Brian Rose - The Evolution of London Real

Full transcript: Brian Rose on London Real

4:44 Set design by Timothy Ulton. This is New York Real times London Real. I’m Olive. Today my guest is Brian Rose. Brian is the creator and host of London Real and the founder of London Real Academy.

5:15 I don’t need to tell you anymore, and his subscribers is approaching 100,000 subscribers, and we should just jump in our conversation. Welcome to New York Real and London Real. Thank you all. Thanks for doing this. It’s really nice to be here.

5:36 It’s nice to be in this chair. I usually sit there. I feel much more relaxed. You know, like I don’t have to worry about where the interview is going. So thanks for doing this.

5:45 By the way, I know it’s your birthday. Happy birthday! Thank you, and happy birthday to the United States of America. Oh, I say thank you for United States. Now, I asked you to do this a few weeks ago, right?

5:59 I asked you if I can interview you, right? Okay, and then you said you think about it, right? And then I was like, he better say yes. And the questions started coming because I mentioned to our fellow London Real Academy members that I might be doing that, and then they are sending me questions privately, and Brian said, why not? Let’s do it.

6:24 Yeah, I’m typically very media shy. Like I say no to like most media requests. And I’ve done a few things in the past, like I did Bulletproof with Asprey, you know cuz he’s been such a partner of ours, and obviously I went out and did The Joe Rogan Experience, but I don’t think I’ve done any other media except when Silly Bres interviewed me. I just checked it. It was 8 months ago.

6:46 I think when we actually taped it. So, and a lot has changed in 8 months. I knew you were coming over and I want people to talk about your story at some point. We’re going to have to talk about your story too okay, even though I know you’re interviewing me. But I know since you’ve been in London, you’ve been here two weeks, over two weeks, for two weeks you filmed two or three shows since you’ve been here.

7:07 This is my third near interview okay. So obviously super impressed with your work output. When I go on holiday, I usually don’t bring my camera. So props to you. And then you would ask me to interview me, and I was just like, typical media shy, I was like no.

7:21 And then I was like, wait a second, it’s Olive who’s killing it at New York Real. Like, so impressed with everything you’re doing. So impressed with you. So impressed with you on the academy, and you just draw all this positive energy out of everybody. And since I met you, like a week ago, it’s like last Friday in person, you’re like even more than I expected.

7:41 So, thank you Brian. You’re welcome. So how could I say no? And then I figure, why not have you in here to do this? So thanks for agreeing to that.

7:49 Thank you for being interviewed, and Brian is the same thing. How can I say no? I didn’t even think that I would start New York Real but you said, why don’t you set up New York Real? Send me a pilot, no excuses. That’s what I said.

8:03 Yes I can be kind of a bastard, right? I had a chest pain like for the rest of the day, cuz I was terrified. I was like, okay, what did I get myself into? I was only making a video, a fan girl video to tell you that I’m bleeding London Real, and why don’t you interview this person, that person? I didn’t expect that from you.

8:25 Can we talk about, like, how our relationship started when we first make contact, and about when this video happened, because I think I remember the first time I remember knowing about you is when I thought, tell me if I’m wrong. You had tweeted out, even a couple years ago or a year and a half ago, that you were telling taxi drivers about Peter Sage and London Real, and Dan Peña telling New York taxi drivers, and I lived in New York for four years, so I was like, okay, who’s this crazy girl telling taxi drivers about London Real and our episodes. And we don’t have that many, you know, women.

9:01 I think our audience is probably 20-25% women and so when I heard this I was like, wow, okay, this is unique, and I got to keep an eye on her. You lived in New York City. You know, sometimes the cab driver will start a conversation, so we started talking about money, and I’m like, I cannot not talk about, like, Ty Lopez and Peter Sage, what I learned from them through your show. And that guy was like, write down the name for me. What is it?

9:27 I said London Real. So we actually exchanged contact, and now we’re friends. And he has all, if only you would make friends with, you know, yellow cab drivers in Manhattan. I love it. And he has a second career that he’s building right now.

9:40 Okay, no joke, that’s impressive. So when was this, like roughly? I think last year. Okay, all right. Maybe the end of the year.

9:48 Okay, so not winter, winter. Yeah, okay, all right. So that’s when I think you first tweeted me, and then when did you send me that video? It was like a selfie. February.

9:57 It was like a selfie video, you were in the subway, and then you were outside the subway, and then you went in to work, and it was cut up it was like 2 or 3 minutes, and you said you were going to send me a normal fan girl video like that was it. I don’t get those. It’s not like I’m deleting those from my inbox all the time. Like I don’t get those. You know what, it all started because you made a video about, “Are you bleeding London Real?” and you were looking for an assistant.

10:24 I think, yes. So we were looking for, like, a key member here. I made that in January, right after my TED Talk. I came in the next day and I made three videos, and one was how you can do a TED Talk. How I was, I think I called it, How I Ace My TED Talk, and how you can too.

10:39 I was really excited, and then I was tired of us not building this business fast enough, and I was courting Julian Bales, our head of strategy, who you just met, and he wasn’t saying yes to me, and I was finally, yeah. I was finally. I wasn’t. I was a little frustrated, and I was like, look, we have to find the person, and I was convinced that the key person for London Real bled London Real, you know I felt like I wasn’t just going to hire someone who wants to be in a startup or wants to be in a media company.

11:06 They have to, like, bleed London Real, which means that they love everything we’re doing. They’re passionate about our message and everything we’re doing here. So I put that out looking for someone to be our head of strategy here in London, right? So that must have been J. You saw.

11:19 I didn’t think that I would be able to do that. I live in New York City, and I have my life set up, but you mentioned the learning curve. You were like, this did and this, I was like, I want that. So I was saying, what this, the learning curve of whoever we hired would be super steep, something like that. I think that’s your curve, actually.

11:40 My curve is too steep all the time, like right now, from what we all, you know, seeing what we’re learning from you, I love steep learning curves. I think everyone should have a steep learning curve. I think people get bored when they don’t have a steep learning curve. And if you don’t know what that means, I guess it’s like your rate of learning should be like this and when it’s not, then you get bored with life and with what you’re doing. I always use the Jiu-Jitsu analogy, like black belts and Jiu-Jitsu, everyone, especially if you train Jiu-Jitsu, you’re like, a black belt is like something guys work 10 years on, and they’re kind of gods when they walk around the mats, and you’re always like, someday I’ll be a black belt but in my mind, being a black belt, you can get bored because you’re off the learning curve.

12:18 You kind of accomplished a lot. And so I think being a white belt, which means being new at something, you’re newish now to what you’re doing. It can be the most exciting time in your life to be a white belt. And so that’s why it’s an old expression in Jiu-Jitsu, everyone’s a white belt at something. Yeah, and that can be a good thing.

12:35 It is. And to be a white belt in more than one thing too, sometimes. Yeah. And so that video inspired you to make a video inspired me to reach out to you just to say hello. Okay, all right.

12:52 So I basically. Do you remember I was running up and down telling you I like Alex Ion, Peter Sage, and Ty Lopez and Dan Peña, and then I asked, can you, will you interview Becky W and Cindy Gallop? They are my heroes. And then I went outside the street, and I see that I like your, when you turn the camera and you see the background moving. I wanted to do that, and I wasn’t, like, it wasn’t quite successful, and I thought wow, that’s hard.

13:24 So I even said that to you. I don’t know how you do this one take thing, and you just moving around, and it’s so easy, and you told me later that it takes time, it takes practice, and I have like a monopod that I use, and I like turning the camera, but some people say it makes them ill on YouTube, and all the motion makes him a little sick, but I always like to show what’s going on around me in London. And the one take stuff, I just, that was just practice.

13:48 Do you like? I think it’s powerful if you can get the one take right. I think people respect it. It is true, and sometimes when I stop my pre-roll, it’s just because all of a sudden I don’t feel confident, and when I watch up to that point there’s nothing wrong with that one. Why did I stop?

14:06 You should just keep going, and sometimes people like a little imperfection. Yeah, you know and sometimes, I, people in the street will say hi, or I’ve had, somewhere, sometimes people photobomb behind me, and like those are fun. Those are fun. It’s just a test. And sometimes I’ll see someone when I’m walking down the street, and I’m like, he looks like a photobomber, and so I’ll just turn the camera away like so.

14:25 But it’s tricky, and sometimes, you know, your confidence has to be up, especially if you go out, say, in the afternoon on a Friday in London and everyone’s out at the pubs. Then it’s like, that you look funny, but you know, it’s okay, you got to do it for the art. Do you like seeing yourself on camera or hearing your own voice? I’m so used to it now, you know. I made a short film that your boyfriend saw, called The Supremacy which is a martial arts film that Mariana and I made in ’09, and I was, it was awesome.

14:54 Thank you very much. So I was in the city, still working in banking, and I was, every year in banking I was so bored with my job, again, flat learning curve, that I needed something to, like, keep me engaged for the year. I would really think about it that way, and it’s sad that I didn’t realize I should get out of it but so what I did was, like, I’ll bank this year, but I got to take a six-month film course part-time, and I told the guys on my desk, I said, Wednesdays I’m leaving early for a night class, and Saturday I’m all day at film school.

15:22 So like, that was my way of keeping my brain engaged, and so at the end of 6 months we had to shoot a short film, and we had to DP, and we learned everything about filmmaking. And so, oh that’s how it came, that’s how it happened. So it was a 20-minute short film. It’s like an ode to Bruce Lee martial arts film. Like it’s kind of a ’70s martial arts film, so it’s kind of supposed to be a little crazy.

15:43 It’s entertaining. It’s entertaining, but a lot of people don’t get it. But if you ever worked on a film, it’s like takes. So, you know, you, on film sets it takes so much work just to shoot, say, a one-minute scene. Oh yes.

15:54 You know that. So, but it’s something I was really proud of. So by doing that I got used just seeing myself on camera, I could used listening my voice, so I’m over it now. I’m over it. Are you over it?

16:07 I just have to accept that imperfections are okay and let it go, cuz otherwise I wouldn’t even have one episode. Right, right. What you have to, what the biggest thing people have to learn is you have to publish so if it’s a, if you’re a blogger, you got to publish that blog and get the feedback, and you got to move on. And if you want to write a book, get it done and move on. If you’re going to be doing video talk shows like you are, get them in the can because you’ll get better, you’ll get feedback.

16:31 The worst thing you can do is just, is work on something for, like, 5 years of your life until it’s ready, or work on the video until it’s ready. Never be ready, because we are all perfectionists in our own way, right? Yeah, you have to start before you’re ready. That’s Steven Pressfield, and that’s what I’ve been trying to do this whole year, and I’m always trying to remember that, but it’s also a little stressful, but you’re putting out great work. I mean, you’ve already put out a bunch of episodes.

16:53 I’ve watched them, and you wouldn’t have done that well. The first one, it has so many technical difficulties cuz it’s my, I interviewed my mentor, acting teacher Caroline Thomas, and halfway through, one of the cameras turned off and I just don’t have her for a while, and then I don’t have myself for, like, seven minutes. I just put a picture there, like, oh, while the audio was going, while the other one was talking and moving. I do a split screen. But that’s a good fix.

17:25 At first I thought I should apologize, and like, right, okay, sorry for technical difficulties. I thought they understand when you, when they don’t see anyone moving, they know that you’re having a problem, and hopefully they overlook that. Yeah, you’d be surprised how forgiving the medium is. I’ve had, when Immortal Technique was here, we totally screwed up the audio on that in a huge way, cuz I was actually trying to stream it live, and I was just juggling too many balls, and we screwed up the audio, and I had to use, like, audio from one of the cameras, and, like, very few people commented on it.

17:54 Like, a few people said oh, the audio is off, but most people were like, it’s good enough, because they were captured by the content. And I even shot an episode of Silicone Reel I’ve never told anyone this. I never told my co-host Colin this, but my editor knows this. We had a problem where his shot was completely lost of Silicone Reel. Okay, so it was my shot, the guest shot, and his shot, but we had Colin on there and the audio was there, so when he talked we showed someone else, and when we cut away to him, we cut away to him on the previous episode.

18:23 Oh, and he was wearing the same shirt. And so, no, brilliant. Yeah, no one ever knew, and he never knew. So, and I’m sorry, but sometimes you got to just get it done, move on to the next episode, and it’ll be okay. Like you said, you put the still photo up while people were talking.

18:39 It’s great fix. Like some long distant, you know, when you watch a news and then they show someone’s face but the person’s not moving. There’s so, I actually, I want to give credits to Luis on your show. He’s doing a great job. Oh yeah, so Luis is here in the room with us, right now.

18:55 Luis does so many things for us when it comes to video production. It’s not just he’s here to film it, he’s now doing our audio production as well, and he edits all the shows and, but you know, Luis is a filmmaker, and that’s originally how I noticed him, because I saw one of his short films. It’s called M is for Melon. I just going to give that plug for Luis, and it’s, and I saw it I was like, wow. This is a guy who’s serious and passionate about his work, and to see someone that created a short film is so much more important to me than someone says I trying to make my short film, like I get a lot of emails of people that are going to do things, and like when I see someone that’s accomplished something, I’m like, okay, this guy’s serious.

19:34 And so when Luis was like, Brian, let’s try to do something together, I was like, yeah, I want to invest my time in him because I know he gets things done. And so we had a brief email conversation, and then I was out shooting one of my pre-rolls right here in shortage, and he walked by, and he was like, “Hey, Brian, you’re Brian from unreal?” I was like, “Oh, you’re Luis. I like saw your video yesterday. What’s that?

19:52 I emailed you yesterday or something? Yeah, I like, oh, I’m from melon. I saw that twisted video you made. And so that’s how we started as a relationship. And Luis had been watching London Real for, like, a year, a long time, and he liked our kind of punk movement.

20:06 It was kind of like, you know, it was like an indie movement where I was just some guy in the studio broadcasting and just doing it his own way, and Luis liked that. He liked a lot of our psychedelic shows and a lot of the messages, and so we did a few. We worked on a project together, and like everyone that’s involved in London Real, they bleed London Real, and quite honestly, they’ve all volunteered their time for London Real before they become members of the team.

20:31 Yes, and so people always, Julian, Dre, Julian, Louise, Nora. There’s a, the list goes on. And so people always ask me, like, how I have amazing people Phil was here this week, and he’s like, Brian, your team is amazing, not to mention the academy is amazing, and people ask me, like, how do I hire people? And it’s like, the truth is we don’t, this, you attract them. Yeah, this never started as a business.

20:54 That’s the other thing people don’t understand. Like, I just started expressing myself in some twisted way and I built the studio here, as I was telling you at Phil’s show this week, when he performed. Like I built the desk right here about four years ago, and I think it was me. It was a cry for me to try to express myself and connect with the world. And now that I look at it I would have told you you were crazy.

21:19 If you told me this at the time, I would have been like I don’t need the rest of the world, I’m a tough guy. I used to do this, but I think at the time. That’s why I did it. And so, set up the cameras and started interviewing people, but it wasn’t anything resembling a business for 2 or 3 years. And so we never had money to pay people or anything, so anybody helping out was like, volunteer, volunteer.

21:38 And so we attracted the right kind of energy, and then when now this is becoming more than that I think this is becoming a media company. Yes. Now we take the people that have been there from the start and so that’s Julian, that’s Dre, that’s Louise, who kind of came in, and we were working on a video project and then our editor left, and like, I was like, who are we going to get? And Julian’s like, well, it’s obvious and then we spoke to Luis, and so that’s how that happened.

22:05 And then now he’s on board, and he does everything and then, like, what, but what Luis is great at is he is a filmmaker, and he has got a great view and so some of the pieces he did for Chris Eubank, these montages with the audio in the background, cuz our guest sometimes will talk about things for a few minutes, and then he’ll put video, and it’s incredible. Yes, everyone has a talent and I think everyone, in my mind, is a superhero. Yeah, I often see Julian and Dre just being like your left and right brain.

22:34 Like, yeah, it’s funny how you say that. Everyone has different energy. Yeah, Nora’s so caring and sweet. Yeah, she’s great. Everyone brings different energy, and it’s important to have them around me.

22:44 Like Luis is important because he’s our kind of canary in the coal mine, you know. When Luis is telling me that we’re doing, we’re going too far one way. If I’ve got too many success people on the show, Luis will be like, okay, Ran, we need to get Amanda Feilding on the show, and we need to get some other people in, talk about, like, some conscious issues, and and so it’s nice to have these people around me that can remind me where we’re going and where we’ve been because, you know, sometimes I’ve noticed that you have more female guests now.

23:11 Yeah, and I look at it, and I’m like, we’ve always have female guest, and that’s what I’ll tell you, but the track record doesn’t lie. So if that’s what you’re seeing, then you know, then maybe that is a sign. You know, people always ask me how I choose the guests for London Real, and it’s quite simply people I find interesting. And I know that’s a little selfish, but if you look at the history of the, there’s no grand vision. I’m not going for a certain market niche.

23:33 I’m just doing, it’s like my journey of who I find interesting, incredible, and relevant, and people I think the guests are going to appreciate, and so that’s how it happens. But yeah, maybe I am finding more, more women like you. So I want to wrap your story up a little bit with you and me. So you sent me this selfie video. I get a lot of people that say, Brian, I want to buy you coffee.

23:55 You know, you’ve seen I’ve done some webinars lately where I talk about, what was it? What was the webinar? It was, it is, how to make contact. Oh, how to make contact. I think I talked about how not to make contact.

24:07 I love it. It’s now a joke within the academy don’t buy someone coffee and pick your brain. No one wants to get, have their brain picked, right? So we’ve been doing weekly webinars in the academy for, like, eight or 10 weeks now, maybe eight weeks, and they just go by so fast and so one of them is called how to make contact, and I talked about how I made contact with people, getting him as guests here, that kind of thing. But I talked about not to make contact, and this whole, get an email from someone that says I want to buy you coffee and pick your brain.

24:34 You know, I just find that really useless to me, and I was pretty harsh, and I just said don’t do that. If you want to make contact with someone, offer some value to them first, because especially if they’re busy, if there’s someone who’s worth making contact, they don’t have time to have a cup of coffee with you. That’s just the reality. And so what you want to do is offer value, and the value you offered me, quite frankly, Olive, is that you put some investment into something, and you hadn’t done a selfie video before.

25:01 I don’t think just for fun. And you put it together and you edited it. I saw that you edited it. I love editing. Well, there you go.

25:08 That’s a great sign. You’re going to make a great video myself, Final Cut. So many people are starting something now, you know, inside Academy or outside. So I think all the webinars are very useful, and everyone has a podcast now. Yeah, I mean, and everyone should.

25:25 So what you showed me was you put this piece together and you edited it, and I was like, that she edited it. So it wasn’t even a one take, cuz other people might do a one take. So I was like, you just invested time to put yourself out there, and so I felt like I need to invest some time in you. And I also saw sparks and I see sparks all the time, and like, and I pushed you to start your own show, but quite honestly I’ve seen sparks from other people, and I’ve pushed them, and you’ve never heard of their show because they never did anything, and so I was hoping that you might do something, and you had the talent, and you had the drive to make that and so I was just hoping you might do it.

25:58 So I think I said to you, that’s great, Olive. Now it’s time to set it up and start your show. Is that what I said or not? You said, you said Why don’t you just set up New York Real? Cuz I was joking.

26:10 I was holding the camera. I said, hi this is Olive, this is New York Real. I said it myself, but I wasn’t thinking that this is my show. I was just having fun. So that planted a seed in my brain, and then I was just like, okay, it’s obvious that you need to do that.

26:24 And it’s fascinating, cuz no one’s ever tried New York Real. And I always wondered why I’ve got good friends in New York, and I always thought New York is just saturated with media people. No one wants to try it, cuz they think they can’t be unique, and it’s a big city, and you have to represent a big city and I think it scared people off in the past. Good point. I was so frightened for so long, for weeks, and H, what date was your TED Talk aired?

