Pret & Itsu Founder: How I Built TWO Billion Dollar Brands At The Same Time!: Julian Metcalfe

00:00The thing I think about most, especially when I’m on the go but also when I’m sat here in The Diary of a CEO studio, is the Wi-Fi and internet that we have to work with. In fact, anytime I’m filming away from the studio, one of the first things I do when I arrive is open up an app and do a speed test to see how strong the signal is.

00:18The number of screenshots I’ve sent to my team about Wi-Fi signals at different locations is actually pretty crazy. It matters that much to me because it’s such a competitive advantage to have fast Wi-Fi. On any given day, if I’m recording hours and hours of footage with a podcast guest, I then often have to have my team send that across to our London team who then do the edit.

00:36So fast Wi-Fi and internet is not a nice-to-have; it is absolutely business mission-critical. So, when it came to finding the best provider who could supply internet and Wi-Fi to our new LA studio, which I’m sat in right now, we looked at every single option.

00:49Of all the providers, the one that came back with the steadiest connection, as well as being the cheapest, was today’s sponsor, Spectrum Business. Spectrum Business keeps businesses of all sizes connected with fast, reliable internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, and mobile services.

01:03Millions of business owners already rely on Spectrum to keep their operations connected. So if you want to join them, head to spectrum.com/business to learn more. That’s spectrum.com/business. Restrictions apply; service not available in all areas.

01:14I love failure. I fail every day. I don’t care about it, I just get on with it. You have Pret, and now you have Itsu. You are absolutely an entrepreneur at heart. As all the fish are going in one way, you suddenly look round and think, "Dammit, I’m going to go the other way."

01:30When you look back at Pret, a business you ended up selling for two billion or something...

01:34I had no idea what I was doing. It wasn’t planned. Endless moments of magic, moments of bizarre creativity and confidence.

01:40What was motivating you then?

01:42I wanted to make a difference. I suddenly found myself with this responsibility to open a restaurant. From that start, we built seventy-six of them. We started developing it so it could become the future.

01:53The absence of both parents—he was quite distant, my father. My mother committed suicide when I was seven. That created a loneliness. To create something new, you’ve got to put yourself in slightly uncharted territory.

02:07Business isn't just business to you, is it? It's not just about the money.

02:11No, and it shouldn't be to anyone. I’m far more interested in the relationships with the customer, the staff, and the product. I was obsessed by that. Obsessed. It’s incredible what people can do, and people don't trust them. People don't nurture them because they’re too busy being selfish, nurturing themselves.

02:25What's the worst crisis you've ever had in your business?

02:27I don't even want to go into it.

02:28I want to hear it.

02:31So without further ado, I’m Stephen Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody is listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

02:58Julian.

02:59Yeah.

02:59"I was exposed to a number of hardships as a child." You said that. What did you mean?

03:04I love the way you start off with a killer. I can’t remember who I said that to. I was exposed—well, listen, I’m not alone, by the way. A great many people watching this or listening to this were exposed to hardships far greater than mine.

03:16But the death of my mother when I was seven—she committed suicide on Boxing Day. So I was left, and my parents were divorced. So we lived, the three of us—my brother, sister, and I—lived with our mom. But that was a difficult thing. That created a loneliness.

03:33Did you realize that at the time? Did you realize the impact that incident had had on you growing up?

03:41Probably not. No, I think when you're lonely at age eight or nine or twelve, you don’t really know you're lonely. You just don’t feel whole, I suppose. You don’t feel completely whole. Other people seemed to be jollier than I was at that age, that’s for sure.

04:01As an adult, did you ever look back and try to understand the significance of that particular event and how it might have shaped you in hindsight?

04:09I think the event—I don’t know if it’s shaped me, but it’s definitely added a complexity to my character which has helped shape my relationship with people, my relationship with work, my relationship with everything. Yeah, there’s no doubt; it would be silly to pretend that it didn’t.

04:26It reminds me of something that I talk about this guy a lot. A guy came on this podcast; he was Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant's trainer. He talked about how some of the things that happen to us early that are traumatic end up being the cause of our—what he called "light side," which is the talent, our brilliance, the thing we become known for. But they are also the contributor to our "dark side," which can be our complexity, our insecurities, all of those kinds of things.

04:54Do you think that event so early on, or any event early on in your life—let’s focus on that particular event—had a contributing factor to what people would consider to be your brilliance, this incredible career you've had?

05:07Listen, I think people work, people become obsessive, and they become successful and they work extremely hard for all kinds of different reasons. They want to become relevant, they want to be—maybe to be sought or seek admiration they didn’t get, or they have parents who didn’t acknowledge them. I really don’t know. All I know is it must have probably—of course, it had some effect on the way I work and the view of my life and how I have lived my life. Yeah.

05:37But I think over time, over many years, it’s waned as I’ve developed as a person. I also am nervous about even suggesting that to be fulfilled and to make change and to really contribute to society, you have to come from a dark place, because I don’t think you do. Certainly not as dark as something like that.

06:07You know, I think about when I meet a lot of obsessive people, it tends to be the case that something quite extreme had poked them in their life at some point to give them that chip on their shoulder. Whether it’s Michael Jordan or Kobe, or whether it’s Eddie Hearn and that feeling of living in his father's shadow and the insecurity of that. And these other sons of billionaires that I meet who have built big fashion empires; their very dominant fathers have made them obsessive by convincing them vicariously that they're not good enough, for example. And so that's why I always tend to go in search of understanding where that obsessiveness comes from.

06:45No, you're right to, and there’s bound to be a correlation. As you know from all the many people you've interviewed—and you’re clearly very empathetic—you will find a train, a common denominator there. But it’s not everything. It’s certainly not for a great many people listening or watching who have not faced tragedy or sadness like that. They need to know that it’s not an essential part of being able to get on and do good, extraordinary work.

07:15What about your father? Your relationship with him?

07:17My father was—he was quite distant, my father. He was old-fashioned. My parents were very, very different. My mother was a Ukrainian immigrant and kind of wild and wonderful. And my father was a really kind of posh, aristocratic Englishman, rather distant and cold.

07:39He then made the mistake of marrying someone for a very short period of time when I was about ten or eleven. That did not end well for any of us, the three children. So, it was not a great time between seven and sixteen. It was a messy childhood, I think, filled with problems.

08:01Did you ever go in search of answers as to why your mother made that decision?

08:11No, I didn’t. I didn’t because not that many people knew my mother, actually. We lived alone with her. She was just—she just had serious mental issues. She was just ill and sad, and it’s awful, you know, terrible. Terrible, but common. I mean, listen, it’s common; happens all the time. This happens too much. Too much. Too common.

08:54That distance from—the absence of both parents, that’s kind of what I’ve ascertained from what you’ve said so far. There was an absence of both parents to some degree. I resonate with that for my own reasons. My mom was working so hard that she decided to end up sleeping in the shop. So, I was the youngest of four as well, and typically what you find, I think, is the youngest one gets treated like the older ones at a certain point, especially if it’s a boy.

09:22And so by the age of ten, neither of my parents were there when I wake up and neither of them were there when I go to sleep. On one hand, that gives me great independence. It means that I stopped going to school because no one's going to punish me if I don't. And that is maybe, in my case, what led me to becoming, in my view, an entrepreneur. There was a void of responsibility or sort of accountability which led to independence. So I started selling things and doing what I liked. That made me very bad at following rules later in life, which I think—I’m going back and connecting the dots in hindsight—but I think that led me to be an entrepreneur.

09:51No, I’m sure that’s true. That would make complete sense. So both of us have that in common. But then, you know, so do a great many others.

