t need the dream board. It’s all bullshit.

24:55 Okay. It’s all bullshit. Lock it in there. You don’t need it. I got to take my dream board down.

25:00 Yeah. I’m serious. Look, if it works for you, this is the thing. Just because I’m saying it doesn’t mean it’s right. It means it’s an opinion.

25:05 Right? And we’re all different people. So if you wanna have a court board, would you fucking Lamborghini Gallerado on there, a yellow one with Daytona yellow paint, do so. Doesn’t work for me. But the point I’m making is this.

25:17 I don’t know, can inclination right now to be a fucking millionaire or a, what do you call it, to have a Lamborghini? None. Whereas you’ve got- Right, it’s not a priority right now. Fucking, what’s the point? It’s fucking pointless.

25:30 This is the thing, because I’ve seen some guys going, yeah, I’m gonna be a millionaire. Forget it. What’s the fucking point? Because actually, what is the point is that having 999,000, whatever it is, and you tip over a pound, that suddenly makes a difference when you’ve been in a failure to success. So bullshit, this has been instilled in you from a young age by your father, locking you in a co-shed and saying, you know, you’ll never be a millionaire.

25:49 All right, dad, right, this is what goes on. We end up with these values that have been instilled and pushed on us. If you want to be a millionaire, just ask yourself this question, why? What is it about being a millionaire that having 999,999 quid doesn’t achieve what having a millionaire is? It’s bullshit, because when you get there, which is what happened with me with my business goals, I got there and I just, it’s like climbing a mountain.

26:12 I went, just a fucking mountain. I’ve got, you know what, it was horrible. Horribly vacant, horribly vacant. Yet I’ve spent fucking 10 years to get to that point. And I remember seeing my book in one of the, WH Smiths or whatever it was, got to number two, I was beaten by Alex Ferguson, right?

26:28 And actually, that’s fine, I don’t mind getting stuff by him. But the reality is, what would me getting number one would make me life better now, the way I feel about myself. So what people are chasing when they’re looking for a million quid, what they’re looking for and all these sort of things in the post, they’re looking for happiness. And every single person who’s watching this right now is looking for happiness. Now you might believe that happiness is wrapped up in a Lamborghina, right?

26:52 It’s not, I promise you. Because there’s two days in your life that you’ll enjoy a sports car or supercar the day you buy it and the day you fucking sell it. I’ve heard that about boats as well. Let me ask you a question. When you get on stage, Brad, you’re fired up.

27:03 There’s footage on YouTube where you get on and you’re just like, God, everyone stands up. And I mean, Jesus, you got a lot of energy. What are you thinking when you go up? What are you drawing upon? Are you drawing upon your old pain?

27:14 Are you drawing upon seeing these people and wanting to break out of their shell? Or are you drawing upon just trying to push yourself to the next level? Okay, so first thing, nerves. Okay. A wash with nerves.

27:24 Okay, always, still. Oh, fuck yeah. So even though, all right, putting it together now on something cool, on these stages when I do it, I still don’t shit myself. And this is what I’m trying to say. It’s that ability to go up there, even when you’re scared to death.

27:37 So when I do that thing, it is to get rid of my nerves. So I’m letting you guys into a trade secret now, but it gets rid of my nerves. My point, every time that I speak, is I want to make a positive difference. I want to make a positive difference. Generally speaking, what happens, is you get a lot of these people in the audience like that going, here we go, come on then.

27:54 Especially a motivational speaker. They probably turn off when they hear that, right? So do they. And this is what happens. I’ve got a double hill to climb, back off again, but I use every single bit of my skill as a motivational speaker, which I’ve learnt over time.

28:10 And the reason I’ve learnt it over time is my, is because I’ve got it wrong several times. I’ve got it wrong several times. I’ve been in front of audiences of 200 people and they’re just looking at me vacant and I’m losing it. I’m not being able to latch onto anything and my best stuff isn’t working with these people. Because you’re off or they’re off or the message is- Oh, listen, I’ve happened a couple of times.

28:28 A good example, I spoke at a massive company over in, well, I’ll tell you the story, so the MD of this big organisation was supposed to introduce me as the UK’s number one motivational speaker. Yeah, didn’t he read the memo? Well, it’s worse than that because he turned around and said, I can’t remember what I was supposed to say, it’s just some fat bloke from Manchester. So I came on. That’s what he said.

28:49 Right. So I’m coming on. They’re paying you to be there. Stupid. Okay.

28:54 I come on and I’m speaking to these guys, I’m trying to frame who I am, just not landing in the slightest. Now, two hours prior to that, I went to the loo and two of the guys who are employees there went, fucking hell, supposed to be motivational, it’s shit this. So the tone was set, it was horrible. So it goes there and this goes back to these people. They’ve got to be there. They don’t want to be there. So there’s some compulsion.

29:15 Now when they’re directing- So it’s a corporate gig. Right. So when the directors are up there, they’ve got to laugh because there’s the managing director on there. And when the sales director came on with shorts, with with Bermuda shorts, oh, hilarious, not hilarious. But everyone’s laughing for them over themselves.

29:29 You think that this guy’s just told the world’s best joke? Horrible. So I goes up there, nothing. So I’m up there for 45 minutes, 25 minutes and I’m dying. I mean, dying.

29:37 And in turn, I know I’m dying. So I’m just talking complete rubbish. So I turned around and said, you know what? This isn’t going the right way that I want it to. And it’s sometimes in life and business when things don’t go your way and you guys run departments and it’s all in you.

29:50 And this is what’s happening right now where you’re made a decision that’s not going your way and everyone’s looking to you for answers, and you’ve got nowhere to go. Well, I’m doing that right now as a motivational speaker. And I’ll tell you something, experience is what you win when you lose, when things don’t go your way. And I’ve learned something today. Would you like to know what that is?

30:06 Says yes, Brad. It’s never do a fucking job in Norwich, and I walked off. Yeah. That was, you know, but my point is, so yes, I get nerves, and you’re always tested, no matter what audiences you- Right, and that was recently, that was a year ago. Mm, pretty, after we spoke last show.

30:21 After we spoke, okay, right. So in the last 12 months. It’s good to see, I mean, this is good to see that everyone has their ups and downs. And you’ve learned something from it. Absolutely.

30:29 Because the gigs, when you die, and I’ve died probably twice in two years, as in died, right, where people are looking at you going, what the fuck’s going on? You do learn massively from it. But this is what we do. We’re too wrapped up in success, and I think, ah, I think that’s what I do. In fact, it’s great when I come here.

30:44 It’s like the psychologist coach. He just sent you a bill after me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, again. But I think what I do is I’m fallible. That’s what goes on with me.

30:55 I think people respect that, that I actually share the things that most speakers or whoever wouldn’t share that. That actually I’ve struggled, that I’ve had a nervous breakdown, that I’ve died on stage. And all they do is show you a success. And I think that’s what I’m about. I think that’s the bit where the everyman bit of me, people can appreciate that I’m being honest about every element of my life.

31:15 And I think that helps other people be honest about their life. And that’s what you need to do in life. Be honest about your situation. Stop blagging yourself. And actually having 100 quid in wine or champagne to null the pain, stop blagging yourself.

31:28 Because we’re all guilty of that. Like my old days, you smoke weed. As I said last time, to blank out my life shit so I’m gonna smoke some weed, well guess what, your life shit, because you’re smoking weed and it’s self-perpetuating. And the moment that you stop smoking weed or drinking alcohol, doing whatever you’re doing, it starts becoming painful. But once you start looking at that pain and the things that are causing you problems, you see the world and the real, and that’s what I think fundamentally.

31:48 I’ve got rid of my shields, and I said, right, let’s look at this world in its rawness and try to work out a way through it rather than masking with drugs, drink, and other stuff. Amen to that. And I’ve been there, and I talked about that on my show. When Brad was here right before we started, Brad said, you know, Brian, you should put yourself in the seat and do that one time. And I was like, we did.

32:07 And I called it Becoming London Real, and I talked about a lot of my own. I mean, I think everyone goes through this period, and mine was in my late 20s. But not everyone admits it. Yeah, that’s probably true. That’s probably true.

32:16 But you get into that cycle. But I mean, when you’re saying that stuff right now, Brad, I’m with you and I’m like, yes, yes, yes. And you see people when you speak to them and they’re like, yes, yes, yes. And then the speech is over and they’re pumped up and they go home and they don’t do Jack. And what do you, how does that make you feel?

32:32 And how do you try to change that? I don’t, it’s not my job to do anything beyond the hour, two hours that I speak with people, right? And actually what I, more recently, it’s a really powerful thing that I’ve done. I just started to come up with it on the fly And we was talking about, you know, taking each other into the duck pond or doing stuff because we talked last time about this whole piece about retiring today. So I know people that have worked all their life and then, you know, to retire when they’re 65, some people don’t make it.

33:00 So you work all your life to retire and enjoy. What about retiring today? Which is what I’ve effectively done. And I say, you know, don’t worry about the, you’re arguing with your partner because they’ve not emptied the dishwasher or whatever, just bullshit. And I said to one of these things, I said, look, what I want you to do right now is I want you to get your phone out.

33:16 Trust me on this one, I’ve asked you to do one thing in this last hour, and this is it. Grab your phone. So everyone grabs their phone. I said, what I want you to do, I want you to text someone right now that you’ve overlooked for some time. Whether it’s your partner, whether it’s your mum, whether it’s your granddad, whatever.

33:28 I want you to text them this message. I love you. You know, question mark and a kiss. And people go, oh, oh, oh, oh. I said, look, the time in your life that you wish to God, you just sent that message.

33:39 And everyone sends it, and the vast majority of people come up to me and say, look, looking at, the wife says, go, what have you done? Or it just gets picked down and going, because this is what we’re on this treadmill of just doing stuff. Hey, guess what? We need to get this proposal finished. We need to get this.

33:51 I’m not gonna go there. You know, dad can we play football? Son and busy at the moment. Dad can we play football? Son and busy at the moment.

33:56 All right son, do you want to play that football? No dad, I’m 34 now. Right, and this is the thing. Is this living in the moment? Listen, it’s gonna be mindfulness and all that punty stuff.

34:04 Now, listen, all I’m trying to say is you’ve got one life here. Don’t fritter around sitting in behind the desk of a taskmaster that you don’t give two shits about. You know, I’d rather have half the money and be working from home. And this is the thing you kid yourself. So these guys will be spending an hour and a half commuting every single day for the a hundred thousand pound salary.

34:23 And actually if you used to set those three hours a day traveling times it by 15, that’s 60 hours. So you get your salary, 60 hours off your, you know, your 160 hours, 220 hours. And all of a sudden your hourly rate goes down, but you don’t talk about that. You talk about the headline of a hundred grand, the fact that you’re on 70 grand after you’ve taken it, plus your cost of it every single day. We blag ourselves, we blag ourselves, and this is, I sort of get it, because when they’re in the pub later, they can talk about the £100,000 salary, because that’s what we people do.

