Brian Rose - From Freedom To Censorship On The Daniel Cleland Podcast

Full transcript: Brian Rose on Daniel Cleland Podcast

0:00 Announcer: Welcome to the Daniel Cleland Podcast. Plant Medicine. Entrepreneurship at Living. The Daniel Cleland Podcast.

0:14 Daniel Cleland: Welcome to the Daniel Cleland Podcast. I am Daniel Cleland. My guest today is the infamous Brian Rose. Brian is a man you’ve probably seen on his media platform.

0:35 London Real interviewing some of the world’s top luminaries in a range of subjects from health and fitness, psychedelics and spirituality to politics. Brian has produced three full length films, correct me if I’m wrong on that, Inside the Shadow, Iron Mind, and the recent film Reconnect, which featured Brian Stay right here at Sultar Healing Center and his subsequent integration process upon his return to London, UK, where he lives. He started his broadcasting adventure in 2011 and has now reached hundreds of millions of views. Am I correct in saying that? Millions of followers, big channel, people calling the Joe Rogan of Europe.

1:18 In the last few months, Brian has had an interesting battle with big tech platforms regarding censorship of his media content that simply came from guests who proposed alternative viewpoints on the pandemic science and the actions that were taken by governments around the world to prevent the spread of this annoying COVID-19. And today we’re going to talk about all that. We’re going to talk about Brian’s new campaign to run for mayor of London, UK, which is really exciting. Happy forum. Ladies and gentlemen, my friends, please welcome to the Daniel Cleland podcast, Mr. Brian Rose. Brian, how are you, sir? How are you doing?

2:04 Brian Rose: I’m great, man. So glad to be here. Thank you so much for having me on. And look, I just appreciate everything you do, Daniel. You know, my time in Sultara.

2:13 I guess it was two years ago was game changing for me, you know, and it really put me on the path I am today. And maybe we can talk about that later, because I think if it wasn’t for that second ceremony in your Maloka, I don’t think I would be running for mayor. And I don’t think I would have had the year we’ve had here fighting censorship. And I still have my hero’s journal right here with me, which I got at your place. And for people that don’t understand, this is kind of the integration journal slash diary slash everything that you get when you go to Sultara. I think there’s an upgraded version sense, but a really powerful piece of IP.

2:49 And yeah, you guys do an amazing job down there. And I just appreciate you, Daniel. You’ve also been super supportive of us over the years. I mean, you came to our premiere in New York. You came to our premiere in London. And yeah, I just really appreciate you, buddy. So super excited to be here and congrats on starting the podcast.

3:06 Daniel Cleland: Well, man, you know, you’re a huge inspiration for me. And I’m absolutely thrilled that you could join me. And I appreciate the favor because I know you’re a busy guy. And I know this is a new show. And, you know, you don’t just do new shows, you know, like, like it’s, you know, fortunately, you, along with some other really, really inspiring people who are connected to me through Sultara, have helped me out to kind of have this big, you know, 12 episode launch at the beginning with people who I would normally never get if it wasn’t for, you know, this kind of connection to Sultara.

3:47 And in terms of support, man, like, I still feel greatly indebted to you because you have literally been behind us since you came here in July of 2018 and had your experience. You know, it took, what, 18 months for Reconnect to launch. But I mean, in the meantime, you were putting out videos with Dorian advertising his retreats. You were doing video blogs about us. And you’ve been nothing but support. So anything that I’ve done in support of London Real, I feel, is pale in comparison to what you’ve done for us. And so, you know, don’t mention it there.

4:30 And, you know, watching you and your stance on leadership at the start of this pandemic has been hugely instrumental in the actions I’ve taken throughout this pandemic in that, you know, it was a scary time. And it’s like, okay, you know, obviously, we’re going to shut down for a period of time, months. I don’t know how many months, you know, I don’t know what that’s going to look like. I don’t know how much it’s going to hurt. But, you know, my approach, and I wrote about this in my new book, 12 Laws of the Jungle, which is about entrepreneurship.

5:11 I wrote about you and I referenced you a few times and how much you and your stance on leadership at the start of this pandemic inspired me to keep driving forward and producing things. So, you know, I might not have been able to run Sultara during this time, but I spent the whole pandemic writing a book, you know, we got a manuscript done in six months or seven months, which is kind of like a play by play live action journal of how an entrepreneur is dealing with the COVID pandemic. And, you know, just watching you and your show and everything like that inspire me to put the effort into starting my own show, which is not an easy feat, as you would know.

6:01 And, you know, just basically cultivating that leadership mentality when when other people are running away from the bullets, you run toward the bullets. And, you know, that’s that’s a really respectable thing. So I want to talk about some of your leadership philosophy, some of your entrepreneurial philosophy. I want to talk about your mayoral campaign. But since we kind of started on Sultara, why don’t you discuss the film Reconnect, how that whole kind of journey has been producing the film?

6:32 You know, you came here, you were expecting to have something out really quickly, but it ended up, you know, taking a lot longer because you were just kind of going through this process of integration. And, you know, and how did that process transpire once you like throughout the whole thing? How was all that?

6:49 Brian Rose: Yeah, so it’s a great question. So just a little background for for anyone who doesn’t know the whole story.

6:55 Nine years ago, I left my career in banking that I had been in in London for about nine years and inspired by Joe Rogan. I started to start my own podcast and I called it London Real. And I started having conversations in 2011 when not many people were doing this. And most people thought I was insane. And my friends and family thought I was crazy.

7:17 But I just really caught the bug for broadcasting. And I just would have these long form conversations, unedited, unscripted, uncensored. And I would publish them every week. You know, this is before Instagram. This is, you know, really early days.

7:30 And that’s why I also love when I see people starting their own podcast like you and I want to support them. I actually teach broadcasting in my academy. So right now I’ve got about 100 students doing exactly what you’re doing. Starting podcasts from scratch and they’re scared. They don’t know what to do, but they feel a calling because it’ll change your life.

7:49 So, you know, I’ve been broadcasting and, you know, over the years we had some great conversations with people like Dorian Yates. And for some of the key people, we decided to make movies with them. So, you know, funny enough, Dorian invited me to come down to Spain and spend a week with them. And we turned that into our first documentary film called Inside the Shadow and premiered it here in London at BAFTA. And we started going on this kind of quest to make films and we made tons of mistakes.

8:17 We didn’t know what we were doing, but I think the heart was there, you know, the kind of the philosophy was there and the genuine desire to kind of tell someone’s story. So we actually made a few films. Next, we went to Israel and film with Edo Portal, the movement guy who trains Conor McGregor. And then I went up to Scotland to film with my one of my high performance mentors, Dan Pena, the 50 billion dollar man, now the trillion dollar man. And then I was filming a movie called Iron Mind where I got challenged to do an Iron Man race at age 47 on a plant based diet.

8:53 And I just finished running that race. And we were still doing post production on that film when Dennis McKenna, our mutual friends, came calling me and said, Brian, I think you should go to Costa Rica and go drink some ayahuasca. And it was the worst time. I was still pretty thin because I’ve been training so much. And I’d just gone through a real journey of admitting some past drug addictions.

9:21 And I’d really come open about heroin overdose I had in a one. And it was like a big revelation to tell my friends and family. My wife had never heard about this in 16 years. And so it was time to go on a new adventure. And I went down to Sultara and it was incredible, you know, got formed a relationship with Dennis McKenna.

9:41 And Dennis basically invited me to come down there and I met you. I still remember meeting you on a Zoom call and, you know, boom, there you go. Went down to Sultara. I think you guys had just opened, I think. And it was me and Dennis McKenna.

9:54 Yeah, like we were open for a couple of weeks by the time you got there. So, yeah, so I think we came down there and, you know, had a week at Sultara and had three ceremonies at your incredible place down there. And it was absolutely amazing. You know, it was crazy because I didn’t know anything about you, Daniel. I’d never met you before.

10:14 I knew Dennis and I trusted Dennis, but, you know, I didn’t know what we were getting into. Little did I know we were going to probably one of the premier places in the world to have an ayahuasca ceremony. And I say that and the more I’ve known about you after that and the more people I’ve spoken to, this has only been corroborated. But you guys do an incredible job. You have tremendous respect for the medicine.

