The Leadership Skill That Works on Gangs, Soldiers, and Your Team - Ross Kemp

Speaker A: What one skill works on gangs, soldiers and even your management team in your business? Well, today's episode is going to be with Ross Kemp, who has been in all of those environments and specialises in hostile environments.

Speaker B: So when rounds are going left to

Speaker C: your head and right of your head, you think the next one's going to pare you down the middle. It's a very sobering moment and, um, as I say, your mummy isn't going to come and get you.

Speaker A: You may know him as Grant Mitchell from EastEnders, or watched Ross Kemp on Gangs, or even watched him on Extras. He's a household name. What many people don't know is just the pure variety in his career.

Speaker C: I became addicted to it. I'd have my Bergen, my boots, my body armor, uh, already standing by the door.

Speaker A: You're going to learn a ton of lessons today on influence, persuasion, dealing with people in hostile environments and so much more. I think it's an epic episode of the Business Grow Secrets podcast. Go and enjoy and I look forward to hearing your thoughts very soon.

Speaker D: Um, I've been super excited for this conversation and this chat today because, as I said to you backstage, I'm really fascinated by your work. I, uh, think it's incredible. And obviously, I grew up watching you on EastEnders, you know, as Grant Mitchell. Um, um, what a character, right? You know, an incredible, credible journey. You know what it was like being, you know, getting that role, being Grant Mitchell. I'm sure there'll be. We got some EastEnders fans in the room. We've got a lot.

Speaker B: Just a few, then. Um, EastEnders. Look, I'm an Essex boy like you. Um, I grew up in Barking and Raynham, then Brentwood, which is not far

Speaker C: from where we are now.

Speaker B: Uh, my father was a police officer, my mother was a hairdresser. My dad was in military intelligence before that, before becoming a superintendent in the Met Detective. And I've always felt that, um, I was given the opportunity to travel as

Speaker C: a young man, so my brother and I both did that. Uh, my brother produced Panorama for a number of years, so it wasn't really

Speaker B: that great a leap for me to go into documentary making. Uh, but the acting thing was born out of living in a little close in Essex. And I worked out that, um, if

Speaker C: I put in a little show at

Speaker B: the bottom of our close, I used to nick the, um, eider down, or

Speaker C: the duvet, as you call them now,

Speaker B: off the spare sheet and I'd make a little kind of curtain and the

Speaker C: lollipop sticks that came off the ice

Speaker B: lolly, uh, truck If I snapped them

Speaker C: in half and sharpened them, they'd become fangs.

Speaker B: And that was a good way to

Speaker C: kiss Lisa Bumstead and Amanda Haycocks.

Speaker B: And I would charge an Opal Fruit per performance. I'm still getting paid in Opal Fruits,

Speaker C: as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker B: No, um, and that's. That's it.

Speaker C: You know, the ability to. To want to entertain people and to

Speaker B: inform them, um, runs deep within me.

Speaker C: And I got a drama school, I got a grant, which was even harder in those days.

Speaker B: Um, and then I left.

Speaker C: I got my Equity card in, um. It was a closed shop. You familiar with that term? So, basically, you couldn't get a job

Speaker B: unless you had a union card.

Speaker C: But unless you had a union card,

Speaker B: you couldn't get a job. Uh, luckily, my first job was with someone called Richard Wilson. I don't believe it.

Speaker C: Remember him?

Speaker B: Do you believe it? It's true. And a great actor called John Thor. And they took me under their wing. I got a London agent, started doing

Speaker C: tv, a lot of training films for the armed forces.

Speaker B: Got down to the last six for the part of Grant. We all screen tested up at El Street. Um, and the next morning I got the call and that was it.

Speaker C: And that was 1989, and the show

Speaker B: was being watched by 25 million people an episode.

Speaker C: So for 10 years of my life, I worked there.

Speaker B: And I went to ITV on a Golden Handcuffs deal. And during that Golden Handcuffs deal, which was for two years and for a million pound a year, which is a lot of money then. It's still a lot of money now, but it was a lot of money then. Um, I was asked if I would present a documentary that I knew. Uh, Jeremy Clarkson and A.A. gill, the

Speaker C: late, great A.A. gill, uh, Sunday Times

Speaker B: columnist, had turned down. But I was so bored because I was so used to going into Elstree every day and grafting, or if I wasn't there, I was learning my lines, or. Or there was no drivers. You drove yourself there and drove yourself back, and that could take two hours sometimes. Um, I snapped the idea of it and I was told that I was going to meet during this documentary, which is about the Second Amendment, America's infatuation with firearms.

Speaker C: And this is all on the other thing.

Speaker B: I'll say everything we'll talk about today. Like that clip there.

Speaker C: Sipha said you set that up.

