Welcome back to another episode of Stripping Off with Matt Haycox. This week, I've got an exclusive episode featuring a musical maestro, a mentor on a mission, and an entrepreneur. I'm stripping off with Tre Lowe. Get ready to hear about where it all began for Tre, the moments that moulded him, and the grit that's taken him far. We'll chat about his upbringing, work ethic, and how he tackled challenges head-on, all while keeping excuses at bay. And of course, Tre's dishing out some exclusive behind-the-scenes juice on this year’s BBC Apprentice, including his journey to the FINAL FIVE! Do we think Tre could be Alan Sugar's next business partner? Well, you'll have to tune in to find out.

Who is Tre Lowe: Tre Lowe isn't your average musician-turned-businessman. He's a powerhouse, navigating the worlds of music, mentoring, and entrepreneurship. You might recognise him as the standout contestant on BBC's "The Apprentice" 2024, where he made waves by smashing records with a jaw-dropping £38.7 million win in a Formula-E task. But Tre's talents don't stop there - he's also the creative force behind the chart-topping hit "Body Groove" and has lent his magic touch to remixes for industry legends like Usher and Mariah Carey. In addition to his musical endeavours, Tre is a passionate mentor and speaker, drawing from his own experiences to inspire others. Despite facing health challenges at a young age, including temporary paralysis and tinnitus, which ‘made him want to die’, coupled with the unexpected death of his brother, Tre has emerged stronger than ever, founding Alpha Clique to empower future leaders. His mission? To leave a lasting legacy that transcends industries and changes lives for the better.

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro
2:16 - Where did it all begin for Tre?
10:52 - How was your work ethic imparted onto you?
13:29 - How did you/your parents treat your education?
18:34 - Role Models - Reasons Why You Can't Make It?
22:05 - Is it just an excuse??
28:04 - Having the Grit to Succeed
31:50 - Tre's Dad's response when getting into the Music Business
36:09 - Tre's Illness and Mental Health
48:55 - The Story of Tre's Brother Passing Away
01:06:03 - The Apprentice
01:15:38 - Conclusion

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Who Is Matt Haycox? - Click for BADASS Trailer

As an entrepreneur, investor, funding expert and mentor who has been building and growing businesses for both myself and my clients for more than 20 years, my fundamental principles are suitable for all industries and businesses of all stages and size.

I’m constantly involved in funding and advising multiple business ventures and successful entrepreneurs.

My goal is to help YOU achieve YOUR financial success! I know how to spot and nurture great business opportunities and as someone who has ‘been there and got the t-shirt’ many times, overall strategies and advice are honest, tangible and grounded in reality.

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Speaker 1: 0:00

And he called me and he's in tears and he's saying your brother is gone.

Speaker 2: 0:05

Welcome to the show Trey. Wow, what an intro. Quite an intro. You haven't copyrighted that one, have you? I'm?

Speaker 1: 0:10

trademarking that boy. It's an honour to be here. I feel like I'm really half stripped off of my bloody Fonzie shirt. Tell us where it began. My entrepreneurial journey started with my dad. All I've ever known is if you persevere hard enough, success will happen. My dad would say to me you know, you're black, you've got to work three times harder than everyone else. And so I did. I didn't complain about it. How?

Speaker 2: 0:28

was that imparted on you as a kid?

Speaker 1: 0:30

Education is literally beaten into you as a kid, and I loved it. I don't say that as a complaint. How much, though, do you think your head and you're stiff? I mean, I'm on a hospital bed and I can see the wall behind me clearly and nothing else. That's how violent it is. The way I coped with it towards the end was try, at least you know you can jump off a building. You can kill yourself, basically, if it gets bad.

Speaker 2: 0:59

Hey, matt Haycox here, with a quick interruption Just to say I hope you're liking the show, but please, please, like, subscribe or comment. That's how we can bring you better guests, that's how we can make the show better each week. So please, please. That's all I ever ask of you. We never charge, we never ask anything else. Just please give it a few moments of your time. Guys, matt Haycox here and welcome to another episode of Stripping Off with Matt Haycox. And today we're going to make the body groove and metaphorically strip off with Trey Lowe. Trey is not your average Joe. He's a musical maestro, he's a mentor on a mission and he's an entrepreneur. From churning out chart toppers like Body Groove to shaking up the business world with Lord Sugar on this year's Apprentice, the guy's done it all Behind the scenes. He's overcome hurdles, he's found his own mentoring empire and he's left a mark on many within the industry. So welcome to the show, trey. Wow, what an intro, quite an intro, quite an intro.

Speaker 1: 1:53

I'm going to nick that one Mentor on a mission. You haven't copyrighted that one, have you? I'm trademarking that boy. God, what an intro. It's an honour to be here. I feel like I'm really half stripped off with my bloody Fonzie shirt going on here.

Speaker 2: 2:06

Well, I was getting worried about stripping you off next to me. I'm going to feel slightly inadequate.

Speaker 1: 2:12

No, dude, you're not far off. You'll be good, but yeah, no, it's great to be here.

Speaker 2: 2:18

So listen, buddy, we've got a lot to talk about. Obviously, you certainly want to get deep onto the Apprentice and hear all the gossip that's going on there, but there's a big backstory that precedes the Apprentice, so tell us where it began. Where do your entrepreneurial roots come from? And did music start before entrepreneurialism, or did it all kind of start together?

Speaker 1: 2:38

God, we're going to have a long time. I do talk for England, but let me see if I can condense it down. I think for me, my entrepreneurial journey started with my dad. Um, we're Nigerian, we're Nigerian Ibo. If you know anything about Nigerian, any Nigerian Ibo's uh, no, I'm the first one. I feel honored, let me try and leave a good impression. But I mean, if you know anything about our culture, it's all about education, it's all about trade, it's all about commerce. I mean, it's so deeply entrenched in our culture, especially the education and I mean education is literally beaten into you as a kid. You were born in the UK though. Yeah, born in the UK. Yeah, my dad. I like to tell a bit of his stories. You get a bit of the context of it. So my dad grew up in a little village in Nigeria, in the east of Nigeria, in Iborland, and he had eight brothers and sisters and he lost seven of them one by one. So he lost seven siblings. I mean, that's the level of poverty we're talking about.

Speaker 2: 3:33

At a young age.

Speaker 1: 3:34

Yes, this would have been the 19. I mean he was born in the 1930s, sort of 1930s, 40s. He's 85 now, so at a young age his siblings were just dying one by one, by one, by one by one, and obviously he was next. And in order to save his life they sent for a relative, like an uncle of him, to come and pick him. And the guy came and got my dad, put him on his shoulders and walked for probably about 10, 20 miles and took him to another village. Back then you had to walk everywhere, took him to a neighbouring village and my dad survived, except he grew up in this neighbouring village without his family because his mum and dad couldn't leave because they had a farm or whatever it is, and you couldn't just leave that behind because it wouldn't be there when you come back. So he grew up in this village, yeah, with sort of extended relatives, but really on his own, essentially right, and back those days, you know, having a boy was useful because they would go and work in the farm and that would have been his destiny work in the farm, not really get educated, and that was that. But he really fought to get educated. I mean, he was in the farm one day. He went there early because he knew that there was um, um, someone coming like to enroll people into schools. So he went into, like the forest, the farm, to like gather firewood, as they would call it back then, and he nearly got shot by a hunter because it was dark and the hunter's thinking they're not going to be a child at this time. So luckily the hunter didn't actually shoot him. My dad did his work. He um then went to enrolling school. He was brilliant. He got into the school. But when he went back to the family's house they beat the hell out of him because they're thinking a why did you get up early and risk your life to go and take firewood and do your chores? And B what the hell do you mean you're going to school? Like they just wanted him to work on the farm. Anyway, they let him stay at school and in the school.

Speaker 1: 5:14

There would be a big occasion if there was ever a plane flying overhead like picture this. It's 1950s, nigeria, right. And for them the whole school would come out to witness this plane going overhead. And my dad was probably about six, seven at this time. He would look up at the plane and say one day I'm going to be on the white man's plane, I'm going to London and I'm going to be rich. Because obviously, you know, nigeria was a British colony back then and everybody's dream was to come to the motherland, just like the Windrush generation from the West Indies was to come to London. Except my dad wanted to come to London and be rich. And when he said that, the whole school would beat him Teachers, pupils, everyone would beat him because they're thinking who do you think you are?

Speaker 1: 5:53

It's like someone said I'm going to go to Mars. It was so unlikely. You know who do you think you are A small boy? And they'd all beat him and take turns. And the teachers would beat him, they'd laugh at him and be look at you. You don't even have a mother or a father. You have no brothers and sisters, you small fool. But my dad had this weird knack to just be so focused. You know he excelled in education.

Speaker 1: 6:17

You know, grew up, made it out of the village, went to Lagos, which was the capital of Nigeria at the time, and then from Lagos made it over to London. What age he would have been about 1920 or something by the time he got to London and he arrived in one of the worst ghettos that existed in London at the time, a lovely neighborhood called Notting Hill. People don't realize Notting Hill wasn't Notting Hill back then. It was quite horrific. I mean, it was full of immigrants. You first you had the sort of the Jewish wave, then you had the Portuguese wave, then you had the Irish wave and then you had the West Indian wave and we were one of the few African families in what was essentially a West Indian neighbourhood and the houses were horrific. They were so horrific. There was a notorious landlord called I think it was Daniel Ratchman or something so bad. His name was mentioned in Parliament and that's why the laws change.

Speaker 1: 7:03

So my dad found himself in this dilapidated, dilapidated Victorian building, falling apart, you know, in one room, and he eventually had six kids. But one thing he was always very proud and he's always sort of clean the house. And one day a guy was showing people around. My dad didn't know who he, who the guy was, and my dad, the guy, said to my dad, why is it every time I come here you're always cleaning the house?

