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i love failure i fail every day i don't care about it just get on with it
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a prayer so now you've got itsu you are absolutely an entrepreneur at heart as all the fish are going in one way you
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suddenly look around you think damn it i'm going to go the other way when you look back at pran at business you ended up selling for 2 billion i had no idea
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what i was doing it wasn't planned endless moments of magic moments of bizarre creativity and confidence what
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was motivating you i wanted to make a difference i suddenly found myself with this responsibility to open a restaurant
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from that start we built 76 of them we started developing it so it could become the future
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the absence of both parents he was quite distant my father my mother committed suicide when i was seven that created a
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loneliness to create something new you've got to put yourself in slightly uncharted
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territory business isn't just business to you is it it's not just about the money no and it shouldn't be to anyone
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i'm far more interested in the relationships with the customer and the staff and the product i was obsessed by that obsessed it's incredible what
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people can do people don't trust them people don't nurture them because they're too busy being selfish nurturing
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themselves what's the worst crisis you've ever had in your business i don't even want to go into it i want to hear it
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so without further ado i'm stephen bartlett and this is the diary of a ceo i hope nobody's listening but if you are
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then please keep this to yourself
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julian yeah i was exposed to a number of hardships
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as a child you said that what did you mean
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i love the way you start off with a real killer i can't remember who i said that to
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um and i was expecting well i'm not i'm not
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alone by the way a great many people watching this or listening to this were exposed to hardships far greater than
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mine but the death of my mother when i was seven she my mother committed suicide on boxing day
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uh so i was left and my parents were divorced so we we lived uh the three of us my
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brother sister and i lived with our mom but that was a difficult thing that was a that created a loneliness
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did you did you realize that at the time did you realize the impact that incident had had on you growing up
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probably not no i think i that you don't when you're lonely you
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don't really age eight or nine or twelve you don't really know you're lonely you just you don't feel whole i suppose
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you don't feel completely whole other people seem to be jollier than i was at that age that's for sure
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as an adult did you ever look back and try and understand the significance of that particular event
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and how it might have shaped you i think the event i don't know if it's shaped me but it's definitely added um
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a complexity to my character which has made me which has helped shape my my my
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relationship with people my relationship with work my relationship with everything yeah there's no doubt it would be
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silly to pretend that it didn't reminds me of something that um i talk about this guy a lot this guy said to me
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he came on this podcast he was michael jordan and kobe bryant's trainer and he talked about how
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some of the things that happened to us early that are traumatic end up being the cause of our what he called
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light side which is the talent our brilliance the thing we become known for but they're also the contributor to our
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dark side which can be our complexity our insecurities all of those kinds of things um
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do you think that event so early on or any event early on in your life
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that particular event let's focus on that particular event hadn't contributing factor to what people would consider to be your brilliance this
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incredible career you've had listen i think i think people people work people become obsessive and they
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become successful and they work extremely hard for all kinds of different reasons they want to become relevant they want
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to be they want maybe to be careful or seek admiration they didn't get or they have parents who
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didn't acknowledge them i really i don't know all i know is it must have probably had of course it had some effect on the
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way i've i work and the view my life and have lived my life yeah but i but i think um over time over over
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many years it's it's it it's waned um as i've
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as i've kind of developed as a person i i also i'm right i'm nervous about
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even suggesting that you know to be fulfilled and to make change and to really contribute to
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society you have to come from a dark place because i don't think you do um
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certainly not as as dark as something like that i you know i i think about when i meet a
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lot of obsessive people it tends to be the case that something quite uh extreme
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had poked them yeah in their life at some point to make them give them that chip on their shoulder yeah whether it's michael jordan or kobe or whether it's
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eddie hearn yeah and that feeling of living in his father's shadow and the insecurity of that and these other you know the sons of billionaires that i
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meet who've built big fashion empires yeah they're very um they're very dominant fathers have have made them
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incessive obsessive by convincing them vicariously that they're not good enough for example and so that's why i always i
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always tend to go in search of understanding what where that obsessive is you're right dude there's there's bound to be a
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correlation as you know from all the all so many of the people you've interviewed and you're clearly very empathetic that
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you will find a a train a common denominator there but it's not it's it's not everything it's certainly
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not for for a great many people listening or watching who who have not faced tragedy or sadness like that um
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they need to know that it's it's not an essential part of being able to get on and and do do good do extraordinary work
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what about your father my father was uh he was quite distant my father um
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[Music] he was kind of old-fashioned my parents were very very different my
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mother was ukrainian immigrant uh and and kind of wild and wonderful and my father
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was really kind of iris posh aristocratic instrument rather distant and cold
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he then made a mistake of marrying um someone for a very short period of time when i was about 10 11 that that ended
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very that did not end well for any of us uh the three children um
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so it's not a great time between seven and and sixteen it was a messy a messy
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uh childhood i think did you live with problems did you ever go in search of
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answers as to why your mother made that decision
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ah no i i i didn't i didn't because not not that many
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people knew my mother actually we we lived alone with her um i
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she was just she was just had serious mental issues because she was
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just ill and and sad and and it's awful you know
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terrible terrible it's common i mean listen it's common this happens all the time
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um this happens too much
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um too much too common
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that that distance from um the absence of both parents that's that's kind of what i've ascertained
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from what you said so far there was an absence of of both parents to some degree what i i i resonate with that for my own
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reasons yeah i um my mum was was working so hard that she decided to end up
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sleeping in the shop so i was i'm the youngest of four as well and typically what you find i think is the youngest
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one gets treated like the older ones yeah at a certain point especially if it's a boy and so by the age of 10
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neither of my parents are there when i wake up and neither of them are there when i go to sleep on one hand that gives me great independence yeah it
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means that i stop going to school yeah because no one's going to punish me if i don't yeah um and that is maybe in my
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case what led me to becoming in my view an entrepreneur there was a void of um responsibility or sort of accountability
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which led to independence so i started selling things and doing what i liked that made me very bad at following rules
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later in life which i think is i'm going back and connecting the dots in hindsight but i think that led me to be able to i'm sure that's true that would
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make complete sense um so both of us have that in common but then you know so so do a great many
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others um in addition to my i had a real problem with authority i went to really
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old-fashioned schools i was sent away to schools age seven and in both cases the schools were really really old-fashioned
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and in my opinion terribly badly run with all kinds of bad things going on it was just shocking
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so i had a really bad relationship with authority i felt it completely let me down on every level
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um i still do actually so maybe that's why i branched out on my own early to try and i just
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you know so many of us are let down by people in power and authority i find
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you know it's sad it's irritating it really is irritating actually it doesn't matter if it's people who run companies
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or people in politics or people who run schools it's just particularly schools i think
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um people who are in charge of young children need to nurture them and look
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after them and help them build their confidence and strength not put them through a meat grinder
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that's what happened in your school the uh the first uh private school i went to was just just shocking yeah really really
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i didn't want to go into it because it would just upset your view of your view i want to hear it no no no i'm not going
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to go there i refuse together but it was just not a good experience not a good place and so that
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that's where i think i learned very very early on to seriously distrust authority
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and deeply and and perhaps then realize okay you've got to forge your own path and work with
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people who you trust and people who are worthy of your your love
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and people who give back rather than people who
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you know climb that ladder into positions of authority
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but a great many of us suffer from this a great many of us are
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working our asses off for people who don't really support us or appreciate us or want to
