Why I'm Shutting My Business Down

Hi, it's Rob Moore here. This is the team behind the Disruptors brand, and we thought we'd go live because we made a massive decision to kill the Disruptive Entrepreneur brand. We shut it down. Why did we choose the anniversary to kill a brand? Surely you celebrate a brand on an anniversary, but 6 years into the Disruptive Entrepreneur Podcast, the Disruptive Entrepreneur brand, the Disruptive Entrepreneur community. What, about nearly 800 episodes?

Just under 800.

Just under 800 episodes. Would you say about 200 guests, something like that?

Easily, easily.

200. And we killed the fucker. So what we're going to do is we're going to talk about why we killed the brand, what we replaced the brand with, why we've changed the brand so that you can know about it. We're going to do a Q&A if you want to ask us any questions. About the death of brands, how lockdown has affected brands, and our vision behind the brand. And we're going to do a bit of a 6-year journey. I can see you got some of your favorites there, Kieran.

Some of my favorites.

So we're going to talk about some highs and lows and ebbs and flows of the brand, some mistakes we made, some wins we did. Do you remember when we had Theo Fetus?

No comment.

So yeah, Harry fucked that one up. We were talking about that the other day.

Yeah.

So let's go. So welcome everyone, let us know if you've got any questions in the comments.

Um, so it's been 6 years, just over 6 years, a very long time since it was me and you before we even had a studio, and I used to sit in on every recording with the C1 microphones.

Yeah, you made a little studio at home, didn't you? And I couldn't even work out how to press the record button. Used to sit in a little— it's now Ariana's bedroom— yeah, on my own, no live streams, no guests.

That was it, that was it back then.

And now we've got all of this, come a long, long way.

Yeah, we're on our version 2 of this studio, version 1 of your studio at home.

Yeah. Um, tell you what we should do in the studio, could you put a couple of GoPros up there so you can cut in to see the studio as well?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, let's do that. I know that'll take 12 years. Oh look, we've got a cut there. But, um, yeah, you can't see here, but we've got like a fully professional studio that we built We built it just before the lockdown, didn't we?

We're very lucky. We talked about it for a long time, and then in, uh, second half of 2019, we decided to pull the trigger on building a studio, and we spent several tens of thousands of pounds, and it was big for us at the time because video was an important part of the business but not as big as it is now. Yeah, and it really, really paid off because when then lockdowns happened and we had to be agile of what we're doing. We had a place set up and we had talent in place to run live streams and we were able to take the whole business, all of the stuff for your brand plus all of our other brands, online overnight. And it was, yeah, we lucked out. We were very fortunate and we made it work. It was intense.

This studio looks like it's been used over the last 10,000 hours for sure.

Harry's done 10,000 hours in this studio.

So, um, let's— oh, Lloyd has said any upcoming guest leaks. I promised myself I wouldn't tell anyone about the guests we've got on Friday. I kind of don't want to jinx it, and I just want to go bang. It's big. And not— but we have got one of the probably in the top 3 biggest followed people in the world. Like, would you, would you agree with that? Right now, especially right now. Probably in the top 3 biggest follow people in the world, um, coming on Friday, which is 8 days away. So no, we're not going to say who that is. We've got— did you know I've got Richard Dawkins agreed?

Did you? That's, that's really good.

The God Delusion.

He was probably on our guest list in 2016. Yeah, you know, but we just have to plug away, don't we, you know?

Yeah, yeah. I've been chasing him for years. One thing I'm pretty sure about is that if you reach out to someone like Richard Dawkins saying, hey, would you like to be on the Disruptive Entrepreneur? He might go, well, why would I want to be on an entrepreneur's podcast? No, thank you. I've had two rejection letters from David Attenborough, one from J.K. Rowling, and I can imagine they wouldn't necessarily want to be on an entrepreneur's podcast. So that's reason number one why we decided to change the brand from Disruptive Entrepreneur to Disruptors, because We actually wanted to be able to interview a wider range of guests, more disruptive guests. We wanted to get influence from different niches and industries. Also, if people are of the now and of the moment, you kind of want to get them while they're of the now and of the moment. So that was reason number one why we rebranded from Disruptive Entrepreneur to Disruptors. Let's talk, guys. You've done some prep, you've got some questions, you've got some experience on the journey. What do you want to talk about? Glad to see you got dressed up for that. Harry's got his tracksuit on.

I came prepared.

Well, I'll just, I'll just say what you were saying, Rob, you know, with the variety of guests and the variety of topics it allows us to cover. So obviously for Disruptors, there's two, two types of content very broadly, which is Rob with a guest and then Rob delivering solo content. And we went through a period after maybe as early as a year in where we got the potential to have guests that weren't entrepreneurs or business people. And we used to tie ourselves in knots over like, oh, we're interviewing this Olympian. How can we write some business questions? And we used to really make it hard for ourselves trying to stay on message for the podcast, which was business, entrepreneurship, you know, and we would ask some completely just not very good questions, let's be honest, to some really, really interesting people because we wanted to stay on brand.

How much do you spend on protein shakes a year, Dorian?

And yeah, we would talk to them about their business, whereas that's not actually what people want to hear from them. And as well, not just with the guests, with your solo content, Rob, over time, you did other content and you've done now on the podcast, you know, content about parenting, content about mental health, you know, content about like culture and free speech. And again, we were finding like harder and harder to like, how do we tie that back to Destructive Entrepreneur? And, you know, that's one of the instigators where we've probably talked about this move for, it's probably been 2 years since someone first mentioned it and it's taken a long time to pull the trigger. And every day it gets harder because you put more and more episodes out and more and more links out there. So there's no good time to do it. But we thought coming out of the back of all the different challenges we've had over the last couple of years, moving forward with some really interesting and fun guests we had at the beginning of the year, now is the right time to do it. 6th year anniversary of the podcast. We do another 6 years called Disruptors, and it frees us up to make better content, which we're freer to do without the need to, you know, like try and always think about, oh, how do we bring it back to business? You know, you still have the Money Podcast for that stuff. And it actually gives people a clearer idea in a broader sense of what the podcast is about. So that's why we did it. And I think it's, I think it's a good move. And touch wood, it actually went, the changeover of artwork and names and URLs which is boring as fuck, but like very important, went a lot smoother than we thought it was.

On that point, while you've talked about it, Tom, I think to be fair, that was why we took so long, wasn't it? Yeah. How many SEO searches are going to get disrupted and changed and links going to be broken and nearly 800 episodes and all the backlinks and all the search on all the channels. And it was like, oh, so we'll probably still have some teething problems on that. But we just bit the bullet. And actually, I noticed in some search it comes up as disruptive entrepreneur and some search disruptors. By the way, it's not Jeff Bezos. Someone has asked if it's Jeff Bezos, that big name. But if you've got any suggestions of people you think we should have on the show that are disruptors, then let us know. So yeah, to summarize what Tom said, wider-ranging guests, not just about entrepreneurship. We can address political and topical discussions. We can catch people when they're big. We've already seen a lot of people say yes that we've been trying to get for years. And I am convinced it's because it's like most people, if you reach out to them, probably, yeah, I'm a bit of a disruptor. Like, if someone reached out to me and said, Rob, are you a disruptor? I'll be like, fuck yeah, I am. I'll go on your show. Whereas many people aren't a disruptive entrepreneur. And I know some people turn it down because of that. So, right, Kieran, Harry, talk. What have we got? What do you want to talk about?

Well, we could just talk off the back end of that. Like, it's opened us up in different ways. I think disruptors makes a lot more sense for things like our subscription-based platforms, which everyone's been joining, and we scale to above and beyond 3,000 members now, nearly, nearly 4,000. And it makes more sense when people join that. So it's a bigger, wider brand than it ever has been. And it's like anything, it just makes it more tangible, doesn't it, when people come on the show and it makes it— we can be trending, we can ride the wave of what's going on in the news. And that's what's really important for media because we're reactive essentially is what's going on right now. And that's what we need to be on top of to get our big viral sensations.

