Mary Portas - How To Stop Living A Life That Isn't True To You
Guests: Mary
Full transcript · Read the full conversation in order, with its original context.
§01Transcript — part 1
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I like a really good life, and I have a very good life. I knew I was a bit different as well. You felt different. I just felt different. I was doing TV shows, radio shows, I had my own collection, I had the business. Oh god, how shit is that life?
And I lost me in that. It wasn't that there weren't times where it wasn't fantastic—there were—but where was I? I didn't stop to breathe. We’ve really fucked this planet for you guys. We were blind consumers, living a life while we slowly killed the planet and our wellbeing. So, it has to be you guys who say no.
My mother died when I was 16. She was the center of the world. I had to grow up very quickly, and all that misbehavior went into a sort of responsibility. This is really painful, yet somehow I wasn't able to express that.
Mary Portas. You may know her from the high street, you may know her from business, or you may know her from her books. But the experience I had with her today is honestly incredible. She is hilarious, she is smart, she is witty, and she is willing to be honest at all costs.
That really speaks to one of the central principles she’ll talk about today, which is this idea of the importance of being true to yourself. She’s made the mistake that 99% of people that are listening to this are going to make, are currently making, or are in the process of overcoming—which is living a life that isn’t true to who you actually are.
Today, she’s also going to tell you about an idea that will be fairly radical to some people, especially people who are building and have built big businesses, which is based on her new book *Rebuild: How to Thrive in the New Kindness Economy*. She has achieved things that most people in business would never even dream of. She’s been a media star, she’s been a political figure at times.
Through it all—through the hardest of times, through grief, through trauma, through broken marriages, through public scrutiny in the press—she has emerged as an incredibly outspoken, honest, humble, intellectually challenging and stimulating, humorous, inspirational leader, entrepreneur, and public figure. I laughed, I realized, and I was deeply inspired. You will be too.
So, 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.
Mary, you are a very standout person with a very standout personality. You've managed to achieve some pretty remarkable things in your life. From a place of curiosity, that always makes me wonder what it is that made you different. I like to always start with people's childhoods and their upbringings because I tend to believe that's the most influential part of their life typically. Is there anything from your younger years that you think has been defining in the person you went on to become?
Well, of course, I think that probably is the case. I was one of five kids. I was the fourth out of five. My parents were Irish and had come over in the late 50s from Ireland. My father was a Protestant and my mother was a Catholic, from Belfast in the North of Ireland. So this was a time when that wasn't looked onto happily.
So they came over and chose Watford to live in. It could have been Dagenham, but they chose Watford. Those were the two options. I'm kind of proud—George Michael, Elton John—so we're kind of in a good football team area.
But I think looking back on my childhood, my elder siblings and I were very close. There was a two-year or one-year gap between us all. I was the fourth, and I remember vividly thinking, "I'm not the eldest, I'm not the youngest, I'm not the first girl," and I didn't feel particularly special.
So I was very naughty as a child. I spent a lot of time up to pranks and trying to find my voice, really. It was a very loving household. My father was very high-strung and hard-working. My mother was poetic and musical, and she pushed us academically, putting us all through the grammar school system.
I remember my sister coming home from school and saying, "I'm number two in the class, I looked at the register." My mother said, "And who was number one?" That gives you a sort of taste of what life was like. But we were very close. My mother died when I was very suddenly of encephalitis when I was 16.
She was the center of the world. Just by the place where I was in the family, my elder siblings—my brother Michael was at university, and my sister was just about to go and work and train at UCH, and my other brother was hairdressing. So I ended up being the one at home and looking after my younger brother.
I had to grow up very quickly. All that misbehavior went into a sort of responsibility. That's what I think happened, anyway. I just took on the role of the—I wouldn't say parent, because I was not very good at that at all—but the one who managed stuff at home. Even when my elder siblings then came back, and to this day, it's Mary's house that we meet at.
That’s really interesting because I'm the youngest of four, and I feel like I took on that role where I feel like I had to because my parents were absent by the time I was 10.
Why were they absent?
My mom just decided that I think she decided that she'd raised all of the kids already. You know, like it's almost like they’ve said, "I've done my work as a parent." My brothers and sisters were older than me. So she would then just sleep at her shop because she was getting burgled a lot, and getting lots of racial attacks on her shop. She would literally go and sleep in the back room after work, wake up, work, go sleep in the back room. But she had a 10-year-old at home.
And so I just learned this huge void of independence. I became super naughty, breaking into my school and all sorts of stuff.
I set fire to mine. That was by accident. I thought I could do a little bonfire under the wooden steps, but yeah. Oh my god, the nuns. I was looked after by nuns. They were desperate.
The passing of your parents at a young age—how did that impact you?
Well, mine went from this terrible traumatic event where my mother was the central figure. This sort of fiery redhead who was just the backbone. I was just about baked. I'd had enough of love and time from her at 16. I think my younger brother Lawrence at 14—that was terribly difficult. So you at 10, I'm with you. I can feel that. That's a very lonely place for a young boy.
But my father remarried within a year. I used to come home from school and he'd be crying, and Lawrence and I were managing his grief. We were these young kids, really. And he remarried very quickly, and then he died of a heart attack nine months after getting married. But in doing so, he left the family home to the new wife of nine months.
So we were all out on our own really after that. I look back now—and I didn't look back for a long while, didn't look back at all—but I look back now and I see that I was in grief for about four years. I mean, I used to walk to school crying and then just get on the bus and smile. It was grief, but somehow I suppressed that and put it into a life that I never dreamt I'd have, that's for sure.
Did you ever get help with that grief?
Never. I remember the headmistress saying, "You know, if you ever want to come and talk." The headmistress was a nun called Sister St. James who was this wonderful woman. I actually really liked her. She was pretty scary by most standards, but I really liked her. But that was it. I wasn't going to go and sit in the headmistress's office and have a sob, especially with a nun, and have to beat my chest and say about ten Hail Marys.
So we didn't. I don't think any of us did. This was the late 70s. I do remember, it was funny, like last night I've got a little eight-year-old and he's into Elvis Presley for whatever reason. I put on some YouTube and we were dancing to Elvis Presley. He said, "Elvis died, didn't he, Mamma, in 1977?" I said, "Yes, the year my mom died." So my mom died in the July and Elvis in the August, and I remember everybody grieving Elvis. And I was going, "No." I couldn't get on this. I was like, "What?" And everyone's like, "Elvis has died." The headlines. I'm just thinking, "No, my mom's died." This was really painful. Yet, somehow I wasn't able to express that.
The grief for those four years—how did that impact you thereafter? And also not processing that grief?
Well, I think I had a lot of anger. My temper was very quick. I don't have that now. I've done a lot of work on it. It’s called meditation. And also being able to come to a place of acceptance and having techniques. But I think I had a lot of anger. My father had a very quick temper. But then with five kids running around screaming in the house, I think I would have too. So I think that was there.
And I don't know, I just think what I did was I just kept going blindly. I mean, I didn't have any goal or any vision. It wasn't like, "Oh, I'm going to show them." I just kept going. And I think what I did was ignored the deep sensitivity—the deep me. I think I ignored that. So I believed I was this naughty, going fast, quick-tempered individual. Actually, I'm not. I'm really soft. I wasn't that, but I didn't know that for a long, long time.
Was that exterior, that slightly tougher exterior, some form of emotional reaction or defense from something? Because if that wasn't who you were, I'm wondering where that must have come from.
Well, I think it was a part of my personality and my behavior, but I think I believed that that was me and I believed that that was going to be part of my success—being quick-witted, fiery, doing things fast. Which is a part of my work, but I think I didn't ever discover the deeper sensitivities.