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develop our characters or skills or anything so commerce is selfish
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the people who do well in commerce if you look at your success 90 of it is because of your
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your understanding of the way human beings work it's about giving and taking and giving
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and thinking long term that's what really builds success i think
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i really do i mean one advantage i have my father used to spend a lot of time uh
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entertaining very very kind of powerful people particularly from america and and
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i realized they were in the end mostly just pretty average human beings but it achieved a lot
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and i started seeing them with all their faults and warts and realizing wow
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to make a difference it's not impossible but you need the right structure and i
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think so many of us work in a structure which is simply not possible whether it be politics or fear or our
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own insecurities or whatever it is there's just not enough transparency in this world
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you know a great many of us are working with no transparency at all in in our place of work
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don't you think i get the feeling you you you thrive off transparency you like
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it you face things head-on and you like people around you to face things head-on that's that's the way to build
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it's the only way yeah i've been on a journey i think i think when i was a bit more insecure i think transparency felt like a risk and
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then as i've developed my in myself and also in my businesses transparency felt like a great motivator yeah and i
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actually said to my team some of which are in the room now at the start of this month
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that every quarter i'm going to show you all the financials of our entire business so you can see everything and
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also you're going to see that i've never taken a pound out of this business ever because i want them to understand
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because in that that's an example of for me transparency in a business context being a real big big motivator then one
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of the younger girls in the team when i was in the car one day turned to me and said by the way you doing that completely changed my perception because
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i think yeah i think they thought that like i was making this money from doing this podcast or whatever it is or my
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business and then taking the money into my pocket from as it comes in so to show them that i've never taken a penny ever
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i it kind of i think yeah aligns us no no listeners transparency
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and people being open and honest and building trust is by far the most important characteristic
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ever for the day i started my work for the last 40 years i've now realized it's what you should value and crave more
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than anything it's worth everything transparency is everything and so many people work in an environment we're
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simply not there they're just not used to it they can't expect it they can't demand it and they're not going to get it and that's bad
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move job change don't don't don't you shouldn't work for people who aren't transparent
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and that's transparency is a wonderful thing you get some honesty a truth truth is
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wonderful can you define your definition of what you mean when you're saying transparency well
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i mean to keep it really simple let's let's let's stick to the world of commerce and the world of commerce is
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and probably politics but i don't know i have no understanding of politics and i've no inkling ever to be a politician
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but in the world of commerce there's not nearly as much transparency as this should be so sharing information sharing
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truth saying what you feel um being honest with your your your colleagues your teammates as
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well as the people who work with you and for you it's just you can't take that that stuff for
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granted because it doesn't happen in most places you i don't know you need a collective
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um you need you need uh you need to to um
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i don't know why you tell me why why do you think 90 of businesses are not nearly as transparent
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as they should be and could be we know what they are it's all about people protecting their own fears it's about
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their own insecurities about protecting their own pay their bonuses there are a thousand reasons why there's not the
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transparency we deserve as human beings because to achieve the truth so say like i'm
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just for as an example say i run an organic um vegetable store yup
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i can on one hand go to the extra effort of actually being organic which means it costs me more i
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have to do a bunch of stuff in the supply chain whatever or i can say i am and
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get the same return exactly two decades ago
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it would be very hard for you to find out i was lying because the world wasn't connected with the internet there was no
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glass doors social media tweeting instantaneous communication so i think the world of business grew in a black
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box approach where your your pr your marketing your messaging was painted out on the outside
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of your business by the marketing director we're now in a glass box world where everybody can see inside and they
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can talk with someone in australia in a second so i think that there's been this i think transparent businesses in
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the last 10 years in the connected world have really won um for that reason okay
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there's no doubt it's much harder to lie with the gut to your consumers there's no question but i'm more interested in
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in the lies that deceit and and the the lack of transparency and the darkness
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with the relationships people have with their employees and their employer
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where a great deal of stuff is never said well i mean how many people do what is
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the percentage of people who wake up on a monday morning want to go to work i mean it's frighteningly small why do you
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think that is i mean if if 80 percent of the people who you work with you find out they didn't want to come to
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work wouldn't you find that devastating wouldn't surely wouldn't you look in the mirror and say what on earth am i doing
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wrong i think if that was the case i also wouldn't want to come to that place of course you wouldn't but the thing is now you've got to ask
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yourself why does that apply to 70 of all working people and what are they meant to do how do we sitting here
00:16:50
around this round table what do we mean how can we help them how can we help nurture a thing where
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people have got the courage to be transparent and say what they feel what do you think the answer is i don't
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know but but we're living in a times where it's beginning to happen i mean listen just look at the metoo
00:17:07
movement who would have thought a few years ago that could have generated the speed and power it did it's an
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incredibly good thing i mean you know that went from i dare not say anything to the whole
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world saying everything in just one year two years it's fantastic
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there's a small example of absolutely zero transparency sick
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power corrupt this awful thing but we know this is true
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we know it's true as you're a boss you you know you have a position of huge responsibility you know
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i know we all know that what about affection what is affection one of the things that
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one of the things that was definitely absent from my childhood was affection i didn't even call my parents mum and dad i still don't to this day
00:17:54
um their absence i think was one part of that but also just i didn't have affection so growing up the thought of
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calling someone a friend yeah a best friend still to this day makes me cringe
00:18:05
it's just a little bit yeah in your case are you an affectionate person i
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i've never been asked that question i have absolutely no idea how to answer it um
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because do i compare myself to other people um i have no idea you don't know if you're
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affectionate or not i think i'm affectionate in your own way but
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i also know for years i struggled with my like like so many with self-esteem and you know um and i i i'm sure i felt
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completely unlovable for decades probably i'd i'm sure um
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but then you know i i've had in my opinion uh i've been blessed with
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amazing relationships with friends and and and family i mean just completely blessed and and and i'm not a baby so
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i'm six you know i'm 62 years old and so this you know i've two of my children work with me
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uh i mean what more could you possibly dream of than that so
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i must have some relationship with the concept of affection how where it came from when how i grew
00:19:17
it i i'm not entirely sure because i certainly didn't get it from my mother and father i must have got it from
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from from close friends and and maybe just looking and learning that there's no point
00:19:29
trying to go through life without it what you what you give you get back you know pratimagi started you know as like
00:19:35
it became a kind of incredible family and the warmth and love and care which went into the building of relationships
00:19:42
and that company was breathtaking it was like a family where it started with one store and ended up with hundreds but
00:19:48
there was a time when it was truly extraordinary extended family and that's
00:19:53
i think where i grew to understand the power of of of of
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deep affection love and trust yeah it definitely came for me much
00:20:04
later than for most people yeah you said there was you think there was probably decades where you didn't love
00:20:09
yourself yeah well i mean decades as in in my teens and then in my 20s
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um you i don't know how good you are at at reflecting and self-discovery i'm i'm
00:20:23
kind of a five out of ten probably i i mean i i pushed myself therapy and
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and even doing this i think called the hoffman have you heard about it he's coming here yeah i did the hoffman he's kind of great he's what a genius that
00:20:35
guy was but so i try what was your question or how long the
00:20:41
decades of self-loathing i don't know no not how long just what were the symptoms of of that
00:20:47
just just probably um just that ongoing feeling of being completely unworthy
00:20:52
that's what you get when you don't have parents so much or loving
00:20:58
you're not nurtured you know so you feel lonely
00:21:03
you grow up with that that feeling of unworthiness and i always believe i i actually wrote
00:21:10
it i think in my book on my notepad or something that the things that made us feel invalid when we're younger end up being the things we seek validation from
00:21:17
when we're older that's complete common sense and true what so did you feel unloved
00:21:24
it was i knew my parents loved me that we just didn't have i just didn't learn what affection was so like think about i
00:21:30
don't even call them dad and mum today i didn't learn what it was i also because their relationship was incredibly
00:21:37
dis like loud and so i've said this a million times before it's in my book my mom would scream my dad for seven hours
00:21:43
a day my mom is african she can really hit some notes and my dad would sit there he's a he's a guy from coventry
00:21:49
you know he was a middle-aged white man and he would just be totally silent and that was my model of relationships if
00:21:54
you're with a woman you are in prison so i i didn't get into relationships 27.