26:48 Well, at least yeah, I gave it like January 21st, and I think it aired a couple months later. I think, cuz it was the TED Talk that seal the deal. Okay, I watched it, and I was like, Brian’s obviously giving this TED Talk from me to me, and I’m sure a lot of people thinking that directly just me. Um, because finding a tribe and just doing it, research, ones, and take action. I am the queen of procrastination.

27:14 One of my goals is to quit being late, as my boyfriend. Okay, and you’re on time today, pretty much. And, uh, with the TED talk, right after the TED Talk, I thought better grab New York Real before anyone else watch this TED Talk and start this. Maybe people will do a better one, or maybe there will be more articulate. I am not an articulate person, and people say, where’s your accent from?

27:41 I don’t know. I’m, I was born in RA in Hong Kong. I lived in New York for 16 years, and I’m not super secure about my speech, but I have to just go for it, and yeah, you need to embrace your accent. Arianna Huffington, she tried to change her accent a long time, and finally she was like, what’s the point? Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arianna Huffington.

28:02 These people embrace their accents, and that’s their signature. It’s part of your story. Even, it’s, it’s your value. It’s not even a, I’ll get over it. It’s like now it’s your USP.

28:11 It’s like unique to Olive. So embrace your accent. You know, my first guest, um, was uh my acting teacher. Actually helped me. She got me to see that talking with, um, the back of your throat.

28:24 It’s more like the div voice is more. The English is not up here, but a lot of Asian languages, like I speak Cantonese it’s like, like up here. So I have to kind of push it back. That’s important, and I think we should always be improving with our voices. And I remember when you, I watched that episode when I was in San Francisco with you and your acting coach, and I know she said she worked on your voice, and I think that’s really important to always work on your voice.

28:48 And I know what you mean as far as here or here. Yeah, and it changes. I actually worked with a speech coach here in London when I first got here. Really? I never really told anyone.

28:57 Why do you need that? Well, I was a, so I was an inter-dealer broker in the city, and so I was on the phone all day long, talking to people and shouting things in. We had, like, you have a button to push. Losing your voice. Well, I was using it all the time, and I would, I would hit a button, and when you would, I would shout into, to people, and they would have speakers on their desks at all of the large banks all over London so, like, I would shout things into them constantly, and then when they pick the phone up, then we would have a conversation.

29:22 But a good broker should be on the phone 10 hours a day. You know, she should be, bam, bam, bam. So I, I just found this speech coach. Her name is Rona Lori. She’s an old West End actress.

29:31 She’s fascinating, and she had a book about speech, and I would go see her for an hour every Saturday, and she would just talk about ways to, just to speak better, or to get, to get my ideas across. So what did you learn to articulate? And just interesting, thinking about, like, I wasn’t trying to get an English accent, but just thinking about, like, you know, 20 or 20, you know, just different ways I could, you know, use my language to get the point across.

29:58 Uh, so you know, it’s kind of random, but I think it’s important to think about how you speak. Yes, especially if you’re going to do this for a living. Uh, but I think I still have a ways to go. We all do. We do So you were talking about my TED talk.

30:12 So it came out probably in March. You saw it. You thought it was for you. Um, I’m, I’m, look, I’m really glad that that meant something to you. The Ted Talk was a big moment for me.

30:21 Um, to go ahead and step up and do that, it something that I had planned actually before I went to see Dan Peña last year. Oh, really? Um, yeah, I just woke up one morning, and I was like, you’re Brian Rosea, London Real, why don’t you have a TED Talk? That’s really weak. And so I remember I, I hit Dre up with a message like, Dre, I need to do a TED talk.

30:40 Let’s find a place where I can do a TED talk. And you didn’t want to fly all over. I didn’t. I wanted to do it in London. I wanted to do it in the UK, because that’s where I’m from, and I know people can fly to Europe, and I know, and I encourage everyone to do a TED talk or a TEDx talk.

30:51 What you know, and do it, because they’re everywhere. I mean, there’s H, they’re happening every day. And so we found one, and I, I found the guy’s name is Alex Mary, who created it. He’s amazing. He worked on my talk.

31:03 He’s actually the guy that’s training all of our speakers at the Master mind event in September. So he’s on conference calls to all of our greatest guests in the world, and he’s working with them for the next 12 weeks on their speeches for the Masterminds event. So it’s intense, and it’s funny how the guy that was my TED Talk guy and is now working for us at London Real to make their speeches better. So, um, but my point is, is that I was like, it’s time to step up and do a TED Talk, and so, so I had booked it in, in the calendar, and then I had prepared it, and I worked on it with him, and it was a big moment for me to just step up and just tell my story, you know, and, uh, no one thinks their story is important.

31:40 Like, no one thinks they have a story, but everyone has a great story. And like Daniel Priestley, one of my guests who wrote KPI, key person of influence, he said everyone has IP, intellectual property, that’s really valuable but you don’t know it’s valuable. You grew up in Hong Kong. You think that might, uh, you have an accent that’s maybe got tinge of Hong Kong to it. You think that might hurt you, but that actually helps you because you have an international perspective.

32:03 You lived in other cities. If you grew up in New York, you would think this way. And for me, I was like, I’m a former banker, that’s kind of boring. Oh, I went to MIT, who cares, you know? And I’m American in London.

32:14 No one wants to hear about this, but everyone did want to hear about it, and so that surprised me. Um, I didn’t think the TED Talk was going to be so well received. It’s been watched like 150,000 times, and at one point I was replying to every single comment you did, and so I did it, was like, and it was like, I don’t know, thousands, and I got on for like seven days, and I replied to every comment, and I’m telling you, it was like 98% positive, which is an anomaly on any video on YouTube, even though comments are positive on London Real.

32:41 I couldn’t believe how many nice things people had to say. I was like shocked, and if you answer 50 of those, like your mood changes, and so everybody was supportive, even the people that didn’t like me or hated me or said I paused too long when I spoke. I that was okay, but I need to address them, and I’m like, look, thanks for watching, watching anyways, and you’re right, it could be better, and I do think next time it will be better. You’re definitely taking all the input, and you love feedback, especially something that you can change.

33:08 I noticed that with the Academy, you really listen to everyone. We’re trying. It’s hard to hear. We had a focus group here on Friday and we had one of our hardest weeks here at London Real. We were, this is the third live episode, and then live guest here with 25 Academy members.

33:22 We’ve never done that before, someone speaking in the studio. So fun to turn into a classroom. Yeah, it was amazing. And so, uh, but then on Friday we had a focus group here, and it was like seven or eight people from the Academy came in and just grilled us for 40 minutes, and said this isn’t good enough. This isn’t good enough, and it’s like, after the whole week, it’s like me, Trey, and Julian.

33:41 It’s just like but we’re like, okay, tell us, tell us what’s bad. We got to get better, and so we’re just trying to listen to the bad. Yes, so yeah, I like constructive criticism. Um, I like it even with my TED talk, but that TED Talk. It did a lot of things, and like I know it kind of spoke to you, and I’m really glad it did, but it, it, it just on a personal note, it changed a lot of things for me, because I think people needed to see my vision for London Real, and to be really honest, I think even people like Julian and Dre, they needed to see my vision.

34:10 And so this is my, my advice to any founder, including yourself, and anyone who wants to start a company or a movement, or even have a minor leadership position, you have to show your troops that you have a vision of where you’re going, and then you are dedicated, and you are the man or the woman that’s going to take people back there. It has a lot of clarity at the end of the talk, and it has to happen, and before that, I, I don’t know if they knew where I was going with the show, to be honest, a year ago They’re like, okay, Brian, you’ve been doing this. You keep doing these shows every week, but where’s it going, and you know I could be like, well, it’s going wherever I want it to.

34:44 It’s my kind of artistic expression. It’s on the business but it was time honestly for me to step up and really present my message and show my vision, and I think that’s why so many people have come on now to work with us. And uh, Julian might disagree, but I think it had a lot to do with him coming full-time with us, and he’s like, okay, Bri, we’re going to take this to another level, and Brian’s ready, and I could see that by his TED talk. So that was a big moment for me and I knew it was going to be big.

35:12 And it was funny, on my Dan Peña weekly reports to Dan, we can talk about Dan Peña. I’m sure we should talk about some point, but I, I give, I, I was giving him a weekly summary of every hour of my week, and it was just like, TED Talk prep, TED Talk prep, and he’s like, what’s TED? Who’s Ted? Typical Dan Peña style, right? Ted, and like Ted gets more time, and I was just like Google it, Dan.

35:33 I’m like, come on, you don’t know what TED is. And he was like, why you spending so much time on this? Cuz I’d be like, TED prep, TED prep, you know? And cuz I was, I worked on that talk like every week for 12 weeks, and it was brutal, and Alex Mary would come over here and be like, Brian, uh, you’re promoting London Real too much. No one cares how many views you have on YouTube.

35:49 Like I was saying the wrong things, and so, and the worst thing is watching yourself on YouTube after you’ve just done one to camera, and you just see how bad you are, are, uh, you, you would, T it and watch it, yeah, and make myself watch it, and I’d be like, here we go, this is going to be really, and then I’d see everything I hate about myself. Put the notes, and I was even rewriting the talk when, um, I took the girls to Belgium for like a Christmas or New Year’s Eve trip, and it was still not good enough, and I was like, Brian, it’s okay, but it’s, it’s, it’s garbage. Like, there was a point where I was like, 2 minutes, I was like, it got to be better, and so like Dan was like, what are you doing?

36:20 But I was, I was working really hard on it because I knew it was an important moment, but I didn’t know it was going to go as well, because for the TED talk it’s 20 minutes. It’s live. There’s an audience there. You don’t know if they’re going to feel you. You might be having a bad day.

36:34 There’s no editing, and so, um, it worked out okay. So that’s kind of the TED talk, and that’s what it sounded very genuine. I, I could have sworn I would believe there was no script. Yeah, well, so, well, except that you have something showing everyone, so I know your, the flow of the thoughts, right? Okay, that’s good.

36:51 They always say if it sounds scripted, what you’re saying, then you haven’t practiced it enough, so that’s the trick. I’m sure actors know that as well if you know that script the back of your, back of your hand, then you can say it and own it, and but I had that whole thing down. I would walk around Bellside Park at night giving my TED talk, so people walking by me, I would be talking to myself, like I did that all the time. So wow, that was that tough.

37:15 I could probably give it now. I tweeted your TED Talk at at 10 people a day for 10 days. At first I thought people just need to watch it, and then when it gets to like day four and five, I really think that oh my God, I only have five more days, so many more people need to watch it, and I have to tell you, I almost forgot one of the friends that is really busy in New York City. He is, um, he was a DJ, uh, his name is Jas M, and a really good friend of ours, but the last winter was brutal, so we all just hibernated.

37:52 We didn’t really see friends, and but he has, um, influenced a lot, lot of, um, my friends and myself, because he has empathy. He would meet a new friend, in like, a new person in New York City. He would say, come to my Friday show, um, you’re going to dance, you’re going to have fun, and then he would be like, next Friday you’re going up on stage, and I will pay you, you’re hired. Like, all these people that feel like they don’t belong finally found a home.

38:21 Is Webster Hall, and uh, I haven’t seen Jess for a while. I thought, oh, let’s tweet at him. He so busy. I didn’t expect him to write back, and he did write back. He said, I really needed to hear this, thank you for this TED Talk.

38:35 And what we didn’t know, that, um, what was that? He also has his own, um, trouble, and, and he took his life. Wow. About, um, I think two months ago. Okay, I’m sorry about that.

38:49 I was going to interview him for New York Real. Wow, but like to me it was, um, now I feel him everywhere, but to him it’s so important that he actually watched Brian’s TED Talk and it has positive effect on him, and that, that he loved it. Wow. Well, I’m sorry for your loss. It’s, you know, when you lose someone like that you can start seeing them everywhere, and then you can get a lot of strength from remembering their spirit and that kind of thing.

39:18 So well, you know, thanks for sending people that talk. I mean, like, I don’t know what to say. All of, I don’t know anyone like you that would go and do that stuff and tweet these people and like I always tell people you’re crazy, but I mean that in such like a warmest way, because like, you go and do. You’re just so passionate about the things you do, and so you know it’s very inspiring, and it’s very appreciated all the things you do, so I appreciate that.

39:41 It’s all comes naturally because because you care, and we care, and I didn’t know I would win a hoodie. That’s good. Oh yeah, you got hood. I got a hoodie. You got the hoodie how did you get the hoodie?

39:53 Oh, for the TED. For the TED. Oh yeah, for the TED. Yeah, I didn’t even know there was a comp, uh, contest of, right? Yeah, exactly, and then we sent you a hoodie, and you’re like, oh there we go.

40:02 So you saw the TED Talk, and you were like, okay, now I’m definitely going to do the show. I, I went to Twitter first because I love Twitter. I grabbed, um, at, at New York Real TV, at New York Real TV, which has over a th Twitter followers you’re rocking with. Um, I just follow people that follow me, you know, to build that, and, uh, I also make a point to start a separate Twitter, because I have my personal one and I think that if I use my personal one to, to do New York Real, I’m just taking the easy way out.

40:36 Good, you’re right, because I already have, like, that’s what I do. 900. No, you have two, which is great. So it’s at pineapple o, and then it’s at New York Real TV. Yeah, New York TV, and you know, and then go ahead.

40:46 No, go ahead. I went to Facebook, grabbed the fan page. Okay, like, right now Facebook is not, I’m not as crazy as, uh, uh, Twitter. Like, I, I go to Facebook, but Facebook page, um, I would make sure that I have episodes, um, posted, but at the same time, you cannot not have a page, so I grabbed it. Yeah, and then what else?

41:09 Oh, YouTube channel. Yeah, that’s important. I think for a video talk shows like ours, Twitter is super important. We love Twitter. We love YouTube, obviously it’s huge.

41:18 Um, and we use Facebook, but I think with Twitter, especially with shows like ours, and also some of the other reals are very good on Twitter. It’s so short and sweet, short, sweet, and it’s great way, because you, it’s an open platform, so new people, new guests, you can tweet out to them, they can see you I find Facebook sometimes a little more closed or harder for people to find your page. Um, and then YouTube is ultimate because it has your content on there, but you grabbed all that stuff.

41:41 You owned New York Real, and that was so nice to see. You just own it, and then your first episode came out when, um, in I believe in April. Okay, how’s the experience been? We had a few discussions about haters. You and I had had a few discussions.

41:57 You interviewed someone in Brooklyn, and some people were like, okay, my, my second guest, oh she’s wonderful. How are you finding it? I actually go from people around me, you know, like my teacher, and then, um, Katarina Hiber, no, lived in Bushwick where I live, and she’s an editor of Bushwick Daily, right? And I think I wouldn’t even call them haters, but people with the opposite um attitude or comment. They’re all deep, put issues.

42:27 There are, are reasons why they don’t like, uh, uh, publication or why they. I actually challenged them. I said, hey, if you don’t like, um, this episode, why don’t you start something? And oh you didn’t. I did.

42:44 I said, start your platform, and, and build around what you believe in. Right, yeah, but it’s on Instagram. You did this, right? Yeah, you show me, but you, you told me you gave me a great advice, like respond once and respond ones, and then just move on, cuz I have my North Star. Yeah, I think that’s what I told you.

43:03 What I say, you, I said you have your North Star. You have your vision of where you’re going, so like always keep that in mind, but I think it’s important to every now and then look and see what they’re saying and respond to it, and part of you will take that. Maybe you know you’ll remember that comment. I will consider from everyone’s point of view, but you have the North Star, so it’s like you know where you’re going, and if you’re going to go a little bit here, a little there, but you know the vision of New York Real, you know where you want to go.

43:27 It’s important, I think, to just listen to the feedback, cuz we can always get better, and you know, haters or commenters, like you know, at the end of the day they care. They’ve watched your show, and so I really think you can learn something from them. What I do now with YouTube and with all the stuff is I have someone in between, so it’s like Mariana will watch, or Julian will watch, and then like after an episode like Dr Carl Hart last week, I’ll just ask him after four or 5 days.

43:52 I’ll be like, how’s it, how’s it going out there? What’s the general feel? And they’ll be like, oh yeah, people are loving it, or not liking it, but that way I don’t have to actually read and engage with something really horrible. Sometimes I’ll go in and make comments, but like I don’t have to necessarily sit there and say, oh Brian, that that didn’t work, or that didn’t work. So I don’t have to, like, totally be brought down or up.

44:10 That way I just kind of keep a thing, keep my North Star. I know where we’re going. But if I’m hearing the same message over and over again, like, Brian, uh, we don’t like the fact when you do this, then I listen. So it’s a, it’s a, it’s a medium. Like the conversation with, with Mimi, um, she mentioned if some, just saying that you are ugly, then obviously it’s about them more than you.

44:31 Um, and it is a lot of times about them. Like there was Mimi Icon when I interviewed her. I mean, she puts out so many videos, she’s so prolific on YouTube, and so is Alex, but I asked her about the haters, and, and she said, you know, yeah, if anyone sometimes when people hate, it’s their own issues they’re having on the day, and they just bring it to you. You just happen to draw it out, so you always got to remember that, and sometimes people just want a little love.

44:52 And I replied to some of my negative comments on TED, and they were like, oh thanks Brian, actually I was wrong. It was good, and sometimes they just need a little. It’s okay to have conversations and different point of views. It’s okay, and expect it. The reason that most people don’t do what you’re doing, all of, and don’t have the courage, is because most people feel self-conscious.

45:10 They don’t want to deal with people telling them that they’re bad. They don’t want to get people telling them that they’re ugly, or that their hair is two different colors, or something like that. Like, they don’t want to hear it. Right, so the reason you’re doing it, and you’re like, you’re in the arena. You know, there’s a famous quote I was about to bring that up.

45:25 Oh, you are so Theodore Roosevelt. Yes, yeah, who says, you know, that there’s the man in the stands, and I don’t know the whole quote. I’m not like Chris Eubank. I can put the quote up, but there’s a man in the stands. There’s a man in the arena, and the man in the arena is the one that’s out there, you know, putting, sweating, and putting on the line, and, and experiencing life and living life.

45:42 And so when I ever see a content creator like you or anyone else, and someone says something about him, I’m just like, they’re in the arena and you’re not. So come in. Yeah, yeah. So save it, save your, save your comments. Come into the arena, or just respect the arena.

45:56 And so the same with me, I watch a lot of Ultimate Fighting Championship, UFC, fighters, and I know fighters, and those guys get in there and put it all on the line in a fight. So you can say he’s bad at this, or this, or that, but those are the guys that are in the arena, and you’re in the arena, and that’s an amazing thing to do. And you’re climbing such a steep learning curve right now, Olive. I’m sure you can feel it, and like, but what you’re doing is making you in contact with so many different people, and you know it’s, it’s why you’re here now.

46:26 Crossing that line, like climbing in that arena, is, is the key. It is. And then who, who’s who said that? Of your guest that you already jump out of the plane? Oh, they said about jumping out of the plane.

46:41 Yeah, and then like, uh, skydiving or something, that there’s no turning back, right, because you’re already in a motion of it. Yeah. Well, you put, you’ve grabbed the Twitter and you did that. Now you put yourself out there now you’re New York Real, and I remember the first time I did it, and I was like, now you’re London Real and now it’s too late. So I’m sure it was fear, but once you get over it, then you now are on your next mission.

47:03 There is another besides the men in the arena. I also like that, um, Ty, Ty Lopez said something about grudges when he was talking about cheaters. Um, what’s this, the first, there were three kind, three types of people that we don’t want to associate ourselves with, and the third one was grudges. So grudge is always going to say those things to you. So okay, and we do need, into society, to, to balance it out, and which is okay.