And there were times when I felt vulnerable and there were times when I felt lost and I wanted to be understood and it was like, "Oh, it's Mary." And you'd go, "Well, no," because everybody judged you on that. And weirdly even I think the persona that I had on TV with the orange bob was that, and people would edit me into that.
I would often think, "But I've spent so much time behind the scenes sitting with those shopkeepers holding their hands or talking to them," and nobody wanted to see that. They wanted the cut-and-thrust. And actually, yeah, deeply there was another part of me that wasn't expressed.
You talk about this stepmother—
I wouldn't even call her that.
What would you call her?
The woman my father married. I think about that and I'm talking with my children on this, and when I had to write my memoir, you had to go back on this. And I just cannot understand anybody not looking after children who are grieving for their parents. I can't imagine being with anybody or me marrying anybody—I mean, I married a second time to a woman and she took on my children.
I can't imagine anybody doing what she did. I just—it doesn't fathom in my head. Here was a woman who had a child the same age as my younger brother, who left us homeless.
Left you homeless?
Well, my father left her our family home. We were 19 and 16. We had no home. We had nowhere to live.
And she didn't let you live there?
Oh, she sold it. She took it. Nine months of being married to my father after 25 years of marriage and a family home that he built.
Are you still resentful about that?
No.
Were you at the time?
No. That's another thing—I don't feel resentment. I don't. All we wanted was for Dad to be buried with Mom. Because we were brought up Catholics and when Mom died, and she was a deep Catholic, we booked the plot so that Dad could be buried on the same ground. She didn't want that, so we had to bring the family priest and go and see her. And we got that in the end. And no, I didn't ever, ever feel a dot of resentment.
Do you carry those feelings—resentment, regret, grudges?
I just genuinely don't regret a thing. My life's been extraordinary. It's had extraordinary amounts of pain and extraordinary highs, and it’s been colorful and one that I would never have predicted.
When you think about the pain, think of the moments of the greatest pain in your life. What are those moments?
Oh, undoubtedly my mother dying. That where you wake up and it's like something's on your chest. That was—and I remember it was sunny, sunny, hot. I didn't like the summer for years. This was July, hot July, the late 70s, that summer when it was boiling hot. And I just associated that. And I used to love when it became autumn or cold and you could go indoors and hide. It felt like a security to me, and everybody was out playing tennis and walking and being happy in summer, and you had this heavy black pain deep inside you.
And both separations. I've been in two big relationships, I've been married. And that, when you split up a family—and I'm a family person—when you have to sit and go, "Okay, how do I do this? How do I do this? How do I sit with you, my children, and say, 'You know this little life you've got? This is moving on.'" That was those. I actually remember lying awake three nights on the road not sleeping a dot and getting up. There must have been so much adrenaline in my body. I mean, I lost about a stone in weight and I'm pretty slim, but I remember putting on my trousers and they sort of dropped below my hips. I went, "Oh my god." That sort of stress and pain, but you have to keep going because you are responsible for these children.
That’s what I wanted to ask you about. Having been through so much stress and pain, which is just this unavoidable part of the human experience. You can't avoid it, right? If you try to avoid it, you probably end up with more.
Rumi talks about the bruises. The Sufi poet Rumi, the bruises and how we learn from those bruises.
Tell me about that.
Well, he's just one of my great—I discovered him, a 13th-century Sufi mystic, and he talks about the bruises that we hit and how they repair, but that's how we grow.
What have you learned about how to cope with unexpected bullshit and pain that life throws at you? Because you never see it coming. I mean, a lot of people have had it over the last 12 months, right? 18 months with the pandemic. Couldn't have seen that coming. Lots of people's businesses just smashed to pieces, they've lost loved ones. How does one cope with that kind of grief, whether it's a professional grief or a grief of a lost loved one or the grief of a lost relationship? Is there anything you've learned over the course of your life where you think that's probably the best or only approach?
Well, there is the wonderful line "this too shall pass," and it does. For me, I have found great, great resolve from some of the great teachings and the philosophers who I have read for a long time now, probably about 15, 20 years. And even if we look at the basis of most religion, which is a patriarchy and has been completely screwed and bastardized by most men, but actually if you look at the truth at the heart of it, it’s much the same thing that we all have to follow.
And you have to just connect deeply with your inner—whatever you call it, whether it's your spirit, whether it's your soul, whether it's your—as Oprah says—my inner frequency. You know when that gets shoved or you're not aligned, that's when you start to behave and you follow whatever's happened to you rather than actually connecting truly back with your strength, your resource.
So that for me has been—and I've tried to guide my children on that. And actually found that that has been—I wish someone had done that a little bit more. It was shrouded in religion when I was a kid, the Catholic faith, which I just could not connect with at all. You know, my mother literally—going to confession. You used to go into the church and you'd see these 80-year-old women beating their chest and saying, "Dear God, you know, I have sinned," and you think, "What's she done? You know, this is crazy." This isn't life. Some poor old bird on her knees beating her chest. That's not what the world's about.
You know, that's what I've discovered is if you try to get back to your essence and know and try to align and connect with some deeper strength—whether it's through meditation or whether it's just pause and breathe—it will come through. And it does. And that's not to say we have to go through grief. We have to go through mourning, we have to let that go through our bodies. Leaving it in your bodies is the worst thing you can possibly do. And I've done that over the years and I've had my back put out, I’ve been laid low because it's in there. So I've learned to do that.
First when COVID hit, it was shocking for me. I mean, all my clients in my business, which has been my backbone for 21 years, just closed down. And nobody said, "Are you guys okay?" They just stopped work. I had 55 people who were like, "What the actual fuck is happening here?" And I'm talking to my kids about being connected to your source and I'm like, "Jesus wept, I've got to pay for all this." And I don't know where I'm going to do this and I'm just looking down the barrel at 60 and I suddenly went into that complete fear and was like, "You need to pull this back."
I was actually pretty—I found I was a little bit ashamed that I wasn't better, if I'm honest. It was such a shock. Such a shock. And I've written about it in the first chapter of my book because I want—it was so shocking. You know, they were falling down like dominoes, the clients, and we were like, what we thought as a business was just going "eeee." And it just slowly but surely I kept on connecting back to that sense of me, that deep truth that the world will look after you.
There was a great interview I heard and I can't remember who it was—I'd like to think but I can't remember—it was a philosopher and he said—we were talking about money—and he said, "Think of a time when you've never had enough." Can't think of a time when I've never had enough money. I've had very little money, but I've lived. And I remember just holding onto that. When has the world never truly looked after you? And if you can realign back into that sense of connecting and not go for the short-term—whether it's following a route that you're trying to short-term fix it through stress or through that anxiety—you connect back to that true source and it always works.
You said during the pandemic you felt—it almost was as if you were saying you felt shame that you weren't "good enough." I wanted to get more detail on what you mean by that.
No, what I meant was that the work that I'd done on myself and knowing that "this too shall pass," "connect back," "you will be alright," "the world will look after you"—I didn't! It took about a month, and then I was like, okay. And I had all the kids under one roof, homeschooling happening, I was on the phone every single morning with the CEO of my business, we were on FaceTime, it was on Zoom calls, hideous. It was like all the time, it was this world that you'd been thrown into. Where I thought, "Alright, approaching 60, ease up now Portas, you don't need to be doing as much." Everything just fell apart. Bam. Like that.
And I was a bit disappointed that I wasn't more "Om, baby." I was like, I've done a lot of work on myself, but I got it back. I got it back, she says.