10:01In addition to mine, I had a real problem with authority. I went to really old-fashioned schools. I was sent away to schools at age seven, and in both cases, the schools were really, really old-fashioned and, in my opinion, terribly badly run, with all kinds of bad things going on. It was just shocking.

10:19So I had a really bad relationship with authority. I felt it completely let me down on every level. I still do, actually. So maybe that’s why I branched out on my own early to try to—you know, so many of us are let down by people in power and authority, I find. It’s sad, it’s irritating. It really is irritating, actually. It doesn’t matter if it’s people who run companies or people in politics or people who run schools. It’s just—particularly schools. I think people who are in charge of young children need to nurture them and look after them and help build their confidence and strength, not put them through a meat grinder.

11:02That's what happened in your school?

11:03The first private school I went to was just shocking, yeah. I don't even want to go into it because it would just upset your view—your viewers.

11:13I want to hear it.

11:14No, no, no, I’m not going to go there. I refuse to go there, but it was just not a good experience, not a good place. And so that’s where I think I learned very, very early on to seriously distrust authority. Deeply. And then realize, okay, you’ve got to forge your own path and work with people who you trust and people who are worthy of your love and people who give back, rather than people who, you know, climb that ladder into positions of authority.

11:49But a great many of us suffer from this. A great many of us are working our asses off for people who don’t really support us or appreciate us or want to develop our characters or skills or anything. Commerce is selfish. The people who do well in commerce—I mean, if you look at your success, 90% of it is because of your understanding of the way human beings work. It’s about giving and taking and giving and thinking long-term. That’s what really builds success, I think. I really do.

12:28I mean, one advantage I had, my father used to spend a lot of time entertaining very, very kind of powerful people, particularly from America. And I realized they were, in the end, mostly just pretty average human beings, but who had achieved a lot. And I started seeing them with all their faults and warts and realizing, wow, to make a difference is not impossible. But you need the right structure, and I think so many of us work in a structure which is simply not possible, whether it be politics or fear or our own insecurities or whatever it is.

13:04There’s just not enough transparency in this world. You know, a great many of us are working with no transparency at all in our place of work. Don't you think? I get the feeling you thrive off transparency. You like it. You face things head-on and you like people around you to face things head-on. That’s the way to build. It’s the only way.

13:28Yeah, I’ve been on a journey. I think when I was a bit more insecure, I think transparency felt like a risk. And then as I’ve developed in myself and also in my businesses, transparency felt like a great motivator.

13:41And I actually said to my team, some of which are in the room now, at the start of this month that every quarter I’m going to show you all the financials of our entire business. So you can see everything. And also, you’re going to see that I’ve never taken a pound out of this business ever. Because I want them to understand—because that’s an example for me of transparency in a business context being a real big motivator.

14:02Then one of the younger girls in the team, when I was in the car one day, turned to me and said, "By the way, you doing that completely changed my perception." Because I think they thought that, like, I was making this money from doing this podcast or whatever it is, or any of my businesses, and then taking the money into my pocket as it comes in. So to show them that I’ve never taken a penny ever, it kind of, I think, aligns us.

14:25No, no, listen, transparency and people being open and honest and building trust is by far the most important characteristic ever. From the day I started my work for the last forty years, I’ve now realized it’s what you should value and crave more than anything. It’s worth everything. Transparency is everything. And so many people work in an environment where it’s simply not there. They’re just not used to it, they can’t expect it, they can’t demand it, and they’re not going to get it. And that’s bad. Move job, change. Don't—you shouldn't work for people who aren't transparent. And that’s—transparency is a wonderful thing. It gets to honesty, a truth. Truth is wonderful.

15:04Can you define your definition of what you mean when you're saying transparency?

15:07Well, to keep it really simple, let’s stick to the world of commerce. The world of commerce is, and probably politics—but I don’t know, I have no understanding of politics and no inclination ever to be a politician—but in the world of commerce, there’s not nearly as much transparency as there should be. So sharing information, sharing truth, saying what you feel, being honest with your colleagues, your teammates, as well as the people who work with you and for you.

15:37It’s just—you can’t take that stuff for granted because it doesn’t happen in most places. I don’t know. You need a collective—you need to—I don’t know why. You tell me why. Why do you think 90% of businesses are not nearly as transparent as they should be and could be? We know what they are. It’s all about people protecting their own fears, it’s about their own insecurities, it’s about protecting their own pay, their bonuses. There are a thousand reasons why there’s not the transparency we deserve as human beings.

16:11Because to achieve the truth—so say, like, I’m just for an example, say I run an organic vegetable store. I can on one hand go to the extra effort of actually being organic, which means it costs me more, I have to deal with a bunch of stuff in the supply chain, whatever. Or I can say I am and pretend to be and get the same return. Two decades ago, it would be very hard for you to find out I was lying. Because the world wasn't connected with the internet; there was no Glassdoor, social media, tweeting, instantaneous communication. So, I think the world of business grew in a "black box" approach where your PR, your marketing, your messaging was painted on the outside of your business by the marketing director. We're now in a "glass box" world where everybody can see inside, and they can talk with someone in Australia in a second. So, I think transparent businesses in the last ten years in the connected world have really won for that reason.

17:12Okay, there’s no doubt. It’s much harder to lie with regard to your consumers. That’s no question. But I’m more interested in the lies, the deceit, and the lack of transparency in the darkness with the relationships people have with their employees and their employer, where a great deal of stuff is never said.

17:33Like what?

17:34Well, I mean, how many people—what is the percentage of people who wake up on a Monday morning wanting to go to work? I mean, it’s frighteningly small. Why do you think that is? I mean, if 80% of the people who you work with you found out they didn’t want to come to work, wouldn’t you find that devastating? Wouldn’t surely—wouldn’t you look in the mirror and say, "What on earth am I doing wrong?"

17:53I think if that was the case, I also wouldn’t want to come to that place.

17:56Of course you wouldn’t. But the thing is, now you’ve got to ask yourself, well, why does that apply to 70% of all working people? And what are they meant to do? How do we, sitting here around this round table, how can we help them? How can we help nurture a thing where people have got the courage to be transparent and say what they feel?

18:15What do you think the answer is?

18:16I don’t know. But we’re living in a times where it’s beginning to happen. I mean, just look at the Me Too movement. Who would have thought a few years ago that could have generated the speed and power it did? It’s an incredibly good thing. I mean, you know, that went from "I dare not say anything" to the whole world saying everything in just one year, two years. It’s fantastic. There’s a small example of absolutely zero transparency. It’s sick. Power corrupts. This awful thing to say, but we know this is true. We know it’s true. As a boss, you have a position of huge responsibility. You know, I know, we all know that.

18:59What about affection? One of the things that was definitely absent from my childhood was affection. I didn’t even call my parents "Mom" and "Dad." I still don’t to this day. Their absence, I think, was one part of that, but also just I didn’t have affection. So growing up, the thought of calling someone a friend, a "best friend," still to this day makes me cringe. It’s just a little bit... In your case, are you an affectionate person?

19:26God, I’ve never been asked that question. I have absolutely no idea how to answer it because do I compare myself to other people? I have no idea.

19:39You don't know if you're affectionate or not?

19:41I think I’m affectionate in my own way. But I also know for years I struggled with, like so many, with self-esteem and, you know, and I’m sure I felt completely unlovable for decades, probably. I’m sure. But then, you know, I’ve had—in my opinion—I’ve been blessed with amazing relationships with friends and family. I mean, just completely blessed. And I’m not a baby, so I’m 62 years old, and so this, you know, I’ve two of my children work with me. I mean, what more could you possibly dream of than that? So I must have some relationship with the concept of affection. How and where it came from and how I grew it, I’m not entirely sure, because I certainly didn’t get it from my mother and father. I must have got it from close friends and maybe just looking and learning that there’s no point trying to go through life without it. What you give, you get back, you know.

