Hitting rock bottom: How I went from drug addict to top Bitcoin podcaster - with Peter McCormack of What Bitcoin Did - Change Work Life

Episode Transcript
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Jeremy Cline (00:00):
How do you go from absolute rock bottom to being
one of the biggest influences inyour space, as well as owning
your own football team? That'swhat we're going to find out in
this week's interview. And justso you know, we do cover a few
pretty dark topics, we talkabout drug addiction and drug

(00:20):
abuse, so if those are topicsthat you may find difficult to
listen to, I just want to giveyou a warning that that's some
of the things that we talkabout, but we also cover a lot
of other really, really amazingstuff. So, I hope you enjoy this
episode. I'm Jeremy Cline, andthis is Change Work Life.
Hello, and welcome to ChangeWork Life, the podcast where
we're all about beating theSunday evening blues and

(00:43):
enjoying Mondays again. If youwant to know how you can enjoy a
more satisfying and fulfillingworking life, you're in the
right place. Long-time listenerswill know that, over the past
couple of years, I've started tobecome very interested in the
crypto space and Bitcoin inparticular. Well, my guest this

(01:05):
week can claim credit for asignificant part of my
education, not just on Bitcoin,but on economics, the energy
market and freedom of speech.
Peter McCormack is the host ofthe What Bitcoin Did podcast, a
twice-weekly show where heinterviews experts in the world
of Bitcoin development, privacy,investment and adoption. He's

(01:26):
also the owner of Real BedfordFootball Club, which at the time
of recording has recentlycelebrated promotion to the
Spartan South Midlands FootballLeague Premier Division. How did
Peter get to where he is now?
That's what we're going to findout in this conversation. Peter,

(01:47):
welcome to Change Work Life.

Peter McCormack (01:49):
Jeremy, how are you?

I'm very well, thanks. Great to have you on.
So, Real Bedford are now in theninth tier of English football.
So, eight tiers below thePremier League. With the backing
of Bitcoin and assuming you canget all the investment that
you'd like, what are yourambitions, what are you
targeting for the club, andwhat's your timeline?

Yes, a great, great first question. And
there's a lot to unpack there.
Ultimately, I want to create asuccessful football team in my
town, which leads to a number ofbenefits, one being economic
inflow, people visiting thetown, spending money here, that
leads to success for thebusinesses here, but also leads
to more opportunities for peopleto get out and play sports,

(02:33):
whether that's men, women, boys,girls, people with disabilities.
And we're certainly well on theway of that journey, I mean,
we're one year in, and as longas I can tell you about what
we've achieved so far, but to dothat, you need to have a
successful team. It's hard to dothat without some form of
success. So, the starting pointis what is the goal for the

(02:53):
team. Ultimately, I set the mostridiculous target, that I would
like to get Real Bedford in thePremier League, which anyone
involved in football has laughedat me for, completely laughed me
out the building for. But thereason I said that target is
because, in anything I do, I setthe highest target possible. And
if you come short, you comeshort. But in setting the

(03:13):
Premier League as a target, wehave to have pretty solidified
plans over the course of thenext decade or two to consider
that even a reality. And so,just to give you the perspective
on that, whatever we do, whetherit's our ground, our programme,
our photography, our socialmedia, we set up benchmark as

(03:36):
what are Liverpool, Man City,Arsenal doing. And then, we say,
'How close can we get?' So,talking about our ground, we
can't get there. There's nothingwe can do. We are a tiny,
grassroots, non-league footballteam. But when we put our
programme together, we don'tlook at our competitor set in
our division or the divisionabove. We look at the Liverpool

(03:56):
programme, the Man Cityprogramme, and say, 'Well, how
close can we get to that?'Again, we will come short, but
how close can we get? When we doour player photography, again,
we will look at their photos andsay, 'How close can we get?'
When we consider how theyintegrate ladies football into
what they do, again, we see howclose we can get. There is a
more short-term target, which isto get into the Football League.

(04:18):
We were six promotions away whenI took over, we've done the
first one. So, essentially,we're five promotions away from
the Football League. And thereason that's a big and
important goal is that you're inthe professional leagues then,
and that opens up a whole rangeof different avenues for revenue
and opportunities for football.
But momentum drives a lot ofthis, and success drives a lot

(04:39):
of this, and so, everything Iwant to do, and everything I
want to happen with my town ison the back of those lofty

I absolutely love that attitude of how close can
goals.
we get now, thinking what'spossible. It reminds me of a
chap I follow who was saying, heputs out an email asking what he
could do to enjoy a billionairelifestyle. So, he's not a
billionaire, he's not going todo private jets and that sort of

(05:08):
thing. But he kind of figured,well, a billionaire might get a
chauffeur to the airport. Well,I can't do that. But I can get a
private hire cab, rather thanrelying on public transport, for
example. And that's kind of themindset, the how close you can
get. So, I think that's a greatlesson for people, always think
what can you do now to get youthere. The dinner party

(05:30):
question, someone asks you,'Peter, what do you do for a
living?' What do you say tothem?

That's funny you should ask that. Because I
always really struggled with it.
Because I do so many differentthings. I operate a podcast, I
make documentaries, I run afootball club, I invest, and I
own a bar. It's a real broadrange of things. And the things
I want to get into next, I'dlike to open up a pizza
restaurant and things like that.

(05:56):
So, it's a really hard question,and sometimes I tailor it to
somebody, if I know they'reprobably more interested in the
podcast side of things, I say,well, I'm a journalist of sorts,
I make a podcast, and I makedocumentaries. But it's a
question I really struggle toanswer. Which I'm kind of glad

(06:16):
about, because it means that Iget to do a lot of different
things. But I guess the bestanswer I could give is, I'm an
entrepreneur, I'm a businessman.
And that really then encompasseseverything I do, which is to
build and grow businesses.

Going back to your early career, you've got a quite
an amusing description on yourLinkedIn profile, when you
describe university, course wasrubbish, dropped out to write
HTML for failed.com. Tell me abit more about that.

Yeah, so I really wanted to work in the
music industry as a kid. When Iwas about 15, I set up a
fanzine, a little music magazinefor heavy metal. I did four
issues, and it was really cool,because I got to interview
bands, and once you get thefirst issue done, and you send
out to the record companies, itopens up avenues. So, I got to
interview some pretty coolpeople, I interviewed Korn,

(07:08):
Slayer, Pantera, Biohazard, alot of cool hard rock, heavy
metal bands from my childhood,and the record companies would
send me the CDs to do reviews.
And it was a really cool thingto be doing at 15 years old. And
that made me want to work in themusic industry, two of the
record companies that would sendme CDs and get me the interviews
allowed me to do work experienceat East West records and

(07:29):
Roadrunner Records. And I lovedit. And I was like, okay, this
is for me, I want to work in themusic industry. And so, I
remember I was at school, and Iwas in my sixth form, and there
was this computer programmewhere you answer a bunch of
questions, it tells you whatcourses you should do. Mine came
as music industry management,and there was only one place
that did it was back inChildren's University. So, I
assumed it was the best choicefor me, and I applied and went

(07:51):
to the uni. And I think Irealised within the first week,
it was a waste of time. And Idefinitely knew within a month
that it's a waste of time. Theproblem with these very specific
university degrees, that peoplecall Mickey Mouse degrees, where
they're basically designedaround a specific industry, is
actually the standard ofeducation, I felt, was a massive

(08:16):
drop down from A levels. I foundA levels very hard. I found them
a massive drop down. And I got avery quick lesson in the right
way to do things, in that one ofthe lads who was on the course
with me, a friend called Tony,he quit within about two or
three months, and just went andgot a job at a record company.
And so, by the third year, wheneverybody was graduating, he had