Talk to me about—I want the detail as to—because I read that you'd said you felt like you were spiraling out of control a little bit when the pandemic first struck. And I think a lot of people can relate to that—that sense of panic, total uncertainty. And I mean, we had all of our like high street clients completely just cancel all work. Not even because they'd gone bankrupt, but because they just didn't have certainty themselves. So they just stopped. It was either like totally stopped or paused or "we don't know what's happening here," right? So in your agency, you have pretty much all high street players, right? So I can't imagine. So I want to know, when you say you were spiraling, what does that mean?
Well, for example, one of my clients was a big piece of business that we were doing the other side of the world—it was a million and a half pounds—bam, closed, done. That stopped. You're like, "What?" What I meant by that was I—I've never in 21 years ever had anything where I thought financially—I've made myself so financially secure over those years. I've never had anything that thought that might go.
And I've never wanted huge amounts. I like a really good life and I have a very good life. But I've never wanted the big amounts. I've always thought, "This is really good." And so I was never—I've always shared the pie as it were. I like a big slice of the cake but I also like sharing it out. So I was never, "Oh my god, I have to have this, I've got to have that." I wasn't never that. I like a lovely life.
And so suddenly this was like, "That might not be the case." And you've got a young lad that you've got to put through school. You might be working till you're 70-whatever to get this back up. And I was like, "I don't want to do that!" It was going against my flow and my energy as well, you know, that I wanted to go off and do other things. I was ready to go and do the things that one should be doing at 60-plus when you've had a very big career and doing stuff that—and I suddenly going, "Oh god, I've got to get this back on." And so I just didn't like the way that that frightened me. It did frighten me. There were sleepless nights.
But then suddenly, this place of acceptance came and you realize—there was magical times where I thought, "I am in lockdown with all three of my kids." You know, one of which had left home, one who's doing a masters, and one who was eight. This isn't going to happen again. And there were times when they were just out on the grass playing rounders together. That's the magic. That's the magic for that little man there with his big brother and sister. There were times we just would sit up on a place near us in Swift's Hill and just look at flowers and draw flowers. And I thought, "This isn't going to come again like this." And so I was able to sort of slowly but surely build back.
And things got better. And there's a huge debate now about what the "new normal" will look like, especially as it relates to working and remote working. I wanted to get your stance on this whole remote working debate. I'll give you my opinion first because my opinion tends to be quite controversial. I tend to think people have overestimated the remote working thing. And I say this because I believe that the office is one of the last institutions of community and human connection. Dating’s gone, socializing—Facebook, social media—dating we now have all these dating apps. It's felt like in my life, especially as a 25, 26-year-old whatever, that going to the office was actually one of the places I actually got to meet people in my life and connect and form communities and go to a football team as an adult. And if that all moves to Zoom now, like every other part of my life is dictated by a glass illuminated screen, I worry.
And I've had people sat in the chair from mental health psychologists and all sorts, and the consistent theme for them has been: if you can give someone community and connection in their life, then they do better. They are healthier. And I felt like the office—especially and I know you've got an amazing office, I've read about it, I've read about the atmosphere there and how impressive that is, and we also went to great lengths. It felt like mine when I was reading about your office—it’s not hierarchical, you wouldn't know who was in charge, people are themselves, it's very flexible and open, we don't have these rigid, archaic systems in place. And so it was a really enjoyable place to be. And I would hate for places like that to disappear. I think the *old* office has to change and die and be reinvented, but I wanted to get your take on that.
Well, I think you said it. I think a lot of businesses are jumping on the bandwagon thinking how they can save money on rent and not looking at the mental health wellbeing. I've seen this. I've opened my offices; we opened them up as soon as we could. We have two days where we say we want everybody in because we believe that is everything you've talked about.
And I know even when I go in and I will see them all and we will have a laugh and we'll talk about stuff that’s not even in the work world, but those nuggets, those little messages, those little nuances that happen are what makes us human. It's ridiculous to think we'd—I heard Google aren't opening theirs up for another year and you think, "What the actual—stop this. Have they actually asked their people?"
I have a young daughter who's been working at home consistently since she went out to the world of work and it is not good for her mental wellbeing. And I have watched my children get up at 8:00 AM and go straight on Zoom. That wasn't—where's the travel time where you listen to a podcast or you listen to a piece of music or you read something or you bump into someone on the street and say, "Morning, you fancy a coffee?" Where's that gone out of our life? We take this away and we take what it is to be human.
When I did my High Street Report, I talked about exactly what you're talking about. We lose this. We lose what Jane Jacobs, who wrote *The Death and Life of Great American Cities* back in the 60s well before I talked about this—she talked about those little things where you bump into someone on the street and you say morning, you're getting a newspaper and you say, "Can your daughter babysit tonight?" She said these little things are trivial, but the sum isn't trivial at all. It is a social infrastructure, a web of security that makes us human. The office is the same.
Now, I started in my office with saying if you've got a baby you can bring it in. Bring dogs in. This was like 10 years ago. We need to ease up and realize that we need more of this in our lives. I've had to sublet parts of my office because we had too much space, but we bloody went out and sublet and fought because we wanted to keep it because I knew that this was deeply important, especially to your generation.
And you know, I know there's people and my kids have seen it, the sort of 40-pluses: "Yeah, it's nice having some time." I understand that. You can pick up the kids. Of course. But let's get that balance. Let's get that balance. And you're right: the more we close down, the more we squeeze our little souls, because those small trivial things are what make up our lives. I know that. So I would be so pro it. And I really think this needs to be the things that are part of our society which are deeply important, that do need government intervention. I know Tories don't want to intervene and it's a free market and all that crap. Transport is one, our high streets are one, our National Health Service is another, and the way we work and connect, I think is another.
So I would be putting this on the agenda. I heard it on one of those—what is it called, Question Time—which I keep getting asked to go on and I think, "Oh dear god." And I was listening to it and nobody—it was all these sort of aging politicians who weren't running businesses, who didn't see the impact of not getting together. It’s vital. Please, please anyone listening—and if you're listening and you're a millennial or a Gen Z and you don't think you've got any power, pull together, get your pals and put pressure at the top and ask them to open back up.
I think that clip will go viral on LinkedIn, so that’s great. I think you're going to reach a lot of people with that one. My LinkedIn is very highly engaged, so I think that will bang. But no, I think that I'm more at ease because I think in the professional world, it's going to become a battle of employees choosing where they want to spend their time and where they want to work. And so my objective here isn't to—so what I feel like I saw was these kind of fragile leaders in business doing all this kind of virtue signaling on social media and online going, "Oh, we're going to let our employees decide and if they want to work from..." and I've said publicly, like, as a leader, you have to have a backbone and your company culture should be reverse engineered from the mission.
So you know, if you're building cars then you need your people at the factory, but also work *should* be—it should offer more than just pay. And if it is to offer more than pay, something meaningful, it would be community, connection, and these things. So my stance as an employer is: I'm going to create the environment which offers you more community than you're going to get anywhere else, good pay, more flexibility around things that matter in your life, kids etc., and I think I'll be able to hire all your staff that you have working from a Zoom screen at home. And I think eventually you'll figure that out and you'll go back. That’s what I think. I think it's a competition of—you know what I mean?
I'm in with you. I'm in with you. It is—as I say, I remember when I wrote *Work Like a Woman*, I was looking at this and thinking, "Who created the code? Who wrote this shit? How do we want to work?" I want people in my business that have a voice that feel—I will sit with a 23-year-old and I know we'll sit and have a great conversation as much as I will with a 45-year-old that’s running the business.
