How To Chase Your Dreams Without Fear Holding You Back with Fran Millar

[0] Why am I doing this?

[1] I'm doing this because society wants me to do this.

[2] I'm doing this because my mates want me to do this.

[3] It's a bullshit.

[4] That's not going to happen.

[5] And I think it, you show that little boy inside.

[6] It was just like ruined by it.

[7] Sorry, it's still quite emotional.

[8] What an amazing story.

[9] What a cruel, amazing, twisting career.

[10] My next guest has one of the most fascinating journeys through business and through life that I think I've ever heard.

[11] She spent her life surrounded by a couple of people that I actually consider to be inspirations of mine.

[12] One of them is Sir David Brelsford, who's been the sort of elite performance coach and cycling coach for Team Sky, which went on to win more than they were ever expected to win.

[13] He's the, I guess, the author of this marginal gains thinking, which changed how business and sports teams function.

[14] The other person she was surrounded by throughout her career is Steve Peters, who a lot of you will know from the book he authored The Chimp Paradox, which redefines from a psychiatrist's point of you, how our mind works and where our behaviour comes from.

[15] And the other male figure in her life that's important for the story you're about to hear is her brother, David Miller, who was this incredibly sort of highly regarded cyclist, British cyclist, who had this cruel twist to his career where he got involved in the doping scandal, which really left a stain on British cycling as we know it.

[16] And David Miller recounts the story of him being sat in this cafe shop with David Balesford and being tapped on the shoulder by three men wearing suits who would then raid his house and find syringes.

[17] And that was one of the key moments in British sporting history where I think in many respects, things have never been the same.

[18] And we always view our elite performers with an element of scepticism.

[19] But this is Fran's story.

[20] And Fran's story is one of tenacity.

[21] It's one of success.

[22] It's one of jumping off cliffs and figuring out how to build your skydiver as you fall.

[23] Her story is inspiring.

[24] It's peculiar.

[25] She went from starting her own business to spending, I think, 12 years at Team Sky worked her way up to the very, very top.

[26] And when it became Team Inios, she became the CEO, leading a predominantly mailed, dominated industry.

[27] And then, out the blue, in the middle of a pandemic, when retail was on its ass, she decided that she was going to change lanes and become the CEO of Bell staff, which is a brand that has been struggling, that's been making losses.

[28] And then was then kicked up the rear end by COVID.

[29] She's brave.

[30] She is unusual.

[31] She is inspiring.

[32] She's tough.

[33] She describes herself, or at least she respects the idea of being a difficult woman, something we'll talk about.

[34] So without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett, and this is the diary of a CEO.

[35] I hope nobody is listening.

[36] But if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

[37] Fran, I've done a lot of stalking of your history, your past, your professional career, and I was stalking your Twitter feed.

[38] the day.

[39] And I saw a quote that you'd written, I guess, in honor of your brother, David, who is a world -renowned professional, incredibly accomplished cyclist.

[40] And the quote said, following a boy who loved it, so much he got absorbed into the fabric of it, and has spent a lifetime carrying the weight of the cruelty, wonder, brilliance, and tragedy it would bring him is ultimately what got you into the world of cycling.

[41] I was slightly taken abacken by some of those words, cruelty, wonder, brilliance and tragedy.

[42] Can you explain why you chose those words?

[43] Oh, that's a big opening question.

[44] Yeah, I mean, listen, my brother was, was an ease, a very talented guy.

[45] He was, we were, so when we were about 10 and 12, my parents got divorced.

[46] My dad went to live in Hong Kong and my mum stayed in the UK.

[47] I stayed with my mum, my brother went with my dad.

[48] And so when we were like kids, we'd cross in the air.

[49] So he'd come home from Hong Kong I'd go out so he'd come home I'd go out and he had nothing to do when he was here because we'd moved so he had no he had no friends around so my mum entered him into a cycling club and he'd go and he'd do the time trials he was super good at it by the literally from like 15 to 19 he'd gone from never really riding a road bike to being like courted by nine of the biggest teams in the sport and he got signed very young by a big French team and they kind of made all these promises to my mum about it and he was obviously you know he was a kid he He was desperate to win the Tour de France and to go and fulfill his dreams.