Well, we're a completely different machine to what we were 6 years ago when I first joined about 6 years ago. I think you'd only done about 40 episodes and kind of where we are now between the Disruptors Podcast and Money. You've produced, Rob, over 1,000 episodes. We're a vastly different machine and brand to kind of where we are now. So, you know, it links back to what Tom was saying. It's really good to embrace change. As the years have gone on, we've not sat down and forced the podcast to change in terms of content, in terms of interviewees. It's naturally progressed that way. So to embrace it, not to restrict it, and not to be so bound by our niche that we don't want to take the risk of doing some pretty fucking out-there interviews that we've done before. You know, I think this is a brilliant change. And I said to you a few weeks ago, Rob, normally I'm the guy when we do have our brand meetings, I'm always the guy who's like, I don't think that's a good idea.

This and that.

I don't think anyone disagreed when we came to the decision. Yeah, I think we need to rebrand to Disruptors. No one, no one disagreed with it. It just felt right.

We were ready for change.

We were ready.

Yeah, that's another reason, because it keeps us fresh on our own brand.

Yeah.

Because doing something for 6 years straight, and it's very niche. I didn't realize it was very niche what we were doing. And I always like taking risks. I know sometimes we've had a conversation, you're like, do not interview that person, that will kill our brand immediately. Do not interview Jeffrey Boycott. Do not interview that murderer who's still in prison. What is his name? Manson? 'Um, do not interview these people.' And I want to interview these crazy, perceived crazy people. And when we interviewed Katie Hopkins and David Icke, we definitely lost followers. And a lot of people were like, 'Why are you giving these people a platform? This is not about entrepreneurship.' But now no one could deny that these people are disruptors.

Yeah.

So it's more like, it's more on brand for us to go— like Nigel Farage, someone has just said hear about Nigel Farage and getting him, well, on the Disruptive Entrepreneur, a lot of people are gonna be like, what's that all about? But he is a disruptor. You cannot deny that.

He also brought our highest viewing figures in for a live stream.

He blew up the live stream.

We've never had that before.

On TikTok. So currently we've got 4 people still watching TikTok. But we had 750 people at peak, 15,000 on the TikTok. Top Live, blew that up.

You wouldn't think it for the demographic either, would you? But boom, just goes to show.

Paul has just said all in black because someone died. No, we've got a bit of gray.

There's like a—

it's dark hair and all beards. That's what we've got going on there.

On brand. So someone said Elon Musk.

Hmm.

One cannot confirm and one cannot deny. All right.

Why don't we talk about highs and lows of the journey?

Yeah, let's go through that.

Harry, let's talk about your highs and lows to start Harry's life.

Let's work the way around the table. It's good. What's your low, Harry?

I mean, luckily we've had so many more positives.

Just go with the low, mate. You know what I'm saying? What's the low, Harry?

Okay, so Theo Pathetis, for those of you who don't know, very famous entrepreneur worth almost a billion pounds, uh, it was on Dragon's Den for many years. Look, there was a mix-up in communications and there were some unforeseen circumstances and I accidentally turned up at the wrong building 20 miles away in central London and I missed the interview and kind of left you to be utterly humiliated by Theo.

Yeah, so basically Harry didn't turn up with all the equipment, Kieran and I did, and luckily I had a little Zoom H1 in my laptop bag and Kieran had his phone.

I had two iPhones.

And we basically had to do a recording with Theo Paphitis with a Zoom H1 that he had, and we had a little iPhone, and he just took the piss out of us the whole time. You guys look really professional. I like your crew. Where's your crew? Big camera crew. While Harry was 20 miles away in central London at the Rob Moore house.

Everyone should go and check that interview out though, if you are interested in seeing how it turned out.

Yeah, Theo definitely enjoyed taking the mickey, although we sort of— I wouldn't say became friends, but we stayed in touch and he joined us in a Clubhouse room So all is not lost. So that's your low point, Harry. Do you have a low point, Tom? Do you have a low point?

I got, uh, sexually harassed by Katie Hopkins.

No, it says low point.

That's, uh, that was a point in my career that I never thought was gonna happen. I don't know if I can really speak about that on this live, but, uh, why not? It's a bit much.

Did she actually feel you?

No, not physically, uh, emotionally. But you know, it was all good in the hood. Do whatever you got to do for the brand.

Yeah, take one for the team. Yeah, although for me, I always struggle to remember lows and mistakes. I think I just block them from my memory and I just, you know, in every stressing hides a blessing, Harry, which I try and say right now as I found out today my tax bill, which is the highest tax bill I've ever paid. In every stressing lies a blessing.

That's a good thing though, you want it to be higher every year, don't you?

Every time something goes wrong. Dick.

That's the trigger.

Oh, you should be happy, mate.

I used to meet you, mate, loads of times.

Yeah, I got an immediate migraine after I heard about that. I wouldn't say there was a low point for me, but there have been times where our reach has just stagnated, whether it's a load of fuckery from iTunes because they mess around with their analytics all the time, or whether we just— it's sometimes it's just a struggle to grow it, isn't it? And so you have these little periods of winter. Um, you have periods for like weeks or months where you can't bag a guest, or you just get loads of ignores or nos. And so we've had a few little moments in that, but for me, that's just all part of the journey. Because what happens, everyone has that, and most people give up.

Yeah.

Um, see, look, someone else has said high tax bills, high profit. Is that supposed to make me happy? Stop whining about it.

It doesn't work.

Anyway, so what about you, Tom? Do you have a low?

Well, we, so like, you know, back when we started, you know, our whole, the whole business was smaller. The whole team was smaller. You know, there's no Kieran, there's no Harry. So I used to record all the episodes with Rob Moore. I'd edit all the episodes. And one of the first, we had done a bunch of interviews, but one of our first really exciting interviews where we did something a bit different was when we went to see François Benamias, who was the CEO of Audemars Piguet, which is one of Rob's favorite watch brands, really.

And basically, I'm like one of his biggest fans ever.

Yeah, it was the first time we had been invited, you know, we reached out to them for the interview and they said yes, but then they invited us to do it on their premises. So we flew out to Switzerland, right, all expenses paid by them. Yeah, and they collected us from the hotel in a Maserati. No, we're Another detail.

Just got to build this one up.

And we drive out through the mountains. It's like being in a Bond movie, out to their factory and an office that is just hanging off the edge of a Swiss valley. Absolutely beautiful. We met François, incredibly charming, like really, really lovely guy. One of those people that you're like, you've got no right to be this rich. This talented and this charming, surely like one of those has got to give. You've got to be like rich but a dick. But he was all of them, you know, and he was like an ex-golfer and had worked in the fashion industry. Like, you know, just one of those guys you're like, yeah, you're good. He's good at everything. And we went into his office and we had taken all the, all the, all the kit for a video interview. And, you know, I was lugging all this kit and we go into his office, which is a big corner office. And he's a big memorabilia fan. So he had all of this stuff you wouldn't believe. You know, he had— he's friends with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He had one of the four Conan swords in his room. He had a life-size Terminator. He had all this NBA and Star Wars memorabilia from the original films. Must have been hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of stuff in that room. And I go to set up the tripod and he's like, no, no.

No filming.

We're like, okay, no filming, it's fine, we can just do audio. So I start unpacking all my audio gear and I went to turn on our audio recorder and it flashes a warning at me. I was like, okay, I'll just try to turn it on again. Still the warning. I was like, oh fuck, what's happened here? And you know, a boring technical problem, but basically the cards I bought for storage, they work for the cameras but not for the audio recorder. So in a junkie on-the-fly solution. I end up having to plant a camera in front of Rob Moore, in front of François Hollande, with the lens camera shut, but the audio recording as the only way I could get their recording.

And he took the piss out of me for that. But hey, we did it.

We recorded the interview. We solved the problem on the fly.

We made it happen.

And it was a really good interview. And he was a really lovely guy and tried to get you to buy a watch there on the spot. Yeah. You managed to resist, at least for, you know, the day we were there.

Do you remember when we tried to come back from a foreign country and they couldn't see all of our gear? Switzerland again, same one.

So we flew out, it was me and you this time, maybe a year after the incident with François there, and we went to interview Martin Fry from Woolworths. Again, brilliant interview, got out there, we brought this time, even though it was a year later, our production level was at another game. We had invested more in video equipment, everything.