We've actually put that with these two days when the chief exec's in, we want everyone in, because this is the time when we learn, this is the time we laugh, and we *really* do laugh. I mean, I'm the biggest joker, the biggest kid in the office. And my daughter's been coming in so she can get some interaction. She works in food policy, something completely different. And she goes, "Mom, you're the biggest kid." I said, "I know, I need people around me, I need it." And I love to laugh. And it's just fantastic when you're in an office and you hear that.
And it's not difficult, this stuff. It's all about—when you feel as confident as you do, you're able to give up that control. That's what you're giving up. You're saying, "You know what, I know who I am and I want you who works with me to know who you are." And so let's give up that control. That doesn't mean that I'm going to have any lazy bastard coming in and sauntering in whenever they want and taking... no. They know. I talk about the kindness economy. The kindness economy is doing what's humanely right. It's not taking the piss. So you have very strong ethos and ethics and guidelines of what you believe your business is and where you want to go, but let everybody be themselves within that. And part of that is connection.
I mean, it's fine for me sitting in my North London home working, or I'm in the Cotswolds. What about the ones who I've seen them on Zoom in their bedroom sharing a flat? You are waking in there and you're doing Zoom, and if any owner of a business or organization isn't understanding that, shame on you.
And think about it: they’re then probably picking up a phone to do their dating, then when they're hungry they pick up the phone and open Uber Eats and Deliveroo and order their food. And it's conceivable that this generation—and I actually write about it in my book—I show how we’re getting more and more stagnant as the years go on because we're optimizing for productivity and financial gain as opposed to human connection. We're actually optimizing—doing everything in our power to sacrifice human connection and socializing, and even things like exercise and movement, for increased productivity. And I think it's time to... do I think the government would be effective in intervening? I mean—
Oh, I've given up on them. It ain't going to come from them.
They had some like "Loneliness Czar." I think Theresa May appointed the first ever Loneliness Czar for the UK.
Who was that? Jesus.
I don't know, but it gave me this dystopian-like image of this like tannoy in the streets being like, "Fucking talk to each other!" and like, you know what I mean? So I just feel like—
"Get me and have a chat." I think it's going to come—that's why in my book I write—I think it's going to come from business, and I think it's going to come from people like us changing that.
100% agree. I think once we get past this little "woke" virtue signaling thing which leaders are doing now where they're like, "We'll just let our employees do whatever they want and they can just be all at home," whatever, I think then you'll have the second wave of that, which is reality.
You need to talk about it on your show. You need to talk about this when you're doing business. You need to get this out there. You need to be a voice for that because it's only by sharing our voices and having an opinion—it doesn't matter who knocks us or who comes back—that you go, "No, this feels right. This feels right, this is deeply important." Deeply important to the next generation. We've really fucked this planet for you guys—my generation. The generation before me, the baby boomers. They know that. So we have to hold onto something deeply precious here. And there is a movement and understanding that’s greater and deeper. We were blind consumers. We thought that having it all was having more stuff and living a life while we slowly killed the planet and our wellbeing. So it has to be you guys who say no. If we get one thing out of this, that's going to be that—that we’re going to change all those ridiculous ideas that my generation and the baby boomers bought into.
You say there, "having it all and having more stuff," we thought that was it. Which leads me into something else I wanted to talk to you about. I read you'd said that you're in the public eye, you're making more money than ever, and it was extraordinarily exciting, but at the age of 48 you found yourself crying almost every day.
I was probably physically exhausted. I just didn't get that joy. I was on this—I was doing TV shows, radio shows, I had my own collection, I had the business, I had two kids. It was crazy. And I was the matriarch, I was the center. It wasn't like I had some husband who was... it was me, you know? And I thought, "Yeah!" But and the more that comes to you—you'll know this—the more it comes, the more it comes, the more it comes. It keeps coming. You've got to do this, got to do that. And there were parts of it that were just incredible. I look back on what some great years, but I was exhausted.
And you're not allowed to say that. Actually, I was thinking about that—at that time there would be those women on the front of the *Sunday Times Magazine* like that [strikes a pose]. You can have it all. They've got eight kids and they would get up and they would be doing yoga at 6:00 AM and then having a global call with China or whatever. Then they'd be dropping the kids off at school while chatting to god knows who sorting out the day. And you just thought, "Oh god, how shit is that life? Where are you? Where are you?"
And I lost me in that. It wasn't that there weren't times where it wasn't fantastic—there were—but where was I? I didn't stop to breathe. I didn't stop to truly connect—truly connect with me. And I remember I went away to some very expensive spa place where it was all "Om Shanti" and downward dogs and eating grass stuff. And everyone's all this and you go where rich people are because you've got money, and you go and discover yourself in five days.
And I remember sitting in this yoga session and I just was crying. And I was like, "Oh please stop, please stop Mary, please stop." And there were all these sort of women in their Lululemon and I was going, "Just crying." And I thought—and I went into there was this wonderful Indian guru or who used to sit in this little room where you could go and meet and chat with. And I remember going in to see him and he didn't say a word, and I just was crying and I didn't want to speak with him, but I wanted to go to the bookshelf that was behind him because I knew there were some books there.
And I picked up Eckhart Tolle's *A New New Earth*. And I just took it and as I left he went, "That's the right one." And I went back to my room and I read it and I read it on the beach days and I was like, "Oh my god, I've got the world wrong. I've just completely got this wrong." And that was the start of my journey—and it took many years, I'm still partially hybridizing that life, I'm never going to sit in an ashram—but I discovered how to connect back truly with me and stop loading this stuff in your life, Mary. And saying no.
Regarding this book—the Eckhart Tolle book that you talk about, *A New Earth*—what was it? What were the key lessons that it imparted on you about life and how you were living?
I was living totally outwardly to my ego and my persona. Mary Portas, Mary with the bob, Mary the businesswoman, Mary the mother. I was not connecting truly with who my spirit, my soul. So everything was done to feed that, and you believe that that is you. You believe that that is your personality, you believe all of that.
You talk about how you thought you’d become a bit of a caricature.
Oh for sure, but I also milked that. That was very profitable. You know, it was "Brand Mary." The red bob, the rings—I've always loved fashion—but it was very much a signature. So, and yeah, of course, I mean I advise businesses globally on brands. I was, I suppose, a brand myself. And I just didn't want to be that anymore.
Philosophy is very clear on this idea of like abandoning your true self and the consequences of that.
Your ego, your outer ego.
Yeah. And it seems like such a clearly losing game. And I think people listening to this are probably at some stage in the process—you've either at the start and you've not yet tried to abandon yourself because you think that the outside world could convince you and incentivize you to do so, especially social media that would have you try to abandon yourself and become "The Kardashians" or whatever. Or you are in the process of trying to abandon yourself and you're feeling the sense of despair and probably lack of orientation that comes with that. Or you've come out the other end, which it kind of sounds like you've got to, where you've realized that you tried to abandon yourself and the only true answer is to be yourself because everything else is despair.
You either succeed in abandoning yourself as this one—I think his name is Stoddard, a Swedish philosopher—used to say: if you succeed in abandoning yourself, then you end up in despair. If you fail in abandoning yourself, then you end up in despair. So the only true path to joy is to accept who you are.
Yes, I think you know the thing is, it's knowing what the truth is. It doesn't mean that we're not going to have this. We are truly connecting on a truth here. I don't think we're performing, but part of it is performative because we are doing a job that's going to be this podcast. But it’s being on the path. Some people never even know that path's there. You know, most people don't.