(08:39):
three years' experience, and hewas just three years ahead of
everybody else. He was out thereworking in the music industry.
And that was an important lessonto me that nothing beats
experience. You cannot teachexperience. And I've got a very
firm view on this now, unlessyou're studying something where

(09:00):
you need the education, maybeit's accountancy or law or
medicine, most of the universityis actually a bit of a scam,
because essentially, unlessyou've got very wealthy parents,
you're essentially racking up abunch of debt to not learn how
to work in the workplace. And tothe point whereby I've got very
good connection with the schoolI went to, and one of the

(09:23):
teachers approached once, hesaid, 'Look, I've got this lad,
he's really interesting, he's areally, really smart lad, and
he's thinking of going touniversity. But he's not sure.'
And he wanted to work inadvertising, and he came to see
me, I said, 'Listen, lad, if youwork for me for three years,
you're going to get paid, you'renot going to rack up any debt,
and you will be more employablethan anyone who's done a

(09:44):
university degree.' And listen,he did, and he joined us, and
that thesis proved right. Andso, anyway, so I'm going on a
bit of a tangent here, but thepoint was, it became very clear
to me at university thatuniversity wasn't for me, so I
decided to start my fanzineagain. But the internet was just
starting to become a thing. Andso, rather than pay someone to

(10:04):
build a website because Icouldn't afford it, I learned
HTML. And then, the weird set ofevents, at the end of my second
year, my brother turned up at myhouse at university, and my
sister had just been knockeddown by a police car, she was in
a coma. And so, I ended upmissing a bunch of uni. And so,
I deferred my third year, butI've been learning HTML, and

(10:26):
what happened was, I put my nameup on this forum, saying I'm an
HTML coder, this dot-com got intouch called ecountries.com, and
they said, 'Look, we need HTMLcoders now, can you start
Monday?' And I was like yeah,and they said, 'Okay. The only
problem is we can only afford topay you 900 pound a week.' Bare
in mind, I was working at acarpentry shop, I was probably
getting about three pound anhour. And I was not making much

(10:48):
money, obviously, snapped theirarm off, I went there, worked
there for two weeks, and thenbuilt a website for my landlord
for 400 pound that took me abouta day, and then built one for a
recruitment agency, and Iremember this, for 2500 pounds,
and that took me a couple ofweeks, and then I got another
contract being paid 1000 poundsa week. So, I very quickly
learned how to code HTML and gotpaid very well. And I didn't

(11:10):
even finish my degree. My dadwasn't happy about this. Because
I said, 'Dad, I'm quitting.'He's like, 'What are you doing?!
You have this to fall back on.'I was like, 'Dad, I'm done. I'm
earning good money.' And yeah,we had a big, big row about it.
But yeah, that was my journeyinto the career which became an
advertising career and reallyhighlighted me the waste of time
that university is for mostpeople, waste of time and money.

(11:31):
Look, if either of my kids cameto me said, 'Dad, I want to go
to uni, I'm just going to do myfirst year, I want it for the
social life', that's fine,because they're being honest.
And they should do that, becausethat is fun. But if one of them
came to me and said, 'Dad, Iwant to work in marketing, I
want to do a marketing degree',I'll be like, you're financing
that yourself, I'm not payingfor this, because it is a waste
of money.

Yeah, I'm still very much on the fence when it
comes to university. So, I'vegot a daughter, she's 10 years
off when we're going to have tostart thinking about this, but I
had a great time at university,and I wouldn't have traded it
for not going there. But on theother hand, I mean, I'm a lawyer
by background, so I've beendoing it for 20 years, and I did

(12:15):
a law degree, and I probably useabout 5 to 10% of my degree in
terms of what I do now. Becausethe content is, it's an academic
subject, it doesn't set you upfor being a lawyer, it sets you
up for being, well, I mean, ifyou wanted to take it further,
you could be a legal academic,you could go and work in a
university, but you absolutelydon't need a law degree to be a

(12:37):
lawyer. So, I'm very much kindof, yeah, I don't know about
university. I'm undecided aboutit.

Did a law degree set you up with a
framework for understanding thelaw and understanding legal
arguments?

It trains your mind, it definitely helps you to
think more logically, morerationally. You can approach
things with a much more reasonedmindset. But I don't think that
a law degree exclusively helpsyou do that. So, I mean, for my

(13:10):
A levels, one of them I did wascomputing, I also did maths A
level, and I've actually found,particularly when it comes to
drafting documents, thatcomputing and maths has probably
helped as much as anything else.
Because it's like the logic,like when you're writing code,
you need the definitions, andeverything needs to kind of flow
from that, so I've actuallyfound that that's been almost as

(13:33):
equally helpful as doing a law

Well, I blame, I think it was the Tony Blair
degree.
Labour government thatessentially destroyed, I think,
started the destruction of theuniversity system, because they
set out with a noble goal oftrying to get as many people the
opportunity to go to universityas possible, get it away from
being like this elitistopportunity, but the truth is,

(14:00):
what it did is it got rid of thefree education part of it, it
got rid of the free universityplaces, I was the last year when
it was actually free, they gotrid of that, and so therefore,
it's opened up more people to goto university, but more people
are getting into quite difficultdebt to pay off, because it's a
lot of money to pay off at theend of it. And I personally
believe a lot more should havebeen invested in work experience

(14:21):
or apprenticeships. I mean,look, I talked to you about that
young lad who wants to do amarketing degree, and we gave
him a job, and for the first, Ithink, six months, we paid him
12,000 pounds a year, then18,000 pounds a year, but he was
a great find for us. And I sayto anyone now, if you're
thinking of going to university,again, you want to work in

(14:42):
marketing, you're going to go touniversity and get a lot of
debt, but if you really want togo and work in marketing, go
around to any local marketingagency and say, 'Give me a job.
I will work with you. I willwork for you for free for six
months, I will work my absolutehardest, I will be in there
every day, I'll do every job youask me, but just after six
months, if I've done a good job,you'll give me a job', then I

(15:05):
think you'll have people snapyour arm off for it, because
you've got someone who'senthusiastic, who wants to work
in an industry, and there'slittle, there's still a cost to
the company, but there's littleto no costs. And so, I don't
know, I'm just, I think theother thing, the other problem
with university now is the wholeeducation system, not just
university, even schooling, isvery, very archaic. I have a

(15:28):
13-year-old daughter, I mean,I'm using ChatGPT nearly on a
daily basis for work, becauseit's useful, and it saves me
time. I have got no idea in fiveyears' time how much AI is going
to have changed things, but Ithink it's very clear and very
obvious AI has changed things.
This isn't a fad. This is veryclear change to the way we work
and the tools available to us.

(15:50):
The kind of jobs she's going towant to go for might be
eradicated by then. And so, itmakes me now look at what she's
doing at school, and I justthink this is so archaic. Why
are we sending these kids to sitin a room and memorise facts?
Why? I mean, she even said to methis morning, she said, 'Dad,
why do I have to do French?'It's always good to learn
another language. She said, 'ButI've got Google Translate.' And

(16:11):
I was like, yeah, no, Iunderstand, but like, it is
very, it's good to be able tonaturally speak a language.
She's like, 'Yeah, but I haveGoogle Translate.' And it's not
the fact that she's right orwrong, it's the fact that she
realises she has these tools.
She knows she has asupercomputer in her pocket that
can answer any question,translate anything or find any
information for her. I think weshould be spending a lot more
time now on problem solving,critical thinking and a

(16:32):
different skill set. Now, that'sannoying, because it's not
measurable for governments, andgovernments want league tables,
so they can use those forpropaganda for election time.
But I don't know, look, if mydaughter came to me and said,
'Dad, I want to quit schooltomorrow', and I said, 'What are
you going to do?', and she said,'I'm just going to learn stuff
that I want to learn. I wouldreally back her.

