- Welcome to Real Deal, Real Deal,

Real Deal, Real Deal, Real Deal

Joining me today are the Happy Pear (indistinct)

(upbeat music)

(applauding)

Welcome to Real Deal.

I am Brian Rose and we are live here at London Real Studios

to talk about something that's really important.

And today I really wanna talk about

how the economic recession

is causing mental health issues here in London

and actually all around the world.

And this is something

I wanna talk very seriously about today

because I want to try to find solutions.

And I really welcome your input and help.

We know that this has been an issue

through the lockdown, the pandemic and the recession,

but when I've been out there in the field,

I've really found out how serious this issue is.

And as I've gone into the data,

which I wanna share with you today,

it's even more serious than I thought it was

and it's quite shocking

some of the numbers out there are going right now

with people that are considering suicide,

people that are feeling anxious,

feeling lonely, feeling stressed,

and how it's really hurting our physical

and mental wellbeing.

I wanna talk about that today,

but first I want to hear from you.

So there's all sorts of different platforms

that people are watching this show on,

but I want you to type into the chat right now

and tell me, what is the single biggest economic challenge

you are facing right now?

Also, I want you to answer a question,

since the pandemic, have you felt a significant increase

in stress levels, anxiety, loneliness, or hopelessness.

And finally, how do you think we can solve these problems?

Is it leadership that we need?

What are the real issues?

So please type in the chat right now.

I really love to hear from you

so we can try to find these problems

and solve them together.

I'm gonna talk about London

because I can only control what's in front of me.

But I want you to tell me what's happening in your city

because I want the best ideas to surface

so we can all use them.

That's been the theme of London Real

for the past nine years.

People say, "Brian, what do you have this person on

"or this person on?

"Why do you agree with this person?"

It's not about me agreeing with people,

it's a marketplace of ideas

that we create here at London Real,

so we can choose the best idea.

Best ideas always float to the top,

if we can have an open and honest debate,

and the best ideas have marked the upward surge

of human civilization throughout history.

So let's get these, these ideas out there

and choose the best one so we can move forward.

And look, this is the second part of a series that I'm doing

on how I can help make London great again,

to get out there and find out

what can we really do on the ground?

And I'm literally going out

and speaking to people in the field.

I had two incredible conversations yesterday

with entrepreneurs and business leaders here in London.

And I wanna share with you those conversations.

I've got some video coming shortly,

and I'm gonna be having more conversations

with community leaders, health professionals,

our first responders, anybody I can talk to.

People in the culture and in the arts in tourism,

anyone I can talk to, to offer solutions to the problem.

It's not only happening here in London

but it's happening around the world.

And unfortunately I think our leadership is failing us.

I think we get duplicitous responses from our government

and sometimes it seems to be politics,

and they're not really concentrating on good policy

that's gonna help us get to the next level.

That's what I wanna talk about today.

Before I get started, a lot of people say,

"Brian, what's with the funny accent?

"What's an American doing in London?

"And why do you love this city?"

Well, I love London.

What can I say?

I was actually training

in the gym yesterday, it was leg day,

and one of the trainers came up to me

and said, "Hey, where are you from?

"I heard you talking and you sound a little different."

And I said, "I'm from San Diego, California."

He says, "What are you doing in London?"

I said, "This is the greatest city in the world."

He said, "What are you talking about?

"You're from the beach, the sun, the surf, Baywatch?"

And I said, "No, this is the greatest city in the world."

I said, "Where are you from?"

He said, "London."

And I was trying to convince him

how this is such a great place.

And I've lived here over 20 years.

And for me, this city resonated with me.

I love the history,

I love the culture,

I love the people, I love the fighting spirit.

The people that fought back in the blitz of 1940,

when everything looked hopeless, everything looked lost.

It looked like only a matter of time

before Germany would invade

and crush this entire great civilization

and yet the people fought back.

I love everything about this city

and that's why I named my show after this city.

That was a conscious effort.

London Real was because of this great city,

my children were born in this city,

I have citizenship in this country,

and it's something I've always loved coming home to.