20:48Pret A Manger started, you know, as it became kind of an incredible family. I mean, the warmth and love and care which went into the building of relationships in that company was breathtaking. It was like a family. It started with one store and ended up with hundreds, but there was a time when it was truly an extraordinary extended family. And that’s, I think, where I grew to understand the power of deep affection and love and trust. Yeah, it definitely came for me much later than for most people, yeah.

21:22You said there was probably decades where you didn’t love yourself?

21:26Yeah. Well, I mean decades as in my teens and then in my twenties. I don’t know how good you are at reflecting and self-discovery. I’m kind of a five out of ten, probably. I mean, I push myself—therapy and even doing this thing called the Hoffman. Have you heard about Hoffman?

21:46He's coming here.

21:48Yeah, I did the Hoffman. He’s kind of great. What a genius that guy was. But so I try. What was your question? How long? The decades of self-loathing? I don’t know.

21:58No, not how long. Just what were the symptoms of that?

22:01Just probably that ongoing feeling of being completely unworthy. That’s what you get when you don’t have parents so much, or loving—you’re not nurtured, you know. So you feel lonely.

22:18You grow up with that, that feeling of unworthiness. And I always believe—I actually wrote, I think, in my book or my notepad or something—that the things that made us feel invalid when we're younger end up being the things we seek validation from when we're older.

22:33That’s complete common sense and true. But did you feel unloved or...

22:39It was—I knew my parents loved me. It was just we didn’t have—I just didn’t learn what affection was. So like, think about—I don’t even call them "Dad" and "Mom" today. I didn’t learn what it was. I also because their relationship was incredibly like loud and—so I’ve said this a million times before, it’s in my book. My mom would scream at my dad for seven hours a day. My mom is African, she can really hit some notes. And my dad would sit there—he’s a guy from Coventry, you know, middle-aged white man—and he would just be totally silent. And that was my model of relationships. If you’re with a woman, you are in prison. So I didn’t get into a relationship till I was 27. So I learned all of those models. And then, you know, I would chase—I would chase women when I was young. I would chase women when I was 14. I would chase women when I was 21. The minute they turned to me and said yes, I would dissuade them. I’d immediately talk them out of it.

23:30But why do you think that's because? Once you had them, you felt that you didn’t deserve their affection? Or was it just the competition of getting them to prove that you were worthy of them? What was it?

23:41Because I would pursue them because of the reasons why we pursue anyone. Because they’re beautiful and I have those hormones and that desire and I, you know, I have that, okay. The minute we got to commitment—"We’re going to be boyfriend and girlfriend"—

23:54So you were frightened of the commitment.

23:56I would immediately feel like my dad, trapped in a cage. So I would dissuade them from it. So it was literally—it took me till I was 25 to figure out what was going on, why I was running away from women that I was chasing. The minute we got to commitment, "boyfriend and girlfriend," it made my skin crawl and it made me feel like I was trapped. So I dissuaded them. So in your case—

24:16Well, that could have just been because of what you had witnessed.

24:20100%.

24:21So over years, you’ve just witnessed this dysfunctional relationship where in a way your father was trapped. So it kind of—so mine was different to that because I never saw my parents together. Ever. I don’t think I barely ever saw them in a room together. That’s not quite true; my father used to come down occasionally on Sunday. But I never saw them arguing. So my take on what love was and should be was—I must have been at my own invention, I don’t know.

24:50But I’ve come to—it’s a fascinating subject, don’t you think? When you study people who are in supportive, wonderful relationships. I find it enthralling, I mean fascinating. Fascinating. It’s the most fascinating thing to study. How people adapt their life to be completely in love with someone and live their life just showing warmth and kindness and forgiveness and love. It’s very enriching, if you can do it. It’s definitely something to—it’s a goal. It’s a great goal. I mean, I love it. It’s a goal. There are other goals, but that’s got to be the greatest, I guess.

25:34I think we admire in others the things we don’t have in ourselves, right? So people would look at you and go, "How the hell—the greatest goal is to build Pret." And I would look at someone else and say what you’ve just said. I’d say the greatest goal is to—"How the fuck did you stay together for 50 years?" when I’m struggling to stay together for two or one.

25:49Yeah, I guess that’s what makes life fascinating, in the sense that some people can achieve the goals that you and I think are really very, very difficult. But it doesn’t stop us struggling to get that.

26:01What was the consequence then of you growing up being in your early twenties and not feeling like you were, quote-unquote, sort of "enough"? What did you see in your work?

26:09Well, on the dark side, I guess it made me focus more and made me more determined, I guess. More determined. Just—where most people packed off and went home, I would be prepared to stick it out. But you can't—I had an interesting conversation with someone the other day about the use of this expression "hard work." He said, "It’s not hard work, it’s—a great many people work very, very hard, and they don’t succeed." It’s not that; it’s about the evidence. It’s about "Can you make change?" "Are you getting better?" "Is your product better?" "Is your service better?" "Is your relationship with the people you work with—is it better?" You know, it’s about proof. It’s about real facts. It’s not just hard work. "Hard work"—we just use that expression, "I work really hard." I know a lot of people who work really, really hard, but they don’t work in the focused way that you and I work. So it’s worth kind of thinking, well, what is the difference between them and us? What is it? And if we have to guide anyone, if they seek—if they already are in a rich, wonderful relationship and they want to run a company, their own company, they want to be self-employed, how can we guide them? What is it that we have that they don’t? And would we swap their wonderful, rich, incredible relationship to have another 500 employees? I’m not sure. I think you can have both. Oh, that’s what I—that’s my goal. I’m determined to have both. Determined to have both. Don’t have to have one without the other. That’s not true. I mean, it’s hard to have both. But come on, it’s got to be worth aiming for, isn’t it?

28:00Do you have both now?

28:02Yeah, not in full because my career is only half there and I’m—oh, I’m not running out of steam, but it’s so annoying, I’m running out of time. And my relationship with my—you know, I’ve seven kids, I’ve got four step-kids, three of my own. I’ve got a—how long have we been together? 15 years, Brooke and I? I mean, yeah, I’m bloody lucky. I’m really fortunate. I think I picked really well. You know, I’m bloody lucky with that. But I mean, I could blow it, I guess. But I’m going to do my damnedest not to.

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30:13When you look back at starting Pret—we’re talking about what’s driving you there—was there any epiphanies around what was really driving you on that day when someone first came along and said they were going to buy your company? Because for me, I thought I was being driven by money until someone offered me it. And then I thought, "Ah, God, there must be something else motivating me here."

30:31I don’t know about that myself. It’s—I’ve often wondered. Did money and the pursuit of money ever drive me? I don’t think so. Because I think I saw enough people when I was young with a lot of money who were absolutely miserable and dysfunctional and miserable. Actually, my mother had a lot of money and lost it all and died. So there I had a very good example of someone with a huge amount of money who had nothing. Well, I didn’t—we didn’t inherit any of her money, but she was—it was a good example of someone who was miserable with money. Money doesn’t—it’s awful, you know, when people like you and I say, "Oh, money doesn’t make you happy." There’s nothing more irritating than a statement like that when a great many people don’t have a large cash reserves in their bank account. But the fact is, we both know that it doesn’t.

31:18What was motivating you then?

31:19I think I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to be relevant. I wanted to be loved—admired. Yeah, I wanted to do something interesting and great. I wanted people to look at me and think, "Wow, he’s serious, he’s onto something. He matters." Then I wanted to try to create these important relationships with people I worked with. I wanted to see people flourish around me. That really mattered to me. I wanted to try and wipe away some of that pain. I wanted that.