10:36 You have traditional, you know, shippebo, shamans. Your setup is incredible. I can’t say enough about you guys. And the integration process was amazing. You welcomed us in. And I brought a camera crew down there and we thought we’d make a film about this.

10:51 Little did I know it would take us 18 months to finish the film. And you guys, you know, you guys really stuck with us on that. And we created something I think was very beautiful and very genuine. And it really was the whole story of ayahuasca, which is not just about drinking some medicine and having an experience, but about integrating that experience back into your real life and the real world, which is ultimately where we all have to live. You can’t live in an ayahuasca world. You have to live in the real world.

11:17 And so I try to be really honest, really brutally honest about my own struggles with integration with my family, with my business, with my parents, with my childhood trauma. And we told a really honest movie that I’m really proud of. And so that was my experience with you, man. And it’s been a great relationship ever since. But again, I learned a lot in your maloka in Costa Rica, and it really set up my future.

11:44 You know, I would not be here today if it wasn’t for those ceremonies, Daniel. I don’t think I’ve ever told you that. But, you know, that second ceremony where you encourage me to do a double dose of the medicine was the most challenging experience of my life, was the most inspiring moment of my life. I’ve never, it was incredible. So yeah, thanks for that, man.

12:05 Daniel Cleland: Dude, it’s a true honor, and it’s very gratifying and heartwarming to hear you say that. I really appreciate it. I really, really do. And everybody at Sultara really does as well. So you came here, you had this big, massive experience.

12:24 You know, we did something we don’t normally do, which was, you know, we reduced the medicine down to a very concentrated, a very concentrated syrupy brew, which you drank. And it had a very strong effect and all that. We don’t normally do that for people, although after watching your movie, people do ask for that stuff. But it’s a little too much to do on a regular basis. But so you had this big experience. You know, like in your mind when you were here, it was kind of like, well, that was over.

13:03 Now you’re going to go make a film about it. But then when you go back to London, it’s like you just start like a whole new journey once you get back to London. So what was that like integration process like when you got back? You had some revelations about your family life and then you went back and you tried to implement those, those revelations about your family life and your wife, Marina. And Marina, right? Mariana, Mariana, sorry. Yeah, I’m sorry.

13:33 And yeah, you got into your business. So like, where did that push you and like what direction did that send you on and what kind of like, it’s like a hero’s journey. You got back and you like went on your own hero’s journey again after you’d already how many times done hero’s journeys in your life. But like, how is all that? How did all that play out when you got back?

13:55 Brian Rose: Yeah, it’s a great question. So I mean, if people are watching this that aren’t even familiar with the medicine, you know, and also everyone has different experiences. But, you know, when I go in, I always know it’s going to be a really challenging night. But I also know that three hours later, I will be back to reality. And even though I might feel like I’m going to die and I felt like I died on that second ceremony in 2020 or 30 times.

14:18 And it was very, very, very challenging evening. And it really pushed me to ask myself some hard questions about what I was doing with my life. And if I was if I was playing small and I didn’t really put this in the movie, Daniel, because it wasn’t as much of the narrative. But it was I asked I had to ask myself questions in that ceremony was I could I be going even bigger? And it’s a strange thing when you have like a show like mine and you’re making movies and having incredible people and hundreds of millions of views.

14:52 Everyone tells you how great you’re doing. But sometimes that stops you from being all you can be. And luckily, I have a mentor like Dan Bania, who is always saying I can do more and always saying I I see I see a thousand times more. And in that ceremony, I had a hard conversation with myself and said, you know what, you kind of need to step up and do a lot of things. I also saw things I wanted to do with my family and my business and my daughter and my kids.

15:20 And so you have this big download and you have this big vision of the future. And you’re like, I see it all. I know what I need to do. And then literally 24 or 48 hours later, after we went to the cloud forest, I’m back in London. I’m back in a city. I’m wearing a suit and I’m coming back to my office.

15:36 And it’s and then then you get to realize that guess what? The world has a different time frame for your vision. And I know a lot of people struggle and sometimes the first six months after ceremony, they can actually sometimes go down. And one of your integration specialists mentioned this at Sultara because you get a little frustrated because you’re not manifesting your vision. And at the same time, we had a movie to make about my ceremonies.

16:03 But when we edited it together, all it was was some dude in his 40s having an ayahuasca ceremony. And that’s not a movie that wasn’t a hero’s journey. So we stuck it on the shelf. And my filmmaker, Luis, you know, and who’s made all my films. I said, it’s not a movie, dude.

16:21 And so we’re not going to we’re not going to publish it because, you know, it’s a 40 minute, you know, national geographic special is what it is. But it’s not a movie. So we put it on the shelf and we just sat back and I watched my own journey of trying to become a better father, a better husband, a better leader, a better person. And it had it played out and it took about 18 months to really kind of play out until we could really tell a story of what I learned.

16:49 And I ended up actually having really hard conversations with my parents about their divorce. And, you know, we ended up telling a story that was my hero’s journey. So, yeah, that was the film. And that’s what happened when I came back. But it took about 18 months to play out.

17:05 Daniel Cleland: Cool. And did you did you find closure on on that conversation with your parents when you went there? Did that help you? Like, did you mention that that was kind of an embedded trauma that was driving some of the actions in your life or perhaps limiting you from some of the actions in your life? And then you went back and you had those hard conversations.

17:27 Did you find that that actually rooted out your your embedded traumas from that? Give you some closure?

17:33 Brian Rose: Yeah, I mean, very much so. I mean, you know, when I was seven years old, my parents got divorced. And for me, that was a very traumatic event in my life.

17:42 And as as I learned from Dr. Gabriel Maté, who was one of the guests in the movie, we had a star studded guest roster in the film because anybody that came on my show, I kind of just, you know, appropriated into my film without their permission. So we had Dr. Jordan Peterson. We had Michael Pollan, who wrote an incredible book about psychedelics.

18:02 We had Sad Guru. We had Gabor Maté. We had Dorian Yates, a whole list and host of people, Joe Dispenza. And we all pulled them into the narrative and they kind of helped me along this journey. They were like my, you know, my Obi-Wan Kenobi in this journey.

18:17 And they all had things to help me with. Dan Pena was in it as well. So they were helping me try to process this event I had in my life that that kept me kind of isolated most of my life and kept me isolated from people because I thought people would hurt me. And it’s strange. I had a conversation recently with one of the members of the House of Lords here in England.

18:37 He’s in his 70s, a really prominent guy. You know, you know, he made a lot of money in the city. Now he’s in the House of Lords. And he had a similar experience as a kid. His father died when he was four.

18:49 And we kind of connected with this sense of being wary of people. So it put me on this whole path in my life where I was quite isolated. And it just meant that I could never really connect with people. So that’s why we called the movie Reconnect. And my second ceremony showed me that this was a block.

19:06 And I got to talk to my mom and dad about it. And it really helped Daniel. And making the movie really helped the closure. And I felt like I left a lot of baggage behind me and processed it. And I think it allowed me to really move forward and be the man I am today, you know.

19:22 And just like in Iron Mind, I kind of spoke about this heroin overdose and this really horrible, ugly part of my past that I never thought I would tell anyone about. I hadn’t told my wife in 16 years. I had never told anyone. Only a few close friends knew about it. But by talking about it and processing it, it allowed me to go to the next level.

19:41 So yeah, it was a really big part in my journey. And the truth is, I’m sure there’s more I’m going to have to process. We’re always going through many hero’s journeys in our lives. But it was really important going to Sultara and having this and making a movie out of it. So it really set me up for 2020, I really think, in a big way.

20:00 Daniel Cleland: Ayahuasca is famous for improving relationships, for showing people, including myself. This has really been valuable for me, stopping me before I make, before I cross the line with somebody, showing me that my relationship is more important than being right, showing me that I’m nothing without my relationships, right? So, you know, this experience had a big impact on your family life. And maybe, do you have anything to say about how the Ayahuasca journey that you had affected your family life and your relation to your family?