It's a really interesting approach. And it
would be possible as well, Imean, just the amount of free
content, high-quality contentout there, it's absolutely
incredible. Just going back toyour story, so you talked about
basically being hired to writeall these websites for people,
how did that then translate tostarting your own agency? What

(17:13):
sort of agency was it? Was itdesigning websites?

After I finished the contracting, I got
offered a chance to build awebsite as a project for a
company, and it was a decentsized one, I can't remember the
price, it was for a company thatused to do picture framing. And
so, I decided to set up acompany to do that. And that
company did okay, and I becamefriends with another local
company in Bedford. My companywas me and some contractors,

(17:39):
like a freelance designer, acouple of freelance developers,
but this company had 15employees. And so, the CEO of
them said, 'Look, can you comeand work for us? I'll buy your
company, and I'll make you thecommercial director.' And I was
like, great, a lump of moneycame with that, which enabled me
to buy a house, so I took thaton, and I became the managing

(18:01):
director of that company, it'scalled Evolving Media. And then,
after that, I was there for afew years, I decided I wanted to
go out on my own and actuallyown my own agency, so I quit
that agency, I went contractedin London within a big
advertising agency, and I toldthe CEO I was going to set up my
own agency. So, he said, 'Well,base yourself here, and I'll
finance it', which was great.
And that was McCormack Morrison,so my old account director at

(18:24):
Evolving Media, Oliver, joinedme, Oliver Morrison. We ran that
agency for eight years, we grewit to, I think our peak 35
full-time staff and a centralLondon Soho office, just
approaching three millionturnover, which wasn't bad. We
got approached, someone wantedto buy it, and we should have
sold, it was a big mistake. Andthat was up until about, Gosh,

(18:45):
that was, funnily enough, abouta decade ago, before everything
fell apart.

How did owning your own business compared to
working for someone else?

I mean, I would, I'm stuttering here,
because I don't want to give ananswer for everyone, because
this stuff is very personal. Iam unemployable. Because I
always want the top job, I wantto be in charge of running
things. So, if you employ me,I'm coming for your job. I want
to make you retire yourself. So,I'm just unemployable. And so,

(19:18):
for me, running my own businesswas perfect, because I got to do
things as I want. I'messentially a corporate tyrant,
because I want to be in control.
But also, the bigger point ofthis is that, when you're in
charge, you reap the benefits ofwhat you create. Whereas, yes,
like the old saying, you eithertake risks, or you work for
somebody who take risks. And Iwant to be the risk taker. And

(19:40):
so, even when I went to EvolvingMedia, and I was given a job as
commercial director, I thinkwithin two years I was the CEO,
because that CEO, I wanted tomake him retire from that
position, he did, and he wasgrateful. But it's not for
everyone. I mean, you make a lotof sacrifices running a
business. You make a lot of timesacrifices, you make sacrifices

(20:00):
with your family. Sometimes youmake health sacrifices, which I
have done, I haven't lookedafter my body in the way I
should have some time. But also,you do reap the benefits. But
some people do not suitoperating a business. I had
somebody reached out to merecently, and he said he's
thinking of starting a business,and he wanted my help. And I
didn't have the heart to tellhim, but I knew he wouldn't be

(20:22):
suited to it. I knew it wouldn'twork. Some people need to be
guided, and that's fine. That'sokay. You can have a very
successful or happy careerworking for somebody else. That
said, if you want to work foryourself, you don't have to
build a company of multiplepeople. There's plenty of
incredible one-person

There is a book out there, I think it's called
businesses.
Company of One, where it'sexactly about that, how you
don't necessarily have to startemploying people and build this
multimillion-pound turnoverbusiness. You alluded to
something about it going wrong.
What happened?

Yeah, so if we go back to 2013, I got married
to the mother of my children,and sadly, that marriage
collapsed within three months ofthe marriage, I won't get into
the details, I've talked aboutit before, it doesn't really
matter now. But it was a verydifficult thing to go through, a
failing marriage, a breakup ofyour family. And I didn't cope

(21:19):
with it well, I developed anunhealthy cocaine addiction and
a rather unhealthy drinkinghabit. I stopped going to work,
couldn't get out of bed, Istarted suffering from chronic
anxiety. And the company startedto fail because of that. Yeah,
multiple reasons, but mainlybecause of that, because I

(21:39):
wasn't there, and I wasn'tfocused. And it culminated with
me ending up in a hospital aftera massive cocaine binge, and not
in a good place psychologically,emotionally. And so, I quit the
agency and handed it over toOllie, he's carried on and been
very successful since. And Ilost nearly everything, I mean,
I think in the space of a year,I got divorced, my company

(22:02):
failed, and I nearly lost myhouse. Yeah, it was really rough
time. And then, my mom was alsovery sick with cancer. And so, I
had about a year period where Iquit work to focus on recovery
from drugs, spending time withmy mom and figuring out what I
was going to do with my life.
And you know, it's a verystrange one, because losing a

(22:23):
parent is terrible, losing aparent to cancer is terrible,
but at the same time, I had thatfocus, I would go over to
Ireland, go and see my mom, gorunning every day, and I had
that period away from workstress, just to kind of fix my
life, which had reached rockbottom. I mean, there's shameful

(22:44):
stories I could tell you aboutthe absolute state I got myself
in, home alone, late at night,doing drugs, feeling like I'm
about to die, and getting in andout of the shower, trying to
calm down, shaking with panic,taking drugs to feel normal.
That's when you know you're anaddict, you stop taking to feel

(23:04):
high, you just have a low, andevery line you take, it's just
to get to normal. But I'm glad Iwent through it all, because I
did go to the rock bottom, theworst possible places you can go
in life, and fortunately, got torebuild it all.

If this was the subject of the podcast, I'd be
fascinated to go into more ofthat and what recovery looks
like. But instead, what I'd liketo turn to is, when you're at a
stage of recovery, you're goingback up again, what's work,

(23:43):
what's business look like atthat point?

I will add one comment to that thing, even
though you said it's not thesubject of the podcast, just in
case it resonated with anyonethat feels rock bottom or
something isn't right, I'm justgoing to say one thing. My
brother used to phone me everyday, checking on me, and he used
to say, 'Things will getbetter.' And they do in time.

I'm very much involved in the Smart Passive
So, that's the only thing I justwant to add to that, in case
anyone is going through a roughtime. There is no work at that
point. Honestly, at that point,I am running every day. That's
all I'm doing. I am waking up,lacing up my trainers and going
out to run five, ten miles, evena half marathon, listen to
podcasts, and not think aboutanything other than just health

(24:28):
and happiness. That's all Iwould do. I would run, I would
go to the gym, and whateverclass is on, I would do it, I
didn't care whether it was aspin class or pilates with a
bunch of old ladies, whateverclass it was, I just kept myself
busy. And I cooked every mealfrom fresh food, I was a vegan
at the time, I went vegan. Andall I did was focus on myself.
Income ecosystem. So, yeah, Iknow it very well.