00:22:00
yeah yeah so i learned all of those models and then you know i would chase i would chase women when i was young i
00:22:05
would chase women when i was 14. i would chase women when i was 21. the minute they turned to me and said yes
00:22:10
i would dissuade them i'd immediately talk them out of it but why do you think that's because once
00:22:16
you had them you felt that you didn't deserve their affection or was it just the competition of getting them to prove
00:22:22
that you were worthy of them because was it i would pursue them because of the reasons why we pursue anyone because
00:22:29
they're beautiful and i have those hormones and there's that desire and i you know i have that okay
00:22:35
the minute we got to commitment yeah we're going to be boyfriend and girlfriend so you were frightened of the commitment i was i would have me
00:22:41
immediately felt like my dad trapped in a cage okay so i would dissuade them from it so
00:22:47
it was literally i it took me until i was 25 to figure out what was going on while i was running away from women that i was chasing um the minute we got to
00:22:54
commitment boyfriend and girlfriend if it made me my skin crawl and it made me feel like i was trapped so i dissuade
00:23:00
them so in your case that could have just been because what you witnessed 100 so over over years you
00:23:07
just witnessed this dysfunctional relationship where in a way your father was trapped so it kind of
00:23:12
so mine was different to that because i never saw my parents together ever i don't think i barely ever saw them in
00:23:18
the room together that's not quite true my father used to come down occasionally on sunday but i never saw them arguing
00:23:24
um so my my take on what love was and should be was was
00:23:30
that must have been my own invention i i don't know but i've come to it's a fascinating
00:23:36
subject don't you think when you study people who in uh supportive wonderful relationships i find it enthralling i
00:23:42
mean fascinating fascinating so the most fascinating um thing to study
00:23:49
how people uh adapt their life to be completely in
00:23:55
love with someone and and and live their life uh
00:24:00
just showing warmth and kindness and forgiveness and love is very enriching if you can do it
00:24:06
it's definitely something to um it's a goal it's a great goal
00:24:12
i mean it's a goal there are other girls but that's got to be the greatest i guess
00:24:18
i think we admire and others the things we don't have in ourselves right so people would look at you and go how the hell the greatest goal is to build prep
00:24:25
and i would look at someone else and say what you've just said i'd say the greatest goal is to how the [ __ ] did you stay together for 50 years when i'm
00:24:31
struggling to stay together for two or one yeah yeah i guess that's what makes life fascinating in the sense that some
00:24:37
people can achieve the goals that that you and i think are really very very difficult but doesn't stop us
00:24:43
stop us struggling to get there what was the consequence then of you you growing up being in your early 20s and not
00:24:48
feeling like you were quote-unquote sort of enough was that what did you see well on the dark side i guess it made me focus more
00:24:55
and and and made me more determined i guess more determined uh
00:25:02
just it's it where most people uh packed off and went home i would i would
00:25:09
i'd be prepared to stick it out um but you can't i had an interesting
00:25:15
conversation with someone the other day about the use of this expression hard work he said it's not hard work it's not
00:25:20
it's it's a great many people work very very hard and they don't um
00:25:27
it's it's not that it's about it's about the evidence it's about can you make
00:25:32
change are you getting better is your product better is your service better is your relationship with the people you
00:25:38
work with is it better you know it's about proof it's about real facts it's not just hard work hard work
00:25:44
we just use that expression i work really hard i know a lot of people who work really really hard but they don't
00:25:50
work in the focus way that you and i work so it's it's worth kind of thinking well
00:25:56
what is the difference between them and us what is it and if we have to guide anyone if that
00:26:02
if they seek if they already are in a rich wonderful relationship and they want to run a company their own company
00:26:08
they want to be self-employed how can we guide them what is it that we have that they don't
00:26:15
um and would we swap their wonderful rich incredible relationship
00:26:20
to have another 500 employees i'm not sure i i think you can have both oh that's
00:26:26
what i i um that's my goal you know i i i'm determined to have both
00:26:32
determined to have both you don't have to have one without the others not true
00:26:39
i mean it's hard to have both but come on it's gotta be worth aiming for isn't it
00:26:45
do you have both now yeah not not in full because my career is
00:26:51
only half there and i'm oh i'm not running out of steam but it's so annoying i'm running out of time
00:26:58
um and my relationship with my you know i have seven kids i've got
00:27:04
four step kids three of mine i've got uh how long have we been together 15 years
00:27:09
brook and i mean yeah i'm i'm bloody lucky i'm really fortunate i think i i think i
00:27:16
picked really well um you know i'm bloody lucky with that
00:27:22
but i mean i could blow it i guess but i'm gonna do my damnedest not to when you look back at um starting prep
00:27:29
we're talking about what's driving you there was there any epiphanies around what was really driving you on that day
00:27:35
when someone first came along and said they were going to buy your company because for me i thought i was being driven by money until someone offered me it
00:27:42
and i thought oh god there must be something else motivating me here i don't know about that myself
00:27:48
it's i've often wondered did money and the pursuit of money ever driving i
00:27:54
don't think so because i think i saw enough people when i was young with a lot of money who are absolutely
00:27:59
miserable and dysfunctional and miserable actually my mother had a lot of money and lot obviously lost it all
00:28:04
and died so there i had a very good example of of someone with a huge amount of money who
00:28:09
had nothing well i didn't we didn't inherit any of her money but she was um it was a good example of
00:28:15
someone who's miserable with money money doesn't it's awful uh you know when people like
00:28:20
you and i say money doesn't make you happy it's nothing more irritating there's a statement like that when a great many people uh don't have a large
00:28:27
cash reserves in their bank account but the fact is uh we both know that it doesn't what was motivating you well i
00:28:34
think i wanted to make a difference i wanted to be relevant i wanted to be admired
00:28:40
yeah i wanted to do something interesting and great i wanted to people i wanted people to look at me and think
00:28:45
wow he's this this guy's serious he's on to something he matters
00:28:51
then i wanted to to create these important relationships with people i worked with i wanted to
00:28:57
see people flourish around me that really mattered to me i wanted to try and wipe away all the some of that pain
00:29:04
i wanted that and then deep down i really love and passionately creative
00:29:10
the creative process of what i did so the design and the food and the taste and the look and the feel and and
00:29:16
breaking down every barrier which i just as far as i was i only kind of saw opportunity
00:29:23
you have to be very resourceful and determined in in my particular business
00:29:29
you know because it's as we as we were saying before and it's basic if you want to sell the best cake
00:29:37
in the world at the best price you've got to be damn resourceful you've got to work with geniuses you have the best
00:29:43
equipment the best everything and and that doesn't happen overnight you don't get that by picking up the
00:29:48
phone and ordering something you have to create it and it's you have to be unbelievably resourceful
00:29:55
but i i that with regard to the food the design and my belief in in what food should be and could be for people um
00:30:03
knows no bounds no end no end i'll stop at nothing love it
00:30:08
those dinner parties your father threat yeah yeah did they have any lasting impression or lasting
00:30:14
impact well no most of the time i was in the kitchen actually so i'd meet these these remark these many remarkable
00:30:20
people but my love of food started because i used to spend all the time in the kitchen and there was a a guy used
00:30:26
to come and cook he was really talented tony and i'd spend the night with him
00:30:32
watching him work from the age of about 14 13. it was fascinating and that's really
00:30:38
where my love of food started with him watching him work so it was a combination of of of becoming obsessed
00:30:45
with what food could be and should be um and at the same time not being frightened of of all these
00:30:51
rather dysfunctional but immensely successful people who i met through my father i didn't really get to
00:30:56
know them very well but a few at the time it's hard to determine when
00:31:01
you're building a business and it's going well it's hard to determine at the time what's actually making it brilliant and the specialness as you've called it
00:31:07
before in hindsight i think it's much easier to look back and go that's why we were special and different that's why
00:31:14
we won when you look back at prep at business you ended up selling for two billion or something crazy a huge number
00:31:19