And that, I remember when I first discovered it and people were like, "Don't, you know, don't talk about that because you might sound a bit odd on, you know, spirituality or blah, don't talk about that." And you're like—and I didn't for a long while. You know, I even was chatting to a great producer at the BBC saying, "Why isn't there a show on something like this on the BBC?" And they're like, "Oh don't mention spirituality in the BBC at the moment." You're like, "What?" This needs to get out there. And it's not hokey-pokey stuff. This is our truth.
And I think what I've tried to do is to allow the people who work with me to express that and know about it. And we share it—we share it in the business. And it just opens this whole thing up. And there are times when you have to be, as I said before, performative and be "Mary Portas," you know, going out and working and writing a piece or doing a show—of course! But I'm rooted in who I am deeply.
And I think it isn't—whatever we call it, whether it’s spirituality, whether it's our soul, whether it's our spirit, whether it's our truth, whether it’s our vibration, whether it's our—you know—whatever, our vortex or our frequency as Oprah says. Whatever, getting back to that.
You know, I remember I was listening to the lovely Irish poet—and I'll think of his surname, I'll think about it and it’ll all come to me after I've done this. But anyway, I remember him talking about when he used to give the last rites. He’d be in Ireland and he'd go to give the last rites to whoever was dying, and he'd go in and he'd see these little pinched faces that had lived a life that wasn't in line with their true self because they couldn't, they had no choice.
And he just said it used to make him feel so, so sad. And then he would give them the last rites and he would literally see the pain on their faces, their skin just unstress and unwrinkle because they were able just to be. And that is the greatest gift I think we can give to anything and to our kids, you know?
I mean, I put them through a great academic system because I could, but I always said, "You choose." I remember my daughter coming to me when she just finished Oxford—she got into Oxford and she was like—I was deeply proud. And she finished her degree and she said, "Mom, I know everyone's going to expect me to go in and make a lot of money, I don't want to do that." I said, "Why are you explaining that to me? Like, you know, I'm not really going to judge you on that." And she wanted to do something that just connected not with what—but with where her truth was. And that's the only thing I think we need to try and find in life.
Now, your truth probably was that you wanted to get to that place where you were able to say "I did this" because that's the truth that was important to you because everyone else was telling you you can't do something, you're not sitting in this system. I was much the same. Much the same. I mean, I met some old school friends and they were like, "Whoa," at my life because I was just always the one in trouble. I remember getting 17% in physics and thinking, "I don't give a shit. I don't give a shit." And everyone's like, "Oh my god, she's like 17%." I never felt embarrassed, I was just like, "Whatever."
And I knew I was a bit different as well. You felt different. I felt different. But I wanted to be like the middle-class girls that were living in Chorleywood, and I came from the working class. So there was the kids from Watford that got into the grammar school that parents didn't have the money. We used to get the bus out, and then the middle class from Chorleywood and all those areas, their parents used to drop them off in cars. And then they'd get to the sixth form where they drive in themselves! I was like, "Oh my god, I want to be this." And then I went, "Nah. Nah. I don't want to be that life. My life. I want my life."
Bronnie Ware talks about the same thing. She interviewed people on their palliative patients, I think it's called.
Who is this?
Bronnie Ware. She was an Australian palliative nurse. And she interviewed people on their deathbed and asked them one question: "What's your biggest regret as they were dying?" And she released the blog and the number one regret of the dying, as she writes it in her blog, was: "not living a life true to myself."
Oh man. I remember watching the film of Alan Turing and it just—actually heartbreaking. And here was a gay man who could not live his life. And I just thought that has got to be—I think the sort of the 50s and 60s was worse than any time. You know, that American dream of the housewife and being the two kids and living the American dream of the house and actually you had to suppress your sexuality, your frequency, your truth, your love, your ability to soar. Isn't that just the worst?
Torture.
Torture.
Daily, hourly, deeply, subconscious torture, almost.
And still going on in Hollywood.
Yeah. You married a man?
I did marry a man.
Then a woman?
Then a married woman, and I’m with a woman now. Well, I never—it’s interesting. I don't know whether female sexuality is particularly different from male sexuality, but I've been in love with two men in my life and I've been in love with two women. I've never sort of—I never as a child thought, "Oh my god, I'm a lesbian, I fancy Linda Evangelista, I've got to do something about it." And I had relationships with women, I had relationships with men, and it just didn't ever bother me.
But once I had fallen in love with a woman and I remember saying to my sister, and she was like, "But you're not a lesbian." I said, "Well, I don't know what I am, do I have to put a label to it?" And the interesting thing is, when I did and married Mel, that all the prides and the... they all grab hold of you and put "lesbian" and you're like, "Okay, well I've got to do this for the sake of all of you and be a voice," which I wanted to be. But you kind of also go, "Now you're also labeling me."
It was a really—but I also don't want to let you down, Stonewall, and I will do the opening speech at Pride because I know you need women. And I've just had another one that came through on LGBT Virgin Radio, "Mary, would you go and..." I'm like, I don't want to be also categorized in that way because I'm not that.
It’s a form of prison as well, though, isn't it?
Well it is. But I also don't want to *not* be a voice because I think it's important for—you know, when I did meet Mel, there was no women in the public eye besides Sandi Toksvig who were in same-sex relationships. And I remember this for my children, having to—when they went to school there was no books on it. I mean, I'm talking what—Milo's now 26, so I'm talking, you know, he was nine. There wasn't. So I thought I had to do that. And I did it, and I don't mind doing it. But you know, there is a fluidity to it.
Labels, good and bad. Yeah, those kind of labels, those socially categorizing labels where they put you in the label because they a) maybe want to understand you, but b) because they want you to lead the charge of a movement. I get this obviously, "young black guy in business." There's not actually many of us up here in the young black male categories.
You kind of go, "Well, I've got to do that."
I represent that. And I'm only actually half black, I'm as black as I am white because my dad's white, my mom's black. And I'm like, "I will represent the black community," you know, like stand behind me! And then you feel okay, you say, yeah, as you say, there’s probably a net positive impact of me doing that for society. So I’ll take on that responsibility.
But then I go back to, "Well, I know who I am," so write what you like and say what you like because I know.
Intuition. Topic I've heard you talk about a lot. You’d said previously that the biggest mistakes in your life had come from not listening to your intuition. What comes to mind when I say that? Which mistakes?
I think, you know, I think I'll know when I needed to have got out of relationships and it kept telling me something and it kept telling me and you're like, "Oh no, no, I've suppressed that." I've suppressed it in times where I've thought in business, "I don't particularly like this person, and yet they're paying me a lot." I've suppressed that, and it always ends up, *always*. You know, you feel it, you feel it.
And ideas sometimes—they just come. If you're really, really feeling free and in tune, they just come and they're wonderful. It's been my—I'm sure it's yours—but it’s been my ability to sort of feel something deeply and know that that's right. And you can get people that can analyze, put data behind it, logic, and I've listened to them in the past and I've let things go and go, "Oh, not regret but oh, that, you know..."
Even now, I've always wanted to do—and it's just trying to get the idea—a totally sustainable, secondhand, recycled, vintage huge... take a whole space like a massive mall that’s closed down and create "Tomorrows," where everything is about recycled, upcycled, vintage, remade. And I've got to get on and do that, but it's too big sometimes. Everyone goes, "No, no, no, I'm not sure how that could work, how do you..." But I just know it will. You know?
And so I have to follow the instinct on doing that. But I think just sometimes it's the small things as well. It's just the small things where you feel it's come from there and you push it down because you put too much logic and reason behind it. And I think in business we need to let that open up so much more. Certainly in my area of business, I reckon we ended up with such so many crap businesses because logic, data, and systems overtook instinct, creativity, and innovation. And we need to bring that back. And interestingly, you talking about high streets, what *has* come back is people understanding the importance of connection and community through high streets. And we will see that coming back.