Speaker 1: 7:25

My dad was about, you know, a bit of a chip in your shoulder. He was quite small, a bit fiery, and he thought no, let me just answer this guy properly. He said I love to take care of where I live. So there was another day and this guy came around again and said why are you always cleaning? And again my dad suppressed his anger and said I like to take care of time the guy comes around, he goes. I want to tell you who I am. I'm your landlord and for the last couple of months I've been trying to sell this property and I haven't been able to sell it. But every time I come here you're always looking after the place, so I want to sell it to you and my dad, obviously an immigrant at that time. God knows what they were earning back then with kids. He had kids, yeah well, I mean, I don't know if I was born when he bought up. I don't think I was born yet.

Speaker 2: 8:01

How old are?

Speaker 1: 8:02

you, I'm 49.

Speaker 2: 8:04

You're 49? I know dude, Are you?

Speaker 1: 8:05

kidding me that don't crack, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 8:07

I do look young, don't I, Honestly I?

Speaker 1: 8:08

don't. I do, but I take care of myself as well. I should bring out a skin line or something like that 49? Yeah, I'm 49. I think I'm the oldest person that's ever been up on it. Well, but, um, so anyway. So this guy ends up selling the house to my dad. Obviously, my dad didn't earn enough, so the guy actually made my dad look like he was working for him to kind of make his income, come up, bought the house for I think it was like 19 grand or something like that, which and I adjusted it for inflation, it's about 100 and something, not much. Um, so my dad bought that property.

Speaker 2: 8:42

Um, what was he doing for work at this point?

Speaker 1: 8:43

He was working for British Rail, I think, which is what a lot of the immigrants did. It was all about coming to the motherland because in the 60s, I mean, the UK was on its knees a little bit. It's learned to recover from the war, which is why you had the Windrush generation, et cetera. So everyone came and worked in either the NHS or they worked in London Transport or something like that. And your mum was Nigerian. Yeah, my mum's also. Yeah, she was in the same village. They've known each other since they were about seven.

Speaker 2: 9:06

Oh, they came over together.

Speaker 1: 9:08

No, he came over first and about a year later or two, once he's established himself, he brought my mum over. Okay, but I just share that story just to show the level of tenacity that I've come from. You know someone that was beaten as dream going absolute poverty. I mean poverty that you can't even begin to imagine. Like nigeria, there's no welfare state. There still isn't a welfare state there. To this became he bought that house and he just kept buying property. I mean to the point my mum got scared and said stop doing it, because we grew up poor as a result, because every penny he had he would buy another property, buy another property back when property was cheap. So you can imagine I mean I don't know if you've been to Notting Hill in the last couple of years it's certainly not the ghetto that it was. So his little investment is paid off big time.

Speaker 2: 9:48

And he still owns these properties many years on. Yeah, he still does.

Speaker 1: 9:51

Yeah, about 25,. Well, about 70% of the property that he had.

Speaker 2: 9:55

He still owns to this day, but that's worth millions and millions.

Speaker 1: 9:58

Yeah it's worth millions and millions. I mean I'll probably share a bit later because, yeah, he was one of these generations that believes in paying off all your mortgage. So he has no mortgage on any of these properties. But it's not a good thing, as you know. Obviously, as an entrepreneur, I mean you want your assets to be working for you. Anyway, that's the story that we might come to, but I share that story just to illustrate my background and how I was brought up, Because all I've ever known is if you persevere hard enough, success will happen. I mean, to the point of naivety that I believe that I didn't have this sense of. You know, you grew up, you know I was born in 75. So you grew up in the times when being black was perceived as a disadvantage. But I never felt that my dad would say to me you know, you're black, you've got to work three times harder than everyone else, and so I did. I black, you've got to work three times harder than everyone else, and so I did. I didn't complain about it.

Speaker 2: 10:51

So I'm quite used to overworking and you see that probably in the Apprentice, I'm always, always, always pushing, I'm not like just chilling.

Speaker 2: 10:54

So, yeah, how was that imparted on you as a kid and how did you receive it?

Speaker 2: 10:58

And I guess my context of the question is normally, you know, you hear, you hear about these stories of of grandparents, et cetera, of how people behaved typically in different generations.

Speaker 2: 11:10

Well, let's say, materially different time brackets. And if you look at today's world, I guess with things moving a lot faster I mean it moves a lot faster now than it did from the 30s to the 50s, 50s to the 70s but you know, a hardworking parent of a 10-year-old, 15-year-old kid today who's going to be somebody who's, let's say, born in the 80s, that kid born in the mid to late 2000s, is probably laughing at that parent now because you know we're in such a materially different world and you know they kind of, I guess they get lazy and it's like, oh, my dad did this, that and the other, but I live in a different world Now. I guess obviously you're a lot older than I thought you were, so maybe that's half the answer to the question, but it's very rare, I find, that these immigrant parents, these ultra hardworking parents who basically came from nothing and built everything on just grit desperation desire that never gets passed on to the kids.

Speaker 2: 12:10

They know that's what the dad was like or the mom was like, but they, you know they weren't born in Nigeria into poverty, they were born in England, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 12:18

No, you're right. Actually, it's almost like comfort breeds complacency, isn't it? To a certain extent, but I think what we benefited benefited from was the fact that we still grew up quite poor, because my dad was sort of asset rich, cash poor, yeah, um, one of the reasons for that is because of what my parents experienced. They had this kindness which is it's probably not the best thing I've got. That sounds horrible me saying it, but I think to be an entrepreneur and be that kind is probably not the best thing I've got. That sounds horrible me saying it, but I think to be an entrepreneur and be that kind is probably not the best thing.

Speaker 1: 12:45

It's a bit like you having a business and giving your customers things for free. What they did was let people live in their properties for free Because everyone's got a sob story, right? Oh, I can't afford to pay the rent, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because my parents struggled they always. We kind of grew up poor because of that. Even though we were told we had all of this and all of that, it was still poor. But because we grew up poor, I still had that sense of what my dad had. I didn't have this silver spoon, you know I went to not the best school. You know I was around kids who didn't grow up with fathers, for instance. You know kids that got into like gang stuff and all the rest of it, which was do good grounding for me because it meant that I really had to work hard for myself.

Speaker 2: 13:30

In order to make it. You know, I couldn't just rely on my parents. And how did you treat your education? Or how were you? You made to treat your education by your parents, obviously from a guy who excelled in his education. Um, you know, it was. Was that something that was pushed onto you, that you must go to school?

Speaker 1: 13:41

hell, yeah, I mean my culture. You wouldn't get away with how I was brought up now. I mean you'd get beaten to do your maths. You'd get beaten to do your English. You'd get beaten and I loved it. I don't say that as a complaint. I loved the fact that we were beaten, and anyone of my age, wherever they're from an Asian background, you would have been beaten when it came to discipline and education and I loved it. It was all I knew. You know, and I loved learning. You know, like we had these encyclopedias. I don't know if you remember Encyclopedia Britannica.

Speaker 2: 14:12

How old are you? I'm 43. Did you look bloody good yourself? I thought you were in your 30s Bloody hell.

Speaker 1: 14:19

you got the Fountain of Youth or something in your backyard.

Speaker 2: 14:22

We used to have them. We had Encyclopedia Britannica and Kids Encyclopedia. The kids ones were the red ones.

Speaker 1: 14:27

You guys weren't messing around.

Speaker 2: 14:28

yeah, and the adults were the black ones.

Speaker 1: 14:30

It's funny. You said that I didn't realise that. Oh, we had the red ones then. Was it kids? Sure as hell, that was some smart, bloody kids then, because that was full of some meaty stuff. I'm going to Google it. It was meaty, meaty stuff then for kids, because kids wouldn't get that nowadays.

Speaker 2: 14:47

I mean it's mad that encyclopedias don't even exist. I know, Now we've got.

Speaker 1: 14:51

Google. It's weird. We've got Google, but I mean, this generation seems to have less interest. It's kind of weird I'm pulling them up now. You might have been right actually, Was it not?

Speaker 2: 15:04

Children's Titanic. You can buy a full set of them on eBay for 199 quid. I'm going to get that dude.

Speaker 1: 15:12

Do you know what? That was a central part of why I became so fixated on creating something that had a legacy to it. Because I'd look in the encyclopedias and I was fascinated with everything in there, from like galliard and um, like think of every inventor you can even think about. Oh, wow, yeah, I like that. So I was obsessed with like newton and um, everyone you can imagine back then, like these people who you know beethoven, for instance, everyone that left the legacy that reverberated through time it's my favorite phrase and I wanted to be in there.

Speaker 1: 15:47

And back then you didn't really see anyone that looked like you. You know me growing up as a young black kid in Notting Hill. You weren't in an environment where you saw people that looked like yourself, that did well, and you certainly didn't see that in encyclopedia. There were no historical figures. I mean, it was years later that you learn about kingdoms like Mali and people like that. By that time you just I was thinking one day I want to be in this encyclopedia. Little did I know that Google would make it obsolete, but still at the time, and because my dad had had a dream and he'd made it like I said, I had this naivety of, I just need to dream it and it was almost an early form of manifestation. And one of my earliest dreams because I started to develop a love of music was I wanted to be on top of the pops. So when you talk about the whole thing around education, yes, it was beaten into me and I loved it. I loved learning with. I mean I would devour any book that I saw. I would devour um, and I sort of went away from sort of academia and more into the arts just because I'm in Notting Hill and I, you know, if you know about Notting Hill, it's such a cool, creative, arty place. I mean everyone, I think, has lived there at some moment in time Jagger Bowie, so it has. It's got a real musical energy to it. And then you've got the Notting Hill Carnival, which every year just brings out more of that. And growing up Nigerian, of course, it's like parties, parties, parties, parties, parties every single weekend. So I mean, from my mother's womb I was probably dancing and letting my body groove.