We're not at the level we were now, but we were at another level.

So we fly out to Switzerland, business class, you know, get, you know, to Switzerland, £25 for a ham and cheese sandwich, all that type of stuff. Did the interview, absolutely brilliant. We were in Zurich that time, I remember. Absolutely brilliant. So we thought we'd fly back. And by the time we got back to Heathrow, I don't know, maybe it's like 11 o'clock at night. We just want to go home. And we're waiting and we're waiting and we're waiting for our stuff. Our equipment just never turns up. And then when we finally did get it, I picked it up and I was like, this is really, really light. And I opened it up and everything was gone. And there was a letter in German. Luckily it was translated into English as well. The Swiss government confiscated all our podcast equipment, thousands and thousands of pounds, because, um, safety reasons. Batteries— we were logging so many batteries and things, all this equipment. They confiscated it all.

Luckily, I managed to take the SD card separately, so we had the recordings.

But yes, we lost many thousands of pounds of equipment to the Swiss government, but we did get it back.

Ah, well, what about, what about when we got, um, shadow banned on YouTube because of David Icke? Would that be a low?

Which time?

Which time? The first time, the second time, or the eighth time? And Facebook.

And Facebook.

Yeah, so we interviewed David Icke twice. And in some ways he's been great for our brand, hasn't he, in terms of growing the following, creating the discussion. I think over time people have realized some of the stuff he said has turned out to be true that a lot of people thought was a conspiracy. But of course, he's still pretty extreme. And yeah, we published— was it December?

November.

November. And the channel was going wild. The growth was growing 10,000 a day. And then bang, dead, mate.

Yeah, I'll cry. Bang.

Our YouTube's not been the same since, has it?

No. Hopefully we're coming to the end of our— yeah, community strike.

Hopefully. Because Harry was like, oh, this is only a 30-day slap, this is one on the wrist. But it's actually a 90-day one, so it's one on both butt cheeks.

It is bad.

I mean, for many years, the internet and social media in general was just the Wild West. And I remember, I think the adpocalypse, as they called it, I think it was like 2018, '19. It basically got to the point where advertisers on Facebook, particularly on YouTube, their adverts were being put on David Icke conspiracy videos and a lot more controversial stuff than that. But the point is Coca-Cola don't want their brand associated with very controversial stuff. They just want kid-friendly content and all this.

Just want to kill the controversy. Exactly.

You know, all these companies. So when they threatened to take away the advertising on YouTube, it caused this called the adpocalypse. So now platforms like YouTube are very, very sensitive when it comes to not just disruptive guests, but people who are deemed to be over what is the accepted line. So we took that, that risk with David for the second time. The first time, absolutely brilliant. We got like 2 million views on that video. It was great. But the second time we interviewed him, they weren't our friends this time, YouTube.

So yeah, hidden in the platform as well.

Calculate risk. But we'd do it again.

You play it, we would still do it again.

Yeah, I probably wouldn't do David Icke 3.

I mean, like, if we—

but if you're on the fence, you're going to give it a go, aren't you?

Yeah, I meant like with the second one we talked in, we were like, even though the downsides, if we could redo number 2 again, we still would have done it.

Well, actually, we— it was actually a little bit of a tech error, wasn't it, that kind of got a shout at Van? Don't shame him, he's not in the video, don't change it. But We were careful with that video and we took out some of the stuff that we thought might—

like half an hour of—

yeah, like half an hour of it. And there was a tech error with an upload. Yeah, exactly. If you're totally bland and safe, yeah, you could be totally bland and safe. But who wants bland and safe right now? And our brand is called Disruptors, so it's not about being bland and safe. So if I was ever on the fence, I'd probably go again. But what we're doing now as a strategy is if there's stuff that is definitely going to get a shadow ban, then we'll probably take that part and put it on the Rob.team platform, which is completely independent, and we can put what we want on that. We can't get deplatformed from that or censored from that. So we did that with Nigel Farage, didn't we? I'd say that was a high point, Nigel Farage, because highest Facebook Live and TikTok Live views we'd ever had.

Yeah, that made me happy.

Yeah.

I would definitely say—

would you say Jordan Peterson was quite high?

Jordan Peterson was really good, really good. And I think we got him right at the time where, you know, his book, his first book, The 12 Rules for Life, was like peak. You know, it was the best-selling book in the world and had been for, you know, like a whole year. And his interview was really good. And Harry and I were just talking about that yesterday because one of the great things about that interview was that, like, you and Jordan didn't agree on everything and it was a real conversation with debate in it, not just two people that believe in all the same things and disagree with each other, which might be really fun for you to do sometimes. Like, we all enjoy hanging out with our friends, but actually for like content for our viewers, like conflict, debate, conversation.

We also had that with Jordan Belfort, didn't we? Yeah.

And well, we've had a few of those as well. Some disappointments over the years. We don't have to name names, but—

well, we should, shouldn't we?

Yeah.

You remember Michael Gerber? We were really excited to get him. He was one of your heroes, like, at the time, you know, and we did that interview with him and it was 10 minutes of content, 38 minutes. And I remember Harry and I, like, we went through it like 4 or 5 times trying to be like, can we craft this into something good? And we ended up from a, you know, 1 hour 40 down to 20 minutes.

And in the end, we blacked it. It was a short episode, didn't we?

Yeah. And, you know, and sometimes It just doesn't, you know, it doesn't happen.

He— I mean, he's about 80 and it was just a shameless massive pitch.

And he—

every answer to a question was, well, it's not about that, Rob, it's about the image pitch. Yeah. And it was— yeah, it was embarrassing. I am now though more up for, um, getting guests that— this is something I want to do differently as well, is not just get guests we agree with but get guests we don't necessarily like. Yeah, I don't be brave. And like with Jordan Belfort, had a, you know, a couple of disagreements with him. Um, and what about, what about Pablo Escobar Part 1 and Part 2?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kind of, he wants to tell that. Harry, you're in on that? Yeah.

Okay, so I came across a guy, I believe his real name— well, we don't really know his real name is— so I think it was Philip, Philip Comp or something like that. And I saw him on BBC, I saw him on ITV, I saw him on Channel 4 and he claimed to be the secret son of the drug lord Pablo Escobar. Told this great story, he'd written a book and he was on all sorts of social media platforms and I thought, oh, this will be an interesting story. So, you know, reached out to him and we got it agreed.

But just quickly there, that's another reason why we've rebranded to Disruptors because Pablo Escobar, let's be honest, at that moment we were just like, 'Let's fuck our own concept.' Yeah, let's just do this for no reason whatsoever. But now with the brand, there'd be a reason. But yeah, we were just ruining our own brand for the sake of it.

So multi-billion-dollar news organizations, I'm talking Sky News, ITV, BBC, Channel 4, the American ones, you think these guys, and I know they do have research departments, right, where they research and they find out what is true or not because they want to be very credible. And he had passed all of these. Honestly, he was on everything. Um, he was even on Good Morning Britain, I remember. Yeah, so telling his story, telling his story.

So I thought, when we— no, in his book, when we had him, you know, we just thought we'd do very basic research like we do.

And immediately the strings just kind of started falling out, and it turned out, uh, he's a massive charlatan, to put it one way. And the whole thing was bullshit, and you live tore him a new one.

Hilarious. We outed him live, didn't we? We exposed— like, BBC fell for it. Good. But about two-thirds of the way in, I know what you're like, you're one of these journo types, we weren't going to do this. I said, I'm just asking you some basic questions, and he just Didn't know his own birthday, didn't they?

Yeah, it was great.

And then what, 2 days later, his real son reached out to us.

Yeah, yeah.

So his actual real son then reached out to us and said, I'll come on your show. And it's kind of cool when they reach out to us because when you're a podcaster, every day, 3, 4 times a day, you get everyone wanting to be on your podcast, but Generally, you don't really want the people who want to be on your podcast. But we've had a couple of billionaires that reached out to us. But when his real son reached out to us, I was like, yeah, this is cool. And with that fake son interview, we kind of knew, didn't we, about a day or two before? I think it was a day before, but we promoted it everywhere and we were like, what do we do here? We know it's bullshit. Do we pull it or do we do it? And I'm always like, if I'm on the fence, I'll just say yes. So we did it. And do you remember, we— it's very rare, but we went straight live afterwards discussing it, didn't we? Immediately went live. Loads of people on the live. It was like, this guy's a fraud. Fucking hell, you exposed him. And yeah, it's quite fun. We trumped the BBC, trumped all those media.