[50] And he totally fell in love with the sport and he was completely enamored by it.

[51] And in the space of five years, he'd gone from this excited, talented, you know, brilliant kid to this damaged, incredibly sad, deeply, deeply shamed young man. And it was like, how has a sport done that?

[52] Like, how is a, it's a game, right?

[53] Like, sports is a game.

[54] It's entertainment.

[55] how is it something that is fundamentally to entertain people basically ruined him like taking him down to the core of who he was and then he built himself back up and he's you know he's gone on to do incredible things but it was just a the sport has had this unbelievable impact on my life on my brother's life on my life on everything the decisions I've made and everything else I guess that's why I chose those words give me some detail on you talked about the sport bringing him down to his core in and raiding him.

[56] What caused that?

[57] So he went into the sport in 1998, he turned pro, which for any of your listeners who know anything about cycling was the Fasina year.

[58] So it was the year of the big Fasina scandal where they raided all the hotel rooms and the guys all kind of protested and sat down on the road and only a few of the sort of teams were able to finish because so many guys got pulled out of the race.

[59] And it was the dawning of the EPO era.

[60] So it was the era where they discovered, effectively, you know, athletes and coaches had discovered that you could use EPO in the same way the use ability to use altitude training to perform, to increase physical performance.

[61] And it was just a transformative drug.

[62] It was, they couldn't detect it, they couldn't test for it.

[63] And they brought in some interventions like a hematicrit test.

[64] So if your hematicrit went over 50, you'd be pulled out of racing, but it was a health check.

[65] It wasn't a doping check.

[66] And it was rife, basically.

[67] So when he, this young sort of dreaming kid went into the sport, he, he just, he just, genuinely thought you could do it clean.

[68] You wouldn't ever have to cheat.

[69] I don't even think he really knew that much about doping at that point in his life.

[70] And pretty quickly, he realized that actually most of the guys at the very top were doping, that the doping was endemic, that the expectation was you would dope, that that was what you wouldn't need to do if you wanted to be a professional and you wanted to be any good.

[71] And he resisted it for a really long time.

[72] Like he was a time trialer, which is, you know, race against the clock.

[73] You basically only racing yourself and so he's really stuck to his time trialling because he was like I can do that like with the technology with aerodynamics with focus on my training it's a shorter period of time there's less requirement to kind of be as cardiovascularly supreme as the guys who are trying to win the tour are and so he did very very well time trialing went to his first tour de France and one yellow like day one and but what was happening was behind the scenes this sort of erosion of his belief that he would be able to do it clean his his recognition that actually if he if he really wanted to take it seriously and try and win the tour he was going to have to cheat the people around him that the kind of network and the sort framework around him was people who weren't looking out for him weren't thinking what's best for him weren't trying to work out how to make help him fulfill his potential they were trying to work out how to get him good enough to make enough money to win you know for them as a business they were he was a commodity in their business um and i like i haven't actually ever told of this story, but Francois Mee Grain, who owned Coffodys, which is like a company that basically does telephone loans.

[74] I don't know what they do now, probably, you know, online loans, but he had, he met my mum.

[75] So when we had all these teams that were sort of courting David, he met with my mum, and he promised her that he would look after him, like promised, looked, looked her in the eyes, and said, I'll look after him.

[76] And yet he did nothing.

[77] Like, he built a team that was allowed to just get on with it.

[78] He'd sort of closed his eyes to it.

[79] And actually when the big investigation in Tocofordi started, it was Francois Mugrain who effectively called out my brother.

[80] He was like, I think Montcutee is probably clean, but David Miller, I wouldn't put my hand on my heart for him.

[81] And it was like, you motherfucker, do I mean, like, yeah.

[82] And he's 24 years old.

[83] Like, what?

[84] He's the only exposure he's had to the professional support is your team.

[85] So if that's what's happened, it's your team and your people, don't get me wrong.

[86] David absolutely has to take responsibility for his decisions in that.