Speaker B: Well, we are 200 miles into the highlands of Papua New guinea from Port Moresby. You couldn't set anything up there. We couldn't even sell dinner, let alone rehearse that lot to do what they did. Then you'd be surprised. People think, oh, no, you CGI'd it. I mean, how could you CGI that? And we later found out that they had actually raped two tourists, a man and a woman. They were not very nice people at all. Wow. But going back to the documentary for itv, um, I was told I was gonna meet a guy being shot 23 times. And this is on YouTube. It's called, um, Lethal Attraction with Ross Kemp. And I just went, bullshit. No one having a family, are in the military, a father who was a detective, um, there's no way anyone can survive being shot 23 times. So we go into Compton. Uh, in those days, the Bloods and the Crips are still wearing colors. Within a year, they weren't, because that was like wearing a target. Um, they all started wearing white T shirts. So you couldn't define a crypt from a Blood. Only they knew who they were and they were still killing each other in large amounts at the time. So, anyway, I go into this, um, kind of wooden, blinkeredbilt, um, semi detached, uh, bungalow, for want of a better word. Go through to the back. Bloodhound's got red bandana on, tied at the front. He's got a white sweatshirt on, blue jeans. I can still see him today. Um, and he had a TEC9 in his hand, which is a machine pistol. Fired a lot of rounds very, very quickly. He had it in a little handbag, which I thought was awfully camp of him for a very macho man. Um, and then on the table was an AK47, a sawn off Remington, uh, pump action, 12 gauge shotgun. And down the back of his trousers he had a Smith and Wesson revolver. In case all of those, for whatever reason, suddenly jammed, which was highly unlikely, I would suggest. But he did say, you know, if someone does a drive by while we're here. And that was happening a lot of the time. You've got to bear in mind these are wooden built buildings. So most rounds, particularly from the ak, would travel through two houses. And a lot of young people, like, asleep in their beds were getting killed. Babies. I mean, it was shocking, right? This is happening in the United States of America. Right? Um, so we started a conversation. I realized he was incredibly, uh, bright and araldite. And I couldn't help thinking during the process of the conversation that had this young man been born seven blocks in a different direction, maybe 15 blocks, he wouldn't have been a gangster. Uh, he'd have been something that was far More of a benefit to society. He was intelligent, he was bright, and obviously he was incredibly brave. So we get to the point where I have to say, so you've been shot 23 times, have you? I don't really believe that. And with that, he just lifts his sweatshirt up. He's, uh, been cranked open twice. He's taken 5,9 mils across his chest, missing his lungs, missing his bronchus. And while he's on the ground, they've pulled the trigger underneath his chin. It's gone up, Taken the end of his tongue off, which he shows on camera. It's gone up through his septum of his nose, and it's lodged and split his skull. Imagine if that's a millimeter, uh, further back. He's dead. It's taking the top of his head off, right? He's lucky. It's gone up there through that, and it's hit the skull and it's traced through the skull. And then he showed me all the hollow points. He'd been shot. He'd been shot six times in the groin while he was setting weed through the window of a car. He said, one of my testicles swelled up to the size of a grapefruit. And he had a colostomy bag for two years because he'd been shot, um, basically in the rectum, right? Twice. Um, so this man was not only a testament to science, he was also a testament to what was going on socially in the United States of America. And also where you're born has a big impact on your future chances. Um, and of course, the color of your skin and your education and everything else that goes with it and your economics. So I left. Also the two white cameraman and soundmen, they were wetting themselves and wanted out of there as soon as it started getting dark. Uh, the two, uh, producers from itv, they were doing the same. They wanted out of there. But I decided to stay. I stayed with him most of the evening. We had some beers, uh, we chatted. You know, he didn't have what I was seeing on mtv. There was no Internet really then. So what we were seeing about gang culture was gold braces, people driving ferraris, gold plated AK47s. This man had none of those things. This man was poor and he was scared. And all he wanted to do was to support his wife and his two kids. And his wife wasn't a blonde model that you saw these rappers going around with, like Snoop Dogg. She was a rather larger lady, African American, who was just worried about a blocked toilet. And how she was going to feed her kids. And that's a fact. So when I got back, eventually back to my little apartment, I, uh, rang up somebody at sky and said, I've got an idea for a series. Ross Kemp on gangs. We made 18 of those and I won a BAFTA for one of them and then went into Extreme World and Afghanistan. And, um, I'm still going. I'm just about to get commissioned for my 126th documentary.

Speaker D: You've had this career, I think, what's. I mean, look, talk about Ross Kemp on Gangs. Going into these places, the people you've seen. And obviously we just saw you being extremely courageous with someone with a gun. It was. And very, very courageous.

Speaker B: How many.

Speaker D: Has there been a moment where you were on Ross Kentwood Gangs where you thought, I'm done. Like, this is. I literally think I'm going to get killed here. Has there been a moment like that?

Speaker C: There's been more than one. I mean, there is, but there is. Because, particularly in Afghanistan, it wasn't Gangs. But, you know, you're getting eight contacts before 8 o'.

Speaker B: Clock.