47:30 It’ll always be there. And so just if you have the North Star, you know where you’re going. You said the first 25 episodes, just follow Yeah, your heart, follow the North Star. I totally agree, and maybe more, maybe more, and like, that sounds like a lot right now, but, uh, you know you’re, you know what you’re doing. You’re getting so much out of them each one, and so yeah, know where your North Star is and make adjustments, then you’ll know, you’ll know it’s okay to make adjustments.

47:55 Yeah. Yeah, in life, how you finding it? How is CH? How has creating New York Real changed you as a person? I I don’t remember the last time I was depressed.

48:07 I have to say the last winter was very tough for a lot of people in New York City is so cold, and it’s, we snowed in sometimes. Um, I know I bring tie up a lot, but the, the season, each season is for something. Remember, uh, in the winter you said supposed to gain a few pounds, you’re supposed to read and sharpen your tools. So that was, I was a different person in the winter. I really was, and um, I don’t remember myself crying that much anymore since I made the decision.

48:43 And uh, I used to be quite self-indulgent, kind of like being sad. A lot of people like being sad. What’s that line Kurt Cobain said in one of his, in one of his songs? I, I miss the comfort in being sad. It’s like, you know, a Nirvana song.

48:59 Yes, and is that what you mean? Yeah, there’s something about it that people just let themselves stay in there. Um, I could just cry, and masturbate myself to sleep, and do nothing, and just think, oh, I’m an actor or I I have for band, but, but do you really, what is it, what does it take to really commit in doing something? And you were my role model. You were the example, and I don’t know where I got this, this, um, strength from.

49:34 I just think I have to do it. Maybe I’m okay. I think you are. You probably think that I’m, I’m much younger than I am. Yeah, Mariana told me you’re going.

49:45 Yeah, I don’t mind telling people. Um, I’m, I turned 36 today. Congratulations, my birthday. You’re right, I probably thought you were younger. Yes, you probably thought this is this, college young girl, she starting, I, about college.

49:57 Oh no, and does that change anything? Um, in my 20s I think it’s like a buffet. You just sample, sample, sample, sample. You like doing everything, and then, then what? 27, 29, oops, I thought I was going to have two kids before 30, or like everyone’s rushing you, why you not doing this and that.

50:18 I do love being in my 30s. It’s really relaxing. Yeah, but 30s is awesome. Yeah, it’s hard. Up until, I didn’t really even start getting my s*** together until about 32, 33.

50:31 Okay, that would be, um, our questions later, that’s when I moved to London. But so I want to talk about you not being depressed since you started the show. So I used to struggle, I think, with what I call, like, nihilism. Like I could get to where I’d be like, what’s the point in this? What’s the point in life?

50:48 What’s the point? I, we get to that, what’s the point, sometimes, and it could be just a really hard place to get out of. I don’t know. I wouldn’t call it depression per se, but I would just be like, what does it matter if I do this or I do that? And like it’s not a good place for me to be, but the more I get invested in London Real, and then the community and all of everything, like I haven’t felt that way in a long time, like a year.

51:11 And I used to get bummed out in the English winters, cuz it gets dark here and rainy, and it gets dark at like 4:00 in the winters, and everybody complains about the English weather and the London weather. But quite honestly, and I believe this, and I’ve been on both sides, like if, if you, I think this is true, maybe I’m, it’s an absolute, if you really are focusing on the weather, you probably don’t have the right things going on in your life. I believe, and so I remember the last two winters thinking When I used to be in banking, I’d be like, oh my God, I used to try to get out of there as early as possible.

51:41 Like December 9th, I would leave and go to Brazil for like 3 weeks, and now I’m like I forget. I’m like, it’s dark outside, but who cares? We got a new show coming out. We got this new thing happening. I’m booking this guest, and you know Phil McCaron said something this week.

51:55 He said, um, make it not about you oh yes, the journey is not about you. Yeah, the journey is not about you, and he’s like, we’re all about us these days, and like, and I, and I am sometimes about me, and in the Academy I’m pushing people to be about them. And I think there is a time to be selfish, and Anita Moorjani said love yourself, and I believe she’s right. You have to love yourself first and take care of yourself. If you’re in the plane, put the mask on you first and then put on someone else.

52:18 You have to love yourself, because if you’re around someone that doesn’t love themselves, it’s a it’s a bad energy that infects you and it brings everyone down, so you want to be around people that love themselves but you, if you make the journey not about you, then everything changes, and I think I think the depression might go away. And so for me it’s like I have to do this every week, because I have a group of people, and I talk about this in my TED talk. I’m like, I’m accountable to this tribe, and like, I got to do it now.

52:42 I don’t know, you probably feel like you got to do it. You better do it now in New York Real or I’ll, I’ll get on your case. But it’s like, now it’s about that, and it’s about inspiring people, and it’s all this stuff, and so it’s not really about me as much, and so for now I don’t even think about old bad mindset anymore, and so I think when you’re in motion, you’re active, it’s almost impossible to be depressed. Like, you can be moving, and like, oh, I’m so still.

53:07 I think you’re right. I do think you’re right, and after Phil, um, that was such a valuable night with, with Phil being in the house. Um, uh, oh, you’re looking down. You got questions? Yeah, no, not questions.

53:17 It’s actually, I wrote something down after that night. It is to love yourself and serve others, so right now it’s been on my mind. Mind. Yeah, so I think that is a good reminder. Is a good reminder.

53:32 It’s, it’s super powerful, and, and we all have our goals, and we all have our things we want to accomplish, but it is nice but, and we’ve all, and I’ve had things I’ve accomplished, and it can, you can be really lonely when you get there and so if you can serve others at the same time or, or in some capacity, I don’t know, that is what it’s all about. I believe it took me a long time to learn that, 40 years to learn that. How, how old were you when you interviewed, uh, Grandpa Benedict?

54:00 Oh, very funny. Um, so I have these interviews with my grandpa Benedict that I haven’t put online yet, but they’re amazing. Will you, uh, I will put them on? Is it in VHS? On VHS uh, my, my mom Betty, she, um, who is, I’m going to get on the show by the way.

54:14 She’s a little camera shy. Betty Rose. We saw a vlog. Yeah, I had to twist her arm into doing that, that, that thing, and um, but she’s going to be great. Um, I think she thinks I’m going to grill her here.

54:24 We, we had a very combative relationship when I was a kid, and uh, it reminds me sometimes of my relationship with, with Gabby. Um, but uh, yeah, so I used to, we had a video VHS recorder. My mom was like a saleswoman after she got divorced, and she was pretty good, and so she got a couple bonuses and bought, like, a videotape camera, and so there are old interviews when I’m like 10, 10 years old, and I’m interviewing my grandpa Benedict, who I talked about on this webinar recently, how, how to find a mentor, and he was one of my first mentors, and he’s, and you’ll see him on these tapes.

54:56 He’s, I mean, he’s got a bolo tie, um, in turquoise with, like, the brand of his ranch there. He’s got a big hat, like cowboy hat on. He’s in a wheelchair cuz he had a stroke, and he’s got, like, a western shirt on, and he’s got, like, a triple chin, and he’s telling these stories about when he was a kid, and he’s a horse trader, and all this stuff. And so I was, do, interviewing him, and my grandma, back in the day, like, I’m not, like, you know, this is Arizona real.

55:21 I’m not doing that, but like there are eight 10-minute chunks of me interviewing. Wow. Ah, that’s long for a 10-year-old. Yeah, so I’ll, I’ll release those, but thanks for asking. He was a big influence in my life, and I think my first mentor, um, people ask me if, if parents can be mentors, and I don’t think they can, but grandparents I think they can, because you have four, most people have four living at least at some point, and you can choose them, and they choose you.

55:46 So he was a big one for me. I have so much respect for grandparents. Their generation, huge part of, like, a clan, and I think it’s a shame that I can’t have that. My, you know, Gabby’s grandparents around more often, and it’s an important relationship for a child to have a grandparent. So important, so important.

56:05 Um, it was big for me. I got, I learned a lot subconsciously through my grandparents, like so my grandpa Benedict, my mother’s father, he was a cattleman in Arizona. My grandpa Rose, my dad’s father, was, uh, a farmer, and he grew potatoes and barley in Colorado, and so both of these guys, like, you know, they built their raft from, like, nothing, and so, uh, I got this sense of them, of, you know, they would just do their work, but they would never complain about it.

56:34 They would never talk about it. They would just do the work, and they would never, there was no emot, there was no complaining, there was no this, that. They were just hardcore. They were strong. And, um, I interviewed my dad.

56:45 Actually, there was an interview with my father before London Real, and I asked him like, did you ever think about quitting when he, he went to Caltech when he was young and he really bad grades the first semester, and he was like, like, um, on the farm there’s no quitting, cuz he’s like, if you quit on the farm, it’s like you die, because you lose your land and you, you die. And so he’s like, there’s a thing on a farm, as you never quit, cuz like every day keeps coming, and you got to get, you got to do this or the everything’s going to die, and then you, men versus nature. Yeah.

57:13 And so he’s like, there’s no, there’s no quit, there’s no option, and so that’s why he never quit. And I think I got that sense just being around them. They never sat me down and said, Brian, you’re not going to quit. They don’t do parenting like I try to do. I do a horrible job at that.

57:26 I always like, all right, Gabby, this is the lesson I’m going to teach you, but they did it really subconsciously. I just watched them. And um, so yeah, that was really powerful. Very lucky. Did you travel a lot as a kid?

57:38 Uh, my mom was really good about, um, about getting us travel, so my parents were divorced when I was seven, seven years old, and so uh, I think that was, that was, uh, I talk about it more now since my ayahuasca experience, but like I’m not, I don’t want it to be my identity. Sometimes I think maybe people don’t understand that, and I don’t think I’m a victim of that, but it definitely affected me more than I knew, and so I think I had a lot of anger as a kid, because I felt abandoned, or like, how come Dad’s not here? Is it because something I did?

58:07 So I think I, I’ve kind of taken that anger and chip on my shoulder and become really self-reliance, and all that stuff, and so my second ayahuasca ceremony, that all came back, and um, it was good to deal with that, because it helped me kind of move past it. But my mom was the craziest single mother in the world. She was like, soon as she got divorced, she was like, I’m going to be the greatest single mother ever to have lived. I’m going to win the Nobel Prize for single mother.

58:31 So she, three kids, and she was just like incredible. She would, like, take us trips. She would, like, drive us up and down the coast of California to Yellowstone, to National Parks. She took us on a trip to Europe in, like, 10 countries when I was 15, and I was a punk ass, and one night I disappeared in Berlin on my own and went out and lost my way home, and I almost didn’t come back, and some MPs had to, like, drive me around at night, and I was around Berlin at 15 years old, not where you want to be, and she almost sent me back, and, but Mom was really good about getting us worldly.

59:02 I went to Japan. I lived with a family in Japan for a couple summers, and I went to Hong Kong when I was 11 or 12 years old, and so she got us well traveled, and two-thirds of the children in our family live abroad. My, my brother lives in Switzerland. I live in London, and I think it’s because Betty got us on a plane. So, a global family, yeah, super important.

59:25 You know, do you celebrate any holidays? Do you celebrate any holidays? Um, I celebrate holidays not really. I think it’s important to take time off during the year, so uh, I’m trying to think, I went to Brazil for a long time, cuz I was like, in love with Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and I love Rio de Janeiro, and so I did that a couple times. But these days I like to take the girls to America sometimes to see New York or CLA, but I don’t go back to America that much.

59:54 I don’t, uh, I don’t miss it really. You took Gabby to MIT? Uh, no, she hasn’t been to MIT yet, but she’s seen the degree on my wall, and now she’s like, I see her writing it down sometimes. Like, I’m not trying to get her to go to MIT, and I don’t even know if she can get in. I’ll just put this out there, yet, but she might get there one day.

1:00:13 But um, she’s so intelligent. She’s amazing. She said, what, London Real, if she’s, uh, if she’s an adult, then she’ll give it a nine. Yeah, and because she’s a child, then now it’s a four. Yeah, so Gabby’s my 11-year-old stepdaughter, and I’ve been with her now, she’s kind of in my life for like four years, and so she’s gone from six or seven when I first met her to like 11, and that’s a, a high maturity level now, very highly developed.

1:00:40 And so for, for me, not for London Real to be even slightly cool, is a great accomplishment. Oh yes, but it’s usually not cool. She’s usually not impressed. She doesn’t want to come to the studio, but um she’s G it. She gives it a little bit of, of play, but I’ve encouraged her to maybe go to the States for college, but it’s all, it’s up to her.

1:00:58 Well, she’s still very young. I think she’s very bright. Totally. She’s amaz, she really changed my life a lot. Um, I remember when I first started hanging out with her when she was six or seven, and I had a good friend of mine, and I was like, I’m going to the mall today with Gabby, and they’re like, why do you hang out with, like, a seven-year-old?

1:01:13 And I, and I, I stopped and I was like, she’s more fun to hang out with than you are. And so it was like a horrible thing to say, but I it was actually true. I could have more fun hanging out with her, cuz you get to see the world through her eyes as opposed to hang out with someone in my age group. So um, yeah, it’s super important relationship, and it changed me a lot, and really got me focused, and got me out of bachelorhood, which I think I, that movie was played a little too long.

1:01:39 I played The Bachelor movie for 40 years, and it was getting old. It was getting old, rerun was really boring. You, I used to live here in this studio and alone, and just like, it’s, it’s, it wasn’t cool anymore. It’s nice to have a family. What are the lessons that you taught her that we can also learn from?

1:01:59 Oh, teaching Gabby lessons. You know, I, I don’t, you know, I, I always joke with Mariana that I’m going to write a book about parenting, you know, even though, you know, you know she’s more adopted right now, so I always joke that I’m, I’m an official knowledgeable person about parenting, but I don’t know that much, but you know, I think about it all the time, and I think about how my grandparents taught me things, they never sat me down, and my dad would never sit me down and say, Brian, you have to learn about respecting people and loving yourself and being on time and dressing right. My dad never does that.

1:02:31 My dad is, he’s, he’s the quiet type, and he keeps his game super high, and that’s how I learned, by example. So like, I don’t want to be the guy that tells Gabby what to do, but iend I, that’s, that’s more my style. So like, this morning we have Warrior training. We both go. We do Hill Sprints.

1:02:46 She doesn’t want to go. She doesn’t want to go. She doesn’t want to go. We do the hills, sprints, and afterwards we try to talk about life lessons, like, like, you know, understanding what pain and how you can use pain, whether it’s physical pain, and, and just how you can deal with, control your emotions. They’re yours.

1:03:01 You can choose how to react to things, but I think I probably overdo it on my lessons, and I’m sure at some point she’ll tap out and say, okay, enough lessons. But that’s, that’s what I do. That’s really cool. Nobody taught us that. I’m learning.

1:03:14 We thought we have to just take in everything that everyone said to us. We didn’t learn how to filter things when we were young. Yeah, I know. It’s, I don’t know, the jury’s not out on how the best to do this, but I just try to spend quality time with her. I, she, she doesn’t understand it now, but like my mom, I used to fight with my mom, and she sent me to therapy when I was a kid, and I was really angry, and I would slam doors.

1:03:36 My brother and sister, not so much, but I did, but now I realized later that my mom was showing me that she loved me by putting structure in my life and by telling me that was not okay and giving me rules, but at the time I hated it. So with Gabby I give her rules and boundaries, and I know she doesn’t like it, but someday I believe that it’ll make her better, and that’s what I say. Dan Peña has something that he says, and Dan Peña, as usual, takes it one step too far, and uh, Dan says, all I want from this out of my kids, he said 20 years after I’m dead, I want them to respect me.

1:04:10 That’s it. So that’s way of Dan’s way of saying I’m going to be so hard on you while I’m alive. I’m not giving you any inheritance. I’m going to put you to the ringer, and after I’m dead for 20 years, one day when you’re 60, you’ll think he was actually doing the right thing for me. So I’m not taking it to the dampa extremes, but I understand what he’s saying, and I think with parenting and stuff like that, you need to really be thinking about the long game.

1:04:33 Yeah, and uh, don’t try to be friends with your CH child, and you can show him love and affection, but you’re also there to be, I think, structured. So I think, um, Dan and Neil deGrasse Tyson said the same thing about people just giving all the money to the kids, and they don’t do anything, they don’t have to work for it. So that’s finding the balance of it. Yeah, Neil said the same thing, and uh, we, I’ve had this concept called, uh, an immigrant mind that I was bouncing around in the early days of London Real with one of our first guests, and it was just this concept that if you come to a country as an immigrant, everything’s different because you’re willing to do things that the locals won’t do.

1:05:13 You’re willing to accept jobs, you’re willing to do whatever, and so I’m an immigrant here. Guess you’re probably an immigrant there. There’s immigrants everywhere. I’m attracted to them, actually. Um, and so it’s this whole idea of the immigrant mind, and what Neil was talking about is that these immigrants come, they work hard, they do things they wouldn’t do, and then they try to spoil their kids, and Neil deGrasse Tyson was like, you shouldn’t do that, and um, I agree, and I think that that that immigrant mind is super powerful, and you want to keep it.

1:05:38 You want to keep it hard for your kids. So yeah, I don’t want to do that. I always joke with Gabby like, you know, 18, and then you’re getting kicked out, and that’s it, and you know, all that stuff. So Mariana is the nurturing one. I’m a little more of the, the business one, but I really believe that immigrant mind is something that maybe we’ll explore more, and maybe we’ll do something on, but I think it’s super powerful.

1:05:58 I always felt that way in England. So when I got to England, I was an immigrant, which meant, like, I, you know, you burn the ships. You can’t go back home. You can’t, you know, you have to make it here or it’s over, or you got to go home to all your friends and show them that you didn’t make it. So like, I got here, and also as an immigrant, I always thought I could do things better than people here in this country, and I was like, I can do this better even as an immigrant.

1:06:21 And so I know that’s a little cocky, but I think a lot of immigrants feel that way. They’ll get to a new country, and they’re like, you know, I’ve got less to lose, and I’m going to go for it. So yeah, I remember an uncle said to me, if you, um, go from Hong Kong to, at the time I was in New Jersey, New Jersey, New York, you will, you might not have that many opportunities, like maybe other people would be better than you, cuz they speak English better, and unless you’re the top, and I remember I, nothing, no, like I don’t, I don’t have any knowledge, anything, but I said, then I will be on top.

1:06:57 Like, I would try to aspire to be good. Right, right. How do you find being, well, how old were you when you moved over? When I was 19, I, I watched 90210, I, from Hong Kong. Yes, like, I was like, I mean, in my, in my, uh, we call it secondary school, which is primary, secondary, like here too, right?

1:07:21 You call it, and um, and my Chinese wasn’t very good. Like I would get an E. Like I would pass, E is actually passing. Um, but I love English, and I watched shows, um, American shows, and uh, read Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley Twins. Uh, then I, my birthday is 4th of July.

1:07:43 I just thought I must belong there, born on the 4th of July. You do, and I want to learn to be independent, because I don’t want to always, like, ask my mom to iron my uniforms. Like, I just want to try to live AB Brad and see how it is good. So I’m glad you did, it’s a great experience I think the Immigrant thing is big, and I’m attracted to people that do that. You don’t get too comfortable.

1:08:08 You just you remember you’re there, uh, to be good. You’re trying to achieve something. Yeah, it’s true, and I, but I mean, but I’m a Londoner now, so like I feel like the city is home. You’ve been here for 15 years, 13 years, 13, so like I’m as much London. I mean, you know, I have a British passport.

1:08:26 I’m a dual citizen, so I told all the Brits, you know, I’m just as important as they are. I have the rights just the same rights they are, so I feel like a Londoner. Um, I feel normal here. I love being an American in London. You can get away with so much, cuz like if you ever a little out of line, they’ll be like, oh, he’s American, so he’s allowed to dress a little different or be a little bolder.