It's shocking when you think about it, isn't it? I mean, there's been a lot of distrust in big news organizations and things like that, and people, you know, a bit of a disconnect past 2 years. But if, you know, if we're out researching and outperforming like the likes of the BBC and Sky News and things, then yeah, it shows why shows like ours are so popular. Like, people are going to gravitate towards people they can trust.

Yeah, 100%. James has said get Robert Greene on your show. He's agreed. We just need to get the dates done on that. Robert Greene's agreed. Give us any other suggestions of people who you think we should have on the show. We have got 2 or 3 really massive guests lined up. Guess we wouldn't have got were we disruptive entrepreneur. Back to Jordan Peterson, another reason we have one of his highest viewed videos on the internet. And I think because we talked about a different subject, we talked a lot about entrepreneurship and sales. Yeah. And, you know, obviously everyone was asking him about pronouns and things like that. So we try and do that now, have, have a bit of a different angle. Obviously you've got to talk about the things they're famous for, We try really hard in the run-up to any interview.

We do a bit of research, but then we spend a lot of time on the questions. We've always been really conscious to try and not just ask the same questions because you see someone go out on and they'll do the media round, they'll go on all the BBC Sounds podcasts that are like not, they're all part of a big company. They'll go on the morning shows. And they got asked the same 5 questions again and again and again. And we've always tried really hard. And this is something we've done from very early to ask really different questions and try and get different things and get different kinds of answers from people. And even as far back as who's the triple Olympian?

Dale Thompson.

Dale Thompson.

And we went to see Dale Thompson.

We had a great time with him. And we had a great time with him. And we spent a long time because he was the first sportsperson to ever have a video game made about him back on like the Nintendo Entertainment System. And like, we had a great conversation about that and like he's never been asked about that kind of thing. And we try really hard every time we speak to a guest to be like, look, if they've answered this question, you know, 20 times, are we going to get something that hasn't been said before?

No.

So let's ask something different. And we always do that, don't we? We look for asking questions that are different and trying approaching things in different ways. And that served us really well. You know, and you can— it helps disarm guests as well, brings them, you know, to, to your level, and you just get more interesting answers. And you actually then create unique content because do you need another, you know, interview asking the same 5 questions everyone else? No, you don't. But if we've got the only record of them answering this question, well, we've got something unique and different then, and that's something we try really hard to do.

Russell Brand, Guy Standing, Max Keiser, Patrick Bet-David, Jeremy Corbyn. So we've got two of them agreed, not done yet. Sometimes you get them agreed and it can take months.

We've had it on the show before.

Oh, we've had— and it might let— we've had it on the show.

Jeremy Corbyn, he would be very good. Jeremy Corbyn, yeah, he's got just very different views, different, but he's a man that's always stood for what he believes in, isn't he?

You know, I think, yeah, robbing us Straight away, people like me. Oh, let's have him on. All right, I'll have a scrap with Jeremy.

Just going back to that Jordan Peterson, uh, interview, that was probably one of the most, uh, proudest pieces of content we've made. So the YouTube video alone has got many millions of views on it. If you go look on the comments, there are hundreds and hundreds of comments of people saying this is probably the best interview on entrepreneurship ever recorded. And the amount of value that was getting out of you and Jordan, I thought was absolutely brilliant. I even, I learned so much, you know, having a brilliant, open, honest discussion about selling and stuff like that. It was an absolute brilliant piece of content. And again, it was you debating with Jordan, not just doing the things we've done before, you know, talking about other things that, you know, people don't really normally talk about.

Yeah.

And it never almost happened as well, if you remember, Rob, I got locked away.

You got locked away in a room and then we were ready to go and you were still just getting set up and some guy went, Jordan, how you doing? And spoke to him for 20 minutes and nicked a load of our time. And then we got interrupted at the end because I— the— it was a little— it was tight, a tiny bit defensive at the start because he was getting a lot of shit in the media. And so it took me 20 to 30 minutes to warm him up. Um, we could have done another hour and that would have been great. We actually have got a round 2 agreed, it's just a question of tying all the logistics up. So yeah, that was frustrating, wasn't it? Because we got our time cut short and a lot of people were left wanting more. But sometimes when they're left wanting more, it's good, isn't it?

Oh, 100%. You see that in the comments, you know, and that's, I think, one of the reasons why it got so many views, because just as the discussion was getting to, you know, its climax, its best point, it was taken away, unfortunately. But many millions of people loved that video and they want more.

Yeah. My— probably one of my lowest, worst moments was Dorian Yates, because I found that interview really hard. Was he tough? Um, well, we went there and we went into his gym. So one of the things we do, if we can, is we try and make sure that we go on location. We only do Zooms in lockdowns, or if we— I mean, I'd even go to America. We'd all go to America for the right guest.

Zoom's last resort.

Exactly. Because it's just proven that face-to-face is better for a zillion reasons. Rob Moore, all the content they put on YouTube, it always does better when it's live. Loads of reasons, your ability to shoot good footage, etc. So he went to his gym, which was a good move, um, and we waited for him. And when he came out, he was very— his nickname is The Shadow, I think.

Yes, The Shadow.

And he was just like really ominous and like, I don't know, just, you know, such a powerful person that they can be a bit oppressing. And it was like there was no smile, there was no warmth.

He's not a warm character, is it?

And Sahr's a bit like that. He must have been in my first 10 guests, so I was a bit like, uh, you went with us at that point.

I wasn't here. I wasn't there.

That's how I found out about Rob Moore.

I watched that interview.

Oh, there you go. And then, so we went and, um, set up, and there was loads of smashing in the gym noise. And right behind us, about half an hour, there was— I think it might have been his missus, but there was a woman with huge fake boobs doing like back extensions like this. And just in the background like that is this going on. There's all the noise, there's the shadow shining darkness on me, and there's this big face. And I just fucking went to shit, and I got nervous. I started forgetting the next questions. Because when you have interviews with people, what you don't want to do— let's say I'm interviewing Kieran— what you don't want to do is he's talking and looking at me and I'm going like this. Yeah. So you have to You have to not look at your questions. You have to get cheeky looking when they look away. And so I was stuck between reading the questions, and when he was looking at me and I was reading the next question, I could feel the rapport break. And, and so then I had a question in my mind, so I'd interrupt him to remember the question, and then he would talk over my interruption. I just— that was not my best interview at all. But we left it on the internet because it doesn't really matter.

It's got good views.

Yeah, it's got loads of good views. Quite a lot of people are like You are shit, Rob, and they were right, but at least I did it.

Things have changed. Your interview technique has changed as well and got a lot better. And I think, you know, like, you know, 6 years practicing anything will make you good, but you've put a lot of effort into improving it and you already had a huge track record of public speaking and all of that kind of stuff. But interviewing is a different game and we definitely found, you know, in the early days, you know, one of the biggest things I think we'd all agree and Harry and I have talked about this is the power of a pause and letting a moment hang. Humans don't want— we find silence uncomfortable, which is why people talk fast, they talk over each other. We want to fill every little gap with noise. And you find yourself, you ask someone a question and they give you the stock answer and then you feel the pressure to just, okay, move on to the next question. But what we start getting good at and you are a master of now is You ask someone the question, they give you the stock answer and you just wait and you wait and then they're like, oh, we're not going to move on. And then they give you the real answer. And that pause is the magic because if you can hold your nerve long enough to just wait a bit longer, people go like, oh, well, I left for these reasons. The thing is, though, and then they give you the really good shit. And that's like something that over time, you know, you've got a lot better at. And I think, you know, there's people now that maybe if you had gone back and you interviewed Dorian again, you'd have a different approach and a different appetite to it because you've just learned so much as well. And I think, yeah, it's made a huge difference. And we get way more out of our guests now than we used to.

