This is an AI transcription, apologies for any typos.

I'd like to think it was divine intervention, because a voice spokesman, you know, it said, fucking get on with it. Otherwise you don't.

The pandemic was obviously a difficult time for most people. And a lot of us were just taking it day to day. Others didn't, and use the opportunity to react and grow in different ways. It was March 2020, the start of the pandemic, when Brad got the news that his company wouldn't be able to operate for the foreseeable future. His family were really worried. And with the pressure on, he felt like it was time to step up.

We sat down on the table, my wife, she's trying to look correct, it's gonna be fine. So she says, Man, aren't you know, it's gonna be fine. I said, Look, can you tell me last 18 years, your business? One bill, one bill that have not paid, named one? Or wait, it was quite clear that she was on the brink, emotionally, mentally, and her big concern financially. You know, I'd love to say it was a big, long protracted conversation with my wife. That wasn't because of the time for talking with Don, this was now the time of doing because she wasn't moving. She was frantic. This wasn't great. There's nothing further I could have done I couldn't move to a forward. And it was a time and a place to put the iron on the shoulder. And is there a time or place to put the beignets on? Guess what, this was the latter, not the former. So I had to be strong. And as a man as the leader, sometimes you got to be strong. When you're not. This was one of those moments. So I'm walking upstairs among the London and I text the second right into my office. So I'm setting the office and it grabs a pad. And a three party always remember, and I grew up my red pen. And I wrote on this piece of paper right in the middle. What does this make possible? And a question mark, and I sat there, I started writing and writing and writing and writing. And on that page, I ended up writing what was gonna save me what was gonna say my family, what was going to get us through this unprecedented situation. And I drafted a plan, a business plan that actually went against every single thing that I've built in the last 16 years, everything, you know, because I'm running business networking meetings, and in that time between 2006 and march 2020, and run over 68,000 real life business networking meetings with 1000s of members, each paying me money every single month, and every single meeting that had gone, the Brewers fairs across the land had shook. Boris Johnson asked us to please stay at home. Well, that's great. But what am I going to do for the 100,000 plus pounds that was coming through my bank account every single month, that had gone, my network had gone, it was almost like being a manufacturer of ice creams, and somebody had switched off your fridges. And I'd like to think it was divine intervention. Because a voice spokesman you know, it said, fucking get on with it. Otherwise you don't. That wasn't though divine intervention, it was me talking to myself. And that's exactly the situation or had no option and in life and in business in in this world, you're going to have to make decisions that not everyone agrees with. I wasn't even sure how did he even know. But and what I did know, is I had no option because stay where it was meant to last. And this was a time for losing. This was a time of winning. Because if I didn't have nowhere to go, and I had my business plan in front, I thought right, but supreme confidence mode of the plug in it. So I picked up the phone, lots of Big Contacts. 10 987654321 Dale? Sorry, are you doing breath? Same as a 70 year old grizzled PLC? Chairman. That's the reality of it. And I called him the grey beard. It was the Wiser wizard turn up there. And I said, so. You know, I've got a daft idea that just might work. And he said to me, Brad, your business. And your leadership of the last 14 years has been a daft idea. But it worked. I believe in you. Let's go. Walk me

through the process of what you did. You had that call with Tara, you've got this master plan? What was the process that you went through to actually save your business?

