Diane Modahl - Doping, Defeat and Determination

00:00When your cat is acting weirder, or your dog is being louder, your turtle moves slower. Hello, Ted. Your cat seems thirstier. Whoa, slow down buddy. Or your puppy is acting clumsier. Day or night, if you don't know what's wrong, know where to go. Veg ER for Pets. This is Kate. Veg, the better, kinder ER for pets.

00:30How would you feel if the world turned against you? If you lost your hard-earned career, your reputation, and everything that mattered in a second? If the world's media called you a liar, a fraud, a cheat? And if it was all because of something that you didn't even do?

00:59This is exactly what happened to Diane Modahl, one of the most talented Olympic athletes this country has ever produced. Her story is heartbreaking. It's emotional. It's unjust, powerful, and it's ultimately incredibly, incredibly inspiring.

01:21But she's so much more than just an ex-Olympic athlete. She's now an entrepreneur, she's a philanthropist, and despite everything that happened to her, she's just a really good human being. You really do have to hear this. Without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody is listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

01:50My girlfriend's birthday was in July, right? I might have got that wrong, I'm really worried now. My girlfriend's birthday was in July, and for her birthday, her present was a trip to Jamaica. Then, a week after, I got an email through, an inquiry, and it said we want you to come and speak in Jamaica.

02:12So I'm thinking, this is perfect. Because I hadn't booked it yet, right? So I said to her, "Babe, I've just had this inquiry come through to speak in Jamaica, which is perfect, so should we go at that time?" She was like, "Yeah, perfect, amazing." It makes a lot of sense, right? And she can then come and see me speak as well. She's never really seen me speak before.

02:37How do you feel about that? About her listening to you and seeing you speak live?

02:43It makes me want to make sure I do an even better job. It doesn't make me feel nervous. It makes me really want to make sure that I'm on my game. Sometimes when I show up, I don't prepare anything until I'm there. I don't even know what I'm going to say before I go on stage.

03:00But I've done this hundreds and hundreds of times that the minute I hit the stage, something just comes over me. It works out for me. In this particular case, because she's there, I'll make sure I know what I'm going to say. My approach to that isn't because I'm lazy; it's because that's what works for me. I actually think I'm better when I go up there and I speak from passion.

03:26What about you? How do you prepare mentally for the Olympics?

03:32Well, that's years of prep in a way. But it's planted initially just from the fact that you might have a dream. In my case, I was reasonably decent at running. I could run. I was rubbish at school. I was really poor; I was not academic at all.

03:55When everyone else was saying, "Oh, PE, do we have to go outside? It's raining," I'd be the one changed, plimsolls on, shorts on, t-shirt on, whatever we were wearing. I'd be doing the hockey, the high jump, the cross-country. I wasn't good at all of those things.

04:14Why were you out there doing that?

04:17I enjoyed it.

04:18And you thought you were good at it?

04:19No, I didn't think I was good at it. I was having fun. What did "good" look like at that stage? I wasn't always winning. There were lots of people in school who were quicker than me, could jump higher than me. I couldn't hurdle; I was rubbish at things like that. Trampolining? I can't even do a somersault, for goodness' sake, but I would try because it was fun.

04:45So that Olympic dream was born out of, in many ways, just an opportunity to have fun and do something that I was enjoying.

04:54How does one prepare? Because I remember when I was younger, and this is something I've always tried to understand about myself, but the higher I got playing football, the more I didn't want to play. I remember one day I got scouted to play for Devon and Plymouth Argyle, and it was the day that I almost gave up sports.

05:14That's strange because I'm not someone that's intimidated by pressure these days. But when I was 14 years old and I got scouted to play for this massive team, which is basically my county, and then had trials for England Schoolboys, I didn't like football anymore.

05:36What was that about?

05:38I don't know. I've always reflected on it and thought, what was that? I hope and try to make sure that whatever that was doesn't show up in my life today.

05:51So did you just stop enjoying it that day? Was there an element of pressure or expectation?

05:58You never really know because you can only hypothesize in hindsight. I think that the minute it became not just about the fun and it became this high-pressure thing, and I was the striker and I had these big expectations on me, it just felt like work.

06:17It felt like work. I was the opposite. The minute somebody said to me, "If you knuckle down, if you work hard, and your work ethic surpasses anything else that your potential tells me you've got, you could be pretty good at this," that was the direction and focus I needed.

06:36I remember going into arenas packed with 80,000 spectators—World Championships, Olympic Games, European Championships, Commonwealth Games—and loving it. It was like I was walking into my living room. The louder the crowd got, the more pressure where I was expected to win or do well, I lapped that up. I loved it.