yeah okay it doesn't matter it's a huge number um what was the specialness what
00:31:25
what did you unintentionally intentionally do right what was the well certain amount of it it wasn't
00:31:31
planned it happened endless moments of magic endless moments
00:31:37
of of moments of bizarre creativity and confidence exactly the same with with
00:31:44
your business it just it's so difficult it was you didn't write it all down and plan it it just it happened with moments
00:31:50
of confidence endless endless moments you know of swimming upstream as all the
00:31:56
fish are going in one way you suddenly look around you think damn it i'm going to go the other way i'm not going to swim
00:32:03
in this direction this can't be right and that takes guts it takes bravery it
00:32:08
takes relationships with people it takes hiring talent you have to have the guts to hire talent people's often much
00:32:14
better than you you've got to prepare to listen and listen until it hurts you've got to be prepared to fail over and over
00:32:21
and over again i love failure i love it because it's just a damn journey
00:32:27
i really love it i fail every day and i don't care about it i just get on
00:32:32
with it it's wonderful um but with prep food is a magical thing to be able to do
00:32:37
it's like music or film i mean it's it's it's because when we know it's good it's wonderful
00:32:43
it's wonderful and in those days in 1986 when we started it was in the doldrums it was
00:32:49
also boring and awful um so it was just a question of but but prep wasn't just built with food
00:32:56
it was built with a combination was kind of built with a magical magic approach to the
00:33:02
the respect and love and obsession about creating pride and trust within with the
00:33:09
with the team with employees i i was obsessed by that obsessed by that actually how how important was it for
00:33:15
you that you were naive because i think naive oh it's very important i had no idea what i was doing
00:33:21
none why was that i have no idea what i'm doing most of the time actually because i spend my life casting myself
00:33:26
out into never never land i know what i'm doing half the time but you learn you listen you talk you speak to the
00:33:32
right people and you learn because to create something new how you know
00:33:37
you've got to you've got to put yourself in slightly uncharted territory you know and then you've got to be prepared to fail many many times and
00:33:44
keep going that's all prep was just a series of hundreds of failures that's all it was moments of failure and then moments of
00:33:51
glory moments of wonderful moments of bravery yeah that was it like you you
00:33:58
know exactly what i'm talking about it's moments endless moments where light goes on you think okay i'm going to take that
00:34:04
risk i'm going to do it it feels right something in your heart says it's
00:34:09
go for it it could be it could be working with people promoting people or
00:34:16
giving them extraordinary opportunity or or developing something which no one's ever eaten before or i don't know
00:34:22
hundreds of different things or when systems don't work and you're not getting
00:34:27
you're not getting the behaviors or the warmth or the trust you crave then you have to think outside the box you got to
00:34:33
think again we used to there was one store after about 10 the
00:34:39
10th pressure i think i i couldn't understand why the atmosphere in this store was so bad fleet street oh it's
00:34:45
fleet street yep bloody hell and it was the first time i had paid a recruitment
00:34:50
company for a top manager suit and tie the whole thing and yeah it's true i met this girl who i
00:34:57
recognized who worked in the store a young scruffy girl on the tube on the way home she burst into tears and she said i'm leaving on monday
00:35:05
because her manager was a dick and i didn't need her to explain what dick meant i knew exactly what she meant
00:35:12
my god i'd been at school i'd been all the teachers were dicks i knew exactly what she meant and i
00:35:19
hated i hated the idea of this this determined brave
00:35:24
trustworthy wonderful loving fabulous young lady being bullied by dick
00:35:32
so we we fired the dick and we promoted her to a manager and i never looked back i think i learned more from that young
00:35:38
lady than any anyone i've ever learned in my life actually the hope and the joy did you see
00:35:44
yourself in her oh my god i've never thought about that oh my god maybe
00:35:51
but no one ever gave me that opportunity i had to fight for it i didn't give her that opportunity she earned it actually
00:35:58
she earned it just by being herself she was a great manager too actually i
00:36:03
don't know how i knew i wasn't i didn't know she was going to be a great manager there was something about her there was something about her and by the
00:36:09
way there's something about a great great many people i meet they all have
00:36:14
so much going for them they just don't believe it they're just not working in an environment where they're giving the
00:36:20
opportunity they deserve people don't trust them people don't nurture them because
00:36:25
they're too busy being selfish nurturing them themselves sounds like you're talking about your
00:36:30
school teachers oh well they're just they were idiots they were just complete idiots
00:36:36
and they're just downright no one should be they shouldn't have been paid but a lot of authorities like that
00:36:43
i mean a lot and that stores sales doubled or something oh my god yeah double triple
00:36:50
yeah of course why because there was there was trust there was care there was pride there was
00:36:57
love and forgiveness there was goals there was there was everything wonderful
00:37:02
in life right there right there business isn't just business to you is
00:37:09
it it's not just about the money no and it shouldn't be to anyone but it
00:37:14
is because we worked short-term goals so many of us are controlled but bossed
00:37:20
around we have to we're you know people's emotions are incredibly inconvenient in commerce
00:37:26
aren't they let's face it and and some people like you and other people have found ways
00:37:32
of being you know find ways of of of bypassing all that
00:37:37
[ __ ] and you let people be themselves you actually encourage
00:37:43
people to be themselves to speak up to be transparent
00:37:48
that's what you need that shot was completely transparent it was beautiful
00:37:53
and that's what builds great great companies or great teams or great sports teams to know what it is or
00:37:59
makes great movies it doesn't matter or anything people need that feeling of uh
00:38:06
sense of purpose and trust uh openness i think funny you talk much more in terms of culture than you do in
00:38:13
terms of tactics and tricks and discounting and these kinds of things seems to start more with culture with
00:38:18
you yeah i think it's it's if you're trying to break down barriers and do things new
00:38:24
which i've now spent the last 20 years really taking on almost an extraordinary wonderful challenge
00:38:31
which we will we will win we will get there with it soon yeah it's a
00:38:36
affordable nutritious food and it is reinventing itself over and
00:38:42
over and over again i mean it's 20 years old and it's had three reinventions that
00:38:47
the latest ones are beginning to be to really pay i mean they're really wonderful
00:38:52
because the world the europe are the cities in which we live desperately need affordable
00:38:57
nutritious food we are half 40 percent i think plant-based
00:39:03
our entire menu is under 500 calories most of it's under 400 you know this is what people need we can't go on in this
00:39:09
in the developed world being 50 percent of obese or something whatever it is now it's shocking
00:39:15
but this is we can't blame anyone for this there's no point blaming there's no point even blaming us there's no one to
00:39:20
blame but it's about my responsibility i think is with my team to carry on
00:39:27
pioneering the the systems and the and the system to make it possible to sell really nutritious good food for for
00:39:34
seven quid it's possible you talked about hiring and the importance of people and the right people there one of the things
00:39:39
that i read that you'd done very early on with prep was to allow the current employees to
00:39:46
sign off on an incoming team member so when someone comes for an interview the people that decide if that person is
00:39:51
going to get a job are the current team members yeah so we the office used to pay for for
00:39:56
we did interview people um we'd go through the list of of the shops which the predator managers
00:40:02
which needed people coming up and we'd send them there and they would spend the whole day there
00:40:08
paid and at four o'clock no one would know they wouldn't know this but at four o'clock all the the staff would vote on
00:40:14
a napkin yes or no so they go around the whole team that we would find ways of of
00:40:19
getting as many people to spend 25 minutes with them as possible and then at uh four o'clock they'd vote and then
00:40:25
we'd ring the person up you got it or you didn't and why why was that you because
00:40:30
uh i wish i'd been able to do that at school because i realized after about seven or eight it was dysfunctional that
00:40:37
you only needed a slightly not particularly reliable or trustworthy manager and what would they do they'd
00:40:42
hire the people they wanted the whole system would just be abused
00:40:48
and there were a couple of examples where that was happening and it just made me sick because it was so bad for the team it
00:40:54
was bad for the culture it was bad for the manager and it was really bad for the customers so i i just
00:41:02
