Gary Stevenson is Lying, Here's the Proof! - Kent Bray

26:55Kent Bray:Oh, my God. Like, wow. There's levels. Yeah, there's levels. And so I was with, down the years, I was, not a lot, but there was a handful of traders who were absolutely different gravy. There was this one guy called Alfie. I'm not going to give his full name, just anonymity. and he said, I loved Alfie. Haven't seen you for a long time. He was Italian, but he loved Maradona. He loved Maradona. He told me one day, he said, oh, I said, have you ever met Maradona? He said, yeah, I saw him in the airport and I just burst out crying. And I sort of took the piss out of him. I said, what did I fucking cry for?

27:28Kent Bray:But not realising that, you know, he'd met his God. Well, Alfie was the Maradona of his market. He was unbelievable. I wouldn't know what that guy's worth now. He was absolutely off the charts. There was another guy called Graham, Scottish guy, many, many years ago. He was a good guy. A guy called Chris Coe in New York. But when you see these guys, they just, you know that you're okay. But these guys, they're just different. Got like a sixth sense for it. Yeah, they've just got an intuitive feel. They really know their market. They really know them. All the players, all the flow, all the players.

28:03Kent Bray:And they've got really good point of entries, discipline, stop loss, take profit. Stop loss is really important. Like, you've just got to... For me, I was a disciplined trader. I didn't like losing money. So once I lost a certain money, I'd just get out. Whereas some guys go, no, I'm really... I've got conviction about this position. If it goes underwater, that's fine. I'm absolutely... I've got really strong conviction. I was more methodical, a bit more formulaic. I didn't have that really intuitive feel these guys had. But you know what? That's not a bad thing. Just stay... You know, it's important to stay in your lane and go at your pace in all walks of life.

28:43Kent Bray:Too often we're comparing to other people in another lane going to another pace with a different deck of cards. What I've learned is just be content. It took me a while to get there, but stay in my lane, go at my pace, be content. Be grateful, be thankful, be appreciative. Someone said, I did a podcast the other day, they said, what's success? I said, waking up every day. You've got success for me today. I'm wondering the we know salespeople right and the peaks and troughs of kind of I'm doing really well so I'm getting all the validation I'm really high and then the lows of like I'm losing I'm not hitting the mark what you're talking about there is almost making me feel anxious in itself of I'm up millions and then I'm down millions is that where things like cocaine come into it to help you cope with the peaks and the troughs let's just back off cocaine for one second and just to answer that question you've got to have ability to handle that yeah you know like i i said there was a bit of a standing joke on uh on the desk i i really enjoyed mentoring young guys who came on young guys and girls came on the desk i just sort of my brother got bullied i really hate bullies and i so i'm a bit protective so when we got a junior on the desk i just wanted to make sure that they felt comfortable firstly on our desk and then within the company i used to say to them there's no stupid questions ask me anything i'd much prefer you ask me what you think's a stupid question than you going and doing something stupid right and i used to say to them every you get these you get these guys and girls they are super smart super smart you know city bank whether it's right wrong or different they just get these highly intelligent people from a small select group of universities so i used to say to them but sit down and i said look come sit here You were with me for the first months, I think.

30:28Kent Bray:What's your name? What's your background? Then I'd say, oh, you know. I'd say, I've seen your CV. Oh, mate, you're smart. You know, like, hadn't even looked at CV. And then I'd go, listen, I've just got one question for you before we get started. And I'd go, yeah, what's that? And I'd go, do you say the yolk is white or the yolk are white? And they'd go, the yolk is white. I'd say, the yolk is yellow.

30:57Kent Bray:And I said, you know, that stuff you learn means fuck all here. You know, I said, I said, I said, this is about trading. And I said, and I say to them, I don't know. And you don't know whether you're going to be a good trader until such time as you had your pants pulled down. Until such time as you have lost a lot of money, you will not know. And we won't know. That's when we'll know we've got a trader. Right, if you're making money, just, you know, you've got a position. I've been there. I'm just thinking, oh, mate, I could put my hand down a toilet and pull out a gold watch at the moment. I'm just every trade, I'm just killing it.