20:40 Brian Rose: Yeah, you know, Ayahuasca is an interesting thing. I remember I had a conversation with Dan Hardy, the famous UFC fighter, many, many years ago. And I remember I asked him about Ayahuasca, and I had had some experiences early on in the show with Ayahuasca about eight years ago. So I knew of it. And remember he once said something, it was a really poignant line.

20:58 He said, Ayahuasca doesn’t change you, it just allows you to understand yourself better. And I always thought that was a really good line. And I would say that’s probably true about me. It just gives you a chance to take a step back and view yourself objectively and usually get some painful reminders of the way you’re treating people and how you maybe need to really consider how other people feel, the bigger picture, the bigger universe that isn’t just about you.

21:29 You know, they say Ayahuasca kind of destroys the ego, and I think it does do that to a certain extent. And it just allows you to get a better perspective on your life that in the long term will serve you better. If you don’t have that, you might get to where you’re 80 years old and you wake up and you’ll be in your deathbed and say, wow, I made my whole life about me and I’m just so miserable. Whereas if you maybe had that Ayahuasca ceremony that was super challenging, might have put your life in a bit of a stasis for six months, but you might have been able to make better decisions that would make you more connected.

22:02 Because I do think ultimately we’re here to connect with each other. We’re here to be of service to each other. We are all connected as one. The sooner you get that lesson, I think the sooner you’ll have a more fulfilling life. And Ayahuasca can be a really good component with getting that.

22:17 But when it gives you the message, it’s really hard to receive and it can be very painful emotionally, at least it is for me. And I can be really good at shutting down emotions in my normal life. But in the ceremony, it can really put me in touch with them. And it’s good, though, because it makes you take action because you feel the pain you’re causing to people. You feel the relationships you’re not showing up for.

22:41 You feel the necessity of you to step up and do more and be more. And that’s what I felt, man. So, yeah, it was powerful.

22:51 Daniel Cleland: Yeah, you know, sometimes people can be annoying, right? Sometimes you feel slighted by someone or sometimes you feel like you’re right and someone else is wrong and that can be annoying.

23:06 But you know what’s worse than being annoyed is being alone on your deathbed, right? That’s like you don’t want to get there. You just don’t want to get there. So, you know, that has been one of the main lessons that I’ve learned repeatedly from the medicine is like you need to preserve relationships in your life, even if you have to suck it up a little bit from time to time. What about the effect on your entrepreneurial life?

23:40 Like what kind of examples of actions or developments or changes that you implemented in your company after you got back? Like you said, you were playing small before, you thought you were playing small. So what did you do to kind of up your game once you got back in business, back in the game?

24:02 Brian Rose: Yeah, I mean, again, it sounds simplistic when I say I was playing small or we’re all playing small, but I mean, probably if anyone’s super honest with themselves that’s listening to us right now or watching us right now, if they’re really honest with themselves, they are playing small and potentially living a quiet life of desperation, as it’s been called.

24:29 And if you really want to honor this incredible life we’ve been given, then it’s actually your responsibility to go as big as possible every single day. And then some people say, but yeah, does that mean everyone’s an egomaniac? No, I mean, imagine if everyone you met in your life in one single day was being the best version of themselves. I’m talking about the best bus driver, the best barista at Starbucks, the best this, the best that. I mean, we would live in this incredible world where everyone was doing their best and being of service and fighting their own demons and fighting their own resistance.

25:03 And that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. And so I got back here and I was like, you know what? You’re still holding yourself back. You’re still self-conscious. You’re still not really stepping up and being a leader and really going as big as you can.

25:19 And so I just started trying to process that, which took a long time to process and really try to remind myself that I needed to fight all of my natural tendencies to not be that person. And it’s still a battle, but I feel like I at least got to see it in the ceremony. And now I know my default is not to take the risk, not to step up, not to go for it. So now I force myself to do those things. So that’s what it helped.

25:46 And yeah, it changed everything here at London Real. It changed the decisions we made, the risks we took. And that’s what an entrepreneur has to do, has to take risks. And it had a lot to do with 2020 and probably even me running for mayor.

26:00 Daniel Cleland: Did you find yourself pushing your staff harder for excellence?

26:04 Brian Rose: Yeah, that’s probably true. You know, at first, I wanted to try to make sure I listened to them and, you know, because ayahuasca can give you this thing of, you know, don’t make it all about you. And as a leader, you know, you kind of have to drive your business forward and push your vision. So it’s conflicting narratives to a certain extent, because you’re trying to listen to others, but you’re trying to stay true to your vision. You have to find somewhere in between.

26:27 And I’ve always struggled with that with psychedelics because the psychedelic says, no, listen to others. And you come back to the real world and say, yeah, but if you want to do something great with the life and inspire other people, then you also have to drive forward. So I’m sure you find yourself caught between those two extremes as well. And that’s part of life. You know, you have to say, you know, sometimes you have to override what the psychedelics tell you and say, okay, I see what you’re saying, but today we need to go out there and lead and do our best and compete to win.

26:59 And I think that’s necessary too. And I guess you see examples of that in nature as well. So, yeah, it was this fine line that we kind of talked about in the movie, and I found some kind of homeostasis with that. And I’m sure next time I come down and see you and drink, I’ll find another reset, and I’ll have to kind of deal with that. But I do think after that reset, I’ll be able to go higher the next time, you know, and connect more with my purpose and try to find this selfless way to serve and give back.

27:29 So, but I don’t know when that’s going to be.

27:33 Daniel Cleland: That’s a very interesting observation. And, yeah, it’s something I do find all the time, is like, you know, the recognition that it’s important to be receptive to feedback and to take in inputs from all the sources in the most impartial and unbiased way possible and receive that information and then make a decision, right? And sometimes your decision is not what other people would like it to be. And, you know, you have to, as the leader who’s ultimately 100% accountable to the outcome, for the outcome, you have to make a decision that’s based on what you believe is the right move, right?

28:31 What your intuition is telling you is the right move. What your analysis is telling you is the right move. What your life experience and your wisdom is telling you is the right move. Sometimes other people don’t like that. Sometimes they don’t like that a lot.

28:47 And, you know, you have to just, you know, put on your armor and stand your ground and, you know, sometimes walk through a barrage of negative energy and backlash to get done what you think is the right move. You know, as the founder, as the leader of an organization, you know, you have not only an ethical responsibility, but oftentimes a legal responsibility and a fiduciary responsibility to enact and to implement and to execute on the actions that you think are best for the organization, right?

29:29 Brian Rose: Yeah, very much so.

29:31 It’s a dance, you know, it’s a dance with the ego. I remember I was speaking to Graham Hancock one time, you know, the incredible author, who also speaks on psychedelics. He writes fiction and nonfiction. And he said, Brian, I like to drink ayahuasca and I like to dissolve my ego and find the right thing to do. But he said, it’s the ego that gets the book done.

29:50 You know, that’s what gets it published because I don’t want to look stupid and I want to make sure it’s good. And he said, that can be a good thing too. So, yeah, you have to kind of dance with that. You can’t be all one or the other or you get to these strange extremes. Yeah, you can’t be all peace and love and forgiving and let it go and, you know, because then you’re not gonna really be of service to others.

30:12 And the extreme is you’re gonna be a super unhappy, alone egomaniac trying to whip people into your vision. And that probably won’t work either. So, yeah, it’s somewhere in between. It really is. Compromise, man, compromise.

30:27 It’s all about compromise. But at the end of the day, you know, all we can do is we do our best, right? We do our best to make the decisions that we feel are going to have the least amount of collateral damage that are gonna have the least amount of casualties and that are gonna drive our organizations forward in the best way possible. And sometimes you nail that and sometimes you don’t. But you get better at that with experience, right?

30:55 And with decision-making experience on the battlefield. So in terms of entrepreneurship, what would you consider the most difficult aspect of entrepreneurship for you?

31:07 Brian Rose: Hmm, you know, I would say that the biggest lesson I learned about being an entrepreneur is that I am naturally very risk averse. I just am as a person for probably a lot of reasons. My education didn’t help because I went to school to be an engineer.