created this simple system which was so beautiful it was beautiful because young people were voting on other people's lives
00:41:08
within a few weeks of starting that was great empowering them trusting them that was great good for them huh really good
00:41:15
for them small details you know when i read through your story of both your businesses all your businesses i noticed
00:41:21
that there's a real eye for detail you know if i think about itsu and the orchards you have there you have real
00:41:27
orchards in the itsu's right could very well fake them like i do i mean i'm pretty sure there's some fake
00:41:33
orchards in here there's definitely some fake orchards upstairs yeah you went for the real ones in prayer one of the
00:41:39
things that's ultimately defined the brand called culture at the right time is the fact that the food is all completely fresh so none of it has a
00:41:46
cell by date it doesn't stay there until tomorrow ever these small
00:41:51
sort of concerns with detail how defining have they been for you in hindsight because sometimes people are told not to sweat the small stuff yeah
00:41:59
okay so quite a lot of this stuff is to me at the time it's just kind of obvious in other words
00:42:04
if your product if you want expect your customers to be loyal to you you've got to treat them with treat them
00:42:10
with respect you've got to sell them something worth worthy of their hard-earned money but people care about the bottom line give that cost you more
00:42:15
money now that's ridiculous i'm not a very good accountant i i know i don't i'm not interested in
00:42:23
in the numbers of the at all i'm far more interested in the relationships with the customer and the staff and the
00:42:28
product the numbers are just look after themselves they really really really do and anyway
00:42:35
i've always been lucky to be to have wonderful brilliant people around me who are much better than i at
00:42:41
numbers i hate numbers they're so boring i shouldn't say that because without the
00:42:46
numbers you can't grow so i feel very strongly that we have to have numbers which enable us to grow because if we can grow we can feed more people and
00:42:52
then we can give opportunities someone's told you that after the fact yeah i can tell that's not that wasn't
00:42:58
your default position it was a bit exactly but i find the numbers awfully boring compared to the product and the
00:43:04
relationships with the people um they're just like a school report in a way aren't they um if you want to give
00:43:13
away and refuse to keep all your sandwiches to the next day and what's more drive them in a van to the homeless
00:43:18
people who need them clearly they've got to be delicious you know got a taste good enough so
00:43:24
people will pay 50p more or 30p more and that's just basic common sense isn't it i think the whole numbers thing's
00:43:30
reasonable it's just common sense so you never even you at pratt you didn't even throw the food away you would drive it in advance yeah we had to
00:43:37
even when we were making no profits we had a van to take it to the homeless you know every of course yeah because you
00:43:42
can't expect people to make this stuff to make the food with pride and then throw it away yeah we obsessed about not
00:43:49
not not throwing it away you can't can't throw it away uh
00:43:54
and then if you take the piss out of your customers you'll lose them don't you find it extraordinary how
00:44:00
often you get shocking service where you've spent a lot of money and no one gives a damn i'm not going to name big companies but
00:44:07
i can think of some companies where i've spent five or six thousand pounds on something and they don't answer
00:44:13
i mean it can be shocking and they still don't care oh my god i will answer every customer
00:44:19
now today if customers write to me i'll answer them before i go to bed no question at prep the other thing that was quite
00:44:26
i remember hearing about and thinking oh that's cool and different is one in every 100 coffees or something you would
00:44:32
give away no it wasn't that no it was much more than that like was it okay so we didn't have a loyalty scheme for
00:44:37
years and years and years because we we couldn't quite know what to do and i couldn't but what i realized is uh very
00:44:43
very early on i think in prep number 12 or something we said i know that what we'll just
00:44:49
really encourage everyone who works there to give whatever they want away to whoever they want to
00:44:55
um it was wonderful we used to do these things called buddy
00:45:00
days well the whole office used everyone had a buddy shop and um
00:45:06
and my buddy shot was oxford but we used to you could give away five or six or ten
00:45:11
products every single day to anyone a regular customer someone who had a long face someone you fancied it just didn't
00:45:17
matter give because when you do good stuff it always comes back you get it back you've got to think long
00:45:24
term and so this was a good example of where we begged everyone who worked for us just
00:45:30
be kind give it away they exceed the expectations of customers they'll come back
00:45:36
and you know what should i tell the most extraordinary thing some of the most profitable shops short term short term
00:45:43
we found weren't giving anything away so the manager was saying to us no no no no giveaways no giveaways
00:45:49
because their margins their profit margin was better so we introduced a button on the till called the joy of
00:45:55
pratt i didn't do this clive did this he introduced a system whereby at the press of a button on the computer
00:46:01
could tell us every single store which wasn't giving away enough because when you gave something away you
00:46:06
had to press you register on the till as a giveaway so we quickly found out all the managers who were being who were
00:46:13
running their businesses too tight they were being a bit mean they thought
00:46:18
they were doing a good job by delivering more profit what what they didn't realize is no no to do a great job you
00:46:24
need to build a long-term relationship with your staff and your your customers so give them a coffee give them a
00:46:29
question just do it do you have any evidence numerically to support that that worked no
00:46:36
none zero and everyone used to come in professionals and consultants just say
00:46:41
this is ridiculous what are you doing your loyalty scheme is a joke and i just
00:46:48
what can you say just no
00:46:54
it works great but but it can't it you know
00:47:00
different different it works great but you can't prove it that's the typical ceo thing it's like
00:47:06
trying to explain it to a cfo it's just like yeah just believe just believe it the only reason we're sitting here now
00:47:12
you and i is because multiple times we've just made decisions like this
00:47:17
um half the time we've had to pretend to people we work with we know what we're talking about whenever we have
00:47:23
completely no idea but if it feels right and you think long term you do it you
00:47:28
just persuade them you pretend you know you justify in hindsight yeah of course
00:47:34
you find some study find some study or just say let's try it and then and then
00:47:39
no and then finally say we're gonna try it i i wonder sometimes about how you know
00:47:46
in your story and in my story um how our traumas and how our experiences with
00:47:51
authority or with our parents or with shitty corporate jobs we had ended up shaping the decisions we made in our
00:47:58
businesses and defining us because that's why i referenced naivete not knowing the correct answers and in some
00:48:04
cases having a problem with rules and authority end up creating a more modern culture that i think so yeah i'm sure i
00:48:10
see it over and over again eventually all the crap we went through definitely helped us uh break through and just
00:48:16
just do things differently must do yes when you know something doesn't work why not just try something else
00:48:22
that's why founder led businesses even you know you think about steve jobs perspective on the world to remove that keyboard and to do those small decisions
00:48:29
that they made maybe it was driven by ego insecurity or whatever but it but for some reason it gives
00:48:35
people courage of their convictions to create new things yeah new ways and also a never-ending pursuit for the
00:48:41
the better detail to make something better and it's endless that's the thing about
00:48:46
the food it is truly endless why did i read that you don't like ambitious managers in your business i read that
00:48:53
you like slow and beautiful growth very ambitious people are a pain in the ass
00:48:58
often very ambitious people often not always but often a very short term
00:49:03
and they're really hiding all their crap for their own personal their own personal gain which i
00:49:10
understand they've got they've got their own goals they've got their own desires they've got their own dreams of their
00:49:15
own house this car this house this school this whatever the hell it is but that can be incredibly destructive
00:49:22
to someone like myself and my team and an organization which i take like a 30 year view to
00:49:29
everything i do i really do 30 years which drives must
00:49:34
drive some people i work with up the wall but i really like to think 30 years 30 years must be and if you if you get
00:49:42
someone who's very powerful in your business who's thinking three years well i mean look at that look and that's
00:49:48
that's quite common in commerce as you know so they can they can they can move mountains and but
00:49:54
but then the mountains crumble that's boring it's a waste of everyone's energy and passion
00:50:00
and love and everything in may 2018 you sold your final stake in