07:05I do now. I've never got my head around why I reacted in such a way. So, on that point, how do you as an athlete show up every day? Because it's a similar concept to how, as a business leader or any ambitious person, in order to achieve a goal, you can't just show up at the Olympic Games. You've got to show up every day before then. We all feel like shit some days. How do you show up every day?

07:34Two things. The first is having a crystal-clear goal. You said it there really; having a defined reason, a purpose that I was driven towards and wanting to make a difference is actually the catalyst that makes the whole difference.

07:54As an athlete, a lot of us aspire to be the best in the world. That's finite; there's a ranking system. You can rank yourself against what other athletes in your distance are doing. It allows you to measure yourself against that defined world ranking. In business, without a goal, what are you striving for?

08:14So there's no difference, whether it's to achieve a sustainable business model or to inspire a generation of young people to fulfill their own potential. The goal has to be really clear.

08:26And the second thing that I think drives me and drives the business forward is actually the value—adding value to myself as an individual every single day. Because what we can lose and get wrapped up in is the bottom line, the business, the next event, the next presentation, the next meeting. But actually, at the heart of that is people.

08:52Unless we are able to fill ourselves up and add value to ourselves—read more, get out more, talk to people, learn and be prepared to absorb what we're hearing—you can have the best goal in the world, but it's not going to happen unless you're continually adding value to yourself.

09:11A fairly famous entrepreneur once said to me—he gave me some advice and I wanted to get your take on this because you almost alluded to it there—he said to me, "Steven, make sure along the journey you really enjoy it because it'll be over before you know it."

09:25I remember him saying that because I think at the time I was almost living in a constant state of preparation, preparing for something all the time. I'd been running a business for four years, I'd gone through all the startup phase. When he said that, I realized that we hadn't really enjoyed it because you're always thinking about the next event. Do you regret—or what are your thoughts about enjoying every single day? Because you do all this preparation for years before to be at this Olympic Games and then it's over like this. How do you be in the moment?

09:51It's incredibly hard. The nature of a performer, somebody who is achieving or trying to achieve excellence and a culture of high performance, means that you are constantly critical about how you are doing and what you are not doing.

10:09It is difficult to then celebrate where you've had success. So for example, on winning medals at championships, the first thing that athlete and coach often does is look at where you went wrong, where you lost that tenth of a second, or why you didn't win gold and you ended up winning silver. Because the nature of trying to strive and be the best means you are looking for those marginal gains, and that's where the attention goes.

10:39So in many ways, I've had to teach myself to reflect and to stop and to look at, actually, how have you done? And how is it going? I've only really been able to do that as the business has reached a place where we are more stable. We haven't achieved a state of stability that we would like to, but it's inbuilt in our culture in recognizing and celebrating what we are doing. One of the headlines that we are striving towards as a business is to celebrate our successes.

11:18And when you look back on the high-performance elements of your career, do you have regrets about not enjoying it more in the moment?

11:29That's a really, really deep question. My head goes straight away to things that I haven't been able to control. I think my way of dealing with things is I am pretty much a pragmatist. I will give you the best that I have. In fact, I won't give you the best; I'll give you all. Because the "best" isn't really all you can give me, is it?

12:03If I say to you, "Give me—how many press-ups do you think you can do?" you'll say probably four. I'll say I bet you can get to five. And we'll have this debate. And I'll say, "Okay, let's do four. Let's wait a minute, do four more. Wait another minute, do another four." So I want all you can give me, not just your best.

12:25So I know that on any occasion I've given all I can, 100%. So my regrets have come from where I've lost control of the situation. And there, what I'm talking about is a really difficult period in my sporting career where right at the peak of my performance, I wasn't able to achieve what I was able to because I was pulled out of a race.

12:53For a doping allegation. You can talk about that story because I think it's super important. These are the uncontrollable moments of bullshit or suffering that one could never plan for, one had no control over, that I think show up in all of our lives at some point.

13:17As the saying goes, we can do very little about it showing up, but the only part we have control over is how we handle it. That's synonymous in everyone's life. I was actually looking at this scattergraph at 3:00 AM last night, and it was about suffering and the nature of suffering and how it's distributed. Let's say there's a civilization of 100 people and there's 100 moments of suffering. They continually put them on this graph randomly using this computer.

13:46It shows that virtually everyone has a chance of something really unfortunate happening just by random in their life. In fact, suffering when it's randomized also means that some people get four points of suffering, some get none. It made me think, looking at this graph of 100 pieces of suffering in 100 people, and there's only like three people out of 100 that get through life with no major events of suffering. We're going to go through a moment like that which is out of our control. So how did you deal with that and can you tell that story?