Well, a couple of points on that, because I naively thought because I've done loads of public speaking, podcasting would be quite natural to me. It's the opposite. Learning to be a public speaker is actually the opposite thing you want to do to being an interviewer, because the best interviewers talk less, not more. So that was a struggle I had. But the fact that I was naive was good because it didn't make me overthink doing it. Yeah. And I'd rather learn on the go than try and get perfect beforehand. So Whilst I know that's one of my worst interviews in terms of my skills as an interviewer, it doesn't mean it was our worst show. No. Because people quite like it sometimes when I mess up or they've got something to criticize with me. So I don't have any problems with that. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I'm interviewed on a lot of podcasts and people talk way too much and they want to talk as much as you want to talk. But the interviewee should be the one that talks 95% of the time. Not the interviewer. And too many interviewers— I mean, my wife knows some very famous podcasters because she listens to them. I won't name-drop them because I want to criticize them, but she says they just talk and they're not getting the most out of the guests. Like, on my individual episodes, they want to listen to me, but on the interviews, they don't want to listen to me, they want to listen to the guests. So I learned that over time. And with Zoom and there being a slight delay as well, so with Peter Schiff, I would say that was, as a technique of interviewing, my best. Here's why. There was a delay. And when there's a delay, even if it's a 0.05-second delay, it's really hard to talk. So the only way to do it is to ask the questions concisely and then shut up and let them talk for as long as they want. And then when they're finished, wait and check that they're finished and then ask another question. So you can't get dialogue, really. Now, Peter Schiff had just tweeted not long before my interviews, apologizing for there being a lot of interruptions with Joe Rogan. So basically, he had issues on Joe Rogan of interrupting. Yeah, I interviewed him and there was no interruptions. If you listen to Joe Rogan with Elon Musk, that's great. It's great, but he interrupts him a lot. So there was this really cool little clip that went out when Lex Fridman interviewed Elon Musk. So I know Lex Fridman, we've become, um, sort of got to know each other through Clubhouse. And there's a question that Lex asks and there's a 20-second pause of Elon answering it. And he asks it and then the counter goes and Elon's thinking for 20 seconds and then he answers. And that's Elon. But what happened on Joe Rogan is Joe would ask, there'd be 3 or 4 seconds, and then Joe would interject or ask another question. And like, yeah, Joe's obviously a master of the game. I'm not criticizing because anyone probably would have done that. But having the nerve to just sit there— so there's a question we asked Peter Schiff, and he gives a brilliant— I said to him, he's massively against Bitcoin. He hates it. He thinks it's all going to zero. And I said to him, what's the best advice you've ever received? And there was like a 10-second pause, and then he went, buy Bitcoin. And that's going to make a great TikTok and a great meme. 2 years ago, I'd have, oh, don't worry, oh, don't worry, we'll move on to the next question. So yeah, I think that's probably how I've improved, I would say, is not being scared of the pause. It is a bit unnerving. You're sitting there, it's like, fucking hell, this is really awkward. But you just have to breathe in.

We don't like it. It's awkward. We want to end awkwardness as quickly as possible. But if you can ride it, you can—

That's when the gold comes out. Paula said Alfie Best is a fantastic interviewee. We've interviewed him. Alfie's become my friend, he's great. Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, I'm game. Yeah, right now. Yeah, yeah.

What's your favorite interview, Rob, of all time?

Floyd Mayweather.

Actually, Floyd Mayweather too. That was like being in a boxing match with 17 people.

That looked tough.

Yeah, that was like, oh, I wanted to be rude, but you know, that, that was, that was— I personally actually feel quite proud of myself because I had about 17 questions for Floyd for round 2. That's a lot of questions. As like, if you have 17 questions for David Icke, you're winning the world record for the longest interview ever. Do you remember David Icke round 1? He started the conversation. We were 45 minutes in, we haven't even asked one question.

Wow.

So you plan 10, 12, 15 questions. I got 17 for Floyd. I ended asking him 29 questions. So I managed to pull out of thin air 12 questions and it lasted 26 minutes. So the average, the average answer was about 50 seconds. He clearly didn't want to be there. He was more defensive than anyone I've ever interviewed. And, um, I basically squeezed the lemon as much as I could. So, and he was 3 hours late, and, and I was really nervous because he was so late. It was about— I think it was 1 to 2 days before Logan Paul fight, wasn't it? Yeah.

And it was almost midnight our time when we did it.

Yeah, it was. And which is not a good time for me at all. And also, we wanted to get him before the fight, but on reflection, we didn't get the best of him. But who else has got Floyd Mayweather twice? We got Floyd Mayweather twice, and we'll get him round 3, and this time we'll go to Vegas because it'll be so much better. Yes, because we've got— we've got Dan Bilzerian agreed as well.

Great.

So if we get Dan and Floyd on a little tour, it's going to be a good little tour, that is.

I'd love to meet Dan.

Yeah, uh, so I would say— I'd have to say Floyd Mayweather. Favorite, not because it was the most enjoyable. Like, I love Jon Barnes, I'm a massive fan, I interviewed him, that was cool. Maisie Williams, biggest actress in Game of Thrones, she's cool. All the billionaires, they're cool. But I like the people who test my skills, so I'm gonna have to say Floyd. Who's your favorite? It's that one, isn't it?

Yeah, you know, straight off, David Goggins, 100%.

Why David Goggins?

100%.

That was just an intense podcast. I've never listened so intently in my life.

He's so fucking intense.

Oh yeah, I had a coughing fit midway through I had to leave the room. I thought he looked to me like he's gonna murder me, but we didn't interrupt the audio.

When we started, just before we went on, I said to him, just as a bit of rapport, so do you like doing these interviews? He went, nope.

He did like your, uh, world record.

Do you know what, like, we had pretty good rapport. Yeah, because David Goggins' rapport isn't like friendly. It's like if he respects you for being hardcore Yeah. So when I told him about the speaking world record, he was like, 'Right, you're a lad,' which is his way of saying you're a legend. Yeah, I was like, 'That's great.' But I mean, yeah, a lot of people absolutely loved that interview. That was great. He's so extreme that people love him.

Yeah, that really popped for us on YouTube as well, didn't it, Harry?

That one did.

Yeah, got about 400,000 views in a few months.

Yeah, and you do a lot of repurposing, get a lot of that, don't you? So your favorite is David Goggins?

100%.

My favorite is Floyd Mayweather. Harry, I know who your favorite is.

There's two.

Barry.

There's my personal favorite in terms of the one I really enjoyed the most, and then there's one in terms of value and content.

So I'm going to actually throw you a little curveball here. Just before you do, Rachel has said she loved Carole Baskin. Oh yeah, that's another reason why we have to take the word entrepreneur off. She's coming soon. She's got a good YouTube channel. She's coming soon. Carole Baskin of Tiger King coming soon. Go on.

Sorry, my personal favorite, not the interview I think is the best in terms of value and content, but my personal favorite was probably Amir Khan.

Oh yeah, great.

So yeah, I, I'm a massive fan of Amir Khan. I've watched him throughout his whole career. I remember the 2004 Olympics where he won the silver medal, and I was infatuated from boxing then. I would have been about 13 years old, something like that. And I've watched his whole career. I've got tickets to go see him against Kell Brook next month. Uh, absolute brilliant guy.

Should we get a round 2 in then?

100%. I've said let's get around to— and with Kel as well if we can. Okay. I, um, it's the only time in my life I've actually been starstruck.

It's the only time you've ever asked for a photo?

Yeah, in 200 games.

I remember that.

I was like, no way, Harry wants a photo. And we hung out at his house in his games room. He was really down to earth, really solid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ah, but then You said you had a second.

In terms of actual value and content and things I learned from it, oh, I'm either gonna go maybe Barry Hearn part one, but right now I'm gonna say Jordan Peterson. That discussion about selling is world class, and there's a reason why that's got like 3 million views. I mean, honestly, I think that interview has changed people's lives. They like— particularly for someone like you who was a fucking broke artist to where you are now. Dear God, Rob, if you knew that type of value and how to sell and everything, it would have completely changed your life. And this is fundamental principles people need to know, even if you're not an entrepreneur, even if you're not owning your own business. But to know how to sell things and kind of navigate yourself within your career and know these things is absolutely fundamental. And that definitely, I think, has changed people's lives.