(24:49):
Getting back into work waspurely a weird set of
coincidences that led to mehaving a podcast. So, I went
vegan because my mom had cancer,and she went vegan. And then, I
bought a new car. And the car,it was a first car I had where
my phone would connect to thestereo, and one of my friends
said, 'Oh, you should get intopodcasts.' I was like, alright,

(25:10):
cool. I've never listened to apodcast. I went home, and I
Googled top 10 podcasts, and Idiscovered one. I think on the
top of the list was Rich Roll,the Rich Roll podcast. And he
was a vegan ultra athlete. I waslike, that's cool. I'm kind of
vegan at the moment. And I'mrunning. So, I just started
listening to his podcast while Iwas out running. And then, I

(25:31):
Googled him again, and I foundout he was doing this retreat in

So, yeah, I watched that, I went on to
Italy. It was a yoga retreat.
And so, I phoned up, and theyhad one place left, and I was
like, right, screw it, I'm meantto be on this. I booked the
flight, went out there and spenta week doing yoga and running
with 40 other people. And at theend of it, Rich said to me,
'Well done. I hope you've got alot out of this week. If you're

(25:53):
ever in LA, look me up.' And I'massuming he probably said that
to everyone. But I went back,and I was like, 'God, I'd like
his lifestyle.' I don't want togo back to building a big
company with 40-50 people, I'vehad my go at that, it's
draining. And so, I basicallybooked a flight to LA, I called
Rich, I said, 'I'm here.' He metme, I went up to his house, and

(26:15):
I said, 'Listen, I want to dowhat you do. How do you do it?
Tell me how you do it.' And hesaid, 'Right. Two things. Here's
the equipment you need. No,three things. You need a topic.
Here's the equipment you need.
And go and watch this course.'And it was on online course by
Smart Passive Income about howto be a podcaster. You've

(26:37):
probably seen it.
Amazon, I bought all theequipment, I bought a Zoom H6,
two Shure SM7B mics, a couple ofmic stands and the cables. They
got delivered to my friend'shouse I was staying at within

(26:57):
the next two days. I was intoBitcoin at the time, I messaged
a guy called Luke Martin, whowas also in LA, I said, 'Listen,
I'm going to start a podcast.
Can we interview you?' He saidyeah, two days later, I made my
first show. And that was comingup to six years ago. It was just
a weird set of coincidences. Somany things could have not
happened, and it didn't happen.
I could have not bought that newcar at that point. I could have

(27:19):
not asked my friend aboutpodcasting, sorry, about my car
and about podcasting, I couldhave not gone to Italy, it was
just a pure, weird set of eventsthat led to this happening.

You say that, but the going to LA to meet Rich and
asking him that, I mean, that isvery deliberate, that's
absolutely not coincidence. Imean, that's something that
everyone should do if you seesomeone who does something that
you want to do, go and ask themhow they do it, because that's
just priceless.

Yeah. And I don't know where my life would
be if I hadn't done that. ButI've always felt like I would
always be successful, and theagency I built, it did really
well, 35 people in a CentralLondon office is pretty good.
And if I hadn't done a podcast,I would have done something
else. The football team I'vebought, we just won the league,
I think there's a quite a simpleformula to being successful in a
business, and I think I canapply that to almost any

(28:11):
business, as long as thefundamentals of the industry are
fine, then I think I will alwaysbe successful. And I don't say
that in an arrogant way. I justwork really hard, and I just
think I know the formula forbeing successful at business.
So, if it hadn't beenpodcasting, it'd be something
else. There's an old famousadvert with Muhammad Ali, he
said, 'If I hadn't been a boxer,and I would have been a bin man,

(28:33):
I would have been the best binman, I would empty more bins
than anyone', and it's kind offunny, but he's got a point.
With the right skill sets andthe right hard work, most people
can be successful. There's nopoint looking at the world with
envy and thinking I wish I coulddo that. Just go and do it.

I want to unpack a bit of that, but first of all,
when does Bitcoin feature, howdoes this become something that
you're, A, interested in, and B,something that you decide that's
what you're going to podcastabout?

So, when my mom had cancer, we wanted to treat
her with cannabis oil, and theonly way I knew how to get
cannabis oil was on the darkweb, and I needed Bitcoin. So, I
talked to my dad about it, hetransferred me the money, I
Googled where to buy Bitcoin, upcame Coinbase, we bought
whatever amount of Bitcoin is weneeded, we got the cannabis oil,
sadly, it was too late, and mompassed away, but I was still

(29:23):
left with a little bit ofBitcoin. So, I was like, 'Oh,
what's going on with thisthing?' And I think at the time,
Coinbase also had Ethereum, so Istarted looking at blockchain
and Bitcoin and thinking, okay,this looks like an interesting,
new technical revolution, itfeels early, it feels like a
good time to get into this.
Again, just a weird set ofcoincidences. And I first
started by trading, so that wasearly 2017, I was just trading,

(29:46):
and I hit the market. I timed itright, I mean, I think I bought
for 600 dollars, by I thinkFebruary, it would have gone
over 1,000 dollars, and byOctober that year, I think we're
at 20,000 dollars. I got verylucky in the timing, rode it all
the way up and most of the waydown, but it was towards the end
of that year, obviously, Istarted the podcast, which was

(30:07):
fortunate, because I wasn't madeto be a trader.

So, why start a podcast about it, rather than
just being in it for the ride?

Well, I wanted to do the podcast. As I said, I
liked that lifestyle. I likedthe lifestyle Richie told me, he
would fly to places andinterview people and go home. I
was like, this sounds like thebest job ever. I mean, outside
of playing up front for Englandor guitar in Metallica, if
you're going into the world ofnormal jobs, getting on the
plane, meeting reallyinteresting, intelligent people,

(30:39):
talking with them for two hoursand getting paid for it sounds
brilliant. I mean, what betterjob could you get? And I had to
pick a subject, and at the time,Bitcoin was what I was
interested in, it was new, itjust felt like a good
opportunity, there weren't manypodcasts. I mean, Laura Shin had
Unchained, which was the biggestshow at the time, but it felt

(30:59):
like there was an opportunity.
So, I just went for that.

So, you started the podcast with the explicit
intention that it wasn't justgoing to be a hobby, this was
going to be your business, thiswas going to be your means of
living?

I hoped it would be. Yeah, I hoped. Did I
think it would become what it'sbecome? God, no. I didn't think
I would have millions of peoplelistening and getting recognised
on the street or in an elevatorin New York, I didn't think I'd
interview presidents ofcountries. All that's come off
the back of it, I cannot believehow lucky I've been, and I'm

(31:35):
really humbled by it, butthere's no way that was the
plan. The plan was, will peoplelisten to this, and can I make
enough money to survive on this,that was all it was. It's just
become so much more than that.

Clearly, you did more than hope. So, I can see
definitely that your timing wasgreat in terms of finding a
niche which wasn't particularlywell served at the time. And
maybe six years ago, podcastinghadn't quite exploded in the way
that it has in the past fewyears. I mean, I know as a

(32:09):
podcaster myself, I startedthree odd years ago, and trying
to get an audience from thatbase is a challenge. But there's
got to be more to it than that.
So, I mean, what were some ofthe things that you did, to
which you can attribute thesuccess of the podcast?