34:51 It’s funny that you don’t even have to talk about it, it’s the self-talk that really perpetuates you, it’s just walking around, but this is bad, this is bad, this is bad, but I’m on £100,000, and I bet all my mates aren’t on £100,000, and I’m on £100,000, and I’m going to the office and it’s early and it sucks, and I’m on £100,000, and so it just reassures us. You know, right, that I’m on £100,000, And this is the thing, you wanna be sitting here, Brian, you’re gonna put me out of business here. I’ve got the UK’s number two coming up, I’m gonna snap it on my heels.

35:16 But it’s true, and this is the thing, I think, there you go. The be all and end all is money. So the whole driving force of everything that we do is money, money, money, money, money, excess, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You’ve only got to look at Instagram. You know, everyone’s flat out, Gucci belts, all this nonsense, just nonsense.

35:35 I watch MTV, that’s the other good way. So yeah, but it’s true, you know, and all that sort of stuff, and it’s this, you know, Libby Burton Tolton’s shoes are really cold, but we’re just constantly chasing this fucking money, money, money, at the expense of relationships, life, happiness, nonsense. Right. They’re still there. They’re still there.

35:54 They’re thinning out a little bit. Yeah. And these are the corporate employees, so. You know, I wanna talk about some of the themes that you have, because they’re yours, and I like it, and one of the things you talk about is having an unbeatable mindset, and if that, then you’re unbeatable, but would you wake up with this defeated mindset and you’ve woken up that way, I’ve woken up that way, then nothing goes right. And you were saying something about me lately, I was on the social media and I was getting questions for this video and I’m obviously in the flow lately and everything’s good and I’m waking up and I’m loving this stuff.

36:23 And so when you’re like that, everything goes well. But how do you keep yourself or get yourself? You don’t, but you should notice when you’re not. So I used to have 10 years ago and I documented it in my book, the first one, which is available at all good bookstores, joking. But I documented it, it’s great looking back at these books because they’re effectively diaries of life.

36:43 Yeah, snapshots of who you were at the time. Absolutely, I’ve changed massively. But one of them, I say that I got depressed three days every single month, and it wouldn’t make no odds of what happened for Wunderlotter, well, money’s a root of all evil, whatever’s going on, just dark, foreboding. That’s just a character flaw. It’s almost like, if you think about what’s all being programmed, like computers, you’ve got a program that’s got a glitch a bug in there and you need to get rid of it and I don’t get that anymore so I don’t get the three days that I once did you know my brad period don’t get that but what I do get is I wake up one day and I just don’t feel like it I don’t feel like anything so what I will do is I’ll do non business critical stuff non business critical stuff like tweeting right walking the dog and tweeting saying I’m walking the dog lol playing computer games and when I’m on fire and I’m ready to go I’ll do it 11 o’clock at night if I want to but But what we’ve been told is that you’ve got to work from nine to six o’clock.

37:38 Right. And this is not the entrepreneur’s way or not the business owners you work when you’re on fire and when you’re not, don’t do it. Because this is the problem. You will burn yourself out trying to force yourself to work when you’re not work minded. Now, if it lasts for a protracted period of time, then you’ve got a problem, right?

37:55 But if, as I do, and I was talking to a friend of mine and dealing with some mental health issues at the moment, and he’s really trying to build himself up, and I suggested to him that what he needs to do is to drink water. And he said, oh, well, I don’t like water, like coffee, and I said, coffee dehydrate you and look into it, it does. I said, drink water because there’s something about water and I believe that me drinking water when I went through an episode a few years back, water really helps.

38:19 And I don’t know from a physiology perspective, I know nothing about it, but what I do know is the simple act of when you’re not minded and you’re not right of just running a tap, anyone can run a tap and drink the water. You’re just fixing yourself, small incremental gains. There’s no big fix. It’s an absolute myth. Hey, guess what?

38:36 I can motivate you. No, no, no, no, no, no. But what I will say to any of your audience right now is no matter what shit you’ve got going on in your life, it always passes. It always passes. Always, always.

38:45 Always. What’s your latest book about? Life Business Just Got Easier. That’s the one that we, you know. Right, we talked about last time, yeah, yeah, yeah.

38:52 So my first book’s Get Off Your Ass. My second book’s Get Off Your Ass 2, 2, 2, double O. And that’s, and then the latest one is Life Business Just Got Easier, which it’s amazing to read these books. I’m going to have a look at the reviews. I brought them down to 99, Penn’s the first two now on Kindle, so anyone can access them.

39:08 But looking at the first one, it was like, hey, you know, hey guys, I’m like sort of rock and roll, trying to be business-like. And then the next one was moving into more personal, and the third one was this complete merger, family brand of what my unique style is, which, you know, I’m not one of these guys who are making millions and millions of pounds. I’m not, that’s not my thing. I could have, but I’ve turned that off as an option for me. That’s just not an option for me, which is really funny.

39:32 And I think that’s the point that I realised that ultimately you’re gonna no longer be on this world. And actually for you to go and spend time plowing to try and cultivate money, you need to understand what for. What is it about that money? And I think that’s what I’ve got to with life business, just get easier. This whole marriage between what your work and social life and normal life should be.

39:55 It’s a blur. There’s not separate, you know, this work-life balance things. The myth is just one thing now, one solid entity in the same way that my Twitter account isn’t, you know, someone said, hey, should you have a business one and a personal one? Guess what? I’ve got one.

40:07 And you’ll see, on one stage, you’ll see me saying I’ve just walked the dog lol. And the other one’s saying I’ve just been booked by JCB. Just one in the same, one person. So people are leading businesses now. And that’s what, in fact, that’s what you’re doing with this.

40:19 You’re leading business. And if you swapped out here and you changed you as a head of this organization, and it won’t be as popular. So, somewhere along the way, London Real is you, somewhere along the way, my books, everything that I stand for, my network, is Brad Burton. Right, which is almost what every entrepreneur ends up being. I mean, you kind of have to be your brand for your brand to be successful and for you to work those hours.

40:39 You kind of have to love it and… You know, when you walked, when I walked out of a job, okay, I walked out of a job because I wanted to get off the hamster wheel. Fast forward 10 years, I’m on a hamster wheel, my own hamster wheel, and there’s a wonderful irony to that. there’s a wonderful irony when you think, whoa, hang about. You know, hey, this is not.

40:57 This is the same wheel that kept you going. Right, because it gave me focus, but. And accountability, and social pressure. Absolutely, and some people go, for me, the fact is my life and my whole ability to go and spend time with the children, play computer games, which is my thing, my arcade machine, which we talked about, you know, so small things in life that matter. But just to be able to do these things when I want to do the things, I’ve got this wonderful life when if I want to work, I’m on fire, I will work, and if I don’t want to work, I won’t work.

41:27 So my days are full of doing stuff that I want to do, whereas their days are half full of doing stuff they want to do. Does that make sense? Yeah, let me ask you a question about family and friends. A lot of people write me and they’re like, Brian, you know, I’m doing my own business, but I feel guilty sometimes when I either have fun by playing video games, or I spend time with my family or my friends when I know I should be cranking away at that business.

41:49 How do you strike a work-life balance? how do you suggest that people do? Because it’s tough. Because when you’re not working that extra hour, someone else is. And it’s a competitive world these days, you know, everything’s online, everything’s flat.

41:59 If you recall, I talk about this in the book, you’ve got two islands, you’re the captain of a ship, over here is an island with health and relationships, and over here is an island with wealth, wealth be on your wildest dreams. You can’t go to both. Which one are you full speed ahead towards? You have got to. In the first years of running a business, go full on to get your business right.

42:19 Now, you know, your partner might say, hey, guess what, you’re spending too much time in the business, you’ve got no option. You’ve almost got to be manic about it. And those first few years, I’m now 10 years in, now I’m at the point where I can relax and I can do the things. This idea, this romantic vision about me walking the dog and playing games when I want to and so forth, I could have done that five years ago, right? So it’s taken me 10 years when everyone’s saying a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad to get to this stage.

42:44 So I’m now 41, 42 next week. Thanks, Brian, happy birthday. You know, this is after 21, birthday’s all right. But the point I’m making is I’m now in a position where I’ve set up my life, hopefully I’ve all been well. So I can do the nice things, whereas most people don’t ever take that risk, don’t have the five years of struggle or 10 years or whatever it is, and choose to be there now so their children are not being picked up from school half past three.

43:08 And ultimately that’s what’s gonna matter at the end of your days, not, hey, did we win that business or did we write the proposal? Do you see what I’m saying? Get it all twisted. Put it all twisted about what’s important in life. And I promise you, it’s not set over there tapping keys now and manicure.

43:21 Right, now speaking about what’s important, what’s important for you right now? Because last time we were talking, you were like, okay, I don’t know, foreign networking, I mean, it might be moving away from this, might be moving away from that. Now you’re talking about booking speeches with Bentley. People have sent in questions saying, when are you going to the USA? What is next for Brad?

43:37 Again, we don’t wanna know what the world thinks you should do next. We wanna know what you wanna do next. It’s a good question, as always. Listen, last time you managed to bring out the worst stroke best of nowadays. I found peace, right, and I’m not talking hippies stuff, blah, blah, blah, but I found peace in me now, I’m not as manic, I’m not as manic, and people, my friend said to me a few years back, oh Brad, you don’t realise how crazy you are, what do you mean, the way you come across these fucking nuts, I had no comprehension of who I was as an individual, none, and maybe that’s the thing now that I’ve actually accepted that I’m a little bit out there, and are full of energy and so forth, but I didn’t know that, I was blissful and aware of it and maybe that’s what I’m doing my gift or it was probably a curse in the old days because I’m not in person I’m applying myself so I’ve got brad camps coming which is we try to need this whole piece about having ten business owners that come to me get their ears burnt off by me focus fired up you know people seem 45 minutes and they get all fired up one day of just intensiveness and I for networking I’ve got a new director I’ve not even announced it now so it’s an exclusive but I’ve got a new director who’s a real high-level business person that is coming in to stabilise for networking because the kind of guy I am, it’s a bit like a firework display.

44:50 You know, if you like a firework display, wow, look at that Disney firework display. Do it three nights on the road. It’s like, oh, fucking hell, fireworks. And I think that’s my problem is, you know, lots of starbursts, and it’s all very exciting at first, but non-sustainable. So what I’m doing is I brought someone in on the business element to sustain and then to get the processing structures in place for networking as a business.

45:09 I’m no longer writing a book. I have every bit of content on my phone right now for book four, I’m choosing not to do that because I’m gonna be doing a build a better business with Brad Burton type CD pack, whatever. That’s my next thing. And 4 Network is probably gonna go global. It’s not gonna be me who’s gonna be flying over to Florida or Midwest to do that.

45:28 But 4 Network, we’re going global, but not gonna be me heading it up. That’s not exclusive here. Will you be speaking to companies in America? Would they even know what to do with you? Would they even understand you?

45:38 No, so why am I doing this? I disagree. Well, you know what, Brian? This is the thing. I’ll book you.

45:42 This is the thing. What is the fucking point? No, no, I’m serious. That’s the question. Right, so yes, I can go and fly over to America to go on Tip Box and go, guess what?

45:52 I’m an international speaker. I’ve spoke over in Marbella twice recently. You know, it’s not like I’m an international speaker. It ticks that bookmark off. What is it about me speaking in front of that?