[87] But I, for one, that when I was like 19 to 25, I wasn't making the best decisions I've made in my life.

[88] Do you know what I mean?

[89] And I had some influential people around me who had they told me to do things.

[90] And it's that insiduous thing, isn't it?

[91] It's a bit like kind of, I was listening to a book the other day about decision making and how if you look at like Nazi Germany and people say, well, they were just following orders.

[92] And there was this big study done apparently where they put people in a room and they told them like, there's going to be some, there's going to be a student in there.

[93] It's a study.

[94] I can't remember that I think of my ground or someone who did the same.

[95] study and you're going to press this button don't worry because to shock them and the shock's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and it's like and 65 % of the people would have pressed the button that would have effectively killed the person in the other room and it's like what and that's the human condition right so this idea that we that we would make a better decision or that we'd make a better choice or that we do it differently people seem to impose that on guys who decide to cheat in sport decide to make these decisions like well how how dare you make that decision it's like If you're in an environment and a culture where that becomes the norm, where that becomes what people do, this idea that you're going to be the one person who, and don't get me wrong, I know there are the people who do that and fair play to them.

[96] That's impressive, you know, that you've been brought up in a certain way to enable you to make those decisions.

[97] But David was, he was fragile.

[98] He was impressionable.

[99] He was a dreamer.

[100] He was doing something he'd always wanted to do.

[101] He was passionate and desperate, desperate, desperate to be a success.

[102] And I think he just got taken down.

[103] the wrong path, you know.

[104] And you, do you feel like you went through that with him as a close family?

[105] I'm trying to understand the impact I had on you being the sister.

[106] And I know you guys are very close.

[107] Yeah, I mean, the impact I had on me was I was, he never, he never came to, he went to my mum and told her that he was dating.

[108] And they, they sort of, she just said, well, just stop, just come home.

[109] Like, don't worry about she, you know, sort of at the very beginning, he said, there's a lot of drugs.

[110] And my mum was up, we just come home.

[111] Go to art school.

[112] Don't worry about it.

[113] It's just cycling.

[114] And yet he stayed and he persisted.

[115] And then I think in 2001, when he eventually made the decision to kind of cross the line, as it were.

[116] He spoke to my mum, I think, in that period.

[117] And she was just like, you know, you have to stop.

[118] You have to come home.

[119] And he was a bit like, no, I want to do, you know, I want to be successful.

[120] I want to go on this journey.

[121] He never had that conversation with me. All I ever saw was the kind of, it was like an erosion of him.

[122] You know what I mean?

[123] It's like, I could tell something was going on.

[124] I wasn't an idiot.

[125] I mean, it's like, he's probably, he's probably cheating.

[126] But we had all been indoctrinated into it as well.

[127] It was like, well, that's kind of, you turn a blind eye.

[128] You kind of think, well, you know, he's, he's doing really well.

[129] He's, you know, on the cover of all the magazines.

[130] He seems happyish.

[131] And it was only when he'd come home in the off season.

[132] And he'd come and stay with me and my mates living in London.

[133] And he would, he would drink so heavily that you'd be like, okay this isn't normal you're a professional athlete and he would the the depressions he'd sink into and the self loathing that he would come out and it's like in vino veritas you know that kind of this and i'd be like what on earth is going on here and then eventually it kind of you i realized what was happening and i kind of felt responsible for never stepping in and saying something and never being like you don't need to do this i was just like well you know if you're happy and you're enjoying it and you're doing well who am i to judge kind of thing um so i think as a family, it kind of bonded and pulled us apart.

[134] Like we kind of, we all turn a blind eye to it.

[135] I think we've all got our demons to deal with from that perspective.

[136] My dad, I think, had a very different view of it all.

[137] My brother and my dad sort of, you know, have an ongoing difficult relationship.

[138] My mum and my brother are very close.

[139] I'm very close to my dad and my mum.

[140] But, you know, so as a family, we've kind of, it's definitely created divisions because everyone had a different view of it.

[141] And then in terms of the impact on me, I went into cycling.

[142] I ran my own cycling agency.

[143] I was working in the cycling industry.