Speaker C: There ain't no mummy's going to come and get you, right? Dehydrated, you've survived the night. You'd leave the compound, be compound hopping up towards what is in the flat, the forward line of enemy troops that was continuously moving. You've got ICOM chatter, uh, from the Taliban that we were listening to for our Afghanistan interpreters. And they'd say, they're moving behind us, they're ready, they're laying IDs, you continuously on a. On a real kind of hyper flux. And then, of course, you get into ambushes on a regular basis. The whole point of what we were doing was tethered goat. So if you want to catch a tiger, uh, in India or maybe a lion in Africa, you'll tether a goat, you'll surround it with acacia or prickly bushes, right, Like Walthorn, but the spikes are a lot bigger. Uh, and then once the lion or the tiger that goes in there, you set fire to it. So the point was that we would go in as infantry. We, we would go in, poke the wasps nest, let the wasps come out. And when they came out, we'd take them out with air assets, which were F16s, attack Apache helicopters with hellfire, uh, missiles. Or if we were close enough to Bastion and that could be 60 miles away, you'd hit them with 105 artillery shells. So it sounds like. But when they're landing and splashing over where that Car park is right. It literally lifts your body armor off.

Speaker B: Um, so when rounds are going left

Speaker C: to your head and right of your head, you think the next one's going to pay you down the middle. It's a very sobering moment. And, um, as I say, your mummy isn't going to come and get you. And, um, I think particularly during that time, Madam M, I grew up a lot and also I became addicted to it. I'd have my bergen, my boots, my body armor, my lid, as we refer to our helmets, uh, already standing by the door. And I could sometimes get a 24 notice phone call, sometimes a 12 hour, say, can you be at Bryce Norton to depart tonight 0400? And me and my cameraman, he'd come down from Sheffield, I'd meet him on the M25 somewhere, and then we'd buzz down to Bryce. And I could be gone for two to three months. Hence. I didn't have one girlfriend. I had lots of girlfriends in those days.

Speaker D: So it was really the, The Afghan where you felt that was the.

Speaker C: I think so look, you have guns pushed in your face. I mean, I'm on a continuous basis and I won't say you ever get used to it, but you. Then you get better at working out whether they're going to pull the trigger or not.

Speaker D: So, for instance, recently, how would you work that out?

Speaker C: Because the situation, looking at how well trained they are, um, working out whether they're, whether they're off their faces or not.

Speaker D: So you think that plays a big part?

Speaker C: Yeah, 100%. How they hold the weapon. What I hated, I recently, I went into a building to meet a boss of Clandel Golfo in Colombia. This film hasn't gone out yet and it may not go out. I hope it does. And as we walked up the door, uh, I'm front man generally, and I just went, I've got an A4 and M4, but I can't see fingers because they're wearing ponchos. They do it on purpose, so you don't know where the finger is. And I can't see because I know the weapons relatively well enough because I've been trained on most of them, whether the safety's on, whether it's on semi or whether it's on auto. And you need to knock that weapon in the wrong way. If it's on auto and you've got your hand on it and it's going to deposit 25 rounds around a room no bigger than me and you, it's going to kill everybody in It. So I hate that when I can't see where the fingers are. But generally I'm all right.

Speaker D: Well, you got a system for it, right? Well, you have to.

Speaker C: I mean, it's the whole point about getting into an aircraft, isn't it? You know, if you're going to get into an aircraft. I've had three helicopter crashes. Uh, I've had I don't know how many RTCs in vehicles around the world.

Speaker B: You'd be surprised.

Speaker C: You're not getting used to it. What I do is a thing called. Thing called trim. And I recommend it to anybody in any business. Whatever you do. I do it with my family, um, as a father, an old father of young children, uh, trauma risk management, it's called. It's something that I got a 4, 5 commando on my first second tour out to Afghan. I went out three times with those guys. They're very, uh, professional. Uh, and, um, it's basically sitting down at the end of the day and discussing how you saw the day. So if you're working in partnership with people, it's something worth doing. Whether you do it directly, whether you do it on zoom, whether you do it on a phone call. But it's giving your version of the day. Just say you're up for a deal. But it wouldn't be that for us. But it wouldn't necessarily be a road traffic collision or being shot at. It could be interviewing a mother whose son was mistakenly taken by the local gang lords. And, um, in Colombia particularly, they cut them up. They've started doing in Mexico as well. In Mexico as well. So they basically take your finger off and ask you where the drugs are. I won't go into detail what they next take of. They take out an eye, right? And then they will carry on going, well, uh, if you do know where the drugs are, you're going to pretty give them up pretty soon. But if you've been taken by mistake, which happens a lot, you're going to endure a lot of pain before you die. And that mother knew that. So while she's reciting this story to us, it was traumatic.

Speaker B: Uh, and that can have an effect

Speaker C: on you as much as actually being shot at, having someone wave a gun or a machete at you. So what we do at the end of the day is we all sit down, just say, it's Dave, my sound man, Jonathan, my cameraman, me, maybe Johnny, the director, or Marta, the director. And we'll say, so how was your day? What happened? This could be if we're in an Islamic country over mint tea and whatever we're eating. Or if it's in America, it might be a beer, but not too many beers, I have to say. Um, and we'll give our individual versions of events and the way that we saw them. And why that's really important is because I might think, you know what, Adam, you shouldn't ask me that question. That really upset me. But now I understand why you asked me, because you've explained. Uh, and rather than resenting it, rather than at night going to bed, going,

Speaker B: do you know what? I really hate Adam.