00:50:06
pratt yeah why because um i wasn't oh i wasn't asked um
00:50:14
i had no choice uh the the the the new owners of pressure manager have nothing to do with me i met them i've met them
00:50:19
once for five minutes they they probably think i'm an absolute idiot they have no i've never met them don't they have no
00:50:25
interest in working with me that's their choice it's completely you know
00:50:31
that that is um that's their choice i hope it works for them so you own the business with your
00:50:36
co-founder and then so that's a long yeah it's a long story prep started in 86 and yeah and
00:50:43
i'm trying to i bought a founder in who was who i who i met at uh at college
00:50:48
um who was much much cleverer than me much more disciplined than me and i had this really strong vision of
00:50:55
of wanting to do this but i knew i was smart enough back then to know i needed someone who was respectful of numbers
00:51:02
and discipline and the law so i said to him look if you leave your job i'll give you half this company and
00:51:08
he did he was brave he had a good job and he left his job um and i think probably in the end after
00:51:14
about 15 years we we've become immensely successful the two of us and he wanted to retire
00:51:19
i think the pace that my endless never-ending pushing on the vision of what this could
00:51:26
be probably drove him mental um but he he he was smart he retired
00:51:31
he works a bit now but he kind of retired completely which i respect completely that was his choice did it suck at the time when
00:51:38
sinclair told you that he was going to retire no no no no he was i rather admired him i could never do that i really admire
00:51:44
people who who are able to take control of their life like that i can't are you being dragged what's that mean
00:51:50
being tracked yeah so take control of their life like that so no no i genuinely i promise you i think people
00:51:56
who are able to to take control and i'm gonna go walking in the in the bloody jungle for six months
00:52:02
i have nothing but admiration for people who can do that so let's ask if you're being dragged because like we said earlier you're admiring
00:52:08
something that you don't have yourself yeah i don't have it i don't have it i'm i'm you don't have control of your life i do have control
00:52:15
over my life because i definitely make the choice to do what i do and i couldn't stop and i love it i really i'm
00:52:21
happiest creating there's no question i'm completely in love with what i do i love it i really
00:52:27
enjoy it that may sound weird but it's the truth i love it i don't want to be walking in the jungle i love doing what i'm doing
00:52:34
every day i've just had a food meeting now it was fantastic we've cracked something we've been working on for a
00:52:39
year we cracked it today it's incredible and millions of people will eat this thing in a year from now and it's
00:52:45
because of our relentless passion and hard work to get this thing right and today we i think we cracked it
00:52:52
and that's wonderful and then earlier this morning we cracked a bit of design which was incredible i
00:52:58
really enjoy it so i don't want to be in the jungle he did he wanted to retire and i respect that but it left me in the
00:53:03
ship because we didn't have any paperwork between us and and suddenly uh different kinds of people came into the
00:53:09
business and they were much more formal and and some of the joy went out of it did he sell his steak at that point uh
00:53:15
yeah he sold a chunk of it but it really changed it became professional uh and then and then private equity came
00:53:21
in i mean we had a very good private equity company a uk one they were they were fine they were very
00:53:27
honorable decent people but it was definitely um the business became
00:53:33
more about becoming a very successful business than than developing a very beautiful relationship with the customer
00:53:39
and staff and it was acquired by mcdonald's no that's not true no what happened is um for a very short period
00:53:45
of time donald's owned a thirty percent of it okay because i thought mcdonald's or no i didn't
00:53:51
at the time the leader the ceo of the business persuaded me that mcdonald's would teach us the disciplines we didn't
00:53:57
have about global expansion and i in the end he kind of caved in and i thought it was a pretty weird idea but
00:54:03
i caved in but after it was pretty obvious after a few months it was a bad idea because
00:54:08
you know just they didn't really understand our business but i'll tell you what there was a very very powerful distinction between
00:54:15
a pursuit of real beauty of a product and a relationship with your customers and your staff to running a business
00:54:23
and and generating sales striving at two different outcomes right two completely different
00:54:30
a really clever person can do both and we did do both the business was then
00:54:36
run by a friend of mine who's i still work with now i have huge respect for and he did a great job but
00:54:43
in the end the business was then of course sold in 2001 was it 18 18. yeah and will the
00:54:48
business continue to thrive i i don't know i hope so i just honestly don't know but they certainly don't want anything to do with me are you
00:54:55
disappointed in the way the business is moving i'm not disappointed but do you ever walk in there and go because i know i
00:55:01
did when i left my company when i resigned my company had gone public and i remember walking seeing things they're
00:55:07
doing and seeing seeing the office and hearing this story and thinking oh [ __ ] they've lost this no no no i think on
00:55:12
the whole for years the relationship between the company and its members of staff has been wonderful so i'm often
00:55:17
inspired by that and i've never no i never think that i think i don't i know you never walked in and gone if i was
00:55:24
still running no i don't really what i think i sometimes go in and think wow i wonder what just think what that could
00:55:30
be and then i think god how complicated that would be to get it there and thank
00:55:35
god i'm not doing both because that's what i'm doing on a daily basis now with with itsu because itsu will become in
00:55:42
fight ten years from now a really remarkable home for affordable nutritious food that's it's that's what
00:55:49
it will be there's no question that's what it is becoming it's hard to see that right now because
00:55:54
it sells too much uh raw fish uh you know 30 of our sales are a product which
00:56:01
it used to be ninety percent it uh it's now down to 50 i think or something
00:56:07
but we're changing and developing uh all the time now far getting faster and faster at the reinvention of the company
00:56:14
i couldn't quite figure out where the crossover happened between itsu and pratt when 97 the first itsu opened
00:56:20
while you were still there i was out and and we had a supplier um a wonderful uh
00:56:25
the head of marketing at the japanese center was a young japanese woman and she said to me i said to her why day
00:56:31
why are you working for this terribly boring company why don't you open a japanese restaurant which is affordable
00:56:36
because in those days japanese restaurants were really stuck up and really expensive really boring
00:56:42
and and she said to me okay i'll leave my job if you help
00:56:47
if you pay for it so i said okay i'll pay for it you lose your you you leave your job
00:56:54
i promised you two weeks later she rung me up and said i've left my job and i said what have you done what have
00:57:00
you so i suddenly found myself with this responsibility to open a restaurant
00:57:06
um so when we found a site and we opened the first itsu which was very different from what it is now but it was a start
00:57:12
and from that start we built 76 or something of of them and then
00:57:18
about five years ago we started developing it so it could become the future
00:57:23
but but we had to open 76 and keep it private it was a 100 private company i
00:57:29
never ever again wanted to end up in a situation where i owned a minority where
00:57:34
the business would take over in other words you will do this you will do this we will deliver these profits
00:57:39
and we don't care about your vision so i was able to build it to such an extent with the team that we owned it
00:57:46
all of it and now you have what 75 stores in total yeah we're opening in lots of interesting
00:57:52
places really fascinating just now in the next 12 months we're open i think we open bromley next week but it's changing
00:58:00
so much what's the worst crisis you've ever had in your business well i wasn't there
00:58:06
i'd left prep when the crisis happened when the the the um sesame incident of
00:58:11
that poor girl who had food allergies i wasn't there then that must have been very difficult for everyone then
00:58:17
and and and the ups and downs as you know as you would have experienced in your business there are ups and downs every week every month so you often
00:58:23
think this is a this is funny enough i think most of my job today is telling people not to worry a
00:58:29
lot of people i work with um come to me and say that we're in terrible this is nice
00:58:34
no it's not it's going to be fine this sesame incident yeah we're referring to is a young girl
00:58:40
yeah who had an allergic reaction to a sesame seed a baguette
00:58:46
in a big in a sheet she had serious food allergies and she had bought without
00:58:51
her mother wasn't there and she bought a baguette and ate it which was covered in sesame seeds i mean it was tragic
00:58:58
very really sad and as a result of that natasha's law has changed uh
00:59:03
brought in far more labeling food labeling in this country it's called natasha's law yeah after her