Speaker 1: 17:06

So I had this massive amount of education, I had this real sense that it was possible because my dad did it, and then I had a love of music, growing up in one of the most creative, incredible neighbours of London, and I developed that, my first love, which was one day I'm going to be on Top of the Pops. And so, together with my brother, as I got a bit older, I would just devour music wherever I could. I mean we were too poor to have things like piano, but at school I'd always play the piano and I learned to play it by reading guitar tab, which is a very poor way to learn the piano right, we didn't have the luxury of piano lessons, but I learned guitar tabs because it was easier. Guitar tabs didn't have music notes if it was just G, minor or A sharp chords, whatever it might be. And so I developed a real love of music and a real love of education.

Speaker 1: 17:51

And you know, obviously, as time went on, you know I went to university, got a degree in advertising and I mean I'm sure we're going to talk a bit more about some of that stuff. But yeah, my dad was definitely my very first hero as far as being a businessman and entrepreneur is concerned, because for him to come over here absolutely penniless to invest in property and now to be worth several millions as a black man as well in the UK. Um, in those days I mean, come on, I was so blessed. I was so blessed because most people don't have that kind of role model, especially young black boys growing up in a working class way. I mean, even to this day, I get stopped every single day, especially by young black guys, because they watch me on the Apprentice and they're just so proud of me and that blows me away, because I forget that not everyone looks at life like me.

Speaker 1: 18:34

I just I have this naivety of if you dream it, you can do it. But other people sometimes need to see someone that looks like them, that they can relate to, and then it's more possible. And I love the fact that they have that because I'm a mentor and I want to be someone that shows people that anything's possible. I think sometimes people get this message of, especially in today's society, I'm just like there are lots of reasons why you can't make it and I get it. You know, I think the days of my dad doing what he's done is gone. You're not going to invest in property, make that kind of money anymore, and there isn't much of that. I mean the last sort of gold rush, like that might have been, say, the cryptocurrency gold rush, which I really got into, but it's kind of gone a little bit, but there are always opportunities out there, you know but I also think the people you know.

Speaker 2: 19:16

We always talk about these stories where someone bought a property for you know 10 grand and it's worth 400 grand. You know 30 years later 40 years later we say, oh you, those opportunities to make money aren't available anymore. But I also think most of the people who tell those stories they're not really entrepreneurs or business people.

Speaker 1: 19:33

True, exactly, yeah, different for your daddy who was trying to build up a business.

Speaker 2: 19:37

But these are just people who bought an asset because he wanted to live in it and time and compound interest ran its course.

Speaker 2: 19:44

So it's almost not a business model that you should be pissed off. Pissed off is not available to you anymore anyway. And yes, everything you can win in one hand and lose in the other. Yes, there isn't the chance to buy a property and let it compound over 40 years anymore. But what? There is a chance now which was never there, is the chance, let's say the internet to reach the entire world at scale in one minute.

Speaker 1: 20:05

Let's say, the internet to reach the entire world. Oh my God, that's what I was just going to say At scale in one minute, Exactly. In many ways, yeah, the property door might have closed for some, although there still are some really good property strategies like rent-to-rent and other things where I know people have made an absolute fortune. But I think young people do have opportunities my dad would only have dreamed of. You know you take someone like I. People don't necessarily like her, but she's an entrepreneur, whether you like her or not. Kim Kardashian, I mean God, does she monetize just this? She's almost monetized selfies to a certain extent, because she's monetized the oxygen of eyeballs. She's taken it and run with it. It's brand.

Speaker 2: 20:39

It's distribution and it's monetization of those, I guess, three principles which every successful business has. But she has been able to do it at absolute scale because of the internet, because of social media, because of reality TV things that didn't exist 40 years ago Exactly, and I'm sure in another 40 years' time we'll be. You know, some will be going oh, social media, that's completely dead. Now we don't have the chances Kim Kardashian had. But there's always something dead.

Speaker 1: 21:04

Now we don't have the chances exactly, exactly, and I think what you said is very key. I think one of the ways to do that is to surround yourself with people who speak how we're speaking, because I'm always speaking from a glass half full point of view. There's always opportunities out there. They are always, always so. When these young lads who come up to me say, trey, well done on the apprentice, you've inspired me, blah, blah, blah, I always talk to them what are you doing? What's going on? I had this one lad in the gym the other day saying oh, my god, you're such inspiration.

Speaker 1: 21:29

It's so good to see someone that looks like me do so well, because you don't always get someone necessarily on tv who speaks eloquently, speaks well, but they're still cool. You know, they're either kind of like rappers and they don't necessarily sound educated although they are but they don't speak that way and sometimes I don't like that. I want to see more nerds on tv, more black nerds and more black businessmen, because you don't have to speak in a certain way or dress a certain way. You can be smart and you can speak eloquently and you can speak about interest rates what we're speaking about and still be cool. I don't like this cool thing if you've got to be a certain way in order to make it, and you've got to be a rapper or something to make it, but be a nerd, be a ceo but tell me so.

Speaker 2: 22:05

We've mentioned the black thing a few times. You know black, black nerd. You're a black man with lack of opportunities. How much, though, do you think people who either don't know the right path to go down or just want to make excuses use the black thing as an excuse?

Speaker 1: 22:20

oh, you're getting controversial. I'm gonna, I'm gonna give a bit of extra caveat. So I've got a big mouth. I'll answer it.

Speaker 2: 22:28

I had a podcast semi-recently, with a footballer, yeah, and he's an ex-footballer, now wants to work in football management. But he was giving me a big talk about how black footballers or black people in football management they can't get jobs and that, you know, there's almost like a conspiracy that they're never going to have black football managers so we don't bother trying. You know, so we don't bother doing our exams. But you're making it a self-fulfilling prophecy. You know, I think you know, if you ultimately believe that, then you're never going to try and you're going to let them win. You know to me, you're never going to try and you're going to let them win. You know to me, you're making an excuse. And you know I don't know if those two parallels are sitting together, but you know how much of these people are just saying, oh, I haven't achieved what I want and it's because I'm black.

Speaker 1: 23:16

I think both points of view are right. Right, there are some people who will make excuses of whatever their perceived lack might be, whether it's black, gender, sexuality, whatever it might be True 100%.

Speaker 2: 23:27

I can't climb the career ladder because I'm a woman. True.

Speaker 1: 23:30

But one thing I know and it's funny, I was speaking to a good friend of mine, and I won't name any names here who's very entrenched in the football world there is still an old boys network that's male, pale and stale, as they say, does genuinely want to promote each other. I mean, do you remember the days where even just being a black football player wasn't possible? There were days like that. Or you look at the NBA there was. You know, you had the Coloured League and you had the normal M League. So it was a time when the perception was you know, black people are too lazy to play football and then, once they got that chance, the floodgates opened right. I think that's still there with management levels, because maybe I don't know why, because I'm not necessarily like a football aficionado, but I think there is a perceived sense of you might have been good as a player, but there's a certain intellect or understanding that it takes to be a manager and I think there is a glass ceiling to be broken. So when people are saying that, I do know firsthand that there are barriers, I think we'd be naive to think that we're living in this egalitarian society and everyone's holding hands, singing kumbaya and there's equal opportunities for everyone. That's not true. There really isn't true. And I don't think the barriers are always necessarily even just color-based. Sometimes it's class-based.

Speaker 1: 24:36

You know someone like me I'm lucky. Even I didn't necessarily go to the best educational establishments because of my background. I speak very, very well. You wouldn't know any different. But somebody who doesn't speak well or is easily intimidated in an environment where nobody looks like them and they seemingly are more connected than they are, you all get intimidated and you might give up. That's true and it's understandable. I completely get when guys come up to me and look at me as a role model and I instill that confidence in them because they are in a world where they think their colour is an impact. If you think it, you will operate like that and it is true. And that's the thing you know. If you and I, if you and I especially, we didn't open our mouths and we went to cone I don't know, it's from a credibility point. If you went to a conference, something, you might be perceived in a suit more credible than me. That's just a fact of life and it happens everywhere. If I go to nigeria, I'm going to be perceived as less than because of my hair my parents hate my hair, by the way than a nigerian guy, black just like me, but it's got nice, neat hair and it's just so. Human beings are always evaluating people based on the way they look. So it's true, I don't think people are just making up excuses, it is true. But I think the danger is when you have a society and it happens sometimes where it's always ramped home because you're this, it's going to be hard for you.

Speaker 1: 25:45

I hate that message because I look at the opposite. I think because I'm black, it gives me an advantage. Most people wouldn't say that. I think if I was with you, yeah, you might have the advantage over me. Just to look at visually and we both didn't open up our mouth. The minute I speak, I'm going to be more memorable than you, cause there's going to be more people like me. Someone's gonna be like oh he's, he's different, oh, he's charismatic, he speaks well, and that's how I see myself.

Speaker 1: 26:07

My color is my biggest asset. I love it, but you have to teach people that, because society teaches people are. You know, if you're black, you're like to get this, and I want to change that, because the entrepreneurial spirit that's in the black community is massive. I go to a lot of self-development and business type stuff and it's full of young black people wanting to get ahead and they should be given those chances because so many of them are brilliant. I mean even some of the people I grew up around on the street who were complete wrong-uns don't get me wrong and you know, used their skill to be selling dodgy powders. That shouldn't have been. If you put them in the boardroom, them same skills, they would excel.

Speaker 1: 26:42

Because if I look at big companies like I don't know, sugar companies or massive ones, they didn't actually start off life in the best way. I mean, look at the East India Company, one of some of these companies. They were drug dealers essentially. I mean, come look at the opium wars against China. It's the same thing. It's the same skill set, the same ruthlessness. But these young kids over in the UK or the States they don't always get a chance.