Speaker C: I don't, of course, Particularly as he's paying me.

Speaker D: Oh, yeah.

Speaker B: Anyway, not until he pays me.

Speaker C: No, but seriously, it's a really good way. It's a really basic thing. It's what we used to do around fires when we were hunter gatherers, right? We sit down and discuss how we saw that thing develop. And that explains to Ross that Adam actually hasn't got an agenda against him. He was doing what he thought to be the right thing at the right time. And now I understand that. I won't hold any resentment against him. And it also works for ptsd because you might say so. Well, Dave, you were driving that vehicle. You're driving it too fast around a bend. You didn't see there was a roadblock there. That's why I got a gun in my face. That's why I got kicked. Right, Dave? Honestly, Ross, I was worried we weren't going to get to the RV on time.

Speaker B: I was only doing it because I

Speaker C: really wanted us to get there. Da, da, da, da. Okay, Dave, I don't dislike you now so much. It's really, really important and it works. And I wouldn't. I don't adapt and use anything unless it actually works. Because there's a lot of advice out there. Um, and you've got to take and

Speaker D: sift what works for you in these environments. Which sounds like understanding behavior and obviously communication. That must be critical to everything that you're doing here.

Speaker C: 100%. So assessing. You can assess any situation, but I always make sure that we have three strategies. At least. I've never had to get to four. Thank God. We always have an exit strategy. We have a code word. Um, but we'll also look at the geography of the place that we're going into, work out alternative exits, uh, make sure the vehicles are full of petrol, because how many times that's happened? You want to go, oh, no, sir, I haven't got no petrol in the car. Can't stay here then what are we going to do? Run, walk? It's only 50 miles to the next village. Um, so, yeah, uh, exit strategies. Always making sure that you have the right amount of equipment. Not too much, because you don't really carry lugging stuff. So there's four of us. It isn't autonomy because I own the company, but ultimately I listen. And this. I can't tell you how important this is. Not only just working with people, but also interviewing people. I can't stand watching a documentary where the person that's doing the interviewing is telling you how much they know. I can't give a fuck what you know. I want to hear the person you know you were given. There's a great African sound. You're given two ears and one mouth, and you should use them accordingly. I think as a documentary interviewer, you should pretend you've got two more extra ears. I don't want. I want to ask the right question at the right time to lead it on. Or I want you, as, uh, the audience to be sitting there with me going, ross, why not ask him why he's done that? And as you're thinking it, I'm going, why did you do that? So I am in simpatico with you as you watch it. You're going on a journey with me. Not because I think I know everything and I'm so clever because I went to you in the right university or not because I want to shock you. You don't need to be shocked. The actual situation is shocking enough. What this person has and is going to reveal is shocking enough. And often people go, do you hate the people? Did you spice them?

Speaker B: No.

Speaker C: It's not my job to judge. If you want to be a. If you want to be a judge, that's entirely up to you. My job is to try and inform you as much as I possibly can as to the situation and what that person may have necessarily gone through. So a dark story, and I'll warn you, it is slightly dark, but I think it's important for you to know I was in the drc. Democratic Republic of Congo is not democratic. The war was between the Hutus and the Tutsis. It spread over from Rwanda. They were doing unimaginable things to women, using sex and amputations as a form of creating fear. Um, I won't go into too much detail because it's. It's beyond this time of day and. And I understand the sensitivities, but there was a doctor called Dr. McKwage that was. Was fixing these young Women and often their operations to do with their genitals, and they had parts of their body cut off and they couldn't go back. They were generally pregnant with a child from the opposing tribe, so they couldn't go back. Um, I said, I want to meet someone who could possibly do this to another individual. You know, using bayonets and, um, torched bottles on people. I mean, where does that come from? This was one of the most shocking things. And I was stuck there. We were there for like a month, and it was like, it was so depressing. Anyway, I get to go to a prison that has Hutus and Tutsis literally jammed up against each other. There were four latrines for 450 people. You can imagine what it was like in 43 degree heat, right? And, uh, I'm told by the prison officers that I can meet one of the people that's been doing this to these women. I go into this room. He said, it's my birthday today. I said, how old are you? He said, I don't know, but it's my birthday today. Because he just wanted to say anything to me. In English Village, he wasn't more than 13 years old. He'd been taken out of his village when he was 4 or 5. He doesn't know he'd been abused sexually himself. He'd been beaten and forced to be up the front. So what I will say to you is, this is often I get this point where I go, so this is a victim. I want to find out how this victim got here. And then I found out. It just isn't that simple, Ross, because the perpetrators are often victims. And therefore, it's not my job to judge anybody, really. Unless you meet someone like Mr. M. Khan, who was a people trafficker in India. And as, again, all those things I've just told you, they're on YouTube. I'm not making this up. I lived it. I saw it, and we shot it. Um, he openly admitted on camera to killing over 400 girls, young girls. That's the only time I said, get him out of my sight before I kill him. And I couldn't kill him because he had three bodyguards with guns. But me and the translator, who happened to be a criminologist, uh, we just wept the rest of the afternoon.

