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i like a really good life and i have a very good life
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i knew i was a bit different as well though you know you felt different i did feel different i was doing
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tv shows radio shows i had my own collection i had the business oh god how [ __ ] is
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that life and i lost me in that there wasn't times where it wasn't fantastic there was but where was i i
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didn't stop to breathe we've really [ __ ] this planet for you guys
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we were blind we're blind consumers living in life while we slowly killed the planet and our
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well-being so it has to be you guys that don't know my mother died when i was very suddenly
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of um encephalitis when i was 16 and she was the center of you know the
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world and i had to grow up very quickly and all that misbehavior
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went into sort of responsibility this is this is really painful yet somehow i i wasn't
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able to express it [Music]
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mary portis you may know her from the high street you may know her from business or you may know her from her
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books but the experience i had with her today is honestly incredible she is hilarious
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she is smart she's witty and she is willing to be honest at all costs and that
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really speaks to one of the central principles she'll talk about today which is this idea of the importance of
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being true to yourself she's made the mistake that 99 of people that are listening to this are
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going to make are currently making or are in the process of overcoming which is living a life that isn't true
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to who you actually are and today she's also going to tell you about an idea that will be fairly radical to some people
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especially people who are building and have built big businesses which is based on her new book rebuild
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how to thrive in the new kindness economy she has achieved things that most people
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in business would never even dream of she's been a media star she's been a political figure at times
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and through it all through the hardest of times through grief through trauma through broken marriages
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through public scrutiny in the press she has emerged as an incredibly outspoken
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honest humble intellectually challenging and stimulating humorous inspiration leader entrepreneur
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and public figure i laughed i realized and i was deeply inspired and you will be too so without
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further ado i'm stephen bartlett and this is the diary of a ceo i hope nobody's listening
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but if you are then please keep this to
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yourself mary um you're a very stand-out person
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with a very stand-up personality and you've managed to achieve some pretty remarkable things in your life and
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from a place of curiosity that always makes me wonder what it is that made you different and i like to always start with people's
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childhoods and their upbringings because i tend to believe that that's the most influential part of their life typically
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so is there anything from your um younger years that you think has been defining in the person you went on to become
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um i well of course i think that that probably is the case um i was one of five kids but i was the
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fourth out of five um and uh we were my parents were
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irish had come over in their late 50s from ireland my father was a protestant
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my mother was a catholic so you know from belfast from the north of it um of ireland so this wasn't
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you know they they uh this was the time when that wasn't looked on too happily so they came over and chose
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watford to live in [Music] it could have been dagenham but they chose watford those were the two options
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and um i'm kind of proud george michael elton john so we're we're kind of and a good football team
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but i think um i think looking back on my childhood my my older siblings we often talk about this we're very very
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close it's sort of a two-year one-year gap between us all and i was the fourth and i remember
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vividly thinking i'm not the eldest i'm not the youngest i'm not the first girl and i didn't feel particularly special
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but so i was very um naughty as a child you know just spent a
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lot of time up to pranks and trying to find my voice i think really
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very loving household um my father was very high highly strong hard-working
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and my mother was a poetical musical and was pushed us academically put us
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all through the grammar school system i remember my sister coming home from school and saying i'm number two
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in the class i looked at the register and my mother said and who was number one
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so i think that gives you a sort of uh taste of what what life is like but um we're very close and um but my mother
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died when i was very suddenly of um encephalitis when i was 16. and she was the center of you know the
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world and um just by the the place where i was in the
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family my eldest siblings my elder brother michael was at university and my
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sister was just about to go and work um go training at uch
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and my other brother was hairdressing and so i ended up looking after being the one at home
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and looking after my younger brother and i had to grow up very quickly and
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all that misbehavior went into sort of responsibility
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that's what i think happened anyway i mean you know and i i just took on the role of the
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the i wouldn't say parent because i was not very good at that at all
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but the one who managed stuff at home and even when my elder siblings then came back
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and to this day you know it's mary's house that we meet at or really yeah it's really interesting
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because i'm i'm the youngest of four and i feel like i took on that role where i feel like i had
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because my parents were absent by the time i was 10. why were they absent my mom just decided that i think she
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decided that she'd raised all of the kids already you know like yeah it's almost like they've i've done my my work as a parent all my brothers and
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sisters were older than me so she would then just sleep at her shop because she was getting burgled a lot at
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her shop getting lots of like racial attacks on her shop so she would literally go and sleep in the back room after after work
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wake up work go sleep in the back room but she had a 10 year old at home yeah and so i just learned this huge i
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had this huge void of independence i became super naughty breaking into my school yeah all sorts of stuff i set far to mine
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that was by accident i thought i could do a little bonfire on the wooden steps but yeah oh my god the
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nuns i was looked the passing of your parents
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[Music] at a young age how does that impact you
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well mine sort of went from from uh you know this terrible traumatic my mother was the central figure um this sort of fiery
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redhead who just was the backbone and i don't look back in hindsight i go oh amazing but
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she was i was just about baked just about baked you know she'd i'd had enough
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of love and time from her at 16 i think my younger brother laurence at 14 that was terribly difficult so you at 10 i'm
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with you i can feel that that that's that's that's a very lonely place for a young boy
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um but my father remarried within a year i used to come home from
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school and he'd be crying you know and uh and i was actually then finding
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lawrence and i were managing his grief with these young kids really you know
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and he remarried very quickly and um and then he died of a heart attack nine months after
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getting married but in doing so left the family home to the new wife of nine months so we
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were all out on our own really after that and that i think i look back now
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i look back now and i didn't look back for a long while didn't look back at all but i look back now and i see
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that i was in grief for about four years i mean i used to walk to school crying
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and then just get on the bus and smile it's grief but i don't you know somehow i suppressed that and um put it
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into a life that i never dreamt i'd have that's for sure from that
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did you ever get help with that grief never i remember the headmistress
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saying you know if you ever want to come and talk and the headmistress was a nun called sister saint james who was you know this wonderful
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actually i really really liked her she was pretty scared by most standards but i really liked her
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um but that was it i wasn't good against hitting the headmistresses office and have a sob
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especially with a nun and have to beat my chest and say about 10 hail marys
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so i didn't know i don't think any of us did this was the late 70s i didn't remember it's funny
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like last night i um i got a little eight-year-old and he's into elvis presley for whatever and i put on some youtube and we were
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dancing to elvis presley he was trying to do the little movements and i said he said elvis died didn't he mummy in
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1977 yes the year my mum died so my mum died in the july and elvis in the orgs and i
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remember everybody grieving elvis and i was going no and i couldn't get on this i was like what
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and everyone's like elvis has died the headline so i'm just thinking no my mom's died this is this is really painful yet
00:09:52
somehow i i wasn't able to express her
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the grief for those four years how did how did that impact you um thereafter and also not processing
00:10:05
that grief well i think i had a lot of anger yeah i
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mean my temper was very quick i don't have that now i've done a lot of work on it it's called meditation really
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yeah and also being able to come to a place of acceptance and and having techniques on but i think
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i had a lot of anger i mean my father would you know
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was very quick tempered um but then with five kids running around screaming the house i think i would have been
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so i think that was there um and i i don't know i just i think what i
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did was i just kept going blindly i mean i didn't have any any goal or any vision it wasn't like oh i'm
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going to show them i just kept going and i think what i did was ignored the deep sensitivity the deep
00:10:58
me i think i ignored that so i believed i was this naughty going fast quick-tempered
00:11:06
individual actually i'm not i'm really soft i wasn't that but i didn't know that for
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a long long time was that a was that sort of exterior the
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slightly tougher exterior some form of emotional reaction or defense from something do you think
00:11:24
because if that wasn't who you were wondering where that must have came from well i think it was a part of my
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personality my behavior but i think i i believe that that was me
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and i believed that that was going to be part of my success you know being quick-witted i mean fiery doing things fast
00:11:42
which is you know being a part of my work but i think i didn't ever discover the deeper sensitivities and there were
00:11:49
times when i felt vulnerable and there's times i felt lost and i wanted to be understood and it was like oh it's mary
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and you'd go well no because everybody judged you on that it went weirdly even i think the persona
00:12:01
that i had on tv with the orange bob was that and people would edit me to that and i would often think but i
00:12:08
spent so much time behind the scenes sitting with those shopkeepers holding their hands or talking to them but
00:12:14
nobody wants nobody wanted to see that they wanted to go and actually yeah it deeply there was
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another part of me that wasn't expressed you talk about this um step mother
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i wouldn't even call her that really what would you call her the woman my father married i mean i i i
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again i i think about that and i'm i'm talking with my children on this and um
00:12:40
and when i had to write my memoir you had to go back on this and and i just cannot understand anybody
00:12:47
not looking after children who are grieving for their parents i can't imagine you know being with anybody or me
00:12:55
marrying anybody i mean i was married a second time to a woman and she took on my children i can't
00:13:00
imagine anybody doing what she did i just it doesn't fathom in my head
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here's a woman who had a child the same age as my younger brother who left us
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homeless left you homeless well my father left her our family home we were 19 and 16.