Speaker 1: 27:02

You know, look at Jay-Z. He went from selling drugs in the Marcy projects to now being worth what? 2.5 billion. It's the same skill set 50 cents. The same hustling skill set took him from selling drugs to now doing one of the biggest deals with Starz, the production company. So there is something of truth around people not getting those opportunities, but I think individuals have a responsibility to ignore those things and, like me, work three times hard if you need to, because there's no point me complaining that the world won't give me what I need. I'm gonna go out there and take it. Do you understand? Absolutely? And so in that sense, you're right, and it frustrates me that people have these limiting beliefs and it is a limiting belief of because I'm x why it's not possible for me yeah, I want to change that.

Speaker 2: 27:43

I was to say yeah, that is true about it in the context of black. But you know you can substitute that black word for, for poor, for uneducated for female, for whatever, if you want to find an excuse. If you want to be negative, yeah I'm not saying the world is an equal and perfect place, but you know, for every person who prefers a man, someone prefers one for everyone who wants a black person someone wants a white person, but you've.

Speaker 1: 28:04

But you've got to be hungry entrepreneurial motivated and driven and don't let everybody else. But do you know what's the crazy thing? And this is why, when I coach people, I call it pain juice. Right, there is something about the pain of things being harder that gives you an advantage. You must have known that. I mean, I imagine you're from a background. Everything you've got right, I was.

Speaker 2: 28:24

So I actually I actually grew up, grew up in a, you know, a well-to-do background. My old man had his own business. Uh, you know, he didn't make gazillion. I mean, he sold that business when I was 18 and got good money, but as a child he was, he was a good six-figure earner. I went to private school I never. I never wanted for anything, but at the same token I wanted so much more so, so where did that come?

Speaker 1: 28:46

from where did that grit and determination from your point of view come from? Because I think people who come from nothing they have a sense of I need to get a hell out of dodge, I'm going to do whatever it takes, and I always think it seems a bit harder for people who've come from something. So where did that come from for you?

Speaker 2: 29:00

I, I think maybe you know, maybe it's because I had enough money to see bigger money. If that makes sense and and and even even though my dad was an entrepreneur, my parents were entrepreneurial. They they'd come from nothing, I mean, but both of them were from absolute council estate backgrounds.

Speaker 2: 29:17

So we went to nice holidays. We'd stay in five-star hotels, but we were probably the, we were probably the poorest people in the five-star hotel. And I'd look at the super rich people and even rich people and even though my dad had money and he'd been successful, they still very much had the mindset of oh, you know, you'll never get that much money or you know, that's almost like more money than a cent Interesting yeah, and I was very inquisitive about that.

Speaker 1: 29:38

So you've benefited, like me, having a parent that struggled, and you've got a sense of that from them.

Speaker 2: 29:43

I mean actually my dad had come to see me in Dubai the other week actually, and we were having this conversation the next day because we'd had dinner in my house and a friend of mine had come round guys worth thick end of a billion and the next day my dad was asking me about him, talking a couple of questions and he said but you know you wouldn't want that.

Speaker 1: 30:03

And for all this finding, finding negative reasons why you wouldn't want it, but then I think, ultimately, for me those negative reasons are just because you want to make an excuse for why you've not, why you've not got it, yeah you know, as you know, as I look at them and say, oh listen, I want to learn from him, I want to be him, and maybe I'm not going to get a billion, but if I shoot for a billion, you might get 200 million, you know, yeah, and I think that mindset and it's interesting that your dad has that because it gives you something to almost not fight against but to excel over, because my dad's very similar, even though he's done well some of the things that they do shock me. God, I don't want to say on a podcast, but my parents are very into conserving money and I'm not saying he's not generous, but they'll do things like it sounds a bit shocking to say that, it sounds a bit embarrassing, but who cares? They will do things like save a tea bag, sometimes to reuse it, and that's the hangover they've got from being very, very poor. Like I said, there are certain things that they do that, to me, makes me think you guys are, like, easily probably in the top 10 of this country, which is not much, by the way. People think top 10 you need to be a gazillionaire, you don't need to be that unworthy, so why do you do things like that? So when I see that, it almost does my head and it makes me think I want to do more. I want to do more. I've always had this ambition to be richer than my dad, for instance.

Speaker 1: 31:14

Right, but yeah, going back to what you said, I think there needs to be some sort of catalyst that you see, often it comes from your parent that wants you to do well. That's bigger than the perception that society is going to hold you back, and most people don't have that. I think that's hard for most people to get over. They think this is what's possible for me and I'm not going to be able to excel over this. And one of the most important things is the environment. You're clearly surrounded by people who are doing well, someone who's nearly a billionaire, and it forces you to up your game. Most people are not. Most people are in environments that are pulling them down constantly and they don't even realise it. They're not in a conversation of plenty, they're in a conversation of lack. And do you find?

Speaker 2: 31:51

that, even though your father is wealthy, is successful, that he'll look at some of the things that you're doing and say you're crazy, you're taking too much risk.

Speaker 1: 32:01

Oh, my God.

Speaker 2: 32:02

You shouldn't be doing this. You should be slowing down.

Speaker 1: 32:04

Let me tell you the story of when we got into the music business, right?

Speaker 2: 32:08

How old are you at this point?

Speaker 1: 32:09

I would have been. So I went uni. I went uni to actually save time, actually because I had to. My parents think I'm not doing anything, but I would have been 23-ish right this time. But I've always been doing music from the age of about 12 or something like that.

Speaker 1: 32:27

But age of about 12 or something like that, um, but in our culture you have to be a doctor, a lawyer, maybe an engineer or businessman. That's it four, no more, no more. They don't want to hear anything but that. So picture my parents when I say to them with my brother ashley oh, we're making music horrified. Do you know? Like what? Do you mean what? What is music? Because from their nigerian cultural background, musicians and vagabonds, and you know they're just not going to amount to anything, which is kind of true. If you're in Nigeria, what are you going to do with music? There's no industry. You better become a doctor because it's guaranteed you can go anywhere in the world. So you know, our first big hit record was the Boy Is Mine, the garage mix of it. You've probably danced to that, you might not remember.

Speaker 2: 33:03

That was our best record. The Boy Is Mine as in, like a remix of Of Brandy and Monica. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's the best record we've ever made. I'm old enough to know Brandy and Monica, you know that right, I mean, that was phenomenal.

Speaker 1: 33:13

We probably shifted about 50,000 or more white labels because it was a bootleg. Okay, not that we saw the Back.

Speaker 2: 33:22

Then we're talking music 20, 25 years ago. Very different world of streaming, yeah, different world. Were you making good money then? Oh?

Speaker 1: 33:27

my, I mean, it depends on the deal you do, obviously because it made more money in the music industry. But in the naivety of what you're signing, you're getting a tiny fraction of that, whereas now, obviously, people are a bit clever, so we did that. Tell my parents, oh my God, look, this song's blowing up everywhere and we're selling tons of units. My mum and dad are looking at us like what is this? Get a proper job, Get a proper job exactly.

Speaker 1: 33:48

And then my older brother, who's like four or five years older than me. He's getting smashed. Why are you leaving your young brother astray? He's going to university. Why are you getting him to do music? That was your music partner. Yeah, ashley, yeah, I'll talk about it a, but it just. I love my brother to the moon and back. But anyway, two years after that we then do body groove. Obviously you're signing big deals and blah, blah, blah. You know you've got, like I don't know, a hundred grand quarter of a million in your bank or whatever it is. And at that point my parents still thinking what is this? It's only when we took some of that money and bought property they thought I always knew you would make it in music.

Speaker 2: 34:23

And I'm thinking you bloody hypocrites.

Speaker 1: 34:25

You hate the thought of making music, but from their point of view and you can understand if thinking music is not going to give you a career, it's only when they see the money and that you've invested it. Because a lot of people who were making UK Garage back then they were buying cars and clubs and women and jewellery, all the kind of stuff that's going to depreciate and turn into dust us, whereas because of my upbringing and all I've ever known is property, if you got money, buy property, you got money, invest it. I did that and it was only then that action that my parents were then proud. So did you buy that property with ashley? You bought yourself. No, I bought my sport myself. What did you buy? Um, oh god, I don't want to talk about that too much on the bloody podcast. But yeah, you know your, your one bears and your studios and your typical rental stuff that you would buy. It wasn't. You know. You know you couldn't buy like a house in London even then, the year 2000. But you were buying it from an investment perspective, purely from an investment point of view.

Speaker 1: 35:11

So my whole family are landlords. Every single one of us are landlords. It's just been drummed into us and I always know that something is. Most things are short-lived. So, yeah, you might be doing well in the music business now, but that's going to be gone tomorrow. You know, most people are not going to be the bloody Beatles or Rolling Stones. You're going to have two, three, four years maximum. Whatever you make, invest it because that way you're getting paid again and again and again.

Speaker 1: 35:33

And I've always been a massive fan of um passive income and one of the reasons was my health, which we haven't touched on yet. But because I couldn't always rely on my health, I knew I had to create passive income streams in case I was too sick to work. And there were times when I was really too sick. So I've never actually had a nine-to-five job or normal job in my life ever, because I've gone straight from university into the music business, then into property and pretty much just hustled ever since then and I've always avoided the thought of having a nine-to-five job. It just makes me feel nauseous the thought of having a nine to five job. It just makes me feel nauseous the thought of going into work every single day, you know.

Speaker 2: 36:09

So talk to me about your, your illness and your sickness. When when did that happen?

