Moment 9 - Eddie Hearn on The Sacrifices Behind Being Relentless

00:03Before we came started filming today I had a chat with Frank and he fully grasped on you now what he said to me which I which was also consistent with these interviews is that you are relentless and he was telling me he's he's had some I probably shouldn't say this but he was telling me he's started having this night owl or nightness because Eddie will text me in the middle of the night and he went I'll tell you one thing about eddie he is relentless you're what 40 41 41 years old what's made you that relentless at 41 years old to the point where you're you're uh pestering your colleagues at 3am in the morning i don't know really um i think when i when i did the book it was like it was quite a good sort of counselling session with myself because I wasn't really great at school.

00:58I wasn't particularly a hard worker at school. I loved the pound note always. And when I wrote the book, I started writing about my childhood and what it was like growing up and how I was moulded. And I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that I love to win. and I'm a why did you love to win? I don't know because with my dad that's what we did so when we played cricket when we played football when we played table tennis when we sparred with each other it was like for me growing up you weren't you know I would come back from a match say I played cricket and he would go to me actually my mum was the same and he would say to me how many runs did you get today son?

01:46and I would say oh no four Or, ah, useless. Come on. Next time, knocking a 50. Right? It was never, oh, well, well done, son. You know, you took part. That's what really matters. They taught me taking part is completely and utterly irrelevant. You win. And ultimately, sport is how I was brought up. I was brought up on the foundations of sport, the lessons of sport, the winning, the losing, you know, the highs, the lows. but always taught that winning was everything.

02:20And I'm a failed athlete. I think any kid growing up would love to be a sportsman. I played cricket at a very good level but I was never good enough at anything. So this is the next best thing. But I think if you're not trying to win in life and winning means something different to everybody. Success means something different to everybody. Some people view success as being able to get their pay packet on a weekend, And, you know, be able to, you know, spend time with her family and have enough food on the, you know, make enough money to have food on the table and make sure everything's okay at home and be happy, you know, and have a happy life with no stress or no drama.

03:00That's success to a lot of people. But people's interpretation of success is very different. And, you know, for me, I still don't know why I do this, but like you say, I love it, I guess. That's what it comes down to, a passion for what you do. And I don't know what the passion is. Is it the passion that I love the sport of boxing? Is it the passion that I want to succeed against, you know, and be bigger than my dad? I think that's a big part of it as well.

03:29Or is it just that I love to win? Or is it that I'm a bit sick in the head? Maybe all of them. The sick in the head point. I want to play with that idea a little bit. I write, I wrote in my book, actually, we have the same publisher, I wrote in my book that the thing that invalidates you when you're younger, becomes the thing you seek validation from when you're older. And what I meant by that is like, in my childhood, because we didn't have money, and I was this black kid in a school of 1500 white kids, everything that we didn't have became the things that I chased when I was older, or the thing that made me feel somewhat invalid sometimes when I was a kid, like you're saying about your dad saying, well, you lost today.

04:03became the thing that I would seek validation from as an adult. And I wondered if that resonated with you at all. I mean, like... Well, I had a different background. I mean, my dad was poor, became rich, and I was born. So I've said before, it's not like... When you talk about generational wealth, we didn't have generational wealth. I had a dad who was from Dagnum, was from a council estate. His dad was a bus driver. And then I grew up in this sort of nouveau world where this bloke had made his money.

04:34And he was, you know, I'll take the mickey out of him. I suppose he was a bit of a chav. You know, he was like from Dagnum. And all of a sudden he's got Ferraris and big cars. And we used to have a white limo and a black limo that would drive like the snooker players around and the fighters around. And I was horrible. I was obnoxious. Imagine like a 14, 15 year old kid hanging around with Eubank and Naz and then you're in the limo with your mates going up to London or to Romford for a night out.

04:59I mean, I look back and just cringe. But mine was different. You know, and I guess when it comes down to it, and, you know, again, from the book and speaking, and speaking to people like Frank Lampard, he went to my school. He was in the year above me. At my school, I was Barry Hearn's son. And Frank Lampard was Frank Lampard's son. You know, his dad played for West Ham. And it's a different kind of drive if you can make it flow in the right way.