[144] I totally rode the coattails at my brother's success.

[145] And I was like, shit, okay, now it's all going to come crashing neck.

[146] Like he got arrested and put in prison.

[147] And, you know, I was like, oh, God, this is not ideal.

[148] And I literally remember speaking to him afterwards.

[149] And he just come out of, you know, the 48 hours in custody.

[150] And he was like, and I remember it being like a week and a half before the tour.

[151] And he said to me, don't worry, France.

[152] They're still going to let me ride the tour.

[153] You know, you're like, it still makes me want to cry.

[154] It's like, David, they're not going to let you ride at all.

[155] That's not going to happen.

[156] And I think it, you show that little boy inside that was just like ruined by it.

[157] Sorry, it's still quite emotional.

[158] But yeah, so it just impacted everything.

[159] It impacted all my decisions.

[160] Because at that point, I was then like, shit, now I've got to go into the office the next day and I've got to stand in the velodrome events.

[161] And I'm David, I'm not David Miller's sister, the kind of glory front cover the magazine, I'm the sister of this shamed, cheating, lying, horrible human being who no one likes anymore and who has disgraced British cycling and is a, you know, he's like a complete social pariah.

[162] And I'm like, oh, shit, okay, now I've still got to go and do my job.

[163] And did you feel that?

[164] Yeah, massive.

[165] You felt the judgment and.

[166] Yeah, massively.

[167] People were and it was in the days of forums, you know, like, when forums were a really big deal.

[168] And I'd be like, okay, I'm just going to go and have a little bit of a look on.

[169] the forum and see what people are saying.

[170] And I'd see people I work with commenting, you know, people who were at the velodrome who were like doing the timing at my events or, and they all, you know, literally like people wishing him dead, but, you know, it was just like, it wasn't cool.

[171] And I, and yeah, I really felt.

[172] I felt it for him.

[173] I didn't, I wasn't embarrassed because I was like, you know, it is what it is.

[174] He's made a set of decisions.

[175] He's paying the price for it.

[176] But it was at that point sort of about six months after that, that was like, okay, I probably can't represent him anymore because if I have to have another conversation with a journalist, an ignorant journalist about this kind of binary right or wrong conversation where you're like, that's just not how life works.

[177] I'm going to end up punching someone in the face, so I should probably stop doing that.

[178] Speaking of punching people in the face, I heard you, no, I was going to say, no, I just felt like a good turn towards one of the things that I saw you share online, which was this article about being a difficult woman and the importance of dispelling this sort of like niceness or that women typically are associated with in business that I think the article was suggesting holds them back.

[179] How important has that been, especially when you were dealing in an industry, which is pretty much full of men and you got to the very, very top is the CEO of Ineos, how important was it to be willing to punch people in the face, being a little bit difficult at times?

[180] As is such an interesting question, because that whole being a difficult woman, I think, is the older I've gotten, the more I've kind of explored feminism and explored kind of the sort of female condition, the human condition.

[181] It's like women are judged very differently for behaviours that in men would be seen as completely normal.

[182] So, you know, there's the sort of kind of meme that's the sort of, you know, men are assertive, women are chippy, you know, men are confident, women are arrogant.

[183] You know, it's like the same behaviour gets viewed very differently through a very different lens.

[184] I've never filtered myself.

[185] It's not been anyone who's ever met me knows that I don't really come with a filter.

[186] And I think it's really, really important that young women recognise that they don't have to apply a filter.

[187] You don't have to be the quiet one in the room.

[188] You don't have to, I remember reading Cheryl Samberg's book about Leanin and it's like, you know, young women will come into a meeting room and they won't sit at the table.

[189] They physically won't sit at the table.

[190] They'll sit like at the sides.

[191] And I was like, fuck off.

[192] Who does that.

[193] And then I would go to meetings and I'd be like, I'd notice that like the 19, 20, 20, 21 year old younger women in the room, they'd wait for the guys to sit down.

[194] They'd be like, what the fuck are people doing that?

[195] And you just, until you realize it's happening, you don't realize it's happening.