46:03 This is the thing I have to work out from my perspective, given that I don’t want a Lamborghini. What do I want in life? So what do you want in life? Happiness, I’ve got it. Okay.

46:12 But that could, and I appreciate and love that, but that feeling is also fleeting, so what’s gonna keep you happy next year and next year? It’s not. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I’m busy, I’m doing stuff like this. I’ve done five interviews of this nature. Nowhere near as good by now, of course, right?

46:26 But five interviews in the last week. I’m in demand, I’m in demand, so this is cool, this is from my chicken soup of the soul. This is doing beauty, I enjoy this. I like the sound of my own voice, you know that. But you know, I don’t want to be an international speaker going over to America, everything you throw up for a fee.

46:42 What is the point? And this is the point where I say to you, when I’ve come from nothing, fucking nothing. You know, I’ve got every material thing that I really sensibly want. I can go and get gold taps if I want. What’s the fucking point?

46:54 Let me ask you a question about this. I came from nothing dialogue, so it’s not a dialogue. Because it’s fascinating, and it’s part of your, as we call it in the tech world, rent or USP, you know, it’s your unique selling point. Is that, I came from nothing dialogue, is there any point where that becomes not helpful for you? Because it justifies everything you have when maybe you should be thinking, Well, wait a second, I’m Brad motherfucking Bertie.

47:14 I can do whatever I want. Is there any point where that doesn’t help you, that dialogue? You know, I say when I speak, I’m not a stick as a look. That’s definitely true. Right.

47:23 I know what that means. No, but I have people rushing up to me saying, well, you know, you shouldn’t say that. No, no, it’s the irony card being played here. I just think that I’m giving hope to every single working class kid who’s got no qualifications, dad left that thing, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, I think that’s what I’m doing, and maybe just maybe. Now, since last time, I’ve actually spoke at prisons, and I’ll tell you a story about this.

47:45 I, another story, Brad, that’s what you said last time. That’s what I do, I live by stories, clearly. Hey, narrative is the way we communicate as humans. But I didn’t realise until I watched the video, you guys, so I was just in the way of that. Watching yourself tell stories.

47:57 Yeah, that’s what I do, stories. Okay, well, that’s why you’re so effective. But years ago, it would’ve been a bad, you know, 200 years ago, you know. That’s the way we’ve always communicated as humans, is by storytelling. So, I spoke at a prison, I got invited to speak at prisons.

48:10 So two prisons. You really are making the big time, aren’t you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so the way it works in prisons is you’ve got a cat D to cat A. Cat A is the horrible lifers and blah, blah, blah.

48:21 Cat D is the open prisons on the way out, okay? And there might be sex offenders there and stuff, so not desirable. It’s just not gonna do anything there and then. So I spoke at a cat D and that was okay. It was good.

48:33 These guys were receptive. Sorry, not, cat D was no sex offenders. Spoke Cat D and these guys had like, light crimes and these were really receptive. I spoke at a Cat B prison, which was like literally three walls to get through the door and three gates and everything. And I spoke to two groups of prisoners.

48:48 Now I didn’t understand the terminology and the blah, blah, blah. And it was like PP or whatever, protected prisoners. I didn’t know what that meant. And actually when you start exploring it, that was the sex offenders and stuff. Spoke speaking to these guys, these are isolated from the hard crimes.

49:01 So I spoke to these guys, they didn’t know afterwards that these guys went for some seriously horrible crimes. Spoke to them, and these guys were okay receptive. Then they wheeled out whatever the category B prisoners are. And these guys, I mean, Jesus, they’re just… And no matter what I was saying, it was just bouncing off the heads.

49:18 Because they couldn’t show any sort of fear or opening or acceptance, because in doing so, the peers would be saying, I’m about your week and I’m gonna go and steal you. I’m never speaking at a prison again. So it was a tough audience, because they couldn’t show any… Correct. I’m never speaking at a prison again, ever.

49:34 Ever. mind’s eye my romantic vision I could make a positive difference to these people no I can’t and that’s the point you can’t save everyone I’ve tried you can’t save everyone and this is the point that I make to your audience spend the energy that you’ve got you know when you’re on a plane in the event of an accident place your own oxygen mask on before you help other people this is what people like me did in the olden days I would use my oxygen on every single person to help everyone else at the expense of myself and one of the that I’ve realised is the more clout, the more power, the more strength, the more contacts, the more blah, blah, blah, and more media, I get the more people that can help. But to your audience, honestly, get yourself together before you try to help everyone else.

50:16 Yeah, it’s well said. I mean, you know, a certain gentleman that I know recently, you know, said get selfish, and it’s a horrible thing to say, but also, I mean, if you really wanna do a wonderful thing for your loved ones, it’s be the best you. And I mean, that’s what I started to notice, and lately, I mean, you know, me in the past, you know, I went down the ayahuasca route, I went on this route, talk about that later and so lately I’ve been bumping into a bunch of people to talk about success and entrepreneurship like yourself I mean you were probably the first sign of that and now I’m starting to notice that if you’re not being your best self every day you’re actually doing a disservice to your loved ones because you know they deserve the best you because the best you is getting up they’re excited they’re fired up they’re not you know clocking out at six other ones left they’re not going to the pub to medicate the lousy day they had and so when you’re pushing yourself and going to the scary places and having those highs and having those experiences then your loved ones, they benefit like times 10.

51:07 It’s so important but we overlook our loved ones, we do overlook our loved ones because we’re so tuned on and getting the Lamborghini, getting the car, getting the new thing and I’m going to say it now, no, you’ve got, no I can’t, but you know this is the thing with anything in terms of we’re all guilty of it, including me, alright, we’re all a a bit guilty of it, of overlooking the very things that are in front of us that are really important, not the shite that we chased and covered. But I’ve learned that lesson and I was so fortunate to have not lost everything, I mean everything, mental health, relationships, emotionally, financial health, a lot. I got as close as you could possibly get without losing that point.

51:49 So that button could have been pressed and I’d have been in nuclear and actually I might have been a down and out bum. Right. That’s the opposite of just a bum, according to your Facebook, sorry, your YouTube comments. But the point is I’m making is that we all have choices in our lives, and sometimes in life we believe we’ve got no choices, but we always do. It’s just the difficult ones that we don’t want to take.

52:09 They’re the choices that we turn on and think we’ve got no choices. We always have, and I’m living proof of that. Right, you mentioned the YouTube people. Let’s talk about haters. It’s something I always want to talk about.

52:18 I don’t really get anyone good to talk about it with, but since you have so many, I feel like we can talk about this. No, I don’t have so many. I think if you look at something like London Real, genuinely, it was probably 95% favorable, 5% thing, and it was down to, you know, couldn’t understand him, he speaks too fast, boom, yeah, boom, all the nonsense. And actually, all that stuff that I do, right? I don’t take life too seriously.

52:42 So when I’m fist bumping or saying gangster on Twitter, do I really think I’m a gangster because I’m having a Five Guys burger? No, I don’t. I’m playing the irony card to this whole thing, and actually, some people get that humour. Some people don’t. And that irony is lost on some of these people.

52:57 And on Twitter it’s lost too sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. With an international audience as well. Absolutely, and that’s cool. And that’s cool because, you know, the ones that get it, get it.

53:05 And you cannot always hit everyone. You can’t. And actually, if you try to hit everyone, you’ll hit no one. So the haters thing that I get, I mean, the best one ever was my book came out on Amazon. It was available for, or to say, on the Monday.

53:19 So it would have been delivered on the Tuesday. By Monday night, I had four one-star reviews in my first one, the book had not even arrived. So the only way you could have got it is from Amazon and the next day it said verified purchase. So as soon as it went on there, probably within an hour or two, I had four one-star reviews from different names. Unbelievable.

53:35 You know, but why would somebody go out of the way to make four Amazon accounts to do that? And it just, but that’s the kind of world we live in. Right, right. I think hate can be really valuable though. That’s the thing.

53:45 I mean, no one likes to see hate. I mean, I used to laugh because, you know, when I started with London Real, we’d give free content every week and I still have haters. It’s fascinating, right? And that’s all we used to do. And so it was kind of fascinating to see.

53:56 But I must say that from a hater, a lot of times you will get more information than you will get from all of your quote unquote friends and family that like everything. You know, like, I do that all the time. I’ll write like a piece and I’ll send it to a friend and they’ll be like, oh, it’s great. I’m like, no, no, I want criticism. I want to be better.

54:12 And so- Brian, Brian, Brian. You forge your own path, which is what you’re doing. Because I tell you something, some fucker, when they, listen, when they get the guests in the manner that you do and they’ve got the quality, invested the life and energy and living into this thing. When they do that and they get X amount of views, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70,000 views, then, just then, maybe, I’d say them seriously. But what I always say to people is, never take business advice from someone less successful than yourself.

54:39 The same goes for you. So I hate to turn it on and say, I hate Brad because he wears a T-shirt or his tattoos and shit, which is what somebody said. And you know what? Yes, my tattoos. No, they’re not the shit.

54:48 No, I don’t care a little bit. I’ve had laser, laser surgery to fix them up. So, the bottom line is, and it’s a great story again for you here, which is, you know, measure twice, cut once in life, because that’s how many mistakes we’re in tattoos, but the point I’m making is this, people are always going to point the finger, and it’s fuck all to do with you. It’s nothing to do with London Real, it’s to do with them pissed off that actually they’ve got a degree in filming or whatever it is, and yet they’ve not got their own shit off.

55:12 It’s always to do with that, and if you just have to follow it down, you’ll always find it’s to do, but you never explore that, because people will hide behind the bullshit, but I don’t like Brian’s attitude or his approach to guest all these swears, too much I was talking about, and then you just go, whatever it be, people will always, so these haters, fuck them, I’ve got no time for them, no time for them whatsoever. So you can’t learn from your haters, you disagree with me. No, no, no, I can learn from people that respect me.

55:30 So people that respect me, if you said to me, Brad, as you did it earlier, hey Brad, wouldn’t it be cool if you wore the suit once when you spoke? I said it. I’m gonna get hate from that right now. No, no, no, no, but you made a valid point, and we can perhaps explore that, but the point is this, haters have got nothing positive to say, and I have seen people converted to try and appease haters and lose their way. I did it.

55:52 Four or five years ago, I was told by people close to me, I need to listen to these haters and I listened to the haters and I lost my identity completely. These guys eroded everything that I stood for, every single element in trying to be vanilla to not offend people and this, that and the other. I ended up offending myself and you end up living. These guys are never gonna lie. Oh, then you start living like those people over there.

56:11 Because somebody told you that’s the way you should do. Wrong, all wrong. That’s well said. And if you look at the people I have on this show, The reason I have them on is because they’re opinionated, and I had someone on recently in the last few months and afterwards I was going to tell them, I was like, you need more of an opinion. And I’m like, what are you trying to do, try the middle road, are you trying to get a corporate gig?

56:29 It’s like the people that sit there, the people that come out and say, I like this, I don’t like this, I love you, fuck you, and ultimately those are the people that we remember in this life, people that take views and positions. Let’s talk about you and Ayahuasca, it’s something that we discovered earlier on the show and I went through that. Some people are like, Brian, you used to talk about real stuff and now you’re wearing suits and stuff and hey, this is my evolution so it’s kind of, it is what it is, it’s real.