31:24 And when you’re learning to be an engineer at MIT, they teach you how to build bridges that don’t break and cars that don’t explode and planes that don’t fall out of the sky. So you’re always worried about the little risk, you know, that’s gonna break something. So, you know, and same when I was on Wall Street, I traded as well. So you’re always worried about that one event that’s gonna, you know, hit you with a $20 million loss that day. Unfortunately, that’s no way to run a business.

31:50 And any entrepreneur listening to me knows what I’m talking about, you’re probably shaking your head up and down, too, is that your job as an entrepreneur is to take risk. If you don’t take risk, you die. And luckily, one of my mentors, it’s Dan Pena, the trillion-dollar man, as he’s called now, by the way I gave him that title. And by the way, I made him famous on YouTube, and he says both of those things, who I still have a love-hate relationship with. He taught me that.

32:16 He taught me that I wasn’t taking risk and I must engineer risk into my life. And he says, once the engineers get it, they’re slow to get it, but once they get it, they really get it. It’s true probably about doctors and Germans, too. He’s got a lot of successful Germans. But once they get it, they really know how to get it.

32:33 So now I literally engineer risk into my life, and I look at the year and I’m thinking, if I’m not doing three or four projects that scare the hell out of me or that I could potentially fall flat on my face and look really stupid, then if I’m not doing that, then I’ll probably go bankrupt this year. So I’ve got to force myself to, yeah, run an Iron Man race in full view of everyone else that I could literally fail and fall and look stupid. Go down and have my Ayahuasca ceremony filmed.

33:03 Invest in a massive new building here when we don’t have the money for it. And et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. This year, fighting against YouTube, my major platform that was 99% of my business and going head-to-head with that, knowing that my business could literally go under for having that fight, putting my reputation on the line for nine years. But if you don’t do that, then you’re going to die as an entrepreneur. So that’s the biggest lesson I learned.

33:30 I wish I’d learned it sooner, and I have to remind myself every day to take that risk.

33:40 Daniel Cleland: Absolutely, absolutely. And that itself is a dance as well, that ability to endure the feeling of being at risk.

33:53 That’s where the stress comes from when you do something, when you make a move as an entrepreneur, when you put your money or someone else’s money on the line. That’s a big wait, man. When I started Sultara, I didn’t have the cash flow to invest millions of dollars in this property. I had to look for money from investors, from people. I don’t know a lot of multimillionaires.

34:25 I’m not connected to a whole bunch of money. I grew up in a small town in Canada in a very middle-class region in a kind of blue-collar family. And so I had to find multiple investors for smaller amounts. I had about 15 investors, kind of blue-collar investors that invested in Sultara. And I tell you, man, this whole time, especially during the startup phase, that feeling of constantly being at risk and having all of those people’s money at risk, that’s pretty heavy.

35:06 And there’s not a lot of people that can do that easily. And I wonder if that’s a thing that you practice, that you get better at as you kind of build confidence in that zone. But it’s absolutely necessary. And I would recommend to any kind of entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs who are listening to get comfortable taking risks, to get comfortable enduring that kind of difficult. It might be a two-year or three-year or five-year, or it might be periodic times where it’s really difficult and you’re carrying that risk above you.

35:45 So when you filmed Iron Mind, you basically put yourself in a very risky position, right? You were like broadcasting your journey, you were making all these commitments. I’m sure that felt like it was quite risky and you were filming yourself, you’d invested all this money into the film project and then you kind of came up to this final race where everything was on the line and everything you’d trained for was on the line. How was that experience mentally and psychologically?

36:25 And do you think that was relevant and important to your future success in entrepreneurship and in building the channel? And would you recommend that other aspiring entrepreneurs or leaders seek out very difficult rites of passage like that that really challenge you physically, psychologically and emotionally?

36:46 Brian Rose: Yeah, it’s a great question. And just a little background on it. Like I said, certain guests, they come into the studio and they resonate with us and we end up making movies about them.

36:59 We don’t really choose them, they kind of choose us. And one of those guys was John Joseph. He’s a lead singer of the hardcore punk band, The Crow Mags, which were really big in kind of the 80s and 90s in New York City. He had his own struggle with drug addiction, had his struggle with child sexual abuse as well at a foster home and really came out the other end sober and a guy that really got kind of addicted to Iron Man races as a way of just continuing to live his life.

37:31 He also had been a Hare Krishna monk for 30 years and a vegan for 30 years. So he came on the show. He kind of got in my biz a little bit. He’s a hard-talking New Yorker and he invited me to come to New York City and then pushed me, challenged me to run this Iron Man race on a 100% plant-based diet and wouldn’t take no for an answer. And so that’s what happened.

37:54 And we filmed the whole process and we actually were doing a real-time weekly piece as well. And then when I was in New York City, all my dark past came out. We didn’t really plan this, but it all came out on tape and I ended up confessing this dark past I had with drug addiction. And then I had to train for it in real time and run the business. And then I didn’t know how it was going to go.

38:17 I had never competed in an endurance race, let alone an Iron Man, let alone swimming 2K in a river. You know, all this stuff, you know, that sounds crazy. I just decided to do it and I was 47 years old. So it was just something we embraced. I knew it would be a risk and I knew I would look really stupid if I quit the race midway after spending, you know, months of everyone’s time.

38:43 And, you know, so yeah, it was pressure, but it was also, I also had a lot of love and support from people all around the world. And you could argue also, I was the one person in the race that had the most motivation to finish because I had a camera crew running around following me. I had people following my, you know, I was wearing an ankle bracelet. People were around the world were watching me that day. My dad in San Diego was watching me.

39:04 And so it ended up being an amazing experience. And yeah, it taught me that I could accomplish anything I put my mind to. And that was the amazing thing. A lot of people see that movie and they say, I could never swim. I could never do this.

39:17 But of course you can. All you have to do is just, you know, go figure it out. And so, again, once you get one of those under your belt, you realize that there’s almost anything you can do. And it was really another powerful moment in life where I was like, wow, okay, that’s another thing I can do. That’s another thing I can do.

39:35 And once you stack enough of those winds up, you know, David Goggins, the super famous Navy SEAL who was on my show, who’s got an incredible book out. I forgot the name of it, but I’ll think of it again. He calls it going into your cookie jar. So every time you’re faced with adversity in life and you don’t think you can do it, you go into the cookie jar and you remind yourself of a time in your life when you accomplished something you didn’t think you could accomplish.

40:00 And it doesn’t mean you walk around with a big head all day long and think I’m the greatest, but it means that when you come up with something, you say, wait a second. I ran an Iron Man race. Come on. Don’t tell me I can’t go do something else. I graduated from MIT.

40:14 Don’t tell me I can’t do this. You know, I did this. Don’t tell me I can’t do this. So this year when we faced a ton of pressure, I’m always going back to that cookie jar thinking, how bad is today? Is it that bad?

40:25 Is it as hard as it was in Chattanooga, Tennessee when I spent six hours on the Iron Man track? No. So I can handle this. And it’s a great concept. So yeah, I would say everybody out there, not just entrepreneurs, put yourself in challenging situations and don’t let your subconscious give you the narrative of, oh, I’m no good at swimming.

40:47 Oh, I’m no good at business. Oh, I’m no good at music. Oh, I’m no good at art. It’s this little narrative we play in our head that just makes us play these small lives. And it’s fear, which is my mentor, Dan Pena says, is an acronym for false expectations appearing real.

41:02 Most of us put these fear bubbles around us and we never go explore all these incredible things in our life. And 99% of the things we fear will happen to us never happen in business as well. So what are you doing? Most of us just need to go ahead and pull the trigger more in life and experience what happens. And yeah, sure.

41:23 Every now and then you’ll take a hit. I overdosed on heroin in 2001. It sucked. I could have died. Yeah, true.

41:31 But I also took a lot of other risks in life and I found my boundaries and I’m still here. So yeah, hopefully that’s a lesson for people out there. There’s so much of life we don’t explore because we don’t allow ourselves to explore it. And that was a bit of my lesson I taught myself in the ceremony is stop playing small. What are you worried about?

41:49 What’s the worst that’s gonna happen? We’re all gonna die anyways in the cosmos of time in the billions of years, your life, everything you do in your life is gonna be meaningless. So why not go for it?