What’s your view on the younger generation coming up? You know, there’s a lot of—I think we talked off microphone about some of the themes coming out of this "Instagram generation," like really binary clichés like "find your passion," there’s this idea that working hard is now "toxic." And just generally, what advice would you have or what's your perspective on this "Instagram generation" and their perspective of the working world?
I think, you know, there’s the good, and the bad, and the ugly, isn't there? I mean, I think it's a really tough world to be in that you are "always on." That’s a very tough place to be. And I purposely don't do as much even though I should be, you know, because I just think I only want to do something when I really have something to say.
And I think it's deeply difficult. I think we’ve got two strands coming through. I think it’s used as an incredible place for voice and change to happen. And I think the Gen Zs are going to be probably the best generation that we’ve seen in a very, very, very long time. And the more I read about and the more my—I have a social anthropology unit in my agency—the more we research this, the more I utterly love them. And I more I want them to make this world better. And I think they will. And you young millennials, absolutely. I think and I think there’s a lot that comes out of it that’s fantastic.
The other part of it is: oh boy, I would love to change what are now used as icons and role models, especially around beauty, fashion, and young women. It is just too much to live up to. And I find that I find just terribly stressful for individuals and the way they've been sold how they need to look, how they need to behave, how their body needs to be, what their beauty regime should be. It’s ridiculously tough.
And I live in a society where I’m seeing a young generation that are pushing against that, but there’s an awful lot of young women particularly—and men—out there, who how they are looked and how they are perceived and what their life is like. And 40-pluses! I look at some people on Facebook and I think, "Really? You're still doing this shit? You need to go out there and show what new shoes you've bought or what you had for brunch or where you ate? Really? Really?"
Isn't it a bit of a pyramid scheme in some respects or some kind of network effects? Because what's happening is you’ve got let's say, I don't know, The Kardashians at the top. Then you’ve got people below them looking up at The Kardashians and thinking, "Fuck, you know what, I need to get a fake bum and I need to change this and I need to change this and I need to post when I'm wearing my Chanel bikini on the side of that boat." So they follow suit, which then cascades downwards, and everyone’s just trying—
This is what I’m talking about—the pressure. I’d love The Kardashians to turn around and say, "Let’s not buy any more stuff and let’s recycle." Wouldn't it be brilliant? Imagine what that would do for consumerism.
That’s probably the most impact they could have on the world if they just cut out the fakery and lived more ethically. But they’re just—they’re pinned back by the financial incentive.
When I was doing my research for my book and looking at the spend on the pressure on young people who follow The Kardashians to get the "new this," the "new that," it’s insane. It’s insane. Because I used to look back and think, well, you know, my mother couldn't afford stuff so we just put up with it, but we weren't sold the marketing dream. We weren't sold this shit. And this has gone so deeply into society, so deeply that we do need people like you going, "This is just crap. Standing up and saying this is crap." And anyone comes on Dragons' Den trying to sell that crap, tell them to fuck off.
It’s almost like, the way I see it is, social media and this—that world, The Kardashians—it's like they’re holding a bit of your self-esteem hostage. And the ransom, the apparent ransom, is: you've got to go get that bag too, or whatever. And then when you pay the ransom, you get the bag, you don't get your self-esteem back, and it just increases the ransom—it just increases. Now they're like, "Now you've got to get an even better bag." And it's just endless—
That’s exactly what I wrote about. I was part of it. When I was creative director at Harvey Nichols, I sold this stuff to people. I think, "Yeah, bloody brilliant look. I'm going to make this sexy." And it was not dissimilar. Now it’s just got faster and faster and faster and faster, and it is totally, all based on "I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough."
Well you have to convince them that there’s something they don't have but need.
We really need this revolution. There are part that are doing it, but there's a whole part of society that are still buying into this—this lack of self-esteem. And we as marketers have been selling that for years.
I've definitely been selling that at my previous business.
Mea culpa.
You said something that I thought maybe I was the only person in the world that also felt, which was: before we started recording, you said that you don't get excited about things.
Yeah. I mean I have great things in my diary or someone’ll go, "Aren't you excited you're doing that tomorrow?" And I just think, "No." I just don't get excited. And you said you don't either.
I don't know. Well, I didn't actually say anything, but then my camera guy here Jack, that’s worked with me for some time, says, "Steve always says that." And it's because there are people who will say to me, "Oh my god, you're doing this next week," or "You're going on holiday," or "You're going to this place," or "You're speaking in Dubai, are you excited?" And I go... "No." No. As if I'm... as if I should be.
Let's try and work that through, because I've never sat with anyone and worked that through or talked that through, and it... but it doesn't stop me really enjoying like experiences in the there and now. I don't put it up there. Maybe that's the thing.
For me, I thought—and I might be wrong, but maybe we're going to work it through now—I thought my lack of excitement was a defense mechanism because I also need to defend against going down when bad things happen. So I think over time, I've just developed this character trait where I'm just here in the moment focused on what I have to do right now, and I'm trying to be stable and calm. So I don't swing upwards with great news. I don't swing downwards too heavily with bad news. And that also means I don't swing too far into the future or swing too far into the past.
That’s a really good analysis. Maybe that is it. Because my friends get excited about small things and big things: "Oh we've got dinner, we've booked, we've got that table at Bratt!" and you're like, "Great." But it doesn't excite me. I don't know, the maybe that is, maybe that is a subliminal thing that we've both done. I hadn't thought about that. But I felt—I even had it like my partner said to me the other day, "Oh you've got that, aren't you excited?" and I said, "No." And I just have to tell you, "I don't get excited." You feel like you're going into therapy! I have to sit you down and tell you, "I don't get excited." That doesn't mean I don't feel joy. That doesn't mean I don't feel complete. But I don't get excited. Oh maybe someone's going to listen to this, some really incredible psychoanalyst, and they're going to go, "Well we can work this out and tell you why."
It is really interesting. Because you as—I think it's so important for you to say what you've said there, which is you still enjoy yourself when you're there and doing these things, but it's the like future anticipation. And I think that must come from living—having lived a very intense life where the most important thing in your world is being in the present right now and fixing the thing in right in front of you. And you've probably not had a ton of time to sit... But then also, also have to say, the privilege of having had so many great experiences. You know, so there’s not really a restaurant you've not been to that’s been amazing—you've been to amazing restaurants, you've been to amazing places, you've done achieved amazing things. So your sort of like threshold of what might... but it doesn't seem like *anything* excites me.
Do you know I remember, now you've said something, and I remember—just I think it's being what you talk about, totally connected—I remember a true surge of joy coming through my body when I was walking through a supermarket. It has nothing to do with the supermarket, but I had my baby daughter in front of me and I had my husband with me with my little son and I was totally in a place of joy. In a supermarket! But there was something about this place of these two beautiful kids I had, love—it just... and I remember this surge coming in, I thought, "My god, I feel really happy."
And I've had other times like that. They've not been sitting in Cannes at a restaurant. They've been really fundamental, simple, simple, simple places where I felt that surge of joy. Like a—where you feel your—I can feel it now, right? Where you can put it and you can feel your energy going through your body, which is beautiful. And I would rather have that than this "excitement."
If I told you that later today you were going to walk down the street and feel that same surge of joy that you got from the supermarket, would you be excited?
No.