Speaker 1: 36:12

So that happened when I was 15, that was 1990, february the 25th I think that date is just ingrained in my memory. A couple of days prior to that, I had abdominal pains. I was then rushed to hospital, had appendicitis, had to have an emergency surgery. All went fine, all brilliant. Then, about a day after recovering from that around the 25th it was a couple of days after Mandela came I always that was my last memory, and I say that because it was the last memory I had of being normal, and I explain what I mean when I say normal, right?

Speaker 1: 36:43

So a couple of days after the operation I was given a drug called stematil. It's an anti-emetic. It stops you vomiting and I had a what is called an ocular gyric crisis, which is a a rare allergic reaction to the drug stematil, which basically means you kind of your eyes roll back in your head and you're stiff. I mean I'm on a hospital bed and I can see the wall behind me clearly and nothing else. That's how violent it is, and I say it's paralysis. But it's actually worse than that. It's a spasm.

Speaker 1: 37:13

And a spasm is worse than paralysis. Paralysis is when your body goes limp, spasm when you're locked in and as a kid I was always scared of enclosed space. I was claustrophobic, right, severely claustrophobic. I couldn't get into a lift as a kid, and it doesn't get more claustrophobic than being locked in your own body now. That is the most terrifying thing I've ever experienced in my life to the present day. So he gave me the antidote for that drug, a drug called benzetropin. I sound like a doctor because I had to become a doctor, you're awake.

Speaker 2: 37:39

You're awake, you're full. You know exactly what's going on, exactly what's going on?

Speaker 1: 37:42

i'm'm locked to my body. I can only move my eyeballs a little bit, and the first time this happened the nurses and doctors seemed all right, so I didn't panic that much. I'm thinking if they seem chilled, I'm all right. So they gave me this antidote called Benzotropin. About 30 minutes later my body starts to unlock itself and I'm thinking thank God, I don't want to go through that again. Later I feel my body going into the same sort of rigor mortis type thing and this time now the doctors are panicking because they're thinking we've just got a 15 year old boy, right? Yeah, we've given him the antidote. What the hell's going on? And I am panicking now. But I'm trapped, trapped in my body. My mom and dad are panicking, like what is going on and obviously you know with them not necessarily been born in the uk, you know, had that happened to my child, I probably would ask certain questions, but they didn't have that and I don't blame them for that. I got locked into my body again and I'm thinking this is it.

Speaker 1: 38:29

And I learned all of these years later that when that happened, my body went into a severe form of trauma, a severe form of PTSD, and what your body does. When that happens, it tries to disassociate you from the trauma. So when I came out of the second paralysis, after they gave me massive doses of the antidote, my world had changed and it's never been the same since. I had a ringing in my ears that wasn't there beforehand. The world looked like it was unreal, like like I was dreaming, and I had this pressure sensation at the back of my head and the medical staff was saying to my mum that don't worry, it's just affected the drugs. After a few days we'll go back to normal.

Speaker 1: 39:06

And I'm terrified at this point. Terrified that I'm going to go back into this rigor mortis spasm thing, but also terrified thinking do I have to live with these conditions? I'm not going to cope with this. But I said don't worry, he'll be fine. But I was never fine.

Speaker 1: 39:17

When you say you were never fine, you mean today. You're still never fine. Today I still have two of the hospital trying to get on with life and all these symptoms are progressively getting worse, slowly, but progressively worse every day. So it feels like I'm in a dream. I've got this faint ringing in my ears and at that time I could only hear it when I was about trying to sleep and I've got this pressure sensation. That was the worst one. So fast forward, obviously. Age 15, you know, I think 21,. I went to university, had a massive hit, had body groove. You know was living. The dream was on top of the pops, with all these other pop stars who I always admired. Life should have been great, right, except my life was one day I'm living the best of life on top of the pops and, oh my god, all my childhood dreams have come true. And the next time at um another hospital, having my 10th mri scan or my 15th CT scan.

Speaker 2: 40:05

Because you had another attack. No, because I wanted answers.

Speaker 1: 40:09

I wasn't well. I had this head pressure and it was so bad that I would get. The neurologist would say to me, after I've had the brain scan good news, really really good news there's nothing wrong with you, We've found nothing untoward in your skull. Blah, blah, blah. And I'm thinking, I'm crying my eyes out, thinking tell me I've got a brain tumor would you could.

Speaker 2: 40:25

You want answers?

Speaker 1: 40:27

so that was my life it was. It was just. I almost don't know how I got through it, but I've just got this level of resilience and tenacity that no matter how bad life gets and I'll carry on. But the way I coped of it towards the end was try, at least you know you can jump off a building, you can kill yourself, basically, if it gets bad. It's like the same sort of rationale people have when they go to dignitas. They're not suicidal, they're pragmatic. So I had this pragmatic view of my. Health gets bad, I can always kill myself, but I love life.

Speaker 2: 40:56

Was that a genuine consideration? Yeah, genuine?

Speaker 1: 40:59

yeah, because it was getting bad. It took years In fact it took 18 years before it got to the point of like really, really bad and life was, and it wasn't every day. My life was hell, you know, I'd gotten with life and got used to it, but there were just times when it became hell, because every couple of months it would ramp up a notch mainly the head pressure was the hardest one to deal with like it would just ramp up a notch and it was almost like imagine I tied a vice around your head and every couple of months I turned the screw a bit more so I'd wake up and it's turned and I'm like getting to the point where you can't cope. You just it's horrific. It's like, I don't know, having multiple sclerosis or any of these kind of conditions where people go to dignitas um, you just get to a point. You just get fed up. So it's just getting worse and worse and worse.

Speaker 1: 41:43

Obviously, t tinnitus, which I now know what it was I didn't know what it was was being made worse by loud music, but it happened at 15. And I was a noise addict and because it happened after the hospital, I didn't relate it to loud music. Yeah, it's foolish now, but at the time I didn't know. So obviously I'm in a studio all the time, body grooving and the worst thing I could have done after that was become a DJ, because now you're really in the environment. So I was waking up every day and my tinnitus is getting worse. So fast forward 18 years after that episode. By that time I would have been 33, I believe, and it would have been 2008. I hope my maths is right. I think it is roughly 2008. I'm 33. I go and DJ in this club not far from here, actually a club called Sugarheart in Fulham. I remember that, remember sugar heart yeah.

Speaker 1: 42:25

So I've turned up there and the normal club speakers have gone. They've got these stack of speakers by behind the dj deck. By then I knew what um tinnitus was. I didn't know what the dream sensation was. I didn't know what the head pressure was, but I knew tinnitus was. I remember thinking this is probably not a good idea, trey, but I had a sense of it. Doesn't matter, you're not going to be alive anyway in a couple of years. Who cares if you screw your ears up Because we'd come to the point where it was so bad that I thought you're probably going to have to jump off a building at some point or you're just going to go mad. Either way, it doesn't matter. So I DJed there, but I noticed the bongo player had earplugs in and I think that saved stayed a bit longer than I probably should have in front of these speakers.

Speaker 1: 43:09

I went home the next day. I woke up. I was deaf both ears and my tinnitus, which was probably about a nine out of ten in terms of severity, was now 20 out of 10 in terms of severity, and I was deaf. I mean that's torture. So I've got extreme tinnitus, I'm deaf and I've got head pressure that feels like I need to scratch my head open and get some release. And I'm like Trey, you finally got to the point of you might have to jump off a building, but the thing is I was quite religious and spiritual at the time. I had a real strong sense of belief in God and I'm Catholic. You know, being Catholic like you can't top yourself if you're Catholic, it's like you know. Then I've got my parents and I thought I can't do that to them either. You know, no parent wants to lose their child, which they did have to face a couple years after that, don't get me wrong. So I was like Trey, you're too powerful. You have faith and belief in God. You're going to have to really dig deep and trust that.

Speaker 1: 43:59

There's a reason for this, the internet bearing minus 2008. So I've been. We had no internet in 1990, but whenever I could, I was trying to search and find answers. So I'm not coming off the internet. So I found answers and I was trawling, trawling, trawling, trawling, trawling and I remember someone's blog I think it was called star child, some woman, and she was describing her life. And she goes my life is hell, it's torture.

Speaker 1: 44:21

I have um, derealization, depersonalization, disorder, and it's the very first time someone described how I felt and had the name for it. Bear in mind every bloody doctor that I'd seen. I mean, I've been around the world trying to get answers for this thing. So I googled it and I said, wow, it's exactly what I've got. So I realized it's actually a PTSD from extreme stress.

Speaker 1: 44:40

What your body does is just dissociate you from trauma. It's like when someone's been attacked they said it felt like it was happening to someone else. I was out of my body, watching your body does that. When you go through so much trauma that you can't handle it, your body's almost saying I'm going to take you away from the trauma and when it's safe to put you back in, I'm going to put you back in. But my body never put me back in because the new trauma became the tell me. So I figured it all out.

Speaker 1: 45:00

I went and saw a professor in um can't remember what the in place was. He said trey, you are absolutely spot on. It's exactly what happened to you and you do have this dissociation, depersonalization, derealization disorder. And because I knew that's what I had, I knew that the tinnitus was caused by stress, because tinnitus can be stress induced and the head pressure was this extreme reaction to being locked in. There was a part of my body that was always tense, and in this case it was my head. And because I knew that, I thought, okay, if it's an anxiety type disorder, I can treat it like you with any anxiety. And I didn't obviously want to do pills, because I've been on every pill and medication you can imagine. None of that worked. So I thought, let me just deal with it by deep breathing meditation, because I realized my amygdala, which is part of your fight or flight system in your limbic system, was so, so high and it stayed high because I'm always waiting for when I'm going to get paralyzed again that I had to dial it down. And I did that by really reaching within. I know I'm being a bit probably like um um hippie when I'm talking to you like this, but I this was the truth, right. So I did tons of meditation, tons of self-work, tons of it and, like a miracle, within about three weeks the head pressure disappeared. It was crazy. It's crazy. I mean.