1:08:45 So like, I think certain cities attract people’s energies, and I go home to San Diego and I don’t get it. I don’t get Beach culture. I don’t get that it’s quiet, that it’s flat, that there’s no history. I just don’t get it. I love San Diego, and I love everyone there, and they’re very nice, but for me it doesn’t work.

1:09:02 And I lived in New York for four years. I love New York. I, I hate New York equally. Um, that’s a line from a Spike Lee movie, I think. Um, and uh, and uh, but it’s too much.

1:09:13 It’s too much energy for me. Now in my 40s, I go there, but it’s just too intense. It’s like too electric. And come to Brooklyn. Brooklyn is Brooklyn’s chiller.

1:09:20 Okay, maybe I’ll come. Maybe I’ll check it out so for me London, it’s just London. Always been good to me. I’ve had success here in my, both in my business in London Real, personally. Everything has always worked great for me in London.

1:09:34 New York kicked my ass. It always was like you know, and maybe I wasn’t ready, and maybe I was in my 20s, and maybe it’s too much going on, and I, but I love all the time I had in New York, and it’s treasured memories, and it was a great M way for a young man to test himself, and I love it, but I never, never had success in New York. I never, you can never own New York. Work, don’t get me wrong. Um, but I never had like any success there.

1:09:59 You know, I did okay. I tested myself. I had great experiences, but the city always kicked my ass, and I respect that, respect. I think everyone fits in, but like people say, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. It’s true, and I didn’t, and I’m okay with that.

1:10:15 And I got a couple friends there that, that kind of quote unquote made it. You know, my Wall Street buddies and stuff, and so I respect that, and it’s true, you know, it is a, a hard place and a tough place, and you got to be on your game all the time. I think in New York, um, but uh, you know, that’s New York, and if you, if you don’t want to play there, it’s okay, you can find somewhere else to play. I think that’s important, and what, what I’ve managed to do in London and, and it’s perfect for me, and it works really good, and I think it’s, it’s where I want to be.

1:10:42 It’s where I love being. I think it’s a suburb compared to New York. It’s just, you know, it’s, it’s, and there’s so many different parts of London. I think London, this is the most exciting time in London’s history, and it’s a bold statement of the Victorian era. Like, London in the last 10 years since I’ve been here is like grown up.

1:10:58 It’s like being like a 12-year-old or an 8-year-old, it’s being like an 18-year-old or a 25-year-old. Like, really, it’s blossomed, like the food scene, the media scene, the tech scene, the architecture. It’s just like this, in my opinion, as far as, like, cities that are accelerating. It’s the greatest city in the world for acceleration. Like New York is great, and it’s cool, and Manhattan is moving, and now it’s a hard place to live unless you’re super rich, and London will be that way at some point, but London is like the spot in my opinion, and I love, I love, I love it so much.

1:11:30 I name my show after it. So do you think that doing, uh, by actually doing London Real, you fallen up with London even more? It’s a good question. It’s a good question. I think so.

1:11:42 Yeah, I think, I think I always loved it, but doing the show. I think, yeah, I think I do love it more. I love everything more since doing the show. I’m just such a more loving and caring person. Like, you ask Mariana, like, I didn’t always used to be, be like, I don’t think I ever, I was just a much harder person.

1:11:58 I think I was just trying to be tough. I was surrounded in a working environment where you had to be tough, where people were pushing you all the time and getting inside your head and psychologically testing you, and it was just a big, you know, who’s not going to cry game. And so, uh, it’s just given me a lot more love doing the show and a lot more openness, and more like Phil was saying, get out of my head and into my heart, use my intuition. You know, like a guest, I use my intuition a lot with guests, like, do I feel like I want them on the show?

1:12:27 You know, do I feel like they’re the energy of London Real? So I need to get definitely down here more and use my intuition more, because with the MIT brain you’re all about, I can solve it with my brain, and I think I, when you go to a school like that, it teaches you your brain is the most powerful part of your body. And um, I don’t believe that’s true, and so I’m trying to get more into my heart. But yeah, I’ve loved the city more. I love people more.

1:12:51 I love Mariana more. I’m, I’m, I’m better, and I’m still getting better. I had Brian’s brain here. Brian’s brain. Yeah, and uh, in case we want to do a brain dump.

1:13:03 Oh, okay. Yeah, bra d d, let’s talk about Mariana. She is graceful, beautiful, and so patient and so caring. The first day I was meeting up, um, with, um, that was a f focus group, first time meeting up with London Real Academy, uh, members. I saw them from afar.

1:13:22 I was running. Let me get to them, and the middle of the road I fell down, and people were like, get off the street, and I couldn’t move because I couldn’t feel my knees, and I was like, bleeding a little bit, and three strangers came and carried me. I’m like, oh, Londoners, just Londoners, Londoners, Londoners. And I said, those guys, I’m with, with those guys. So they got, um, you know, the group here, and Dre was carrying my pineapple bag, and Mariana bought me ice peas from she got me a painkiller.

1:13:57 She got me two kinds of, of cream. One is like for bruises, the other one, I guess, is for disinfection. I was like, you’re perfect. She is a sweetheart. She is the nurturing, caring side that, that I need.

1:14:12 You find yourself learning from her. Completes me. But at the same time, she’s also super tough, and uh, she’s a really strong woman, and I think that’s maybe what drew me to her as well. So it’s, it’s a strange mix. Do you remember the first impression of meeting?

1:14:29 I do. Um, yeah, so I do. I met Mariana on, uh, old Bond Street in London when I was buying a dress, as you do, you know? And so I wasn’t buying a dress for myself, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I was buying it for my girlfriend at the time, and Mariana was working at Dolce & Gabbana, and I remember meeting her, and she sold me the dress, and I was just like, wow, she’s really sweet and just has this wonderful, positive energy about her. And like, I just really noticed that from the start.

1:14:57 It was just like, I don’t know, something wonderful, positive, and pleasant about her, and so I always remember that about her, and so, um, and that kind of drew me, and I found I ended up going back looking for more dresses over like six-month period, and uh, you know, going to shop there, and uh, so yeah, I would just find excuses to show up and look at dresses in Dolce & Gabbana, which is weird, cuz it’s a separate section than the men’s section, so you’re, you’re really out of place, but I didn’t really care. So that’s kind of what happened, happened with Mariana, but then as I got to know her and know more about her, I realized that she was, you know, single mother. She was raising Gabby on her own, and that was not, not easy, what she was doing, and she’s super strong, but also super nurturing.

1:15:38 It’s, it’s an interesting combination. So like when you fell, she’s like, she’s like, if you see her with kids, she’s like, well, hold them and hug them, and she’s very emotionally intuitive with people. Um, which I think I, I’m drawn to her cuz maybe I don’t have that in me, or don’t notice that I have it in me. So yeah, she’s very special. We’ve been together for seven years, seven years, my longest relationship ever.

1:16:03 The love of your life. What’s that? The love of your life. Love of my life. Yeah, she hates it when I say that.

1:16:09 The love of my life. I love the cooking show by the way. Oh, thank you. The, the, uh, you call it a webinar too? Yeah, we put her on the spot by having to cook, you know, in front of everyone.

1:16:19 So she’s been good, you know? It’s, it’s been interesting with the Academy. We’ve had a lot of meetups in the studio, and she’s come along, and, as you know from being at one of the, we call it a focus group, but it’s really like a tribe meeting. Everyone goes around and talks about themselves, and it’s almost like, you know, uh, you want to say AA. Yeah, like an AA meeting, although I don’t know if in AA they talk about, like, hi, my name is Olive and I’m, I’m an alcoholic or something like that.

1:16:41 And so, but we talk about our personal stories, and it gets really emotional, and like Mariana has been there for the first couple, and I made her tell her story in front of the group, and so she’s becoming, like, a really integral part of the Academy. And we didn’t know there would be this much human energy in our lives, and so like it’s really affected us, having all these special people in our lives, including you, and, and she’s fit right into it, you know, which is nice. When I first messaged her, um, I think I saw her blog.

1:17:13 Um, yeah, Bulgarian cooking blog. Yeah, my Gourmet Journal.com, my Gourmet Journal. Yes, there it is, and I message her. I did tell her that um, after there’s, uh, London Real Academy, I said, the wife of, of the teacher is usually a very special lady that everyone respects. Oh wow, like, like you know, even in martial arts, you know what I mean?

1:17:34 That’s nice. No, that’s good, that’s good, like, like in Chinese we say sifu, and then we’ll call her SEO, almost like she has also something to teach us, by not by really teaching us, but just by being there. Wow, that’s a powerful observation, and I do think she has something to teach us as well, and a different energy than mine, and there’s, yeah, I think, yeah, good call. Yeah, you talk about the masculine energy of the Academy, um, or, or just London Real, um, uh, uh, episodes.

1:18:06 I think that that was actually what attracted me to watching, and to be, to get to know you, because um, as, as a woman, you do everything the way everyone else does it, but there is an extra element in it. Something will, will shift it a little, make it different, like, because you’re a girl, you’re an actress, not an actor, right? And, and something about the opportunities that the society will give us. Well, there are two ends, two, two, um, extremes.

1:18:43 You can be a feminist, or you can be like, oh, I’ll let the man do it. But I don’t think we have to be either one. So in London Real Academy, I, I feel like we are so balanced. There are guys and girls. Maybe they’re more guys and girls, but it’s not about your gender, and it’s not about, um, where you from, where you live.

1:19:06 Yeah, and you’re teaching me that the opportunity, I, I love it. It’s interesting that you said you were attracted to that kind of, that I don’t know if it’s male energy, or maybe it’s a masculine energy, but whatever energy it was, I know what you mean. No b******t, and you don’t have to, um, dilute it with anything, right? And there may no exes and direct, and I know as a woman, well, I mean, I’m not a woman, but as a woman maybe you do get these two extremes of the feminist, are, don’t mess with us, we are this, and maybe the opposite side is, I, I can use my femininity for excuses.

1:19:36 I don’t know, maybe those are, and maybe we have a different energy at London Real, that is just like, I don’t know, we’re being forward or, and so, you know, I, but also I make these assumptions which are wrong. So the Academy has totally blown my mind, same as you. As far as, I just assumed that we didn’t have a lot of females watching our stuff, and if I look at my YouTube metrics, it’s probably like 80% male, 20% female. And so I was always like, okay, I guess it’s cuz it’s a lot of men talking, and that maybe women find other ways to communicate.

1:20:05 Maybe they don’t want to listen to two guys talking, but the Academy has been the opposite of that, really. It’s been like, people like you and Louise and Anita, and like all these women in there that are like, I don’t know, you’re crucial parts of the community, if not some of the best members of the community. And it’s like, you guys come in with the London Real energy. It’s, it’s strange. It’s like you’re empowered and strong, but you’re not like, uh, you’re not telling people what to do.

1:20:32 You’re not like, uh, you know, it’s, it’s like, it’s, it’s a confident energy that you guys bring, and it’s powerful. It’s a female energy is powerful. Brenda inspired me too when she posted the 50k, was it 50, 50 mile run? Yeah, Brenda, 50 mile. I was like, oh, this is a, a woman doing it.

1:20:53 It’s really inspiring, and I’m like, so I’m learning, the, the whole Academy is a learning experience. This whole year has been a learning experience for me, but like, I’m learning that there is London Real female energy that us males need. Us London Real males need your female energy, cuz like we need the female energy to pull us in the right direction, cuz sometimes we go down the wrong way. And it’s just super empowering. So like some of the most active members of The Academy now are women, and there’s women here.

1:21:22 It’s my new mentor buddy. Good, awesome. She’s awesome, and like the, when the women have come here for the focus groups, and here it’s like, it’s, it’s, it’s great. It’s normal, and so I’m so happy about that. I’m so happy.

1:21:34 And before, like, to be honest, before the Academy I wasn’t, I wasn’t touching and talking to my audience that much. People would stop me on the street, or every now and then I would go to a gathering where there would be people, but normally I wasn’t really interacting with London Reelers, and but everybody that I stop stops me on the street. Great conversations. I’ll talk 20, 30 minutes with people on the street sometimes. Right?

1:21:54 It’s so easy. They’re so awesome, right? But now I’m getting to learn that they’re, you know, female components, and that all these London Real people are super awesome. They all want to help themselves. They’re open-minded, they’re empathetic, they want to hear different points of view, but they also don’t want to screw around.

1:22:09 They don’t want to waste time. So that’s been the biggest surprise for me. Let’s, um, talk about the five rules again. We have to talk about it more. So it just comes out five rules, respect, love, vulnerability, action and accountability, and fun.

1:22:22 And fun. What are those rules? You mean, uh, to go deeper? No, so those are the rules of the Academy, right? Yes.

1:22:31 And uh, why did you just recite those? Because I need to go through it more and more. Sometimes you forget the middle one. I never forget fun. Okay, good.

1:22:40 I do sometimes, and then for my, my audience too, my viewers too, my new real, so you know, the Academy, for people that don’t know, is, you know, obviously it’s kind of a private area where I guess probably the most serious, hardcore London Reelers go who kind of want to be part of this tribe that we’re building. And so to have this community, you kind of have to have a culture of the community. And so in the beginning I was like, well, we need to have some rules, and we need to also get rid of people that aren’t going to be with those rules, cuz you know everyone’s seen that Facebook group where it’s got someone that’s making it kind of yucky, and it’s like, it’s not cool anymore, and so I wanted to make sure it was just all this good energy.

1:23:21 So those rules were put there just to make sure everyone stays along the same track. And so yeah, one strike policy. Yeah, the one strike, you’re out policy, which is a little harsh, but I also think, like, everyone spending their, like, extra time to go there, you can’t have bad energy in there. Just like I don’t think you should have a bad energy episode of London Real. I think it would ruin what we do.

1:23:41 If I have someone on that’s like the wrong energy, I would feel bad about that. So, so those, and those rules just came up in the Academy, and I think they’re important. It’s like everyone has to respect each other, just like the martial arts dojo. Everyone has to love each other. It’s hard to believe I’m saying that, because I wouldn’t have said people should love each other four years ago, but like everyone needs to come out of love with an interaction.

1:24:01 Like even if I say something harsh to Gabby or Mariana or a friend of mine, it’s out of love, you know? And then vulnerability, it’s, it’s super important. I’m learning that that’s important, that we just come out and say what’s wrong. It’s how I learned the most on London Real, by talking about my ayahuasca experience and my shortcomings on my last episode with Silly Breaks. I talked about things that I did wrong in New York City.

1:24:24 Important. Um, and then action and accountability, that’s where I think we’re a little different, because it’s like, okay, now get over it and let’s see what you can do. You know, a lot of people write me emails all the time, and they’re like, oh, when I was abused as a child, my wife left me, I had cancer, and I’m like, okay, that’s great. I don’t care about your past. What are you going to do now?

1:24:43 What are we going to do going forward? And so like, I always want to know what you’re going to do now, and like, cuz I think people sometimes get caught in their own narratives, and that’s, and I don’t like it. So that’s why the left brain is about the past, and now and the right brain is about now and future. Oh, okay, look at you, look at you. So I think that’s important, and that’s why we do action and accountability, which is what the tribe’s all about is just watching everyone, and so I think that’s super important, and uh, you know, goals.

1:25:10 You know, Phil McCaron is kind of like, grab a goal and then let go of it, and that’s interesting, because like yesterday he was like, uh, Brian, I’m not anti-goal. He’s like, I just want you to grab a goal and then let go of it, and I know what he means. Have that no star. You know, have, know where you’re going. But I think it’s a big part of the Academy is that accountability, and then fun.

1:25:28 I always, I have to remember that. Fun. I do, cuz I get so serious. Ask the guys here sometimes, I’m just like, as Julian likes to joke, Brian wants 10x everything. He wants 10x subscribers, he wants 10x this, wants views, 10x Academy members.

1:25:43 It’s good that you put it as number five. If you put it as one, number one, then by the end, you got serious. Yeah, that’s true. So like, I got to have fun. It really is about the journey, and like, these are the great, these are the good times.

1:25:55 I always remember, like, a good friend of mine, we’d be talking, and I’d be like, dude, this, these are the good times right now. Like, I’m even being interviewed by Olive right now. This is the good time. Now, it’s not going to be when we have a thousand members in the Academy, and then we’re going to be on television, and then we’re going to be this, and then our event going to be a success. That’s all going to happen, but that doesn’t mean that that’s when the times begin.

1:26:17 The good times begin. So many people in their lives are like, okay, when I finally get my job, or get my break in acting, or get my album done, or do my world tour, then I’m going to be happy. But like all the good times are happening now, and so like, it’s important to remember it, that if you’re designing your life right, the good times are now, and in a few years you’ll look back and say, wow, that was amazing. So I try to remind myself of that, even though I’m very goal oriented.

1:26:45 But now we got Phil to remind us. Yeah, to put away the notes, put away your phones. Yeah, and something, and Phil attracted me, you know, and Phil was like, something attracted you to me, and like attracted me to him, and we started talking, and boom, it was manifested. You know, you and I are, have power as founders and hosts of video talk shows. We manifest, and we bring these people into our lives, and I brought Phil in for a reason.

1:27:08 I think Phil is there to show me, Brian, you got to go with your intuition and go with what feels right, and maybe he was there to tell me, Brian, the goals are great, but let’s, let’s hold them tight, and then let’s release them, and then maybe go back in a couple weeks and grab them again, and then release them. And so, oh, so, uh, I’m learning. I’m always open to these things, and that’s what Phil noticed about us as well. He’s like, look, London Real Academy is all about this, but he’s like, you guys are open to different points of view, so I think that’s important.

1:27:37 That’s why we can have Dan Peña on the show, who is super hardcore, and I think he’s inspiring, but also I can have Amanda Feilding, who’s super into how psychedelics can change your life, and I think we can be all of these things at London Real at the same time. Ty Lopez says read a book every day. Dan Peña says don’t read any books. Both are important on London Real. They’re both important messages.

1:28:00 Last week I was taking a makeup, um, course at Ilam Masa, and every teacher has different way to do things, and that’s why I, I love it, because you get to learn and adapt what works for you. Like, I, I totally agree. I know people, leaning, some people leaning towards Dan, some are afraid of him, some has, uh, issue with how Tai is, which, but I think he’s one of, and we just pick all the good things. You don’t have to, you don’t have time to name the bad things that you don’t like.

1:28:32 Just, just learn the good stuff and put it into action. Yeah, and we all have times in our life when we need these things. You know, there’s a point where ayahuasca was super important in my life. I haven’t gone and seen Mother Ayahuasca in over a year and year and a half. Do you have plans on?

1:28:46 I do, I going to need to see her at the end of the year. I keep joking that we’re having a team ayahuasca ceremony at the end of the year. Um, Lou just gave me a thumbs up over there. Not a j. So yeah, we, but we do need, uh, you know, but I, we do need to get back.

1:28:59 The good thing about ayahuasca is I think it tells you, it tells your brain what your heart’s thinking, in about 2 hours, and it gives you the data download from hell. So it really tells your brain, um, what people around you probably are trying to tell you, but you’re not listening as in, this is the direction you need to go, this is where your heart is. So I think it’s an amazing tool to tell yourself where you need to go if not, going to find out you’re in 10 years you ended up doing something that you didn’t want to do, like you were off in a career that you hated, you know, kind of where I got to in banking, making money for the reason, no other reason than just to make it.

1:29:37 You don’t know why you’re doing it. So it’s important, I think, to link back with Mother Ayahuasca and touch base, but at the same time that was important for me a couple years ago. Lately it’s not as important, but I think I need to go see her. But again, Dan Peña is for a certain point in your life, or a certain point when you need, Med him. Ty Lopez can give you great ideas.

1:29:56 I think all of these people you can use at points in your life, and you might not use them again ever, or maybe in a few years you find, I got to go see Paa again at the castle and have him beat me again. But maybe, maybe for the next couple years I don’t, you know, maybe I need to go and listen to my heart and do these things. So it’s this constant journey. I remember tweeting at Dan Peña, and you, and he, his tweet is all, too. I think if it can be read, it would be read, and I said something, Brian, something about the goals, and he said, without affirmation you going do anything, and I’m going to show you that later.