05:26You know, when you're talking about sort of mindset and hustle, and hustle where all of a sudden, I think so many people with successful parents end up just doing okay, you know, but how do you go beyond that? How do you outperform everything that he done? And I will, and I feel like I've done that in many ways, but I will never be able to outperform the fact that he came from nothing. My friend is in a very similar position. If I said my friend's name, you'd know the guy.

05:56His dad is a multi-billionaire. I know you know him because I've seen you with him before, actually in new york but um his dad is a multi-billionaire and he grew up with living in the shadow and his dad was the same and i had a conversation with him and he said um it was all i was always trying to be better than my dad he is now a billionaire himself of his own doing um but it's just it's fascinating that and his dad sounds very similar to what your dad sounds where his dad was tough on him tough on him i think they're i think they're tough on you because they don't want you to be that spoiled kid. I mean, you always want to spoil your kids. You know, you want to give them the great, even now, you know, I've got two daughters. I love to spoil them.

06:34I work hard so I can give them a great life, but I just want them to understand manners, respect and discipline. These are the three most important things. And he would make sure that I would understand that even by having me working, you know, give me a clout every now and again, you know, trying to keep, because it must've been frustrating for him because I was probably all the things that he resented when he was growing up. The rich kid with parents who had got big house and cars and I would have hated me at school.

07:06But he would have looked at me and that's why he was so disciplined with me. I was in his slipstream growing up. So I would sit, we're here now, that was my house over there. So he would get home from work if he was in the country. He would always go out and give me a game of football cricket and then he would go in the office all night on the phone and I would have dinner and I would just sit in the office you know I might have a ball just throwing it up in the air but I would some subconsciously listen to the arguments and you know him losing his temper and and just listen not because I wanted to learn just because I was there and you're talking there about the sacrifice of his success which is one of them as you've highlighted is less time with your family you are relentless um everybody says that what is the the cost of being a relentless person you have to be incredibly selfish you have to you know for me family is the most important thing but i have to be brutally honest and say i don't let even family get in the way of things that i have to do you know and that that can make you an arsehole and it can make you sound terrible but I just don't know any way around it.

08:13There is no way you can be the perfect husband or the perfect father and run a successful business or, you know, be a, you know, a relentless operator. It's impossible because I know because I try to balance both. But when you're flying back from America from a show and you land at seven o'clock in the morning and then you go to Manchester for a press conference and then you come home and you just make it to pick them up from school and then you get back and they say, Dad, Dad, let's go over to the park.

08:43And you're just absolutely on empty and your phone's going and you're trying to do another deal and, you know, you're pushing the swing and you're going like this, trying to send a message at the same time. It's impossible, you know. Listen, I know because sometimes my eldest daughter is old enough to say, Dad, please get off the phone. And that kills me because that's bad to hear, you know. I'm like, okay, okay. But then 30 seconds later I'm back just having to look down because it's a lifestyle, you know.

09:10And it's impossible to be great at anything without making sacrifices. It doesn't matter if you're a fighter, if you're a sportsman. When you speak to all successful people, you can't beat everything. It's impossible. But what you don't want to do is you don't want to disregard your obligations, your family obligations, because they are extremely important. But you also need a wife or a partner who's understanding enough to say, this is what I know what he's like.

09:38He won't stop. And that's why when Frank talks about 3 a.m., 4 a.m., that's because a lot of the time I'm sort of making up for the hour or two that I've lost out playing with the kids. So I'll put them to sleep. They'll go to sleep at nine, half nine, you know, chill out with her wife for an hour. She'll go to sleep and then I'm up. And now with the growth in America, it means that at 4 p.m., 5 p.m., the West Coast wakes up. so i can't go to bed i can't disappear when it gets to 11 a.m or on the west coast or or midday on the west coast because they want to speak to me and we want to do business