31:51And then deep down, I really love and am passionately creative. The creative process of what I did: the design, the food, the taste, the look, the feel, and breaking down every barrier. Which I just—as far as I was concerned, I only kind of saw opportunity. You have to be very resourceful and determined in my particular business. Because it’s, as we were saying before, it’s basic. If you want to sell the best cake in the world at the best price, you’ve got to be damn resourceful. You’ve got to work with geniuses, you’ve got to have the best equipment, the best everything. And that doesn’t happen overnight. You don’t get that by picking up the phone and ordering something; you have to create it. And it—you have to be unbelievably resourceful. But that, I—with regard to the food, the design, and my belief in what food should be and could be for people, knows no bounds. No end. No end. I’ll stop at nothing. Love it.

32:53Those dinner parties your father threw...

32:55Oh yeah, yeah.

32:56Did they have any lasting impression or lasting impact?

33:00Well, no, most of the time I was in the kitchen, actually. So I’d meet these remarkable—these many remarkable people, but my love of food started because I used to spend all the time in the kitchen. And there was a guy used to come and cook; he was really talented, Tony. And I’d spend the night with him watching him work, from the age of about 14, 13. It was fascinating. And that’s really where my love of food started with him, watching him work. So it was a combination of becoming obsessed with what food could be and should be, and at the same time not being frightened of all these rather dysfunctional but immensely successful people who I met through my father. I didn’t really get to know them very well, but a few.

33:45At the time, it's hard to determine when you're building a business and it's going on, it's hard to determine at the time what's actually making it brilliant and the "specialness," as you've called it before. In hindsight, I think it's much easier to look back and go, "That's why we were special and different. That's why we won." When you look back at Pret—a business you ended up selling for two billion or something crazy, a huge number. Okay, it doesn’t matter; it’s a huge number. What was the specialness? What did you unintentionally or intentionally do right? What was the—

34:15Well, so much of it, it wasn’t planned. It happened through endless moments of magic. Endless moments of—moments of bizarre creativity and confidence. Exactly the same with your business. It just—it’s so difficult. It was—you didn’t write it all down and plan it. It just—it happened with moments of confidence. Endless, endless moments, you know, of swimming upstream. As all the fish are going in one way, you suddenly look round and think, "Dammit, I’m going to go the other way. I’m not going to swim in this direction. This can’t be right."

34:51And that takes guts. It takes bravery. It takes relationships with people. It takes hiring talent. You have to have the guts to hire talent. People often much better than you. You’ve got to be prepared to listen, and listen until it hurts. You’ve got to be prepared to fail over and over and over again. I love failure. I love it because it’s just a damn journey. I really love it. I fail every day, and I don’t care about it. I just get on with it. It’s wonderful.

35:19But with Pret, food is a magical thing to be able to deal with. It’s like music or film. I mean, it’s—because when we know it’s good, it’s wonderful. It’s wonderful. And in those days in 1986, when we started, it was in the doldrums. It was so boring and awful. So it was just a question of—but Pret wasn’t just built with food; it was built with a combination. It was kind of built with a magical, magical approach to the—the respect and love and obsession about creating pride and trust with the team, with the employees. I was obsessed by that. Obsessed by that, actually.

36:00How important was it for you that you were naive? Because I think naivety—

36:03Bloody—oh, it was very important. I had no idea what I was doing. None.

36:07Why was that important?

36:08I have no idea what I’m doing most of the time, actually, because I spend my life casting myself out into Never Never Land. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time. But you learn. You listen, you talk, you speak to the right people, and you learn. Because to create something new, how—you know, you’ve got to put yourself in slightly uncharted territory. You know, and then you’ve got to be prepared to fail many, many times and keep going. That’s all Pret was, just a series of hundreds of failures. That’s all it was. Moments of failure and then moments of glory. Moments of wonderful moments of bravery. Yeah, that was it. Like, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s moments, endless moments where a light goes on and you think, "Okay, I’m going to take that risk. I’m going to do it." It feels right. Something in your heart says just go for it.

36:58It could be—it could be working with people, promoting people, or giving them extraordinary opportunity, or developing something which no one's ever eaten before, or I don’t know, hundreds of different things. Or when systems don’t work, and you’re not getting—you’re not getting the behaviors or the warmth or the trust you crave, then you have to think outside the box. You’ve got to think again.

37:22We used to—there was one store, after about ten—the tenth Pret, I think, I couldn’t understand why the atmosphere in this store was so bad.

37:30Fleet Street?

37:31Oh, it was Fleet Street, yeah. Bloody hell. And it was the first time I had paid a recruitment company for a top manager. Suit and tie, the whole thing. And yeah, it’s true; I met this girl who I recognized who worked in the store, a young scruffy girl on the tube on the way home, and she burst into tears. And she said, "I’m leaving on Monday because her manager was a dick."

37:52And I didn’t need her to explain what "dick" meant; I knew exactly what she meant. My God, I’d been at school—all the teachers were dicks. I knew exactly what she meant. And I hated—I hated the idea of this determined, brave, trustworthy, wonderful, loving, fabulous young lady being bullied by a dick. So we fired the dick and we promoted her to manager. And I never looked back. I think I learned more from that young lady than anyone I’ve ever learned in my life, actually. The hope and the joy that gave her.

38:30Did you see yourself in her?

38:32Oh my God, I’ve never thought about that. Oh my God, you—probably, maybe. But no one ever gave me that opportunity. I had to fight for it. I didn’t give her that opportunity; she earned it, actually. She earned it just by being herself. She was a great manager, too, actually. I don’t know how I knew. I wasn’t—I didn’t know she was going to be a great manager, but there was something about her. There was something about her, and by the way, there’s something about a great, great many people I meet. They all have so much going for them; they just don’t believe it. They’re just not working in an environment where they’re given the opportunity they deserve. People don’t trust them. People don’t nurture them because they’re too busy being selfish, nurturing themselves.

39:15Sounds like you're talking about your school teachers.

39:17Oh, they were just—they were idiots. They were just complete idiots. And they’re down—right, no one should be—they shouldn’t have been paid! But there are a lot of authorities like that. I mean, a lot.

39:31And that store's sales doubled or something?

39:33Oh my God, yeah. Doubled, tripled, yeah, of course. Why? Because there was trust, there was care, there was pride, there was love and forgiveness. There were goals, there was everything wonderful in life right there. Right there.

41:02It's funny, you talk much more in terms of culture than you do in terms of tactics and tricks and discounting and these kinds of things. It seems to start more with culture with you.

41:14Yeah, I think it’s—if you’re trying to break down barriers and do things new, which I’m now spent the last 20 years really taking on almost an extraordinary wonderful challenge which we will—we will win. We will get there.

41:20With Itsu?

41:22Yeah, Itsu. Affordable, nutritious food. Itsu is reinventing itself over and over and over again. I mean, it’s 20 years old and it’s had three reinventions. The latest ones are beginning to be to really pay; I mean, they’re really wonderful. Because the world—the Europe, our cities in which we live desperately need affordable, nutritious food. We are half—40%, I think, plant-based. Our entire menu is under 500 calories; most of it’s under 400. You know, this is what people need. We can’t go on in this developed world being 50% obese or something—whatever it is now. It’s shocking.

42:01But this is—we can’t blame anyone for this. There’s no point blaming anyone; there’s no point even blaming ourselves. There’s no one to blame. But it’s about my responsibility, I think, is with my team to carry on pioneering the systems and the systems to make it possible to sell really nutritious good food for seven quid. It’s possible.

42:22You talked about hiring and the importance of people and the right people there. One of the things that I read that you’d done very early on with Pret was to allow the current employees to sign off on an incoming team member. So when someone comes for an interview, the people that decide if that person's going to get a job are the current team members.