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Speaker D: i watched that interview. I think you did it on this Morning or Good Morning Britain or something like that. I actually watched an interview and I thought that was harrowing. When you spoke about that and how harrowing it was. The question I wanted to ask is like, how does that affect you personally? How does it harden you? You go home to your wife and kids, do you go home changed in some way from being exposed to that? How do you shake it off? Obviously, stress in business, this is a completely different type of stress.

Speaker C: It's my business, so it's comparable in all way shape or forms. So, yeah, I mean, I didn't have a wife and kids and I did that one funnily enough. I couldn't keep any relationships down. Could barely keep the one I've got, really. Um, at one point, I'll admit, I used to drink too much. It's gonna got back home. I used to go bonkers for a couple of days, particularly Afghan. You want to bump into Mr. Kemp the day he got back from Bryce Norton. Not for two or three days until he got himself together again. Um, I think again, it's trim.

Speaker D: It's.

Speaker C: There are certain nights when I get phone calls from some of the guys I was out in Afghanistan with that, uh, when we can only have conversations about certain things because the people who weren't there would never, wouldn't resonance because it is, you know, it's so dark. You know, seeing kids get killed is not a great thing to experience. Um, and there are certain ways of overcoming that. I used to go for the easy option, which was a bottle of red wine. Now I talk to my friends and discuss it openly with people I know I can Trust. But again, I think that honesty is probably the best policy. You know, even in business, I use honesty. I'm, uh, at the moment, I've been in negotiations doing a co pro and money's got tighter and tighter. Don't know how you're going with your businesses, but in my business, uh, it's certainly become a lot tougher. And what I say is this, look, this is my bottom line. I cannot go below that. You know that. And then we're still scraping over 50 pence and I go, uh, it's not worth it. You either want to work with me or you don't. If you don't want to work with me, then you can keep your 50 pence. And it actually worked. It's not always going to work, but it worked. Um, so, yeah, it's been pretty tough out there in the documentary sector, really, since COVID particularly at the level that I work at, which is intermediate. It's not the poorest, it's not the most expensive, it's in the middle. But, um, as I say, I'm very lucky that I got a commission, so I'm quite happy. How long, how long I want to carry on doing that, I do not know. But, uh, it gets harder and harder, but, um, it's not a bad way to earn a living.

Speaker D: Yeah. And in terms of the. It's your production company, right? That's. I found that really interesting as well in the. You obviously came out of EastEnders. You did the first, you did the Gangs, you built on Extreme, uh, all these others, but you built them under your own brand, your own production company, right?

Speaker C: Yeah, partially co produced, sometimes partially on. Sometimes definitely on my own, depending on the project. Again, this is a co pro, so you're fighting against a bigger company that always, you know, they'll pay for the last paperclip and light bulb before they give you your percentage. And that's why you've got to audit them properly, no matter how uncomfortable that may be for them or for you. Uh, because it's a business, it's called show business. And, um, you know, the only way that you're going to keep your margin is by keeping an eye on what they're up to.

Speaker D: And how is that as a business? How have you found being in show business and learning where you went from being essentially an actor to producing your own shows? You know, managing the budgets, undoubtedly, and managing the people. What was that like for you? Did you find that to be natural? Um, what sort of lessons have you learned in leadership?

Speaker C: I was still having this conversation, um, about one of my kids, uh, as a boy, the two girls naturally go towards maths and English, but I think it has to have relevance for you, particularly when you're young. Particularly, I think, for a lot of boys. Not all boys, but a lot of boys. So, you know, a teacher spouting out the seven times table. Is this a load of numbers coming out? If you can relate that to a possible 9, 11, targa, it suddenly becomes something, you know, if it's food on the plate, if it's something that you desperately want, then all of a sudden those figures become important to you. And I think that is a problem that we have in terms of teaching young boys in this country at the moment. We don't make it relevant enough for them to understand what exactly those numbers are and how they could affect you. I suddenly got really good at maths when I got my first pay packet, you know, so, um, and hopefully I'll carry on counting the money, the foreseeable

Speaker D: future, and all of these, uh, shows that you've done. So when you went and you first started doing these shows, I'd like to try and go to. The first one that you did, when you did that first one was finding the courage and overcoming the courage because you didn't know it.

Speaker C: So after doing the one, we didn't get shot, but the first one I did was in Brazil. I was in an internal prison. Uh, the ceiling was lower than the one we've got. They're all caged. Uh, there's plastic bags full of feces and urine. There was a guy getting. Sadly. Whether he was selling his body or he was being abused, I don't know. He's being raped in front of us inside this place. You couldn't look up because if you looked up, whatever, the sweat that was coming down would give you eye infections. You imagine what it smelled like. There's no doors, no windows. Always doors. But there's barred doors, no windows. It was hell on earth. And I went, do I really want to do this?