31:36Kent Bray:And your ego sort of goes a bit. And the next minute, you just think, like, I'm just walking into Mike Tyson every day. I'm just getting belted every day. But it's at those points that you check all your processes, check all your thinking, maybe get out of the market. Maybe say, listen, I'm not... There's been times I've got out of the market, and I just need to reset here. I'll tell you a quick story. I think it was 2011. I was trading forward dollar yen and I had a budget, I think, of just say it was$12 million. So a buck, a million dollars a month was my trajectory. Anyway, I think there was a nuclear power plant problem.

32:15Kent Bray:Problem. Nuclear power plant. It's going to be a problem. A leak or something in Japan and the markets went crazy and I was on the wrong side of it. And I think I was up$8 million and I lost$5 million. I was up$8 million in August or something, you know, September, October. So, you know, I'm on target to get my budget, get my bonus, all good. And I lost$5 million and I was just like, it happened so quick. And I think it was probably the biggest loss in a day I'd ever had, you know, and I'd been at the bank probably 16 years, 15 years, and it was the biggest loss in the shortest period of time, so I lost about$5,$6 million.

32:58And my boss said, he said, what are you going to do?

33:03Kent Bray:And I said, fuck, I don't know. And he said, no, wrong answer. I'm like, fuck yeah. Mate, that's not the answer we're looking for here. And I went home that night and I just was, you know, I squared everything up. You know, I'd go back and forth. Do I have conviction in this? that I'm up eight, I'm down to three million. Am I going to risk another three or five? So my risk reward, my take, I'll just square up. And I went home that night, and this is what I'm saying about the trading thing and how you look at it. I went home that night and I was literally in a daze. Like I'd been hit by a bus. And I just thought, if I can lose$5 million in a day, how much can I make in three months?

33:47Kent Bray:And that was it. and that's what traders do is go, if I wallow in losing$5 million for a day, a week, a month, I'm fucking wasting time. And I just flipped it on its head and I think it goes back to something you asked before about transferable skills. Doing a six-year law degree, you need discipline and you need desire and you need application. Play for Australia 21s, Queensland, New South Wales, Oxford, you know, you need desire, discipline, focus, application. Go up in the city, you're trading, what do you need focus discipline desire application intelligence disseminate information so there's transferable skills across win lose rugby win you got to learn how to win with humility you got to lose learn how to lose with grace and all this stuff so same up in the city but it's going lose again get back on the horse next week you've got another game same with training so i had it in me it was in my you know dna cut a long story short my budget i think was 10 million or 12 million or something.

34:44Kent Bray:I think I made$34 million and got paid$2.5 million, total count. So what I'm saying is that, you know, and I want to make one thing very, very clear. The two biggest bonuses I've got, I think one was$2.5 million, one was$2 million. There was years I didn't get a bonus. I'm not sitting here saying, you know, I got it right every year or anything like that. And there was times where I didn't make any money. I think there was one time I didn't make any money for three years. And I thought, fuck. Like, you know, am I running out of runway here? Is it over for me? But I got back on horse. One of the most craziest, most...

35:33Kent Bray:One year of my life, I'll never, ever, ever be able to compute in any sort of mature sense or normal sense was second last year at Citibank, I was doing Forward Euro, which is the biggest book. So I've got the biggest book on the desk. I'm probably the most senior trader. And I'm expected to make a lot of money. And after six months, I've made nothing because I am doing so much cocaine. And I'm just... Anyway, I thought I saw a correlation between two markets, so a basis swap market and my market, forward euro, and I thought that this market over here was leading mine. Whether it was or not, I don't know.

36:20Kent Bray:Maybe something like cocaine was leading. Anyway, I'd go to the toilet and come back. I'd be like amped up and I'd go, right, okay, I'm going for it now. So just do this in stock market terms. So it wasn't a stock market, but just to make it easy for you guys and the listeners and whatever. So I just pretend I thought the stock market was going up. So I just go into my broker, says, mine, mine, mine. Six months' euros, nine months' euros. Anyway, this position starts to make money quick, right? And I thought, oh, fuck, into the toilet, come back, bang, we're out again. Mine, mine, mine. Anyway, it starts to catch fire.