14:21Wow, that's fascinating. I've never actually asked the question, "Why me? Why did this happen to me?" And in many ways, what you've just said almost answers that question. We don't know. It was relatively random.

14:36In 1994, I was at the Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada. I was there to defend my Commonwealth Games title; I'd won gold four years before. I was in the best shape of my life. The morning of the race arrived—beautiful morning, the kind of morning every athlete prays for. It was still, so no wind, great for breaking records. The sun was shining.

15:09I woke up on that morning, left the Commonwealth Games village to do what I would do on any typical race day, and started a warm-up. Run a couple of miles, do some drills and some stretches, and then some run-throughs where I'm testing my legs and making sure that the energy's there, the pace and the rhythm is there. Oh, I was so excited to get started.

15:35On my way back into the village, I was stopped by a team official, Susan Deaves. I'd known Susan since I was 15 years old through coming through international competition. She'd been a team official for a long, long time, somebody I knew well and I trusted.

15:52Susan said to me, "Di, I need to have a word with you. Have you got a couple of minutes?" And my natural response was, "Actually, I don't. I'm preparing for my race. I've got a couple of hours and I need to go back to my room, shower, eat, and start to mentally focus and prepare."

16:11Susan said to me, "I actually do need to have a word with you. Can you come into my room?" Typical athlete mode, I'm on this tunnel vision now, got a title to defend. It wasn't until she forcibly encouraged me into her room that I realized, okay, I'll give her the minutes that she needs and then I'm off.

16:32Then she did something really bizarre, which on reflection now was so beautiful, actually. She took hold of my hands and she looked directly into my eyes and she said, "Diane, a drug test you gave nine weeks ago has tested positive."

16:51I'm stood in this room in a village and I said actually to her, "You've made a mistake. I need to get back to my room and prepare for my race." And it wasn't until Susan said, "No, Diane, I have to pull you out," that I realized it wasn't a mistake. She was talking to me and this was real.

17:20To be fair, I don't remember too much of what happened after that. I do remember waking up on the floor with Sue, this team official, looking over me, smacking my face saying, "Breathe, Diane, breathe, you must breathe." And I looked up at her thinking, what's she talking about? Why is she telling me to breathe?

17:41The room then became packed with doctors and nurses. They were so concerned about my health; apparently, I had passed out, I was unconscious for some minutes. Very quickly I was sedated with Valium, I was put on a plane with a nurse, and arrived in Heathrow. That was the day my life changed forever.

18:05What happened from then? You land back in Heathrow and your head's full of thoughts and an immense range of emotions.

18:15On the journey back from Canada to London, I couldn't speak. I wanted to speak, I wanted to shout out loud and say what the heck is going on, and I just couldn't. I just could not articulate any words. So I started to write how scared I was, how desperate I was. I was totally out of control.

18:42When the plane landed, everyone else was allowed to leave the plane and myself and the nurse were asked to stay on. A security guard came on and he said, "Look, love, there's press everywhere on the tarmac and it's not going to be easy for you." Apparently, the story had broken. I was not aware of this, but on the flight home, the story had broken in the national press.

19:10He said to me, "Do you want a blanket to cover your face?" And I am so relieved that despite being sedated, I had the strength to turn to this official and say, "No, I don't want to cover my face. I've done nothing wrong."

19:25These plans were being hatched; how are we going to get her off the plane to protect her, to take care of her health and her security? They decided to take me off at the back of the plane where food is normally transported up on a little conveyor belt or a lift-type thing. So myself and the nurse were ushered off at the back of the plane.

19:46In a way, that was a mistake because we were then fortune to the media because we were at the mercy of being lowered down on this extremely slow lift and all the press were just taking as many pictures as they could. I was put in an ambulance; there was an ambulance waiting for us on the tarmac. We arrived at a hospital in London. I stepped out of the ambulance, the ambulance door closed, and on the other side of the door was my husband with a bunch of roses.

20:17Typical man, thinking...

20:20How ridiculously beautiful at the same time. Because that just normalized the trauma I was going through. What that said to me was, "We don't know what's going on, but I love you and we're going to get through this." He didn't say that, but just seeing him and that action gave me some strength.

20:43Literally overnight, we had to become experts, scientific experts, legal experts in trying to understand what happened to that sample. We were able to bring on the best experts from all over the world, actually—America and London—the best barristers.

21:03What happened to my sample after doing a race in Portugal nine weeks prior to being told I had apparently cheated was the sample was left on a windowsill at the peak of the summer in July. The temperatures at the time were 72 degrees. It was on the windowsill for 48 hours. That's all we had to go with: that the sample that I gave was no longer the same sample that was now being tested in the laboratory.