So we took to align booth, the first ever network business network to go online. So we looked at our format, could we do the format online, and back in the day, we didn't have breakout rooms, which is what they have in zoom now. So what happened we had to put people's phone numbers and their drink was almost like party chat. So you'd have the live and you'd see everyone on there. It'd be no one to one rooms, and you'd be on everyone to be on mute and they'd be talking and it's just that you know, it was it was a hodgepodge of politics again and this was brand new and everyone sort of, you know, initially that pandemic, let me ask you the question, how long did you think the pandemic is gonna last? Be honest? Few months, right. And they kind of build it like that. They never said it's gonna be two or three years, they build it as two weeks firebreak and it kept on and kept us on boiling the frog. So we prepared for three months, I had enough money for six. And that was, you know, for two years. And then we, I think, saved the business it did it give us a reprieve. It got us further forward, because actually, by doing nothing, we would have gone. But what it did is it extrapolated out and it continued, it would have been mind blowing, but it didn't, because I think that the entire world has changed as a result of that. I think their work from home, I think people forgot apathy. Now with online stuff. I think there's a lot of that kicked in. But he didn't say that he said our business and it was amazing, because what happened is, and lots of militaristic approach that I took to it, you will be abandoned with berries before networking logos and, and you know, dig for victory. And it was obviously we reproduced all that. And then people kind of you know, they gravitated to it and based this kind of approach on World War Two, I looked at World War Two, and I kind of galvanised obviously, but images that showing you that your neighbour very under this than the other and, and factor victory, and we did that, and we galvanised and we and we kind of got through scapular, we got through, but we got through.

Man, the pressure that you were under was absolutely immense. How do you not buckle under that? Because you've got this massive company for networking? You know, I've known about you for years, read your books, get off your ass life business. And you have this situation where you've got 1000s 10s of 1000s of people relying on you, you've got your, your frantic wife in the kitchen we're in? Is he actually going to be able to pull this off? You've got your kids or their, you know, their education, they're young, then what do you do? How do you not collapse under the weight of this pressure?

Listen, you've got two options. You know, this is the best way I described it was it was almost like being at sea. And no matter which way I looked, there was no Lund. So I had no option other than to say to my team, Listen, guys, we're gonna go full steam ahead towards this way. Well, how would you know what's the right way? Stars cost orientation. And you know what, I knew that if we didn't move who was done anyway. And we weren't, you know, we weren't putting away to actually, every single moment of my life that led me to that moment. I remember almost being like, the Roy Schneider, we're gonna need a bigger boat. We all went straight away. And I needed to get a gumshield in Metaphorically speaking, and do something that was unprecedented. But when I started falling back on myself and smarts that street smarts allowed me to be able to make decisions. I had a director of Costa Coffee, ring me up early doors, and say, Wow, what you're doing right now is mind blowing. And the spent half an hour asking me questions. Director Acosta golfer, asking me how I was doing it, because they saw everyone was stunned. Everyone was didn't know what to do. I'll tell you something, people were waiting for somebody else to save, save them. People were waiting for the cavalry to arrive, there was no cavalry. And this is why I came up with a hashtag at the time because we are the cover. Because people were looking towards Rishi Sunak, people were looking towards Boris Johnson to come and save their lives, fix their businesses, it wasn't going to happen. And I think that what I realised is that nobody was there to save us. And that is why I said, Right. We're now looking for leadership. It needs people to step forward, stop waiting for somebody to go out and needy people like me. And I didn't realise I was significant. As recent as this last week, I sort of got like one or two messages from people saying, Thank you, you helped me through the pandemic, and I didn't realise that you have no idea what you're delivering stuff online. So you've got no idea who's read it and what's going on in their life. But it was a it was, you know, it was a it was a brave moment was when I was more significant moments of my life. And, you know, there's certain key stories of my life, which every one of them is pivotal, but I call them see significant emotional events that shaped me as an individual. It's shaped me to be the person that I am. And the pandemic and everything that we've dealt with, was was without question, one of those is as significant as making shutter or delivering pizzas.

So you have you have the situation with Terry, who's known you for so many years, and he's got his utmost faith in you seems like he's some kind of mentor. Surrey Cooper.

I mean, you know, when I started my business out, wet behind you is cheap, 50 pound suit. And he saw something in me and I deliver meetings. We are our height. We had like 250 11 meetings in the southwest. And Terry came to one of my meetings, and he sat down with me and told him I'm gonna go scale this up around the UK. He said, How are you going to do that? I said, I don't know. If signal made you meet some help. So we've come from a main board PLC was the managing director, effectively retired at 55. And he's now worked with me for the last 16 years. But yeah, he's always had faith in me, etc. And he saw it tell you what it is, I'd say what it is. He sees, in me skills that he doesn't have. And I seen him skills that I don't have. And we've been exceptional at supporting each other over the years.