36:57Kent Bray:And the P &L is transparent to everyone. You just log into a system. How are you going? How are you going? Oh, he's up this way. I guess it's transparent. And people are going, fucking hell, okay, man. You're on fire. And I'm going, yeah, fuck. Not wrong. And anyway, disposition, the next minute they're going, whoa, mate, you've got a lot of risk on that. You've got limits to risk. You can't just go in and put, you know, like futures ticks, just tick one. You can't just go, like,$2 million a tick. So it goes up a tick, you make two million, down a tick, you lose two million. There's a limit, right?

37:35Kent Bray:I was staying with him at limits, but I was right up against it. Like I had the long bat out. I was going, all right? Anyway, so I had a budget of about, I think$12 million or$15 million, something like that. So at the end of June, I'm up nothing. And then I'm gone. I think I make two bucks. I think I make three bucks. And I make like nine bucks real quick, you know, in sort of like two and a half, three months or something. Anyway, this one particular weekend, and I think there was an economic forum or something in Europe, and all the leaders of the world were going there, and the sort of markets were holding their breath.

38:14Kent Bray:So I thought, fuck, you know, like a really smart thing to do would be just take all the risk off the table, bank the profits, I've got it, let the weekend come and pass, see how the markets react next week, and we go again, right? So I did that. You know, I did that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I've got this big position. I'm just leaking it out into the market, just reducing it, reducing it, reducing my risk, reducing my risk, reducing my risk. Well, bank's risk, really. By Wednesday, I'm still doing... I'm getting three grams of cocaine delivered on delivery, 9am every morning. Every single morning, right?

38:51Kent Bray:And Gary Steamsen from the trading game, he's sitting beside me. He's written all this stuff about happening to the city bank and I'm thinking to myself, well, mate, you fucking sat beside a bloke doing three grams of cocaine today. You didn't see that. So you mean, there's one that went through to the keeper. So anyway, so I go, anyway, on this Wednesday, I'm fucking, I'm sitting here, you know, do cocaine to get edgy. And I'm thinking, oh, fuck it. So I go, this market's got to retrace at some stage. So it's just gone up and up and up. And I've made a ton of money. So I just said, oh, fuck it.

39:23Kent Bray:So I sell it. And I just can't sort of stop because I'm doing cocaine. yeah yours yours yours so I leave and this is the sad part this is the really sad part every time I tell this story I get it's all fun and games until the next part and I had this apartment on the river across the road from the Houses of Parliament so I got a Canary Wharf I get on a Canary Wharf get off at Waterloo walk home 45 minutes to order with a 15 minute walk along the embankment so I go in and it's 6 o 'clock on a Friday night and I ordered coke. I wasn't seeing anyone at the time. I'm in this beautiful apartment overlooking the river and I say to people, there's no clocks in that apartment because you just look like Big Ben.

40:06Kent Bray:What's the time? And I just did cocaine all weekend by myself. Hardly ate. It was a really sick sad part of my life. Really. I look back now and it still hurts a little bit of the person that I was. Anyway, so I just did cocaine all weekend, hardly ate. And I went back in. So I go to work on Monday morning and I looked like deaf. I looked like I was dead. I showed you those, sent you those photographs. I mean, I just looked horrendous. Anyway, I went in and there was this guy there and he'd gotten in early and he said, he just said, fuck it, no, you don't look too well. I said, and I just said, yeah, man, I've been crook, been ill all weekend.

40:47Kent Bray:He said, all right. Anyway, he logged onto the system before me and he goes, mate, have you checked your position? mate I didn't think about my position I just had a weekend of cocaine what position a massive position and he said do you know what happened on the weekend and I said mate I've been in bed all weekend he said check your P &L I thought oh no no no hit the P &L and made four million dollars on the weekend the market collapsed the market just collapsed and my point is is that you know this this doesn't reflect on the trading community i was off my head anyway it all unraveled very put and i ended up making i think 24 million dollars that year and that got paid one and a half two million bucks a month but i it's a couple of things happened god i'll tell you this is starting to get me a bit just going back now is i two a A couple of things happened.