1:30:35 And at the time I didn’t know what affirmation was. Okay, yeah. Dan’s big on affirmations, um, and he got me saying them at the castle, and I, I think they’re, I think they’re good. Um, I think they’re important. I say them in the morning, and I think they’re a great way to kind of get it into your head, but yeah, Dan has, Dan is intense.

1:30:52 Dan Peña, the 50 billion all man. If people don’t know him, watch a couple episodes we did. I think we got a good snapshot of Dan. Like I said, in, in 2D, you need to experience Dan in 3D. If you thought his tweets were heavyweight, so you get an email that’s two pages long in all cap red.

1:31:09 Yeah, so from Dan, and yeah, how do you do the weekly reports? So you know, I went to the castle last uh, October for a week. I was there 8 days in Scotland, kind of in the middle of nowhere, on his compound for six days in a row. I wore a suit and tie every day. I hadn’t worn a suit and tie in a long time, so wearing one every day is, is an intense experience, and then you eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner with Dan at the castle all together.

1:31:36 You’re on this castle. You’re separated from everyone else. There wasn’t really much internet, so you’re really isolated, and it was a really intense experience, and I got to know Dan very well, and I interviewed him before and after, and that whole experience, so uh, that was intense, and it definitely changed me, and it changed my game. It definitely did, and uh, and I’m very grateful for that. Um, and it was a great, good time in my life when I really needed to, like, take stock of what I was doing at London Real, cuz when I’m kind of alone doing this, coming into the studio every day, it’s like, it’s, it’s hard to keep it all together and push yourself, and all that stuff.

1:32:10 And so, uh, that was important, and then afterwards I, I keep a track of my timeline, so once you start checking all the hours of the week, and you have to send them to someone every week, like Dan said, you’ll realize how you ever got anything done in the first place. Like, you’ll wonder, because if you had to track every hour of the day, you’ll realize how inefficient sometimes you can be. Does he tell you this is Cle? You should not have done this? Yeah, so like for the first few months Dan would be like, uh, I mean, I’m pretty, I’m already pretty efficient and, and brutal with my own times.

1:32:40 Like, I have specific times where I train every week, and I was in the studio six, seven days a week before, and like, I have this kind of a thing, mindset, just from me. So I think everyone’s different, you know, and so for me, I don’t think my discipline alarmed him, but there were certain things where he would, yeah, come back in red or say, what’s this, or [expletive], or good, and for me it was like my lack of taking risk. That’s what Dan noticed with me.

1:33:06 He calls me an engineer, or an engineer. I study mechanical engineering at MIT, and US engineers have a, have a bad habit or a good habit if you’re if you’re driving across a bridge or if you’re riding in a plane, you want the engineers to build it so it doesn’t break. So we don’t take risks. We want things to work for every takeoff and landing of your plane, but the problem is that we’re risk averse, and so Dan said right away, Brian, that’s the big problem with you.

1:33:32 You don’t take enough risks, and so that’s what he pushed me for, the first three, five months. Like, more, more, more, more, so that’s what he was saying. Like, why wait? Why aren’t you doing this? Why aren’t you hiring this person?

1:33:44 You mentioned in the first interview that he made a remark about. Is that it for you, Brian? That’s it, yeah. If you watched my first interview with Dan, where he was sitting right here next to me, and I was right there, and he was this $50 billion man. I wasn’t, you know, dressed like I normally dressed.

1:34:02 Now he was, yeah, I think it’s like 50 minutes in, or an hour in, where he’s like, What are you doing, Brian? You happy? Is this it? So yeah, Dan was pushing me, and I don’t know, I guess Dan saw some potential, and he was just like, I don’t think you’re living up to your potential, Brian. Even though he didn’t know much about me, he didn’t know our show was going to be a huge hit for him and get him tons of exposure, but he was, I think, he saw in me.

1:34:25 And maybe Dan, I think Dan sees in everyone unrealized potential, and that bothers Dan, and Dan will tell you that he does it for himself and his legacy and for QAA, which is his methodology, and maybe that’s true, but Dan hates to see unrealized potential. I think it bothers him. Like some people hate to see waste, and when he sees people, he sees waste, and I’m sure he would spend time with you, and he would say, Olive, they cry on the floor. Well, I’ve already got you a little bit of pain, your treatment already, so you’ve already stepped your game up in a big way.

1:34:57 No, when, when we feel like it’s so much to do in the Academy, I thought, okay, at least it’s not Dan. Brian is kind. It’s true. Dan would be much more brutal. Yeah, it’s true, but you know Dan would just demand more because he’d say, I see so much in you, Olive.

1:35:11 You can create this. You’re a strong woman. You get things done. You know, you’re out there making these things happen. You’re dealing with emotions, you know, anyone that accomplishes anything like what you’ve done with New York Real or even London Real, we’ve all had those hard times, times of self-doubt, people that drop you, sabotage, blah, blah, blah, editing problems.

1:35:29 There’s all these things that happen that make something like a video talk show not continue to exist. So if it’s been there for a while, it means there’s strength there. But Dan would look at you and say, there’s more, Olive. And that’s the way he looks at everyone, and it’s a blessing. It can also be a curse, cuz Dan can be brutal, and Dan can sometimes be a crazy man, and do you recommend us to go, oh, to go see Dan?

1:35:54 Look, Dan will call you, just like Mother Ayahuasca. You know, I’ve, some people watch my ayahuasca show, and they’re like, oh, I’ll never do that, and that’s okay, and some people watch it and they’re drawn to it. You know, when I watched The Joe Rogan Experience with Aubrey Marcus, who is now the CEO of Onnit. I watched that episode four, no, five, six years ago, and I heard ayahuasca and I started doing my research, and 18 months later I drank it. And so it called me.

1:36:19 So the same with Peña, I call it the Peña ASCA. You know, you get with Peña, you get this step function input into your brain of all these hard things, and you’re like, oh my god, what the hell is he talking about? This is uncomfortable. It’s too much information. I don’t like what he’s saying.

1:36:36 And you can use it as a tool to get you to another level. And same with ayahuasca. You can use ayahuasca to do the same thing, and so look, Peña, he’ll call you. You’ll either go do it or you won’t. You know, like I said, there’s a time and place for everything.

1:36:50 For me it was a good thing to do at the time, but, you know, he’s a hard man. It was especially powerful because you did it before and after, the interview and your first interview with Dan. I feel like you didn’t really buy into everything that he said, and the audience, the viewers, also feel that from you. I feel like your vulnerability is what makes this show so interesting. I’m slowly starting to learn that.

1:37:22 Yeah, my first episode was Peter Sage, and I never noticed the interviewers. I mean, honestly, I thought, why do they interview people? It’s kind of boring. But watching you interview, I was like, this guy is so into it, he’s getting something out of it. Like, what is he thinking right now.

1:37:41 Like, I want to know. And then I was researching more about London Real, and I thought, he’s different, like, you’re not thinking about the next question. I think I’m, it took me a long time to realize, like, years that, to realize that people were tuning in to see the interaction that I have with the guest. So it’s not just about the guest. It’s about my interaction with the guest, and that whole, you know, emotional relationship that’s forming, like, in real time, right in front of people, cuz I’ve never met these guests until we basically turn the cameras on.

1:38:16 So it’s all organic and real. But, you know, I was always about putting the guest forward, and so, like, for the first I didn’t want to ever take the spotlight. If you noticed, the first year or two in London Real, I don’t talk about myself very much. I wasn’t comfortable with that, wasn’t comfortable with being vulnerable, but now I’m starting to learn that, that’s that people want to see my interaction with the guest. And so you’re right, with Dan Peña, you know, that episode at the castle, the before and the after.

1:38:40 I was a little bit of a punk when I was interviewing, before I was just like, okay, Dan. And I was also having some resistance, cuz I didn’t know if I wanted to be there, and I didn’t know, and I thought Dan was going to be disrespectful to me. I was ready to leave that castle, like every day, and I was like, if he pushes it too hard, like, this close, Dan, and I’m walking out of there F*** you in your Castle is what I was thinking, but when I got there to the castle that day there was a completely different energy in the room, and Dan felt it, it felt good, and it felt like he was going to push me, but look after me, and so I got a really good energy, and when I filmed that interview with him in the castle, in front of that fireplace, I had already felt good, right when I saw him that day, it felt good, and he actually greeted me, like, in a, like, in a, you know, Peña sweatshirt or something he wasn’t even in his suit, and, like, him and Sally, like, they walk around the castle like in normal clothes, and so it’s, like, it’s almost like a ranch house, and I was just like, it felt good, and then he put his suit on.

1:39:34 We did the interview, but yeah, I was a bit of a punk, and I was a bit like yeah, Dan, you going to do this week? And what are you doing, in a boot camp? And I’ve been in a fraternity, I’ve been hazed, and, like, really, is this going to be a big thing? And then you’ll see me afterwards, and like, I look different, and I’m treating Dan different, and my dad watched the interview, and he said, you’re different, Brian, and Dan is treating you different too, and I was like, oh, it was one video.

1:40:00 So for us, it’s back to back right? It was, yeah, throughout. I thought about splitting them up, but I didn’t, so yeah, it was before and after, and so what I learned from Dan that week was just, he’s a really congruent guy. And so most people see Dan ranting or see him talking about, you know, the things on the show, and that’s all true, but to see him in his castle, and to see the reality of it, and the fact that he’s there all day, he really is that person off camera, on camera, you know.

1:40:27 In the coffee breaks, we would find ourselves sitting around Dan listening to his stories and then we’d go into the classroom, and we’d sit around Dan listening to his stories. And so I just found it really congruent, and some of the things he said really, really hit home. There was one story he told at the castle where he was kicked out of his oil company and removed his CEO, and, you know, some tough things happened for him, and they were suing him at the same time.

1:40:54 And he said he had no cash for like 18 months, and he was trying to keep the castle and not lose it. He was trying to stay alive. He was fighting all these lawsuits, but he said his accounts were frozen for like 18 months, and he was like, I never told my wife, is what he said. And I don’t know, for some reason that just impressed me massively, that this man was dealing with all of this turmoil deep down in his gut, and yet he stayed strong, strong for his family Now, a lot of people would say that’s completely wrong, and you should be, he should be, more emotional and open, but I was just like, Dan’s a, he’s a bad motherf***er, and I was just like, I respect that.

1:41:34 A lot to be in, like, a really low point in your life, and to stay strong and stay powerful and not let people get you down. And so that was the story that kind of got me with Dan, and then, like, that all inspired me in weird ways, and so I came back a little different, and I think I just stepped my game up, and I think it kind of matured me. Like, if I’d gone to the army or something, weird, very weird it does. Sounds like what Chris Eubank said about injury.

1:42:02 You don’t talk about your injury, you just try to get through it and do the next great thing. It’s kind of a tough guy thing to do, and not talk about your injury. There’s a fine line. I mean, you know, people say my vulnerability is why people like to watch this show so, like, I have to understand that there’s some of that, but, like, you know, I’m so of the mind of, you need to be strong and tough and keep a lot of the drama inside yourself, and that kind of thing.

1:42:30 So I’m constantly torn. I’m still learning, and that’s what’s great about it. You’re right, that’s what’s great about everybody in their lives. Like, everybody is not plain and simple. Everybody’s a contradiction.

1:42:40 They really are, and that is the beauty of it. You’re right. There was one question submitted to me about your goatee. Oh, my goatee. What they ask, did you sh, did you shed a tear when Dan had you shave?

1:42:54 So it’s funny. My goatee disappeared when I was at the castle and, it, I think it was the third day. I just was looking in the mirror, and I was going to shave, cuz I was putting suit and tie on every day, and I just looked at it, and I was like, it’s got to go, and so I just took it off. But no one noticed. When I, no one noticed at the castle, cuz everyone was dealing with their own stuff, and you got Dan every day, and Dan didn’t notice, so, like, no one noticed, but it was gone, and I just took it off.

1:43:18 Mariana noticed. I guess she noticed. And now it’s very befitting. It’s very befitting, because I did change, and it kind of had to go, and I’m glad it’s gone. So that’s a good observation.

1:43:29 Good observation. And you’re a very good interviewer. Oh, so far we’re just having a conversation, right? And you noticed that I took a peek, so I’m not looking anymore at my notes. Oh, your notes, very professional.

1:43:43 Yeah, so, a lot of questions. Other questions for you: people just want to know, what would Brian do when he’s unmotivated, when he is scared? Somebody submitted a question of how does your fear pyramid look like? Okay, great question. fear pyramid is Jeff Thompson, you know.

1:44:06 Yeah, build your fear pyramid, and then, you know, try to conquer each one of them. So, do I get unmotivated? I mean, these are all great questions. Yes, on all that stuff, you know. But the more people I have around me that make me accountable, such as Julian and Dre and Louis and it’s like it’s hard for me not to deliver, and as well as with the London Real community, it’s like, it’s, I can’t not deliver.

1:44:33 Accountability, it is accountability. And it’s like Phil Mccan said, it’s not about me anymore. So, like, I can’t not. You know, I can’t not do a show. It’s like this is a live episode, today we had two this week, what am I going to do, not show up and be like, I’m tired, or I’m sick, or I’m like, that doesn’t play like, I can’t do that.

1:44:50 I feel like I’ve got a huge commitment to these people, and it’s probably just something twisted in my brain. Is it really that important, Brian, that you publish every week? But in my mind, it’s this commitment, and so it has to happen. And so the unmotivated stuff, like, with that happening in the background and all these people that are part of this thing, and we have a great organic team here. I don’t feel like that doesn’t hit me very often.

1:45:13 Fears all the time, all the time. Fears hit me, and I am going to where the fear is, and I’m really living and breathing that. And so all the changes we made, the hiring of the people, like, for me, I was fearing putting, like, money into the business, putting capital in the business, because for me, I was, I’m you know, I’m living off savings from the banking industry. Four years ago I always joked that the banking industry is sponsoring London Real, because it is, you know, they paid for it.

1:45:40 You know, they are the ones that put the seed capital. Those are, you know, the initial equity investors, and so I was always paranoid about putting more money into something that was going nowhere. But I had to take that risk, and that was like a big thing. I learned from the castle was, we got to invest, we got to build a new studio, we got to hire our people. We have to try to do that, and so that’s been a big fear.

1:46:03 The Academy launch, the Academy was a big fear. Are we going to mess it up? Are we going to screw it up? We only have one shot if we ask people to come in and become part of a community and to pay money to be involved in this thing. It’s got to be good, and I was really scared.

1:46:16 Like, I wanted to wait months and months before we launched it. So, like, that was a big fear, doing that. Our big live event is a huge fear, you know, trying to bring people together. I mean, we did an event with Peña in March, that one-day event. Looking back that looks tiny compared to what we’re going to pull off in September, but at the time it scared the hell out of me.

1:46:36 And in the meantime we were doing everything else at the same time, so set design, new people getting hired, building the Academy, and pulling off a live event with Dan, who’s already crazy too, to deal with, and get him on page. He doesn’t want to necessarily even do it. He’s never done a one-day event. He always does castle seminars. So I got to deal with Dan, and then we’re promoting it.

1:46:57 I’ve never promoted a live event. Crazy fear, and I feel all this. Like, Mariana says it about me, like, if you ever come to my house, I want to make sure you’re happy, that everything is good. I’m really, like, I feel really indebted to people, to make sure I fulfill my promises. So if I say you’re going to come to a live event, it’s going to be like awesome, and there can’t be anything.

1:47:16 Nothing can screw up. Like, if you come here for a show, nothing can screw up. You know, I feel like I owe everybody who sits in this chair an amazing episode, even if I hate them, even if they say something bad to me, or later they don’t return my emails. I owe them an amazing show, and so I’ve put all this pressure on myself. So that’s scary.

1:47:35 And, like, our Masterminds event in September is super scary. It’s a three-day event, flying people in from all around the world. I’ve got all these commitments, trying to make this thing work, and try to just make it a most amazing experience, going around London, micro adventures, and having the final dinner at the Tower bridge in London. Exactly, you just released that video. All these things, because I want it to be just amazing, and I’d rather have 100 people have an experience that changes their life forever than, like, 300 people come and say, oh, that was cool, and, oh, Elliott Hulse gave an amazing talk, Jeff Thompson said something cool, but I’d rather these people, like, train with Elliott in the park, and he’s yelling at them, and he says something there, they’ll take the rest of their life or Jeff Thompson, like, talks about how he can write about, you know, being sexually molested as a child and use that pain to make a piece of art.

1:48:23 You know, it’s like, Jesus Christ. And to be around, like, Chris Eubank and see what he’s like in person. And, like, so for me that’s the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life, is putting on this event and making it happen and delivering it. And so, like, that’s a fear, but I’m trying to use it, because it’s also a steep learning curve, right? So, like, you got to go where your fears are.

1:48:44 Not to quote my own TED talk, but, like, and so I was listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast about a month ago, and we were building the Academy, and the Academy is doing really well, and we want to put more work into it, and I was like, you know what, we can just keep the Academy, make it better. We got the new set. We can make amazing guests, and we can make London Real do really good this year. And Tim was like, you know what, you should think about what you’re scared of.

1:49:10 All of us, whether it’s starting a family or moving to a city or starting a company or leaving your job, and he’s like, the things you’re scared of are probably the things you should do, and I was listening to it on the tube, and he said it right at the moment where I was thinking, you know what, I think the Academy would be just enough this year, and I know we can do that, and I know we can do an amazing job, but I know it’s a little too comfortable, and I was like, I got to do this thing. And so now that we’ve done it, and it’s been like a complete game changer, just putting ourselves in that, we’re going to do an amazing event space, and I’m like on the phone with, you know, the managers of, like, top people and I’m getting people returning my calls.

1:49:47 Like, you know, Tim Ferriss’s agent, and all these people calling us back. Jamie Oliver’s agents, like, they’re returning my calls for the first time ever. You know, they didn’t do that normally as a London Real video talk show, but as a London Real events company or media business, now all of a sudden it’s changing our game. So, like, I’m learning so much. It’s super scary, but I know that’s where we need to go, right now.

1:50:12 Day by day, every day something changes. You get so much more new information. For the event, it’s so exciting. We’re always waiting for the new announcement. Super exciting, it’s super complicated, super scary.

1:50:23 You know, we just announced Peter Sage is going to be there this week, which is a huge piece. You know, I know in your heart you know 120,000 people have watched that Peter Sage interview, for like an average of like 30 or 40 minutes each, and many times I think I watched it five times. Yeah, you’re right. I don’t even think we can track, like, the repeat views there. But, like, so many people, like, he’s the one, more than almost anyone, people have written emails about, like, three-page it changed their life.

1:50:48 But, like, it didn’t just change their life. They actually, like, really did something big in their life and Peter’s got great energy. I’m so happy that he’s going to be part of it. And so, yeah, people like that, and they’re all preparing this TED talk for the event. So they’re all preparing, like, experts, people that have given TED talks are doing a special one for the event, and they’re going to compete for this prize, and then the next day they’re going to sit with us in groups and walk us through how to change your life.

1:51:12 So it’s like this inspiration one day, and I call it action the next day. And so, like, we’re putting this all together, and this is going to be like something that people know us by for, like, the longest period, and we’re going to do this every year, I hope. And so September is not that far away. No, it’s 83 days from this taping, so it’s coming soon but it’s like it’s getting all of our heart and soul in it. And again, people want to know about fears yeah, there it is.

1:51:38 So I don’t know what I’m going to do next year to scare myself, but, you know, this year I think we’ve done a bunch of scary things. But yeah, I mean, just to get back to that answer, I’m scared of things constantly. I was scared of being a father, of moving in with the girls. I’m scared of all sorts of things, and I just, you know, like, I try to use those as tools, and try to go into them a little bit more than I used to. And I mean, I could have done all this stuff two years ago, you could argue, and yet I didn’t, because I think I was scared.