It's a perfect combination. And I think it's really important for men in business in life to have mentors, people, people guiding you, showing you the way, making sure that you don't make the same mistakes they made, because there's this adage that's in society have always, you know, always learn from your own mistakes. Why'd you have to make those mistakes yourself? Why can't you just follow the lessons learned from the mistakes Terry's made

a couple of things there. Terry was sort of in this being like a father figure. That's the reality of it. My dad left, certainly when I was 16, when I was governor, but so I think there is that kind of thing going on here. That kind of dynamic, but what I will say is that any expert, the way that you become an expert, is by making mistakes, you've got to make mistakes, you have to slip on a banana skin, even though Terry could say there's one there, you've kind of got a slip on it. Sometimes an expert is someone has made all the mistakes in a particular niche field. So when it comes to professional speaking, I made them all when it comes to motivational speaking and make them all marriage, make them whole. And then you know, and then things like networking made them all. So you do have to make decisions, you do have to make mistakes, because that's what an expert is an expert is someone has made all the mistakes. And so many people are reticent to make decisions in case they're the wrong ones. Well, I actually encourage people to do because the only time you realise what the mistake is a mistake or not, is after the event, nobody including me, which says you know what, I'm gonna go fuck up today. But occasionally I do. But you do need to make decisions. You do need to make mistakes. But I think that Terry Cooper has been there in ways that actually was very fortunate. But once again, we are the cover, I created the cover. Right. And what I mean by that is that the man business and what I did allowed for people like Terry Cooper's come into my life, I created my own handpicked fibre side team.

And I absolutely agree with you, you only realise the mistakes after the fact. So it is when you look back on it's a combination of mistakes that you made, and a combination of maybe lessons learn from other people's mistakes. I mean, it's a beautiful thing. Where would you have been without Terry,

um, there was a crucial moment where I had people rounded on that almost bullying mat. And what I mean by that is, is I'm I can someone bully you. See, there you go. Right. And this is the interesting thing about it. I don't mean physically bullied in there. But mentally if you've got something, you know, I was going to start this off. I'm from Salford Manchester on an arcade nice one proper. That's how I used to speak. So when I've got posh people, business owners or business people who I perceived, but then that they're somehow hyper intelligent, and they've been to private schools, I kind of showed me Bella, and all these guys can show me how to do it. And actually, there was a time when these people bullied me. They They ganged up on me in a way that kind of kind of got me to acquiesce got me to new to my effectiveness. And if it wasn't for Sarah, this journey would have ended a whole lot earlier.

Yeah, massively important to have those people in our life. And I've had those feelings of impostor syndrome, for sure. And I remember going to university I went to Lancaster University when I was 18. And I've got a strong, strong northern accent, you know, from others in Greater Manchester near Wigan, and I felt inferior for sure. There was a lot of people they were, you know, from middle class backgrounds, you know, received pronunciation very standard British accent, and I was at my death. I'm like, What am I doing here? I don't deserve to be here. But it took a long time. A lot of self reflection to go actually, I didn't deserve to be here.