If I told you now that when you walk out this door you're going to as you walk out down the street, I promise you, you're going to feel that surge of joy, would you be excited to—
No, but I'll feel that warmth and that energy going through my body that thinks, "Yes, I want to be in that place." But it's not excitement.
And because what I was trying to figure out there is if excitement to us—I was trying to figure out if we've the reason why we don't get excited is because we've realized that true joy doesn't come from the restaurant or from the holiday or from the going and doing the TV thing or whatever. It's actually really the joy comes from something that’s actually very hard to predict. It's like those really meaningful moments. And so when someone says "Aren't you excited to go to do that experience on TV?" you think, "Well, that’s not joy." And in fact joy will come in those really random moments.
Random. Yeah. I sat in the garden with my sister last week and I my sister—I love my sister. She's just one of the great people I know. She was always quieter as a kid and she always let me be, like she was three years older but she was always like—you know when she was 18 and I was 15 she'd take me out to the clubs. Like no one had done that, you know, like she was like "Come on." It was—and I just sat with her and it was just a moment we were just sitting together, we weren't speaking, and it was just that moment where that connected.
I can see it in your face when you when you describe these moments. Your face lights up.
Yeah. That’s joy. That's what—that's why when you talk about the office and we talk about the high street, it's the trivial—what we *think* are trivial—that's what makes the world, that's what makes life, that's what fuels us. Laughter in the hallways and those little jokes and catching up on what happened on the weekend and stuff, those—totally! Or like me trying to wash the dog in the garden the other day and I—my partner nearly was wetting ourselves laughing because I couldn't get the dog, I was like "Bring him over here!" and the hose was going everywhere. And it was just that moment of madness and joy that the little dog running around the garden. It was just those things.
But also maybe we don't resonate—I was just thinking then—with the word "excitement." Because think about what that word means. When I think of the word excitement I think of, "WHOOOOO!" [shouts] But that’s not a—that’s not a state that I live my life in.
Never.
So when someone says, "Are you excited?" I think, "Well, am I going 'WHOOOO'?" [shouts] No, no, never. So maybe there’s a better question, which is: are you looking forward to the experience? Or are you, I don't know, maybe there’s a better question—
No, but I don't do that either.
Yeah, looking forward isn't because you're not looking forward, but you know, are you happy you're doing it? I don't know... maybe there isn't an answer.
Maybe we're deeply evolved and we don't know it.
Yeah, or just like deeply depressed and we don't know it.
Your mission now in life seems to be focused a lot on, as you say, like making businesses kinder. And it seems to be much more philanthropic than it has ever been before. Why? Why does that matter?
I don't know, it just came to me. Just came to me. It's one of those things, it came to me.
At a certain point, a certain time, or—
Well, I about five, ten—I can't remember years where they go—but about seven years ago I looked at my business and thought—I remember it—no, it's longer than that, it was eight years ago and my little baby son was born. This beautiful little man came into the world and on he was born on the Monday and on the Saturday my 18-year-old son was going out into the world to university.
And I mean, obviously this you can imagine the emotions that were going through my body—there’s this young man that’s come into this world and this young man who's going out into this world. And it was just visceral. I do cry when I'm feeling you know happy or sad or I listen to great music, I can—it clears me, especially if it's Nick Cave.
I kept on crying and just this movement, and I remember sitting with Milo, who was going off to do—a very bright lad—he was going off to do philosophy and economics. And we were just chatting on the bed and I remember clearing his bedroom and there's a little cricket bat there—and I get emotional because I remember going off to find the cricket bat and I remember also being really fucked off because all the sports shops had closed and they'd become JD Sports and JJB Sports. You're like, "No, that’s not a sports shop! I want to go to a sports shop where someone says 'I'll give you the cricket bat' and knows about sport."
But I'd found one in in Sherborne where a friend lived, I'd found this little one. And I was looking at the cricket bat and thinking of all the memories, you know? It was just that lovely and I’m packing his stuff and I'm just looking at his little hand sitting next to me on the bed, old big hands. I said, "What do you think you'll probably do?" He goes, "Well I don't know, because I'm doing economics." He goes, "And I suppose I'll end up going into finance in the city." And I just remember this "NO!" [makes noise] like this deep—and I remember sitting with him thinking: that's not your frequency. That's not you. I mean you're you're go-getting, you're bright, but you've grown up with me, and you're going to have to change you to go into that world.
And then I looked at the little Horatio, the baby, thinking, "This is what we all bloody have to change." And I thought, actually I've done this. I've changed. I became, you know, when I was on the board of Harvey Nichols, the businesswoman. When it was Mary Queen of Shops, when it was Mary whatever on the TV, I was that. What the hell am I doing? Am I still doing this?
And so I went on that journey then and I that’s when I decided to change the whole way that I ran the business. And I wrote *Work Like a Woman* on that, realizing that actually what I had suppressed was my deep sensitivity. And I called it my feminine instinct because I do believe the power of the feminine has been suppressed over millennia. There's no two ways about it. We have created a male-dominated alpha energy in the world because we killed through the church millions of women who were the sages, who were... we've suppressed femininity.
And that power is the power that’s going to take us through into the next part of the world. And I started looking at this and I started—I never saw myself as a feminist because I didn't—you know, look at me, I looked at myself, why do I need to be that? And I started to go: what are we doing with our children through work that we—this young man has to suppress his creativity, his sensitivity to go and be a bastard, basically? Because they get to the top. This was at the time of, you know, money, power, fame. Those were the ones, your Trumps, your Philip Greens. "Yeah, loads of money, yeah, Knight them, they're brilliant, yes Sir this."
And I started to go on that journey then. So that’s exactly when it was, it was eight years ago, nearly nine, and I wrote the book, created a new culture in my business, opened up, started to talk about stuff that made me feel vulnerable, started to bring in this more compassionate way of working and actually connect with what would have been seen as soft skills or HR department, but actually I believed were going to be the new power skills—love, kindness.
Actually... because before, you know, 12 years ago if someone wasn't working I'd be like, "Oh done, out! Boom, onto the next thing, you're not good enough." How do you do that? What's going on in that person's life? I remember discovering one of our great creatives suffered with depression. And he'd actually told someone else, "No wonder he's like that." I wouldn't have ever looked at that before. Okay, how do we work with this?
§02Transcript — part 2
So I started on that journey then and then I realized that, you know, over the years that even the planet that we were killing was all part of this. The way that we suppressed ourselves in search of more—we've just killed the planet, we've killed our wellbeing. And I just kept on going on a journey and then I did a TED Talk on it, and they asked me to do a TED Talk and I thought, "What am I going to talk about?" It just kept on coming up, this theme.
So I talked on when I called it "We Need the Kindness Economy." We need an economy that isn't about growth, that isn't about money at any cost, that just doesn't measure linear. How do we create wellbeing? It's not that I'm anti-capitalism, I like money. How do we create a world for that? And I started to go on it and then COVID hit—bam! And it was there, it kept going, "This is what you're meant to be doing, Mary."
And I'm looking at how to get back to make the same money as I did before and all the while I'm chasing that—my god, my business is going there!—and this voice is going, "Just this, this is where you're meant to be." And then one day I woke up and I rang my chief exec and I said, "I think this is where we need to go," and she’s amazing. And I'm also thinking, well she’s 40-something with two kids and she's in this business with me. It’s alright me going, "This is amazing, can we...?" but I think we should go this route. And we talked about it and talked about it and just and the more I talked the more it opened up and my head of strategy and my anthropologist, we were all like, "YES. Actually, we need to be advising business on being better—better to people and better to the planet." And that’s how it all started and that’s my journey now. That is it. Am I excited by it? No. But do I get up and think that it's deeply in there with me and I just have to follow it now? And that’s where I'm at.