Speaker 1: 46:16

I was in floods of tears for this time because this was something I thought I had to live with, that I'd have to top myself over, and I found an answer and one of the worst symptoms I reversed. And what was good about that and that's why I talk about pain is power. What was good about that? I learned that if I can do that, everyone can, and it's what really made me become a mentor, because it for me it felt like the reason why I'd gone through all that suffering, because it's rare what I do, that's so rare that it happens probably one in a billion. I thought I've been given this for a reason. I'm going to teach others how, no matter what they deal with in life, they can actually overcome it and in fact, the bad things that you cut you go through are the best things that could ever happen to you. So my pain was a blessing and people always ask me to this day Trey, how do you cut your tinnitus? Because it is still quite bad. And I say to them it's a.

Speaker 1: 47:03

If I hear this ringing in my ears, I can hear my tinnitus now 10 times louder than your voice, especially in this quiet room. Really, a hundred times, it's so loud. But words before I used to relate to it as a foe and go to A&E because I'd just go deaf. And it still happens to me. I would just go deaf in one ear, as you do. I now listen to Amy and say, amy, it's cool, because that's what it is.

Speaker 1: 47:31

Most time we've got a voice in the head and it's the voice that's panicking. Not you, we're capable of anything, but it's a voice that says, oh my god, you know we're not going to cope. Oh my god, you're deaf. Or oh my god, they're going to laugh at you. Oh my god, it's the voice. If you learn to speak to that voice, or just part of your body, it's part of your limbic system. It's part of your flight or flight mechanism. I use that all the time to chill myself out and I train other people to do the same.

Speaker 1: 47:51

So I don't have the head pressure, but I still do have severe tinnitus. I still have severe derealization. I do have no idea what it's like to look at the world normal. Last time I had that I was 15 years old, in February 1990. I have no idea what silence sounds like. Again, I was 15, 1990, the last time I heard silence.

Speaker 1: 48:10

But suffering only comes from what you make it mean and I don't make it mean anything. Now. It's a bit like what we said about you know your skin color. Whatever it is, it's the meaning you give it, not the reality. It's just the meaning, where I choose to make my color mean something powerful, and so I am. I choose to make my health conditions mean something powerful, and so I am. So I've learned to be very powerful and that's why, as a mentor now, I'm able to transform thousands of lives, because I'm not interested in what you've gone through, I'm interested in what you're capable of, and everyone is capable of greatness, despite your circumstances. I truly believe that, and almost everyone that we were there in society today has been through hell. Whether it's Mandela, whether it's Gandhi, most in society today has been through hell. Whether it's Mandela, whether it's Gandhi, most people that you see that are very powerful have been through some sort of trauma. Oprah, just look at people's stories. It's their stories. It's the pain that they've gone through that's made them powerful.

Speaker 2: 48:56

Well, I want to talk about mentorship and you being a mentor, but I think one more piece of context we probably need to add to that, I would guess, is the passing of your brother. Oh, probably need to add to that. I would guess is the passing of your brother. I don't want to bring out the tears. No, I'm fine.

Speaker 1: 49:11

I think real men cry. That's one thing. I always coach a lot of men and men are so stuck in this sense of what masculinity looks like. But real men cry because it's just an authentic response to life itself, and my brother's death was horrific for me.

Speaker 2: 49:26

How did it come about?

Speaker 1: 49:27

So, oh God, I'm not going to start blubbing. I already blubbed yesterday when I was talking to a journalist. I basically got a call from my dad. I was on the way back from my gym with my missus and my dad called me. And my dad's your typical Nigerian masculine man no emotion, all that stuff. And he called me and he's in tears and he's saying your brother is gone, take a break.

Speaker 1: 49:58

Take all the time you want, mate. You know what the hard part is about that. The hard part is not just my brother dying, it's my dad crying. And it wasn't like he said your brother's dead. He said your brother is gone. And to not hear your dad cry and use those words no-transcript, because I'm kind of thinking gone where? And there's a chance okay, if he's gone somewhere, I can see him. But I knew what he meant. I had this sense of that my brother wasn't going to survive. I knew something would happen, especially when you kind of this was early, early, early COVID days, february 2020.

Speaker 1: 50:38

And I just thought my brother smoked, he had asthma. And um, I just thought my brother smoked, he had asthma. Um, he was a single man. Um, and explain why those? I mean obviously, some of those factors you're aware of, but being a single man is actually quite dangerous for men, because men don't take their health that seriously. Um, so when my dad said it, part of me was expecting it, but I just I was on a little scooter at the time. I broke down and couldn't even speak to my dad and my um. My partner and I took the phone and she was speaking to my dad and I. I just I was just in my own world, thinking tell you, time goes slowly and you don't know what the hell's going on. Um, and then I thought to myself just go to his house, because if he's gone you can still see him. It's crazy losing a sibling. I don't know how my dad did it he was.

Speaker 2: 51:42

He was sick at the time, or this just came out of nowhere.

Speaker 1: 51:44

So I've gone to the house there's like police and there's ambulance outside my brother's house and my other brother, who I hadn't seen for ages, was there and he was just so distraught and I could see in his face and obviously you know it's true. But I run up the stairs to his flat and I'm saying to the police can I just see my brother? And he's fallen down the stairs and he might have been there for a couple of days, maybe up to six days, because that's the last time anyone spoke to him because he wasn't really around the family. He'd become a little bit estranged from the family. And I remember saying to the police okay, I know I get what you're saying, but can I at least just talk to him and then you can take him away? And it's absurd but your brain is not in reality in that point of thought. Let me at least speak to him and then he can die. Let me just tell him I love him or hug him. And the policeman said to me you don't want to see him like this, and obviously because he'd been there for a couple of days and fallen down the stairs.

Speaker 1: 52:41

But by all accounts he was basically ill about the week before. He said it to my brother. For a couple of weeks actually he was ill. He was so unwell that he couldn't walk from where we're sat to that door without not being able to breathe. I mean, that's ill ill but him being how he was, he wasn't someone that necessarily looked after himself, looked after his health. He didn't have a partner that would drag him to a or something. He just went to the um doctors. The doctors gave him some antibiotics. He'd help give someone antibiotics for what's clearly a viral type condition.

Speaker 1: 53:12

But, like I say, it was early. People hadn't thought about covid fully. It was about a month before covid really kicked in um and he was just unwell before that. You know, for two or three weeks before he was vomiting and I got this off my brother afterwards he was vomiting. He was clearly unwell. He'd vomited on the train like all sorts of stuff was going on with his health and I wish I'd had known and spoke to him because of my background I was always in and out of hospitals and an A&E and god knows what. I'd almost trained myself to become a doctor, so I would have spotted there was something seriously wrong with him um.

Speaker 1: 53:46

But you know, it is what it is, you know, I think on the morning. He must have woken up one morning and thought, wow, this is more serious than I thought and probably then decided, right, let me get myself down to A&E or do something. But he ran out of time. He got to the top of these stairs and fell down the stairs and the police found him with his clothes on, with an umbrella, just about to go out, but didn't make it. And an interesting thing that I and the reason why I share this story as hard as it is is because I really want other people to A look at their health, that's obvious. But I really want people to not take tomorrow for granted. You know, my brother thought he would have had a tomorrow and he thought, let me put my clothes on. Clearly it's worse than I thought. Let me get myself to the hospital. And he ran out of time.

Speaker 1: 54:27

But the police said something interesting. They said um, um, your brother's got mail and inside the mail there's a passport, um, and it turned out that my brother, um, had got excited by music again because for many years, um, his experience when we made body groove and everything was pretty traumatic for him, in fact for everyone involved. To be fair, um, and he just yeah, he wasn't. I think after making body groove he really went into a slump and it lasted for 20 years. He almost came.

Speaker 1: 54:55

Not, he wasn't depressed I'm not trying to paint that picture but, um, he wasn't excited by music. But he did get excited. A couple of months before he passed away he was working with this friend of ours, a singer called Crystal, and he was excited again and that passport was what he was going to use to go to New York and shoot the video for a song called Running On the Spot. But of course he didn't make it. He never got the passport, never went to New York, never shot the video for Running On the Spot had he made the song he had made the song.

Speaker 1: 55:21

He'd made the song, yeah, he'd made the song with crystal, but he never got to fulfill on on that dream of you know, getting back into music and being excited by it again. And I remember sharing that story in this personal development event. I was at about 200 people and I got on stage, you know, holding back the tears like I was just now, and saying to people. And I told him that story. You know, my brother was unwell for a couple of weeks and by the time he took it seriously, he didn't make it out of the door and on the other side of the door there was a passport and he didn't make it to New York. And all of you people sat in the audience whinging about your parents or whinging about life or talking about poor me. You better get complete with that stuff, because tomorrow's not guaranteed. You better call your loved ones, because it was like a seminar, personal development seminar and one of the things they invited people to do was call their loved ones and make peace or say they're sorry, or acknowledge your parents, all of that stuff. So you guys, stop messing about. Tell your parents you love them, tell your siblings you love them. If you've got a dream, go out and do it. I don't care if you fail. Go and do it, because my brother never got to get that passport and go and fulfill on his dream that he wanted to do. But one thing I'm glad that my brother did do is that we made Body Groove and even though he's gone, people are dancing to that record. That's why I love that song even more now, because people don't realize that that's my brother's record on the song because if you watch the video, he so hated the idea of fame. We had to get someone else to come do it. They asked my brother to be on the video and obviously do his part. He didn't want to do it. They asked me and I wasn't really into fame either, so I passed on it. So we had to get someone, a guy called MC Splash, and he did the video and to this day people do not know that Ashley's voice is on Body Groove. It's his voice Made the body move I've got of him. And even when I perform the song, which is rare the reason why I perform that song is because it's the closest I feel to Ashley. I don't do it for money or anything like that, because you get peanuts to get on stage and perform records 800 quid or something, make more money from property or from coaching. But I do it because it's the closest I feel to him and I'm so glad that he left that legacy behind where, even though his body is gone, his voice and his legacy is still having people have the greatest night of their life, because Body Groove is such an infectious, powerful party song and I say to everyone, tomorrow is not guaranteed and all of you guys have got something great that the world needs to see.