I think the things I did are applicable to
any business. So, you can takemy podcast, my football team,
and my bar as my three primarybusinesses, and the reasons that
they work are pretty much allthe same. The first thing is, I
work really, really hard. So,I'm not the smartest person in
the world, but I can outworkanyone. And I would say, most

(32:48):
days, I'm up between five andsix, I'm working 12 to 14 hour
days, most days, and I'll workweekends, and I don't take all
the holidays. So, I will outworkany competition, or at least
match them. And so, you got tothink, if I'm up, it's five,
let's say if I started worktoday at five o'clock, by nine

(33:09):
o'clock, I've done half a day'swork for a normal person that
does an eight-hour day. Ifsomebody starts work at nine,
I've done four hours more thanthem. So, I'm four hours ahead
of them. Now, again, this is notsuited for everyone, there are
sacrifices for that. I'm not atthe gym at seven in the morning,
I've made sacrifices with howmuch I see of my children
because of that. But that's oneside, hard work is an edge. If

(33:33):
you can outwork yourcompetitors, that gives you a
real edge. Secondly, having abasis of understanding branding,
sales and marketing is reallyimportant. It doesn't matter
whether you're a fan of it ornot, there is a reality in the
world, people buy into brands,and marketing achieves reach. As
I haven't worked in theadvertising industry, the
digital industry, I'm able toput together a brand and a

(33:56):
website and a marketing planwithin hours. I mean, if you're
going to look at my bar, I builtthat website in three hours.
It's a nice-looking website.
What Bitcoin Did website is avery good website. The Real
Bedford website is as good assome teams in the Football
League. And that gives you areal advantage. But to really
win, again, this is applicableto any business, if the industry
you're going into is a viableindustry, so you've not invented

(34:20):
some new industry, again,football club, bar, podcast, if
you know that's a viableindustry, there is money to be
made, all you have to do is lookat what the competition is
doing, how can you do better.
And so, with the podcast, I waslike, well, I have to be a good
host, because that's one of thekey points. So, what is the

(34:42):
product? The product is aninterview, and there's two parts
to the interview. There's thehost being a good host and
having good guests. That's theproduct. Okay, so can I become a
good interviewer, and I'll haveto work at that, and then, can I
hustle the best guests? Okay,once I've done that, how else do
I beat the competition? I've gotto get as many people listening
as possible. So, I've got to begood at marketing. You take that

(35:03):
same analysis to the footballteam, it's like, what is the
product? It's football. Well,how do we create a good product?
We have to play entertainingfootball and win. Okay, great.
That means we're better thaneveryone else. But how do we
win? Well, we also have to domarketing to get people in. So,
you give me a business, all I'mgoing to do is, I'm going to
break that business down to itskey components of success. Now,

(35:25):
if it's a bar, how many peoplecome, how good is the
experience, how do we let peopleknow? I just break down all the
components of that business andsay, how do we do that better
than anyone else? And so, that'swhy I think some entrepreneurs
start to, it's almost likeseeing The Matrix, they can look
at any business and go, 'How doI make that a success?' It
doesn't matter whether it's arecord company, a pizza

(35:48):
restaurant, an art gallery,whatever the business is, they
are able to isolate what are thethings that make that successful
and how do we improve it.

Does hard work feel like hard work to you?

Sometimes, yeah, I'm getting older. I've
got a different way of answeringthat. My worst job ever was
hammering, putting handles onumbrellas. I used to work in a
factory when I was about 16. Itwas a rubbish job, all day long,
eight hours a day, puttinghandles on umbrellas. I hated
it. I watched the clock all daylong. That is rubbish. The best

(36:22):
jobs in the world are the oneswhere you don't watch a clock.
And so many people have hadjobs, I bet you've had jobs
where you've watched the clock,ah, six hours to go, ah, five
hours. I mean, it's sad thatpeople have to live their lives
with such nonsense. The bestjobs in the world are ones we
don't watch the clock. But thatdoesn't mean that hard work
doesn't feel like hard work.
When I go on one of my journeys,my trips for work, my next one,

(36:44):
I got to fly to Nashville, bethere for five days and record
two podcasts a day, I will haveto do some social events in the
evenings, and then fly toAustin, I'm there for three
days, two nights, where I'llmake six shows. Then, I get an
overnight flight to Argentina,seven days, I'm making a film,
so I'm filming all day, then Ifly back to the UK overnight, so
I can come back and watch ourlast preseason friendly of my

(37:05):
football club. That does feellike hard work. It is tiring.
Now, you feel it at the end ofit. But there's different ways
of feeling hard work. There'sfeeling tired, and there's
feeling stressful. And they'retwo different things. Hard work,
which is stressful, that's aproblem. Hard work, which is
tiring, that's a sacrifice.

And in your case, hard work is largely conducting
these amazing interviews withpeople, which presumably, it
seems clear to me, butpresumably, you absolutely love
doing it.

I do. I do. But I am starting to slow down,
Jeremy. I'm not rich by anystretch of the imagination, but
I'm comfortable. And I can talkabout that as well, if you want
to know my views on money andwealth and the myth of being
rich. But what I would say isthat I'm now starting to slow
down, I'm 44. What I want to doin life is changing. I'm very

(38:02):
focused now on my community inBedford and what I can do for
the people here. And so,travelling out to America for
two weeks to make 20 podcasts,which used to be my sole focus,
is now not my sole focus. Mysole focus is how do I do more
for my community, and so whatrole does the podcast play in

(38:24):
that. And it is a changingdynamic I'm starting to deal
with right now.

How do you think that could play out?

It's a good question. In terms of what? What
happens to my town, or whathappens to me personally?

What happens to you and your business interests?
So, for example, do you cut thecadence of the podcast from
twice weekly to once a week? Doyou do more remote interviews
rather than in-person? I mean, Iknow from your own podcasts that
you always prefer to doin-person, but do you even call

(39:00):
it a day on the podcast?

I mean, I wouldn't do the podcast forever,
so at some point, I will call ita day. And I think the way it
plays out is, I don't think toomuch changes in terms of the
content topics over the next twoto four years. But I think,
increasingly, I will conduct theinterviews from the UK. And so,
we've done a couple of testswhere we go up to the US and do

(39:22):
the sprints, we've now starteddoing them in the UK, and people
come to us for the interviews,and then as your profile
increases, you can do that more.
There's certain guests I'llnever get to, Michael Saylor is
not going to fly to the UK tocome on my podcast.

Michael Saylor in Bedford, that would be

Yeah, it's just not going to happen, but people
brilliant.
will fly to Rogan, because he'sthe number one. So, I think,
over time, I'll gradually havepeople fly here more, so I
travel less, and therefore I canoperate it from here, but also,
you hope with Bitcoin thatBitcoin becomes so boring,
people don't really discuss itanymore, it's just thing that

(40:00):
exists. It's a bit weird tolisten to a podcast about gold,
I think. And the mostinteresting thing about Bitcoin
isn't really Bitcoin itself,it's the impact of Bitcoin. It's
those topics. So, eventually,the podcast might just evolve
into being the Peter McCormackShow, rather than the What
Bitcoin Did. And I'd be okaywith that, because that means

(40:21):
Bitcoin has done its job, I'vedone my job, and I can
increasingly focus on othertopics that interest me,
activism, charitable work. Yeah,hopefully, I'll have enough
money that I can just focus onwhat I want to do, and if that
happens, and I can be based inBedford, then what I'd like to
do is grow businesses andbusiness opportunities in
Bedford and grow opportunitiesfor the people who live in my

(40:44):
town.

One of the things about podcasting in particular
is, it has a pretty low barrierto entry, which is both a good
thing and a bad thing. It's goodthat anyone can get started, but
it's a bad thing, it means thatanyone can get started. So, just
to give people an idea as towhat making a living, making a
business out of podcasting lookslike, can you go into that? I

(41:09):
mean, what is the businessmodel? What is the economics?
How does it work?