42:40Yeah, so we—the office used to pay for—we’d interview people, we’d go through the list of shops which—the Prets which needed people coming up, and we’d send them there. And they would spend the whole day there, paid. And at four o'clock, no one would know—they wouldn’t know this—but at four o'clock all the staff would vote on a napkin "yes" or "no." So they’d go round the whole team, we’d find ways of getting as many people to spend 25 minutes with them as possible. And then at four o’clock, they’d vote. And then we’d ring the person up: "You got in" or "You didn’t."

43:14And why was that useful?

43:15Because—wish I’d been able to do that at school—because I realized after about seven or eight Prets that it was dysfunctional that you only needed a slightly not particularly reliable or trustworthy manager, and what would they do? They’d hire the people that they wanted. The whole system would just be abused. And there were a couple of examples where that was happening and it just made me sick. Because it was so bad for the team, it was bad for the culture, it was bad for the manager, and it was really bad for the customers. So I just created this simple system which was so beautiful. It was beautiful because young people were voting on other people's lives within a few weeks of starting. That was great, empowering them, trusting them. That was great, good for them, huh? Really good for them.

44:02Small details. When I read through your story of both your businesses, all your businesses, I notice that there's a real eye for detail. When I think about Itsu and the orchards you have there, you have real orchards in the Itsus, right? You could very well fake them like I do. I mean, I’m pretty sure there’s some fake orchards in here. There’s definitely some fake orchards upstairs. You went for the real ones. In Pret, one of the things that’s ultimately defined the brand, caught culture at the right time, is the fact that the food is all completely fresh. So none of it has a sell-by date. It doesn’t stay there till tomorrow, ever. These small concerns with detail—how defining have they been for you in hindsight? Because sometimes people are told not to sweat the small stuff.

44:45Okay, so quite a lot of this stuff is—to me at the time was just kind of obvious. In other words, if your product—if you expect your customers to be loyal to you, you’ve got to treat them with respect. You’ve got to sell them something worthy of their hard-earned money.

44:59But people care about the bottom line. If that costs you more money—

45:02Oh, no, that’s ridiculous. I’m not a very good accountant. I never—I’m not interested in the numbers at all. I’m far more interested in the relationships with the customer and the staff and the product. The numbers just look after themselves. They really, really, really do. And anyway, I’ve always been lucky to be—to have wonderful, brilliant people around me who are much better than I am at numbers. I hate numbers. They’re so boring. I shouldn't say that because without the numbers you can’t grow. So I feel very strongly that we have to have numbers which enable us to grow, because if we can grow, we can feed more people and then we can give opportunity—

45:41Someone's told you that after the fact. I can tell that wasn't your default position.

45:44It was a bit, exactly. But I find the numbers awfully boring compared to the product and the relationships with the people. They’re just like a school report in a way, aren’t they? If you want to give away and refuse to keep your sandwiches to the next day, and what’s more, drive them in a van to the homeless people who need them, clearly they’ve got to be delicious—you know, got to taste good enough so people will pay 50p more or 30p more. And that’s just basic common sense, isn’t it? I think the whole numbers thing is reasonably—it’s just common sense.

46:18So you never even—at Pret you didn’t even throw the food away, you’d drive it in a van—

46:22Yeah, we had to—even when we were making no profits, we had a van to take it to the homeless. Yeah, every—of course. Yeah, because you can’t expect people to make this stuff, make the food with pride, and then throw it away. Yeah, we obsessed about not—not throwing it away. You can’t—can’t throw it away. And then if you take the piss out of your customers, you’ll lose them. Don’t you find it extraordinary how often you get shocking service where you’ve spent a lot of money and no one gives a damn? I’m not going to name big companies, but I can think of some companies where I’ve spent five or six thousand pounds on something, and they don’t answer. I mean, it can be shocking, and they still don’t care. Oh my God, I will answer every customer now, today, if customers write to me; I’ll answer them before I go to bed. No question.

47:10At Pret, the other thing that was quite—I remember hearing about and thinking, "Oh, that’s cool and different," is one in every hundred coffees or something you would give away to—

47:19No, it wasn't that. No, it was much more than that. Was it? Okay, so we didn’t have a loyalty scheme for years and years and years because we—we couldn’t quite know what to do. But what I realized is very, very early on—I think in Pret number 12 or something—we said, "I know, what we’ll do is we’ll encourage everyone who works there to give whatever they want away to whoever they want to." And it was wonderful.

47:45We used to do these things called Buddy Days, where the whole office used to—everyone had a buddy shop. And my buddy shop was Oxford, but we used to—you could give away five or six or ten products every single day to anyone: a regular customer, someone who had a long face, someone you fancied. It just didn’t matter. Give. Because when you do good stuff, it always comes back. You get it back; you’ve got to think long-term.

48:11And so this was a good example of where we begged everyone who worked for us, "Just be kind, give it away. They—exceed the expectations of customers, they’ll come back." And you know what—shall I tell them this extraordinary thing? Some of the most profitable shops short-term—short-term—we found weren’t giving anything away. So the manager was saying to us, "No, no, no, no giveaways. No giveaways." Because their margins, their profit margin was better.

48:38So we introduced a button on the till called "The Joy of Pret." I didn’t do this; Clive did this. He introduced a system whereby at the press of a button, the computer could tell us every single store which wasn’t giving away enough. Because when you gave something away, you had to press—you register it on the till as a giveaway. So we quickly found out all the managers who were being—who were running their business too tight. They were being a bit mean. They thought they were doing a good job by delivering more profit. What—what they didn’t realize is, no, no, to do a great job you need to build a long-term relationship with your staff and your—your customers. So give them a coffee, give them a croissant, just do it.

49:17Do you have any evidence numerically to support that that worked?

49:21No. None. Zero. And everyone used to come in, professionals and consultants, and just say, "This is ridiculous, what are you doing? Your loyalty scheme is a joke." And I just—what can you say? Just—no, fuck off. It works great. But you can’t—you know, different, different. It works great, but you can’t prove it. That’s the typical CEO thing. It’s like trying to explain it to a CFO; it’s just like, "Just believe. Just believe it."

49:56The only reason we’re sitting here now, you and I, is because multiple times we’ve just made decisions like this. Half the time we’ve had to pretend to people we work with we know what we’re talking about when in fact we have completely no idea. But if it feels right and you think long-term, you do it. You just persuade them. You pretend you know.

50:17You justify it in hindsight?

50:18Yeah, of course. You find some study. Find some study or just say, "Look, let’s try it." And then—and then they say no, and then finally you say, "We’re going to try it."

50:31I think—I wonder sometimes about how, you know, in your story and in my story, how our traumas and how our experiences with authority or with our parents or with shitty corporate jobs we had ended up shaping the decisions we made in our businesses and defining us. Because that's why I reference naivety. Not knowing the correct answers and in some cases having a problem with rules and authority end up creating a more modern culture that—

50:54I think so. Yeah, I’m sure. I bet you all the crap we went through definitely helped us break through and just—just do things differently. Must do. When you know something doesn’t work, why not just try something else? That’s why founder-led businesses, even, you know—you think about Steve Jobs' perspective on the world to remove that keyboard and to do those small decisions that they made. Maybe it was driven by ego, insecurity, or whatever, but—but for some reason it gives people courage of their convictions to create new things in new ways.

51:24Yeah, of course. And also a never-ending pursuit for the—the better detail, to make something better. And it’s endless. That’s the thing about the food business; it is truly endless.

51:34Why did I read that you don't like ambitious managers in your business? I read that you like "slow and beautiful growth." Very ambitious people are a pain in the ass.