And this is home, people say,

"How often do you go back to the States?"

Rarely, actually, this is the place I call home.

And so it pains me and frustrates me

when I go out there and I see boarded up businesses,

when I hear people suffering from their mental health,

when I watch political leaders make ridiculous decisions,

when there's no science based decision making

when it comes to how to deal with COVID

in our lives, our businesses, even our education.

Taking my children to school, every single day

I walk my son Kaden to school

and I'm watching what happens,

I'm seeing the people out there

and it pains me to see this city struggling economically

more than any other city in Europe, it really is.

And so I wanna offer solutions, that's the thing.

Don't bring me a problem, bring me a solution.

That's what I tell my team here all the time.

And so today I wanna bring you some ideas

for some solutions.

I'm not one that complains,

I'm one that wants to offer a better concept.

So that's what I wanna talk about today.

And I wanna talk about, of course,

why I love, love London as well.

And I wanna move to my next slide.

And that is me going out

and talking to real people out there on the ground.

The first person that I went and spoke to

was Simon Woodroffe.

And this is Simon

and funny enough, he invited me to speak him yesterday.

And of course he just happens to live on a houseboat

in Chelsea, on the Thames River here in London.

I know it's a hard job I had,

but I got to go out and speak with this man.

He's an incredible guy,

he received an OBE from the Queen in 2006

for services to the country

and Simon for 30 years was in the entertainment business

then he created a restaurant chain called Yo! Sushi,

where at the time

no one had ever seen anything like that in London.

He put Sushi on conveyor belts

that went around the restaurant

you could take what you want, robots would serve you drinks.

And it was really out there,

it required a lot of innovation, a lot of risk taking,

a lot of real British spirit.

And he made a massive success out of that.

He later went on

to become one of the first dragons on Dragon's Den

and quiz entrepreneurs

and push them hard about their business models.

And I got to sit down with him yesterday

and I asked him, quite frankly,

I said, "Simon, what do you see

"as the problems we face here?

"And what are some of the solutions

"to get London back to work?"

'Cause I, I really feel

that the economy solves so many problems.

It gets people back on track, it gets them busy,

it gets them generating an income, it provides certainty.

I went out and asked him some really hard questions,

and I wanna share with you some of the responses

that he gave to me.

Here's a short video clip of me going out

and speaking with Simon Woodroffe yesterday.

(upbeat music)

So it's Brian Rose from London Real.

I am on this beautiful houseboat in Chelsea Harbour

with Simon Woodroffe who is an entrepreneur

who's pretty much been there and done that.

30 years in the entertainment business,

he also was the founder of Yo! Sushi

and iconic British brands.

One of the first dragons on Dragon's Den.

And now he's taken that Yo! brand

into hospitality all around the world.

And I'm super excited to sit down with him today.

And maybe answer some questions

that have been burning inside me lately,

which is how do we get London back to work?

Tell me about fear,

this country has seen moments of real darkness

and come together, the Blitz in 1940, for example.

And I remember when this started happening in March,

I had a young team

and I said, "Look, I've seen things like this before,

"I've seen economic crashes,

"I remember the AIDS scare when I was in New York City."

And I said, "You're gonna feel all this fear,

"but if you breathe through it,

"it's never going to be as bad as you think it is."

But a lot of people have process fear really,

maybe poorly or in a difficult way with all this COVID.

How would you give advice

to how to deal with the fear and the unknown

'cause its not (indistinct) business.

- Look at here we are sitting

in a serious business conversation

and we're talking about fear.

The world has changed and absolutely right.

Fear is one of the most common human emotions

that we all suffer all of the time.

And actually it's very useful,

like anger can be very useful as well.

It gets you up and gets you off your bum

and gets you doing things. - Yeah.

- Stress is not so good, because it sort of debilitates you

and stops you doing things.

There's a balance, but I think we're going through a period

where we're learning

and I think it'll be taught in schools eventually,

how to deal with these emotions that we get as human beings,

as opposed to just learning

about history and geography or math,

and we will get much better