1:52:07 I was scared of turning London into a business. I was scared of building an Academy. I was scared of live events for the longest time, and so, but look, where did it get me? It didn’t, got me plain, conservative, plain, small, and that doesn’t help anyone. So now we’re going there, go into the fears.

1:52:25 So, two of your guests talk about relocating, David Ellen and Joe Des Santa and yeah, I was listening. What they just, they built everything, and now they pick up, and Joe just moved to was it Singapore? Singapore, yeah. Joe to Singapore, and David moved to Amsterdam from, like, California, which is a big a big move. Yeah, that talk about going to where the fear is, that’s big, because that’s one of your best comfort zones: your home, your friends, and your country.

1:52:58 But talk about shaking your game up. Oh, that’s powerful. Are you asking me if I’m going to do that? No, just, just, yeah, you know, continuing the topic of fear and going to where fear is. You know, it’s an interesting question.

1:53:11 Maybe in a couple years I should do that. I don’t know, move it. I always think you could do London Real in another city too, but yeah, do New York Real here. Yeah you are. And so, no, but I think that’s much respect.

1:53:20 And I gave David respect as well, and he’s in his 60s. So to get someone that age to get out of their comfort zone very hard, and so I give him much respect, and his learning curve is going to be powerful. He’s going to be meeting new people and doing things different, and it’s going to be scary, and he’s going to be lonely, missing home, and, like, but I like that move. Wow this is the first pause. I know it’s good to have a pause.

1:53:46 Are you getting, you getting, are you getting through like the things that you kind of wanted me to ask? Yeah, yeah, like, all of them just come up naturally. Yeah, I mean, like, I also want to, I guess we jumped in without explaining too much about the Academy at least to my viewers. Like, there’s really no reason not to be a part of it. I’ve been telling people around me, and they have seen changes, and I think taking up responsibility, like signing up, is, it’s really important, and once you’re there, accountability is what’s missing from most of the programs or any gurus or any men internet mentor that I had before, because I don’t really interact with them, so I get inspired and I forget about it the problem, the reason we started the Academy, is because I felt like we were doing these amazing talks, like we’d have a Peter Sage episode or a Dan Peña episode or Ayahuasca or someone, and you get super inspired, and then YouTube stops, and you can leave a comment maybe, and then you go back to your life, and you don’t make any changes, and it was just like, what it felt like, what are we doing?

1:55:03 And so that’s what we talked about, the Academy, of, like, giving people a chance to come here. Now, you watch the full episode in the Academy. We, like, we make you go on there to watch it, and now you can watch it, and then once you’re there, there’s now this peer group around you that’s going to be like, okay, if you want to go take your game to this level, or do that. They’re right there. I’m right there.

1:55:22 I’ll talk to you. And so that’s why I wanted to do it. I feel like it’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for four years, just like these get-togethers and these experiences as well. I think it’s part of it as well, but I felt like we were doing all this inspiration, and then people weren’t going anywhere, so that makes it entertainment then. And I don’t want to be in the entertainment business.

1:55:42 So that’s what the Academy was. We built it. We’re now almost at 5,000 members, people that are on it with our social media that log in to watch the full episodes. We’re just at around 500 founding members, which are the people that pay to really be a part of it, and those are the people, like yourselves, that I feel are like part of the people that make London Real happen, because they are. And you’re like, now it’s almost like a Kickstarter you’re now part of this studio and this program, and you’re a supporter, financially, emotionally, spiritually, and now you’re on this Academy, and if you’re a founding member, only then do you get access to, like, the activity feed in The Social Network, and the live episodes are only for those people, and the success secrets inside the episodes, and there’s a bunch of extra pieces, like the live footage of, like, our Phil Mccan event will be in there for them, or Dan Peña live is there.

1:56:30 And so the whole idea is to get the right people in the room, and then have the rules so everyone behaves right, and then just get people to the next level, because I agree, internet mentors, like you said, they’re great, but, like, I don’t think they go to the next level and get people to take action. And I’ve been so impressed by people in the Academy, like Mark and Louise. Louise is this woman from the north of England. Mark is a guy in Holland Nam, met on the Academy, and they’re like accountability buddies, and they have, like, this entire Google doc about how they’re taking their game to the next level.

1:56:59 They’re on calls every day with each other, and I, like, I’m amazed by what they’re doing, and then that makes us step our game up, and now we’ve had meetups here and focus groups tell us what we can do better, and then I’m meeting people now in person, which I didn’t do before, and I’m seeing the value of every week now. Yeah, and so I’m learning so much, and, like, trust me, we got a long way to go with the Academy. It needs to get a lot better, and I want to get it better, and it’ll probably transform, but you know, and you’ve been super supportive, Olive.

1:57:27 You, like, join right away, and you’re in there, like, with all the energy. You’re like, okay guys, let’s do this, let’s do this, let’s step the game up. You made those videos. You did a New York get-together for the Academy members. We did New Yorkers group.

1:57:39 We did, you started the tradition, you pass around the iPhone and introduce yourself, and, like, we did that at the focus group here a week ago, and, like, you know, I’m, I don’t know, super inspired by you and the people in the Academy. Our world needs this. I don’t remember walking in, like, to a tea house, and, you know, five people. Oh, one came later, four people waiting there, and Charlotte were just like introducing everyone and taking care of everyone, and we were like, we never met.

1:58:10 We all live in New York City, and we all know what our favorite guests are on London Real. We all know Brian there’s something unspoken about it. It’s almost scary that you sit down and you all trust one another. We never met, and we told one another our struggles, our secrets, and immediately everyone just wants to help out and support. It’s very rare.

1:58:41 Yeah, where do you get that? It’s fascinating, and I’m learning this too now that I’ve started to meet with people in the Academy, and I agree, everyone opens up, they get vulnerable, everyone’s cool. I’ve never had anyone that was disrespectful, and everyone’s like, how can we help, how can we push you? It’s amazing, and the energy you get in the room, like, with Phil we had 25 people from the Academy in one room. It was just like, whoa and everyone was getting emotional and being open, and yeah, it’s something I’m still getting my head around, how powerful it is and so I think this is going to be like a group of us, that’s going to be like a thousand of us, and we’re going to be like changing the world.

1:59:20 Like, I think we’re all going to help each other, and there everyone’s going to be like future partners and future this. And I don’t know, yes, my accountability buddy is in Oxford, my money buddy is in China, and we still have a few more coming. I haven’t gotten my, do you call body buddy or budd? Yeah, and mentor buddy. Oh, you got your mentor buddy?

1:59:43 This, but, you know, again, it’s as good as you put into it. So some people sign up and become family members, and, like, they just don’t put the energy in. They don’t be vulnerable, and, like, if you’re not willing to put the energy in, you won’t get it back but if you do, you’ll get so much accountability, support, love. And we’re working on making it better too, but you do and then when the webinars, having people get together, and so yeah, this has been such an eye-opening thing for me to see.

2:00:08 So I’m learning, how does it feel to help so many people that you’ve never met, to not have the regrets they could have had? Like, when I did that Google Hangout with Mark, I was like, I was dumbfounded cuz you got these two people, and I’m seeing them on the hangout, that they have never met each other, different parts of different countries, and yet they are helping each other to get these greater goals. So yeah, it makes me so humble so proud. I joke now that the show gets in the way of the Academy, because I feel like all the positive energies in the Academy.

2:00:41 I go on the activity feed all the time, and I just get positive vibes, inspiration. Like, I don’t know how people aren’t on there all the time, cuz it’s just great stories. It’s not, it’s people having hard times. It’s people getting better. It’s people posting videos.

2:00:53 One guy said, you know, John Watero, he runs now, and when he runs his 5K, he’s thinking about what the Academy members are going to say, and he pushes himself for that time, for those extra few seconds. So there’s this group of people, unbelievable. He broke the records. Yeah, there’s people he’s never met in the world, and I do the same thing when I’m doing my kettlebell. I’m like, I can’t slack, because it’s on YouTube, and the Academy members are going to be like, Brian, what’s up?

2:01:15 So, like, we’re all being held to be better. So yeah, I’m humbled, amazed. It’s really keeping me alive. I don’t know how I survived without it. So super lucky to be a part of it.

2:01:25 So, and thanks for being a part of it too. And I’m just starting to meet everybody. So I’m going to meet more of the people, and it’s just going to be better, and I think it needs to get bigger but not too big. So I think it needs to get to be big, like I said, I think thousands, the right number, around the world, to where it doesn’t become, where it loses personality, but it still stays super supportive and cool. So we have to be open-minded.

2:01:46 We don’t even know yet. I don’t know yet, and I don’t know. So someone pulled me aside last night at one of the focus groups, and this is really powerful. I won’t say his name, but he said, he said, Brian, he said, I love the Academy, and I love being, you know, building the best you and becoming better, he said, but also a lot of this is all about our personal goals getting better. He’s like, what if London Realers came all together one day in the city of London and gave something back to the community?

2:02:11 And it was like, 200 London Realers, like, going somewhere and building a project for the city, or going somewhere and making a meal for people or something. He’s like, that is the next level. And I was just like, oh my God. I was like, first I was like, how come I didn’t see that? And I was like, you’re right, that is the next level.

2:02:28 So it’s like I’m learning, and that’s a whole another aspect of where we need to go. So like, yeah, I have a story like that too, cuz you did some, I, we did a volunteering. I saw that on Twitter. I was like, wow, it was funny, because I didn’t even, did I have one episode? I perhaps have had one episode, so it wasn’t really real in my mind yet, and I don’t know if anyone watches it, and there was an volunteering opportunity, so I signed up, and the team name is New York Real.

2:02:59 I love it. I just thought maybe I’m just going to be the only one showing up. But let’s try. And we, we end up, we have, like, around 10 people doing together, I think maybe a little more, maybe 14. Yeah, and we cleaned up a park in the Bronx in the name of New York.

2:03:20 So you beat me to the charity event. Jesus. Oh, making me look bad. I saw that. I saw you tweet that.

2:03:26 Like, I’m not on Twitter at all these days, but I saw that. I was like, God damn, that’s some next-level stuff. Your New York Real has been up for three months, and you’re already doing charity projects. Well, that’s big. Just start before you’re ready.

2:03:39 Again, yeah, I’m super impressed and inspired. Now I want to ask you, yeah, where are you headed with New York Real? What do you want it to look like in a year? And when’s the TED talk? Gosh.

2:03:52 Affirmations. I wrote something that surprised me a few days later, because, wow, I was really greedy or something, or really confident. I wrote something like, having, I put a big number of followers, and I said I’m so grateful that I got to give three TED talks, one in New York, one in London, and one in China. I love it. How many followers, by the way?

2:04:19 I actually forgot. I but I probably put a crazy amount. Probably put how many? Probably put 10,000, or I wouldn’t put 100,000 just yet. okay, 10,000 seems low, but okay.

2:04:34 And three TED talks, huh? Okay, I like that. Anything else in those affirmations? Yeah I did not read it every morning and night. I should.

2:04:45 Okay, yeah, talk to me about your TED talk how do you feel about that, and when’s that happening, Brian? Before the how to start something webinar, it did not cross my mind. I love TED talks. I watched them. What am I going to say?

2:05:00 Like, I was really thinking, gosh, this is when, that’s why it’s good to have buddies to encourage one another, because you see, I see my accountability buddy John. I said, you can totally do a TED talk, but why is it so hard when it comes to ourselves, and I wrote down many things on my phone. I try to write down new titles every day, whatever I’m inspired like my half and half hair. Sometimes to me it’s like my half of my life, in Hong Kong, half in America or my artistic side, and the other side, which is making me accountable for things and not just be artsy and are there any other analogies with the hair?

2:05:50 No, I just, one day I just thought I should do more than one color, and I told my stylist Jill, oh my God, Jill, I made hair videos for Jill. That’s how I started doing selfie videos and using cameras. So I said, can you do half and half? Can I have, like, blonde on one side and brunette? And then she’s like, okay, it’s like the perfect look for you.

2:06:20 I showed Gabby a picture this morning. Was like, oh, what is she have there? I was like, I don’t know, but it works, and it is this 50/50 thing. Like, for acting, sometimes when we have to do, like, serious stuff, like, medical students or something, then I would do this side, and then, when they want rocker, or give them both, oh hipster, and I do this perfect, perfect, perfect. So I think that has probably has something to do with my personality and you’re writing down things that could be your TED talk, right?

2:06:48 Yeah, like basically my story but from different angles. I didn’t tell too many people. I had an eating disorder when I was about 18, for a few years. I didn’t tell a soul, cuz it’s embarrassing. I didn’t even know that was a problem, and I threw up like three times a day.

2:07:08 Okay. And when I feel very nervous or under stress, and if I’m being compared to someone, like, oh gosh like, I grew up with a lot of good kids from church, and they would have better grades than me they would be more polite, and part of the Chinese culture, I think, they do put a lot of expectation high expectation on the children. Yeah, yeah. And so I am always the black sheep, I feel like. And one day I threw up and I saw blood in it, and I thought, oh s***, something’s bad, and I googled I like, what should I do?

2:07:51 And then I found out it’s called bulimia, and I never knew that was such a term, and there are people that are also suffering from it. And then I try to cure myself. It says on the website, go seek professional help, and I was really stubborn. I’m like, I’m just going to stop. So then later my first boyfriend said something like, oh, no matter what, I would still love you, and I was like, oh okay.

2:08:22 So I guess I don’t have to do that. I guess I’m okay. Not to give him too much credit, but it’s me realizing I got to do something, I got to save myself, and this happened more than one time in my life when I used to cry a lot. I take pictures of myself, and later on I look at that. I was like, who is this girl?

2:08:45 Why is she crying like that? I got to save her. You kind of have to have another point of view. And so that’s another story, my eating disorder story. Both of them.

2:08:58 So these are both potential TED talks, and they all, I linked, I guess, and the sense of limitation, it’s freaky. I used to wake up in the middle of the night or stay up really late, and I’m talking, when I talking about, when I was only maybe eight or 10, when no one’s watching, I would fold my comforter in half. How do I start, in half, in half, in half, in half, into this, 130, I mean, 116 of the size of a little pillow, and I would sleep on it and imagine myself being, um, a servant of this house, like Cinderella.

2:09:45 Like, oh after doing this hard work all day, I get to sleep here. Like, it’s so weird, right? I was such a was a little girl, and then I did something good that day, and I got rewarded, and I get to open it up, so my bed was bigger, and at the end I unfolded the whole comforter, and I was like, now I can go to bed. Yeah, that’s strange, but of course everyone has strange things they do like that, but you could weave a TED talk in all of these things. I think everyone has like 10 of them in them.

2:10:14 I really do. Yeah and like, you’re talking about, like, John. John Watero is your buddy, right? John has EMS, and like you said, you can see that in him. I see you, and you’re like, what am I going to talk about?

2:10:29 And it’s just like you have so much you can talk about. All right, the next webinar, TED talk then we’ll have TED talk buddies. Oh yeah, TED. Yeah, but no, so you are going to do one. Do we have a date?

2:10:42 I’ve only done my research. I know there are places, research, research ones, like to see what cities have talks, like, five months away. How far away should we time it? I mean, 14 weeks is usually what we say to, but you’re not, you know, you won’t be able to book one that quick, so you probably book one six months. My muscle-up trainer, the guy that trains me on the bars, Roger Frampton, he’s got one booked for November now, and we’ve been, we worked on that for a while, as far as trying to get him a booking, but he finally nailed one.

2:11:15 So his is in November, which is, you know, four months from now. So you know, you just, they’re out there. You find one, and then it’s on. Yes, I would like to say on this show that I will do it. Good.

2:11:28 I’d like to see that. And where are we going with New York Real? What do you want from New York? Where’s New York Real going to be next year, and what’s your vision? I am more of a control freak than you are.

2:11:42 I’m learning from you. I don’t know how much I’m taking in comments now. I’ve only have four episodes out, and I think I need more interaction. I need to talk to people who are watching it, and to see what people want to see, people want to see, and what more of, more, see more of, like, what kind of guests. I try to balance it, like.

2:12:16 In New York we have a lot of creatives so we have people in acting, we have people in media, in science, and, uh, and so I thought of doing my, your Silicone Real. I thought of in terms of what’s available in New York and what everyone loves. I thought of doing something like beauty, makeup, hair, or something, just creative, theatrical. But I haven’t decided yet. okay, so I disagree with you that you should listen to what people are telling you.

2:12:56 I think you really, I think you already know where you want to go with the show, and I think it’s too early to listen to people. What they, who they want to see, or what they think you should be talking about. I think you’re your own best critic the first 25 episodes. Yeah, your first 25 episodes, which sounds like a lot, but it’s not. If you do one, how often are you publishing?

2:13:17 Before, I thought, my guest that I interviewed yesterday, Becky Walsh, she was the only one that I showed the video to, and I said, what do I do now Brian asked me to set up New York Real, and she said, if your heart is in it, you can do it, and why don’t you start with once a month? And I thought, ah, that’s easy, once a month. I probably can’t do it. And now I think, I don’t set a specific date, so every other week, I believe it’s about how often, how frequent it is.

2:13:57 Now, okay, I think you should make a commitment to doing one every two weeks for the rest of the year. That’s what I think you should. Okay. And I think you already know who you want on the show, and I think it’s too early to listen to what people want. You’re in New York City for God’s sakes.

2:14:12 It’s like me in London. We can’t complain about having the lack of people to talk to. You have anyone you want. You could get business people, not business people, you can get creative people. You get, there’s so many people.

2:14:24 You have great brand. You know, you have one. It’s already says a lot about you, and so I think you already know where you want to go as far as the second show. And the other piece, like, I know you have other passions, and I know you’re a musician, and I know you were here on the makeup course, and I think that stuff’s all great. As far as me and Silicone Real, it was a great piece, and a great piece for me to do.

2:14:46 It’s also hard to focus on two shows, and so, like, and you know, we have 87 episodes of Silicone Real, you know, taped and more to come, but it is hard to do too. So I’m just, that’s my little bit of advice for you. And so, you know, you’re learning probably so much on this New York Real, and so, and it’s a vehicle for you to learn about yourself. It’s a vehicle for you to meet all sorts of other people, and then end up bumping into people who are going to want to edit your shows and help you book guests.

2:15:13 And I just think it’s your own journey here, and I think while you might want to also do a creative journey for makeup and those kind of things. I’m saying the New York Real journey is a powerful life-changing journey, as you know, and you’ll end up, I mean, like, the people I’ve met through this show, is like, that’s that’s payment enough for what I do. Just the crazy people I meet, and, like, the interactions I have, and the friends I’ve made, and, like, that alone is enough, the reason for me to do the show.

2:15:40 So, I know you’re super motivated. You’ve already shot, what, two, and now three episodes while you’re in London, which is great, but I would just say if you can even commit to that time schedule. Before you know it, you blink and you be like, oh, we’re on 25 episodes. If you could just keep it consistent, it’s amazing how quick that adds up. And doing a show every two weeks is no joke, still hard, and doing a show every week is no joke, and doing two a week is still no joke.

2:16:03 But, like, one every two weeks is still a reasonable commitment. I will try that. Thank you for making me commit to it, hold me accountable. You have to do this. You, you have to do this.

2:16:13 You know, you’re, and and it’s just super inspiring, and, like, people ask me, is New York Real associated with London Real? And it’s just like, if people that don’t know, out there, there’s, you know, people, we’ve, I’ve always said, since The Joe Rogan Experience if you want to start your own Real, then you should do it. And a lot of people have started. Some have finished. Like, I think there’s probably 20 or 25 that have been started, but a lot of those people realize, as you know, it’s hard work.