51:43Often very ambitious people, often—not always, but often—are very short-term and they’re really hiding all their crap for their own personal—their own personal gain. Which I understand; they’ve got—they’ve got their own goals, they’ve got their own desires, they’ve got their own dreams of their own house, this car, this house, this school, this whatever the hell it is. But that can be incredibly destructive to someone like myself and my team and an organization which—I take a like a 30-year view to everything I do. I really do. 30 years. Which drives—must drive some people I work with up the wall, but I really like to think 30 years. 30 years, must be. And if you—if you get someone who’s very powerful in your business who’s thinking three years, well, I mean—look at the—look at the—and that’s—that’s quite common in commerce, as you know. So they can—they can move mountains and—but then the mountains crumble. That’s boring. It’s a waste of everyone’s energy and passion and love and everything.

52:49In May 2018, you sold your final stake in Pret.

52:52Yeah.

52:53Why?

52:54Because I wasn’t—oh, I wasn’t asked. I had no choice. The—the new owners of Pret A Manger have nothing to do with me. I met them—I’ve met them once for five minutes. They probably think I’m an absolute idiot. They have—I’ve never met them. I don’t—they have no interest in working with me. That’s their choice. That’s completely—you know, that—that is their choice. I hope it works for them.

53:22So you owned the business with your co-founder and then you sold—

53:25Oh, that’s a long—yeah, it’s a long story. Pret started in ’86 and... I’m trying to understand... I bought—I met a founder in who I met at—at college, who was much, much cleverer than me, much more disciplined than me. And I had this really strong vision of wanting to do this. But I knew I was smart enough back then to know I needed someone who was respectful of numbers and discipline and the law. So I said to him, "Look, if you leave your job, I’ll give you half this company." And he did. He was brave, he had a good job, and he left his job.

53:59And I think probably in the end after about 15 years, we had become immensely successful, the two of us, and he wanted to retire. I think the pace, the—my endless, never-ending pushing on the vision of what this could be probably drove him mental. But he—he was smart; he retired. He works a bit now, but he kind of retired completely, which I respect completely. That was his choice.

54:23Did it suck at the time when Sinclair told you that he was going to retire?

54:27No, no, no, it was—I rather admired him. I could never do that. I really admire people who are able to take control of their life like that. I can’t.

54:34Are you being dragged?

54:35What's that mean, "being dragged"?

54:37Yeah, so take control of their life like that. So—

54:39No, no, I genuinely—I promise you I think people who are able to—to take control and "I’m—I’m going to go walking in the—in the bloody jungle for six months," I have nothing but admiration for people who can do that.

54:51So that's why I ask if you're being dragged, because like we said earlier, you're admiring something that you don't have yourself, right?

54:55Yeah, I don't have it. I don't have it. I’m too—

54:58So you don't have control of your life? Is the implication.

54:59I do have control of my life because I definitely make the choice to do what I do. And I love it. I really—I’m happiest creating. There’s no question. I’m completely in love with what I do. I love it. I really enjoy it. That may sound weird, but it’s the truth. I love it. I don’t want to be walking in the jungle. I love doing what I’m doing every day. I’ve just had a food meeting now; it was fantastic. We’ve cracked something we’ve been working on for a year. We cracked it today. It’s incredible, and millions of people will eat this thing in a year from now. And it’s because of our relentless passion and hard work to get this thing right. And today we—I think we cracked it. And that’s wonderful. And then earlier this morning we cracked a bit of design which was incredible. I love—I really enjoy it. So I don’t want to be in the jungle. He did; he wanted to retire, and I respect that.

55:48But it left me in the shit because I didn’t have any paperwork between us, and suddenly different kinds of people came into the business. And they were much more formal, and some of the joy went out of it.

55:59Did he sell his stake at that point?

56:01Yeah, he sold a chunk of it. But it really changed; it became professional. And then—and then private equity came in. I mean, we had a very good private equity company, a UK one; they were fine. They were very honorable, decent people. But it was definitely—the business became more about becoming a very successful business than—than developing a very beautiful relationship with the customer and staff.

56:26And it was acquired by McDonald’s?

56:28No, that’s not true. No. What happened is for a very short period of time, McDonald’s owned a 33%—30% of it. Because I thought McDonald’s—or no, I didn’t—at the time the leader, the CEO of the business persuaded me that McDonald’s would teach us the disciplines we didn’t have for about global expansion. And I—in the end he kind of—I kind of caved in. I thought it was a pretty weird idea, but I caved in. But after—it was pretty obvious after a few months it was a bad idea because, you know, they didn’t really understand our business. But I’ll tell you what, there was a very, very powerful distinction between a pursuit of real beauty of a product and a relationship with your customers and your staff to running a business and generating sales.

57:12Driving at two different outcomes, right?

57:14Two completely different. A really clever person can do both. And we did do both. The business was then run by a friend of mine who’s—I still work with now, who I have huge respect for, and he did a great job. But in the end the business was then, of course, sold in 2018.

57:33And will the business continue to thrive?

57:35I don’t know. I hope so. I just honestly don’t know. But they certainly don’t want anything to do with me.

57:40Are you disappointed in the way the business is going?

57:43No, I’m not disappointed.

57:44But do you ever walk in there and go—because I know I did when I left my company. When I resigned, my company had gone public and I remember walking in, seeing things they’re doing and seeing the office and hearing this story and thinking, "Oh, fuck, they’ve lost the specialness."

57:56No, no, I think on the whole for years the relationship between the company and its members of staff has been wonderful. So I’m often inspired by that. And I’ve never—no, I never think that.

58:08You never walk in and go, "Ugh, if I was still running this thing"?

58:10No, I don’t really. What I think is I sometimes go in and I think, "Wow, I wonder what just think what that could be." And then I think, "God, how complicated that would be to get it there." And thank God I’m not doing both because that’s what I’m doing on a daily basis now with Itsu.

58:25Because Itsu will become in five, ten years from now a really remarkable home for affordable nutritious food. That’s its goal, that’s what it will be. There’s no question that’s what it is becoming. It’s hard to see that right now because it sells too much raw fish. 30% of our sales are a product which used to be 90%; it’s now down to 50%, I think, or something. But we’re changing and developing all the time now. Far—getting faster and faster at the reinvention of the company.

58:59I couldn't quite figure out where the crossover happened between Itsu and Pret.

59:04Well, ’97 the first Itsu opened.

59:06While you were still the owner of Pret?

59:08I was at Pret and—and we had a supplier, a wonderful—the head of marketing at the Japanese center was a young Japanese woman. And she said to me—I said to her one day, "Why are you working for this terribly boring company? Why don’t you open a Japanese restaurant which is affordable?" Because in those days Japanese restaurants were really stuck up, really expensive, really boring. And she said to me, "Okay, I’ll leave my job if you help, if you pay for it."

59:34So I said, "Okay, I’ll pay for it, you lose your—you leave your job." I promise you two weeks later she rung me up and she said, "I’ve left my job."

59:43Love that.

59:45And I said, "What have you done? WHAT?!" So I suddenly found myself with this responsibility to open a restaurant. So then we found a site and we opened the first Itsu which was very different from what it is now. But it was a start. And from that start we built seventy-six or something of them.

60:03And then about five years ago we started developing it so it could become the future. But—but we had to open 76 and keep it private. It was a 100% private company. I never, ever again wanted to end up in a situation where I owned a minority where the business would take over. In other words, "You will do this, you will do this, and you will deliver these profits, and we don’t care about your vision." So I was able to build it to such an extent with the team that we owned it. All of it.

60:33And now you have what, 75 stores in total?

60:35Yeah, 75 in the UK. And we’re opening in lots of interesting places. Really fascinating. Just now in the next 12 months we’re opening—I think we open Bromley next week. But it’s changing so much.

60:46What’s the worst crisis you’ve ever had in your business?