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we had no home we had nowhere to live and she didn't let you live there oh she
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sold it she took it nine months of being married to my father after 25 years of marriage in a
00:13:29
family home that he built are you still resentful about that yeah
00:13:35
no were you at the time no that's another thing i don't feel resent i don't know all we wanted
00:13:43
was for dad to be buried with mum because you know we were brought up catholics and when mum died and she was a deep
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catholic um they we booked the plot so that dad they have the plot so he can be buried
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on the same ground and she didn't want that so we had to bring the family priest and go and see her
00:14:01
and we got that in the end and i no i didn't ever ever feel a dot of resentment
00:14:08
do you carry those feelings resentment regret yeah bridges i just genuinely don't
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regret a thing my life's been extraordinary i had
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extraordinary amounts of pain extraordinary heights and it's been colorful and one that i
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would never have predicted when you think about the pain think of the moments of the greatest pain in your life what are those moments
00:14:32
um undoubtedly my mother dying that that um where you wake up and it's
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it's like something's on your chest that was and i remember it was sunny
00:14:44
sunny hot i i didn't like the summer for years it was july hot
00:14:50
july the late 70s that summer when it was boiling hot and i just associated that and i used to
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love when it became automotive cold you could go indoors and hide it felt like a security
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to me and everybody was out playing tennis and walking and happy and somewhere and you just this heavy
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black pain deep inside you um and both separations i've been
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you know uh in two big relationships where i've been married and that that when you split up a family and i'm
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a family person when you have to sit and go okay how do i do this how do i do this how do i sit with you
00:15:30
my children and say you know this little life you've got this is moving on that was those i
00:15:36
actually remember you know lying awake three nights on the road not sleeping
00:15:42
a dot and getting up there must be so much adrenaline in my body i mean i don't know
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i lost about a stone in weight and i'm pretty slim i remember putting on my trousers dropped below my hips oh my god
00:15:54
that sort of stress and pain but you have to keep going because you are responsible
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for these children that's what i wanted to ask you about is having been through so much stress and pain which is just this
00:16:06
unavoidable part of the human experience you can't avoid it right yeah if you try and avoid it you probably end up with
00:16:12
more um rumi talks about the bruises the poet sufi perk roaming the bruises and how we
00:16:18
learn from those bruises tell me about that well he's just one of my great i've discovered him um a 13th century
00:16:27
sufi mystic and he talks about the bruises that we hit and how they repair but that's how we
00:16:33
grow what have you what have you learned about how to cope with unexpected [ __ ] and pain that life
00:16:40
throws at you because you know you never see it coming i mean a lot of people have had it over the last 12 months right
00:16:45
last 18 months with the pandemic couldn't have seen that coming lots of people's businesses just smashed to pieces they've lost loved ones
00:16:53
how does one cope with that kind of like grief whether it's a
00:16:59
professional grief or a you know um the grief of a lost loved
00:17:04
one or the grief of a lost relationship is there anything you've learned over the course of your life where you think that's probably
00:17:11
the best or only approach well there is the wonderful line of this too shall pass and it does
00:17:18
[Music] for me i have found great great resolve from some of the great
00:17:26
teachings and the philosophers who i have read for a long time now probably about 15 20
00:17:33
years and and even if we look at the basis of most religion which is a patriarchy and
00:17:39
has been completely screwed and bastardised by most men but actually if you look at the truth at the heart of it it's much the same thing
00:17:46
that we all have to follow and you have to just connect
00:17:51
deeply with your inner whatever you call it whether it's your spirit whether it's your soul whether it's your
00:17:58
as oprah says my inner frequency you know when that gets shelved or you're not aligned
00:18:03
that's when you start to behave and you follow whatever's happening to you rather than actually connecting
00:18:09
truly back with your strength your resource and so that for me has been and i've
00:18:15
tried to guide my children on that and actually found that that has been i wish someone
00:18:20
had done that a little bit more it was it was shrouded in religion when i was a kid in the catholic faith which i just
00:18:25
could not connect with at all you know my mother literally you know going to confession you used to go into the
00:18:31
church and see these eight-year-old women beating their chest and saying dear god you know i've seen anything what's she done you know this is crazy
00:18:37
this isn't this isn't life what the some poor old but i'm kneeling down beating her chest
00:18:43
that's not what the world's about you know that that's what i've discovered is if you try and get back to your essence
00:18:49
and know and try and align and connect with some deeper strength whether it's
00:18:56
through meditation or whether it's just pause and breathe it will come through and it
00:19:01
does i mean that's not to say we should we have to go through grief we have to go through mourning we have
00:19:07
to let that go through our bodies leaving it in your bodies is the worst thing you can possibly do and i've done
00:19:13
that over the years and i've had my back put out i've been laid low because it's in there
00:19:18
so i've i've learned to do that i had you know first when covered hit it was
00:19:24
shocking for me i mean all my clients in my business which has been my backbone for 21 years
00:19:29
just closed down and and nobody said are you guys okay they just stopped work i had 55 people
00:19:37
well what the actual [ __ ] is happening here and i'm talking to my kids about being
00:19:42
connected to your source and i'm like jesus wept i've got to pay for all this and i don't know where i'm going to do
00:19:48
this and i'm just looking down the barrel at 60 and i suddenly went into that complete fear i was like you need to pull this
00:19:54
back i was actually pretty i felt i was a little bit ashamed that i wasn't better
00:19:59
if i'm honest i was such a shock such a shock and i've written about it
00:20:05
in the first chapter of my book because i want it was so shocking and it was like well they were falling down like dominance
00:20:10
that the the clients and we were like what we thought as a business was just going [Music]
00:20:16
um and it just slowly but surely i kept on connecting back to that
00:20:21
sense of me that deep truth that the world would look after you there was a great interview i heard and
00:20:28
i can't remember who it was and i can't remember i'd like to think but i remember he was a he was a
00:20:34
a philosopher and he and he said we're talking about money and he said think of a time when you've
00:20:40
never had enough can't think of a time when i've never had enough money i've had very little
00:20:46
money but i've lived and i remember just holding on to that
00:20:51
when it when is the world never ever truly looked after you
00:20:57
and if you can realign back into that sense of connecting and not go for the short term
00:21:04
whether it's you know following a route that you're you're trying to short term fix it through stress or through that
00:21:11
anxiety and you connect back to that true source it always works
00:21:17
you said during the pandemic you you felt it almost was as if you were saying you
00:21:23
felt shame that you weren't good enough i wanted to get more detail on what you mean by that no
00:21:29
what i meant was that i i the work that i'd done on myself on knowing
00:21:34
that you know this too shall pass connect back you will be all right the
00:21:41
world will look after you i i didn't well it took about a month and then i was like okay and i had
00:21:48
all the kids under one that was homeschooling happening i was on you know phone every single
00:21:54
morning with the ceo of my business we were on facetime it was you know we were on zoom
00:21:59
calls hideous it was like all the time it was this world that you'd been thrown into
00:22:05
where i thought all right you know approaching 60 ease up now port us you know you don't need to be doing as
00:22:11
much everything just fell apart bam like that like that
00:22:17
oh my god what has happened here so i was a bit disappointed that i
00:22:22
wasn't more you know arm baby really okay i was like sort of done a lot of work on
00:22:28
myself but i got it back i got it back she says talk to me about so i want the detail as to because i i read that
00:22:35
you'd said you you felt like you were spiraling out of control a little bit when the pandemic first struck and i think a lot
00:22:42
of people can relate to that that sense of um panic total uncertainty
00:22:47
and i mean we had all of our like high street clients completely just cancel all work not even
00:22:53
because they were they'd gone bankrupt but because they just didn't have certainty themselves so yeah they just stopped it was either like
00:23:00
totally stopped or paused or wait we don't know what's happening here right so if i and you you have in your agency
00:23:05
you have pretty much all high street players right so i can't imagine
00:23:11
and so i want to know when you say you were spiraling what does that mean uh well for example one of my clients
00:23:18