56:56 But we’ll take you when it comes to reception, oh, where’s Brian, oh, you’re my Brian. Yeah, I am Brian. And it was funny because you were like, sometimes we don’t appreciate the little things in our life and that’s the one thing ayahuasca gave me because after you come out of ceremony like that, you’re like, wow, I just appreciate the sun and I appreciate these people that are my friends and I’ve kind of neglected them a bit and I just need to make sure that I love them, and stuff like that.

57:17 And what’s been your experience with that stuff? Having saw the London Real episode on that, and I’ll ask you, I can never pronounce it, but never mind. Having watched that, I remember I recall a conversation back in my good old days of raving and stuff back in 1996. And somebody told me about this whole thing. And I remember thinking it’s Away With the Fairies.

57:35 And it was Away With the Fairies. And that’s the sort of reiterated that this thing is mind-blowing. I watched your episode there. You watched a DMT show, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

57:45 Which is our most watched episode ever. Okay, exactly. 600,000. Well, listen, I had the opportunity to go on an ayahuasca. I can not pronounce it.

57:52 Ayahuasca. Right, well, you pronounce it for me. One of those ceremonies. And I spoke to the wife about it, and I went, you know what? I can’t do it.

58:00 As tempting as it is, because my world’s okay right now. Whether I’m living in Brad’s world, which is a bubble, which is not that world, but it’s my bubble of being happiness, I just felt it would potentially change everything. And right now, this is what I’m trying to say to people, if you’re happy in the world you’re living in, as in truly happy, not just pretending happy, then that’s cool, who cares, you know? And so now, I sort of backed out of it, although I am, it’s one of those ones that actually, once in your life, you perhaps need to do it, but actually, but that goes back down to the point I made earlier.

58:31 You know, if you’re not gonna go to the gym, if you’re not gonna start your own business off, don’t kid yourself. So I’ve sort of backed out of early doors, but the option and the door and that window is still open for you to take. It’s still there, I always say that people are drawn to it, And so you’ll go find it when you need it. And that’s what happens with this stuff, it’s weird. One person will mention it and 50 people won’t even remember how to pronounce it.

58:51 And 45 will say, I’ve heard of it, and five of them will say, oh, what’s that stuff? And then they’ll go down and three of them will keep going and one of them will go do it. So it’s like, it kind of, it’s there when you want it and it’s there when you need it and it’s there for when probably your life is not so good and your subconscious actually draws you to it. That’s what it is. And so- I was sort of repaired and recovered with the current life that I’m living.

59:14 I sort of found my way, having been lost in the wilderness and actually chasing all the wrong things, blah, blah, blah. So to found this serenity almost, you know, I’m a Northern lad, big thick normal lad, saying the words like serenity, but you see what I’m trying to say? That’s what I’m grounded at the moment. It’s weird, kind of a different sort of guy. So it’s almost like a gone through ceremony without going through it.

59:34 And maybe the fact that you even considered it in some respects has opened my mind because when you said, I look at the sun and you say, I did just the same, you know, looking at daisies and going, oh, doesn’t that be fabulous? Amazing. I, I spent weekend, uh, some time checking out. I often do this, taking out spiders out. There’s two spiders in my room. I took them out alive.

59:54 Very Buddhist of you. But you know, I was spending the time rather than these people that I spent. And that’s the kind of guy I am. And I just, I appreciate the world. I appreciate the world a whole lot better than I’ve ever done.

1:00:02 Because prior to this, you’re not really appreciating. You’re just focused on the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. I appreciate the world so much. left, genuinely. And to the iron-ash-quo world, you know, it’s called, right, I, yeah, I’d love to do it if I could then reverse that process, if I’ve sort of reprogrammed myself wrong, but you can’t. And that’s, I’m in a good place, now is probably not the right time. Yeah, no, fair enough. It’s always there, you know, that’s the thing. You’ll find it when you need to find it. And the funny part is, is when you do it, it’s almost like when you go into Alcoholics Anonymous or you become a born-again Christian. Yeah, Yeah, I was never smart enough to go or when you come up born-again Christian You want to go tell everyone to do it and that’s the solution to everyone else’s problems So when we first did it on the show and you went to Europe. Yeah, yeah I went to Europe. Yeah, but there’s a tendency though to get to tell everyone is the session to that problem I get it right and so and it’s just not all the time, you know, and so yeah So sometimes I can get promoted, you know, there’s been a bunch of questions for you I don’t want to hit you with some of them People have asked about you mentoring people and how would you mentor someone do you mentor people? Yeah, I do I do, but what I ensure is there’s a good fit because this whole vibe that I’m about there’s no point in me wasting my life

1:01:14 So actually if I can’t hit it off with someone in 10 minutes another 50 minutes will be the same result So yes, I do I do mentor people ask you all the time that come on I did but once again, I’m not people back because I’m only gonna do it if it works for them and it works for me Do you tell them for a few minutes it’s not going to happen? A ten minute conversation. Okay. So, you know, none of this, I’ll send you a proposal, I’ll tell you exactly how much it costs, that’s it, I’ve got to leave it, and that’s the thing about business and life.

1:01:39 If I can walk away from something, you’re more inclined to not be behested, you know, to say yes to everything. So, yes, I do mentoring in my own Broadway, got my Brad Camps coming, which is effectively, I think I’ll probably be more effective, really, a full day with me. What is the idea behind Brad Camps? It sounds interesting. So we’re gonna be having 10 people, initially anyway, 10 people at my office over in Somerset.

1:02:01 No camp, no retreats, no treehouses. Nonsense, not at this stage. No, a Wooshka, a Wooshka, that sounds better, doesn’t it? A Wooshka, yeah, none of that at this stage. Although they’ll probably have you there, I think you can come by now.

1:02:11 But yeah, so they’re coming down to my office and we’re gonna have a full day looking at the problems and actually giving them tangible, real solutions based on my experiences. So if you think about it, I’ll start again, the highest rated author without any qualifications, starting a business off 5,000 events, no investment, motivational speaker, all these experiences that are brought to bear. Somewhere along the way, I found a solution. And that’s one of the things, this ability to find a solution with what I’ve already got rather than having to seek, and that’s what I bring to people.

1:02:42 So with Bradcamp, we’re gonna be looking at all these individuals coming along to say, hey, guess what, we can find your solution with what you’ve already got, or maybe even the people in the room. So it’s that kind of vibe. Because it’s what people do. They end up with being in cells in their life and actually believing that they’ve got to carry all this, the whole problems and the whole thing themselves in bread camp, I’m gonna try and get people, all these people that are like-minded, all fired up and ready to go, and maybe, just maybe, if we can get that work and I wanna do it around the UK and then create a big seminar in the UK, NEC, Excel, whatever it is, and try and get that whole vibe going, but with the UK bent.

1:03:15 Let me ask you a question. You built your business on network events, which are people in the same room at the same time, And these days, with social media and YouTube and everything, we’re almost being told subconsciously that that’s not important. But your whole business is revolving on getting people in the same room. And you just talked about brag camps, getting these 10 people in the same room. What actually happens when you get these humans together that doesn’t happen without it?

1:03:40 What’s going on? Looking at each other now, so we could do it on Skype this, couldn’t we? No, we couldn’t. Right, but that’s the point. Singles for networking.

1:03:47 So today, I do on average 174 tweets a day, I know. Right. You’re a machine miller. I love it. It keeps me active.

1:03:54 You know, when I’m on the road, I’m on my own. It’s great. So, 174 tweets a day. But tomorrow, I’m at a full networking event with 50, sorry, 45 people that got fostered or wherever it be. You can’t beat human interaction.

1:04:05 You know, you can’t beat, it’s like a downloading porn. You know, it’s not the same as doing it in real life, not that I’d ever know Brian. So it’s the energy of being with people, it’s the inspiration. We’re social animals. Right.

1:04:17 So, you know, when you’re working in this office environment on your own, you know, If you used to go to an environment in full networking, local, and these are actually one in two weeks, you’d be fun to go in. I would like to go to one, yeah. Well, yeah, we’ll start off the camera. But the point is, is you come along there and you see like-minded people because the nature of full networking as a tribe is this whole relaxed, non-bullshit type networking, where there’s a lot of networking, and you say, what do you do, young man?

1:04:38 Okay, that was podcast, very interesting. Here’s my card, if you get me any referrals, I’ll give you 10%, vertical markets, vertical markets, vertical markets, just shit. Full networking, it’s not about that, it’s about actually looking at deeper relationships. So it’s a fundamentally different, I mean, you know, I don’t even, what I do when I do interviews, you know, the PR people say, oh, you need to load four network. I’m not interested.

1:04:57 And the nicest possible way, you either wanna, you know, go and search out on Google or don’t. I’m not gonna do a sales pitch, but the bottom line is, it’s this whole thing that I needed when I started my own business off. I started my own business off and I was sat in my box room in the pants waiting for the phone to ring, feeling sorry for myself. I needed to belong. And that’s what four network is.

1:05:12 It’s a big club that everyone can get involved in. And people that go there are going with the right energy and they kind of want to be there and do all that kind of… Absolutely. What is the… I mean, I just had to ask you about networking a bit because I’ve read a few books on it and I’ve gone out and seen it and I meet people all the time.

1:05:26 What’s the worst thing you can do at a networking event? Tell me what you do. What do I do personally? Well, I never liked the concept of networking. No one likes to be networked too.

1:05:36 No one likes someone that’s collecting cards. Right, so you just tell a media answer and that’s what I’m doing on purpose. Is that actually what you’ve got is a conversation. That’s when people don’t have conversations in networking and just come up to you like a tomcat, spraying piss everywhere. Business card, business card, everyone’s going fuck off.

1:05:52 If somebody came in here now and just walked in there, hi guys, I’m doing websites, they’re 499 quid, but I’m gonna do it for 200 quid, who’d like one? I’m gonna go, who’s this fucking lunatic? And that’s what people do in networking. So what you need to do is back off to sell more, sell less, just back off, just talk. On brand from London Real, I think I’ve heard that.

1:06:08 Chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, build a relationship, that’s it, that’s the simplicity of it. But people go in there, go shit, I’ve got my mortgage going on in three days time, I need to sell something, so you go there, you give all your cards out, you get nothing. Networking shit doesn’t work. You’re absolutely right, it doesn’t. And I always say to people, would your approach work for you?

1:06:26 And if the answer’s no, why the fuck are you doing it? Why do you believe that your approach, you know, you just gotta relax and stop selling. Stop selling and just go along and beat yourself and just chat, just get the social batteries filled up. That’s the first starting point. Okay, but also make a few connections, but just go talk.

1:06:44 That’s it. That’s it, but rather than these, you know, a lot of these networks are all about referrals and passing. Fucking nonsense. If I don’t like you and you don’t like me, I’m passing your fucker or Brian, sorry. Who is your favourite motivational speaker and don’t lie to me?