Yeah, I mean, look, there are multiple revenue
streams you can get frompodcasting. The primary one is
to sell advertising on it. Andthat's usually done on some kind
of CPM model. So, say you've gota 25-dollar CPM, for every 1000
listeners, you get about $25. Idon't operate that model, I have
a fixed price, and the reason Ihave a fixed price is I say to
my sponsors, if we're on a CPM,I'm incentivised to only go

(41:39):
after certain types of guests,certain types of topics, to
drive the listeners up, butactually, what we want is a
broad range of listeners. Andwhilst we want Michael Saylor
one week or Jack Dorsey, thenext week, we might want to hear
from some activist inAfghanistan, who's helping women
to build with Bitcoin. Andthat's not going to have as high
listeners, but it's an importantsubject. So, I go on a fixed

(42:02):
price. But essentially, you haveto get to a critical mass of
listeners, and then findsponsors who want to sponsor it.
But there are secondary incomes.
Some people operate, say aPatreon, and have their podcast
behind a paywall. And you canpay a subscription, you don't
have advertisers. We do liveevents, people come out and
watch us do a live show off theback of it. What I would say,
though, I'm fortunate that I canmake an income off this, and

(42:26):
there's six people who work onthe show full time now, we have
six employees, not many peopleget to that point. There's a lot
of podcasts out there, andgetting to that point where
you're going to make money offit is hard. I mean, I don't
think I took a check for thefirst 18 months, and I think I
gave my first three advertiserslots away for free, so other

(42:47):
people would realise I've gotsponsorship opportunity. And I
got very lucky in that I pickedthe right topic at the right
time, which saw a lot of growth.
I would almost say to anyone, donot send out creating a podcast
to make an income off of it,because that will skew your
incentives. Set out to make apodcast that you want to listen

(43:10):
to, which covers what you'reinterested in, which shows your
authenticity and yourpersonality as a person, and if
it's successful, then you willmake money of it. But if you set
out to make money, it's going tobe very hard. It's not like if I
open a shop, it's passingtraffic, I'm definitely going to
do this. There's a lot ofcompetition out there, and it's

(43:30):
very hard work, and it takes alot of time. I mean, God, the
first few months or a year, whenyou put out shows, you're like,
'God, my audiences have grown,or it's dropping.' It's hard
work. You've got to berelentless, year after year,
delivering constantly,consistently, high quality, it's

(43:51):
hard.

This is a conversation I wish I had had
about four years ago when I wasfirst thinking, okay, I'm going
to start a podcast. Because,yeah, all that is true and so
much more.

But Jeremy, there are other weird reasons to
start a podcast. I don't knowabout you, but it's really
changed me as a person. I'vebecome a lot more grounded,
empathetic, a better listener,I've become better educated.
Yeah, you can get so much out ofbeing a podcaster beyond the
financial returns.

You and I would not have met if I hadn't had a
podcast. And I'm delighted thatI've had this opportunity.
Because I've been following youfor a few years, and now we get
to speak, which would not havehappened if I hadn't had a
podcast. So, yeah, I completelyagree. It's understanding what
podcasting can do for you, andwhen I started, and I was seeing

(44:42):
people like John Lee Dumasmaking a fortune making a
podcast every day, and Ithought, yeah, I could do that,
and then I've realised, yeah,you need something quite special
to do that. You've alreadytalked about the challenges of
the work ethic, the travelling,that kind of thing. What else
have been particular challengesthat have come with the success

(45:03):
of the podcast?

Online abuse, that's a challenge. I get a lot.
I get a lot. I had a backsurgery a couple of years ago,
and I had stopped running. And Iwas, obviously, in a fine
balance of my diet and exercise,whereby my weight was okay, but
when I stopped running, and mydiet's the same, I've put weight
on. I mean, I must have been ona stone and a half in the last

(45:27):
two years. And to regularly becalled fat, fat loser, fatty, on
Twitter, on YouTube, people saydon't be a snowflake, I mean,
it's just constant relentlessattacks and abuse, and it's not
fun. It's not fun to see. Andthat's just a sliver, you get
all other kinds of abuse. Andeven if I can handle it, which I

(45:51):
can mainly, my kids may see it.
There is a reality that my kidsGoogle me, or they go on to my
YouTube, and they see thecomments, and they see the
abuse. And so, I have to explainit to them that these people are
just losers. False accusationsmade about you, you're a
scammer, you're a thief. It'srelentless. It's something you
aren't prepared for. You go outthere to create this podcast,

(46:18):
because you want to createcontent, maybe create a
business, and you don't expectall this torrent of abuse that
comes. Death threats, threats ofviolence, weirdos turning up at
my house, online trollingturning into personal trolling
in person, where somebody triedto start a fight with me in
front of my son. That's one ofthe hardest bits. Sadly, we live

(46:39):
in a world of a lot of peoplewho are very angry, who've got
social issues, have got mentalhealth issues, and they use
other people as an escape forthat. That's not been fun. I'd
say that's the main downside,and most of it is really upside.
You take that away, and it's theperfect job.

And I think you're right, it was crossing my mind
that the sphere in which youoperate kind of is, that's part
of it. I mean, crypto Twitter isnotorious for being quite
shouty. But having said that,lots of other people who operate
in completely different spacesface the same abuse. And yeah,

(47:26):
you're right, people just wantto take to Twitter and shout at
people.

Yeah, Twitter, Instagram. I mean, look, we've
got England footballers, blackEngland footballers, they will
post Instagram stories orInstagram posts about games they
played, and I've got no doubt,if you go under there and read
the comments, there's going tobe a torrent of racist abuse.
Social media, sadly, hasweaponised mental illness,

(47:51):
weaponised stupidity andweaponised insecurities. It's
elevated the worstcharacteristics of some people
who aren't in control of theiremotions and aren't
particularly, I'd say, aren'tparticularly well balanced
people. And so, I wouldn't justblame Bitcoin Twitter, I think

(48:11):
this is a general social issue,that we have not come to terms
with as a species, we haveessentially given billions of
people a platform to rant andabuse and shout, and yeah, it's
not great. It turns me off alot. But I've developed a thick

(48:33):
skin for it. I don't like theabuse, but I've developed a
thick skin for it. Other peoplewon't. I mean, God knows, I'm so
glad I didn't have it as a kid,because God knows the abuse that
kids are getting or are giveneach other. It's not good. I
think social media is like anytechnology, there's good and
bad. Social media has done somuch for us. I think the Twitter

(48:56):
in the Arab Spring was a realrevelation in terms of getting
access to immediate,on-the-ground information. But
we have all these other issuesthat come with it. Bitcoin,
itself, there's so manybenefits, but there's some
downsides to it. Any tool can bea weapon depend on how you point
it.

When I look at that, people using Twitter as a
platform to abuse people, itoccurs to me that people focus
on personal freedoms and freedomof speech and that kind of
thing, but I think we've lostpersonal responsibility, people
being responsible for theiractions and thinking, okay, yes,

(49:34):
I may have the freedom to dothis, but does that necessarily
make it the right thing to do?
So, anyway.

Yeah, and look, I agree, I'm a proponent of free
speech, I absolutely think theUK Government should have
something similar to the FirstAmendment in America. We should
have free speech. As soon as youcriminalise speech, you
weaponise speech for the elites.
And that's not a good thing. Butat the same time, some of the

(50:03):
biggest proponents of freespeech say some of the most
stupid stuff. And great, you'vegot your free speech, great,
you've proven that you can useyour free speech, but where's
the intelligent discourse thesedays? You just go on Twitter,
this last 24 or 48 hours, we'veseen Rogan trying to arrange a
debate between the doctor, DrHotez I think his name is, and

(50:27):
RFK. It would be a veryfascinating debate, I would love
to hear that happen. The doctorhas declined it, and the amount
of abuse he's received ishorrendous. Just go in the
comments. And then, I've seen avideo, some guy turned up at his
house harassing him. I mean,this is just not behaviour that
I think is conducive to acivilised society. I'm sure

(50:49):
people disagree with me andshout at me for holding those
opinions, but I just don't seedirectionally the world going in
a good way at the moment withregards to discourse, debate,
disagreements. And I'm not surehow we turn the corner on that.