Speaker 1: 57:37

But yeah, it was traumatic, my brother's death. But yeah, it was traumatic, my brother's death. And I will always probably cry when I mention it because you know from my dad crying, which is a you just never hear Nigerian dads crying, anyone that's it doesn't have to be Nigerian, anyone's from any sort of ethnic minority or even anywhere. It could be Irish, it could be British Men tell you, don't cry from that generation. And to hear a man cry like that and the pain that my mum and dad went through, I mean to lose their son and as far as we know, it was COVID.

Speaker 1: 58:06

He didn't get tested for COVID because it's too early, so his post-mortems showed that he had fluid in his lungs, he had blood sepsis and these were kind of classic markers for COVID. You know, being a black male, that's middle-aged, is a classic danger for COVID. As well being a smoker, he had asthma when he was younger. He had all the classic symptoms that made him um vulnerable to covid. So as far as I know it was covid that killed him. But that period was hard because both my mum, you know, at the funeral, about 30 people at the funeral got covid. The government was completely right to stop people gathering.

Speaker 1: 58:36

I lost an auntie and an uncle and that year as well to covid, and my mum and dad had covid and it was touch and go. For a long time I was running around their house, disinfecting banisters, doing everything I could, giving them pills, giving them medicine. I mean everything to do I could keep them alive. Because losing my brother if I'd lost my parents or one of them, as strong as I am, I think that would probably have sent me over the edge.

Speaker 1: 59:00

So that was a tough, tough, tough, tough year that I wouldn't want to repeat. And then there was like music, politics and people saying all sorts and I'd just lost my brother, and to hear people saying all sorts of stuff about my brother. It was the hardest year of my life, but what came out of that was a determination to honour my brother. So we remade body groove with crystal. Um, that song went on to stream 20 million streams and it was all in in in honor of my brother. And almost everything I do every day of my life is in honor of ashley, because if it wasn't for him, I probably wouldn't have got into personal development, because I took a book from him when I was um yeah, I don't know how old I was, I might have been been 14 or something A book called Think and Grow Rich.

Speaker 2: 59:43

You know that book right, yeah, of course Every entrepreneur on planet Earth has read, think and Grow Rich.

Speaker 1: 59:47

And what I love about that book is not just about money, it's about mindset. You notice that with that book it teaches you anything's possible if you put your mind to it. And in a weird way that when I was going through the worst of my own medical stuff, I knew that the answer to it was in me, that it was my mindset that I had to develop in order to survive what I was going through. And I thank God for Ashley. He was much more into self-development than I was at that young age and he was an older brother that I looked up to, um, and I learned from him. So him giving me the gift of personal development in many ways through that book. I was into it, but that book really changed my life and then him being my partner in music and everything we went through in the music business, from just the joy of making the boys mine and and the joy I remember we, we saw peak tong. You remember peak?

Speaker 1: 1:00:35

tong and my proudest moment in the music business was one time we were in our price.

Speaker 1: 1:00:39

Because you remember our price, we said oh when we were young but I remember in our price I picked up music week and pete tong had these essential selection song of the week architects the boy's mind. That's my proudest moment because it was the very first record we ever made. And to have someone like pete tong and we were massively into house music I mean massive more than we were into garage to have pete tong say that our record that started off as a little idea in my head ended up being his record of the week was my proudest moment. So much of my joyful moments were with Ashley. Do you know? So much of the moments in my life where I learned and I grew were with Ashley. So much of things that I learned was through Ashley.

Speaker 2: 1:01:21

Well, I know it wasn't easy, but thank you. Thank you for sharing that story, oh God.

Speaker 1: 1:01:33

It's tough. It is a tough one to lose, to lose someone you love, and the fact that I didn't see him much in the months for years, in the months for years, in many ways before he passed, was quite hard as well. I mean lucky. I did see him about two months before he passed and I remember speaking to him and I kind of had a sense that it might be the last time I speak to him. I don't know why I had that. So I'm glad that Elyse have got that. I'm glad I've got his voice on Body Groove. I'm glad I've got his memories. I'm glad I've got everything that he taught me. But I'm just so committed to honouring his legacy and make sure no one forgets about him.

Speaker 1: 1:02:09

He was such a beautiful solo. He was so humble, he didn't want fame. You would never have known he made Body Groove. Really he didn't sing about that or shout from the rooftops. He didn't even PA that track. I think he did that track as a PA once in his entire life, you know, and I had to force him to get on stage to even do that. He didn't brag.

Speaker 1: 1:02:29

He was just such a humble, humble human being but so infinitely talented, you know, and he's one of the biggest reasons why I am so, so committed that people get their greatness. Now, you know, I've always been like that because I had to go for my journey. I've gone. I've been like that because obviously my dad's journey but I think my brother's death was like that just took it to another level, like I will make a fool of myself if needs be, if someone gets their greatness. Like money is not important to me, um, nothing else. My own ego isn't important to me. What's important to me is everyone. Anyone listening to us, anyone that knows me, gets that. They are great and I don't care what you think about yourself, I don't care what that little voice says about yourself. I don't care what limiting beliefs you have about yourself. It's all bullshit. You are.

Speaker 2: 1:03:17

I'm allowed to say that, but I can't um, got a picture of my ass up arse up there. You don't think we've got rules on here, but yeah, people need to get how great they are.

Speaker 1: 1:03:26

I mean, you're walking past people who every day they just think their life that's it and that's as good as it gets. And when I speak to people they're like Trey, you're so confident and you're this. Or they see me on the Apprentice you're. I wasn't like that. I was a sick kid and I was very anxious, very insecure. I would never pick up a mic and speak to anyone 15, 16, 17, 18. Even at the time we made Body Groove, I wasn't that secure, necessarily. And people look at me and think you're so amazing, you're so this. I learned to be that way and everyone has that possibility of being amazing. Everyone's got something great locked within them and you have to get that out before you die. You have to. You can't get to the end of your life and regret and they did studies to show that what people regret at the end of their life is what they didn't do.

Speaker 2: 1:04:10

No, one gets what they did, do it's what they didn't do.

Speaker 1: 1:04:13

We all do stupid things. I've done stupid things. I've made a fool of myself. I've done. Things have failed. I've failed in business. A billion times I've failed in life. I failed in relationship. But one thing is I tried and I do not want to get to the end of my life and say, oh man, I wish I'd done that. No, I did it, and I did it well, or I failed or it was stupid, but I bloody did it. So anyone listening, do it, go out, start that business, tell that person you love them, go and get married. So what if you end up in divorce three years later? Just do it, live it, be great. And if you're not doing it for you, do it for others.

Speaker 1: 1:04:44

Because in the same way, I've been inspired by my dad, by the author of Think and Grow Rich, by some of the people I read in medical texts and things I had to learn for myself. I've been inspired by so many people. Imagine they didn't step up, I wouldn't have read those books, listened to those songs. You know one of my biggest heroes for listen to those songs. You know one of my biggest heroes, for instance, is Beethoven, why he had tinnitus and he was deaf, you know, and what got me through some of the hardest times was listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, because I know the story of that Ninth Symphony. He was totally tone deaf and when he made that song they had to turn him around in the concert hall in Vienna so he could get the applause.

Speaker 1: 1:05:18

And in these diaries he used to write my life is not worth living. I should kill myself, but I recognise that my music is bigger than me. Can you imagine? Beethoven wrote this. And there I was, this young lad in Notting Hill, suffering at times, and I'd listened to Ode to Joy and the hope it would give me and think about it right, by all contemporary accounts accounts, beethoven was a miserable little sod, miserable. Yet his music made a difference to me. What, 170 years after he made it? This little kid from an immigrant parent from Nigeria, I mean, who would? How would he have known that that song would have been one of the things that kept me going? Imagine that. So you have to go out there and create a legacy that reverberates through time, because you don't know who you're going to inspire.

Speaker 2: 1:06:05

Listen, we could go so deep on so many things and I'm definitely going to be booking in an episode two and an episode three with you, but before you go today, we cannot let you escape without talking about the Apprentice, which obviously everybody's been watching for the last couple of months, and loving you, I'm sure. How did that experience come about? How did you get on there in the first place?

Speaker 1: 1:06:24

Well, I've always been the biggest fan of Lord Sugar and I've always watched that show relentlessly, apart from maybe the last couple of years, but massive fan of Lord Sugar from the days of him being obviously in Amstrad, and again he always reminded me of my dad a little bit. He was one of the first business books.

Speaker 2: 1:06:39

I ever read a little bit. You know he was one of the first business books.

Speaker 1: 1:06:40

I ever read, oh really.

Speaker 2: 1:06:41

I can see it today. Wow. My dad had a study where he spent all his life in there working. You know this very old school bookcase and in it there was two or three books. I always remember you know there was the Amstrad story next to the joy of sex. As you do, I always used to take the pair of them. What a combo, bloody hell. I don't know which I got better at, but I enjoyed them both equally. Bloody hell, dude, that's double pleasure that is Sorry, Alan.

Speaker 1: 1:07:17

I mean, come on, I mean anyone of our age that wasn't inspired by Lord Sugar and what I loved about him. He's just a normal working class lad, you know, and he did it in the days when it was hard for someone from him. He's, you know, a little Jewish kid from the east end of London, you know, didn't have anything, no advantages, and yet still went and absolutely killed it in business you know he used to have the column in the newspaper where he'd be dishing out business advice.