42:05 Daniel Cleland: That’s so amazing to recognize and that’s also something that I have really, really come to understand over and over and over again. It’s what you tell yourself.

42:17 You might experience fear. I experience fear. I experience stress. I experience anxiety. But I know through lots of experience that I can talk myself out of it.

42:31 Self-talk is so important in self-motivation. Like you can literally do anything you tell yourself you can do. And yeah, so when it comes to kind of living in fear or not doing something because you feel fearful, you know, there’s a shortcut to get out of that. And that is just drive your mentality, drive your own mentality, drive your own self-talk to just push through that. And I think the word might be courage when you have a fear experience in front of you and you talk yourself through it anyways.

43:15 You walk through that door even though you feel fear and you tell yourself that you are dependable, that you can depend on yourself, that you can rely on yourself to make the decisions. Even if you don’t know the clear way through it, you can tell yourself that you will make the right decisions. So just take that step through that door and just keep going and depend on yourself to make that decision in the moment when it comes up. I found that to be a super, super important technique for doing anything that is outside of my comfort zone.

44:01 When you were launching Iron Mind, films like Iron Mind and Reconnect, where you got very personal about, you know, you kind of came out of the closet about your drug addiction and heroin overdose in New York. What kind of self-talk did you have going on there when you were kind of at that precipice of announcing to the world that this had happened to you? Because I know it was a challenge for you. Or like getting really vulnerable on Reconnect when talking about your parents’ divorce and getting emotional on camera.

44:48 What kind of self-talk is going through your mind when you’re about to launch that to hundreds of thousands of people?

44:56 Brian Rose: Yeah, it’s a great question. You know, I think doing London Real for years and years and years helped prepare me for those documentaries because I would sit in studio, Daniel, sometimes for two or three hours with, you know, men and women who would bear their soul to me and sometimes cry, you know. I’ve had Nigel Benn, the dark destroyer, one of the greatest boxers in the world, you know, crying for two or three minutes in front of me.

45:27 You know, Eddie Hall, the strongest man in the world, crying. You know, I’ve had Dorian get emotional. I mean, I’ve been around really strong, powerful people that have told me they’re real stories. And so, you know, it’s called London Real for a reason. So when I was with John Joseph in New York City and I was literally having an emotional moment being in New York because I was remembering all the failures I had and he was putting me through this rigorous workout.

45:54 And it just, you know, I was on a bike one time doing a six minute max heart rate test and I just started crying when I was on the bike. And I mean, and then it was finally time to talk to John. And if John hadn’t have been so open about his own abuse and for a tough guy like John to talk about being sexually abused as a kid, I mean, you know, he set the stage for saying it’s okay to open up. And that’s where you give the most service is when you open up about your own failures and darkness.

46:25 So it was just a perfect setup for me to be honest. And I needed to talk about this too. You know, I needed a place to do it. And my camera team was super supportive and it just happened, man. It was, I mean, it was emotional to say the least.

46:39 And then when we got back to London, we’re like, oh man, what are we gonna do with that? Like, you know, and like the guys were like, well, maybe we just say it was an addiction. And then, and then my film maker, Louise is like, looking at me like, really? And I’m looking at him like, we can’t do that. And then finally, it’s just like, this is London Real.

46:58 And I’m always encouraging all my students in my academy to get vulnerable about their past. So it was time to walk the walk, you know, and not just talk the talk. So we just went all in and I wrote an email. I remember, well, I played the episode for my wife. First time she ever heard about it, because we made the weekly episode.

47:17 We played it for her. Of course, my camera crew filmed that. So that’s what a filmmaker does. They film your wife when you tell her this stuff. And so she’s in the movie, in real time watching this revelation about the man she loves, telling her a secret that’s 16 years old, which is heavy stuff.

47:34 She slaps me in a nice way afterwards. And then I wrote an email to all my followers, to hundreds of thousands of people. And I remember the subject lines was said, my heroin overdose. And it was like, it was a hard email to write. But once I wrote it, Daniel, I got thousands of replies from people saying, I did the same thing.

47:54 My brother did the same thing. And it was just this incredible source of light that came out of one of the darkest moments of my life. So yeah, it was the right thing to do, man. And then the more you do it, if you’re around supportive people and my filmmaker, Luis, who constantly pushes me, and then we would just look at each other and reconnect and say, is this real? Is this honest?

48:15 Is this truthful? Because the truth is the only thing that holds up. And we make films, man, we are very detailed about our films, as you probably noticed. Every frame is thought out, every voiceover is thought out. And if it’s not real, then the audience knows it.

48:30 And so we just try to make it real, sometimes too real. So I cried so much. I mean, I had to watch that movie probably 800, 900 times. You know, I watched it over and over again until it was perfect. And I’d be in my office crying every day watching that movie.

48:44 It was crazy. So, but yeah, hopefully it’ll be something that can help a lot of people for, you know, hundreds of thousands of years.

48:52 Daniel Cleland: Well, man, that movie brought me to tears when I went to the premiere of Iron Mind, right? And that brought me to tears. I went to the premiere of Reconnect.

49:02 That fucking brought me to tears. So I mean, yeah, that kind of vulnerable, that vulnerable connection, that emotional connection with the audience I think is super important. What have you learned about leadership from your mentor, Dan Pena?

49:21 Brian Rose: Wow. I mean, look, you know, Dan is, he’s a very unusual guy, but he changed my life.

49:27 You know, in 2014, he walked into my studio and, you know, he taught me so much, changed my life forever, that guy, really gave me some hard learning lessons and put me on a different course. It changed the course of London Real, changed the course of my life, and spending time in his castle just took me on a whole other trajectory. So, you know, that guy taught me a lot. You know, it’s just real basics with Dan Pena, you know, just real basics. You know, he’s taught me a lot about self-talk, taught me a lot about affirmations, taught me a lot about risk-taking.

50:04 Being around greatness is a powerful thing, Daniel. And Dan Pena gets a lot of criticism, and especially when I first started, I had him on the show, he got a lot of criticism. Now, he’s considered, you know, cult figure, pretty well-respected for his results, but at the time then, he was highly politically incorrect. You know, nasty things coming to his mouth treated me nasty as well, until I became one of his, on his hall of fame. You know, he used to say horrible things to me about my show and about my listeners, but I kept him around because at the same time, he was holding me to task and forcing me to be better and better and better.

50:42 And I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for him. And so, you know, being around someone like that, that, you know, doesn’t compromise, that does things for the right reasons, you know, that’s been super helpful. So, yeah, I mean, I don’t know if I could boil it down into a bunch of lessons, but, you know, teaching me to take risk, the affirmations, all that stuff is super powerful.

51:07 Daniel Cleland: Do you think society has a lack of leadership right now? Do you think we used to be less fearful as a society and more courageous?

51:15 Brian Rose: Well, you know, one of the things Dan Pena always said is that political correctness is a manifestation of a lack of self-esteem. That’s what he said. Now, think about what that says. Political correctness, which we’re surrounded in these days, you can’t even say the obvious sometimes. You have to say something around the obvious.

51:31 People are being canceled for saying the views or contradicting each other. He says that’s a manifestation of a lack of self-esteem. So, you know, you don’t believe in yourself, so you are willing to kind of kowtow to the mob and accept whatever they tell you, no matter how ridiculous it is. And I’m not gonna go and talk about some of the ridiculous things that we see being towed on the line, but, you know, if you go down that route, it’s super disempowering.

52:03 And so, yeah, we see that happening today that wasn’t happening as much 20, 40, 50 years ago in Dan’s generation. And sure, there are limits to Dan, but I do think that, yeah, I mean, it’s all wrapped up into leadership, making a difference. You have to be willing to not care what anyone thinks. You have to be willing to make enemies. You have to be willing to be honest with your opinion and say, no, you’re wrong, and I don’t care what you think, and you can try to cancel me, and I’m just gonna do it anyways.

52:32 And it can be dangerous these days. And we’ve had to, we made a lot of people upset this year with what we’ve done, and our whole 2020 experience with censorship has been a lot of that. And I’ve really now experienced what it’s like to kind of be canceled for saying things that just aren’t considered politically correct. And I have no interest in doing that. I will not do that.