Barry Hearn's the biggest charmer we've ever had. He is like the biggest legend. We've had him twice. I went out for lunch with him afterwards. He is a great storyteller, a charmer, and a geezer. So yeah, we're going to help him launch his book in the next couple of months. A lot of people don't know who Barry Hearn is, even though his companies are very famous. Um, so I'm sure we'll make Eddie Hearn happen. I haven't asked the question yet because I like to build the relationship first before I ask for contact. I've actually become really good friends with some guys on our show, like Kevin Clifton, one of my best mates, Jake Wood from EastEnders, one of my best mates, so that's been a cool thing. Got a call with one of the billionaires next week. Tom, your favorite guest?

So mine, for me, probably would be Ike 1, the first one that we did. It was one of the— there's like personal reasons because for me, did you come with us? Yeah, it was one of the last ones. Like, you know, as the team, team has grown and the whole operation has grown, you know, like I have more and more like boring office space, like, you know, meetings and shit to attend. So I used to go to all of the interviews, and first of all it was me and Rob, then it was me, Rob, and Harry, and now Harry goes on his own and Kieran goes, and we sometimes send other crew down as well. But David, I was one of the first ones that— oh sorry, one of the last ones where I went and with Harry, and we actually did like the kit and everything together because I don't do any of that stuff now. So it was like, it was an exciting thing for me that it was one of the last times we did that. And it was a real mission as well because it's on like the Isle of Wight. So we were down there for 4 hours in the car, then we were on the ferry and it felt like, you know, like we were really steeling ourselves. And he was, David Icke one was quite early and he really was one of the first, like, this is not going to be an entrepreneurship interview. There was no way it was ever going to be an entrepreneurship interview. You know, we had a couple of questions locked about, you know, like, how many books have you sold? Because he sold millions and millions of books. But like, it was never going to be about money and entrepreneurship. And like, you know, like, I had, you know, read some of his stuff and we were all really excited and a bit nervous as well. When we went down there, we went into his flat and, you know, we decided like, you know, he was like, oh, we can set up in the living room. And they were like, no, let's shoot in your office. And it's, you know, this mad office, all these books, all these papers everywhere. And it's like, you know what, like it might have looked nicer in this plush living room, but it was far more him to do it in the office with all of his stuff. And yeah, it was just something really different. And, you know, we all in the journey on the way back, we were really buzzing. We were like Googling how quickly we could go on an ayahuasca trip to the Amazon. You know, we were fully in it at the time. And, you know, again, that was one of the first that we did a kind of— we did a live afterwards where we did our reaction to it and our feelings on it. And it was like Yeah, something really, really cool. And for me, that was it. Yeah, you know, it's really something really good. And again, the fact we could do more like that is one of the great reasons to have, you know, to change the name to Disruptives. Yeah, because we don't have to think about like, should we do this? Could we do this? How do we make it? You know, we can just be like a great, interesting, disruptive person, just go for it. And we can do a better interview and we'll get more great people say yes.

Amen. Anything you want to add, Harry? Anything you want to add, Kieran, on the big 6-year rebrand and the change of directions?

Just get ready for loads more stuff to come.

We've got some seriously big guests. We're opening a lot more doors. I'll add one more little thing, and you can think of anything else you want to add. That would be that since lockdown, I feel like the world's become a lot more political, a lot more divided, um, And so I've done a lot of content on what's going on in the world and trying to support small business and link it to entrepreneurship. And a lot of that content, which you might call more political, has gone viral for me. I always used to have a rule: never talk about religion, politics, or marriage advice, because I know fuck all about all three of those. And that was always my rule. No politics, no religion, no marriage advice. So politics is now in the game. We'll look at the other two in 6 and 12 years' time. But, um, because everything's political now, you can't get away from it. So I, like, I really enjoyed Nigel Farage. We've got to have a little hat tip to that, haven't we? Because he was— as soon as we met him, he pulled his mask down and he was just candid. As soon as we met him, he was really giving on the interview. There was no question. Sometimes you ask people questions And because I said, I asked him, are you a racist? And he just answered it, you know, whereas other people like, oh, defensive about that. So because obviously people think he is, and, um, so I asked him that. And yeah, that was great, busting those lies. We also like to have a little bit of a thing where we go to Burger and Lobster afterwards. So we went to Roca, had a couple of mojitos, and the conversation started to flow. So yeah, that was good. Um, we should do more debrief lives. We should have done a debrief live after Nigel, shouldn't we? We should have been around. Yeah, we're also going to try and improve the production on the lives. So for example, we've now got some kit where we can plug in. So for it, we haven't got like this here, but right here we've got TikTok and Instagram lives. You can't see on the Facebook lives, but, um, what we've got, we've got some gear now so we can plug in the PodTrak 4 on them all so the audio can be better so that the live experience is also good because the Instagram and TikTokers are a bit on, on the side there. This is a big change, we haven't even talked about this, Harry, how we repurpose for TikTok and Shorts.

That's true, last 18 months we've grown two of our biggest channels from zero. Yeah, just from scratch to where we are now, you know, incredible. Past 100K on YouTube as well.

You know, yeah, we're about 120K on both of them, just about, aren't we? Yeah, yeah.

Podcasters in the millions every quarter, easily. Like, you know, like from when we started and you had your Facebook page and we had the property community and that was it.

Yeah.

And now, you know, we've got all of these, you know, now whatever. It's a lot bigger, it's a lot more complicated, a lot more expensive, but I'll pay 5 in the world on Clubhouse.

Yeah, smash that out. Yeah. So we used to just do really long conversations. Now what we do is we put in a quickfire and we actually design them for TikTok and Shorts, don't we? So yeah, that's how the world has changed. So actually, that's how the Disruptive Entrepreneur has changed as well as Rebrand. It used to be a podcast. Now it's a show, multimedia show.

Yes, exactly. Yeah, it's a, it's a brand of content that you can get in TikTok form, you can get in YouTube form, you can get in long, you know, long-form podcasts, you know. And like, you know, we try and make it— and we've got, you know, Harry and Kieran, we've got other guys, you know, like, that specialize in TikTok. But every one of them, there's a little uniqueness to each platform that makes it uniquely, you know, what we do. And yeah, it's, you know, it's good, it's really exciting.

So if you're watching on TikTok, make sure you're following us on Facebook. If you're watching on Instagram, make sure you follow us on TikTok. If you're watching on Facebook, make sure you follow us on Instagram. If you're watching anywhere, make sure you subscribe to the audio podcast and make sure you all subscribe to YouTube. So basically, we're on multi-channel. What we often do is we'll tease a little bit of live. So we went about one-third live with Nigel Farage. We'll sometimes only publish uniquely on one or two channels and do like a sort of a big build-up and an exclusive, because in your world you just like them to be all exclusive YouTube.

Well, of course I would.

I'm selfish. Yeah, but we have to sort of, of course, um, leverage all the other channels as well. So does anyone have any questions? Uh, anyone got any questions? Gareth Ike. Um, Gareth Ike, what do you think?

I think someone earlier did ask.

There was a few.

Yeah, at the top, I think they asked.

Okay, ping your questions in the chat either on— can you scroll the Instagram up so that we don't go to the bottom? Yeah.

I know, not that one.

Sorry, you can keep going.

Wow, look at all those comments. Um, do you want to have a look? Would you recommend getting content in public speaking before podcasting? No, no, I, um, yeah, I would recommend studying in, um, people who interview. Um, I mean, if you're totally scared of even speaking to your mum or your wife or your husband, then maybe some general— go to Toastmasters or something like that. But no, when it comes to interviewing, I'd learn how to interview more than I'd learn how to public speak because I think it can be a hindrance learning how to. Yeah.