21:38But at that time, there was no evidence to back up or to prove that a degraded sample would give rise to a false positive result. So we went to the hearing in December, having been sent home in August, and we lost the hearing. We lost based on there was no evidence to back up that theory. "You go away, you prove that a degraded sample can give rise to a false positive, and then we'll talk again."

22:09Of course we appealed. So we had a number of months to go out and prove that theory. When you are innocent and truth is on your side, you will do anything to get to the truth. And that's exactly what we did. So with our experts, we took two random samples: an international tennis player and an international marathon runner.

22:33We were able to replicate, knowing what happened to my sample when it left me and ended up in the laboratory—where it traveled, how it traveled, how long it was left on the windowsill for, the temperature at that time. We replicated everything and allowed those two random samples to degrade, to become contaminated with bacteria.

22:59Guess what happened? Both those samples tested positive for testosterone. We went back into court and we won on appeal. But in many ways, that's where the journey just started. It wasn't a victory; it wasn't one of those punchy fist-in-the-air moments at all.

23:20By then, I'd lost my livelihood, my reputation, my confidence. Everything. Every mile I had run, every weight I had pushed, every squat I did, I was told was a lie. "Didn't happen. You cheated." It was a hollow victory. Sport for me was no longer a place where I felt at home.

23:44And did you stay within sport much longer than that after that moment?

23:50Ironically, as much as I hated sport and what it had done to me—I'd been a kind advocate at that stage for almost 18 years and this is how it treated me—the way I got through it was by running. I ran myself into the ground to my detriment. I became poorly just running, running, and pushing.

24:14What my coach, who was also my husband at the time, realized was the only way besides the evidence and being exonerated and cleared, the only way I would restore at least some of my reputation was to get back on track and do what I do best and start winning again.

24:34I had four years from being sent home to try and regain the gold medal that I should have won. In fact, I did come back, I won a bronze medal behind the Olympic champion Maria Mutola. But that bronze medal, Steven, was worth ten times more than the gold medal I had won and the Commonwealth Games record I had broken back in 1990.

25:00Although it was hard fought and won, that bronze medal, it was more than that. It was in effect two fingers up to the authorities to say, "Fuck you, you got it wrong."

25:15And when you reflect over that whole journey, which is just this tremendous injustice, how do you come out the other side not being full of resentment for that process, those people that were involved? The lady that called you into the room to break the news to you? How do you emerge from that without resentment? Or do you?

25:35Because when you started talking about the subject, I could tell that you didn't want to talk about it because you didn't want to open that box again. I was wondering why you didn't want to talk about it. That for me says that there's—the analysis I was playing out in my head is that even though everyone knows that it was an injustice, there's not a person on planet Earth that doesn't, right? In my mind, anyway, it's obvious. But even having to tell the story feels somewhat shameful in some respect. That was one element of it, but then the other hypothesis I had was that it unlocks a bunch of negative emotions that you don't really want to unlock all the time.

26:19It makes me feel sad. It makes me feel sad. And that is an emotion that I don't want to stay around. Because remember, we always have a choice. I choose to be happy, I choose to be ambitious, I want to be challenged, I want you to tell me how it is because I can take the truth.

26:42But that element right there, I can't control because it's an emotion that takes me to a place where, you're absolutely right, there's no doubt about it that I was robbed of a retirement that should be a positive reflection on being a loyal servant to sport.

27:06Resentment, regret? No. But we were never ever given the justice we deserved. We never received a full apology. We never received compensation. My husband and I, who was my coach at the time and also guilty by association, we never ever fully returned to a reputation of winners.

27:36That is what makes me feel sad. Talking about it also reminds me that the hope is dying for ever receiving the compensation that we deserved. Hope is the last thing you ever want to lose.

27:54Have you forgiven the situation?

27:57No.

27:58Have you forgiven the people involved in the situation?

28:01No, and I never will.

28:04Really?

28:05Never.

28:06Does it not feel like you're holding on to a very heavy load that you don't want to carry? Because I remember someone said to me one day, "When you forgive a situation, it's like letting a prisoner go, but then realizing in some respects that you were the prisoner the whole time."

28:24When they said that to me, I reflected on the little grudges that I have—my ex-girlfriend, all these little things—and I just thought, none of this is at this stage in my life serving me positively anymore because it's making me live with certain moments' feelings of negativity.