was a big piece of business that would do the other side of the world i won't mention it was a million and a half pounds bam clothes done
00:23:24
stop that stopped you like what what i meant by that was i
00:23:30
i've never in 21 years ever had anything where i thought financially i've made myself so
00:23:36
financially secure over those years i've never had anything that thought that might go
00:23:42
i've never i've never wanted huge amounts i like a really good life and i have a very good life but i've
00:23:49
never wanted you know the big amounts i've always thought you know this is this is really
00:23:54
good and i so i've never i've always shared the pie as it were you know i like a big slice of the cake but i also
00:24:01
i like sharing it out so i was never i've gone ahead i've got never that i like a lovely life and
00:24:07
and so suddenly this was like that might not be the case and you are the young lad that you've
00:24:13
got to put through school you might be working till you're 70 whatever to get this back up but i was like i
00:24:19
don't want to do that you know so it was going against my my flow and my energy as well you know
00:24:25
that i wanted to go off and do other things i was ready to go and do the the things that one should be doing at
00:24:31
60 plus when you've had a very big career and doing stuff that and i suddenly go oh god i've got to get
00:24:37
this back on and so i just didn't like the way that that frightened me it did frighten me you know there were
00:24:43
sleepless nights but then suddenly this place of acceptance came and you realize
00:24:50
there was magical times where i thought i am in lockdown with all three of my kids you know one of which had left home
00:24:59
one who's doing a masters and one who was eight this isn't going to happen again you know and there were times where they
00:25:05
were just out in the grass playing around with us together and that's that's the magic you know that's the magic for that little man
00:25:11
there with his big brother and sister there were times we just would sit up on um a place near us in swift's hill and just
00:25:18
look at flowers and draw flowers and i thought this isn't going to come again like this
00:25:23
and so i was able to sort of slowly but surely build back
00:25:29
and things got better and there's a huge debate now about what the new normal will look like
00:25:35
especially as it relates to working and remote working and i wanted to get your stance on
00:25:40
this whole remote working debate i'll give you my opinion first because my opinion tends to be quite controversial i tend to think people have
00:25:46
overestimated the um remote working thing and i say this because i believe that the office is one
00:25:52
of the last sort of institutions of like community and human connection dating's gone socializing facebook
00:25:58
social media dating we now have all these dating apps and it's felt like in my life especially as like a 25
00:26:05
26 year old whatever that going to the office was actually one of the places i actually got to meet people
00:26:10
in my life and and connect and form communities and go to a football team as an adult
00:26:15
and if that all moves to zoom now like every other part of my life is dictated by a glass illuminated screen i worry
00:26:22
and we have had people sat in the chair from mental health psychologists and all sorts and the the consistent theme
00:26:29
for them has been if you can give someone community and connection in their life then they um then they do better they
00:26:35
are healthier and i felt like the office especially i know you've got an amazing office i've read about it i've
00:26:41
read about the atmosphere there and and how impressive that is and we also went to great lengths when i was reading about your office it felt a lot like
00:26:47
mine it's not hierarchical you wouldn't know who was in charge people are themselves it's very flexible and open we don't
00:26:53
have these rigid archaic systems in place and so it was a really enjoyable place to be and i would hate
00:27:00
for that places like that to be um to disappear i think the old office has
00:27:05
to change and die and be reinvented but i wanted to get your take on that well i think you said it i think you
00:27:11
know i think i think there's a lot of businesses jumping on the bandwagon thinking how can we you know save money on rent
00:27:17
yes and not looking at the mental health well-being i've seen this i think my officers we opened them up as
00:27:22
soon as we could we have two days where we say we want everybody in
00:27:28
because we believe that is everything you've talked about and i know even when i go in and i will
00:27:35
see them all and we will have a laugh and we'll talk about stuff that's not even in the work world but those
00:27:41
nuggets those little messages those little nuances that happen
00:27:46
are what makes us human it's ridiculous to think we do i heard google aren't
00:27:52
opening those up for another year and you think what the actuals stop this have they actually asked their people i have a young
00:27:59
daughter who's been working at home consistently since she went out to the world of work and it is not good for her mental
00:28:05
well-being and i have watched my children get up at 8 00 a.m
00:28:10
and go straight on zoom that was where's where's the travel time where you listen to a podcast or you
00:28:16
listen to a piece of music or you read something or you bump into someone on the street and say morning do you fancy your coffee yeah where's
00:28:22
that gone out of our lives we take this away and we take what it is to be human if
00:28:28
you when i did my high street report i talked about exactly what you're talking about
00:28:33
we lose this we lose what jane jacobs who wrote the death of the american city
00:28:39
back in the 60s well before i talked about this she talked about those little things where you bump into someone on
00:28:45
the street and you say morning are you getting a newspaper and you say can you daughter babysit tonight she said these little things are trivial
00:28:51
but the sum isn't trivial at all it is a social infrastructure a web
00:28:57
of security that makes us human the office is the same the office is the same now i started in my office was
00:29:03
saying you've got a baby you can bring it in bring dogs in this was like
00:29:09
10 years ago what you know we need to ease up and realize
00:29:14
that we need more of this in our lives i've had to sublet parts of my office because we had too much space
00:29:20
but we bloody went out and sublet and fought because we wanted to keep it because i knew
00:29:26
that this was deeply important especially to your generation and you know i know there's people and
00:29:32
and my kids have seen it they they said that the sort of 40 pluses yeah it's nice having some time i
00:29:37
understand that you can pick up the kid you of course but let's get that balance let's get that balance and you're right
00:29:44
the more we close down the more we squeeze our little souls
00:29:50
because those small trivial things are what make up our lives i know that so i
00:29:58
would be so pro it i i really think this needs to be the things that are part of our society which are
00:30:05
deeply important that do need bloody government intervention i know tories don't want to intervene and it's a free market and all that crap
00:30:12
transports one our high streets are one our national health service is another and the way we
00:30:18
work and connect i think is another so i would be putting this on the agenda i heard on one of those
00:30:24
what is it called question times which i keep getting asked to go and i think oh dear god um and i was listening to there nobody
00:30:30
was all these sort of aging politicians who weren't running businesses who didn't see the impact
00:30:36
of not of of getting together it's it's vital please please anyone listening and
00:30:42
if you're listening and you're a millennial or a gen z and you don't think you've got any power pull together get your pals and put
00:30:48
pressure at the top an awesome open back up i think that clip will go viral on
00:30:54
linkedin so that's that's great i think you can reach a lot of people with that one my linkedin's very highly engaged so i think that'll bang um but no i
00:31:00
you know i think that i'm more at ease because i think in the professional world it's going to become a battle
00:31:06
of um employees choosing where they want to spend their time and where they want to work and so my
00:31:12
objective here isn't to so what i what i tend what i feel like i saw was these kind of fragile dare i call them
00:31:20
leaders in business doing all this kind of virtue signaling on on social media and online going oh we're going to let our employees
00:31:26
decide and if they want to work and i i've said publicly like you as a leader you have to have a backbone and your company
00:31:32
culture should be reverse engineered from the mission so you know if you're if you're i don't know building cars then you need your
00:31:37
people at the factory but also work should be it should offer more than just pay and if it is to offer more than pay
00:31:43
something meaningful it would be community connection and these things so my stance as an employer is i'm going to create the
00:31:50
environment which offers you more community than you're going to get anywhere else good pay more free more flexibility
00:31:55
around things that matter in your life kids etc and i think i'll be able to hire all your staff that you have working from a zoom screen
00:32:02
at home and i think eventually you'll figure that out and you'll go back but yeah and that's my [ __ ] yeah
00:32:08
that's what i think i think it's a competition of like the anatomy i'm with you you know it's it's look you as i say
00:32:14
you're young i remember when i wrote work like a woman i was like looking at this and thinking who who created the code who wrote this [ __ ]
00:32:23
how do we want to work i want people in my business that have a voice that feel i will sit with a 23 year old and i know
00:32:30
we'll sit and have a great conversation as much as the 45 year old is running the business
00:32:35
i we've actually put that with these two days when the chief execs in we want everyone
00:32:40
in because this is the time when we learn this is the time we laugh and we really do laugh i mean i'm the biggest
00:32:46
joker the biggest kid in the office of mine and my daughter's been coming in so she can get some just some interaction she
00:32:51
works in food policy because something completely different and she goes mom you're the biggest kid i said i know i need people around me i