1:06:59 I don’t follow anyone. You don’t? Who’s your best favourite speaker? You must subconsciously model yourself on someone. You can even say Churchill if you want.

1:07:06 No, no, no, it’s a really good question. Ah, Dana White. Oh, yeah. Dana White from UFC, oh, that guy, it’s just every statement, he whacks out, he just Lands me it just resonates. This is a guy who is on yielding. He doesn’t fuck about and these teams are just are Mind-blowing mind-blowing leader. So if there’s some person so the fact is, you know, eventually got there didn’t we?

1:07:27 Yeah, you talked about Dana last time. I’m a big fan. So when I’m done watching the fights the UFC fight You have to get him on here. I got well, so I’m funny enough I just traded messages with Gary cook who’s there now, you know worldwide branding guy and I think we’re having him here this week maybe next so yeah massive show and Joe Rogan obviously you know Joe do you get Dana and Dana goosebumps again no goosebumps but no it’s when I do I’m done watching the fights on UFC I immediately go to the press conference because I want to hear Dana talking powerhouse isn’t that crazy powerhouse but I mean this is the thing there’s just something about Dana where actually you know if he was on his team you’d feel safe and actually that everything we’ve got no problems here because you’ve got leadership so that’s That’s what he shows, that actually he’s dealing with big tough guys who could take his, knock his teeth out.

1:08:12 But he doesn’t give a shit. He’s unyielding. And as a leader, I think that’s what I, if he’s someone I’m on as a speaker, I’d say it’s Dana White. No question in fact. Eventually we got there.

1:08:21 In terms of the motivational speakers, look, I would be lying to you if I said I’ve not been impacted on the likes of Tony Robbins. Right, no question. Actually I was thinking, um, one of the things I read one of his books years ago, it must must’ve been, my wife, must’ve been 99, I can’t even remember, but I read one of his books and I probably didn’t finish it, but I remember one thing that resonated with me from one of Tony Robbins’ books, Unleashed, blah, blah, blah, Awakened, whatever, was something about metaphors.

1:08:48 I can’t even remember what it was, but I just remember the metaphor, and I’ve realised, looking back on here, I use lots of metaphors, so somewhere along the way that’s impacted me and had a massive impact, might’ve been only one line, and that’s the point with motivational speakers. You know, that bit about texting people, You love them and so forth. And actually, you maybe don’t need to have them go, go and take your kids to the pond, the duck pond. Maybe it starts with motivational speakers about one line that lands with you and resonates and sticks with you for the reindeer days.

1:09:12 So Tony Blair, Tony Blair, Tony Robbins has impacted me massively in ways that I probably don’t realize. It is about that one line. And that’s the, they call that the long tail on the internet. And my dad even said that about me. He said, Brian, your show will go 90 minutes and someone will take one thing from that show and someone else will take a completely different thing.

1:09:30 And then, and then that thing will stick in their mind and I’ll always remember Brad said that. But, right, and that’s it, you know. And what about authors? Do you read a lot? Who do you read?

1:09:41 Have you ever been a big reader? So, when I was unemployed, and I did four years in a double, I did two, I stint at two, when I first moved from Manchester to Somerset, I had no money left. And I remember, well, I’d get me double money, say for the sake of having me to 70, 80 pounds, and at the end of me paying my electric key and my food and my shopping, I would think I’d have about eight pounds left. All right, so eight pounds to spend. So you really value having a little money and I’d go and get a kebab, maybe it was four pounds at the time and a bottle of this lemonade alcoholic drink and that was my treat for the Fortnite.

1:10:13 But I’d end up with three pounds left over. I’d go to the charity shops and buy books for 20 pence and lots of them. So he’d get lots and it’d make me feel where I had a bookcase, a bookshelf with all my books on there and I was just well read. In today’s social media age and having an iPad and having computer games and having children and I’ve been family and travelling, I’ve stopped reading. Now maybe, just maybe, and I should listen to audio books, but instead of listening to Drum & Bass, I’ve stopped reading, realistically.

1:10:38 The books that have impacted me, the single book that changed my life when I was going through all the shit in Manchester was a book by Robert J. Lumsden, 23 Steps to Achievement, and sometimes it’s entitled 23 Steps to Success. And it was written in 1976, and I believe reading that, It’s got some stuff that’s based on 1976 thinking that your wife should have your tea ready at five o’clock. But in essence, the stuff that’s timeless on there, I think that has stayed and has created who I am.

1:11:08 And I tried to get a hold of him. I got a private investigator to try find Robert J. Lumsden and he’s passed away apparently. Wow. So this is a guy who I didn’t realise because all I had, I had this book without the cover missing that I found.

1:11:21 And you can go and buy it on Amazon now. It’s only like three or four quid. But this book, no question, has stayed me. And actually at my time of need, back in whenever it was and I was fearful, it gave me protection. In some respects, it was my Bible.

1:11:33 And I remember reading this thing, thinking this makes me feel safe. So Robert J. Lumsden, 23 Steps to Achievement or 23 Steps to Success has changed my life. Molded me who I am as an individual. And looking back, this guy, you know, and the fact that I even went out of my way to get a private investigator to find him, they couldn’t, you could just drawn up the empties.

1:11:51 Right, again, that’s one thing that he said that meant something to you, right? So that was his message resonating to you. But it was also at the time when I needed it. Right, yeah. Because I had, you know, all my friends had had to fall away.

1:12:02 I had to just move from Manchester to Somerset. I had nothing, and I don’t know if I spoke about this last time, but I was at Western Super mare, which is like a seaside resort on the southwest coast. And I remember walking down the high street at Western Super mare high street and I kicked a can and no one to kick it back. No one to kick it back. And I always remember that vision in my head and I see it from third person.

1:12:23 So it’s obviously, I’ve obviously made the image as opposed to it being like that. We can see it like a camera kicking the can and no one’s to kick it back. As in you had no other friend? I had no one. Right, okay.

1:12:33 You know, and that’s the thing. If you look at what I’ve achieved where I’ve got friends in every single city town around the UK and contacts with this network, I’ve managed to create a matrix that allows me, you know, a passport to anywhere in the UK. That’s nuts. Right, and you can’t put a price tag on that. No, you can’t.

1:12:49 Yeah, that’s not a money thing, that’s a, yeah. But I’ve always said, with full networking, the value of this network is in the network because that’s the thing, the fact that anywhere in the UK, if you said to me, Brad, 11 o’clock at night, I’m in Edinburgh, I’ve got a dead body in my car, can you get rid of it? Oh, that’s probably a bad example. But, but if you said- I have a funny feeling you might know what it’s called. Well, no, if you went in Manchester.

1:13:09 But if you said to me, you know, I’m in Edinburgh, Brad, can you help me out? I’ve lost, I could get someone, that’s nuts. So anywhere in the UK, oh, mental, mental. So that’s the power, and like I say, This is why I believe I’m getting approached right now by a lot of companies I think wonder whether or not they’re actually interested in that network as well But that’s a separate issue hmm interesting that whole social value is amazing. There was a that Bob Marley documentary I don’t know if you saw it, but it’s really powerful and a dog Yeah, no, no, he snooped in one where he went down there and he was about his journey But there was a Bob Marley one and then there was one point where they said Something they asked about money and he was like money make a man rich is what he said And so like the more I do this show I get to meet all these super cool people You’re one of them and so like I have all these people and these great ideas and people doing that and like I When I used to live work in the city I had a big bank bank account and I had none of that the only people I talked to were other people in my And they’re reaffirming that am 100 grand basic and I’ve just got a 30,000 pound bonus I’ve got a portion and it’s pretty unhappy too. Yeah, and still on that treadmill of their own happen. Was I unhappy?

1:14:13 Well, yes, I was of course. I was what was the turning point? Sorry for doing the reinterview good, this is good What was that crucial moment when you went, fuck this? This is a good question. Funny enough, I think I took a meditation class, funny enough, and I started meditating twice a day, and I didn’t think much of it, but if you look at the time line, five months later, I quit.

1:14:33 See, small enough, here are things that we do. I mean, listen, these are the ones, these are the ones, these are the ones that tear you apart. The small drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, not one big thing where you go, fuck it, bum. The thing that I talked about previously with me was driving past a guy going in the house the electric gates you know and actually thinking I could work a hundred hour weeks at this company and still never be able to afford the friggin gates so that was like at which point it started eroding this this hiding in the office and working pretend it’s working it erodes that and started eroding and you can’t run from your own head so when your head tells you that actually it’s time to go guess what it’s time to go and this is what people do they stay in situations that they don’t want to do and that’s what causes your pain because you’re doing the thing that you know that you shouldn’t do but you choose to stay in there because you’re scared or you’re fearful and somewhere along the way I realised that at 31 if I didn’t make this jump now when I’m being told I’m never gonna do it so yes it’s not perfect yes I’m 25 gonna get yes I’ve got well the wife what he’s gonna get a proper job the wife by the way she’s delighted that I ignored her oh about oh about leaving about getting a proper job I get a proper job right now she is yes yes okay so absolutely delighted so you know and this is the thing you’re gonna have to do things on behalf of your life and

1:15:48 In your tribe that not everyone understands. Even you don’t understand at the time. Absolutely. And you’re going to start wondering, so yeah. No, just to say that value of that social network, it’s invaluable.

1:15:58 You can’t stick a price tag on it of that network you have or that group of people. Ungenuine friends as well. You can’t put a price on that, genuine friends. You know, I know some hyper-wealthy people right now. And the term that I’ve started referring to it is capital lost.

1:16:14 They are capital lost. Capital lost. What does that mean? Capitalist at a loss capital loss doesn’t capitalist. Okay, you know explain because I cuz we yeah Well, I think we’ve all might maybe know that person. I what though I just thought of on mr. Burns from the Simpsons Yeah, but he won I’m not sure this because he’s happy. He seems kind of happy to just right But this is a nice guy. Yeah, but would anyone say he’s a nice guy? No, so is he happy being a you know So anyway capital lost is like this whole thing where you you focus so much on success at any price at any price and often that price is too expensive which is what I found I was focused on that and mental breakdown blah blah blah blah blah blah we end up masking going back to exactly we end up masking but Capot lost where these guys are still there now you know working on proposals come on not many left at what point at what point do you go back to see your family but maybe this is a problem is that actually you enjoy that more than your family and this is what goes on and this is where as same goes with me I enjoyed being on the road be Mr. Cool everywhere I went, fresh paint, top hotels, expenses, da, da, da, da, da.

1:17:21 And actually, when I went home, it was a little bit mundane and boring. Or, as I like to call it now, normal. Because this is what I’ve done. I’ve stopped chasing this 10 out of 10 out of 10 lunacy, which was non-sustainable. Right, this is, quote unquote, manic, right?

1:17:36 Manic depressive. This is you chasing the high and then getting the low and the high and the low. This is the story of your life. No, I think it is a case of a sliding scale. So you get a 10 here and you’re moving it away from there.

1:17:46 You can’t go to both. So I’ve managed to get to this level in my life where I’m just so balanced in a Brad way. I’m as balanced as I’m ever gonna get. Now, maybe in a year’s time or whatever when we talk again, maybe things will have changed by then. But right now I am genuinely in the most serene place I’ve ever been because somewhere along the way I’ve stopped chasing this masses of success on these Lamborghinis and just stuff.