[196] And so, yeah, I've always felt quite strongly that you just need to be yourself, be confident, be willing to get told you're a bit.

[197] get told you.

[198] And don't get wrong, when I was younger, I was actually a bit of a bitch.

[199] I probably, I probably didn't measure that behaviour.

[200] I was a bit like, well, it's just who I am.

[201] And everyone needs to suck that up.

[202] And actually, you still have to be polite and have manners.

[203] And you still have to recognise that being aggressive is actually just sometimes being aggressive.

[204] It's not being assertive.

[205] And that balance, I think I've learned as I've got older.

[206] But I think it's, yeah, I think women are judged totally differently for behaviours that men would be absolutely, it would almost be, sort of respected in a man for certain behaviours and in women it's reviled.

[207] There'll be young women listening to this and they'll be thinking, do you know what, I'd love to be like that, Fran, and I'd love to be a bit more, you know, assertive and et cetera, et cetera, but I just, you know, it's just not who I am.

[208] And so kind of the question that popped into my mind was where did that, you know, some might see it as confidence, but it's like a confidence in being your true self, right?

[209] Where did that, do you know where that came from in you?

[210] Was it, you know, is it experience?

[211] Is it something that happened in the house?

[212] Is it your mother was taught you that behaviour, your father?

[213] Yeah, I think it's probably half nature, half nurture.

[214] Like I think I, you know, my mum tells a story about when I was little and I sort of, you know, I'd just literally go off and speak to people.

[215] Like she'd be sat at, you know, bar, you know, on a holiday and she'd want to know what's going on with a couple over there.

[216] She'd be like, Francis going, ask them what they're doing.

[217] And I'd be like, okay.

[218] And off I'd go and chat to them.

[219] So I think I've always been very innately confident and that doesn't, that's never gone away.

[220] But equally, I think I've been very lucky.

[221] I've been very blessed.

[222] I've worked with people and in and around people where I've been allowed to be myself.

[223] I've been allowed to kind of grow up and make mistakes and fail and be a bit of an idiot and get told you being a bit of an idiot and not have that be a judgment upon me and limit me. And I think it's really interesting that kind of being assertive or being your true self has become a bigger and bigger thing that people talk about.

[224] And actually being your true self doesn't mean you have to be assertive and confident.

[225] It means you have to be your true self.

[226] And for a lot of people that is a big.

[227] bit more insecure, a bit more, and that's fine.

[228] You can bring that to the table.

[229] You can be an emotional person.

[230] You can be, lack a bit of self -esteem and just be honest about that.

[231] So for me, I think it's just partially how I was brought up, but more the people I have been surrounded by on the journey of my life and career.

[232] I've been incredibly blessed that they have allowed me to make a lot of mistakes and correct, and course correct me as I've gone on.

[233] that point about being assertive and being direct and being open and honest you know what um i was i was actually chatting yesterday about one of the how i've changed over the last 10 years from like the kid at 18 to the kid at 28 and the the key thing i said to my team is like the big change that i've seen in myself is i'm way more direct yeah and i'm not sure why i'm doing that i'm like i don't know whether it's because i've got so many things to do that i'm trying to save time at all times um i'm way more honest with my feedback and there's this sort of fine line between being an arse and being honest and direct and trying to be time efficient and like realizing that sometimes your feedback or the way you say things might hurt people's feelings but that's secondary to what we're doing here how have you towed that line I imagine from what you've said it's more difficult as a woman because people will they'll determine the same behaviour to be a really negative thing but how do you tow the line between being like direct and firm which is so important in my opinion when you're dealing with teams and especially if you're dealing with teams of, you know, high testosterone, testosterone men, how do you tow that line?

[234] And, and also, I guess the more important question for me is, do you agree that it's an important trait to have?

[235] Okay, so have you read a book called Radical Candor?

[236] It's not there on my bookshelf somewhere, but I've not read it yet.

[237] So, yes, I do think being honest is important.

[238] I think being a dickhead to people is not acceptable.

[239] And so I think I think honesty can get veiled, sorry, being a dickhead can get veiled by I'm being honest.