00:32:57
need it and i love to laugh and it's just fantastic when you're in an office and you hear
00:33:03
that and it's not difficult this stuff you know it's all about when you feel as confident as you do
00:33:10
you're able to give up that control yeah that's what you're giving up and saying
00:33:15
you know what i know who i am and i want you who works with me to know who you are
00:33:21
and so let's give up that control that doesn't mean that i'm going to have any lazy bath coming in and you know sauntering in
00:33:26
whenever they want and taking no they know i talk about the kindness economy the kindness economy is doing what's humanely right
00:33:33
it's not taking the piss so you have very you know strong ethos and ethics and guidelines
00:33:39
of what you believe your business is and where you want to go but let everybody be themselves
00:33:44
within that and part of that is connection i mean it's fine for me sitting in my north london
00:33:50
you know home working or i'm in the cotswolds what about the ones who i've seen them on zoom in their bedroom sharing a flat you're
00:33:57
waking in there and you're doing zoom and if any owner of a business or organization
00:34:03
isn't understanding that shame on you and think about it they're then probably
00:34:09
picking up a phone to do their dating then when they're hungry they they pick up the phone and open ubereats and deliver and order their
00:34:14
food and it's conceivable that this generation and i actually write about it my book i show how we're getting more and more stagnant as the years go on
00:34:21
because we're optimizing for productivity and financial gain as opposed to human connection we're actually optimizing we're doing
00:34:27
everything in our power to sacrifice human connection and socializing and even things like exercise and movement
00:34:33
for increased productivity and um i think it's time to you know i do i
00:34:39
think the government would be effective in intervening i mean oh i've given up yeah i was going to say i don't know what they ain't
00:34:44
going to come from them they had some like loneliness i think theresa may appointed the first ever loneliness tsar for the uk
00:34:50
who was that jesus i don't know but i have been knocking on your door there dystopian like image of this like these like tanneries
00:34:55
in the streets being like [ __ ] talk to each other like do you know what i mean like i just feel like
00:35:01
i think um i think it's going to come that's why in my book i think it's going to come from business and i think it's going to come from people like us
00:35:06
changing that 100 percent agree i think it's 100 politics i think once we get past this
00:35:12
little woke virtue signaling thing which leaders are doing now where they're like we'll just let our employees do whatever they want and they can just
00:35:18
be all out whatever i think then you'll have the second wave of that which is um which is reality um you need to talk
00:35:24
about it on your show you need to talk about this when you're doing business you need to get this out there you need to be a voice for that because
00:35:30
you know it's um it's only by sharing our voices and having an opinion doesn't matter who knocks us so who comes back that you go
00:35:36
no this feels right this feels right this is deeply important deeply important to the next generation
00:35:42
you know we've really [ __ ] this planet for you guys you know my generation i've you know we the generation before me the
00:35:49
the um the baby boomers they know that so we have to we have to hold on to something deeply
00:35:55
precious here and there is a movement and understanding is greater and deeper we were blind we were
00:36:01
blind consumers we thought that having it all was having more stuff and living a life while we slowly killed the planet
00:36:08
and our well-being so it has to be you guys that go no if we get one thing out of this that's
00:36:13
going to be there that we're going to change all those ridiculous ideas that my generation and the baby boomers bought
00:36:19
into quick one i'm trying to get in good shape for summer as i imagine a lot of people are
00:36:25
and just in time for summer you'll have released what i consider to be one of the most important best products they've
00:36:30
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00:36:56
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you're going to start your journey with fuel or if you're a current customer and you've not tried the protein yet i highly recommend specifically if you
00:37:09
like salted caramel like me you give this a while back to the podcast you say they're having it all and having
00:37:15
more stuff we thought that was it which leads me into something else i wanted to talk to you about i read you'd said um
00:37:21
that you're in the public eye you're making more money than ever and it was extraordinarily exciting but at the age of 48 you found yourself crying
00:37:28
almost every day i was probably physically exhausted um
00:37:36
i just didn't get that joy you know i just was on this i was doing tv shows radio shows
00:37:43
i had my own collection i had the business i had two kids it was it was crazy
00:37:50
and and i was the nature i was the scent it wasn't like you know i had some husband who was
00:37:56
raising me it was me you know and i thought yeah but i and the more that comes you'll
00:38:02
know this the more it comes the more it comes the more it comes comes keep coming keep coming keep coming you got to do this gotta do that
00:38:08
and there were parts of it that was just you know incredible i looked back at it what some great years but i was exhausted
00:38:17
and you're not allowed to say that actually i was thinking about that at that time there would be those
00:38:22
you know women on the front of the sunday times magazine like that we can't show our pose but it'll be like that you can have it all they got eight kids
00:38:28
and they would get up and they would be doing you know yoga at 6 00 a.m and then having a global call with china or
00:38:35
whatever then you know they'd be bringing dropping the kids off at school while chatting to god those whoever
00:38:40
sorting out the day and you just thought oh god how [ __ ] is that life
00:38:46
where are you where are you and i lost me in that it there wasn't times where it
00:38:52
wasn't fantastic there was but where was i i didn't stop to breathe i didn't stop
00:39:01
to truly connect truly connect with me and i remember i
00:39:07
went away um to some very expensive spa place where it was all on shanty and downward dogs and eating
00:39:15
stuff and everyone's all this you know you go where rich people are
00:39:20
because you got money and you go and you discover you and um and i remember sitting in this
00:39:26
yoga session and i just was crying and i was like please stop please don't marry please stop and there's all these sort of
00:39:33
women in their lululemon and i was going just crying and i thought and i went in to um
00:39:40
there was this wonderful indian guru i used to sit in this little room which you could go and meet and chat with and
00:39:47
i remember going in to see him and he didn't say a word and i just was crying i didn't want to speak with him but i wanted to go to the bookshelf that
00:39:53
was behind him because i knew there were some books there and i picked up eckhart tolle's new earth
00:40:02
and i just took it and as i left he went that's the right one and i went back to my room and i read it
00:40:09
and i read it on the beach days and i was like oh my god i've got the world wrong i've just completely got this
00:40:14
wrong and that was a start of my journey
00:40:19
it took many years i'm still you know getting still partly hybridizing that life i'm never
00:40:25
going to sit in an ashram but i i discovered how to connect back
00:40:32
truly with me and stop loading this stuff in your life mary and and saying no two questions there
00:40:38
which is regarding this book this eckhart tolle book that you you talk about um a new earth what was it what was the
00:40:47
the key lessons that imparted on you about life and how you're living
00:40:52
i'm i was living totally outwardly to my ego and my persona marry portis mary with bob mary the
00:40:59
business woman marry the mother i was not connecting truly with who my spirit my soul
00:41:08
so everything was done to feed that and you believe that that is you you
00:41:13
believe that that is your personality you believe all of that you talk about you thought you'd become a bit of a caricature
00:41:20
oh for sure but i also milked that that was very profitable
00:41:26
but you know i knew it was brand mary the red bob the rings you know i've
00:41:32
always loved fashion awards lots but it was very much you know a signature so and um
00:41:38
yeah of course i mean i i advise businesses globally on brands i was i suppose a brand why itself
00:41:45
and i i just didn't want to be that anymore philosophy is very clear on this idea of like abandoning your true self
00:41:51
and the consequences of your ego you're out yeah yeah and it seems like such a
00:41:56
clearly losing game and i think people listening to this are probably have to be well you
00:42:02
are some stage in the process you've either um you're probably you're either at the start and you've not yet tried to
00:42:08
abandon yourself because you think that you know because the outside world has convinced you and incentivized you to do so
00:42:14
especially social media that'll have you trying to abandon yourself and become the kardashians whatever whatever or you
00:42:20
are in the process of um abandoning yourself or trying to and you're feeling the sense of despair and probably lack
00:42:27
of orientation that comes with that or you've come out the other end which it kind of sounds like you've you've got to where you've realized that
00:42:33
you try to abandon yourself and the only true answer is to to be yourself because everything else is despair you either succeed in
00:42:39
abandoning yourself as this one i think it's called stoddard this swedish philosophy used to say
00:42:44
if you succeed in abandoning yourself then you end up in despair if you fail in abandoning yourself then you end up in despair so the only
00:42:51
true true path to joy is to accept who you are yes i think you know
00:42:57
the thing is it's you know it's knowing what the truth is it doesn't mean that
00:43:04
we're not going to have on this we are truly connecting on a truth here i don't think we're you know performing but part of it is
00:43:11