28:40I'm trying to understand because there's a couple of things that have happened to me—I remember one particular day driving to work and someone hacked our emails. I think it was an ex-employee, emailed all of our clients as I'm driving to work. Really abusive stuff from my business partner's email, pretending to be them. So I get to work that day and there's 70 people in the office and they've all lost their clients. The clients are calling me telling me I'm a coward.

29:08That felt like a moment of injustice because we'd done nothing wrong. I just went to sleep and 20 of my clients are now insulting me. I think it's different to your situation. It doesn't even compare. But at some point, I realized that I was going to lose again, I was going to take a second "L," a voluntary "L," if I didn't let that go.

29:34I've taken the first involuntary "L," right? But the second loss is my choice. I just don't want that person to win again. I don't want that situation to win over me again and I don't want it to win over me every day.

29:49I am flying. I have found my life's purpose. I know that where I am right now is where I am supposed to be. I am giving my all in this second, in this moment, on this day. What happened to me almost 25 years ago does not influence where I am headed.

30:11But emotionally, deep down, I refuse to quit and accept second best. I am worth so much more than that. But more importantly, so is my husband and my family who lived through this tragedy. So part of me feels if I say, "Di, box it, it's done, move on," I am quitting.

30:37And I'm not going to quit. If there is hope, I will continue to write letters to Seb Coe. I will continue to be brave enough to stick my head up and say to the International Athletic Federation, "It was wrong what happened to me and to us."

30:58History is important. Until we put right what was done so terribly wrong, how can we have faith in the system moving forward? So I see it as a duty almost to continue to be the thorn in the side of the authorities. If I never get compensation, I will live with that. My husband won't; he'll have a different view on it.

31:27However, it's deeper than that because this case, what happened to me, my husband, and my family, never happened prior. I was the first British athlete to test positive and to overthrow the verdict. It's important that we protect innocent athletes. There is no guarantee that this couldn't happen again.

31:52It's an unbelievable story and it's incredible that you had the resolve not to fold and accept it. Because I think a lot of people would have probably tried to just run into their shell. The thought that you could overcome such a thing—I'm sure there's no force involved in that situation that wanted you to be able to prove that there's errors in the system.

32:15It gives you a tremendous power to talk about overcoming injustice as well and being a real spokesman for not just that particular situation, but more broadly because we know that injustice and suffering is going to fall randomly on all of us at some point.

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33:25The piece is the bit that I think is within our control. But listen, changing subject, the podcast sponsor which is Boost by Facebook—they are a dedicated one-stop shop for entrepreneurs, for CEOs, for small businesses, job seekers, and anybody with ambition that's looking to thrive in this digital economy.

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34:32A question I get asked all the time, all the time, which I think is a fundamental misconception, but I want to ask you the question and just see how you react.

34:42I'm thinking, and it's a very difficult question to answer because I don't wake up in the morning and say, "I'm going to be motivated today, I'm going to motivate the team." I'm motivated because I want to be here. I love what I do. I want to challenge myself more to be better than I am.

35:05It's almost innate. I'm inspired by what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing, and the individuals I'm around. But motivation for me is about who I am and what I want to achieve. It comes back to: what's your purpose? Why are you here? What's your why? And it's about goals. Without a goal, where are you headed?

35:32So I stay motivated by challenging myself, by adding value to myself daily, by asking people, "How am I doing? What's my experience been like with you recently?" So I'm looking to fill up my own reservoir so I can be better every day.

35:50And do you ever have days where you're not motivated?

35:54I have days where I'm tired. And I have days where I think flipping heck, why is it so difficult? Why can't that just be done? We've spoken about that, or that's happened. But I don't have days where I think I can't be bothered. Or I can't be bothered to get out of bed today.

36:19I want to get out of bed. Wow, have you looked outside lately? It's awesome out there. It's raining, yeah, I've got a couple of umbrellas. I suppose for me, much to the annoyance of people I am around, I come from a family of people who have worked hard to achieve. My mom and dad left everything behind in Jamaica, like most immigrants, to make a better life for themselves here in England. And they landed in flipping sunny Moss Side.

37:02So what I'm saying is just witnessing work ethic and being around individuals who want to make a better life for themselves has somehow shaped who I am. They are my guiding principles. When I'm having a down day or a low day, I just think about the hardships, the difficulties that they would have had to overcome. My parents are two amazing people.

37:31Do you think there are disadvantages, like tangible disadvantages or tangible obstacles being a black woman in business? What are those obstacles and disadvantages? A lot of people talk about these disadvantages—being from a minority background—I think there's even grants that the government have put in place to try and accelerate minorities into business. But then also there's this huge conversation around women in business and leadership roles. So what has your experience been as it relates to your foundation and your businesses and your ability to progress based on who you are?