41:45Kent Bray:One guy, Mickey, I can't remember how to say his name, Mickey, salesperson, he came over to me and said, have you got a quick sec? I said, yeah. We walked off the floor and he said, mate, have you got cancer? I said, no, I haven't got cancer. He said, mate, you look horrible. He said, you have lost so much weight. Has not anyone said anything to you? And I said, mate, I'm all right, because that's what alcoholics and addicts do. I said, I'm fine. and then um someone else asked me then the mate jokingly said have you got aids he was joking but he was making a point he was joking he said kb you got aids i was joking but what he's saying is you know you look like you got aids anyway i left the bank so i not long after that the next year i was then they they took me off the euro book because i started looking at my trades the next year so yeah that's a great story but the next year i went back to the first six months and they actually looked at my trading, how I was trading, and it was so erratic and it did not have a reason to it.

42:50Kent Bray:It just looked like a guy who was just trying to find something. So they took me off the Euro book and I was quite angry and resentful of that because my ego and pride got hurt and whatever. But it was the start of the end and where this goes to is it didn't stop me using. What it meant was I had to get rid of Citi Bank. as an addict I had to stop going to Citibank because people were looking at me and just reminded me of the person I didn't want to be and so that guilt shame remorse embarrassment I just said what's the answer we'll get rid of Citibank so torched my own career I mean they gave me a payout we we it was a voluntary redundancy they were very good to me I think these days it'd be a lot different I think with these days I think people are more aware of people that who may be leaning into alcoholism too much put on too much weight lost too much weight mood swings and i think there's a lot less stigma around it and i think that a lot of the major companies in particular are very very aware of mental health stuff and i think i would have been picked up a lot earlier back then and given support but it was you know we're talking you know 2025 20 years ago so i went to say you know one year i think not even one year i think it might have been And yeah, maybe a year after that crazy year when I made all that money with that story, I was gone.

44:11Kent Bray:And I went home and my girlfriend at the time, she was from Essex, so we had two children living in Essex. And my addiction just went completely off the rails. And within two years, I was sitting in a rehab. And just to finish that story off, I went into rehab, I was six weeks in rehab. and 10 stone, so 63. I went from 90 kilograms to 63 kilograms. And I was, you know, I would suggest that I was mentally fragile, unstable. There was no spirituality to my life. I didn't even know what that meant. And I had two young children that I loved and I was using cocaine every day. And I've had to deal with horrendous stuff.

44:55Kent Bray:I've had to deal with the fact that I would be doing two or three lines of cocaine to take my children to kindergarten. why because I was addicted I'm not proud of it but I'm here to say that I'm nine years eight months clean sober and I help people these days but I you know I want people to know that I'm not special I'm not different I've made a ton of mistakes but it's not me today anyway I went into rehab and I came out of rehab and within eight days I'd relapsed and I was in a hotel in south end and i went absolutely industrial um i was eating it i was you know all sorts and um and uh i three i don't know if i was trying to kill myself or i i don't think i was trying to i think i was just trying to have the last hurrah the last sort of blowout but i um i woke up when i went to the toilet one night it was 3 22 i'll never forget the time 3 22 a.m on the tv clock on the TV and I just thought, fuck, I can't believe this.

45:55I just thought my whole life, all the highs and the lows

46:01Kent Bray:and the girlfriends and the holidays and the materialism and the running out at Twickenham in front of 60 ,000 and playing in most of all the major stadiums around the world and working for Citibank and death of my brother, death of my mother, everything, everything had come to one moment, one minute of my life. I couldn't believe it. It was just so clear. And I just thought, this is it. This is it right now. You either keep doing this and die or you have to have a go at recovery. You've got to throw yourself into Narcotics Anonymous. So the last time I used cocaine or had a drink was on the 15th of June, 2016.

46:47Kent Bray:the 16th of June sorry the 17th of June 2016 my first clean sober day was the 18th of June 2016 the three weeks prior to that day I reckon I would have done 100 grams of coke you know what I mean or something 75 you know something like just pick a number pick a ridiculous number and the 18th of June I didn't do any and I've not had one line of cocaine or one sip of alcohol in nine years and eight months. Wow, congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. So one of my things here is I say to people, I don't care what it is. I don't care if it's grief. I don't care if it's sexual abuse. I don't care if it's imposter syndrome.