I feel the need to lighten the mood a little bit.
So, let's talk about thefootball club. How did you
decide that what you wanted todo was buy a football club, and
this was going to be thefootball club that you were

Yeah, well, this is something I've wanted to
going to buy?
do since I was a kid. I told mydad as a kid that I wanted to
buy Bedford. I'm from Bedford,we don't have a team in the
Football League, we've never hada team in the Football League, I
think we're the largest town inthe country without a team in
the Football League, if not, oneof the largest. So, I as a kid
supported Liverpool, they werethe big team at the time, hours

(51:44):
away and never got to watch themmuch and never really had that
thing where I had that passionfor my local side. I'd always
said I wanted to do it, butthere's wanting to do it and
having the ability to do it andwin. I didn't want just to have
a local team and float aroundwhichever division we're in. If
I wanted to buy Bedford, Iwanted to get them in the
Football League and besuccessful. And I just didn't

(52:06):
know how to do it, because Ididn't have the money, it's
expensive, football. And it wasonly about two years ago, I just
thought, hold on a second. Justa second. Bitcoin is a cheat
code. Bitcoiners around theworld, whether you agree or
disagree, are still on the sameteam, right? And so, if there's
a Bitcoin football team, thatwill be the team that the
Bitcoiners adopt, it'll be ourteam. And so, that would give us

(52:28):
an opportunity to grow asuccessful team. But you have to
be the first one. There can onlybe one Bitcoin team, if another
one comes along and does it, youmight have some interest, but
we're the original. So, once Irealised it, and then I kind of
thought about the math ofrunning a business like this,
well, local football teams, theyhave a couple of primary sources
of revenue, how many peoplelocally come into the ground and

(52:51):
buy a ticket and buy a pint or aburger, and how many local
sponsors sponsor them. Well,that's a limited revenue model,
in that you're limited to yourlocal community, how successful
you are and how successful thebusinesses are and what they can
afford. If you're the Bitcointeam, you've essentially got a
global audience, becauseBitcoiners all around the world
will care about this team. Andtherefore, you've got access to

(53:13):
global sponsors who want to talkto those people. And so, you've
also got people who will travelfurther afield to come and watch
them. So, instantly, you've justgot a competitive advantage. So,
I just put together a plan. Iwas like, okay, this is how
we're going to do it, this isthe team we're going to be, this
is how we're going to brand it,this how we're going to market
it. And it's worked. I mean,look, I'm in a fortunate

(53:36):
position, I know the companiesbecause of the podcast, but I
went to them all and said, 'Thisis my plan. Will you sponsor
me?' And I got yes, yes, yes,yes, yes. So, instantly, we have
very good sponsorship numbers. Iactually did want to buy our
neighbours, Bedford Town, whowere three divisions above us,
but they turned me down. So, webought the smaller team next
door, Bedford FC, and rebrandedthem. We're now a division

(53:58):
apart. But yeah, so I've justbuilt this plan, and so far,
it's worked. Our crowds are up,we sell a lot of merch, we've
got international sponsors,we've got a growing following,
we stream the games online,people watch it. And one thing I
will say, though, Jeremy, is Ithink a lot of people didn't get
it, I still think there arepeople who don't get it, but
more are starting to get it, Ithink there are people listening

(54:21):
to my podcast that think, 'Iwish you would shut up about
football. I don't care.' But Ithink what they're missing is,
they should care about this forthe same reason they care about
El Zonte and El Salvador, inthat, that is a Bitcoin project.
Stop thinking of this as afootball club. Think of it as a
Bitcoin project. Don't worryabout the fact that you don't
like watching football. Thinkabout the fact that every month

(54:43):
we have a meetup where up to 100people come and learn about
Bitcoin. Think about the factthat every time this team wins,
is successful, and they'rewritten about the press, whether
it's the BBC or local press,they mention Bitcoin. This is
just a Bitcoin project, and youdon't have to like football to
like it. I mean, people maketheir pilgrimage to go El Zonte
to check out the Bitcoin sort oftown. People are now making the

(55:05):
pilgrimage to come to Bedford tocheck out the Bitcoin team. And
so, I think, as we continue tobe successful, it will start to
click more and more for people.

What's been for you the most surprising thing
about owning a football club?

Good question.
Surprising thing. How much workthere is to do, it is
unbelievable, there's nobusiness also like a football
team. Okay, so my podcast, themath is simple. If I do a good
interview, and I have goodguests, I'm going to get good
downloads. With the footballteam, I can do everything
perfectly, we can have the bestplayers, we have the best

(55:41):
manager, we have the best pitch,they can go out, and it just
doesn't click that day, or areferee decision goes wrong, or
a player does something stupidand gets sent off, and you lose.
And you lose. And so, it's thisunique business where you do
everything to give yourself thebest opportunity to win, but
it's completely out of yourhands for that 90 minutes of the

(56:02):
game. It's in the hands of theplayers and the match officials.
That's who it comes down to. Andso, that is a unique surprising
thing, and that's what makes itso much fun, so exciting, so
stressful. But that wassurprising. Not surprising. Is
it surprising? I don't know, Inever really thought about it,

(56:23):
but I'm aware of it now. Butyeah, the amount of work you
have to do, the amount ofadministrative work, all the
different things in terms oflooking after the ground, the
marketing, doing programmes onmatch days, paying match
officials, feeding players,sorting kits out, equipment now,
washing kits. I mean, you see myto-do lists on my football team,
it is endless. Endless things to

There's an absolute tonne more stuff that
do.
I'd like to ask you, but I'mconscious of time. So, let me
ask you this. You've interviewedpresidents, you've interviewed
US senators, Tongan nobles,you've had Michael Saylor, the
founder of a half billion dollarNASDAQ listed company on your
podcast giving your son careersadvice. Do you ever look back

(57:07):
and think how on Earth did allthis happen?

Yeah, it's funny you should say that. When
I did the interview withPresident Bukele, the first time
I interviewed him, I didn'treally think about it too much
in advance, in that I was justfocused on the interview, how
best to do the interview. So, Iwent out to El Salvador, met
with him, did the interview. Ihad sciatica at the time, and my

(57:32):
back was in a bad way. So, Iupgraded my flight on the way
home to business class. Whichwas pricey, but I had to do,
because I could not sit down, Ineeded a lay flat bed. Anyway, I
got on that plane, it had beensuch a whirlwind during that
interview, I put my bag up, wetook off, I laid my bed down, I
just laid back and went, 'Wow!That's mad!' I mean, from going

(57:58):
to a yoga retreat, off the backof a Google search, and then
heading out to LA because youkind of got a semi invite, to
starting that podcast, doingthat first show, to four and a
half years later, I sat downwith the president of a country.
I mean, a president of a countryand interviewing, and being
credible, considered credible todo that interview. Honestly, I

(58:21):
was like, 'Wow, I cannot believethis has all happened.' And
since then, I now have afootball team that has just won
a league and cup double, andwe're going for another
promotion, and I'm getting to doso much more. And to give the
listeners something to thinkabout, I am not an intelligent

(58:43):
person. I'm a hard worker, butI'm not particularly
intelligent. I know how to worksmart, I'm willing to pick up
the phone and ask for things,I'm willing to graft. And I've
managed to turn a terriblesituation where I was a rock
bottom drug addict, about tolose my house, going bankrupt,

(59:03):
suffering from chronic anxiety,unable to get out of bed, to be
able to have the absolute giftof being able to travel the
world, interview some smartpeople, and own my local
football team and give stuffback to my community, what I
would say is, whatever you wantto do, you can probably go and

(59:24):
do it. All right, if you want towin the 100 metres, you need a
natural talent. You're not goingto go and win an Olympic gold,
and maybe yeah, maybe it's inyou. But whatever you think you
want to do, or you want to makeof your life, you can go and do
it. You just got to go and doit. You know, I'm overweight, I
need to lose weight, and I'venever dealt with that. I just
need to wake up one day and go,I'm going to stop eating crap,

(59:45):
or sorry, I'm going to stopeating junk all day every day.
And I'm going to get down thegym. And I've not been great at
that. But maybe you're good atthat. But if you want to start a
business or do something, you'vejust got to do it. Just go and
do it. Because you will beamazed how things can turn out.
Especially if you're willing toask for things, if you're
willing to pick up the phone andphone somebody and say, like

(01:00:08):
you, drop me an email, 'Peter,can we have this interview?' And
I say yes. You've just got to goout there and ask and do the
work, and you can createwhatever you want to create.