38:14I think disadvantage comes in many different guises. I do not dispute for a second that there is subconscious or institutionalized racism that exists in business, in all of us, right? Absolutely. And that will have a direct knock-on effect on the opportunities that are available for men, for women, for disadvantaged young people.

38:48Part of me feels and agrees with the fact that we should have positive discrimination if, over the amount of time that we have tried and failed to encourage more women into boardrooms, into strategic positions—part of me agrees with that. But...

39:08I don't. It's weird. It's always made me feel really uncomfortable. I did a Facebook post maybe seven years ago—bear in mind, seven years ago I was broke—so I didn't do it from my crystal diamond tower in the sky. I did this Facebook post when I heard about this grant for young minorities. I thought well that's racist. And I thought we're not trying to make a—that's the racism we're trying to fight. Level the playing field. I guess it's equality of opportunity.

39:42Correct. And that's where the disadvantage sits. So I don't think any of us, whichever marginalized group you sit in, want a handout. What we want is a hand up.

39:57In order to get that hand up, if society and the stereotypes and that institutionalized racism exists, you're never really going to get a hand up. Not through will of trying, just through circumstance. So if one of the ways to do that—provided you can do the job, you've got the skills, your values align and the behaviors are there to be able to do the job—then I think a hand up is essential.

40:31Because in my line of work, we work within the top 20% areas of deprivation. Working with young people who are desperate for an opportunity to be seen and to be heard, to become the best that they can be. And we all know that Manchester is a great place to live—it's vibrant, it's thriving—but there are 34 wards in Manchester. 29 of them are the most deprived in the UK. We are ranked fifth worst in terms of income deprivation.

41:10So as a young person growing up in this city and you might be living in a chaotic lifestyle, where is the opportunity for you going to come from? More importantly, where are you going to find the confidence to put yourself forward in the first place to be able to access some of the opportunities?

41:34What's the bigger issue there, the opportunity or the self-belief?

41:38Two go hand in hand. Because often what needs to happen is you need someone to say, "I see a spark in you. If you work hard, if you listen, if you're on time when I come and knock on this door to take you to training, I can help you fulfill your potential."

41:59Those small steps then enable that individual to build and grow their confidence. But if you're at home and somebody's saying, "Clean your room, where's your tie? You were late today, you've got another detention," it will slowly suffocate the potential ambition that you have in here.

42:16So you need someone to say how you doing. "That was a brilliant assignment that you handed in. You were late, but I need to see you on time next time." You need that sort of encouragement. Once that exists, it provides a strong platform for a relationship to develop, for trust to grow, and then that's when the behavior change starts and the character development starts. So you need someone to believe in you initially and someone to be prepared to go on this twisting, winding journey as the emotions ebb and flow.

42:53And this is a lot of the work you're doing with your foundation at the moment, the Diane Modahl Sports Foundation?

42:59Yes, we set up for one reason and one reason only. My husband and I established the charity in 2010. This is our 10th anniversary year and we're very excited about that. Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not.

43:22So the mission, our drive in terms of the foundation, is to open more doors, to create more opportunities, to say to young people, "Nothing in life is free. If your ambition is to be the next Usain Bolt, we will go on a journey with you on that. If you want to be the next Dame Kelly Holmes, let's make that happen. Let's help you map out a plan so that you can achieve that. If you want to be the next entrepreneur with the next new idea, let's be an enabler to fill in some of the gaps."

44:00So our work is very much about developing character and establishing the right positive behavior habits that will enable young people to be absolutely world-class athletes, but world-class citizens that are able to give back to society, give back to the economy, and to be amazing people.

44:23You said you have kids come to you with these big ambitions, right? This might not be the easiest question to answer. If someone comes to you—and this has happened to me quite often—and they say, "I want to be Elon Musk. I want to do these hugely ambitious things." But you can see the gap between where they are and there.

44:51The narrative typically when you're trying to inspire people is letting them know that they can do anything and that they're completely capable. But you can see that their ambition is probably—and this is even hard for me to say as someone that just believes I could go to the moon—is probably not realistic.

45:12I've had people come to me—one particular guy I can think of that messages me a lot on Facebook—and he doesn't have the self-awareness or any experience whatsoever and he's telling me he's trying to raise 50 million for a backpack that just has a high-visibility strip on the back of it. He's never been an entrepreneur before, but he messages me religiously on Facebook. In that situation where you look at someone's ambition and you think—how do I? Because that person has been conditioned by people like me to not give up. So he goes, "Steven, you didn't give up and I'm not going to." So what do you do?