performative because we are doing a job that's going to be this podcast but it's being on the path some people
00:43:17
never even know that past there you know most people don't and that
00:43:24
you know it i remember when i first discovered it and people like don't you know don't talk about that because
00:43:29
you might sound a bit odd on you know spirituality or blood don't talk about that and you're like and i didn't for a long while you know i
00:43:37
i even was chatting to a great producer at the bbc saying why isn't there a show on something like this
00:43:42
on the bbc like no don't mention spirituality in the bbc at the moment you're like what this this needs to get
00:43:50
out there and it's not hokey pokey stuff this is our truth and i think what i've tried to do is to
00:43:58
allow the people who work with me express that and know about it and we
00:44:04
share it we share it in the business and it just opens this whole thing up
00:44:10
and there are times when you have to be as i say performative and be i'm mary portas you know going out i'm
00:44:17
working i'm writing a piece or i'm doing a course but i'm rooted in who i am
00:44:23
deeply and i think it isn't whether whatever we call it whether it's spirituality whether it's our soul
00:44:28
whether it's our spirit whether it's our truth whether it's our vibration whether it's our you know whatever our vortex
00:44:34
or our frequency is oprah says whatever getting back to that you know i remember and i was listening to
00:44:40
the um lovely irish uh irish poet and i'll think of this surname and i'll think about it and
00:44:47
they'll all come to me after i've done this but anyway i remember him talking about when he used to give the
00:44:52
last rights he's been ireland and he'd go to give the last rights to whoever was dying and he'd go in
00:44:58
and he'd see these little pinched faces that had lived a life that wasn't in
00:45:03
line with their true self because they couldn't they had no choice and
00:45:09
he just said it used to make him feel so so sad and then he would give them the last
00:45:14
rights and he would literally see the pain on their faces their skin just un un stress
00:45:21
and un wrinkled because they were able just to be
00:45:26
and that is the greatest gift i think we can give to anything and and to our kids you know i mean i put them through a
00:45:31
great academic system because i could but i always said you choose i remember my daughter coming
00:45:37
to me when she just finished oxford she got into oxford and she was like um i was deeply proud
00:45:43
and she finished a degree and she said mom i know everyone's going to expect me to go in and make a lot of money i don't want to
00:45:49
do that i said why do you explain that to me like you know i'm really going to judge you on that
00:45:55
and um she wanted to do something that just connected not with which but with where her truth was and that's
00:46:02
the only thing i think we need to try and find in life now your truth probably was that you know you wanted to get to that place where
00:46:09
you were able to say i did this because that's the truth that was important to you because everyone else is saying you can't do something
00:46:16
you're not sitting in this system i was much the same much the same yeah i met some old school
00:46:21
friends they were like whoa you know my life because i was just always the one in trouble or
00:46:27
i remember getting 17 percent in physics and thinking i don't give a [ __ ] i don't give a [ __ ] oh my god i was like
00:46:33
17 i never felt embarrassed i was just like i knew i was a bit different as well though you know you felt different
00:46:41
i felt different but i wanted to be like the middle class girls that were living in charlie wood and i
00:46:46
came from the working class so it was the kids from watford that got into the grammar school that that were the
00:46:52
sort of that parents didn't have the money we used to get the bus out and then the middle class from charlie wood and all those areas just
00:46:58
their parents used to drop their cars and then they'd get to the sixth floor they drive in themselves i was like oh
00:47:03
my god i want to be this and then i went nah nah
00:47:08
i don't want to be that life oh my life i want my life brony ware talks about the same thing
00:47:15
she interviewed people on their palliative patients i think it's called on there who does this brony ware she was a an australian
00:47:20
palliative nurse i don't know if that's the right word and she interviewed people on their death bed and asked them one question which was what's your biggest regret
00:47:27
as they were dying wow the number and she released the blog and it the number one regret of the dying
00:47:33
as she writes in her blog was quote not living a life true to myself oh man i remember watching the film of
00:47:39
alan turing and it just actually heartbreaking and here was a gay man who could not live his life and i just thought that
00:47:46
has got to be i think that sort of the 50s and 60s was worse than any time
00:47:52
you know that american dream of the housewife and being the the two kids and living the american dream
00:47:59
and actually you had to suppress your sexuality your frequency your truth your love
00:48:06
your ability to soar isn't that just the worst torture torture
00:48:12
torture daily hourly yeah yeah subconscious torture almost yeah
00:48:19
and it's still going on in hollywood yeah you you married a man i did marry a man then a woman then a married woman
00:48:25
and i'm with a woman now well i never it's interesting i i don't
00:48:30
i don't know whether female sexuality is particularly different from male sexuality but i'm
00:48:37
i've been in love with two men in my life and i've been in love with two women
00:48:43
i've never sort of i never was a child oh my god i'm a lesbian i fancy linda evangelista i've got to do
00:48:48
something about it i know i had relationships with women i had relationships with men and
00:48:55
it just didn't ever bother me um but once i had fallen in love with the woman i
00:49:00
remember you know saying to my sister she was like but you're not a lesbian i said well i don't know what i
00:49:05
am do i have to put a label to it and the interesting thing is when i did and you know and married mal
00:49:13
that all the prides and the you know they'll grab hold of you and put lesbian
00:49:18
oh okay well i've got to do this for the sake of all of you and be a voice which i wanted to be but you kind of
00:49:23
also go now you're also labeling me yeah it was a really but i also don't want to let you down stone war
00:49:30
and i will do the opening speech at pride because i know you need women and i've just had another one that came through on you know lgbt
00:49:36
virgin radio mary would you go into right i don't want to be also categorized in that way because i'm not a former prison
00:49:42
as well though isn't it well it is but i also don't want to not be a voice because i think it's important for
00:49:47
you know when when i did uh meet mel there wasn't there was no women in the public eye besides sandy
00:49:54
toxic who were in same-sex relationships and i remember this
00:49:59
my children having to you know when they went to school there was no books on it i mean i'm talking what are we milo's
00:50:06
now 26 so i'm talking you know he was nine there wasn't so i thought i had to do
00:50:12
that and i did it and i don't mind doing it but you know there is a fluidity to it
00:50:18
labels good and bad yeah those kind of labels those like socially categorizing labels where they
00:50:25
put you in the label because they maybe want to understand you but because they want you to rep like lead the charge of a movement i get
00:50:30
that obviously young black yeah yeah you know guys there's not actually many many of us up here in the
00:50:36
young yes male represent category and i'm only actually half black i'm as
00:50:41
black as i am white because my dad's like my mum's black and i'm like i will represent the black people yeah stand behind me and then you feel
00:50:47
okay yeah you say yeah as you say yeah you know there's probably a net positive impact of me doing that for
00:50:53
society so i'll take on that uh responsibility but then i go back to well i know who i
00:50:59
am so write what you're saying write what you like and say what you like because
00:51:04
i know intuition hmm topic i've heard you talk about a lot you'd said previously that the biggest
00:51:11
mistakes in your life had come from not listening to your intuition [Music] what comes to mind when i say that which
00:51:17
mistakes i think you know i i think i'll know when i'm needed to have got out of you know
00:51:23
relationships and it kept telling me something and kept telling me and you're like oh no no i've suppressed that i've suppressed
00:51:31
it in times where i've you know thought in business i don't particularly like
00:51:37
this person and yet they pay me a lot i've suppressed that
00:51:42
and it always ends up always you know you feel it you feel it and ideas
00:51:50
sometimes you know ah they just come if you're really really feeling free
00:51:56
and in tune they just come and they're they're wonderful it's been my it's been my i'm sure it's yours but
00:52:01
it's been my you know ability to sort of feel something deeply know that that's right
00:52:06
and you can get people that can analyze put data behind it logic and i've listened to them in the past and i've
00:52:12
let things go ah not regret but oh that you know even you know now
00:52:21
i i've always bought i've always wanted to do and it's just trying to get an idea you know a totally
00:52:26
sustainable secondhand recycled vintage take a whole space like a
00:52:34
massive mail that's closed down and create tomorrow's where you everything is about you know
00:52:39
recycled upcycled vintage remote and i've got to get on and do that but it's too big
00:52:48
but i just know it will you know and so i have to follow the instinct on on doing that
00:52:53
but i think just just sometimes you just it's the small things as well it's just the small things where you feel
00:52:58
it's come from there and you push it down because you put too much logic and reason behind it and i think in business we need to let
00:53:05
that open up so much more certainly in my area of business i
00:53:11
reckon we ended up with such so many crap businesses because logic data and systems overtook
00:53:17
instinct creativity and innovation and we need to bring that back and interestingly you talking about high
00:53:24
streets what has come back is people understanding the importance of connection and community