[240] Right?

[241] Like, well, I'm just being honest and it's feedback and you should take it.

[242] It's like one of the sort of best lessons I've ever been taught.

[243] And one of the most influential people in my life by a mile is Steve Peters, who's a forensic psychiatrist.

[244] Yeah.

[245] And he always says, like, you have to be compassionate.

[246] Like, even if you're telling someone they're losing their job or, you know, if you're having to give someone really honest, be compassionate, be, be sensitive to the fact that you're going to get a better response from someone if you're just nice to them, you know, you can see.

[247] say some really, really shitty things to people and it get a horrible response.

[248] Or you can say shitty things, but get a really positive response back because you do it in a different way.

[249] So I think it's really crucial to be honest.

[250] It's really crucial to be authentic.

[251] But that doesn't mean you get a licence to be a dickhead.

[252] And have you, is there a place for aggression and anger and being annoyed in business in your view?

[253] No. Not ever.

[254] Well, you can feel those things, but I don't think you can inflict those things on other people, no. I don't think that's acceptable.

[255] It's remarkable how many of the world's most sort of admired leaders, when you read their biographies and stuff, you find out how much of a dickad they are.

[256] Like Steve Jobs was a good example where I was told, you know, from a friend that they basically had to put him in his own building and warn people that worked in that building that, you know, the way Steve was.

[257] And Elon Musk in his biography is very, very similar.

[258] But the reason I asked you about radical candor is when I read it, it made a lot of sense to me about about people like that.

[259] So that she basically describes this quadrant where effectively you've got how much you care about people and how sort of willing and honest you're able to be.

[260] And so if you're very, very honest, but you don't care about them at all, then you're basically an arrogant asshole.

[261] And if you really, really care about them, but you're really, really honest, then you're radically candid.

[262] but if you really, really care about them and you're not honest, then you're kind of, it's almost like a malignant empathy.

[263] Do you know what I mean?

[264] It's like, I'm going to be really nice to you, but because I'm not going to be honest with you, you're not going to develop.

[265] And so that for the first time, and she said in a business, it's better.

[266] It's way better as much as it's counterintuitive to be the arrogant asshole.

[267] Because actually the feedback is what's important.

[268] So if people are getting the feedback, if they're being told the truth, they are like, some people might not be able to handle it, but the people who can handle it will develop and get better.

[269] So it's worse to be empathetic and not be honest than it is to be an arrogant asshole.

[270] And I was like, oh, that's why there's so many arrogant assholes in the world.

[271] Because actually it does work.

[272] Like on the, and genius, you know, it forgives a lot, right?

[273] When people are geniuses, they can behave very differently and they get away with it because they're geniuses.

[274] And there is merit in that.

[275] And I think if people are very, very, very honest with you and give you brutal feedback, as long as you're like able to take it on board, you'll get better.

[276] But if someone's lying to you and saying, you're doing a great job, Stephen, don't worry about it.

[277] It's absolutely fine because they don't want to hurt your feelings.

[278] You're never going to develop.

[279] It's true.

[280] You switched from working at any osk, over to Bell staff, quite relatively recently.

[281] And I was reading, I think, I was listening to one of the podcasts you had done and you talked about how you worked in cycling pretty much your whole life.

[282] It was pretty much your everything in terms of your professional experience.

[283] I've also recently quit my job.

[284] How does it feel?

[285] Everything.

[286] You feel everything, right?

[287] You feel, you know, it's bittersweet, you feel excited.

[288] On one hand, you're unsure about the future.

[289] But I trust myself enough to know that I'll figure it out because I always have.

[290] But yeah, all feelings.

[291] I guess my question for you is, and the bit that I found particularly interesting is people will do a thing for 10 years, for five years, whatever, and then they'll tell themselves that they are that thing.

[292] They'll, like, give themselves the label.

[293] I work in cycling.

[294] I'm a cycling person.

[295] Yeah.

[296] It seems to be incredibly difficult, especially if they've been in that industry for a long time, to then take on a different label.

[297] You're now working in fashion and with a whole new set of challenges completely outside of your comfort zone to some extent in some ways.