47:31Kent Bray:I don't care if it's alcoholism. I don't care if it's addiction. You can heal and recover because that's my experience. So I'll keep saying it. I'm not saying everyone does because that's not true. a lot of people die of you know drug addiction alcoholism people take their lives because of what happened to them when they were sexually abused and all that sort of stuff it's well documented and some people just can't get past mental health I mean Ricky Hatton had 40 million pounds in the bank he was worth 40 million pounds he's a world champion and he was universally loved and he spoke openly around mental health and he would have gotten therapy and counselling and he still took his own life there's no guarantees but if you don't have a go at recovery and healing you'll never have a go jealous greedy and terrible i'm talking about jack frimston because he's got a request view that i think is outrageous i'm gonna ask it and i'm only gonna ask it one time if you are listening and you are enjoying it please like and subscribe and make two little boys dreams come true i mean ken it's such a an inspirational story there's so many like ups and downs throughout it feels like there's probably a book coming one day soon because I feel like there's so many stories and you alluded to it a little bit earlier and I want to backtrack because there was a book so you're living this life of recovery and drugs then all of a sudden probably like a passing with somebody that you had a relationship with has started forming in the press and the media and that was Gary Stevenson so when you when you think about that you you spoke kindly about like welcoming people making sure they weren't bullied when you think about that first meeting with gary what what can you tell us about that exactly that i really like gary i really he had a fantastic backstory like i love it you know when i said to you i love people who've overcome stuff when i'd get when i would get trainees or grads those that you know dads got plenty went to private school they're fine You know, like, that's okay.

49:38Kent Bray:I don't have any judgment of them or resentful or anything like that. That's their life. But I get very, very intrigued with... There was this guy, his first name was Hen, and he was, I think, Vietnamese. Anyway, they left and his family were on a boat or something. They hit an atoll and half of them died or something. He went to some... He got, you know, adopted into some family, went to Manchester. He gets to City Bank. He's telling me this story. So I go to him one day, mate, what's your story? He sits in, I'm like, okay, mate, that is the most amazing story I've ever heard. I love a story like that.

50:11I love a, you know, a guy who's overcome loads, a guy or a girl.

50:18Kent Bray:So Gary's that guy. Ilford, public school, sold weed at school, gets expelled, goes to another school, gets into LSE, wins this trading game. he's telling me the story and I'm going mate you know like all respect to you champion all respect to you and I did what I did and also with the with that East End accent that you know he's got and also the way Gary dressed he dressed very he dressed down he's still Gary looks exactly the same still dresses exactly the same he stayed very genuine and very authentic in that regard and I thought, this kid, we've got to keep an eye out for this bloke because, you know, it wasn't as he painted, full of private school kids.

51:02Kent Bray:It's not full of private school kids. There's a lot of compassionate, caring people in City Bank. In my time at City Bank, I can't speak ill of the bank. Gary can't. I can't. Different experiences. That's okay. But when he got on the desk, I thought, you know, and super bright, super bright, you know. He was going, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind he was going to make it. I remember when he got given his first book, his recollection of that event, not for the first time. The book is an excellent book, highly recommended. I'm JB in the book. I told him. I reached out to him. I didn't know he was writing the book.

51:35Kent Bray:I reached out to him and we went and had a soft drink. And I told him I don't drink or drug anymore. And he said, well, what's that mean? I said, well, I went to rehab. He said, how come? I said, I was doing cocaine. He said, when? I said, when I was fucking sitting beside you. And he said, really? And I said, yeah. He said, can I put it in the book? I said, yeah, go for your life. I said, so I've got no problems about what he wrote in the book. I told him. So, and he was super bright, right? And I remember his recollection of how he got the Swiss book, which is a good book, Swiss Franks. His recollection is very, very different to mine.

52:07Kent Bray:He said that he put his hand up for it and they just gave it to him. Well, to some extent, that's true. They said, they came to me, one of the big bosses came to me, Jeff, flew over from New York. We're talking about some stuff. And he said, you've got a second. I said, yeah, he went to the office. He said, look, Gary, what do you think? I said, yeah, he's good. No problems. No problems at all. I said, this kid, he's good. Resilient, strength, intelligent, disseminates information. He's going to make... Yeah, he's good. He's good for us. He's going to be with us for a long time. He's going to make a lot of money.