2:16:38 It’s hard, thankless work, putting a show together, right? And you’re like, no one’s watching, right? You’re like, no one’s watching. I don’t have enough followers. You have to want to do it, even when no one’s watching, even when your family’s watching.

2:16:50 And so, like, and then that’s the thing, and so you just have to love, love doing it and then people see that passion and do it. But so many people have started. Some people haven’t finished, and some people got what they got out of it. But there’s certain people, like the guys at Vancouver Real, the guys at Midwest Real those guys really got into the flow and just have become their own separate media companies. And, you know, we, the only affiliation we have with the other Reals is that I just ask that you come with the right vibe.

2:17:18 And I always tell people to send me a pilot, and then I’m happy to help out as much as possible, as long as I can see people that are invested in the experience, which is you. And so that’s the only association we have with you and anyone else that wants to start a Real, I just am happy to spend time with people that are committed and willing to do great things. And I see great things in you, Olive, and New York Real. And I’m telling you if you keep doing what you’re doing, which I think you will, come January, this thing will be absolutely nothing like you ever believed it would be, and you will be nothing like you ever believed you would be.

2:17:52 Brian, this is the first birthday, I don’t feel like crap. Like, oh, and not a year passed and I didn’t do anything. I told my boyfriend John, I was like, waking up, like, having my birthday today. I’ve done something this year that’s great. It’s a great feeling.

2:18:10 And, you know, everything I learned from you, just going where the fear is, now I’m used to that pain in my chest, and my endurance is higher, coming to see you today. You don’t think that I would be nervous. I would be, but I also feel like I’m representing all your, should I call them students, all your followers, all your supporters, and our buddies in New York and a New York group, and you can’t afford to be scared, and even if you are, just step into it, and you realize, they’re out of things that are even more was scary, and that’s another level.

2:18:52 Good, good for you. So it’s not about you, it’s about other people, and you were calm today, right? You were, you’re calm today. You weren’t nervous. I’m calmer than I imagined, right?

2:19:02 Yeah, super impressed, and I know what you mean. Like, you’re now representing, I guess, all these people that maybe want to ask me questions. You’re representing the New York Real people. You’re representing all the people that love you in the Academy, and, like, it’s not just about all of that anymore. And, you know, you came in and you’re like, cool, and you’re like, you’re very good at this by the way.

2:19:22 And I really think you should, you need to keep doing this. The world needs you to create great content you know, and we need you. It’s like two cities linked forever, New York and London, right? Thank you. Thank you, Brian.

2:19:35 You’re welcome. It’s not done, your interview. Oh, okay. Oh, all the questions. You still got more questions?

2:19:42 For yeah, should we should, we, do three questions? Yeah, give me three. Okay. If you are to Skype or FaceTime or Google Hangout with the 32-year-old Brian, because you mentioned that earlier? Okay, yeah.

2:20:01 We’ve heard the 20-year-old in your previous becoming London Real interview. By the way, I really love Sally’s, his name, right? Sally’s voice. Oh, Sally breaks his voice. Yes, so beautiful voice.

2:20:13 Yeah, so he’s amazing. If people don’t know him, he’s a spoken word artist here in London and I had the honor of being interviewed by him eight months ago, and we’ve become really good friends, cuz he’s been on the show a couple times before. So he’s amazing. His art is amazing. He’s going to, you know, and I just love seeing his career develop.

2:20:31 So he’s awesome. But yeah, he asked me my advice to my 20-year-old self, I think, right? Yeah, so now you get to answer, for 12 years later. Good question. So 32-year-old Brian just moved to London.

2:20:45 He was just really getting his life together and getting his act together, and so he was really emotionally financially, physically damaged from his last run in New York City, and he came to London to get away from that place and to just start fresh. And I was super scared. I didn’t really know anybody. I was an immigrant. I was, kinda, you know, you know.

2:21:08 I was already kept to myself a lot, and so I just was learning really about myself, you know, like up until 30. It’s hard to really figure out what the hell’s going on, in my opinion. It’s hard. So you know, the advice for that guy, you know? He ended up doing the right things.

2:21:21 You know, I really am impressed with that guy because he got into martial arts and started taking that, and that really transformed my life by just understanding that the body is so important, as important as the mind, if not more important. So, like, that was a big thing, and I finally got, for the first time in my life, locked into, you know, a career that was working out for me, and I was having success in, and all those things. So what would I tell him?

2:21:47 You know, the only thing that guy didn’t know about was how to really open his heart up to people, you know, cuz he was really into close down your emotions, close down everything, we work hard, we don’t let people in, because they’re going to hurt you. So I was probably a little more closed off to new friends, new experiences, new relationships. So you know, I could say start London Real sooner to that guy, but I think it started about the right time. You know, I think it started about the right time.

2:22:14 So I wouldn’t say start it sooner, but maybe that bit of advice, just to kind of open up a little bit more. If I met that guy, I would really find an edge to him. I’d just be like dude, it’s okay, you should chill out, because I think I really manifest, like, attention about me back then. I probably still do sometimes, but, like, I think that guy back then was, like, really, like, okay, we got to get this stuff done we got to do it right now. How come I’m not more successful?

2:22:41 I need to do this. I need to do this. I need to do this. And so probably just get him to relax a little and feel his intuition a little bit more, but he got me here, so he did something right. And do you, at the time, did you you didn’t have that training with film yet, right?

2:23:01 It came after, with Phil, film, filming with film. Yeah, no I mean, I just had the experience when I was a kid, you know, with the video camera. Like, I shot videos from my grandpa, but I used to shoot, we used to shoot videos too, and crazy Rambo videos, and many martial arts videos. So, like, I had already something in me. It’s weird, cuz you mentioned that, like, it’s weird, cuz what you do when you’re 10 sometimes ends up, yeah, being something you do later.

2:23:27 I think, Tylo, five questions. Yeah, the Orwellian destiny. It’s like someone, something you liked as a kid, something someone says you’re good at, and then something when you’re 14. Yeah, when you’re 14, and maybe something that’s, you’re, something else, like you’ve been trained at or you’re skilled at, and maybe that’s your destiny. So it’s weird, but I found a way into using video to do stuff, even though I’m not a filmmaker or anything.

2:23:50 So, but yeah, the film course probably helped. But yeah, I hadn’t really embraced film when I first got to London. But London’s been great. So, like, London was a perfect thing for that 32-year-old. I’m so glad I left New York City, so glad.

2:24:04 I’m so glad I wouldn’t go back the first year. So I refused to go back to New York City, because I didn’t want to go back to anything I knew there, any back to any behaviors I had like a girlfriend I had started seeing there, and she was like, come to New York, come to New York, and I knew, do not go back. So I stayed away for a year, and it was perfect. I think we all love and hate New York City. There are things, I mean, for every town and city but you have to embrace it and take the good with the bad.

2:24:30 Yeah, and it pushes you, you know, like Peña it pushes you to do things, and you know, pushes you out of comfortable. You know, there’s things happening. It shows you you’re not doing things. It’s like all these things. So I think it can be used as a good tool.

2:24:44 I love that just starting London Real earlier. Yeah, I could have done it earlier, but I also, with tech at the time, I think it was right about right, maybe 2009. I could have done it with YouTube, but it was right about right and also got us early in this space, which I think is important, just to kind of show that I was worried about a barrier to entry with London Real. So I thought we could do it for like six months or a year, and then someone else would see what we were doing in London, and they would copy it, cuz I figured you know, it was obvious, a model that someone else would do.

2:25:14 But no one ever has, which is, I guess, I realized that you have to be pretty insane and stupid to try to produce a video show every week without having, like, a media company behind you. So I always thought we were going to be followed by others, but because it’s Britain, and maybe because the BBC dominates a lot of audio podcasts, and they can’t, and they’re a state-owned organization, that just hasn’t really been anyone doing what we’re doing. And now we have this track record of delivering content every week, of having these amazing epic episodes with, like, Jacque Fresco and Dorian Yates, and our ayahuasca episode and DMT episode.

2:25:49 Hard and challenge you. Yeah and then, like, the DMT episode’s a funny one, you know. Dan was like, Brian, what the f*** with the DMT, he’s like, stop doing this, this is bad, all this stuff is not going to help you in the long run, and at one point I said, Dan, maybe, or maybe it will be my USP, maybe it will be my IP, maybe I’ll be the guy that also did that, and now I can do these other things. It’s because of his dad telling him, could be his dad, or he just sees it, is bad business.

2:26:14 He’s like, Brian, this isn’t going to help you, but it’s real. You can’t argue it’s not real. So, like, we have a track record of some realness all along there, and some epic interviews that’ll never be done again. You can’t interview Neil deGrasse Tyson again at that point in his life. No one will ever have an interview with Jacque Fresco like that again.

2:26:30 No one will ever have an interview with Dorian Yates like that again. And so, like, people know what we do, and so now we have, like, four years of people knowing that we’re committed to what we do. We deliver something every week, and, like, so I feel confident that we’re there now. we’re turning into a media company, though, and I love it, and it’s just challenging, but it also means we have to let everyone know that we’re not just this thing anymore, that we’re obviously now these new things.

2:26:55 So there is a, I know I’m inserting a question, but a lot of people want to know, want you to actually talk about it from 2020, five years from now. Like, now it’s 2020, where do you see London, where do you see yourself? Yeah great question. I haven’t really thought about that, so let me think about it now. So 2020, that means, okay, five years from now, where is London Real?

2:27:20 It’s really fascinating. Think about it. It’s like your affirmations, right? Yeah, well, you know it’s interesting. That’s a long way ahead to think, but I think it’s really refreshing you ask me that.

2:27:28 So 2020, London Real is a media company. You know what we do? We produce amazing, game-changing media that influences the world, and I see us still being in London. I see us being in a bigger place. I see us, it’s funny when you go from, say, 12, 15 people up to 50, you know, you kind of go from a small, this kind of business into this scalable business.

2:27:50 And I don’t think we ever need to be like a Viacom or, you know, I don’t know, a TechCrunch or a Huffington Post. I think that’s too far. I’d like to just be bigger and greater at what we do, but I feel like we’re going to be a media company, and so we’re going to have multiple different media touches. I think documentary films, Louie and I have talked about doing documentaries before, or things about, even, my experiences. And so I think we put out other chunks of media in addition to this show and other shows like this super high quality, super real, and grounded in real, reality-based interactions.

2:28:25 The Academy is bigger and different, and you know it’s just bigger and better, and it incorporates all these localized experiences and events. So, a lot like, you’re in New York meet up, but there would be ones in all the major cities in the world, and then we would just be thinking, like, what’s the next thing out of the box? You know, I don’t know. You know, maybe we would have you know, I don’t know, maybe we would have a fund that we invest in new media companies or new media app s.

2:28:50 You know, maybe the next Periscope is funded by London Real. London Real Media, and so we look at these technologies that change the game when it comes to people interacting, because, like, one thing I found with the Academy and the meetups is, it’s like, the offline is what’s real. That’s why every single London Real episode is with real people. there’s no Skype conversations. So, like, this is real, what you and I are doing.

2:29:12 Yes, and yet, and yet, all of our videos are not real. They’re online, right? They’re digital experiences, and the Academy is a digital experience, and yet it’s locked in when you meet people in person and you feel their energy, and you’re like, wow, we were all here on Thursday night. It was, wow. And so I think, like, London Real Media manifests itself, you know, in producing great digital media, but, like, anchoring it in huge experiences, like our Masterminds.

2:29:36 So we would have the Masterminds events, you know, maybe in London or in other major cities, but, like, I want to make sure it stays real, and that’s why will keep guys, it has a human touch. Yeah, and human touch. It has, like, all of our kind of, like, founding crew here, because, like, they make sure I keep it real. And so I don’t want it to just scale. I never wanted to be like an Uber.

2:29:55 I don’t want to be worth a billion dollars. I don’t, I just don’t care. I don’t care about that, and, like, I remember my dad asked me, what are you going to do after the city? And I was like, you know what, Dad? I don’t, I’m not the guy that needs to IPO to impress my, like, high school class, class reunion.

2:30:10 Like, I don’t need to do that. I don’t want to do that. What I want to do is create something like amazing and real. So I don’t think we need to scale, and I, like, I said IPO and raise a billion, and I don’t, I want to be a Vice Media. I don’t want to do that, but I just want to do something where people are like, wow, when you go to London you should be on London Real, and, like, everyone knows that this is a coveted interview where you come on, and you’re like, wow, you know, a guy that inspires me, as Marc Maron.

2:30:37 You know, Marc Maron just had President Obama come to his garage, his nasty garage, and sit down and have a conversation with him, because Maron does something special with people. You know, he gets real conversations from people emotionally, experiences in a Marc Maron type of way, in an emotionally needy, grabbing kind of way, that Marc’s made is IP, you know? And Marc said six years ago, Marc was depressed. He couldn’t get a job as a comedian. No one wanted anything to do with him because he was just a jerk, you know, and he started this thing off in his in his garage, and he started talking and creating media, and he does audio files, that’s even harder to make an impression on people, and now the president of the United States came by his garage.

2:31:17 It was a great moment in media, and I, like, I love when I look up Maron, and he’s got, like, John Hamm from Mad Men, or he’s got Iggy Pop on his show, or he’s got all these people, because it gives me inspiration for London Real. And so there is no reason that we will, we will do all of those things. There’s no reason a sitting president won’t come here and sit down with me at London Real, cuz we deliver something that’s unique and positive and amazing, and so I see us doing all of those great things, and that’s what I want people to know, when you come to London, you should always be on London Real, so, people worth watching.

2:31:54 I believe in it, and then, and in you. Thanks. Thanks for asking me that question. Okay, so question number two, a quick advice, we kind of touched on some of them. Advice on health, wealth, love, happiness, you know, as Tai put it, something we pursue and balance to have a good life, right?

2:32:15 Yeah. Do you have, like, good advice on each one? Okay, health. Health. Well, you asked me that question about the 32-year-old.

2:32:22 You know, 32-year-old Brian didn’t take care of his body at all. His body was a vehicle to bring his brain around to different experiences. Did you used to work out? No, no, I didn’t take my training seriously. I just didn’t take any of that.

2:32:36 Yeah, I used to just party, and, like, whatever. I was just all about the brain experience. So the brain just fed the brain. So I was like, I’d go out in New York and party. The brain was fed by dopamine, because I made this money, or I got this job, or you know, I became the CFO of a dot-com startup, and it was all about this brain, and I didn’t realize the body was a crucial component, and that the brain, I think, can learn from the body.

2:33:02 So that’s big. So for health it’s just like, yeah, my training is super important. My whole martial arts journey was super important, to realize that, to to fight as a man, and to be taught by the martial arts people I’ve spent time with, you know, my great instructor Chris Kiston, who was one of my guests, who talked about autism, like the things he did for me over eight years of training, you know, no man could ever have done, and I’m so deeply indebted to the man that he created in me by the martial arts that he taught me.

2:33:34 So he taught me much more than how to box and how to roll Jiu-Jitsu, but he taught me how to go through pain to become a better man to deal with your fears, to go into risky situations, to all that stuff. So super important. So for health, I just think, I think that training is super important. I think that, around here in the studio, we encourage everyone there’s not many good reasons at London Real to not work, but if you’re training, that gets a pass.

2:34:03 So everyone, I’m heading to the gym. Yeah, so that’s okay. And I train regularly, and no matter how busy it is around here, I have my days of the week. It’s like three days, three hours during the week here, or four hours, where I go and do it regularly, because I think it keeps the mind fresh, and I think it’s super important so just a daily training regimen, I think, is super important. I think hard cardio, like a hill sprint, is important.

2:34:24 I think weight training is important, and I think martial arts is a wonderful thing if you can, but if it’s running or yoga or dancing, I think that’s all good. You know, health, you know, your health is a reflection, I think of your brain. You know, I don’t really feel like I need to party much anymore. I think I did, because I think I felt isolated, to be honest. I think the reason a lot of people drink, and do, you know, class A drugs, because they want to detach, or they feel isolated.

2:34:52 I don’t feel isolated anymore. I feel part of a huge community, and I feel wanted and needed and loved, and so, like, that’s amazing, and I don’t feel like I need to numb myself to the world like I used to. So that’s an amazing place to be. And if anyone is out there right now where they don’t feel that way, I would say, you know, think about getting people in your life that you can love, and think about making it not about you. Volunteer your time, or start a show like Olive does, and everyone should start something.

2:35:21 Yeah, get accountable. You know, my family is super great because I need to be there for them all the time, you know. Every night I have dinner with them, and that’s super important time. So, for health, and then, you know, yeah, just, I think healthy lifestyles are good, you know there’s no reason to be smoking. There’s great ways to stop, and I did want to, I didn’t know if that would seem like I’m judging anyone, but I, for a few times, I did want to just, like, post in the Academy for smokers to consider just becoming a non-smoker, like changing your identity.

2:35:52 Yeah, you know, you know, I read a book called Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking back in the day, and I tricked my brain just through the book to stop. Yeah, and then, like, eight years later I had a cigar one night, and I got right back into it, and then I stopped again, but, like, in Allen Carr’s book he says no smoker you ever ask will ever tell you that he wants his kids to smoke, cuz smokers, even the hardcore, will be like, I love it, I don’t care, but if you say to them, do you want your kids to smoke? They’ll be like, no, because it’s just, it is a bad, bad habit.

2:36:20 So, like, I don’t know, in the UK it is, it looks cooler, though. In America it’s almost uncool I think it’s becoming uncool now. It’s becoming unsocial. But no, just for health, like, you know, look, I’m big on, I think diet’s important. The ayahuasca taught me a lot about that.

2:36:33 I’m kind of off gluten and good protein, and all that stuff, but I’m not trying to tell people what to do, you know. But yeah, I think it really plays more into your brain than you think. I think we’ve been taught that it’s all about brain, but it’s I think a lot about body. So, and when, like, I trained in the morning, I did hill sprints, and now I feel great and I want to talk to you, so there’s something there. All right, wealth, wealth, oh, wealth.

2:36:55 Jesus. Phil Mccan, what is your relationship with money? That’s a great question to ask yourself right now, because that’s a twisted, dysfunctional relationship, just as dysfunctional as your one with your parents and your family. And yeah, all families are dysfunctional, and you know, but look, your relationship with wealth is highly complicated. Mine has always been complicated.

2:37:13 I used to have dreams as a kid that I was rich, and I’d wake up and I’d realize I wasn’t. I mean, what’s wrong with me? I’m like, like, five, and I would have those dreams. So, and you know, I ran after this American dream of wealth for so long, and I really wanted it, and I was like a little businessman, and would sell things, and lemonade stand, and this and that, and that, and that’s okay, and I won’t hate on it, because that funded what we’re doing here, and I think a beautiful business that makes money is a beautiful thing.

2:37:40 Andy Warhol said, you know, the greatest art, you know, is a beautiful business, and I agree, I think it is something beautiful, and it’s not something to be hated on, and I praise anyone that can run a profitable business. It’s hard, it’s really hard. And if you’re a small business owner, like I am now, it’s hard to make it work, and so I respect anyone. You know, Dan Peña says it’s easy to make money. I don’t believe that.

2:38:03 It’s not, and so you have to be on your game to do it, and we all need it, and it’s important, and if you want to go do that, great, but just don’t have the wrong relationship with it. For me it was just about amassing, amassing, amassing. And when I was like 39, I remember I just all the thing, difference was a different number in my account every quarter. We used to get paid quarterly in the city, and it would, used to be like this number, and then this number, and this number, and then this number, and otherwise my life was the same, and it was continuing to not be very fun.

2:38:31 So I was like, what’s the point? I wasn’t even spending it on anything. So it’s like, would have probably, which would have probably made me feel even more vacuous if I had, like, bought a car or something stupid. So I’m just saying, be careful of your relationship with wealth. It’s great to have it.