Speaker 2: 1:07:40

I always remember I was 16, 17, taking the school bus and when I used to walk from home to the school bus I used to stop at the newsagent, buy the whatever it was a sun or the mirror so I could sit on the back reading his column.

Speaker 1: 1:07:53

I mean imagine, though, think about how many people he's inspired, because even me watching the Apprentice and me, probably like millions of others, felt this sense of business as possibly I mean, obviously I already was, but you know, my sort of journey obviously was in the creative world, but reading him and looking at him, you start thinking more of the corporate world as well. So he had a massive impact on me. So it was funny, it was my partner that encouraged me to go for it. You know, because I had all these. I coach men and women, and women are just way ahead of men. Women are good that they're killing it. You even see on the show the men are falling behind. Like you look at the suicide rates and the health rates, homelessness like men are falling behind. So I was like I really want to make wellness products that are going to impact men and obviously branch out and impact women, because men are not the best um consumers, if you're gonna. It's so niche when you sell to men, but anyway, I thought, right, I need a partner in this. My, my um partner was saying to me why don't you just audition for the apprentice? And my first thought was like oh, that's reality tv. I don't want to be on tv. Do you know what I mean? Because I've got my background, if I'm a cool musician, and even then I didn't want to be on the bloody box, let alone going on the box and what was felt like a reality tv. But she really made me think about it. It isn't reality tv, it's a business show, you know. It isn't love island. No disrespect to anyone that goes on love island, but you know this is a business show which means you've got to show a level of um, confidence, competence, know-how, all the rest of it, which is great. I was know what. Let me go for it.

Speaker 1: 1:09:21

I think I went for it literally on the last day, went there, did the auditions. They loved me, they thought I was great, aced through the questions, aced through the tasks and got on the show. And it was thank God, I did it. It's probably the greatest experience of my life. You know, to sit in front was kind of walk um through. You see him coming through these um frosted windows. Everyone else gets terrified, but for me it felt like watching my dad about to come in and sit down. I felt this sense of real love for look for for Lord Sugar, like real sense of love, because, having read he's you know, not all of the books that you've read, but you know ready's autobiography and the rest of it and knowing about his journey, I felt so privileged to be sat in that boardroom with lord sugar, like the only other person that might have made me feel that way would have been richard branson, because there's always those two, isn't it for us growing up that we looked up to.

Speaker 2: 1:10:15

But yeah, it was just incredible. What, what would be what if you could take away one key learning experience or one new thing that either he taught you or the experience taught you that you're going to take into your businesses and your life? What would that be? Resilience.

Speaker 1: 1:10:30

I think the word resilience has always been there with me in my life. But when I look at Lord Sugar, knowing his story, knowing what he came from you know he went through hell in so many ways. Even when he bought Tottenham, he went through hell again, god. You know, he went through hell in so many ways. Even when he, when he bought Tottenham, he went through hell again. God knows how hard that must have been for him, because those fans were brutal to him. You know, I can only imagine him in boardrooms where everyone's got these cut glass accents. And here he comes with his east end accent. Do you know what I mean? I know he went for hell and I know in order to do that, he had to be resilient. And when he sat there, all I heard was resilient.

Speaker 1: 1:10:57

And when he's firing people, I'm thinking a lot of people are losing, not because they're not good, but because they don't have the resilience and in the case of the Apprentice, not the mental and emotional resilience. That show, for me, is more of a psychological show than it is a business show, because you're in there, you're away from your loved ones. I mean, the BBC may not allow me to say it, but I'll say it anyway everything of yours is taken away from you your phone, even your watch. There's no googling, no speaking to your loved ones, apart from maybe once a week, and even then you got the chaperone.

Speaker 2: 1:11:24

For the entirety of the duration, for the entirety of the show.

Speaker 1: 1:11:27

It's like you've gone into the army. It's not a joke. People in there sitting at home watching and thinking these guys are stupid. If I put you in those conditions you know where, you can't speak to anyone that you married only a couple of months later. You know my mum's got Parkinson's disease. My dad's recently been diagnosed. My parents weren't well and I'm the primary carer for them.

Speaker 1: 1:11:45

I had to leave everything behind to go into that show. You know I'm in there in these quiet rooms and my tinnitus is going through the roof. Normally it doesn't bother me, but in there it did. Um, you need that level of resilience to do a show like that. And boy did I learn how resilient I was.

Speaker 1: 1:12:00

To go into a show like that and you know, mentally deal with obviously different personalities. I had to adopt a persona that wasn't me because I thought don't go in there and be some brash guy Trey, because Lord Sugar will fire you on the spot. He's gonna look at this 49 year old guy with these picky hair, you know body groove. He couldn't care about that stuff, thinking this guy's not corporate, he's a musician. What's he doing in my boardroom? So I had to have a strategy just lay low and get a sense of it, get a sense of who's around you and all the rest of it. And I had to rely on performing. I couldn't afford to be in the bottom three. I had to perform and you'll see me on that show. I'm performing my ass off. I mean, I wanted my team to win all the time and not just win. I wanted us to annihilate it, because I'm so competitive as well, and we did.

Speaker 1: 1:12:40

You know, some of the highlights were things like the Formula E task. I think the previous record win was 1.2 million. My team, which I was PM for, took it up to 38.7 million. I don't think that record will ever be beaten and I'm proud of those moments, really proud, because I didn't just do it on my own. There was a teamwork and I was able to manoeuvre the team and lead from the front for us to have those wins.

Speaker 1: 1:13:02

You know when I? I don't know if you haven't watched it, have you? I haven't seen it. No, on that Formula E there's a bit where I go to the front and I give a speech about the environment and then the car trying to get sponsorship. But if you see the way I do it, the passion that comes out. It's not easy and do it again and you're selling something that's always going to be a little bit dodgy in our case it was the advert and the logo and you're having to turn things around and have these people get their wallets out and spend money obviously hypothetically, but spend money on sponsorship. I look at all these things. I'm just so proud, you know, for me to have gone on a show like that from my background you've got other people who are more from the business world and for me to just go there and kill it like that.

Speaker 2: 1:13:42

Proud, I'm genuinely proud well, it's a strategy, that's clearly been working because we're. We're 10 weeks in, you're down to the final five got it.

Speaker 1: 1:13:52

It just feels. It feels incredible. You know, I feel incredibly grateful and don't get me wrong when I went on that show from the minute I applied. As far as I'm concerned, I'm like at the you've got to get to the final five At the minimum. I'm too competitive not to, because the way I saw it is, the only competition I've got is me. As long as I can handle me, it's unlikely there's going to be someone in the house that is going to out-compete me.

Speaker 1: 1:14:16

Now, they were incredible. They were actually much stronger than I thought they were, but I always knew that I would get this far. But still, when I look back, it is incredible and I'm just bloody excited at what's to come Like. Just God knows what's going to happen, because I think this is a time when everyone really really gets stuck in because you've competed, but now it's you against four of the sharpest minds that you could ever come across and I would be lying to you if I said I wasn't a little bit terrified, Just a little bit. Now I'm here waiting to see what's going to happen in the final five of us.

Speaker 2: 1:14:49

Who do you think your biggest competition out of the final four, your four competition, are?

Speaker 1: 1:14:55

In many ways they all are. I'm not too sure what everyone's business plans are, so I don't know. I suspect for filling right, I suspect for Phil, rachel and Paul it's probably their own businesses. Um, so for me, with my startup idea, competing against people with seasoned businesses especially someone like Phil whose business is an award-winning business it's not going to be easy. But at the same time, you know, I'll always back myself in any race and that's what what I'm going to do. I'm just going to give it my all, and I do know that about myself. I'm tough enough to deal with whatever comes my way, and I know those four interviewers are absolutely formidable, but I trust myself, you know. So just backing myself at this point.

Speaker 2: 1:15:38

Well, listen in the hour that I've known you, I would certainly back you as well, and I'm going to dig out my VPN and tune into the BBC and watch the next few weeks. Trey, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you here, mate. I've loved the conversation. I know the guys at home will have loved it too. Wish we had more time. I definitely want to do a round two with you, oh yeah, wish we had more time.

Speaker 1: 1:16:00

I definitely want to do a round two with you, so yeah we're going to keep in touch.

Speaker 2: 1:16:02

Obviously, everybody knows you on the big, on the big screens, but just give yourself a little shout out about how they can follow you, how they can find you if they want to get in touch.

Speaker 1: 1:16:08

So yeah, guys, if you want to follow me on Instagram, it's at Trey Lowe. On TikTok, it's at Trey Lowe, official that I like. So definitely follow me on there. Trello again and reach out. And I think as well, if anyone that's been touched by anything I've said especially maybe someone who might be suffering with tinnitus, because I get a lot of people like that please reach out to me. Don't think our Trello is going to be too bougie or too big to answer. I'll answer to anyone that's dealing with anything in life. Please reach out to me and I'll answer to that. But yeah, on those three channels.

Speaker 2: 1:16:37

Thanks, buddy, thanks a lot for being here.

Speaker 1: 1:16:39

Thanks, brother man, it's been absolutely brilliant.

Speaker 2: 1:16:41

Thanks for listening to Stripping Off with Matt Haycox. I hope you've enjoyed listening to this week's episode, but please remember to subscribe or to follow and please, please, leave a review, if you can leave a review. That's how we move up the algorithm, that's how we get to the top of the charts and that's how I can keep bringing you bigger and better guests that you'll love each week. Have you got any suggestions for guests? Have you got any burning questions you want to ask? Well, slide into my DMs on social at Stripping Off with Matt Haycox.

Stripping Off with Matt Haycox

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