Speaker D: That's what I would. Yeah.

Speaker C: And I thought, I've lived for 10 years of my life pretending to be something in a pretend world while I'm around, I want to see what the real world's like. And if I can explain and show that to other people by using the skills that I've honed over the last 10 years, then I'll do it. And I'm still doing it. Thank you.

Speaker D: What do you think you've learned about the world because you've had Some exposure to things that, uh, you know a lot of people.

Speaker C: I've been to Gaza, uh, so many times. I've lived with Hezbollah, I've lived with Mongolian Nazis in the Gobi Desert. M. I've been to some odd places, trust me. I mean, I just recently had three witches smoking three cigars at a time in a drug den in, uh, Bogota. Reading my future because they do it for the local cartel boss.

Speaker D: What did they say?

Speaker C: Well, the first question was, do you like laying eggs with a hay? Which was translated as, are you horny? What, right now?

Speaker A: Here?

Speaker B: Now?

Speaker C: No, I'm not. Um, so there are, you know, there are some really, really dreadfully funny moments. In the middle of all that mayhem,

Speaker B: what have I learned?

Speaker C: Um, and being unlike a politician, I will come back to the original question. Um, I think we're quite amazing. The reason say, why do you like it? Well, you know, David Attenborough will be my all time hero, but, um, I am as fascinated by the human species as he possibly is by animals. I find as we are the most amazing creature species on the planet, we are the only one that has the power to end the planet. We're the only one that has the power to end our species. We are the most privileged species on the planet and yet we seem to want to forget that every day. We're intent on wiping each other out. We're intent on destroying the planet. But I still find this the most interesting. We're the only ones that can show true compassion. We're the only ones that truly, truly laugh. We have a thing called sarcasm. No other creature displays or shows that. We have so many things that make us incredible, but we often want to forget them very quickly. As soon as we get on the M M25, as soon as the toaster doesn't work, as soon as the battery runs out on our mobile phones, um, so I'm fascinated by what makes us tick. And the one thing that I will say this, and it's true, whether you live in East Timor, whether you live in the jungles of the Amazon, um, or whether you live in, I don't know, Chelmsford, um, the most of us want the same things. We want to have a better life maybe than our parents had. We want to give our children a better life than we've had. We want to be safe, we want to spend time with our loved ones and we want to enjoy life while we've got it because it's a very precious thing to have. So that remains true wherever you go in the world. Whatever that person may look like, they may look different to you. But ultimately most people, m this species called the human being are aiming for the same thing.

Speaker D: Which is uh, really great answer. I think that with all these different people, what have you noticed about people? Like the clip that we played, you got the guy, come on, smiling, looked like had blood in his teeth or whatever else.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker D: And you've got all these different people. What have you noticed as the, you're saying they're the common themes. So you think that guy with a teeth covered in blood, he's still got family.

Speaker C: They're in a tribal war. So literally it wouldn't been much further, twice the distance. I keep using the references as that garage over there. There was a war going on between them. They were killing each other over the ownership of pigs. They were still eating human flesh, generally dead people's flesh, because that's what they do. That's their, you know, you can't go, oh, that's disgusting. Well, that's what they do. So who am m I to say what you're doing is wrong? Um, so yeah, I mean, but again,

Speaker D: hard not to judge.

Speaker C: Like, yeah, if I start judging, then I lose, I lose my audience. It's not my job.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker C: Pedophiles, it's very, I mean I've interviewed to interview a couple of pedophiles, three or four in my time. Never found that easy. Never been able to shake hands with them, never been able to understand that. Or people that, you know, kill kids. I mean I understand people fighting and shooting each other in a war, sort of. See, they'll put their point forward. I was in the Ukraine in 2017 and it was a preliminary to the, the invasion that was about to happen. And even then those people in Mariupol knew what was going to happen to them and they, most of them said they were going to stay. They wanted to stay. I personally would have been out of there in two seconds, but they wanted to stay. That's testament again to what drives us as human beings. We are incredible things and we do incredible things, sometimes bad things, but mostly generally for the betterment of not only ourselves, but of others. And we show kindness.

Speaker D: Mhm. What's the craziest thing you say? You said there's been some funny moments along the road and you know, all these different things. What's the craziest thing you've seen which still shocks you to this day? You talk about the witches with the cigars. What's something you just like, oh my God, like it's almost. You wouldn't believe it.

Speaker C: There's so many different things. I mean, coming in. I remember being in a helicopter once over the Amazon. And, um, I'd been on a bungee, so I put my foot on the rails. Cameraman's there, Steve's on the cameraman there. And we go up and down. It was an old Huey, an American kind of Vietnam type thing. And it just had enough. And we were supposed to be meeting the Warani tribe, um, flying into their area, um, after we did this. But the helicopter had had enough and, um, uh, the tail rotor stopped flipping properly. I didn't know this at the time. I'm back in the helicopter, I'm off the bungee. And Southern, he was the director sitting in the front, went over comms because I had comms. He said, just check the tail rot. And I went, yeah, shut up, Southern. He went, no, seriously, check the tail rotor. Uh, and I lean out on the bungee and I can see going.