00:53:29
through high streets and we will see that coming back um and i you know i had the labour party
00:53:35
get in touch with me and saying they wanted to re you know look at what we were doing on the high street report 10 years ago
00:53:41
because when i did it 10 years ago they didn't understand that it was all about bottom line
00:53:46
all about bottom line what's your view on the younger younger generation coming up
00:53:51
you know there's a lot of i think we talked off off microphone about um some of the themes coming out of
00:53:57
you know this this uh instagram generation like you know it's like really binary cliches like find your passion
00:54:03
there's this idea that like um working hard is now toxic um and just generally what you
00:54:09
what what's your if you were to impart advice or you were to give a perspective on this kind of like instagram generation
00:54:15
who and their perspective of the working world um what advice would you have for them
00:54:22
i think you know the there's the good and the bad and the ugly isn't there i mean i think
00:54:27
it's i think it's a really tough world to be in that you are always on that's a very
00:54:33
tough place to be um and i purposely you know don't do as
00:54:38
much even though i should be you know because i just say i only want to do something when i really have something to say
00:54:44
and i know it drives some of my agents around the bend you know it's in social media yeah and i think it's deeply difficult i
00:54:51
think we've got two strands coming through i think we it's used as an incredible place for voice and change to happen and i think
00:54:57
the gen z's are going to be probably the best generation that we've seen in a very very very long time and the more
00:55:04
i read about the more my i have a social anthropology unit in my agency the more we research this
00:55:09
the more i utterly love them and i'm more i want them to make this world better and i think they will and you young
00:55:16
millennials absolutely i think and i think there's a lot that comes out of it that's fantastic
00:55:22
the other part of it is oh boy i would love to change what are now used as icons and
00:55:29
role models especially around beauty fashion and young women it is just too much to
00:55:35
live up to and i i find it that i find just terribly stressful for individuals
00:55:43
and the way that they've been sold how they need to look how they need to behave how their body needs to be what
00:55:48
their beauty regime should be it's it's ridiculously tough and i you
00:55:53
know i i live in a society where i'm seeing a young generation that are pushing against that but there's an awful lot of young women particularly
00:56:00
and men out there who how they are looked and how they're perceived and what their life is like
00:56:06
and and 40 pluses i look at some people on facebook and i think really you're still doing this [ __ ] you
00:56:12
need to go out there and show what new shoes you've bought or what you had for brunch and where you at
00:56:18
really really isn't it a bit of a pyramid scheme and not a pyramid maybe like a
00:56:23
network marketing scheme in some respects or some kind of like network effects because what's happening is you let's
00:56:29
say you've got i don't know the kardashians at the top then you've got people below them looking up at the kardashians and
00:56:34
thinking [ __ ] you know what i need to get fake bum and i need to change this and i need to change this and i need to post
00:56:40
when i'm wearing my chanel bikini on the side of that boat so they'd follow suit which then cascades
00:56:45
downwards and everyone's just trying to this is what i'm talking about the pressure i'd love the kardashians to turn around and say let's not buy any
00:56:52
more stuff and let's recycle wouldn't it be brilliant imagine what that would do for consumerism that's probably the
00:56:58
most impact they could have in the world is if they just cut out the fakery and yeah lived more ethically but they just
00:57:04
they're pinned back by the financial incentive but i you know when i was doing my research in my book
00:57:10
and looking at the spend on the pressure on young people who follow the kardashians to get the
00:57:16
new this the new that it's insane it's insane because i used to look back and think
00:57:23
well you know my mother couldn't afford stuff so we just we just put up with it but we weren't sold the marketing dream
00:57:29
we weren't sold this [ __ ] and this has gone so deeply into society so deeply that we
00:57:36
do need people like you that go this is just crap standing up and saying this is crap and anyone comes on dragon's den trying
00:57:42
to sell that crap it's almost like the way i see it is um like social media in this
00:57:47
that the world the kardashians it's like they're holding a bit of your self-esteem hostage and the ransom of the apparent ransom is
00:57:55
you've got to go get that bag too or whatever and then when you pay the ransom you get the bag
00:58:00
you don't get your self-esteem back and it just increases the ransom just increases now they're like now you've got to get an even better bag and it's just endless like that's
00:58:07
exactly what i wrote about i was part of that when i was creative director at harvey knicks i was i sold this stuff to people
00:58:13
thank you yeah bloody brilliant look i'm gonna make this sexy and and uh and it was it's not dissimilar
00:58:21
now it's just got faster and faster and faster and faster and faster and it is totally all based on i'm not
00:58:26
good enough i'm not good enough we have to convince them that there's something they don't have but need
00:58:32
we really need this revolution there is part that are doing it but there's a whole part of society
00:58:38
that are still buying into this this lack of self-esteem and we as marketers have been selling that
00:58:43
for years i've definitely been selling that yeah so at my previous mayor business
00:58:50
quick one as you guys might know if you've been paying close attention i'm in the process of starting a brand
00:58:55
new business and when you're starting a business there are a million things to do from branding to websites to all
00:59:00
sorts right logos videos promotions all of this stuff and so it's incredibly hard to do
00:59:05
all of these things when you were a one-man or woman band and that is where fiverr.com comes in and solves a huge
00:59:12
problem for me if you've never used the website before it is the best place to find freelance support across multiple
00:59:18
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00:59:24
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00:59:29
in my businesses and as i start my new business which i'm going to tell you about soon i've started to rely on it once again so
00:59:36
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00:59:42
is you said you know it was something that i i thought maybe i was the only person in the world that also felt which was
00:59:49
before we started recording you said that you don't get excited about things yeah i mean i have great things in my
00:59:56
diary or someone said oh aren't you excited you're doing that tomorrow and i just think no i just don't get excited
01:00:01
and you said you don't either i don't know well i so i didn't actually say anything but then my camera guy here jack that's worked
01:00:07
with me for some time says steve always says that and it's because there's people who will say to me oh my god you're doing this next week or you're going on holiday or
01:00:13
going to this place or you're speaking in dubai are you excited and no yeah when they hit me with the question i go
01:00:19
no no as if you're trying to work that through because i've never sat with anyone and worked that through or talked
01:00:24
that through and and but it doesn't stop me really enjoying like
01:00:30
experiences the experiences and there and now i don't put it up there maybe that's the thing
01:00:36
for me i thought and i might be wrong but maybe we're going to work it through now i thought my lack of excitement was a defense
01:00:42
mechanism because i also need to defend against going down when bad things happen so i think over
01:00:47
time i've just developed this character trait where i'm just here in the moment focused on what
01:00:53
i have to do right now and i'm trying to be stable and calm so i don't swing upwards with great news i don't swing
01:01:00
downwards too heavily with bad news and that also means i don't swing too far into the future or swing too far into the past that's a
01:01:07
really good maybe that's it because my friends get excited about small things and big things
01:01:13
well i've got dinner table at brat and you're like great but it doesn't it doesn't excite
01:01:19
me yeah i don't know that maybe that is maybe that is a subliminal thing that we've both done i i hadn't thought about that but i felt i
01:01:27
even had it like my my partner said to me oh you've got that aren't you excited and i said no and i actually have to
01:01:34
tell you i don't get excited but my girls going into therapy yeah you have to sit you down and tell you i
01:01:39
don't get it that doesn't mean i don't feel joy yes that doesn't mean i don't feel complete
01:01:46
but i don't get excited or maybe someone's going to listen to this some really
01:01:52
incredible psychoanalyst and they're going to go we'll go and we'll work this out and tell you why
01:01:57
it is really interesting because you as i think it's so important for you for you to say what you've said there which is you still enjoy yourself when
01:02:04
you're there and doing these things but it's like future anticipation
01:02:09
and i think that must come from living having lived a very intense life where the most important
01:02:15
thing in your world is being in the present right now and fixing the thing right in front of you yes
01:02:20
and you've probably not had a ton of time to sit but then also also i have to say the privilege of having had so many great experiences yes
01:02:28
you know so there's not really a restaurant you've not been to that's been a mate you know like you've been to amazing restaurants you've been to
01:02:34
amazing places you've done achieved amazing things so you're bro you're sort of like threshold of what
01:02:39
might it doesn't seem that anything excites me you know i remember now you've said something and i remember
01:02:46
just i i think it's being what you talk about totally connected i remember a true surge of joy coming through my
01:02:53
body [Music] when i was walking through a supermarket this is nothing to do with the supermarket