And interviewing is a real talent. Like, you know, we talked about Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan's not a good interviewer. Like, he's a conversationalist. And he gets great guests because he knows famous people. Like, he's not good at interviewing people. Like, he talks over people all the time. He interrupts them. He contradicts them. He is not a good interviewer. Like, and anyone that looks at the way Joe Rogan does things as a way of like, oh, I could do something like that. He's having long-form conversations and he knows loads of like, you know, famous people. That's it. Like, you're not going to be able to be Joe Rogan. You know, if you can be good at interview though, like, that's a great skill to have. And like, you know, you've put a lot of like of your personal time into improving that skill and you can get so much more out of like normal what might be an okay interview if you know how to ask the right questions, push people in the right ways, you know, get the right things out of them. And we've seen that, you know, sometimes, like I say, the last 20 minutes can be the best 20 minutes because you've kind of, you've done the dance, you've got to know them, you've got the rapport, you know where you can push them a little bit. Yeah, it makes a huge difference.

So a couple of little rules then I've learned on interviewing. Number one is Don't ramble before the question, just ask the question. Number 2, try not to say the same thing after each question because I used to. Thank you very much. Next question. Thank you very much. Next question. So try and have the pause between one question and the next. I remember listening to Adam Grant do an interview on Clubhouse with— it might have even been Mark Zuckerberg or someone big. And he asked the question, paused, let them answer, paused, ask the next question. There was zero filler words. There was no 'ers,' no 'ums,' anything like that. That was tight. So I would say try and do that. On a podcast, you have to— I remember doing an early one, and because for rapport, that's really good. If I'm interviewing Kieran, he wants some feedback.

I want some words.

Oh wow. But if you're listening to a podcast, every 2 minutes I'm like, oh wow. So you have to listen with your eyes until your head— you cannot go, yeah, thanks, because it's really off-putting for the listener. I remember getting some feedback. Someone said, Rob, you're making a lot of noises. But that's the way of giving rapport. So now you have to smile, you have to look. So using your eyes and your head tilt and your look, you've got to look at them. You've got to— every time they're looking at you, you've got to be looking at them, which means you can't look at your iPad or your notes. Sensing the energy, knowing when to interrupt, to go down a loophole that opened up, knowing when to interject them and stop them if they're talking too much. Knowing when to go into short-form quickfire. There are a few little tips. Someone said Floyd Mayweather was very defensive. It's funny because I spoke to Grant Cardone about this because Grant Cardone has also interviewed him. And Grant Cardone said, look at his fighting style, he's super defensive. It makes sense that he'd be defensive.

That's very true.

He is super defensive. And actually, I don't mind that. I actually want to interview harder people now.

I want it to be your challenge.

Yeah, my chat, like, it's not disruptors unless I disrupt myself. So I have to interview people I don't agree with, I don't like, and who I know are going to be hard, as well as massive names, controversial people, big influencers, and people I do like. So you're going to see a little bit of a mix up there where I'm going to put myself in some difficult situations.

That'll be the goal, Harry. Can we get Rob to walk out of his own interview? Who? With someone by the end of the year.

That'd be quite good for virality, wouldn't it? If anyone walked out, that would be be really good. So yeah, is there any questions on the Insta?

Do you want to scroll it down?

Uh, someone really loved the interview with Naveen Jain. We've had him on the show a few times.

Oh, Naveen Jain's a legend. He's a charmer, he's a massive thinker. Um, yeah, he's— yeah, he's absolutely brilliant. Love Naveen Jain. Billionaire. I think we've had 16 billionaires. I think we've got our first billionaire. S agreed. Um, David Attenborough sent 2 rejection letters to us. J.K. Rowling has sent one.

We'll get a record number of rejections.

Well, actually, what I— I actually want to keep getting rejection letters because you've got— I have found you've got more chance of getting a yes after a no than if they just ghost you. If they ghost you, you never again. But if they say no, then for us that's okay, we'll reach out in 3 months. So are there any other questions on there? I have a serious question. Would you advise having a business and setting up in a tax haven? Oh, that's a different question. Yeah, it's not that that's not a good question, it's just probably not talking about podcasts. Someone did say I have a team. Yeah, we have a team, but we didn't when we started. You don't need a team to start. You need a Zoom H1. Don't need—

that's so much easier than when we started, dude. Yeah, that's for sure.

It's loads of fuckery now that we have to do on a regular basis. Like, we've got 4— Chris Eubank, I've been trying to get him. That will happen as well. Oh yeah. Uh, um, for me, I think Chris Eubank is absolute gold, an amazing entertainer. I know 2 people who know him really well, and I'm telling you, that'll happen. Yeah, Trump. I— we've got an in now for Trump. Yeah, we've got it, but I'm just gonna take my time. I like to give before I receive. I don't have to—

sorry, you're gonna try and— sorry, you're gonna try and go on the GB News show?

Well, I've connected Nigel up with Gerald Ratner. Those two are going to get on so well. They're like going to be best friends. So yeah, I just do like to, um, sir, before I request.

I've got a question, Rob.

Yeah, Peter Baker.

Peter, how you doing? What have we got?

Get the question up on screen.

My mouth is so dry. Where's that other bottle of water?

Let me get—

oh, thanks, Harry. It appears there are some companies out there who seem to think that their brand is amazing, so their service doesn't need to be, as they'll attract customers anyway. What are your views on that? Well, My views are obviously having a good brand is trust, and that does give you an advantage. But of course, a brand can take 10 years to build and 5 minutes to kill. So I think a great brand has trust and rapport but looks after their customers and clients. I would also say it's not easy to look after thousands of clients, and you can't keep all of the people happy all of the time. You know, through the lockdown, we financed all of our clients' masterminds We paused their payments. We were paying their £500 a month. There were hundreds of them. And still some people weren't happy with us that we weren't refunding them, even though it was a lockdown and our inability to trade— our ability to trade had gone. So you can't keep everyone happy all of the time. But obviously you want to do your best. I've got this view now with customers and clients that's changed a bit because maybe 5, 6 years ago, I'd have bent over backwards to give everyone what they wanted. But sometimes when you give people what they want, they take more and more and more and they take the piss. So I will go my— I will go lengths to serve people. But if they start taking the piss, I'm not having it and I push them away and I'll refund them the money and I kick them out of my communities and I'm not having it because some people think that just because they're customers, they can behave like a dick. And I don't think anyone has the right to behave like a dick just because they've given you money. So I've got a balanced view on that now. I used to be like, just look after everyone and bend over backwards. No reason to refund them, you do anyway because you're kind. And what do they do? They go and fucking tell everyone, and then everyone wants one. But then you've got to be kind and generous, um, and caring, but also don't get bullied and don't get the piss taken out of you. So I had some guy moaning and complaining about the £3.49. So in the end, I just said, there's no need to be rude just because, you know, you haven't got what you wanted. It's £3.49, you're being rude. Don't be rude. Do you want all your money back? And I'll I'll eject you from all the communities because I think, no, fuck off. Anyway, I don't know why I said that, but that's just the truth. It's like, I think a lot more people now that in a car they're a dick, on social media they're a dick, you know, like in real life. Yeah, if someone, if someone got out of that car and was squared up with you, they wouldn't be as big a dick as when they're in the car. If someone was in a room with you face to face, they wouldn't be as dick as they are on social media.

Yep, so that's a good analogy.

Actually, try not to be a dick. Rob Waffling. Thanks, Paul. Right, let's kick Paul out of all the communities.

I'm only joking, Paul, it's all good.

I take feedback as well as anyone, and I'll leave— I never delete posts unless they're trolling or spam or bullying. I leave all the comments up, I engage, I let you all chuck shit at me, I let you all criticize and debate and give critical feedback.

I love all of that, so I think I've earned that, right? Keanu Reeves is a good shout. He's got, um, a custom motorcycle business in LA. Yeah, yeah, Arch Motorcycles. I'd love to have a play with—

All right, can you write that down? Keanu Reeves. Um, who was the other ones? Um, Jeremy Clark— Keanu Reeves, Jeremy Clarkson.

Oh, I love Jeremy Clarkson. Eddie Hall was on there.

Eddie Hall, yeah. Um, Ian Botham. Ian Botham, yeah. He is very disruptive. Chris Eubank. Okay, when are we having a coffee together?

Gordon Ramsay, mate.

Gordon Ramsay follows me on TikTok.

He's got a massive—

Nicole Scherzinger, she follows me on Instagram and likes my post.

Does she? If we got Gordon Ramsay, I'm telling you now, guaranteed many, many millions of downloads.