60:49Well, I wasn’t there—I had left Pret when the crisis happened when the—the sesame incident of that poor girl who had food allergies. I wasn’t there then. That must have been very difficult for everyone then. And—and the ups and downs, as you know, as you will have experienced in your business, there are ups and downs every week, every month. You often think this is a—this is—funny enough, I think most of my job today is telling people not to worry. A lot of people I work with come to me and say, "We’re in terrible, this is—" and I say, "No, it’s not. It’s going to be fine. It’s going to be fine."

61:21This sesame incident you're referring to is a young girl who had an allergic reaction to a sesame seed?

61:31A baguette that—yeah, in a baguette. She had serious food allergies and she had bought without—her mother wasn't there—she bought a baguette and ate it, which was covered in sesame seeds. I mean, it was tragic. Really, really sad. And as a result of that, Natasha’s Law has changed—brought in far more labeling, food labeling in this country.

61:52It’s called Natasha’s Law?

61:53Yeah, after her. But it was very painful for her, her family and everyone at Pret. It was awful. But the crisis—they’ll come, they’ll come and go, and we’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.

62:11How can you be so sure?

62:13Because—because we just stick to the truth. The truth is, you know, the truth is good. In the sense that of all the things which could go catastrophically wrong, we kind of know about them with regard to the dangers of being in our business. Health and safety, for instance. We have a five-star record, the highest record in this country. Every single one is five-star always. No one else has achieved that before. And that is because the CEO of our company has a fantastic relationship with their head of safety. It’s awesome, unbelievable. In fact, our head of safety got up on stage last week and the entire 220 people just completely clapped. I mean it says a lot because usually those people—you know. So there’s culturally that says something. So health and safety in our industry is really, really a fear. What else? All kinds of things.

63:11Did that incident with Natasha—she was 15 years old, dropped dead on a plane, from what I read. Did it change you in any way? Did it make you think differently about—because that's the—for me, that's the inconceivable. It almost reminds me of Bob Iger—I read Bob Iger's book about a four-year-old that was playing at Disney and a crocodile comes out of the Disney pond and eats him.

63:34No.

63:35No? Yeah. And Bob Iger's about to go up on stage in Asia, gets a message from his senior leadership team saying a four-year-old at Disney has just been eaten by a crocodile. And I mean, it had a pretty profound impact on him, to say the least.

63:52Well, he was the chief exec at the time. I mean, I know that it was terribly hard for the senior team at Pret, this. Although they hadn't—I mean, everything they’d done was completely within the law. Not that anyone cares about that, but it was. I mean, it was, you know, the—it was just a number of terrible things which took place. Should never have happened.

64:18A really remarkable thing happened in your life at a certain age when you found out you had a daughter out of the blue.

64:23Yeah. I had a feeling you were going to ask about that. That went public, didn't it? Yes, okay. So my—yeah, that is absolutely true, and I work with Celeste now. She’s on the board and she sits next to me two days a week and—it’s incredible.

64:40I had at some point in my early life a man walk in, he walked into my—my mom's shop and he said that he was my uncle. Turns out he was; I didn't know I had any uncles in this country. Turns out I did. But tell me about that day for you. What—how did it happen? How do you find out, and what age are you when you find out you have a—

64:58Oh, it was about 15 years ago.

65:00And she was 26?

65:01So I was about 45.

65:03You were 45, she was 26?

65:04She was—no, she was 19.

65:05Oh, 19.

65:05She had just started at Bristol University. And her mother called me, who I hadn't seen for ages. And obviously I had absolutely no idea that her daughter was my daughter. Had no—absolutely none, I’d never met her, I had no idea. And her mother asked to see me, so I said yes. And we—we met in—we met in the King's Road. And she told me. I sat down and—

65:27Weren’t you suspicious when she asked to see you?

65:29No, I wasn't suspicious. I certainly wasn't suspicious of that. I thought maybe she needed help or I don’t know. But she was a kind of cool, intelligent, rather wonderful eccentric brilliant woman. So I remembered her very fondly. I hadn't seen her for ages, but so I met her immediately and she just told me there and then: "My daughter—I have a daughter and she’s your daughter." So I asked her, "Well, when did you tell her and how's it gone down?" And she said, "I told her two weeks ago and not well."

66:00So then we—then I tried to contact her. She was a bit standoffish; it was hard to get through to her for a few days. And then I drove up to Bristol University and we met. We met. And I had nothing but an overwhelming desire to—a deep overwhelming desire to get in there and try my hardest to build her muscle and her strength and her—you know, what—what had happened to her was incredibly unjust. And I wanted from the depth of my heart to do everything I could to try and repair it. And I will do that and continue to do that to the day I die. And she’s fantastic, and she’s really close to my children and my other two and it, you know, it could be much worse. But I feel this is not an easy thing to go through for her. Not a—not an easy thing for anyone to go through. So she’s strong and she’s—she’s married, she has two kids and a third one on the way and she’s really rather remarkable.

67:06So the person she thought was her father wasn't.

67:09Wasn't. Correct.

67:13And why—why hadn't her mother told her who her father was?

67:17Because her mother—I don’t—she wasn't—at the—when this happened, they wasn't close. The mother and the father, they wasn't—they really wasn't that close, if you understand what I’m saying. They really wasn't that close. And he—the father figure was pretty distant throughout her life. And when she got to the age of 18, I think probably more distant. And I think the mother realized that this couldn’t go on forever. And she—the mother was very brave; she took this hugely brave decision: "Do I tell her the truth or do I not?" I have nothing but respect and absolute admiration for the mother having the courage to tell her daughter the truth. Must have been agony. Agony all round. But she did the right thing.

68:00What was it like arriving to Bristol University that day?

68:03Oh, what's it like when a—you know when a child's yours, I can assure you. You just know. So it was lovely. It was lovely. I was really—funny enough, things like that, you would have thought would be completely, totally crushing for someone who wasn't that well equipped to deal with that stuff, but actually I found it wonder—really, really, really enriching. And the way my two boys embraced her was incredible. It was really an opportunity to really shine and—and do some—was great. It’s—it’s—you know, I have nothing but admiration for the way she's handled it. Anyway, she—let’s change the subject because she won’t like this.

68:56But you work together now, which is awesome.

68:57Yeah, yeah, of course we do. She—she works in the marketing team, she leads marketing—

69:00No, she leads the brand and she's on the board and she's been extremely helpful from day one. She ran the marketing team for four years, actually. She was bloody good at it. But now she has three children or about to.

69:16Sounds like a really nice movie to me. What are you scared of?

69:19What am I scared of? Oh my God, I’m scared of death.

69:24Really?

69:24I think.

69:25You did say you were scared of—

69:26I’m kind of a hypochondriac. I’m scared of that. That’s about it.

69:33Why does death scare you?

69:34No, I think just—just the whole thing with health and not paying enough attention to your health and—it’s completely beyond one’s control. I mean, totally. When that goes, it goes. When you’re in trouble, you’re in trouble. And that could happen tomorrow. So that—it doesn’t really scare me; I don’t ponder on it too much. But I think we’re all hypos. Misha, my son, is a hypo. My wife, Brooke, is not a hypo. She—I spend my life saying I’m dying, she—and then—trouble is, I’ve cried wolf so many times. And then one of my stepdaughters is quite into medicine, so I refer my illnesses to her quite a lot.

70:14Are any of these illnesses real?

70:16So—no. So far, we’ve had quite a lot of false—we’re not going to go there. But the fact is, yeah, I—no, I’m not even fear death. No, I don’t fear—I don’t think I fear anything, actually. I really don’t. There’s no time to fear. It’s all time to hope. Hope and believe and hope and—and yeah, the future—it’s incredible what people can do. Not just—not me, but all the people around me.