1:18:11 Insatiable hamster wheels of stuff. And we’re all guilty of it now, whether you’re chasing a Lamborghini or you’re chasing a Gucci belt or whether you’re chasing 500 pound shoes. Or the girl or the salary or the job title. Or a body type which is never gonna fit. And you’re always gonna end up, so what I would say is this, you have something right now which, you know, the woman off Deidre, off Carnation Street don’t have today or tomorrow, you know, this is the thing, this is your life, and yes, you might not be perfect.

1:18:37 I’m not perfect, but I should be happy with what you’ve got, because some people don’t have the luxury of what you’ve got, or your limbs, duh, duh, duh, duh, whatever. So be happy with what you’ve got. And once you find that, and I don’t know what the secret is to it, but what I would say is based on my experience, the secret is stop chasing. Stop chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing. You know, you do run faster when you’ve got a bear behind you.

1:19:00 Talking about video games before, Pac-Man would never, you know, eat the pills in the mazes if he wasn’t getting chased by goats. Ghosts, goats, goats, goats. that’s a different, see that’s that Anushka, see, taking that, but you know, you need something to drive you, you do need something to drive you, but understand why you’re doing it. So by all means, you know, if you want a Gucci belt for the sake of argument, by all means get one, but when you get a Gucci belt, then what do you need?

1:19:25 The trainers or the shoes or whatever, when does it end? Because the problem is, when it doesn’t end, it’s demotivating. So you’ve got to have an end goal insight, and I think I’ve got the end goal insight, and in fact, let me give it your audience right now what the end goal insight is. Hit us with it. Happiness.

1:19:39 Find that. Stop looking for cars. Stop looking for that. Find happiness. If you can find that happiness.

1:19:45 And bear in mind, once again, this is, boy, my socks are fair, just speaking to you, Brian, because I’m a Northern lad from counter states talking about finding happiness. No, they’re monkey. Your words. Your words, not mine. But, you know, happiness, seek that out.

1:19:58 Seek happiness out. And then when you turn around and say, well, happiness will be when I get an Audi Q7. No, it won’t. What is happiness? And if you can find that thing, everything else will follow, more of a flow, more relaxed.

1:20:08 Right, and you feel like you’re in the flow right now. You’re doing what you wanna do, you’re not putting too much emphasis or too much stock in a certain success point, and you’re like, I like what I’m doing, I’m doing the family thing, I work hard when I work hard, but I’m not, okay, yeah, it’s called the flow, I think. Well, that’s what everyone’s called these days. Personal habits of you. Do you meditate in the morning?

1:20:26 Do you train often? Do you try to get enough sleep? Do you, well, you know, what are the things that you do? All right, so I’ve got a daughter, daughter’s just been born, she’s seven, made up there and this is like God’s cruel trick, giving me a daughter. She’s seven years old.

1:20:39 Seven months old. Months old, okay, wow. So unfortunately she’s got two big brothers, but so that’s gonna be an interesting one in 16 years time when she turns up with some blood from Manchester. Anyway. This is a character building test.

1:20:52 Oh, listen, God’s cruel trick, it really is. I’ve got a 10-year-old turning to blood. Oh, have you really? Yeah, and it’s… Well, you know that one, brand new.

1:20:57 Yeah, it’s just, it crushes your head all the time. Not to mention when she starts giving it back to you. But listen, let me explain. Like I say, ring me at 11 o’clock at night and say you’ve got a dead body or you kidnapped a first boyfriend. So I’ve got…

1:21:15 If I’m in Manchester. Oh, don’t. Yeah, yeah, Edinburgh no good. I am joking, by the way, for the police perspective. Loosely.

1:21:22 But the point of making is, what do I do? I play computer games. I’m a massive gamer. Oh, I love games. You’ve always liked games.

1:21:30 I’ve since been a kid, and I’ve just got this arcade machine. You’ve got the stand-up arcade machine, a la the 80s in America, and I hit that. When I was a kid, I was 10 tokens for a dollar, and at one point, in the bull market, or the bear market, however you look at it, there was 12 tokens for a dollar in San Diego. And for a kid, it was just like, oh, I can’t help it. Mind-blowing, yeah, whoa.

1:21:48 And you just go and you have a big thing that’s open. So I’ve got this arcade machine, which is, you know, I never talk about material things and, you know, you can’t chase these things, look, it’s a childhood dream of mine. I never believed that I’d own a… So I did get a Lamborghini, but I’ve got an arcade machine, right? But I’ve got this arcade machine which, in some respects, isn’t it an arcade machine?

1:22:04 It’s a time machine. It takes me back to being eight. Interesting story, as you’d expect from me. I just remembered something then. When I was about eight, I went to a fair, or a place called Heaton Park.

1:22:15 It used to turn up every single year and you’d go to the fair and it was, I don’t know, four miles away from my house. And I must have been eight or nine. And I went along there and I went on the fruit machine and it was two pens of gold and I had, I think it was four pence to get me a bus home and I was down to my last four pence. And I put it in the fruit machine, two pence, nothing. And my last two pence, so I’d been walking home, effectively an hour and a half walk home.

1:22:37 But my last two pence in, I got the jackpot and I remember getting the money, kept me bus fare and then went on the bumper cars. I wonder whether that’s quite formative as to what the kind of guy I am, which is actually go, boom, I go for it. And it did just, the pence just dropped in as a guard. yeah, then maybe my risk-taking abilities come from that. You know what, if I don’t win the jackpot, I’ll walk home.

1:23:00 And as long as you’re not bothered about walking home, it’s not a problem. Right. You know, I had the pleasure of being around some successful people in the last six months, and someone asked me the other day, well, what makes them different? And a few months ago, I wouldn’t have said anything, but one thing I noticed is a few things about this, and these are a few characteristics, and you just made me spike this, is that they’re willing to take risks. When things pay off, they’re willing to double down on what works.

1:23:23 It’s actually double down is not true, 10 times down. And they move quickly and they test things all the time. So it’s like they’re willing to put their reputations on the line, double down if something works, clip it out if it doesn’t work, and then keep doing the same. You look at what I’ve done, this is my recipe for everything that I’ve done, all these projects for networking, the speak and the books. Bradkamp is just that.

1:23:47 And actually it’s this, but what’s great about what I’ve done, I pat myself on the back of here, is that every step of the way, the informed individuals have told me, I’ve got it wrong. Every step of the way, the bank manager laughed at me out and said, ah, you’ve got no chance. You know, and they’ve got it wrong and this is what I’m trying to say about changing the rule book. Who gave me my rule book? I wrote it myself.

1:24:09 The same way that you’re doing it with London Real, you can’t possibly have Guy Kawasaki on there and then the next thing talking about Anushka, what it was called, says who? Says who? Who tells me that? Well, when people stop watching them, then I’ll stop doing them. So you write your own ticket and you write your own book.

1:24:24 So everything that I’ve said for the last hour or whatever it’d be, disregard it if it’s not for you. But if it’s for you and it gives you permission to be you and to make the decisions and the changes and do it your way, by all means do it. And then put it all on black like Brad would or put your 2P in the fruit machine. It’s funny, there’s stuff you don’t realise how formative all this, you know, things that have happened in your background. And we’ve all got broken rule books.

1:24:47 So our rule books have been broken from situations and other people’s mistakes. And we all interpret rules differently. And I think some people are risk takers, some people are not. The new director who’s coming in, not a risk taker. He will.

1:25:00 Right, which is what you want. You want someone different than you. Absolutely, and that was the point that I was gonna make, but you made it. Absolutely, that’s the point, is that there’s no point in bringing another brat in. Forget it.

1:25:11 You know, and I’ve got to, when I can see a decision that can be made fast, I’ve got to say, actually, you’ve got to let this person make that decision the same way. But what I’m doing right now is surrounding myself with people that are completely different to me, but also people that are honest enough to say, Brad, you’ve got it wrong, and I will listen to them. Haters, fuck them. People that I trust, I’ll listen to them all day long. Training regime, do you work out?

1:25:32 Yeah, I mean on my training regime. Good shape, Brad. You’re looking great. I’ve been getting there now since the last time. I’ve lost a stone and a half.

1:25:38 I mean, I had a big round head like a plate last time, looking back. Yeah, I always tell people, you look great. Yeah, well, you always tell people, you’re a broadcaster, what do you expect? But the point is I go to the gym And I don’t train in any way or form a manner which anyone who’s sensible would say, hey, you got to do that. What you need to do is do two body parts.

1:25:56 I’m not interested. I just do it my way and it’s not perfect, but it’s, I’m honest with myself, which is what I said before. If you’re not going to do a diet, don’t kid yourself. If you’re not going to, don’t kid yourself. So there’s no point in me trying to get to men’s health magazines and go, oh, I’m going to do that because I wouldn’t.

1:26:11 So I do it my own way. I work around my own schedules and I go four times a week, but I actually enjoy it. Really, saying a point about this, It’s when I first started training, I didn’t enjoy it. I hated it. Now, I love it.

1:26:23 I actually look forward to it. That’s a valuable lesson for anyone that I genuinely was a big fat overweight. I was 16 stone eight, 17 stone three at my highest. I’m now 14 five. That’s three stone.

1:26:34 And actually you look back and I mean, I look ill, I look like something out of the walking dead. It’s amazing. You go and look at pictures of me and I go, gee. And you didn’t know it at the time. We all have fat pictures and you’ll be like, why come someone didn’t say something to me?

1:26:46 But you don’t suddenly wake up and go from a 32 to a 36, to a 40, to a 44. I was 44. And then we were wondering, I have a shock face. When the doctor says, hey Brad, you’ve got diabetes type two. What, me?

1:26:55 You’re actually a big fat bucket. Yes, you. Talk to me about diabetes. You got the diagnosis. For a lot of people, that’s like a death sentence.

1:27:02 I mean, that’s pretty scary to hear. Yeah, that… So what happened was the doctor said to me, hey, guess what? You’re borderline diabetic. And I went, you’re all right.

1:27:11 Happens to fat people. And then six months later, I got a test. He said, you’re blood sugars. You’re diabetic type two. And I was like, what?

1:27:16 You know, you go and look on Google about any ailment, you’ve always got cancer, no matter what you do, right? So that was one of them, and he said, like, you know, you could potentially lose your life, all this heart, probably, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, instantly, the minute that doctor told me, I put the phone down, and my life changed, stopped everything, all the ill behaviour, everything, right? And I was doing four to six cans of Red Bull a day, which, you know, let’s not get involved in the politics about that, because you’re a broadcaster, but you look at the sugar content on something like that, you know you are using some serious amount of sugars up before you even start and then because I’m living large hey let’s go out drinking on expenses let’s go and have nice meals and so forth you know no wonder you’re 16 stone eight or whatever um stop that instantly started drinking more water and there’s something about water it’s quite therapeutic no calories and you’re doing something positive so I drank lots of water and I clean lived as in I had two or three cheat meals in that first six months that was it so six months of clean living so i got my weight down and went back and they went oh we’ve never seen results like this you’ve managed to turn it around we’ll test you again in six months time so i was religious for the first six months and i went actually i’ll take it back here took it back there went back you’re still fine so now i’ve took it a little bit

1:28:32 Further so we’re going to see the the tester due soon so we’ll see where we are with it all but you can, I mean remission effectively, you can turn it around and it is requires or what I could do is ignore the signs and go, well, you know, so I’m not living clean now, far from it, but diabetes is caused as a result of stress and not only bad diet, it could be hereditary or it could be that you’re a big fat fucker, that’s the, you know, and that’s that’s it. I would expect nothing less of you, Brad, than to conquer this thing. Yeah, you know, and I’m delighted and there’s one of the things that the penny drops when I And I thought, are you really gonna deprive your children of a father because you can’t control your eating?