52:55 And that’s why I cherish guys like Dan Pena, who still are not afraid to say what they think is the truth. And there’s not many people like him anymore.

53:05 Daniel Cleland: Yeah, I mean, we’ve had just a, like you’ve had all kinds of crazy experiences with this this year, which I’d love to get your views on. But even just, and I’m on the same page, like I think this is a very dangerous, very dangerous thing that’s taking place right now when you’re not even allowed to express your views.

53:27 You’re not even allowed to talk to someone who expresses views. You’re not even allowed to talk to someone who’s talked to someone who’s expressed their views. And in case in point, we have a mutual associate here who is really not a big fan of either of us, I don’t think, right now. But I won’t mention any names, but this person was associated with me in a business capacity. And when I mentioned that I was going to speak with you on my show, that person, you know, is very much in that category of kind of leftist, cancel culture, kind of thought police.

54:21 And, you know, and I don’t go there. Like, I just can’t, you know. I know like working in the ayahuasca space here, that’s a real challenge because people double down on that. If like, say I run an ayahuasca center and people assume that I should have a certain set of social political beliefs or that I should be a certain way. And if I say anything that is even mildly critical of one side or even mildly different than kind of mainstream narrative or what people expect from me, then, you know, there’s a threat of someone writing a post and talking negatively about me or about Sultara.

55:16 And it’s something that, you know, as an organization, we have to be constantly conscious of, of just saying the wrong thing because, you know, someone could cancel us and just start this campaign of like tarnishing my reputation or tarnishing Sultara’s reputation just because of a simple political comment or a comment related to, you know, my disliking for the lockdowns or, you know, what have you that is even slightly socially charged. It’s like a, it’s a nuclear bomb waiting to go off. And it’s, I think that’s just such a dangerous path that we’re walking right now, man because it goes in one direction, right?

56:01 And that’s towards, I mean, basically some of the less, the less digestible social political paradigms that, you know, we’ve seen historically that I won’t mention by name, but, so this person once they found out that I was going to speak with you on the podcast basically gave me an ultimatum to cancel you because of who you’ve talked to during the pandemic or she was going to cancel me. So I said, I’m sorry, I’m not playing that game. I’m not playing that game.

56:42 You know, I fully wholeheartedly believe against what is going on right now with this cancel culture, the shaming. You know, as you said, the people aren’t leaders because they lack self-esteem these days. Well, how does all of this shaming come into play? You know, you should be ashamed of yourself because you’re white or because you’re male or because you believe this or because you believe that. And that is not cultivating a strong and leadership full society.

57:17 So yeah, at the end of the day, you know, I stood for my beliefs on not playing into that hand, not playing into the cancel culture hand and saying, you know what? I don’t agree with the opinions of some of these people who Brian has talked to on his podcast in the last nine months. He doesn’t agree with all the opinions of those people that he’s talked to on his show. But I am not going to cancel him because he talked to some people and because they have different views than what the mainstream narrative, what the WHO said, the WHO, which has contradicted itself multiple times anyways, seems like nobody’s really correct about how to play a correct response to the pandemic and to the lockdown.

58:10 But anyways, yeah, so I stood my ground, stood for my beliefs. I was very diplomatic and I said, I actually want to have varied opinions. I would love to speak with you as well, referring to this person on the show and have you voice whatever you’d like to voice as well if you have contrasting opinions to Brian or to the people who he’s talked to on his show. And of course, the answer was no. That person did not want to associate with me if I was associating with you.

58:41 So this is just like how far is it going to go before we turn the ship around and start moving back toward free speech, cooperation, non-polarization, dialogue, trying to build a bridge between these two sides instead of constantly criticizing each other for being wrong and for being shameful and the need to apologize for everything you do. What has your experience been with all that? Because I know you’ve gone through an arduous journey. You mentioned earlier you’re battle with YouTube and everything.

59:26 What has your year been like?

59:28 Brian Rose: Yeah, well, first of all, look, I appreciate you standing up for your own beliefs. I mean, the fact that I was involved, I also appreciate too, but the way to battle this is to hold your ground and be yourself. And I know that’s really hard, especially when you have a business and you’re in a space that probably associates you with a certain type of thinking. I know that can be really tricky to navigate.

59:53 And look, you know, for years, people have been trying to tell me what London Real should be. For years, Daniel. Oh, you should have this guest song. Why don’t you have more of these guests on? Why don’t you say this?

1:00:04 Why are you going to say that? I’ve had people quit my academy because of Dan Pena being on my show. This is years ago before cancel culture was even an expression. And I was just like, okay, I guess you’re going to have to go. And people repeatedly try to tell me what my show is.

1:00:21 And Mike, I always say my show is my show. And guess what? You can do your show. But, you know, don’t tell me what my show is. And my show has a certain audience.

1:00:31 And my show, they, by definition, like what I’m doing. So I don’t necessarily need to have an equal part of this or an equal part of that or this or that. I’m actually doing just my thing. And I also don’t need someone to tell me who I am or what I need to do to prove to them who I am. And we saw a lot of that this year.

1:00:50 Well, if you don’t do this, then that means you’re this. And if you don’t do this, that means you’re this. And it’s like, I’m not here to perform for you. I know who I am and I’m confident with who I am and I’m just going to keep being me. But a lot of people felt a lot of pressure to do differently.

1:01:05 And I’ve had a lot of conversations with a lot of people about this. Funny enough, Daniel, it used to be the right or the conservative side that would censor people and vilify people. If you go back into some of the McCarthy era in the 40s where they were going out and trying to find the communists in America, it was like the conservatives. But now it’s the left leaning, usually the liberal people that are now enforcing things like censorship, which is strange.

1:01:32 And also they take it to an extreme and they end up canceling each other sometimes. So they’ll cancel their friends because they weren’t towing the specific line they’re doing. I know conservatives love to watch that happen because they think it’s quite comical because they eat their own, they say. For me, I think it’s just all a tragedy. And so it’s probably linked a little bit to what happened this year with us.

1:01:55 And on April 6th of this year, I got a very quick lesson in what censorship was. And we live streamed a conversation on London Real just like I’ve been doing for nine years now. I had a guest in the studio in the leather chair. We had a long, calm conversation for two and a half hours. We streamed it on YouTube.

1:02:15 It happened to be the second largest YouTube live stream in the world that day, second to Donald Trump’s coronavirus briefing that day. It was massive. And if the show would have been allowed to stay on the platform, it would have been watched 30 or 40 million times, would have been the most watched video podcasts in human history, would have been bigger than Elon Musk on Joe Rogan. But it was banned and deleted. And we started our entire battle with censorship on YouTube.

1:02:45 And we started having some of these conversations that you just mentioned with people that wanted to censor us and wanted to stop us from talking about a variety of things. And so it was a really interesting few months of having conversations with people. And I had to really ask myself, what does freedom of speech mean? Do we have the right to decide the ideas that we are allowed to put in our own brains? And Graham Hancock said that about psychedelics, Daniel.

1:03:14 On my show eight years ago, he said, if we do not have sovereignty over our own bodies, what do we have? Why should the state have sovereignty over our own bodies? And he was talking about your choice to consume psychedelics, which is still illegal in many countries, which is why you’re in Costa Rica, for example. And so if you don’t have sovereignty over substances, shouldn’t you have sovereignty over the information you put in your ears? And yet government is saying it’s too dangerous to allow you to consume an idea.

1:03:44 A social media platform saying they can’t broadcast an idea. I never thought that would happen to me on London Real. I thought censorship happened to weirdos and conspiracy guys and crazy people. But here it was happening to me in real time. And so our natural decision was to fight back and say, hell no.

1:04:03 And so we pushed back. We started a fight with YouTube that was very damaging to us, nearly cost us our entire channel, which is nine years, 8,000 videos, half a billion views, and millions and millions of dollars of revenue, potentially down the tubes. We are literally one video away from being de-platformed. I’ve been told that for the past four months. One upload away.

1:04:30 And that means we could say something here today. And if I upload this video and they feel it violates community policy for hate speech, then the whole channel is gone. And so it’s this sort of Damocles and it makes you censor yourself and it’s everywhere and it’s horrible. And like you said, it leads to things down the road, which used to be depicted in movies like 1984, the thought police. It happened in regimes like Stalin’s and Hitler’s, where you’re burning books.