70:48If I had a recipe here, and it's the recipe of happiness, what are the ingredients on your recipe?

70:52Listen, I—I—I don’t think about it. I really, really don’t. I can think about that I’m not unhappy. I’m very, very privileged and I’m very lucky to be not unhappy. I have all the material things; I have food, warmth, love, I have everything. So the idea of me pondering on how I could be happier is kind of ridiculous. For me, the concept of thinking about how—how I could be happier is kind of—ugh, I mean, really? Haven’t I got enough? I’ve got everything. I’m so lucky, I’m not unhappy.

71:28Are you happy?

71:29Yeah, whatever that—yeah, I’m not unhappy.

71:33It’s a different thing. There’s unhappiness and there’s happiness. Are you happy? Is the different thing. I remember the day my girlfriend—

71:39I’m often happy. Listen, I get up on Monday and I can’t wait to work, to race to work with so many people I—I admire, love and trust. And I leave home surrounded by people who I love, admire and trust. Christ, what more could you possibly want than that? I don’t know. But it didn’t come by accident. So I don’t want—I’m not—I’m not just saying luck fell in my lap. That’s going to be confusing for anyone who’s watching this. I got into this situation through—doing a lot and working and acting on the evidence. In other words, when things don’t work out—it’s obvious—change it, work harder. If you—you know, same with your personal relationships. This is all within our domain; we can all do this.

72:26What advice would you give to me? In my youth, you know, your career's spanned longer than mine.

72:29I’m older—I’m much older than you.

72:31A little bit. A little bit.

72:32Well, I don’t think—I think you’re on the right track. I mean, that is why you stand out as being a this, you know, very—you’ve had a huge amount of success at a very young age. So if I was you, I’d just—just stick to what’s working. And your endless pursuit of transparency and truth, that is what’s got you to where you are today, actually. You—you don’t—don’t underestimate—I don’t know how often anyone in your life congratulates you or pats you on the back. But I think you must carry on as you are with showing great empathy and warmth. So even on—I’ve watched you on Dragons' Den, it’s interesting that I’ve noticed you never put anyone down. You somehow—very human, the way you deal with everything. So your ability to work within the world of truth is fabulous, so just don’t lose it. Don’t lose it, and don’t forget that however much the money is, it’s all crap.

73:33We have a closing tradition on this podcast, where the last guest asks a question to the next guest, and they never know who they're asking it to. So in a nice way, all the guests are talking to each other and they write it in this book. And I don’t get to read it; if I try to peek, Jack does—she actually—she like shoos me off with the—pshh! She hits me with the book.

73:51Okay. I thought about this last night. So I can easily do that.

73:55You don't know what the question is.

73:57Oh God, you’re going to ask me the question.

73:59Yes.

74:00Oh Lord. But I’ve thought about my question.

74:02Okay, good. So let’s—oh no, I wonder who this was. Oh, okay, interesting. You really don’t know what it is. On my mother's life, I—I do not look. And sometimes we have a problem because the handwriting can be an issue. But Jack always checks, and I’ll—I’ll say what else happens. Jack will tell me if it’s a shit question. So if we had one guy once it was like, "What’s your favorite meal deal?" So Jack told me before, "Stephen, the question's shit." I was like, "Oh fuck." But—but it only happens once in a while. You can keep that in, Jack, mate, you bastard, ruining my show. He’s my friend, so it’s okay. And he actually knows; he watched the next episode and was like, "You didn’t ask the question." I was like—

74:39Are we allowed to know who—who asked the question?

74:41No, you’re not allowed to know.

74:42Okay.

74:43One day you’ll be able to find out because we’re going to release them all as cards. Of course, then, yeah, yeah. But anyway, the question that’s left for you: "What is an inadequacy you admit to that you could work on starting tomorrow?"

75:02Honestly. I mean, where do you begin with something like that? I mean, it’s a perfectly good question, but the list is so long. So the only way you can answer a question like that is—is to choose the biggest inadequacy, and I wouldn’t even know how to do that. I think what I need to do and we all need to do is embrace all our inadequacies and know what they are and accept them and—and thrive knowing they’re there. That’s what we need to do. Yeah, I’m not going to give you a—I’m not going to answer that question by saying "Oh, I could—I could—I could kiss my wife goodnight," you know—not that I do that anyway. Or I could go to the gym more, or I could—there are hundreds of things. I’m a very inadequate person.

75:47What about in your relationships then? Because you referenced kissing your wife—

75:50Well, my relationships are—there’s so much I could do better with all my relationships. I honestly don’t know where to start. But at least I’m aware of that.

76:00What are you aware of?

76:01I’m aware of the fact that to—to create the way I do, to work the way I do, comes at a cost.

76:08And the cost is?

76:09And the cost is I don’t spend enough time nurturing, loving, and being supportive to the people I love most. That’s just a fact. Do I regret it? No. Do I accept it? Yes. Do they? I pray. And when I’m gone, and if—if we continue to build something remarkable, they’ll know that we’re all part of this together. This was made possible by—by them and—and myself together with the team.

76:43Have you ever had that feedback from them? Being as loving...

76:45No—ugh, they’ve never actually outright criticized me for it, but I’m aware of it. I mean, I’d have to be a—an idiot. You know, you don’t have children. You’re not married, you’re in a relationship, right?

76:59Mhm.

77:00So, you—this is all stuff for you to face in the future.

77:04I get the feedback, that's why I asked the question.

77:05Do you?

77:06Yes. I find out about most about myself from my girlfriend turning to me and saying—we've been together for three years now, something like that. Three years isn't long enough. Saying something to me and me going, "What are you talking about? What?" and then walking away and going, "Fuck, she’s right."

77:16No, I—I—my—all the—my children, Misha, my son—my eldest son works in the business and he is fanatical and brilliant and works really hard. Billy, my youngest son, is a very talented artist. And Celeste is—is there too. So those three are all—they understand exactly what it’s like to be completely committed and work really, really, really hard. My four stepchildren equally; the youngest one's just got into an incredible university, my eldest one, Inès—they’re all very committed. And my wife is just the same. I’ve never known a person with more energy, more determination, who’s more supportive and generous and loving. So if I have let them all down, they’ve done a bloody good job of not telling me.

78:04When was the last time you cried?

78:06Oh, I cry at movies. All the time. Brooke says I cry at all the wrong things. Like, I cry in movies, I cry in this and this, but I don’t—she thinks it’s weird. She thinks it’s really weird to cry in, you know, *The Voice* or something. I don’t think it is; makes me really moved.

78:29What about it makes you moved?

78:30Well, you know, when you see a young, terrified person come on and perform way beyond their expectations and do a remarkable job, particularly when they’re young and they have no confidence, but they’re just remarkable. Just—just people who dare. Dare take a huge risk. Don’t you think—don’t you find it it’s just so incredible the way people dare take a risk? It’s what we all need to do. It’s what everyone listening and watching needs to do more: seek transparency, take a risk, say—say it, do it. Just—just go for it. If some—you know, and you can do more than you think, and you can say more than you do. So do it.

79:11Julian, thank you. It’s been absolutely fascinating, amazing, inspiring conversation. Your—your personality is just so engaging and your—I feel like I’m getting the truth, which is—which is really, really phenomenal. When you—as a speaker, especially in the—the medium of a podcast, the passion you have in everything you’re saying is so captivating. It really, really is captivating. And I can imagine—I—now I understand the business. And it’s funny that now, having met you and asked you these questions and sat here with you, I understand the love and the passion and the attention to detail and the care for the people. All of those things come through so much. And I also think I know where it comes from. Yeah, and the—the journey you’ve had that’s led you to really prioritize treating people well and—and creating things that are for the long term. So Julian, thank you.

79:59Welcome.

80:00(Music fades in as credits play)

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