46:07This is a conversation that I'm actually having at the moment with my team in terms of managing expectations for some of our young people. But in many ways, it is not the goal that is important. It's not the goal; it's the person he is becoming in pursuit of that goal.

46:30So it's right that you, myself, and others who get approached all the time, "How do I become the next Usain Bolt?" to encourage that. It is a process and it is a journey. This trust that inevitably builds because of the communication that's happening is really important. But it's not on your terms.

46:53If we can't fund something or if somebody isn't able to get into a competition because they're not at that level, we have to be honest with that and say, "You're not quite ready yet or I can't afford to fund that, but keep seeking, keep pushing." Being truthful, acting with integrity, and being honest is really important.

47:18But the goal is important to have because that is what is allowing individuals to get out of bed in the morning. It might be their one thing, that purpose, despite everything else that is going on. But it's the person that the individuals are becoming that is more important than anything else. I never won a gold medal at the Olympic Games. But my 11-year-old self wanted to. It was what kept me going. And on that journey, I'm now sitting in front of you having this conversation.

48:00I've never been able to articulate it in such a way, but I think that's—I completely agree. There's tremendous truth in that. Going on that journey... when I think about my first business, Wallpark, which I started from Moss Side by the way, failed, really badly. I ended up leaving after about three years. But I learned so much from it about social media in particular. It got me really interested in social media. I actually started building these social media pages that this company owns now when I was there.

48:33The week before I left, I actually started Social Chain. We were sat in a small room across the street from where we are now, maybe like 200 meters away. I said to a couple of my friends, "Let's think of a name for this thing with these social media pages and these posts we do on them," and we came up with the name Social Chain. Then for the next two years, we never said the word again. Never touched it again. So two years pass and I say, "You know what, let's give that business a go." And here we are. It would never have happened had I not failed.

49:03And that's what I always reflect on when sometimes these entrepreneurs come to me and it's so clear to me that the idea is so fundamentally flawed. I remember a guy telling me that Wallpark was flawed. But I'm really glad I didn't stop, even though it ended in failure, because it's 100% what took me—this is basically that business. It's just got a different face on it and a different name.

49:28It's a tough one. It's very tough. And you're conscious of that relationship that you built; they're looking to you to almost make that happen.

49:43I can't lie either. I can't say to them, "Oh, I love the backpack." I say I hate a bad idea. And I say that in a constructive way and I try and explain to them. 99% of the time no one's going to understand because you have to be deluded sometimes to win. You have to believe your own bullshit to a healthy extent to get past all the cynics, the critics, the barriers, the stats that say you're probably going to fail. They very rarely listen. It usually comes two years after; they'll message me, "By the way, the high-vis backpack? Yeah, not the great idea."

50:20So when you look forward, what is it that you want to accomplish in the next phase of your career? What are the goals you've set for yourself?

50:30I'm acutely aware that I am underperforming right now.

50:34In what respect?

50:35I think with the skills and the knowledge and the drive that I have, I think there is more to achieve.

50:44Have you ever felt otherwise?

50:48Actually, yeah. I can only say that based on what I have achieved already. And so where I am now, in my mind, what I'd like to do more of is use the knowledge to be able to support other businesses, to shape their agenda, particularly around disadvantage, socio-economic disadvantage, and to be able to shape some of those national governing bodies that have the power and the influence to look at things differently.

51:26I think some of that work is already happening. But what I'm saying is that I think boards now is what is driving me—to get on boards to be able to shape the agenda, but with a specific agenda in mind, which is about changing the landscape of how we interact with people who are coming from inner cities.

51:53I also want to be able to—I was going to say from a family point of view—just be there for my family. I always think that actually, because I'm so committed to the success of the business, that balance is often difficult. So for me, it's about deliberately being able to get the balance right from being a good family person as well as being a decent businesswoman.

52:25Have you got the balance right?

52:27I'm getting there. We've got three girls and yeah, I'm getting there.

52:39Do you believe you'll ever get there with the balance? Do you honestly believe you'll ever get there?

52:45Probably not. Because I think at some point I'll stop being a mom and I'll start being a manager. Because the 12 and 13-year-olds at the moment need a mom. And they want me home in the evening, being there, and I want to be there too. But at some point, they're going to say, "What are you doing here? We don't want you around." So I suspect that it's probably where it should be right now.

53:28This is a slightly obscure question. I always ask this question on this podcast. Are you scared of dying?

53:40No.

53:41Why?

53:42I'm more concerned with living. Right now I'm alive and I want to give every ounce of what I have whilst I'm alive. I am going to die, and that's going to happen. But it's that element of control, and that's the part that I can't. I'm not afraid of dying. I don't want to be in terrible pain when that time comes, but I'm more concerned with living and I'm happy to be alive.