2:38:45 I think it’s great to have goals. I think it’s great to have enough money to be free and I used to be broke as a joke. I used to have American Express, at Hitman, looking for me, and it’s not fun to be broke. I agree, and I really enjoy, and I respect, and I’m thankful for even the little pleasures, that we know, to go out to a restaurant and buy dinner for Gabby and Mariana. Like, that’s big, or to take an Uber when I need to.

2:39:08 But I’d say just don’t get an overly twisted relationship with it, but respect it like, London Real needs to be a profitable business to be a great company, and I realize that now. The Chris Eubank episode, we couldn’t make unless it’s a profitable business. That way, we can employ people that make beautiful art, and I think that’s crucial. So don’t make apologies for making your money. Don’t make apologies for running a great business.

2:39:32 It’s, and don’t make apologies if you’re a hedge fund trader and you make $10 million a year, that’s cool too, homie. I respect it. I respect capitalists. I respect the one percenters. I don’t hate them at all, you know.

2:39:43 If you’re, if you hate them that much, you can be one of them. All it takes is goal setting on London Real, Academy. What else, I got left, two more. Yes, health, wealth, love, love. Okay, wow, love.

2:39:56 Love in a couple ways. So there’s love relationship love, you know, I’m super lucky. I have Mariana in my life, but I didn’t always have great relationships or healthy relationships. It’s hard. Everyone has a hard time with relationships, right?

2:40:09 I love your boyfriend, by the way. He’s a fantastic energy. You guys are beautiful together, and he really taught me a lot of things. Good. I really, I like his vibe.

2:40:16 I like the fact that he isn’t intimidated by the Academy, is not intimidated by the fact that you’re on there. He came and hung out with us. I like his energy. You can learn a lot about a person’s partner by the way they behave around you, and about how much they support you. That shows a lot.

2:40:33 So, with me, you know, relationships, some good, some bad. I’m really lucky right now. I’m really grateful for Mariana, the way she rounds out my rough edges. You know, I’m super grateful for her. I still think, after talking with Esther Perel, her, it’s coming out soon, that, you know, we all should treat our lovers and people in our relationships like our clients.

2:40:56 You know, how would you treat a client? How would I treat a guest? I would email them. I would make sure they’re here. I would get them coffee.

2:41:02 I would thank them. I would follow up later. And so how would you treat a client? Every now and then you should treat your boyfriend and girlfriend that way, not every day, but you should be thinking, you know, like, this is a person that means something. It’s not just, yeah, honey, oh, yeah, da d da.

2:41:16 So I try to make sure I treat her that way. I need to do it more. It’s easy to take it for granted. It is super easy. And, like, without my family, I honestly believe none of this would happen like Mariana is so supportive of me.

2:41:28 It’s not even funny. Like, she knows I’m here, and, like, when we have a week, like this week, we, it’s six days in a row of, like, live, live app, webinar show, all this, and in the meantime it’s like, Masterminds, Masterminds, Masterminds, Academy, Academy, all this crazy stuff happening. It’s just like, she’s just like, okay, honey, it’s cool, and when I’m rolling home at 9, 9:30, and she’s like, it’s cool, you’re doing what you love. I totally support you.

2:41:52 And, like, without that, even if I had a little bit of drama, it would ruin everything we’re doing here. She was there for the first episode, right? Yeah, she was there from the start, and so she was supporting me the whole time. So it’s like, I don’t forget that, and her, and they’re my base that allows me to be creative. So, like, it’s important you find someone that you love that supports you.

2:42:10 Someone else said that recently to me as well, like, maybe it was Esther Perel. I mean, you want a partner that says, I want you to go do those things. It’s not like, oh, why do you have to go to work again? Oh, why do you have to hang out with that friend? It’s like, go hang out with them.

2:42:23 Like with Mariana, I’m like, go hang out with your girlfriends. You know, yeah, you’re out in London at 11, and I’m thinking, oh, she’s having fun without me, but I’m thinking, this is good. She needs relationships with other friends. She’s to go out and party, have fun, go do that stuff. So you know, I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t have the solution.

2:42:39 Just find someone that you think that you respect, and it’s going to respect you, and that’s the right person for you. Have your boundaries. I have my boundaries with her. She has her boundaries with me. It’s like, if she does something that’s not cool, that’s not okay, you know, and I tell her, and we do that.

2:42:54 We try to stay communicative. And as far as love and other parts in your life, you know, it’s big. Friendships are super important, you know. Have really good friendships, just a few though. I think you need maybe one hand or two hands, really tight close friends that you can, like, London Real Academy members.

2:43:10 You can tell them when they screwed up. You can tell them when they’re not cool. You know, a good buddy of mine, Paul, one of my best buddies, he interviewed, uh, Dave Asprey. He was on Paul G, he was the guy that co-hosted. He’s a good friend of mine, probably one of my best friends, and, um, he came to London I think, like, in Jan or something, and he knew what I was doing with London Real, and I was, you know, hiring Julian and all this, and we were at dinner one time, and I was just like, he was like, I’m thinking about doing this.

2:43:33 Think about doing this. And, like, I pushed all the dishes in the middle of the table, and I was just like, I pushed all the glasses in the middle of the table, and people were looking at me, and I was just like, I was like, Paul, I was like, put it all on black. Just put it all in black, and and I was just like, just bet on yourself. And, like, he and he and he, like, he took that, and like he’s just like landed a huge job at like one of these, like, major, huge, like, he’s a data scientist companies, and he was just like, he just pulled all the stops out, and he just put it all on black, and I’m just so proud of him.

2:44:01 And just having really good friends in your life that can tell you when you’re doing something wrong um are really important. Tell me, we’re almost done. We got one more: health, wealth, love, oh, happiness. Yes, in general happiness. My guest, like, I had that moment, uh, yesterday interviewing Becky Walsh about happiness.

2:44:26 She said you’re not going to happiness. You’re not going to find happiness outside of yourself. Like, nothing outside of you is going to bring you happiness, and I thought about it for a long time. It’s a good point. It’s a really good point.

2:44:43 What do you think? I mean, that’s a good point. You say, I mean, uh, they say, what we, we can’t control what happens to us, but we can control our reaction to it. So, and it’s one of the lessons I try to teach Gabby are you happy? Am I happy?

2:44:55 I’m super happy. I’m super happy. You know, the only thing I’m not happy with is I always think I should be better. So hard on yourself. I’m really hard on myself.

2:45:02 I’ve always been hard on myself it’s funny. It’s one of the first tweets that Joe Rogan ever responded to. I wasn’t at him. I just said I’m my worst, I’m my harshest critic, and, like, my worst, you know, me, my worst enemy or something when it comes to that. Like I said, something like, something to the effect of that, that’s the greatest thing about me and the worst thing about me, because I demand the most for myself, which makes me always want to create better things, but I’m also my worst critic.

2:45:27 And Phil Mccan said sometimes the worst bully in the world is ourselves. Like, we bully ourselves more than the kid in school, than our husband or wives, than our uncle that beat us up. So I always have to be careful on myself. And so I’m super happy, the interaction, the community, the doing things for other people it feels like, um, I mean, don’t get it wrong. I do a lot of things for me too, and I have an ego too, and I want to do all these things, great, but doing things for other people is helpful for me too for my happiness.

2:45:57 I’m trying to be less harsh on myself, uh, but I still am, and when there’s a new thing I’m scared of, or I want to, like, make sure this is going to be awesome, then I put lots of pressure on myself. So I’m just trying to get used to that relationship, but then also enjoy the moment. So these are the good times right now with Olive. It’s not going to be after our Masterminds event on the Sunday night when we in the Tower Bridge, hanging out with all of my heroes, uh, with all of these people, like my brothers and sisters, that’s going to be a great time, but the good times are now, and I need to remember, like, to be present and happy, and this is amazing.

2:46:32 So I am happy, and I just need to get used to being happy even if I think I could be better. So I’m getting to deal with that, and I do feel like I’m getting better every year, and I think in six months from now or one year from now, we won’t, I won’t even recognize London Real or even me, or even you, Olive. I’m not going to recognize you in a year. You’re going to be like the queen of New York. You’re going to be running [expletive], you’re just going to be like, and like they’re going to be writing articles about you, and you’re going to be on Oprah, and like they’re going to be like, what, look what she did, you know, and I, I believe that you know, the same thing’s going to happen to you.

2:47:11 So thank you, Brian. You’re welcome. This is, this is so surreal. This is, this is Mata and unbelievable. It is, but you can handle it.

2:47:19 That’s the thing about you, all of, and maybe I noticed that from that selfie video, like, you are capable of this and more, you know, and so I, something I saw in that day, even though it was a goofy video and, uh, but you can handle it, and, like, you handle yourself, and you delivered today, and you were cool and calm, and I noticed when you, and you came in, and, you know, a little jittery, but you were good, and, like, you can handle this and more. So I feel like, damp, yet I see so much. There’s so much potential in you.

2:47:45 I love that. In the webinar you said me and Dan and me and Olive, and I was like, oh my God, that’s my grand man. Yeah, I guess he’s like, yeah, it was funny, cuz, like, so the webinar this last week was, yeah, how to find a mentor, and, like, I didn’t know how to talk about it, and, uh, you know, we don’t have a formal relationship, like a mentor or mentee. You told me one time on a Facebook message, you’re like, yeah, you are my mentor, Bri. You said, you said something like, uh, I’ve, feeling like I’m your mentor or something.

2:48:13 I’m like, you back, no, cuz, like, you said it on one of the videos, and I was just like, I don’t know if I remember well if I said it, and you didn’t say no, that I assume it’s, maybe that’s the best way to find a mentor is you just find someone and grab them and tell them they are whoever is looking for a mentor also we said don’t use the word mentor, so, like, on that webinar I said, like, yeah, so I, I made an analogy of me and Dan, who I officially did call Dan my mentor, so officially he is, and then you called me yours. So I was like, here’s this link, I know, why it’s like relationship, like when you label it, like, so much pressure. It’s strange, and so my advice on that webinar was don’t call someone your mentor.

2:48:50 The greatest mentorships that we know from the show, Ryan Holiday, Robert Greene, they never ever called each other mentor, mentee, so I think that’s a beautiful thing. My grandpa never called him a mentor, so, but we were, and so I think it’s good not to use the word, but, um, I guess you, me, Peña, we have this kind of strange relationship of, of mentee, but you know, again, like I’m getting as much out of this as you’re getting, and sometimes people don’t realize that when they look for a mentor, they’re like, oh, I’m getting more, more than the mentor, but it, the relationship wouldn’t exist unless they’re getting something you have to give first. Like, there are people who are asking me, how, um, in and outside of the Academy, like, what can I, where can I get a business partner, or what can I do?

2:49:34 And first of all, come in to learn and do the homework, and then you will meet people, and maybe something will happen, but you have to come in to support first, give first, and then you see what’s available here as well. Yeah, and yeah, you’re right, give value first, like in every relationship, but especially in kind of that mentor relationship, like, come in and deliver something like what you gave me I don’t think I gave you anything. You did, you did, cuz you just impressed me, and I was like, wow, you really worked hard on this, and it was just like inspiring to me, and I was like, this, this woman is worth me spending, investing my time in.

2:50:10 That’s all. And so I did remember not wanting to ask you too many questions, like what kind of camera should I get, or, like, what should my website be like? I remember I cannot bother Brian for that. I just have to send him that pilot. Well, cuz those are procrastination questions too, and, like, I’m super sensitive to that probably because I talked about it in my TED talk, but, like, I get those questions all the time, and those are procrastination questions.

2:50:33 I get it all the time. I do that sometimes to people. I remember asking people questions, and they procrastination questions, like, you know, little things, you know, like, if I’m approaching a TED talk, oh, like, when do you think those are procrastination questions. So I hate it when people say, what cameras do I use? What should I get on YouTube?

2:50:50 Can I? It’s like, don’t just send me a pilot. That’s my thing. Send me a pilot, otherwise then you actually then you know that they are doing the work. Yeah, and that they’re invested, and they’re going to do something.

2:51:00 So, and you did that. I just can’t say no to you, Brian. Oh, jeez. I, when you put the, you mentioned TED talk, I want a Nobel Peace Prize next. I want you to facilitate five more Reals in America.

2:51:13 No, like, you’re already super supportive of the Real community, and, like, everyone sees this, and you’re inspiring other Reals right now. So, and I know you’re super supportive. So I want to see people start something too that, that is exciting, and we always know what we’re supposed to do, and we kind of, in the back of our head, knows that we had an idea that never has never been turned into reality. Yeah, it’s super inspiring to see people do that. So good.

2:51:39 Well, I’m going to keep pushing you for the next six months, and if you ask me for the hour by hour, you will see, like, Game of Thrones. And yeah, somebody, oh, Game of Thrones, right? No, somebody started sending me their hour by hours, and I was just like, wow, okay. But I think they were learning from it, cuz, like, you learn the most when you send someone your hour by hour. I mean, people can send it to me if they want, but, like, what, what you’ll learn the most, because you’ll be like, oh my gosh, I worked three hours today even though I’m supposed to be, I’m being paid for eight or nine, but I only got so.

2:52:09 You realize how little time you have, and you have to make it really productive. That’s what I realized. So yeah, you got to get things. Life is limited. Like, time-wise, I, I think, uh, I think, if we know, like, actually everyone is afraid of death, but that is the only real thing.

2:52:29 It is true I mean, we all think of death. The great thing about YouTube is it immortalizes us all, in a twisted way. By the way, I don’t think about death very often. Too much to do, too much posi. And, uh, by the way, check out the Wikipedia.

2:52:46 I look at it today. You have to update it. If you look at it, it’s, you have done so much more. Yeah, the W, people say to update the Wikipedia, but it’s like a public record. I don’t think I’m allowed to write.

2:52:58 You are, anyone can, anyone can, and then they will verify it, uh, like in a day or two. If you write something that’s not true, Julian’s on that before this airs. So it’s already done. It’s already done. Okay, um, last question, even though I don’t want this to end.

2:53:14 Okay, question: having so much fun. I hope everyone who’s watching enjoys the conversation too. We’re just, you know, we’re just attention people. Like, anybody who’s on YouTube can tell you that, like, you know, oh, we’re just here presenting our content, but we obviously both like being in front of the camera, right? We don’t mind.

2:53:33 Well, I got over it. Yeah. Um, yeah, so the last question is your favorite memory of London, anytime, anywhere. I don’t know if you visited before you moved here, or it can be today. Okay, great question.

2:53:53 Favorite memory of London. Yeah, my first memory of London was when I was 15 and I came here with my mom and we were at a train station, and I remember some guy drinking a beer during the day, and I was like, wow, we’re in a different place, cuz I don’t, outside, I know it was like in the station, and it was like at lunch, and I never remember in America ever seeing anyone drink a beer at lunch, because maybe I wasn’t allowed in bars, or something, and I was just like, okay, this country is different. Um, that’s, that’s kind of what I remember about London in the beginning.

2:54:23 I moved here in 1997, and it was the day, that, uh, was it, it was the day that Tony Blair was elected, and, uh, I just remember that day, and I just moved from New York, and I had a whole new life starting, and I was like, I was standing at the Tower Thistle Hotel. It was being paid for by my banking company, and it was a horrible hotel, and I was like, here we go, what the hell is going on. And that was just another memorable day. Uh, movie back here in 2002 from New York City, that was another, like, super memorable day.

2:54:53 My greatest day in London, gosh, that’s such a, such a hard question. Um, I’ll think about it. I have so many great days. September 25th, September 25th. Oh, is that for Masterminds?

2:55:04 That’s going to be an amazing three days, that’s probably going to be the most amped up I am, the most energy I ever have, because there’s going to be so much awesomeness going on, so those three days will be intense. I agree, and they will be great. Um, I, I almost every day in London I feel privileged, like, so, like, even when I go down to, like, Big Ben, I look at it, and when I, I’m on the tube, like, I’m looking around, I’m like, the tube is so cool.

2:55:27 It’s just such English engineering, and, like, I notice black cabs, and I notice all these things that are quintessentially London and England, and I just, I, I love them and I appreciate them, and I look at the skyline on Primrose Hill, and I’m like, wow, and when I go to these different areas of London I love so much, like, Shoreditch and Belsize Park, and the West End and Westminster and Canary Wharf and south of the river, and I’m like, wow, they’re all so special in their own way, and, like, I just love the fashion in England, and I love, and all this stuff, and I give British people a hard time, and I make jokes, and I give Julian a hard time, and, um, Phil Mccan hugged him yesterday and I was like joking to Phil, I’m like, yeah, you get a hug from an Englishman.

2:56:05 Oh my gosh, I’ve never seen this happen, and you know, the English have all their quirks, like us Americans do, and they might not be so much into touching, and they might, you know, be stiff upper lip and not emotional, but, like, I’m that way too and I love them for that, and so I still just appreciate, like, every little moment, uh, in London. So, um, I hope that’s not a copout answer, but I don’t know. It’s not every day is my favorite day, but, like, I still have these amazing experiences.

2:56:33 I can’t see myself leaving the city. For me, it’s got all the energy and intensity to keep me active and challenged, but it’s still a place where I can relax. In, you said it reminds you of the suburb of, yeah, it’s like a suburb of New York City. You can still have all the action, but you can relax, and it’s got so many immigrants. Like, you can be whoever you want to be in London.

2:56:54 People say that about New York, but I feel like everybody in New York City wants to be an American. So you’ll meet a taxi driver from Cameroon, and he’s like, I’m American, and he, you know, and it’s a bit more aggressive. It’s aggressive, and I think it’s assimilated a little more in London. You will see, uh, you’ll hear a guy speaking Russian, and a woman walking down the street in a full-on niqab in Knightsbridge, and she doesn’t care what you think, and, like, everybody can be everybody, and you’ll people from Africa and people from Europe and Americans, and everyone’s just being themselves, and um, I love it.

2:57:24 I think it’s the only true melting pot in the world. So, and it’s only going to get better. I love this town. Love it. I’m so happy to see that you were happy in London and doing so many great things and touching so many lives.

2:57:40 Thank you, Brian. I’m saying thank you for everyone that’s watching that has ever watched London Real. Thank you, Olive. I think you make this more grander sometimes and make me a little grander, but, uh, but no, thank you. Thanks so much.

2:57:56 This has been an amazing experience. I didn’t know what to expect. Honestly, I didn’t know how good you would be, but you’re very good. You have a great, we have a great way of making this flow, because it could have easily been a bunch of question and answers, and someone asked you this, but uh, I see a lot of potential in you. So, uh, it’s really tricky to make an interview flow, and people, some people I think don’t realize that, that it’s almost like a, it’s like a, a play or an improv, because you’re sitting someone down, they’re nervous, you might not have met them.

2:58:25 They don’t know what you’re going to do, and you have this. It’s like a river. It is, and it’s organic, and you can’t repeat it, and you can’t edit it, and it’s just, it’s a piece, it’s a piece of work. So, because everything is real, we naturally flow to the keywords, you know, like the family, Dan. We just talk about everything.

2:58:45 I think people should have deeper conversation. Yeah, I get really spoiled in here, cuz I get to have deep conversations but I agree. I think everyone should put the lights on at home and put, like, their iPhone recorder out and do more kind of shows, because I think it ups everyone’s conversation game to where they’re like, bringing their best but yeah, I love a good deep conversation. It’s like the essence of being human. Yes.

2:59:08 So, thank you all. Thanks for coming into my life. Thanks for coming into the life of London Real. You’re a quintessential part. You’re like, the, you know, you’re like the, post, your child, you’re like everything we want in the people that are around us.

2:59:22 So you just embody that, and I’m growing up. Yeah, you’re grow, well, grow up. You’re 10 years older than I thought you were, but it’s a beautiful thing. And so, uh, it doesn’t matter. And I hope we know you for a very long time, and I can’t wait to see what you’re doing with New York Real, and let’s do this again in a year, and we’ll see how we’re doing.

2:59:41 Okay, let’s do it. Okay, thank you. You want to hug? Yes, we, we shake