01:02:58
but i had my baby daughter in front of me and i had my husband with me with my
01:03:04
little son and i was totally in a place of joy in a
01:03:09
supermarket but there was something about this place of these two beautiful kids i had
01:03:17
love it's just and i remember this search coming and i'm like i feel really happy
01:03:24
and i've had other times like that and they've not been sitting in can at a restaurant they've
01:03:29
been really fundamental simple simple simple places
01:03:37
where i felt that surge of joy okay where you where you feel you're an elect
01:03:43
i can feel it now right the way you can put it and you can feel your energy going through your body which is beautiful
01:03:49
and i would rather have that than this excitement if i told you that later today you were
01:03:56
going to walk down the street and feel that same surge of joy that you got from the supermarket would you be excited
01:04:03
no if i told you now that when you walk out this this door you're gonna as you walk out down the street
01:04:08
i promise you you're gonna feel that surge of joy would you be excited to no but i feel that warmth and that
01:04:14
energy going through my body that thinks yes i want to be in that place but it's not excitement and because what
01:04:20
i was trying to figure out there is if excitement to us i was trying to figure out if we
01:04:25
the reason why we don't get excited is because we've realized that true joy doesn't come from the restaurant or from
01:04:30
the holiday or from the the going and doing the tv thing whatever it's actually really the joy comes from
01:04:38
something that's actually very hard to predict it's like those really meaningful moments and so when someone says are you excited to go to do
01:04:45
that experience on tv you think well that's not joy and in fact joy will come in those really random moments random yeah
01:04:51
i sat in the garden with my sister last week and i my sister and i love my sister she's just one of the great people i
01:04:58
know she was always quieter as a kid and she always let me be like she was three years older but she
01:05:03
was always like you know when she was 18 and i was 15 she'd take me out to the clubs like no one's done it you know
01:05:08
like she was like come on and i just sat with her it was just a moment we were just sitting together we
01:05:14
weren't speaking and it was just that moment where that connected you can see it in your face when you when you describe these moments
01:05:20
yeah your face lights up yeah that that's joy that's what that's why when you talk about the office and we
01:05:27
talk about the high street it's the trivial what we think are trivial that's what
01:05:33
makes the world that's what makes life that's what fuels us laughter in the hallways and those little jokes and catching up on what
01:05:40
happened on the weekend and stuff totally or like me trying to wash the dog in the garden the other way and
01:05:45
i my partner nearly was waiting for laughing because i couldn't get the dog i said bam over here the hose was going everywhere and it was
01:05:52
just that moment of madness and joy that the little dog running around the garden it was just those
01:05:58
things but also maybe we don't resonate i was just thinking then with the word excitement because think about what that
01:06:05
word means when i think of the word excitement i think that's not a that's not a state that i
01:06:10
live my life in never so when someone said are you excited i think well am i oh no no never so maybe there's a better
01:06:18
question which is are you looking forward to the experience or are you um i don't know maybe there's a better
01:06:23
question but i don't do that either yeah looking forward isn't because you're not looking forward to it you know are you happy you're doing it i
01:06:29
don't know
01:06:37
your mission now in life seems to be focused a lot on them as you say like making businesses kinder and it seems to be much more
01:06:43
philanthropic than it's ever been before why why does that matter i don't know
01:06:49
just came to me it's one of those things that came to me a certain point certain time
01:06:56
well i i about five ten i can't remember the years
01:07:01
where they go but about seven years ago i looked at my business and thought
01:07:07
i remember it no it's not longer than that it was eight years ago and i my little baby son was born
01:07:16
and um this beautiful little man came into the world and on he he was born on the monday
01:07:24
and on the saturday my 18 year old son was going out into the world to university
01:07:31
and i mean obviously this you can imagine the emotions that are going through my body there's this young
01:07:37
man that's coming to this world and this young man is going out into this world and it was just visceral and i i i do
01:07:44
cry when i'm feeling you know um happy or sad or i listen to great music
01:07:50
i can it clears me especially if it's nick cave
01:07:56
and um i kept on crying and just this movement and i remember sitting
01:08:03
with milo who was going off to do the very bright land he was going off to do philosophy and economics
01:08:10
and we were just chatting on the bed i remember clearing his bedroom and there's a little cricket back there and i don't get emotional because i remember
01:08:15
going off to find the cricket bat and i remember also being really [ __ ] off because all the sports shops was closed and they become joby
01:08:21
sports and jiggy sports you know like no that's not a sports shop i want to go to a sports shop where someone says i'll
01:08:26
give you the cricket back and knows about sport and but i found one in in in sherburne where a friend lived
01:08:33
i found this little and i was looking at the crooked back and thinking all the memories you know it's just that lovely numb packing his stuff and i'm just looking
01:08:39
at his little hands sitting next to me on the bed or big hands and stuff what do you think you'll probably do because i don't know because
01:08:46
i'm doing economics it goes and i suppose i'll end up going into finance in the city and i was like i just remember this
01:08:53
like this deep and i remember sitting there and thinking [Music] that's not your frequency that's not you
01:09:00
i mean you're you're go getting your but you've grown up with me
01:09:06
and you're gonna have to change you [Music] to go into that world and then i looked
01:09:12
at the little horatio the baby thinking this is this is what we all do we all bloody have to change
01:09:18
and i thought actually i've done this i've i've changed i became you know when i was on the board of harvey nichols the
01:09:24
business woman when it was mary queen of shops when it was married whatever on the tv i was that
01:09:30
what the hell am i doing am i still doing this and so i went on that journey then and i
01:09:36
that's when i decided to change the whole way that i ran the business and i wrote work like a woman on that
01:09:43
realizing that actually what i had suppressed was my deep sensitivity and i called it
01:09:48
my feminine instinct because i do believe the power of the feminine has been suppressed over millennia
01:09:54
there's no two ways about it there's no two ways about it we have created a male dominated
01:10:00
alpha energy in the world because we killed and we through through the church
01:10:07
millions of women who were the sages who were we've suppressed femininity and
01:10:13
that power is the power that's going to take us through into the next part of the world and i
01:10:19
started looking at this and i started i never saw myself as a feminist because i'd you know look at me i looked
01:10:25
at my life why do i need to be that you know and i started to go what are we doing
01:10:31
with our children through work that we this young man has to suppress
01:10:38
his creativity his sensitivity to go and be a bastard basically because
01:10:43
they get to the top this was at the time of you know money power fame those are the ones your
01:10:48
trumps your philip greens you hear loads of what you unite them they're brilliant yes sir
01:10:53
this and i started to go on that journey then so that's exactly when it was it was
01:10:59
eight years ago nearly nine and i wrote the book created a new culture in my business
01:11:05
opened up started to talk about stuff that made me feel vulnerable started to bring in this more
01:11:11
compassionate way of working and actually connect with what would have been seen as
01:11:17
soft skills or hr department actually i believed were going to be the new power skills
01:11:22
love kindness actually no because before you know 12 years ago
01:11:27
if someone wasn't working like oh done out you know boom on to the next you're not
01:11:33
good enough how do you do that what's going on in that person's life i remember discovering one of our great
01:11:40
creatives suffer with depression and he'd actually told someone else
01:11:45
and one day he's like that i wouldn't have looked at that before okay how do we work with this so i started on that journey then and
01:11:52
then i realized that you know over the years that even the planet
01:11:59
that we were killing was all part of this the way that we suppressed ourselves in search of more
01:12:08
we've just killed the planet we've killed our well-being and i just kept on going on the journey and then i did a ted talk on it
01:12:14
um and they asked me to do a ted talk and i thought what am i going to talk and it just kept them coming up this
01:12:20
theme so i talked on when i called it we need the kindness economy we need an economy that isn't
01:12:25
about growth that isn't about money at any cost that just doesn't measure linear how do we create well-being
01:12:33
it's not that i'm anti-capitalism i like money how do we create a world to that and i started to go on it and then covered it bam and it was there
01:12:41
it kept going this is what you're meant to be doing mary and i'm looking at how to get back to make the same money as i did before
01:12:47
and all the while i'm chasing that my god my business is going there and this voice is going just there it's where you meant to be
01:12:53
and then one day i woke up and and i rang my chief executive i said i think this is where we need to go and she's
01:12:59
amazing and i'm also thinking well she's 40 something with two kids and she's you know
01:13:04
in this business with me it's all right me going this is amazing can we but i think we should go this route and
01:13:10
we talked about it and talked about it just and the more i talked the more it opened up and my head of strategy and my answer