Speaker D: All the place.

Speaker C: It's always, of all the places. That's what I always think. It's like, why here? Why now? And people point out, well, you're the one that said we should go here, Ross. Anyway, we come in, eventually we get, uh. I'm looking down at all the Cayman, there's snakes. And like, if we go down here, we're dead, right? And like a bullet, it's gone past your head, it's gone. You're either dead or you're alive. Whereas knowing you're 35 minutes out of the Cocoa airport, which is a very small airport, uh, in, um, Ecuador. Come in. And it's like, it was like it land. He landed the helicopter like a plane because he couldn't land it that way because there was no end, There was no, not enough energy in the prop. So literally we're going down this Runway, right? And we're all laughing. There's sparks coming up the side of it, right? And when we actually get out, we come to a skid and we out of it, right?

Speaker B: We're all. Etc.

Speaker C: The fire brigade were waiting for us. It was one guy with a bucket and a water, uh, another guy with a bucket full of sand.

Speaker B: He wouldn't be able to put my

Speaker C: left arm out, let alone the helicopter. The next day we're in what I can only described as a Volkswagen Beetle with wings. We are, we've already. Because my m. My mate Tom Watson is already with the Warani tribe.

Speaker B: He's been with them like night and a day.

Speaker C: We've lost comms. With him and we, we arrive absolutely fine. We get out, we go hunting with Iran, we hear their story. They don't, interestingly enough, do marriage. Everybody sort of inter. Has sex. So nobody knows who the true fathers are or of any of the children. So they're all their fathers. Isn't that interesting? And there was an American lady who was in her 60s, 70s living with them. They killed and ate her son and she went, met them, joined them and became part of their tribe. I know. Interesting life, isn't it? Interesting human beings, aren't we? That's why I find us so fascinating. Anyway, it comes for us to leave and I don't really want to stay there the night. Uh, we've been out and we'd seen some big anacondas. I mean, literally heads twice the size of Alsatians. I'm not a great snake lover, I have to say. I've had them put in my sleeping bag out in Afghanistan. That was very funny for the first three times. Camel spiders in your boots, scorpions in your boots. Yeah. Welcome to the British Army, Ross. Anyway, um, we decide to leave, but

Speaker B: I don't know if you know about

Speaker C: it, you need lift to get a plane up in the air, particularly if it's a Volkswagen, uh, on wings. And also this guy's got rosaries, he's got crucifixes, he's got St Christopher's dotted all over this aircraft. So now, in the back of this

Speaker B: aircraft, there's me sitting at the front,

Speaker C: there's Steve in the back, there's the translator and there's Dave. Sound right? Literally think of a Mini. It's smaller than a Volkswagen, right. It's now packed with all our camera gear and I've gone and bought a blowpipe, so they come really handy. In Battersea, Ross, we did poison darts. Anyway, we're all crammed in this aircraft

Speaker B: and as we, uh.

Speaker C: And we are bouncing, bouncing, bouncing. And as we go across. They converted to Christianity about six years ago. As we go past them in their mud hut, they just go.

Speaker B: And he bottles it.

Speaker C: And we stop and, uh, Steve's got a little lucky fluffy duck that his kids are giving him. He's going, lucky duck, lucky duck, lucky duck, lucky duck.

Speaker B: Turned around, M. They're doing that again.

Speaker C: And we took off. We landed back at Cocoa Airport again, second day, no fire buckets, but we had taken a significant amount of the rainforest canopy with us and deposited back in Cocoa. So there's days like that when you just go into the bar and you go, give me A cold beer.

Speaker B: But there's always.

Speaker C: There's continuously funny things happening. There's also continuously sad things happening. And it's how you negotiate those and get better at dealing with it.

Speaker D: For sure. Uh, that does sound pretty cool.

Speaker B: That.

Speaker D: Is there anything that's evaded you? Anything that you've been like, I want to do that, but the opportunity's not presented itself. Is there anything you've not. You feel like you hadn't had that opportunity to do it yet?