In a very practical sense, what does that mean for a business to become more kind? You talked about people and planet, but in terms of like the boardroom, pay, you know, how—
All of that. All of it. It’s actually looking and going—we know that Simon Sinek wrote the great books on "Why" rather than just "How." It’s looking at what your business is here for. What is your philosophy and your purpose? Really understanding that and connecting it deeply to you on a human level first of all. And you've got a lot of wokeness going on and, "Oh yeah, our purpose is to make the world a better..." No. What is your true purpose as a business?
Now, once you start to work on that and yourself—and I've done it through the book—you then create the environment through your people, through how you pay them, through how you inspire them, through how you connect to your customers, through your truth of how you manufacture, how you create, how you collaborate. You create a different way of being a business that’s not siloed, it's not individualistic. You move from "Me" to "We."
So everything that you do, you are thinking that bit wider than yourself. It's like being a mother or a parent in any sense. Undoubtedly I would always put them first. Always. Not even a... always. So you think about that in your business. It doesn't stop me being me, it doesn't stop me developing, doesn't stop me opening up, doesn't stop me growing, but I am being a responsible, connected, kind individual.
We need to do this with the world. And the reason I put people, planet, profit in that order is: the planet’s going to go on without us. We'll fuck it and we'll all die, quite simply, and it'll regenerate—it’s done that, as we know, ice age whatever. But *we* can make that change happen. *We* can do it by being more humane, by being kinder, and by creating commerce that feeds and gives social progress as well as financial progress.
And it’s possible.
It’s totally possible, you know that. Now, obviously some people will go, "It’s alright for her sitting from her money doing that." Yeah, I've made money. Yeah, but I'm doing it. And there’s people who are doing it who haven't, and those are the ones I take the hat off to. Those are the ones. And if I can just put a bit of volume on it, then I will because I've got a bit of a big mouth.
And I actually think, you know, some of the people I admire the most, one guy in particular called Naval, he always talks about how if you want to start taking on some of these world's big problems like the environment etc., what you have to do is you have to make sure people aren't worrying about feeding their kids, first and foremost. Because I don't begrudge or blame anyone that can't feed their kids that isn't thinking about saving the environment, you know what I mean? So there’s a bit of sort of fundamental social work that needs to be done for us to get to a place where—
Well I mean we can look on that in terms, but it’s again what was value. My mother had very little money, but she fed us. And she didn't make us obese by buying shit food that was too cheap. Same with fashion. And people go, "Oh yeah, but that fashion, it’s democratic, everybody can afford it." You stand outside some of those shops, everyone’s coming out with three carrier bags of shit that’s going to go into landfill. Or we don't market the hell out of it via that and we tell the truth—that buying something that lasts and recycles and upcycles and that you share is actually where the new sexy is.
"Sexy" is the word, you know, it’s really important. That *is* important. I call it status. Status symbols we've moved to, now we're into "Status Sentience." How do we create a world where we understand that being sentient and connecting with experience and life and being generous in the world is more important than symbols. Big move, massive move. And we need to look at the brands, we need to look at power in business, and that’s where I'm starting.
I wrote down earlier because you said the word and it’s been something I've been very curious about—the word "meditation." What role has that played in your life and why did you embark on that practice?
Because it stills my mind, and your mind is the biggest tool you have that can just fuck you over terribly or it can really ignite you.
Amen. Tell me about the upside of meditation as you’ve seen it.
Well, I started by doing little podcasts of listening to someone tell me how to do it because I was a bit hopeless and me sitting still ain't great. And it’s just I do each morning with it. I only do 10 minutes, and then I'll try to do it at the end of the evening, and I still my mind and I just connect and I feel my energy going through my body and I clear.
And anytime a little thing comes in that says [makes noise], I go, "Thought." And then I laugh at it, I don't get annoyed, I just go "ha!" and I laugh at the "me" that’s the thought that just tells you all this shit. And then I just open up my energy as much as possible. And then during the day, where I find myself where I might be going out of sync, I just have this thing that just says "pause." And I pause. And then I relax. And I could be sitting in a meeting like this and where I might be wanting to talk more, I just stop and let it come back in. And it’s just helped me hugely.
Closing the tabs.
Closing the tabs, that’s a really good visual. Closing all those tabs down, they're not great.
Lastly, love, relationships. Something I think very career-driven professionals like you often tend to struggle with for various—for a variety of reasons. Have you struggled with relationships, love, holding together relationships, investing in them?
I don't think I have. I mean, I don't think it looks particularly great that I've got two failed marriages, but actually, they lived some brilliant years. And you know, they were long, and they created beautiful things. So I don't see them as failure. I genuinely don't see them as failure, it’s a part of my life and I've changed. I am not the same person that I was when I met, and I'm on a very different part of my journey. And that happens.
And I think we can just get so hung up on that. You know, I've had incredible—I've had long relationships, no I've never really struggled with relationships, I don't think. No, I've had pretty decent long ones. I was on my own the last—which has been the first time in in ages. That was really unique for me, you know?
When was this?
Just recently, you know, I split up with my wife Melanie back in, oh, three years ago. And I was, you know, three years on my own.
Still single now?
No, but I'm not going to tell you who with. That would be a nice headline.
Who are you with? [laughter]
It’s unfair to them, you know, because it’s just no one in the public eye and nor did they would they want to be thrown into it. But—
But you've found—that’s super—dare I say exciting? [laughter] That’s um very nice, joy.
Yes, lovely. But it came in a... I think I manifested it as well, you know?
Really?
Yeah, I just felt, "Oh god, now I'm ready for something." And I and I genuinely feel I sort of opened up my... We spend so much time feeding energies that just are not worth it, that you just have to keep pushing up.
In that three years, what did you what did you tell yourself? Because a lot of people, when the garage is empty they just want to fill it with anything. You know what I mean? Because that makes them feel complete, or you know, when there’s someone there, they feel like they need someone just to fill the garage. But what did you do for those three years to... patience, I guess, or you know, you talked about manifesting?
It was probably one of the most toughest three years of my life, the last three years. I grieved first of all.
Of your marriage?
Yeah, you grieve. And I think you have to grieve. And COVID hit—not easy. I had to—on your own! In... Yeah, you're on, yeah, yeah. And you have your kids, and you're resettling where you live. So your everything changed. Everything. My business changed, my marriage ended, where I lived changed. So it was a huge amount of change. And actually, the last thing I was able to do was bring anyone into that. I had to be with me. Yeah, and it was very, very painful, very painful. A lot and I think it’s only in the last six to ten months I've come through it.
Amazing. Well listen, Mary, you've been just the best guest ever. Just so hilarious and intelligent and honest, which is amazing. I need to be more hilarious, I was just thinking thinking, "Fuck, I need to be more funny."
Am I funny?
You are funny! Oh that’s the Irish, I'm not. You're funny through being honest, no this is the thing—you're just honest. And a lot of people, they skirt around what they truly think because they're trying to find the correct, politically correct words or phrases, and you don't seem to give a fuck, which I think makes for great listening.
Well you're already there.
Well yeah, I am, but... but maybe you're more descriptive so it’s even more hilarious. Um but I you know, yeah, thank you so much, you know, you're—
It’s my pleasure. And thank you for rescheduling me. I know I’m a bit of a nightmare on my diary.
It’s fine, you were worth it. You were definitely worth it, so I really appreciate it.
You too, my darling. And love and luck for all you do. Please shine your light in the world, it’s needed. I mean it.
Thank you so much. I'll do my very best.
I'll watch.
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