01:13:16
proceed we were all like yes actually we need to be advising business on being better
01:13:22
better to people and better to the planet and that's how it all started and that's my journey now
01:13:28
that is it am i excited by it no but do i get up and think that it's deeply
01:13:34
in there with me and i just have to follow it now and that's where i'm i hope that
01:13:39
explains it no you haven't done it it's really powerful and i think it it perfectly ties into all the
01:13:45
prior themes of listening to intuition and um i think that's super super powerful i i
01:13:50
have two more questions for you one of them relates to what you've just said there which is um in a very practical sense what does
01:13:56
that mean for a business to become more kind you talked about people and planet but in terms of like
01:14:02
the boardroom pay you know all of it it's actually looking
01:14:08
and going we we know that simon sinek wrote the great books on you know
01:14:14
why rather than just it's looking at what your business
01:14:20
is here for what is your philosophy and your purpose really understanding that and connecting it deeply to you on a
01:14:26
human level first of all and you know you've got a lot of wokeness going on and
01:14:32
well yeah our purpose is to make the world better no you know what is your true
01:14:38
purpose as a business and now once you start to work on that and your self and i've done it through
01:14:45
the book you then create the environment through your people to how you pay them
01:14:52
through how you inspire them through how you connect your customers through your truth of how
01:14:58
you manufacture how you create how you collaborate
01:15:04
you create a different way of being a business that's not siloed it's not individualistic you move from
01:15:10
me to we so everything that you do you are thinking that bit wider than yourself it's like
01:15:17
being a mother or a parent in any sense undoubtedly
01:15:23
i would always put them first always not evenly always
01:15:29
so you think about that in your business doesn't stop me being me it doesn't stop me developing doesn't stop me opening up doesn't stop me
01:15:36
growing doesn't but i am being a responsible connected
01:15:41
kind individual we need to do this with the world and the reason i put people
01:15:47
planet profit in their order is the planet's going to go on without us we'll [ __ ] it and we'll die quite simply
01:15:54
and it'll regenerate it's done that as we know i said whatever
01:15:59
but we can make that change happen we can do it by being more humane by
01:16:06
being kinder and by creating commerce that feeds and gives social progress
01:16:14
as well as financial progress and it's possible it's totally possible
01:16:22
you know that now obviously some people go it's all right from us sitting from her money
01:16:27
doing that yeah i've made money yeah but i'm doing it
01:16:32
and there's people who are doing it who haven't and those are the ones i take the hat off to those are the ones and if i can just put
01:16:39
a bit of volume on it then i will because i've got a bit of a big mouth and i actually you know you know some of
01:16:46
the people i admire the most one guy in particular called novar he always talks about how if you want to start taking on some of these worlds the
01:16:52
world's big problems like the environment et cetera what you have to do is you have to make sure people aren't worrying about feeding their kids first
01:16:58
and foremost because i don't begrudge or blame anyone that can't feed their kids
01:17:03
that that isn't thinking about saving the environment you know what i mean because i would be taking course you know so there's a bit
01:17:09
of sort of fundamental social work that needs to be done for us to get to a place where well i mean we can look at
01:17:15
that in terms but it's again what was value my mother had very little money but she fed us and she didn't make us obese by buying
01:17:21
[ __ ] food that was too cheap yeah same with fashion and people go oh yeah but that fashion it's democratic everybody can afford it
01:17:28
you stand out some of those shops everyone's coming out with three carrier bags of [ __ ] that's going to go into landfill or we
01:17:34
don't market the hell out of it via that and we tell the truth that buying something that lasts and recycles
01:17:40
and upcycles and that you share is actually where the new sexy is sex is the word you know i it's
01:17:47
really important that is important i call it status status symbols we've moved to now we're
01:17:53
into status sentence how do we create a world where we understand that being sentient and connecting with
01:18:00
experience and life and being generous in the world is more important than symbols big move
01:18:08
massive move and we need to look at the brands we need to look at power in business and that's where i'm starting i wrote
01:18:15
down earlier because you said the word and it's been something i've been very curious about the word of meditation what role is that played in your life
01:18:21
and why did you embark on that practice because it steals my mind and
01:18:27
your mind is the biggest tool you have that can just [ __ ] you over terribly or it can really ignite you amen
01:18:36
tell me about the upside of meditation as you've seen it well i started by doing little podcasts
01:18:42
to listen to someone tell me how to do it because i was a bit hopeless and me sitting still ain't great um
01:18:49
and it's just i i do each morning with it i only do 10 minutes and then i'll try and do it at the end of the evening
01:18:54
and i still my mind and i just connect and i feel my energy going to my body
01:19:01
and i clear and any time a little thing comes in that says i go thought and then i laugh at it i
01:19:08
don't get annoyed i just go and i laugh at the me that's the thought that just tells you all this [ __ ]
01:19:14
and then i just open up my energy as much as possible and then
01:19:21
during the day where i find myself where i might be going out of sync i just have this thing
01:19:28
that just says pause and i pause and then i relax and i could be sitting in a meeting like this and
01:19:34
where i might be wanting to talk more i just stop and let it come back in
01:19:39
and it's just helped me hugely closing the tabs that's a really good
01:19:46
visual closing all those tabs down but just they're not great lastly love
01:19:54
relationships something i think very you know career driven
01:19:59
professionals like you um often tend to struggle with for various variety of reasons
01:20:05
have you struggled with relationships love holding together relationships investing in them i don't think i have i mean i don't
01:20:11
think it looks particularly great that i've got two um failed marriages but actually
01:20:17
they there were some brilliant years i knew they were long and they created beautiful things so i
01:20:25
don't see them as failure i genuinely don't see them as failure it's a part of my life and i
01:20:30
i've changed i i am not the same person that i was when i met or
01:20:38
and i'm on a very different part of my journey and that happens um and i think we can just get
01:20:47
so hung up on that you know i've had incredible i've had long relationships now i've never really struggled
01:20:54
with relationships i don't think no i've had pretty decent long ones
01:21:00
as i was on my own the last which has been the first time in in ages that was really unique for me you
01:21:07
know when was this just recently you know i split up with my wife melanie back in three years ago
01:21:14
and i was you know three years on my own still single now no but i'm not going to tell you who is
01:21:20
that'll be a nice headline [Music] who are you with i i i sound fair to
01:21:29
them you know because it's just no no one in the public eye and order would they want we want to be thrown into it but
01:21:34
but you found that's that's super yes dare i say exciting that's some very nice joy but
01:21:42
but but came in a i think i manifested it as well really yeah i just thought oh god now i'm ready for something and i i
01:21:48
genuinely feel i sort of opened up my we spend so much time feeding energies that just
01:21:54
are not worth it that you just have to keep pushing up in that three years what did you what was what did you tell yourself
01:22:01
because a lot of people when they when the garage is empty they just want to fill it with anything do you know what i mean because that
01:22:06
makes them feel they feel complete or you know when there's someone there they feel like they need someone just to fill the
01:22:11
garage but what did you do for those three years to patience i guess or you know you talked
01:22:17
about manifesting well probably one of the most toughest three years of my life at least three years i i grieved first of all the loss of your
01:22:23
marriage yeah you grieve and i think you have to grieve and um
01:22:29
[Music] covert hit not easy i had to gosh on
01:22:34
your own and or yeah you're on yeah yeah and you have your kids and you're resettling where you live so
01:22:40
you everything changed everything so my business changed
01:22:45
my marriage ended where i lived changed so it was a huge amount of change and
01:22:51
actually the last thing i was able to do was bring anyone into that i had to be with me um
01:22:58
[Music] yeah and it was it was very very painful very painful and
01:23:04
a lot and i i think it's only in the last six to ten months i've come through amazing well listen mary you've um been
01:23:12
just the best guest ever so hilarious and intelligent and honest which is amazing i need to be more
01:23:17
hilarious i was just thinking you're thinking of [ __ ] i need to be more funny am i funny you are funny yeah oh that's that's the only time you're
01:23:23
funny through being honest no this is the thing you're just honest and a lot of people they skirt around what they they truly think because they're trying to find the
01:23:29
correct politically correct words or phrases and you don't seem to give a [ __ ] which i think makes for great listening
01:23:34
you you're already there well yeah i i am yeah but maybe you're more descriptive
01:23:40
so it's even more hilarious but i you know yeah just thank you so much my pleasure and thank you for
01:23:46
rescheduling me another bit of a nightmare you were definitely worth it
01:23:51
i really appreciate it love and luck for all you do thank you please shine your light in the world that's needed i mean it i'll do my very best
01:24:12
[Music] oh
01:24:18
[Music] you