52:36Kent Bray:He said, well, we're thinking about giving him the Swiss book. You got any reservations? I said, none whatsoever. None. I said, as long as my ass points to the ground, this bloke's going to be a successful trader. And he was. Well, for two years. He was there for two years. But Gary changed. You know, like by the end of it, our relationship had deteriorated quite dramatically. Gary, there's one theme of me as a team player. Whilst I loved getting Man of the Match awards and Player of the Year and all that because it really stoked my ego and what we call the therapy strokes, you know, I loved all that.

53:09Kent Bray:But he changed. And in the end, he sat, because he was in dispute with the bank, he sat on the end of the desk and like they're million dollar seats. You know, I get guys on LinkedIn. You know, I'm 20 years old. I'm 22 years old. How do I get a seat? How do I get a job? I've been out of the industry for a long time. I can't really help you. But you've been given a ticket to make a lot of money, a lot of money personally. And not everyone gets that. And I just thought he was very ungrateful, and he wasn't a team player. He just thought he wanted to leave the bank. There was some stock that he had to hang around, probably a million bucks.

53:49Kent Bray:million and a half maybe, of stock that he can't get a vest over each year for three years. And he wanted to leave the bank and he wanted his money. The bank said, no, there's a fucking contract here and we've got gold in handcuffs. And he said, well, no, well, fuck you, I'm going to down tools, not do anything. So think, some guys at Liverpool, he's on£100 ,000 a week and he's got the arse ache and he just sits there and does nothing. He says, right, I'm just going to sit there. And I just, you know, I'm a rugby player. You know, we all put in. I don't care colouring your skin, religion, beliefs, whatever, but we're a team.

54:21Kent Bray:We wear our colours and we stick together. We back each other. I've got your back, you've got my back. And when he did that, I just, you know, he fell out. Then I left the bank and he left the bank and then I reached out to him a number of years later and I went and saw him. And then I'm just going to lead into something which I've never, ever, ever spoken about before, but we're going deep today, so I'm just going to put it out there. Fuck it. and then people can make their own decisions so gary so i had whatsapp conversations with gary and the book was coming out and i said mate hope the book goes really well step nine of a 12-step program is making amends so i'm doing this program i'm in and i am making my amends and being a better person so i reach out to gary because i felt a bit bad about at the end i was a drug addict and i'm giving him a hard time i thought you know what, I need to look at my part to play in it.

55:16Kent Bray:Irrespective of what he's doing, that's his side of the street. I want to keep my side of the street clean. Rang him up, we go to a pub on the Thames, on the side of the Thames, and I told him all about my drug addiction, told him what I was doing, told me he was writing a book. And then we got back, you know, we got back as mates, you know, like, anyway, he called me boss, he gave boss, you know, I've got the book coming out soon, you want to come to the launch? I said, mate, love to. I'll come to the launch. And he said, great. As the time turned up, I had four or five clients that day. And I didn't want to, my commitment's to them.

55:49Kent Bray:You know what I mean? I didn't want to cancel it. So I said, mate, I can't come to the book launch. I said, mate, you should be proud of yourself or something like that. Like, really, really well done. I said, you know, I hope it really goes well. And I think I've got, I've got it here on my phone, but I think I said something like, because I checked it on the way coming in here. I've said, I hope the book goes well. I hope they make a movie out of it. I hope you make a ton of money. I wish you all the best, right? That same week, he's all over the news going, I was the most profitable trader globally at Citibank.