Jeremy Cline (01:00:18):
Awesome.
Absolutely awesome advice.
Peter, I always ask my gueststhis, along the way, what has
particularly helped you, books,podcasts, people, what resource
could you give people that, ifthey're interested, they could
start with something?

Peter McCormack (01:00:35):
Yeah, I mean, there's so many things I could
answer with this, and a lot ofobvious ones, but I'm going to
throw out a bit of a curveballout there. When I had my digital
agency, I did a lot of the UXwork. And there's a really
brilliant book called Don't MakeMe Think by Steve Krug. And so,
he talks you through when you'redesigning a website, every time

(01:00:58):
you make somebody have to think,you might lose them. So, a
perfect example was, you designthe website, and the Buy Now
button is below the fold.
They're looking at the productthey want to buy, and they can't
see a Buy Now button, they mightleave that web page. So, you've
got to make sure it's above thefold. Or if you give two buttons
which aren't clear which onedoes which, again, you've had to
make them think. So, the idea ofdesigning a website is to take

(01:01:20):
people from what they want to doto the end, from the start to
the end, with as little frictionas possible. And that kind of
thesis of don't make me think isapplicable to a lot of other
things. So, in terms of mypodcast, it's a Bitcoin podcast.
I'm kind of known as the guywho's willing to ask the most

(01:01:42):
basic questions. But that's theDon't Make Me Think attitude.
So, I say there's three types ofpodcasts, interview podcasts,
there is a smart person and asmart person, smart person and a
moron, and a moron and moron.
So, I think my show is a smartperson and a moron. So, I have
the super smart people come on,and whenever they ask me

(01:02:04):
something, which I don'timmediately understand, I always
say, 'Can you explain that tome? Explain it like I'm five.
Just talk me through that.'Sometimes I know the answer, but
I know the listener might not,and I get them to do it. And
I've consistently done that, andthat's worked out well for me,
because people that listen saythank you, because you're asking
the questions I want answered.
And so, you then take that toany business I do. In the back

(01:02:26):
of my mind, wherever I thinkthere's friction for the
business, I try and eliminatethat friction. So, I can take
that to my bar. I bought thisbar, right? Some nights, it's
super busy, it can be three-fourpeople deep, queuing to get a
drink. And what I was doing, Iwas watching the staff. And
they're taking the drinksorders, and then they go into
the till, which they share, andbetween them, they've taken

(01:02:50):
turns to put it in. And so, allI did is replace that with
handheld POS, so each one's gottheir own handheld, and so
they're plugging in the order asthey take it from the customer,
and then the person scanned itthere and then. That is just an
applicable part of Don't Make MeThink.

Fantastic. If people want to find you, follow
you, where would you like themto go?

Well, you can listen to my podcast, it's
called What Bitcoin Did. You canget that at whatbitcoindid.com.
If you want to follow myfootball team, it's called Real
Bedford, it's like Real Madridbut in Bedford, and that's at
realbetford.com. You'll find anyof those on social media, and if
you want to find me on socialmedia, it's @PeterMcCormack. DMs
are open, and I try and reply toanyone, just don't send any
weird stuff.

Peter, I'll put links to all of those in the
show notes for this episode.
Good luck for next season withReal Bedford, and thank you so
much for coming on the show.

I thank you for having me. And hopefully, we'll
get you to a game.

Okay, hope you enjoyed that interview with
Peter McCormack of the WhatBitcoin Did podcast. Now, it's
unusual in this section for meto challenge any of what my
guests said. But I do feel it'snecessary just to perhaps add a
slight nuance on to what Peterwas saying. Peter said that

(01:04:03):
anyone can do anything. And hesaid, yeah, there might be
things that perhaps you can'tdo, like running 100 metres to
competition standard, becauseyou need certain natural talents
and gifts to do that. But asidefrom that, his advice was that
you can do pretty much anything.
And I don't disagree with that.

(01:04:24):
I think that most people do haveit within them to do almost
anything. The bit I'm going toadd is that it's an awful lot
easier if what you do and whatyou'd want to do plays to the
things which you're already goodat and what you enjoy doing.
What struck me from thisinterview was two gifts in

(01:04:46):
particular, which Peter has,which sets him apart and enables
him to do what he does. One isthat he clearly has a real
interest, indeed a fascinationinto what makes a successful
business. He talked about how hecould look at almost any
business and figure out what'srequired to make it a success.

(01:05:08):
Not everyone is going to havethat interest. And that's fine.
But the fact that it issomething which really interests
Peter is something which hasenabled him to do what he's
doing, especially once you addin his experience of branding,
sales and marketing. The othersuperpower of Peter's that I'd
like to highlight is his abilityto understand the knowledge of

(01:05:30):
his audience and ask questionson his own podcast that he is
pretty sure his audience isgoing to want answering. Peter
has a lot of extremely technicalknowledge about Bitcoin, way,
way beyond my understanding, butI really appreciate it when he
asks his guests on his podcastto explain a technical topic,

(01:05:50):
knowing that the listeners don'talways have the level of
understanding that he has. So,all this is to say that, in my
view, anyway, Peter has becomethe success that he has by
leveraging those particularsuperpowers, those particular
interests, those particularthings that he's really good at,
in order to achieve success. Andif you want to achieve success

(01:06:14):
for whatever success looks likefor you, simply copying the
template isn't necessarily goingto work. Sure, there are
business principles that youcould probably apply. But if
whatever you set out to do doesnot resonate with you, does not
align with you, then you'regoing to find it a much greater
struggle. And we were talkingabout what hard work looks like,

(01:06:38):
it's going to feel like hardwork, it's going to feel like
something that makes you groanand go, 'This is just not for
me.' So, if you take anythingfrom this interview, I hope it's
the inspiration to take a lookinside yourself and find out
what are your own superpowers. Ihave a couple of exercises on my
website, which I know many ofyou will have heard me mentioned

(01:07:00):
before, that if you haven'ttried them, you can find them at
changeworklife.com/happy, that'schangeworklife.com/happy. It's a
couple of exercises, the firstone of which really begins to
draw out your superpowers byidentifying those things in your
career history that you'vereally enjoyed doing. So, do
check out those exercises whichyou'll find at

(01:07:22):
changeworklife.com/happy, andsee how you get on. I've decided
this year that I'm going to takea little bit of a summer break.
So, I don't plan to publish anynew episodes during the month of
August, but I am going to tryand put out some of my archive
episodes that particularly, ifyou've not been listening from
the start, you may be unaware ofand may not have heard. So, make

(01:07:45):
sure you stay subscribed to pickup those archived episodes. And
then, there will be new episodescoming your way from September.
So, as always, make sure you aresubscribed to the show, and I
can't wait to see you next time.
Cheers. Bye.

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Hitting rock bottom: How I went from drug addict to top Bitcoin podcaster - with Peter McCormack of What Bitcoin Did

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Hitting rock bottom: How I went from drug addict to top Bitcoin podcaster - with Peter McCormack of What Bitcoin Did