So let me tell you, I know dragons. Dragons Den. Number one. Selling pop stars works as boxes. They're all blogging it everyone's got impostor syndrome. Everyone. Right, everyone, everyone? No world class boxer. I knew there was going to be a world class boxer. And even if it did, they have an impostor syndrome no number one top sellers. Dragon's Den is blogging it everyone is blogging it the differences. I'm stupid enough to share it. I'm telling you right now. It is not just you. I'm serious. So anyone, anyone who's ever like I've walked on stage 3000 people and a backstage and I remember walking on stage with 3000 people and I come out of there. And I backstage come out of there the pontoons in the motivational thing Whoa. You don't be able to know that ma bucks Ain't nobody. Right? So this is the thing You've got to understand that every expert that you look up to what you've seen was once a beginner, every expert that you see was blocking it. And then one day you wake up and you're not blogging anymore. So I think that people should take that away and understand that it's not just you, it's everyone. And you think it's just you, every single person, do you think me as an expert now speaking in front of 1000s of people, that, you know, most people would have died like 100 times 100 times on stage died day that embarrassing, right died 45 minute presentation, 25 minutes in. And then people who's looking at you got stage fright, sweat, no idea what he's saying anything. And most people will come off, they'd say, I'm never doing that again. You know, I did. I said, Fuck it. What did you learn from it? Let's go again. And it's that that's what makes you an expert. An expert is someone that's made all the mistakes, and most people say I'm never doing that again. And their career as a speaker ends. Me, I've kept going, I kept going and be more resilient.

I can't speak for you. But my primary emotion in a lot of situations that I've found difficult over the years is fear. And it's, it's the same, it's the same thing that you're saying, are you willing to overcome those fears? Because I think as men, we live and die by the fears that we have? And is are you going to settle these are you going to are you going to be you're going to surrender to your fears?

Well, you know, there's been numerous times in my life. Alright, let's say so. Okay. So if I said to my wife, Warrior, right? Oh, we've got to count on tax bill going out to detail or stressful on a scale of one to 10? What's that? Oh, it's an eight. It's an eight. It's an eight. So if I put two bullets through the window of our house, and I've got some Manchester Goodman bullet in your head, where is it still an eight or is it lowered? Ah, right, right. And that's what happened with me, I had that happen to me. So therefore, my fear, accounting is kind of changed. My scale has changed about that. So I survived that. So no matter what stress you go on, like, say council tax, so that eight now becomes a three. So what's happened is your ability to soak up pain or soak up fear is greater than ever before. But what most people do is they don't learn the lessons from that fear, they kind of want to do enough to get away from the from the problem, what I do is ask yourself a question on a computer game, you know, have I picked up the experience from that battle, if not going back and pick it up and picked up the treasures that have one that most people just do enough to get away from the pain. And that's why people will remain constant cycles of in bad places.

The thing about Brad that you might have picked up on in this episode, and it's pretty obvious is that he's a really confident guy. He's the kind of person that just exuberates charisma, a real force of nature, a larger than life character, whatever you want to call him. He's all those things. I do sort of wonder, and I've been thinking about this for last seven, eight years with Brad, where he gets his energy from to be such a marauding figure, despite all the incredible challenges he's faced, particularly since and during the pandemic. I think men can learn a lot from Brad, particularly around being a leader in a tricky situation. But at the same time, if we're all leaders, it be difficult to find resolution. Brad is clearly a natural leader. He's disruptive as a successful entrepreneur, and he doesn't wear suits He despises them actually, is his personal brand that is differentiated. And that's based on his experiences growing up on a council estate in Salford. Not everyone likes his approach, but they all respect him as he says it like it is and he's completely and utterly authentic. But at the same time, he's also a really good soul too. What was interesting is that even someone like Brad, with so much confidence and so much energy, he still needed a mentor and a partner in the form of his friend Terry, that why sage that we all need in our lives. Even a natural leader needs a good support system to fully succeed in life. So ask yourself, do you have what it takes to lead in a situation where it seems as though everyone has written you off? From doing the podcast for over two and a half years, we've discovered there are eight different types of men. Brad is clearly a leader. And I've been following Brad for nearly seven eight years now from his books from his different interviews online from his speeches. Brad Burton is considered by many to be the UK is number one motivational business speaker. So if you're interested in his courses, or going to one of his talks, go to Brad Burton dot biz bi Zed. That's Brad Burton bu r t o n dot biz. Like I said, I highly recommend him I've read most of his books and I've been following him for a long time now, but what kind of money you take out man test by clicking the link in the description or by going to stories of men podcast.com It takes less than three minutes to complete. And you never know. You might just learn something completely new about yourself.