56:23Kent Bray:And I've got these WhatsApp messages saying, Gaz, mate, what are you talking about? I said, how would you know that? How would you know who was the most profitable trader in equities, which was the floor below? Treasury, which is about ten floors above. you know how would you know who the most profitable trader was in options in new york or something and he said i don't he said to my understanding i was the most profitable trader in fx lm in my understanding that's fx london so he's out in the media saying you know i was the most profitable and that was profitable trader city bank globally and that i just felt really uncomfortable because on the back of that that gave him sort of credibility to say hey i come from the low socio-economic sector of society i went and kicked ass in the city all those private school kids i was better than all of them you know what i mean it was presenting a sort of an image and a profile and his cause the issues he's raising are spot on but i just get really uncomfortable i suppose now that i'm a therapist the cows are talking about being genuine i say my clients listen no masks no role playing no acting we've got to be genuine here authentic truthful i'll tell you about all my defects of character my shortcomings but we're here to be better people sort of thing so um he's doing a documentary i wanted to be he and i got contacted by his production company saying gary wants to be on this documentary i said fantastic because let's want to have a chat to him so not so much be on the documentary i'm not really fussed about at that.

57:58Kent Bray:Although I would help with my profile to get clients to help people. And then it's all gone quiet. So I called him out on LinkedIn and said, Gaz, can we just have a chat before this documentary goes out? Because I'd just like to just clear the air on a couple of things, because I just don't think it's honest. Anyway, I've alluded to this in social media, and there's an old thing called the one-third rule. So think of a rugby coach, right? Or a or a football coach. One third of the squad loves you. One third of the squad hates you. One third of the squad's not sure. It's your truth, my truth and a real truth.

58:34Kent Bray:So when I put this stuff on LinkedIn, I say to people, does truth matter? People come back, yeah, truth really matters. Truth matters and it goes to your credibility and who you are. Other people have attacked me and said, look, you're just being pathetic. You're being pedantic. You're being trivial because it's the cause that matters. And I get that. i get that so um today i just sort of thought i'm just going to put it all out there and people can make up their own minds and now the only thing i'll say about gaz is three things third rule again one who is he well we know who he is has he been 100 truthful who he is no he hasn't been 100 truthful he's lied is his cause right he is highlighting a real problem which i totally agree with.

59:20Kent Bray:The wealth disparity is going to get worse. But then I think, but isn't that a function of capitalism? And isn't what Gary is doing just shows why the wealth discrepancy works? He writes a book. He's doing speaking engagements in Australia at the moment for $175 a head. He's doing meet and greets for$500 or something like that. And he's, and I think, good on you. Good on you. People want to come and see you. Fill out as many stadiums as you want or venues and write more books and Gary's economics, the YouTube thing's really good. But because he's being successful, he's going to get richer. And he's an example that the entrepreneurial, you guys, business guys, entrepreneurial guys, if you're good at stuff, you should be rewarded and you should get rich and be successful, great.

1:00:07Kent Bray:But not everyone's going to be like that. So that wealth divide's going to always be there and probably get worse. And the last thing is, I think the wealth tax will absolutely... If they do a wealth tax, this is just my opinion. And I'll tell you two things. Gary's more intelligent than me. I'll say that, honestly. I believe Gary's more intelligent than me. Second thing is, Gary would buy and sell me every day of the week on economics. I think his YouTube channel's good at educating people. I think a wealth tax would absolutely kill this country. I think the wealth migration would absolutely be devastating for this country.

1:00:47Kent Bray:and I'm saying to people, and one of the things I want to go in, I want this on record, and I'm saying on this podcast now, I could be completely wrong and I hope I'm wrong. They do a wealth tax and I'm wrong, I will, that's good. It'll be good if I'm wrong. My fear is that I'm right. And the wealth migration and the intellectual property migration will devastate this country because you're basically saying to, you're basically, what's the word I'm looking for? You're basically not rewarding success. You're penalising it. So if they put 1%, so Gary's saying anything over$10 million, 10 million quid, you could just pay a 1 % property tax or something like that.

1:01:32Kent Bray:And it's really a good idea economically. Makes sense, right? Conceptually, it's all wrong. It's saying to people, listen, I know you've been successful and you've done well, but we fucked up as a country and we've got a lot of people who need money and you're going to have to pay for it. I'll tell you something about millionaires, right? They don't like free handouts. And it's not that they're nasty people. It's not that they're bad people. But a lot of people, I think there's a perception that rich people just got given money. There's a lot of people out there who've made a ton of money who have worked their guts out, right?