00:59:10
but it was very painful for her her family and everyone uh proud it was awful
00:59:17
but the crisis uh they'll come they can fast and we'll be fine
00:59:23
we'll be fine how can you be so sure because
00:59:30
because just stick to the truth the truth is
00:59:37
you know the truth is good in the sense that of all the things which could go
00:59:43
catastrophically wrong we kind of know about them uh with regard to the dangers of being on our
00:59:48
businesses uh health and safety for instance we have a five-star record of the highest record
00:59:54
in this country every single one is five star always no one else has achieved that before and that is because the head
01:00:01
of the ceo of our company has a fantastic relationship with their head of say it's awesome unbelievable if our
01:00:07
head of safety got up on stage last week and the entire 220 people just completely clapped it
01:00:14
says a lot because usually those people you know so there's culturally that says something so health and safety in our
01:00:22
industry is really really a fear um what else all kinds of things did that incident with natasha she 15
01:00:28
year old drops dead on a plane from what i read um did it change you in any way did it make you think differently about
01:00:36
because that's for me that's the inconceivable it almost reminds me of um bob iger
01:00:43
i read disney yeah bob iger's book about four-year-old that was playing at disney and a crocodile comes out of the disney
01:00:48
pond and eats him no yeah and and bob i get about to go up on
01:00:53
stage in asia gets a message from a senior leadership team saying a four-year-old at disney has just been
01:01:00
eaten by a crocodile and i mean it had a pretty profound impact
01:01:05
on him to say the least so well he was the chief exec at the time i know
01:01:10
that it was terribly hard for the the senior team at practice although they hadn't i mean they everything they'd
01:01:16
done was completely within the law uh not that that too cares about that but it was i mean it was
01:01:23
you know the the it was just a number of terrible
01:01:28
things which which took place should never have happened i had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast what you do now and how you do
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google go check it out a really remarkable thing happened um in your life at a certain age when you
01:02:18
found out you had a daughter out of the blue yeah i had a feeling you were gonna ask about that
01:02:24
that went public didn't it yes okay so my yeah that is absolutely true and i work with uh celeste now she's on the
01:02:31
board and she sits next to me two days a week uh and
01:02:36
it's incredible i had at some point in my early life a man walked in he walked into my my mum's shop
01:02:42
and he said that he was my uncle turns out he was yeah i didn't know i had any uncles in
01:02:47
this country turns out i did but tell me about that day for you what how did it happen how do you find out how what age
01:02:53
are you when you find out you have a oh it's about 15 years ago and she was 20. i was about 45. you were 45 she was
01:03:00
20. no she was 19. oh 19. she had just started at bristol university
01:03:06
and her mother called me who hadn't seen for ages um and obviously i had absolutely no idea
01:03:12
that her daughter was my daughter no absolutely no i'd never met her i'd had no idea and her mother asked to see me
01:03:18
so i said yes me and we met and we met in the king's road and she told me i sat down i went you suspicious when
01:03:25
she asked to see you no i wasn't suspicious i certainly wasn't suspicious of that i thought
01:03:30
maybe she needed help or i i don't know um but she was a kind of cool
01:03:37
intelligent rather wonderful eccentric brilliant woman so i remembered her very fondly i
01:03:42
hadn't seen her for ages but so i met her immediately and she and she just told me there and then my daughter i have a daughter and she's sure
01:03:48
she's your daughter so i asked when did you tell her and how has it
01:03:53
gone down she said i told her two weeks ago and not well so then we then i tried to contact her
01:04:00
she was a bit standoffish it was hard to get through to her for a few days and then i drove
01:04:06
up to bristol university and we met we met and i had nothing but but um an
01:04:13
overwhelming desire to a deep overwhelming desire to get in
01:04:18
there and and try my hardest to build her muscle and her strength
01:04:24
and her you know what what had happened to her was incredibly unjust
01:04:30
and i wanted from the depth of my heart to do everything i could to try and repair it and i will do that and continue that
01:04:37
to the dare die i'm she's fantastic and she's really close to my children and my other two
01:04:43
and you know could be much worse but i feel this is not an easy thing to go through
01:04:49
for her not not an easy thing for anyone to go through
01:04:55
so she's strong she has she's married she has two kids and a third one on the way and
01:05:01
she's really rather remarkable so the person she thought was her father wasn't wasn't correct
01:05:10
and why why hadn't her mother told her to her father because her mother she wasn't uh
01:05:19
when that when this happened uh they they weren't close the mother and the father they weren't they really weren't close if you understand what i'm saying
01:05:26
they really weren't that close and he the the father figure was pretty distant
01:05:32
through her life and when she got to the age of 18 i think probably more distant and i think the mother realized that this couldn't go on forever and she the
01:05:39
mother was very brave she took this hugely brave decision do i tell her the truth or do i not i have nothing but
01:05:45
respect and absolute admiration for the mother having the courage to tell her daughter
01:05:50
the truth must have been agony agony all round but she did the right thing what was it
01:05:57
like arriving to bristol university that day oh what's it like when you you funny you
01:06:04
know when it when a child's yours i can assure you you know immediately you just know
01:06:09
so it was lovely it was lovely i was really uh
01:06:16
funny enough things like that you would have thought would be completely totally um crushing for someone who wasn't that
01:06:22
well equipped to deal with that subship but actually i found it one
01:06:27
really really really enriching and the way my two boys embraced her was incredible
01:06:33
it was really an opportunity to really shine and uh and do and
01:06:40
it was great it's it's it's it's you know i have nothing but admiration for the
01:06:45
way she's handled it anyway she let's change the subject because she
01:06:51
went like this but you work together now which is awesome yeah yeah of course we do she she works in the marketing team she
01:06:57
leads marketing no she she leads the brand and she's on the board and she's been extremely helpful from day one she ran
01:07:04
the marketing team for four years actually she was bloody good at it but now she has three children are about
01:07:10
to sounds like a really nice movie to me what are you scared of
01:07:16
uh what am i scared of uh oh my god i'm scared of death really
01:07:22
i think you didn't say he was kind i'm quite a hypochondriac i'm scared of that that's about it
01:07:28
maybe that's that's about it where does death scare you no i think just just the whole thing
01:07:34
with health and not paying enough attention to your health and and it's completely beyond one's control
01:07:41
i mean totally when that goes you're in when that when you're in trouble you're in trouble
01:07:47
and that can happen tomorrow so that doesn't really scare me i don't ponder on it too much
01:07:53
but i think we're all hypers misha my son's a hyper my wife brooke is not a hypo
01:07:58
shh i spent my life saying i'm dying she and then trouble i've cried wolf so many times
01:08:04
[Laughter] and then one of my stepdaughters is quite into medicine so i refer my
01:08:09
illnesses to her quite a lot um only these illnesses real
01:08:15
certain so far we've had quite a lot of false
01:08:21
we're not going to go there but the fact is yeah i i'm not even i'm not even feared death now i don't fear i don't think i
01:08:27
fear anything actually i really don't there's no time to fear it's all time to hope
01:08:34
hope and believe and hope and and yeah the future
01:08:40
it's incredible what people can do not just not me but all the people around me if i had a recipe here and it's the
01:08:46
recipe of happiness what are the ingredients on your recipe
01:08:51
listen i i i i i i don't think about it i really really
01:08:57
don't i can think about that i'm not unhappy i'm very very privileged and i'm very lucky to be not unhappy i have all the
01:09:05
material things i have food warmth love i have everything so the idea of me pondering on how i could be happier is
01:09:11
kind of ridiculous for me the concept of thinking about how how i could be happier is kind of
01:09:17
i mean really haven't i got enough i've got everything i'm so lucky what i'm happy
01:09:25
are you happy yeah whatever yeah i'm not unhappy
01:09:30
um it's a different thing there's unhappiness and there's happiness are you happy is it different i remember the day i was often happy
01:09:37
i get up on monday and i can't wait to work to race to work with so many people i i admire love and trust
01:09:44
um and i leave home surrounded by people who i love admire and trust christ what
01:09:50
more could you possibly want than that i don't know
01:09:55
but it didn't come by accident so i don't want i'm not i'm not i'm not just saying luck fell in my lap
01:10:00