Speaker C: If you go through the Alphabet, I did Afghanistan, what, 17, 20 times. I've done Australia. I met Australia. We did, uh, bikers there. Uh, I also did something about the ice epidemic there, Crystal meth. So all the way through the Alphabet. I've been to Brazil, uh, Burundi, made films there. Um, so air Mozambique, Mongolia, uh, Madagascar, uh, Mexico twice. But I've never. There's no place country with X. Um, and I've never done. Why the Yemen? Why. Why would you go to the Yemen? Right now? I can't tell you what I'm making about because the actual contracts are signed today. I think it is one of the biggest threats that young people, young women particularly, face today in the uk but it's also about our, uh, young men, um, and it's to do with the control through the Internet. It's about loneliness. You can probably guess where I'm going with this, but looking at the stats and the facts of just how many young girls are getting raped in our schools right now, and this is really under the radar. Nobody wants anyone to know just how bad it is. We are facing an epidemic of violence against, um, young girls. As a father of two boys and the father of two girls, I am deeply concerned about what's going on, so I'm doing that. And what I would also like to make a film about at some point is about, um, special needs. The needs, uh, of so many young people across the United Kingdom presently aren't being met. Where did this again, this epidemic come from? I have, uh, my oldest son is in a sen school, but he is one of the very lucky ones. There are so many kids without educational health care plans out there that desperately need them. And also it's sort of, um, unfair on the other kids in that class. If you've got one child or three children, generally, it's about two to three children in every class in state. Education has some sort of special educational need that isn't being met. But also that teacher is desperately trying to control those three kids while it's looking after 27 other kids in the class. So that's another subject that um, I would love to make a film about. But you know what? People don't want that in television right now. What they want is another traitors. They want, they do. They don't want lever they don't want the hard old facts.

Speaker D: I definitely have seen within this. My little boy is autistic and he's in a sens school. And I've just seen through running, um, the events that we run. I know there are many, many people, um, in this room that have had impact in some way, shape or form to that as well. Many, many, many people. So I think it's very prevalent. We've actually got people in the group as well that uh, um, run businesses that support that as well, which is really interesting.

Speaker C: I think you need to take away um, the stigma. And I think the only way you do that generally is by talking about it, making programs about it. Ah, but also let's look at it um, from outside the box. Let's not do it in the way that educationists or politicians want us to do it. Let's do it the way that we think it should be done as a nation.

Speaker D: For sure. No brilliant stuff. And I must ask you some business questions, Ross, because we are a whole bunch of business owners in the room.

Speaker C: Right?

Speaker D: Um, you know, many, many, you're running your own business, your own production companies, you've gone out, you signed these shows, you've done deals, you've negotiated, you've built teams, you've took people away. You've got all of this breadth of business experience as well. What has that been like? What would you say if you were talking to a business owner in the room that's experienced some challenges? What would you say to them that you've learned along the way a few big tips or a few things that you've learned about running your own business that could help some business owners in the room.

Speaker C: Well, particularly in the light of the one that m I'm doing at the moment, negotiation. A very, very clever businessman called Lord Waheed Ali. You might not know he is, but look him up. He was my agent for a long period of time and what his knack of being a billionaire. And bear in mind he was very clever. He started off with a big breakfast, uh, with his then boyfriend and Bob Geldoff. That helps. But then found a presenter called Chris Evans and then built together to build a big breakfast. And then when he sold that, he moved on. He came up with an idea for the first program where you had people on a desert island on their own called Survivor. Sold that to the States in the early 90s for 70 million. The CBS. But with his share of the money, he was always looking over horizon. He bought the rights to Enid Blyton. No, not Blyton, to Beatrix Potter. So he owned Peter Rabbit for 20 years. That little rabbit earned him more money than Bugs Bunny ever, ever did, has ever made. That rabbit was in every household. And then another thing he did was he realized that every kid has a bath. Uk, most of them, if they can.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker C: He saw a German cartoon called Octonauts, bought the rights to it and then made the toys with Palatoy. And I walked into his office once, I said, what is that gold thing in the middle of your coffee table? He said, it is a solid gold octanel given to me by Palatoy because we've just sold our billionth toy. But one thing you did say to me, and I think this is very true, and it's about negotiations. If you have your bottom up, we're talking about, you know, this is what I need to survive, right? This is what I need to keep my company going from this deal. This is me making a load of money and I've taken them to the cleaners. And aren't I clever? If you hit the middle ground between there, where that company knows that, yeah, they're not happy about everything that's gone on, but they're going to make a percentage as well. And you're going to make your percentage. Then do you know what the likelihood is you'll work together again. If you shaft someone and they know they've been shafted, they probably ain't going to want to play again. So you've got to bear in mind that business is also about friendship. Sometimes you're not going to be best buddies, you're not going to hang out at the schoolyard, but you may want to make some more profit down the road. See, if you walk away feeling that a, I could have got a bit more. But you know what, they're sort of saying the same thing, then we've probably done sort of okay. And that was why he's always his advice to me. Having said that, you shafted a lot of people at the same time.

Speaker D: Well, I hope you enjoyed today's episode

Speaker A: of Business Growth Secrets.

Speaker D: I hope you got a ton of

Speaker A: value from the episode. The next episode is an epic one. We have Dragons Den Zara Davies, who is going to be on, um, the podcast with the me. She's an incredible lady. We've had her regularly to our Business Icons event where we invite Dragons superstars, Business Icons into the room, people that have done hundreds of millions of pounds in revenue so you can get up close and personal and learn from them. And if you want to come on over to a Business Icons event soon, go over to ww.businessicons.co.uk that's www.businessicons.co.uk to see when the next one's coming up. This will put you in a room where you can learn business strategy, business branding, how to generate more leads, increase your sales, improve your operation, and so much more. I look forward to seeing you in person at, uh, Business Icons event soon.