Guaranteed.

He's got 77 million views on Hot Ones.

It's over 100 mil last time.

Is it?

That could be it.

People love Gordon Ramsay. Disruptors, two-thirds into the show you exposed the fake. Congratulations. Yeah, that was Pablo Escobar's son. You want to scroll down to the bottom, see what questions there are there. I hope you've enjoyed this, by the way. Something a bit different to our usual lives. We're just sort of talking about the direction of the brand for the next 6 years. Ah, here's a couple of things we're going to do. We're definitely going to fly to America. We're going to hire a big Winnebago. We're going to fit it out like a podcast studio and we're going to break America and we're going to tour around America and do loads of face-to-face interviews. We're definitely going to do that. We're going to go for more bigger guests and make more of an effort for that. We're definitely going to do that as well. Um, Gillian has said Katie Hopkins. We've already interviewed her. Um, thank you Chelsea said she thinks we're doing an amazing job. We're doing our best. Any other questions you've got for us? I heard that the G20 are working on closing loopholes on another tax one. Don't— I'm scarred. I've just found out my tax bill today. Don't talk to me about tax. I've got a migraine straight after that. You were going to say something, Harry?

Would you interview Katie Hopkins again?

Would I interview Katie Hopkins again?

I think we've had all the good we're gonna have from Into UK.

Yeah, yeah, I probably— I would never say never, but not right now. No, it's funny because I gave her the advice to start a podcast because she should have a podcast, and she didn't take it, and then she got deplatformed off every channel. So yeah, um, The Rock. The Rock.

One day.

Obama, man. People, how can it—

I hope so.

Yeah, Rob hanging out with presidents. I mean, I'd love to interview Obama, definitely. I mean, he's got a podcast, he's got one with Bruce Springsteen, hasn't he?

Spotify.

Um, so Lord Sugar, we— I know Lord Sugar, I've interviewed him before. Um, I think maybe that ship has sailed for us. Do you want to scroll and see if there are any questions on there? Because they, they don't— it doesn't move them up.

I went to the bottom, so I'm—

yeah, it should move them up, shouldn't it? Keep scrolling. Um, Taxation. What about like more politicians? We've only interviewed maybe what, one or two politicians?

Prince Andrew.

I'd interview Prince Andrew.

Yeah, no comment.

It'll be a difficult one.

You don't agree?

No, no, I think that's fine. That would go well.

He's definitely not going on podcast right now, is he?

No, I think he's like been like locked away somewhere by his like lawyers and like don't speak to anyone.

Ben from Gymshark, we've interviewed him. I'm sure we'll do another one. David Cameron. I'd be— I'm up for some more politicians. Don't waste your time with the MPs. Do you know what? Generally, if people don't want us to interview some people, that's a good sign that we should.

Yeah.

I.e., what you generally want— this is the thing that a lot of people don't get, and I didn't used to get. I used to think I've got to have a really good on-brand guest everyone loves. Actually, the best kind of guests are the people that some people love and some people don't. They are the best kind of guests. So, um, there you go.

We've got an interesting question here. Do you think brands are scared of cancel culture, and are you scared?

Yeah, um, I think brands are scared of cancel culture. Um, I'm not scared of cancel culture, but I am scared of getting deplatformed off all of our channels, and that to me is different. So like I'll say what needs to be said, and I don't really have a problem with that. Um, but I wouldn't want to be kicked off YouTube and Facebook especially because they're great channels for us. Um, so it does mean we have to be a little bit more careful with our content than maybe we would normally be, which is a shame because that means that cancel culture or deplatforming or shadow banning is actually driving not a fully honest narrative. Now, we've always been proud of ourselves that we'll give you a fully honest narrative, but there's certain things we probably couldn't say, which means we could give you a 90% honest narrative. And that upsets me because I want to be able to give 100% honest narrative. I also want people to be able to share their opinions even if they're different to mine. And if David Icke thinks X and someone else thinks Y, I want both of those opinions to be able to be expressed.

I think you're very right to separate out the two issues of deplatforming and cancel culture, because in my opinion, cancel culture is fake. No one who has been cancelled has become less famous than before. Everyone that claims they're being cancelled just becomes more famous because they then spend ages shouting about being cancelled.

But let me just jump before you finish.

Okay.

Yeah. Let me just, before you finish though, their sponsors kick them off. They get their honorary degrees stripped. This happened to J.K. Rowling.

Yeah.

So I hear you. Like, what was the example of when this happened? Oh, it was Djokovic. Like, have you seen Star Wars when Obi-Wan Kenobi goes, strike me down, Lord Vader, and I will become more powerful than you could ever imagine. And I think that's what you're saying. They get canceled. They're in the media. And actually become more famous. And Djokovic just got made into a hero and made more, yeah, more famous. So, but when you get your account shut down and you can't publish—

that's what I'm saying, you're right to separate the two issues, right? Because where people are getting in trouble for the things they say, generally they are like whiners that end up more famous than when they fucking started. Like, if you get—

give us an example of who.

Well, like any of these people you talk about.

Come on, drop some names.

No, I don't have a specific name, but the deplatforming thing is a different thing. And that's remembering that all of the platforms that exist, like, they're to serve advertisers, not creators, not consumers. They're there to serve content advertisers want to advertise on. But that's why a podcast is so good, because there's no advertiser in the podcast other than us. We can put what we want on the podcast.

Even our sponsors, they're not driving our content. Exactly.

So that's why everything you see on the other platforms, take with a pinch of salt, because they're all going to have their own narrative they want to drive or kind of content they want to get. But podcasting is as close as you can get to decentralized content. And there's nothing that's going to stop you saying pretty much what you want on a podcast, because the worst that can happen is no one listens. No one can delete your podcast for you. No one can take it away from you. And I think It's good to remember that.

Pure platform. Yeah.

And I think that's why, you know, even though the podcast doesn't always have our biggest numbers, the people that listen are our best fans because they are the really dedicated people. And, you know, TikTok fans might come and go, Clubhouse people might come and go. But, you know, that slow compounding of the podcast over 6 years is like an unstoppable beast. And like, you know, it's just different. And I think Deplatforming, whole other issues, you know, how we've given to big private companies, whatever. But, you know, like, take your content where you can get it. And I think that's why we love podcasting. We keep podcasting and it's always going to be a really big part of what we do. And I recommend for any content creator to do it as well.

You know, and then, by the way, if you want to start your own podcast and you haven't, email me rob@robmoore.com because we have a podcast agency. Rob@robmoore.com if you want to start your own podcast. We actually don't tell people about that enough, do we? We started with me and a Zoom H1 and Tom, and now we have 220+ clients and a whole freaking studio and a whole company. So that's cool. Theo Paphitis. We should definitely do a round 2 where you get the right direction. Leonardo DiCaprio. Leo, let's go for Leo. I've got a chance of getting Leo. Someone said Bear Grylls. That's been agreed. We've just got to sort out that. That's been tentatively agreed. I just want to say this, being agreed doesn't always turn into it ends up happening, or it can take a long time, which is why I'm answering now because you're asking, but that's why otherwise I don't normally share it. Bill Gates, I would be all over Bill Gates. I think he'd be great. A lot of people don't like him. I actually think a lot of it's not fair. Um, but of course there'll be stuff I don't understand as well. Um, did we have one on there? Do you want to scroll on there? Um, scroll down, see if there's any on Instagram. Will Smith. Yeah, we, we were in touch with his team when he was in the UK. We couldn't make that happen. Will Smith's autobiography is absolutely brilliant. Okay, oh, we've done, we've done an hour and 15 minutes. Holy shit. Yeah, share the hell out of this everywhere, please. I hope you enjoyed the new brand and the new concept and the discussion. I want to say a massive thanks to the team. Tom, which— Tom is that way. That's Tom there, head of innovation. That's Kieran, head of brand. I'm Rob, the host, and this is Harry, head of the podcast and YouTube. Thanks to Jordan, who's been doing the live stream in the background. I want to thank my mom, and I want to thank Jesus Christ. I've just had an idea. Um, hit the share button. We'll see you on the other side. Remember, if you don't risk anything, you risk everything. See you later.