1:05:01 When you’re deleting videos on YouTube, it’s a lot like burning books and they’re extinguishing ideas. Luckily, we had a whole army of people from around the world and they supported us and we ended up creating our own digital platform and streaming our own content. And I was blown away by the response. But it was very, very difficult times this year. It was hard.

1:05:23 But it also taught me who I was. And I was so proud of the team and I’m so proud of what we did. But a lot of people hated us. I tried to get coverage in the mainstream media, Daniel, for eight years. I couldn’t get it.

1:05:34 Nobody would write about us because I think our independent media platform threatened theirs. I wanted to get an article written by Vice Magazine. I wanted the BBC to write about me. I wanted the Times of London to write about me. Nobody would until this year.

1:05:48 Then they all wrote about me. Of course, they had nasty things to say about me. But hey, I got the press. And what I also got was thousands of people around the world. We raised a million and a half dollars.

1:06:00 We created the digital freedom platform. We streamed the largest live stream of a human conversation in history. We did the largest premiere of a documentary film in history. I’m talking about one million, 1.3 million, 1.6 million live people watching on our own platform, not on YouTube. It was made by a trillion-dollar company.

1:06:22 So it was an amazing success, but we also made enemies. But also, after it’s all said and done, we got a lot of respect from people that saw what we did. And I’ll say one final thing, Daniel. I made enemies, but I also made some incredible allies. Wimbledon champions contacting me.

1:06:40 World champion boxers. Supermodels. People, you know, premier league football players. High-level influence people saying, Brian, continue. They donate promoting our stuff.

1:06:53 And I’d rather have allies like that and haters any day of the week than honestly just have a bunch of people think we were doing the right thing. So that’s what this year has been like. It’s been interesting.

1:07:09 Daniel Cleland: Yeah, man. I’ve worried about you, you know, about you losing your platform during all this.

1:07:16 But I’m glad to see that you’re still going. But it seems like you have been penalized a little bit from this, right?

1:07:23 Brian Rose: Oh, yeah, massively. I mean, but we got thrown off pretty much every platform, you know, so honestly, content strikes on YouTube, you know, massively censored on YouTube, you know, hundreds of videos taken down on YouTube, Facebook, you know, banned, Instagram banned, Shadow banned, LinkedIn thrown off the platform, Dropbox, PayPal, all shut down.

1:07:45 So, yeah, we’ve had some real challenges there and are still dealing with Shadow ban issues and all sorts of other problems. So that comes with the territory. And it’s just we had to kind of make peace with not having some of these options. And you just kind of got to make peace with some of that and try to move forward. Again, it’s like embracing some of that risk, you know.

1:08:06 How can you imagine a life without a platform like YouTube? I couldn’t. If you told me a year ago, I was going to lose my YouTube channel, I would have said then we’re dead. And nowadays, we’re just finding a way to live with it. And I’m sure we will in the future if it does.

1:08:22 I’ve kind of made peace with it. But also, that’s, you know, you learn that in an ayahuasca ceremony too, you know. What’s the worst that’s going to happen? We’re all going to die one day, you know. And a lot of times, my greatest fear, Daniel, was losing my YouTube platform, created our greatest success ever, the digital freedom platform.

1:08:39 You know, it got us, it made us world famous for defending freedom of speech. We created content that’s been watched 30, 40, 50 million, 100 million times. So, you know, my worst fear, Daniel, turned out to be our greatest success. If that’s not a lesson for people out there to really question those fears that you have, then I don’t know what is.

1:09:00 Daniel Cleland: Do you think you’re going to recover the, you know, the viewership and, you know, the kind of get over the shadow band and all this kind of stuff?

1:09:09 Brian Rose: I don’t know. I don’t know and I don’t care. It’s honestly out of my control. So, all we can do is wake up every day and say, how can we be of service at London Real? How can we do what we think is right?

1:09:20 How can we teach? How can we put out the best content that answers the questions and tells the truth? And by any means necessary, as Malcolm X would say, how can we get it out there? If it’s on YouTube, great. If it’s not, we’ll go on a digital freedom platform.

1:09:33 If not, we’ll go on Instagram. If not, we’ll get it on a Telegram channel. We’ll find a way. And who knows? And that’s also led to, you know, me also continuing to think outside the box.

1:09:45 And that’s when, you know, this whole concept of running for mayor of London came about. Maybe I can be even more effective, Daniel, by leading a city. And then maybe I don’t need YouTube, you know? And this is a great thought exercise to anyone listening. Like, what if you killed all your darlings?

1:10:02 Everything you thought was necessary to your survival and you were forced to innovate on the back of that. So, what if our YouTube channel is taken away? Maybe that’s a sign from the universe that says, guess what? Maybe you need to go be the mayor of London, make some real change, you know? So, you know, maybe the world’s telling us stuff and this probably had something to do with the evolution here as well.

1:10:23 Daniel Cleland: Well, that’s obviously a good segue. And if you have time to answer, you know, or just discuss your involvement running for mayor of London, the reasons why you’re doing it, what you expect to get accomplished, and anything else you have time to share and want to share, we can kind of wind down on that note if you want to do that.

1:10:44 Brian Rose: Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, if you watch the movie Reconnect, you’ll see our mission statement on the wall here in our London Real world headquarters.

1:10:54 And it’s quite simple. It’s to create a mass-scale transformation of humanity into a fully empowered, conscious, and cooperative species. You know, that is our mission statement. And I encourage everyone to think about your mission statement as an individual and as a company. And I know they’re a pain to do, and it sounds like something they do in Silicon Valley, but it’s really important to really find out what do you stand for, you know?

1:11:17 What is your family crest? You know, what are the core values to who you are as a person? And if you know your principles, then all other decisions are based on those principles and you don’t have to rethink them all the time. What do you stand for? Do you stand for the truth no matter what?

1:11:32 Do you stand for freedom of speech no matter what? Do you stand for your principles? Or are you going to kowtow to someone that wants to come over here and say, guess what? If you don’t do that principle today, we’re going to give you a little money and we’ll let you off the cook and you can keep publishing on YouTube. Deal?

1:11:47 And then you’re like, no, that’s not a deal because it’s a principle, which means it’s non-negotiable. So when I look at that mission statement, it’s to create that mass-scale transformation of humanity. And when we started looking around, we started looking at the city we were in, and I started looking at the leadership in this country, in this city, and in the world over the past eight months. And I think most people could agree the leadership has been pretty poor, pretty appalling.

1:12:14 A lot of world leaders making decisions that aren’t based in science, aren’t based in any proportionate response to the virus, and just no leadership. Nobody willing to step up and do the hard things and lead from the front. Zero courage, just zero courage at all. Like it’s appalling. And so, you know, my part of what we were doing here on London Real was pointing out all the things they were doing wrong, right?

1:12:38 They’re doing this wrong, they’re doing this, they’re taking away our freedoms, all that. At some point, Daniel, and I tell all of my team here, and I’m sure you say this to your team, you know, anybody can bring me a problem. Your job is to bring me a solution. That’s why you’re part of this team. And I always believe in that.

1:12:53 So we ask that to ourselves, what’s the solution? And I look at the leadership in this city and it was appalling. And funny enough, because of COVID, the mayoral race was postponed a year. And funny enough, that timing was perfect. And I had never thought about political office.

1:13:10 To be honest, Daniel, our business has never been better. It’s never been bigger. And I’ve never been more needed in this company than ever. So this is the worst possible time for me to run for office. It’s a massive pay cut.

1:13:24 It’s a very hard job that most people are going to criticize me for, regardless of how well I do it, all right? So I’m setting myself up for a world of hurt for the next three or four years. Let’s be honest. That’s what it is. There’s no upside.

1:13:37 Nobody would want to do this job, which is probably the reason I have to do it. Because the reason I’m doing it is because it needs to be done and it needs to be done in a selfless way that’s to serve the citizens of the city, period. Nine million citizens. The job is to listen and to serve and to make the right decisions. And what I see our politicians do in this fake two-party system that pretends to compete with each other but end up basically doing the same thing and they both stay in power for hundreds of years.