1:29:13 And you wanna have, you know, I remember the old days, having three quarters of a pack of Jaffa Cakes, you know, but you never had no consequences and just go, oh, Jaffa Cakes, you know, love that. That’s nuts. The idea now, I think I did two in a row. So once again, but that’s enough to tick the box and say, hey, guess what, you’ve had Jaffa Cakes now. The old days, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, oh, I’ve ticked the box.

1:29:34 So this is what I’m saying, this is going back to what I talked about, about this moderation now that me 10s are no longer there. And actually I’ve got this happen as in finding solace in two Jaffa Cakes instead of nine. Right, it’s a nice place to be. Yeah, you know, still have Jaffa Cakes. It’s January now, a lot of people have done New Year’s resolutions, a lot of people want to get these things.

1:29:52 This is probably about the time where people stop going to the gym. What’s your thought on New Year’s resolutions and resolutions and affirmations, that kind of thing? Yeah, my resolutions are always ongoing. talking about this at Bradcamp, which is to always set yourself a short-term, medium-term, long-term goal. So always have a short-term one, medium-term, long-term.

1:30:10 And as you finish your short-term goal, replace it with another short-term one and just keep going and you’re always in constant chasing, you’re always in constant, not chasing, you’re always in constant fixing things, which is what I’m doing. So my short-term goal is to do the Bradcamp and the medium-term and so forth. That’s, I don’t need January in order for me to have a resolution. my resolutions are always going about what I’m doing. And this is what I talk about, which is always have where you sat nav for your life program too.

1:30:38 Cause some people don’t have their sat nav program too. They have no idea where they’re going because your sat nav is a destination, not only for your life, but also one for your business. And if I said to you now, don’t answer the question, but what is your, you know, where’s your destination for your life program too? Where’s your destination for your business? You wouldn’t really know.

1:30:54 Now you wouldn’t, you couldn’t sell me with clarity, complete clarity, could you? I mean, you know, I could probably tell you better than maybe you’d expect. Right. But yeah, it might not be the exact destination. Of course.

1:31:03 So, set yourself three destinations, a short-term one, a medium-term one, a long-term one for your life, short-term one for your business, medium-term one for your business, long-term one. And when you get to this thing, just replace it. That’s what I’m always doing. I’m always just constantly moving forward, rather than having this whole big girl goes, what I want to do is have a 10 million pound company. Somebody said that to me.

1:31:21 I want to have a 10 million pound company, that’s what I was mentoring. I was like, fabulous, huh? Well, why is that? Well, because I want to have all these sites, right? And when you get a 10 million pound company, then what?

1:31:30 Yeah, just nonsense chasing a 10 million pound company. What does having a 10 million pound company, that nine million pound company doesn’t work? Stop, stop, stop. Nonsense. This is a theme now, if you can’t get it with Brad.

1:31:41 So I think we got through most of these questions now. Oh, I guess the only other thing is, is when you do get into a slump or when you get into this unmotivated thing, you said that you don’t beat yourself up about it, but is there anything that you have had experience with over the past that’s worked for you when you get in a slump, any change of behavior? Yeah, walk the dog, play computer games. So whatever your thing is, as long as it’s a benign thing, don’t say, well, go and get a gram of coke, because guess what, you’re gonna be keeping yourself in this situation.

1:32:06 So whatever your thing is, go and find your thing, whether it’s going to a gym, whether it’s going for a brisk walk, whether it’s having a glass of water, just find something that’s benign, that’s neutral in terms of its effects. And me playing computer games and lounging on the sofa for two hours, it harms nobody. And it keeps me in this state of mind of not going lower and lower and lower. and then probably also getting social at some point because being around other people just makes you also accountable to be you and can give you some energy too.

1:32:33 If I look at my Instagram feed and my Twitter feed, follow it back and you look at me when I was going through my deconstruction, it’s amazing to look at, you know, lots of selfies of me looking miserable and you just like, and you can see that, you can see when someone’s going down on social media, but equally, social media keeps me buoyant. It keeps me buoyant, keeps me connected. Just, I just love it. Let me get your thoughts on social media before we finish.

1:32:59 What do you love, what don’t you love? We know you’re a mabbin’ on Twitter. Do you think that’s always gonna be the case? What’s your thoughts on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube? Okay, so YouTube, I have been talking about getting around to doing my own stuff.

1:33:11 Never quite get around to it. So I’ve been honest with you. Well, you don’t need to if you keep coming here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, I’m gonna just use the content. So, which I’ve gotta say, I have to say, your channel has got me definitively a complete different audience.

1:33:25 I mean, I’ve got them connected some lovely people. Explain that, explain that. It’s just a different subculture because, I mean, you’ve only got to look at what you’ve got on the screen there. You know, you’ve got all these amazing speakers that sit in this chair, but so different and varied. So somewhere along the way, you carpet bomb, but Smart Tag, a certain sort of, I hate to use the word, thought leader, people that are movers and shakers in the social media world and everyone’s talking, maybe you’re smart operator and actually you get people like me and all these other people to retweet and they all do because it’s the ego, whatever.

1:33:55 But somewhere along the way, you hit a different audience that I’ve never hit before. And I think that’s something about London Real, which is really special, because I’ve never, and I’ve done a lot of marketing channels, I’ve never managed to hit this strange, young, medium, old-type vibe, it’s an odd mix. And who are they? People that want to make a difference, and generally, apart from the swats on who give me negative feedback on YouTube channel, but, you know.

1:34:23 They’re visitors, those aren’t my fans. Yeah, yeah, good. So, listen, like I say, good luck to them. I look forward to the negative on this one. But listen, the fact that you’ve watched it for an hour and 20 minutes, thank you very much.

1:34:31 Exactly, one extra view, lovely. It was a dickhead now. But I just think that you’ve got something that’s pretty special here and unique. And, you know, I’ve talked about a couple of guests that I believe would have a massive impact on it. You just do something special.

1:34:44 And I think you’ve got to pack yourself on the back here because it is a one-way street, effectively, with people like myself tipping up here. I’m not sure you necessarily get the feedback like this, but you get an audience which is just pretty special. That’s great feedback, thank you for that, Brad. I was out at an event a couple weeks ago with one of my guests, Ty Lopez, and man, it must have been 30 people came up to me and shook my hand, like, shook my hand, like, Brian, you changed my life, thank you so much.

1:35:07 And then they’d rattle off three or four guests and like all of my London realers that I meet, like, they’re all cool. And then the thing is that I noticed is that we all have something cool to talk about. So I’ll be like, who, okay, who’d you, how’d you find me? And they’ll be like, oh, it’s Brad Burton, it’s Peter Sage, it was Dan Peña, it was this big. And then we have a good conversation.

1:35:24 So it’s like, I feel bad for like movie stars. I’m not comparing myself to a movie star. But say I was Daniel Craig, oh, I like that actually. You know, they’d say, you were great in Bond. And he would say, thank you.

1:35:33 There was a screenwriter and a cinematographer. And I’m glad you liked me playing a character who isn’t me. But when people come up to me, they’re like that. And I’m like, oh yeah, Brad, did you really said that? Oh yeah, that’s cool.

1:35:43 That made me do this and then made me do this. And so it’s like this conversation starts. I mean, maybe it’s a separate conversation, but what you did when we did the previous one is you’ve managed to bring out the best and worse than I’ve said this before, but it’s true. There’s just something disarming about this because you forget about the cameras. As a punter side, you forget about the cameras.

1:35:59 And I believe that that’s why you get deeper conversations than you ordinarily would do when you do a formal interview. And also the fact is you don’t cut this, right? There’s no cutting. You might flip cameras, but you don’t cut. That’s, you know, you’re on the fly all the time.

1:36:15 You’ve got to be thinking here all the time. And that’s, so you get the real bit about people. You can’t front this off, you can’t front this off and I think that’s what it is. Going back to the social media platforms, I love Instagram, I have no idea how you get traction on it. Right, right, right.

1:36:29 No idea how you get traction. It’s foreign, it’s just because it’s. I like you, you like me, that’s it, we’re following it, it didn’t, it didn’t, and you can’t retweet almost or whatever, retweet your stuff, I can’t press the button and share it to my guys, which seems such an obvious thing, it’s on my face. You can’t get like the thousand retweets on that one thing. Yeah, it’s odd.

1:36:46 Love it though, and I think once again, that’s about sharing your life and actually allowing people, when I look back at the, it’s a diary almost, my wife will not allow me to put the children on my social media, and I sort of get it from all sorts of reasons. But I wish I would have captured my children on social media so we could show them in years to come. Same goes with my business, but what I look at is my time code, even down to, there’s a previous one, which is, I’m at Brad Burton on Instagram, but if you find my previous account, which is at the Brad Burton, have a look at the old Instagram, you’ll see a big fat Brad.

1:37:18 So in some respects, he’s captured that, and for me to be able to look at it, love Instagram, don’t get it. Twitter, fucking love Twitter. It just keeps me busy. It’s almost like my office. I’ve got me at Brad’s PA, so we’re arranging stuff via me, but it’s just amazing.

1:37:31 Love Twitter. Twitter’s amazing. And you’re constantly promoting your London Real episode more than any of the guests. No, I’m gonna. Yeah, it’s amazing.

1:37:38 You’re awesome. I’ve got a memory of pride in it. This is the thing, I wouldn’t promote something that you shit. Yeah, but that was a real episode, and for the first 25 minutes of that episode, was you and me trying to figure out where the groove was gonna be. Wow, 19 minutes, it fixes up.

1:37:51 Looking at that, because I watched that, I’m going, not really getting this, not really getting this 19 minutes bum went in. I think, to be honest, this episode, I think we were straight away and we was already talking, rapping before we even started. So, Twitter, I love Twitter. Facebook, just getting into that. What I don’t understand about Facebook is business pages.

1:38:06 So, and my personal one, I can do you, but I can’t, I fucked up once again. You needed the green computer science to work it out. So I don’t really get Facebook. I’ve done some Facebook advertising. I’ve spent thousands, not thousands, that’s unfair.

1:38:17 I spent 800 pounds and it just matters what the fucking, fucking 20 pound goes. I don’t get it. I don’t understand what you’re doing. You know, yes, you’ve got 100 likes on it, right? So yeah, Facebook, social media, for me, is that whole piece about staying connected.