54:21There's so much more to achieve. Sustainability for the business—we're good at what we do in the sense of supporting young people to fulfill their potential, but my job as the CEO is all-encompassing and I take that responsibility really seriously. That's my priority right now and I'm really driven to be able to connect with more people, network with more individuals that will enable me to achieve my goal, which in effect will positively affect the lives of young people across this city.

55:08If someone's listening to this now and they want to get involved in your journey, in your foundation and your businesses, how can they?

55:26Well, obviously get in touch with me and my team via the website. We are launching our ambassador program in our 10th-year anniversary year. We are seeking 10 ambassadors from various elements to raise £10,000 each for us to ultimately raise £100,000 to change the lives of those young people.

55:54We are looking for group ambassadors, people who want to get together and do fundraising initiatives; sports ambassadors, brand ambassadors, and community ambassadors. We're looking for 10 ambassadors to help us change lives. Come on board, you will have so much fun with us. We understand that we're in the business of entertainment; sport as a catalyst for change forces an emotion. Whether your team wins or loses or you get a PB or something amazing happens, you feel something.

56:52I'll be an ambassador. There you go. Ten grand. That's an expensive sentence. But I know the cause well and the work you do is tremendous. I think that would be awesome. I know a couple of people who I think could also be great ambassadors, so yeah, for sure.

57:18Last question then. Hypothetical dinner party. There's six seats; I'm in one of them, you're in the other. You get to invite four people, dead or alive. Who do you invite and why?

57:42Martin Luther King. I would ask the most ridiculous question—what motivated him, what kept him going? Because obviously his life was at risk every single day, but he kept going.

58:11I always give Martin Luther King as my answer because he's someone that dawns on me... he knew he was going to die. There's this particular speech he does a couple of days before he gets shot dead. He says to this audience of people, "I've been to the mountaintop, and I don't get there with you." He points to the audience and says, "You get there, though." He goes, "I don't get there with you, but you don't need me now." Then after he burst into tears and his team catch him. He got shot dead a couple of days later. It's the closest I've ever come to believing maybe there is a God or something because he knew he was going to die and he was willing to.

59:15During that time, I often ask myself this question: would I be on the streets marching? Would I have been on the streets putting my life at risk, or would I be at home watching from afar? Can you imagine the choices people would have had to make? It's incredibly difficult.

59:45I do the exact same thing. I say would I have had the courage to do what he did? The answer is almost certainly no. But I then reflect and say to myself, Steven, you could do that now. You could be in service of these tremendous injustices in the world.

60:13Some of the Buddhist mentors have spoken to me about how you can't pour out anything unless you're full, unless your reservoir's full. I've always played with this idea of making yourself wealthy and is that a good thing? All of my mentors have told me that once you've created abundance within yourself, you have abundance to give. As an 18-year-old kid in Moss Side, I remember posting on my Facebook that if I stopped Wallpark now, I could go and save at least one kid's life. Would that be a much greater achievement than growing a business for myself? The thing that I've definitely learned to be true is because I focused on myself a little bit in that moment and got myself to this position, the abilities that I have now to achieve that same objective have been multiplied by thousands.

61:03The only thing that you can change or we can change is you. And ultimately, on accepting that and making a positive change, we tend to pay it forward because we remember people along the way who were with us on that experience. And we only need to touch one life because they will pay it forward if we are kind and generous.

61:31I would also have The Rock.

61:36Why?

61:37He's a brilliant actor.

61:52I'm torn between Kevin Hart and Will Smith. I think I'll go for Will. And I have one more. I'd like to get into the mindset of Michael Johnson. American 400-meter sprinter, multi-world record holder. His mindset—it's more than sport with him. He taps into what we all need in life, which is an attitude of, "I get how life works and I'm going to play it in my favor." So I would be looking to him to steady us down because we're all a bit giddy around the table.

63:57I've changed my mind. It's either Venus or Serena Williams. I'd go with them because again, they've moved away from sport and they've got successful businesses outside of where you would expect to see them. Their journey and their inspiration is crazy, isn't it? Staggering. So I've squeezed another on the table.

64:24Listen, thank you so much for coming today. It's been a pleasure speaking to you and getting to know you a bit better. I think the work you do with the foundation is tremendous, super inspiring to me, and I really mean that. It kind of reminds me of my obligation to give back. You're a credit to the city. Thank you for your time today; it means a lot to me for you to be here.

65:07It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

65:09Thanks, Diane. Thanks.

65:10(Outro Music)

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