1:14:04 We have the same system here. They have different names, but it’s the same racket. You know, they argue with each other and one of them gets elected, the next one gets elected and nothing really changes. We need fresh ideas. We need a new direction.

1:14:18 We need new leadership. And we need to start basing decisions based on all the science that we’ve been talking about here for the past seven months. So we’re going to do it, you know, because it’s the right thing to do and it’s the best way to be of service. And so we thought long and hard about it and we announced about four and a half weeks ago. The response has been absolutely incredible, Daniel.

1:14:40 We quickly became a favorite in the Oddsmakers, the bookmakers here in London that make odds on everything, you know, from sports to political events. Right away from the gate, they put us in third place, which was unheard of for an independent candidate, never seen in history in the mayoral race. We quickly moved into second and we’re about to move into first place, which is again, completely unheard of. So I think it’s because we have a massive following at London Real.

1:15:07 We’ve been speaking the truth and I think our policy ideas are absolutely incredible. And so we’re feeling super empowered. We’re feeling super grateful and full of a lot of incredible energy. And look, we plan on moving into City Hall on May 7th and changing this city. And we’re really excited.

1:15:27 So I never saw myself going down on this journey, but I will say one thing, Daniel, I think some of this goes back to your Maloka in June of 2018 or May whenever I was there. And what I was shown in that ceremony, which was step up and be the man that the world needs you to be. And honestly, I don’t know if I’d be running for mayor if it wasn’t for that. So I’m super grateful to you. And I’m grateful that I can finally just hopefully do that and be of service.

1:15:59 So that’s our plan. It’s gonna be a hard race. They’re gonna throw everything at us. I mean, if we thought we got a hard time this year and I got a ton of flack and a ton of hate, that’s nothing compared to what these political parties are gonna throw at us in the next five months. It’s gonna get nasty, real nasty.

1:16:16 And we’re prepared, whatever happens, happens. So that’s the plan.

1:16:21 Daniel Cleland: Yeah, man, you really made a couple of good points there. First of all, I have looked at your policies and they look great, man. Your approach I think is phenomenal.

1:16:33 And that is exactly what I think London needs. I think it’s what the United States needs. You’re looking at all this chaos going on there right now. It’s like, dude, man, get someone in the Maloka, or sorry, get someone in the White House who’s got experience in the Maloka, who has been through the hard challenges, who’s accustomed to executing heavily on all these different things that you’re accustomed to doing, leading a team, who’s good leading media. That’s one reason why Trump did well, because he’s really good with the media and everything like that.

1:17:13 And he’s accustomed to doing business, obviously comes with some problematic elements. But if you had someone with those similar positive qualities lacking the negative qualities, I think that would be a winning recipe and something that’s much needed. I think the problem here with basically around the world, is that the people who want to be politicians shouldn’t be politicians. The people who don’t want to be politicians should be politicians. Because like you said, it’s a huge loss.

1:17:49 You’re going to walk into a world of hurt. You’re going to have all this shit in the world slung at you. You’re going to take a pay cut. And why wouldn’t you just stay in your comfortable business when you can run things the way you want, make more money, have your lifestyle with your family and everything like that? And the answer to that has to be, because you see the need for change.

1:18:13 You see the need to make a difference and you know that you can do it. You can be the guy who’s going to work the media. You be the guy who’s going to bring a team together. You be the guy who can make discerning decisions and incorporate science as well as common sense and wisdom and balance all that with your experience in executing on objectives over and over and over and over again. That is all super critical stuff.

1:18:44 And man, as soon as I saw that announcement I was super excited for you, really happy for you. We popped a little in the pot there for you to kind of help with some of the campaign finance and I just really wish you the best, man. I really hope that you can utilize some of this content to help you in that campaign. And if there’s anything we can do here, or I can do, absolutely happy to do it.

1:19:17 Brian Rose: Awesome.

1:19:18 And no, thank you. And I appreciate the campaign donation. You’ve always been super supportive of us, Daniel. So yeah, no, it makes a difference. You know, just having your support and energy.

1:19:28 And yeah, I mean, we’re super excited. We want to bring this media platform to the mayor’s office. And I don’t think anyone’s ever seen anything like it. I mean, Trump had his Twitter account, but we’re going to have a 5 million follower media channel. So I feel like communication is one of the biggest problems politicians have and they also don’t connect with the younger generation or any generation because they’re not really on social.

1:19:51 And I think that’s a big reason why they’re not even trusted by the younger generation. We’re going to be on there. I’m going to be vlogging every day about what I’m doing as the mayor. I’m going to be communicating my challenges. I’m going to be asking for feedback.

1:20:03 I don’t think anyone will recognize the way we’re going to run this office. And I’m super excited and we plan on winning and we plan on being a model to cities around the world. Honestly, hopefully, London will show what New York could do, what LA can do, what Sao Paulo can do, what Madrid can do. And so yeah, we’re super excited. And I do think coming at it as an entrepreneur is a completely different perspective than a politician.

1:20:28 And funny enough, you know, Graham Hancock originally said eight years ago, he said, politicians should do 10 ayahuasca ceremonies before they run for office and then decide if they want to run for office because I agree, our current crop of politicians shouldn’t be there. You want to find someone who doesn’t want to be a politician because they’re the ones that will probably get the job done. So that’s what we think and that’s what we’re going to do. So thanks for the support, man. I appreciate it.

1:20:55 Daniel Cleland: Right on, man. Thank you for being such an inspiration, setting an example, being a leader, setting an example for other leaders to be leaders, to inspire other leaders to be leaders. This is kind of a positive feedback loop that I hope I can also contribute to and you’re a real motivating force for me. So thank you so much. Really appreciate your time today.

1:21:20 Brian Rose: I know we went a little over time, so thank Roberta for me. Thank you, Roberta. Next time in London, I’ll take you guys out for dinner and go somewhere nice. So yeah, thanks for your time. Thanks for staying late.

1:21:38 Daniel Cleland: Man, been a real pleasure chatting with you. Obviously, people find you at londonreal.tv on the internet, on Instagram at the real Brian Rose and at londonreal.tv. You’ve also got Brian for Mayor channel now on Instagram. Correct.

1:21:59 Brian Rose: Yeah, you can find it all via my Instagram, so they’ll all link to the others.

1:22:06 So yeah, all of that. You can follow all of our channels on Instagram and most of the other socials as well.

1:22:11 Daniel Cleland: Dope. All right, man. Thank you so much.

1:22:13 Really appreciate it, brother.

1:22:14 Brian Rose: No, thanks, man. And I just want to say just, you know, in closing, man, I appreciate everything you do. I know it was challenging with the lockdown, but you stayed focused. I’m so excited you guys are open again.

1:22:24 And again, I said it before, but I’ll say it again. I mean, literally, you guys are a cut above when it comes to what you do there, providing incredible ceremonies, incredible medicine, incredible integration. I can’t say enough great things about you. And it’s not just me. It’s Dorian Yates.

1:22:40 It’s Dennis McKenna. It’s Gabo Monte. I’ll say Sultara is the best place. So I appreciate what you do. I know you’re always investing in the properties.

1:22:47 You always keep your standards really high. Honestly, Daniel, I’m super impressed. I don’t think I could run your business anywhere near as good as you do, seriously. And I know it’s super challenging to keep everything to a high spec. So thanks for everything you do.

1:23:00 And thanks for trusting us. And thanks for inviting us down there with open arms. And it’s been great knowing you. And I really appreciate your support. And I don’t say that a lot of people, Daniel.

1:23:09 You’re always there for us, like seriously. You’re always showing up. You’re always supporting us. And hopefully we can always support you back. So thank you, brother.

1:23:17 I appreciate you. And congrats on the podcast.

1:23:20 Daniel Cleland: Thank you, sir. Hopefully we can do another something, be bringing out the book maybe in Q2 of next year or so, Q1, Q2 of next year. So maybe we can jump on, have another conversation at some point.

1:23:32 Brian Rose: All right, man. When you’re mayor of London.

1:23:46 Daniel Cleland: Exactly, right?

1:23:51 Brian Rose: All right, man. Thank you so much.