that's going to be confusing for anyone who's watching this i got into the situation through um
01:10:08
doing a lot and working and acting on the evidence in other words when things don't work out it's obvious
01:10:13
change it work harder if you know
01:10:19
same with your personal relationships this is all within our domain we can all do this what advice would you give to me
01:10:24
in my you've you know your career's banned longer than mine i'm older i'm much older than you yeah a little bit a
01:10:29
little bit i don't i think you're on the right track i mean that is why you are you stand out as being uh this you know
01:10:36
very you've had a huge amount of success at a very young age so if i was you i just just stick to what's working
01:10:43
um and your endless pursuit of transparency and truth that is what's got you to where you are
01:10:49
today actually you're you don't don't underestimate
01:10:55
i don't know how often anyone in your life congratulates you or patsy on the back
01:11:01
but i think you must carry on as you are with showing great empathy and and warmth so even on i've watched
01:11:08
on dragon's den it's interesting that you i've noticed you never put anyone down
01:11:13
you somehow very human the way you deal with with everything so your ability to work
01:11:20
within the world of truth is is fabulous so just don't lose it
01:11:25
don't lose it and don't forget however much the money is all crap
01:11:30
we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest asks a question to the next guest and
01:11:37
they never know who they're asking it to so in a nice way all the guests are talking to each other and they write it in this book and i don't get to read it
01:11:43
if i if i try and peak jack does he actually he like shoes me off with the hits me with the book okay
01:11:49
i thought about this last night so i can easily do that you don't know what the question is
01:11:54
oh god you're going to ask me the question yes oh lord but i've thought about myself okay good okay so let's oh no i wonder who this
01:12:02
was oh okay interesting you really don't know what
01:12:07
it is on my mother's life i do not look and sometimes we have a problem because the handwriting can be an issue but jack
01:12:13
always checks and i'll see what else happens jack will tell me if it's a [ __ ] question so if we had one guy was like
01:12:18
what's your favorite meal deal so jack told me yeah after this so jack was like steve the question [ __ ] i was like [ __ ]
01:12:25
but it only happens once in a while you can keep that in jack mate you bastard ruining my show
01:12:31
he's my friend so it's okay and he actually knows he watched the next episode and was like you didn't ask the question are we allowed to know who are who asked
01:12:38
the question you're not allowed to know okay one day you'll be able to find out though because we're going to release them all as of course
01:12:44
so but anyway the question that's left for you what is an inadequacy
01:12:53
you admit to that you could work on starting tomorrow
01:12:59
no honestly i mean where do you begin with something like that and it's a perfectly good question
01:13:05
but the list is so long so the only way you can answer a question like that is is to choose
01:13:11
um the biggest inadequacy and i wouldn't even know how to do that i think what i need to do and we all
01:13:16
need to do is embrace all our inadequacies and and know what they are and accept them and
01:13:24
and and thrive knowing they're there that's what we need to do yeah i'm not going to give you i'm not
01:13:30
going to answer that question by saying i could i could i could i could kiss my wife good night you know or
01:13:36
that i'd do that anyway um or i could go to the gym more i could get the hundreds of things i'm in a very
01:13:43
inadequate person what about in your relationships then because you you reference kissing your
01:13:48
my relationships uh there's so much i could do better with all my relationships
01:13:54
i honestly don't know where to start but at least i'm aware of that what are you aware of i'm aware of the fact that
01:14:02
to create the way i do to work the way i do comes at a cost and the cost is and the cost is i don't
01:14:08
spend enough time nurturing loving and being supportive
01:14:13
to the people i love most that's just a fact do i regret it
01:14:19
no do i accept it yes do they i pray
01:14:24
and when i'm gone and if if we continue to build something remarkable
01:14:30
they'll know that we're all part of this together this was made possible by
01:14:36
by them and and myself together with the team have you ever had that feedback from
01:14:41
them no uh being as loving no they've never they've never actually outrightly criticized me for it but i'm aware of it
01:14:48
i mean i'd have to be an idiot you know you don't have
01:14:53
children you're not married you're in a relationship right so you you this is all stuff for you to
01:14:59
face in the future i get the feedback that's why i asked the question yes i did i find out about most about myself
01:15:05
from my girlfriend turning to me and saying she should bring me about for three years or something like that three isn't enough saying something to me and
01:15:11
me going what are you talking about what and then walking away and going [ __ ] she's right no i i my my all my children misha my
01:15:18
son my eldest son works in the business and he is fanatical and brilliant and works really
01:15:24
hard billy my youngest son is a very talented artist uh and celeste is is there too so those
01:15:30
three are all they understand exactly what it's like to be completely committed and work really really really
01:15:37
hard my fourth step children equally the youngest ones just got into an incredible university
01:15:43
uh my eldest one ines they're all very committed and my wife is just the same
01:15:49
i've never known a person with more energy more determination who's more supportive
01:15:54
and generous and loving so if i've let them all down they've done a bloody good job of not telling me
01:16:01
when was the last time you cried oh i cried in movies all the time
01:16:09
brooke says i cry at all the wrong things like i cry in movies i cry and this and this but i don't
01:16:16
she thinks it's weird she thinks it's really weird to cry in
01:16:21
you know the voice or something i don't think it is makes me really moved what about it makes you move well you
01:16:27
know when you see a young terrified person come on and perform way beyond their expectations and do a remarkable
01:16:34
job particularly when they're young and they have no confidence but they're just remarkable just just people who dare
01:16:42
dare take a huge risk don't you think don't you find it it's so incredible the
01:16:48
way people dare take a risk it's what we all need to do so everyone listening and watching
01:16:53
needs to do more seek transparency take a risk say say it do it
01:16:58
just just go for it if some you know and you can do more than you think and you can say more than
01:17:05
you do so do it julian thank you it's been welcome
01:17:11
absolutely fascinating amazing inspiring conversation your your
01:17:17
personality is just so engaging and you're thank you i feel like i'm
01:17:22
getting the truth which is which is really really phenomenal when you as a speaker especially in the medium of a podcast the passion you have in
01:17:29
everything you're saying is so captivating it really really is captivating and i can imagine i i now i
01:17:34
understand the business and it's funny that that now having met you and ask you these questions and sat here with you i understand
01:17:40
the love and the passion and the attention to detail and the care for the people all of those things come through
01:17:45
so much and i also think i know where it comes from yeah and the the journey you've had that's led you to really
01:17:51
prioritize treating people well yeah um and and creating things that are for the
01:17:56
long term so julian thank you do you want to try something i invested in the company and i'm on the
01:18:02
board disclaimer and they sponsor the podcast yeah they say will come for me if i don't say
01:18:07
that it's hule it's nutritionally complete it's got all of the all of the goodness
01:18:13
it's vegan um low sugar gluten free high protein i love the design i love
01:18:18
everything about it i can see why it's captivating yeah very clear it's very brilliant this is banana flavor god it's
01:18:24
good it's good isn't it yeah how many calories do you think this is i i know how many it is it's roughly 400 i
01:18:31
believe let me check that yeah 400 400 so it's a full meal in a bottle
01:18:36
it's the perfect solution for every possible control freak in the world because it's completely beginning middle and end
01:18:43
that's it exactly wonderfully reassuring there's no gray area with this 400 calories there it is
01:18:51
quick one as you might know crafted are one of the sponsors of this podcast and crafted are a jewellery brand and they
01:18:57
make really meaningful pieces of jewellery i think i've worn this piece for almost a year
01:19:03
it hasn't broken hasn't changed color because it's really really good quality and it costs roughly
01:19:09
50 quid i'm not the type of person that has rolexes or jewelry that cost tens of thousands of pounds i want pieces that
01:19:15
are reliable that look beautiful and that holds meaning and significance for me and that's exactly why i've worn
01:19:22
crafted for so long and when we had the conversation about them sponsoring this podcast i was so unbelievably keen for
01:19:27
them to do so check it out if you're a guy crafted london.com and yeah if you get any pieces of crafted tag man let me
01:19:33
know what you think
01:19:48
[Music]
01:19:58
you