1:38:31 I just love it, I just love it. And the fact is, when I’m on the road, going up and down the UK and I do effectively 30 to 40,000, and I’m bringing that down actually, 40,000 miles a year, just to be constantly connected. Just love that. All right guys, I’m in wherever I’m wet stone and totterage or something tonight I’m staying. And as a result of that, And we said, oh, do you fancy meeting someone tonight as a result of that?

1:38:51 I just love it. Great. It suits you perfectly. Have you ever unplugged for a week? No, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Brian.

1:38:59 I went on a cruise, a Disney cruise, three days without internet. No. How’d you do? Oh, mate. I think you should really unplug for like a week, Brian.

1:39:12 Listen, actually that’d be a really good London Real episode to do as a documentary. You might even wanna look at that, bringing the reel on the road, and actually following someone like me or whatever on the thingy, because, yeah, I don’t know, I think unplugging me would be a really interesting experiment because I’m so hyper-connected, that would kill me. Or not, or you might start appreciating or learning your things. I got kind of unplugged about three months ago when I was up in Scotland, and I found myself, I couldn’t check my phone when I was in bed at night, and I was used to doing that, and then I was like, okay, now I have to be with myself.

1:39:42 I’m also with you at this difficult time. I can see you’re getting a little panicked right now. Yeah, absolutely, honestly, Give me some more of that bulletproof coffee, mate. So I’m gonna get shaky at the moment. Brad was taking pictures of the bulletproof earlier.

1:39:52 It was awesome. All right, I’m gonna hit you with the questions at the end. They’re actually the same questions, but I think since you’re a year older, you’re a different you, I’m gonna ask you again. You make the phone call to the 20-year-old Brad Burton, give that young man a bit of advice that you know everything now to this point in your life. What do you tell him?

1:40:08 It’s gonna work out. I actually don’t believe that this is the last day of your life because it’s not, you’ve got an entire life ahead of you. Okay. But it’s the simplicity of it. And that applies to everything that all, as I said, your audience, they’ll have shit going on in their life right now that they think is unsumminable.

1:40:24 And there’s nothing in my life that I’ve encountered that has genuinely been unsumminable. Nothing, and look where we started this whole conversation. The worst day of my life ended up being the best day of my life. And you don’t appreciate it at the time, of course. We were painful and dark.

1:40:39 Best thing that ever happened, Brian. Really, and that’s nuts, isn’t it? Isn’t that nuts? It is nuts. The worst day of my life means I’m here, means I’ve got business, means I’ve got kids, means I went to the Disney cruise and, what?

1:40:50 I know, it makes no sense, I know, I know. Instead of, instead of doing what I was doing in Manchester, come on. I know, it makes no sense. So that’s what I’d say to a 20 year old brad that actually, look, you know, it’s never too late to change direction. Take the pain, use it, change direction.

1:41:07 Best advice you’ve ever received. You seem like a loner, Brad. You don’t seem like you actually get a lot of advice. Oh, Brian. See, there you go.

1:41:16 Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. You fucking hell, fucking hell, ooh. Ooh. I didn’t mean that in a bad way. No, no, I’ll get it.

1:41:25 Listen, I’ve got my coach, Debbie Hookston, who I’ve mentioned that I believe you should get on the show. She said to me, are you willing to risk it all? Right, so whenever you’re doing ill behavior or playing foul, ask that question. Are you willing to risk it all? If the answer’s yes, continue.

1:41:45 If the answer’s no, why the fuck are you doing it? That’s what she said to me. And it was like, ooh, fucking hell. Honestly, I fucking made my whole bit when my world just fell apart. She said that question to me.

1:41:57 And I remember walking the dog, I had carpal vision because I was suffering from massive stress at the time. It was all blurred, and I could like, noise in my head, are you willing to risk it all? And I went, what do you mean by that? She went, just answer the fucking question. My coach never swears.

1:42:12 And I said, no. She went, why are you willing to risk it all right now? and why you’re doing what you are and what you are at. So that is probably the most powerful one that just managed to, chosen horses where you passed all my defenses and just unwield it right to my head. Nice, that’s good advice, very good.

1:42:25 Heavy advice. Last part of that question, to the 20 year old that’s listening, that probably wants you to be their mentor, that wants to know what they should do, how they can get out of that council flat that just got the bullet holes in there, how can they get out of being on the dole, how they can be out of being skint, 25,000 pounds in debt, the wife, you know, whinging, all these things that happen to you, what do they do? You start and understand this, that you can’t simply press a button and magic to where you wanna be, it’s gonna be a long, arduous journey.

1:42:56 And actually one, as long as you don’t lose sight of your destination, you will always get there, but people do lose sight of their destination. People get fearful, I’ve been fearful, but I’ve always continued to go to this destination wherever I’m going, so I’ve never lost sight no matter which way I’ve been blown off course, or whatever. So that’s the key to it, is understand that it’s gonna take you a long time, but it’s worth it because if I’d not taken this journey of the last 10 years, of the nervous breakdown, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, of being skint, skint, skint, of, you know, of smoking pot, I’m like, okay.

1:43:29 You know, I’d still be over there. I’d still be doing that. And that’s no future for anyone, unless of course that is your future. At which case, be honest with yourself. But if your future isn’t sat in an office until you’re 65, What is the future?

1:43:43 And you ask yourself that question and once you know the answer, lock it into your GPS, make your long-term plan, program your sat-nav to that long-term thing about where you wanna go and start heading towards it and never lose sight of it until you get there. You know, I think that the bad situation you’re in now is your greatest asset. And I think your biggest fears are, again, your greatest asset. Because when you 180 that situation out of your life and you get somewhere that’s good in your life, then you’re gonna look back and be like, Jesus Christ, look at this mountain I climbed.

1:44:11 Whereas that other guy won’t be able to. He’ll be like, well, I went from a nice, happy middle-class family and now I’m okay. And that fear you have, you’re gonna overcome that and then you’re gonna have this massive amount of self-confidence, accomplishment, everything. And so if you didn’t have that fear and you didn’t have that pain, then you’re just gonna leave a mediocre life. So I think those things are assets in a way.

1:44:32 But that’s, you think about a mediocre life and that’s cool, that is cool. Listen, there’s nothing, if you are waiting tables right now and I always say this, pack yourself on the back. If you are delivering pizzas, pack yourself on the back because it’s honest living. Because I know people that have made some terrible decisions that make a whole lot of short-term cash and I’ve got nothing to show for it apart from 10 years in strange ways. And that’s always the temptation because you think it’s easy money.

1:44:54 It’s never easy money. There’s no money that is easier, ever. But if you look at the journey that I’ve been on for the last 10 years, it’s one that now allows me to play computer games if I want to. It’s one that allows me to take my children to school. It’s one that allows me to come and do London Real night now.

1:45:08 If I’d not made those decisions and turned down the volume of the wife telling me to go and get a proper job. I’ll still be over there now. And actually you’ve got one life and you can choose to use that life in one of mediocrity or you can do something special with it. I am living proof of that. No qualifications, highest rated business book, network with 5,000 thingies, it’s speaker blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

1:45:29 What’s your excuse? Read the bio, 150 words. It’s hip hop, you know, without the beats. It’s Brad Burton. I wanted to thank The Office, which is right across the way from us.

1:45:41 They’re all gone now and I just want to thank them for being our example. They’re not though. There’s one or two of them there. That’s the point. They’re not.

1:45:48 Working on the big proposal. Right. I want to thank them for being our guinea pigs and scapegoats. I’m sure some of them are probably listening to our show. You know, maybe half of them will leave tomorrow.

1:45:55 They’re like, yeah, exactly. We’ll leave tomorrow. Brad, you’re a major inspiration. That last line you said, there is no easy money ever, is something that I’m just even thinking about right now. And that’s something you all should think about because it’s a fascinating concept as far as what’s going on that.

1:46:10 And that’s also got something to do with, I think, is if you’re not taking risks over time, that’s gonna be the biggest risk that you take. So all sorts of stuff to think about. It’s awesome. It’s bradburton.biz to find out more about you for networking. Brad Camp’s coming up, so keep an eye out for that.

1:46:26 He’s got three books to choose from. And the fourth one is Not Happening is a book, but we’ll just see what happens. Good, Brad will be speaking. I wanna watch your speech in front of the Bentley guys for some reason. Also, next time you see Brad, he’ll be wearing a suit, you know, thanks to my ideas.

1:46:43 I’m gonna get so much hate for that. You ruined Brad Bryan. You know, that’s an interesting one. The fact that I do have a suit, but maybe next time we come, you say, okay, Brad, one of the conditions is you wear a suit. Everyone will just laugh, but I think it’d be fascinating to see the reaction of you giving one with a suit, because what’s so good about you, and this is what I like about watching you, is because you are that guy.

1:47:03 You’re real, you went through the struggle, you make fun of yourself while you’re doing it, And so that’s why people like you, and I think they like you in a way that they won’t ever like. Tony Robbins, God bless him, or some of the other motivational speakers, because they’re kind of a front, to a certain extent, a front of success. And that works for some people, but that’s not you. And so that’s why I think it would be fascinating. You know, if you put the seat on, then you’re like, okay, I’m that guy, that guy, and now I’m just evolved again, and I just fuck with your head one more time.

1:47:26 But that’s what it would be, it’d be fucking with people’s head. But you know what, that’s my mistake, that’s my thing, is fucking with people’s heads in the nicest possible way. My motivation is to make a positive difference, And hopefully, in some respects, people watching this right now, we’ve done just that today, Brian. I love it. If you’re listening to us on iTunes, you can come see extremely good looking and in very good shape, you know, Brad Burton and me, I’m looking pretty good today too.

1:47:48 And yeah, we’re on Twitter, we’re on Facebook, we’re all the good stuff. Some more exciting things coming from London Real, including the London Real Academy. I’ll be talking more about that later, some different things that we’re doing. I’m having a lot of fun here, Brad. We say it’s about the journey.

1:48:01 I’m just so happy when you tell me that you’ve got new audiences or this happened of this happened, I don’t know, it just makes me happy. I guess that makes me a bad capitalist, but it just makes me happy, so I’m glad we’re having this conversation. I really enjoyed it, Brad, as always. Too completely. You don’t get too guys more different than me and Brad, and we’re having a good time.

1:48:17 So Brad, all the best. Please come back again another year and tell us how you’re doing. Thanks, guys. All right, take care. What we call reality is, in fact, nothing more than a culturally sanctioned and linguistically reinforced hallucination.

1:48:41 Week on London Real, I travel to Guthrie Castle in Scotland to be mentored by Dan Peña, the 50 billion dollar man. All the high-performance guys and gals that I know are exactly the same. They push and they’re not afraid of you know stepping on their dick, they’re not afraid of failure, they’re not afraid of embarrassing themselves. It’s fucking hard to be a high-performance person and be at the top of your game. When I don’t feel like being productive, I tell myself, you cunt, you’re going to do it anyway.

1:49:17 I believe in baptism by fire. We’ve had people pass out, people shit their pants. I am special. There’s no fucking doubt about it. My whole life I’ve been in the flow.

1:49:33 I was doing Spartan shit 40 fucking years ago. The only thing I can’t control is you giving up on yourself. I help people do what they don’t want to do to be what they want to be.