1:02:03Kent Bray:They've been given nothing. So you go to them and say, listen, free handout? They're going to say, fuck off. That's the first thing. The second thing is if they can go to another environment which promotes, supports, creativity, entrepreneurship, business, you know, give grants and support and et cetera, et cetera, and there are those environments around the world, then people are going to leave the UK. So I personally think the wealth tax will destroy this country. And I think it goes back to that, you know, guys, I'm 61 years old. You get an intuitive feel about things. something that looks absolutely clear-cut at times is really, really be careful what you wish for.

1:02:47Kent Bray:You get this wrong, and also you open up that door of 1 % over 10 million, next month they go, well, we'll say 5%. We'll lower it down to 8 million. Once you open that door, and what message it sends to very, very successful business owners, entrepreneurial people is, we don't really value you that much, and you've got to pay for our shortcomings, a succession of governments. It's a horrible message. But listen, what do I know? Honestly, what do I know? I ended up, my best thinking got me into a rehab. So maybe you don't want to listen to me. I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. Wealth tax, if it comes in, I hope I'm wrong.

1:03:26Kent Bray:I've got a very, very strong feeling that I'm not. Kent, I've absolutely loved this conversation. There's so much to unpack. I feel like there might need to be a part two and maybe a part three and like we could focus on different sections of your life. I think you've overcome so much. There's loads of other paths. We typically ask at the end, if you had a question for the audience, what would that question be? I want to give you two questions. So for somebody that's listened to this episode, what's one question they should ask themselves? and I think based on what you just said there about like bringing your truth to the table with everything with Citibank and Gary, if Gary was listening to this episode, what's one question you would want him to ask himself now?

1:04:10Kent Bray:Okay, so the first one is, the question to the audience is, and I'll just preface it by saying this, one thing I've learned about life is, it's not a rehearsal, this is it. You get one shot and you don't know when it's going to end. It ended for my brother at 18. It ended for a really good mate of mine at 30. My father's still 90. He's all right. So my question is, what's your dream? What's your vision? What's your manifestation? What's your passion? Those questions, right? And then fucking go for it. Go for it. Because one thing you do not want, and trust me, at 61 years old, don't have any regrets do not die wandering you're better off trying something and failing than never trying it okay so to work out what you want crystallize what you want and if someone says to you you can't do it the question is why not and then once you've got that why not you then surround yourself with people and processes and systems right to ensure that you give yourself the best opportunity of realising that dream, manifestational vision.

1:05:24Kent Bray:Now, doing all that doesn't guarantee that you'll get it, but not doing it will guarantee that you'll never get it. So the question you've got to ask yourself is what do you want to do? To Gary, I'd ask him to question himself about the concept of all these, I would say that his cause is good, he's really, he's a very, very important voice. He's raising some really important things about society that needs to be addressed. I would ask him to ask himself, where does truth, honesty, transparency, being genuine and being authentic sit in amongst all of that? As opposed to where does the cause sit versus things like your truth about your story?

1:06:14Kent Bray:Is there a business element to this? Et cetera, et cetera. But be honest. The person you've got to be honest with, I don't have to be honest with you. I don't have to be honest with you. I don't have to be honest with fucking anyone. I've got to be honest with the guy in the mirror. That's the guy. That's the guy I've got to go to bed with every night. That's the guy who sits in my head. And I think Gary, I'd like him to address that. Kent, thank you so much. If people want to work with you, if they want to find with you, if they want to come and do some of the great work that you're doing, how can they find you?

1:06:45Kent Bray:Yeah, so, yeah, just Google. just google um i'm on there's a number of podcasts um this one will be the best yeah without a shadow of a doubt dodge woodall one i did with dodge was very very good um yeah but there's a number of podcasts i have a website kentbray counseling and mentoring but if you just google put my name in uh check there's stuff on youtube there's stuff on spot spotify there's plenty of stuff out there and as i said like my you know when i got clean sober i set two goals One, to be the best father I could be to my two children. Not to be the father of the year, not anything like that, but just to be present and available to my children.

1:07:22Kent Bray:And second thing is just to help people, just to help people who are stuck, leaning in the breeze, don't know who to talk to. Give me a call. Let's do some more. Amazing. Thank you so, so much, Kent. Pleasure. Thanks, Zach. Thanks, Jack.