[298] How did you make that switch?

[299] How did it feel?

[300] Tell me all about it?

[301] It's, again, I'm going to reference Steve Peters, but I remember because I was so wedded to my job in cycling.

[302] Like I lived and breathed it.

[303] I loved it.

[304] I cared deeply about the people.

[305] It like had this, it was so wrapped up in my identity.

[306] But I hadn't necessarily.

[307] necessarily got a huge amount of satisfaction out of the job over the last two or three years for a whole host of reasons nothing to do with the team just personal development wise and every time I spoke to Steve you'd be like well then why don't you just leave I'd be like because I don't know who I am if I leave the cycling team do I mean and that it was always a much longer conversation than that but what effectively I was saying was I don't know who I am if I'm not that and he said over and over again you will be whoever you go on to be that's not going to change you are still there you're letting this thing influence all these views about yourself.

[308] You're letting it influence your value, your worth, your, you know, your sort of substance, your contribution to life.

[309] Like you're letting, it's a job.

[310] It's like, it's a job.

[311] And I was like, you don't get it.

[312] You don't understand.

[313] It's more important than that.

[314] And you know what?

[315] When I got asked to go and do your bell staff and I left and it broke my heart, like I cried my eyes out.

[316] And I started at Bell staff and I felt awful saying this.

[317] But within 48 hours, I was like, oh my God.

[318] I love it here and I love the people here and this is brilliant.

[319] I'm so excited and actually it is just the job.

[320] That was just the job and yes I miss it and yes it was incredible and yes I love the people and I still love the people but it's just the job.

[321] It's not my family.

[322] It's not who I am.

[323] It's not my identity.

[324] It's just a part of my life and I'll be eternally grateful for having done it but now I've got a new challenge and I was like I'm really pleased I did it when I did because everyone I think had been saying to me for a long time you know once you leave you'll be like oh, I should have done this five years ago.

[325] And I don't feel like that at all.

[326] I feel, you know, I did that for the right amount of time.

[327] I loved it.

[328] I've banked it.

[329] Moving on to something else.

[330] And it's that point there about thinking that that job was your identity that I think really like holds people down.

[331] Because you're right, jobs, they're friends, their community, they are purpose.

[332] They are, as you say, they're your identity.

[333] And that's dangerous.

[334] Really dangerous.

[335] You know, because actually they're not.

[336] They're not your identity.

[337] And then matter how much you love it.

[338] no matter how passionate you are about it.

[339] This would be the lesson I would sort of give to myself, the sort of, it doesn't matter, it's a job.

[340] You're being paid to do it, it's a job.

[341] And I would have railed against that, even a year ago.

[342] Like, no, it isn't.

[343] It's more important than that.

[344] And you know, as soon as I left, I was like, and my brother always used to say to me, your team, aren't your family?

[345] Your team, aren't your family?

[346] And I never really understood what he meant, because I thought, well, they are my family.

[347] Like, you know what I mean?

[348] I love them, they are my family.

[349] And they leave me like, oh, no, what he means is your family are there forever.

[350] Your family are wedded and you can't unpick your family.

[351] They're, there's something that's, whereas when you leave a job, you take away the memories, you take away the happy time, to take away the good stuff.

[352] But the fabric of who you are doesn't change.

[353] And that's what I try and do.

[354] I just finish writing my book on there's a chapter on this idea of labels and me trying to resist these labels to make sure that I continue on my journey of challenge and keep myself, you know, stimulated and I don't get to, you know, a certain age and feel like I'm having a midlife crisis because I don't know who I am and I can't leave and I don't have any new skills.

[355] And to really sort of realize that the label I have is me. It's like Stephen.

[356] I'm a guy with a bunch of skills and experiences and I can apply these skills and experiences to a bunch of different challenges.

[357] I'm not social media CEO.

[358] You know what I mean?

[359] Yeah.

[360] And that I find really liberating.

[361] So I quit.

[362] I started DJing.

[363] We're doing this, putting on this theatrical play.

[364] I'm just trying to do all of the things that I think I shouldn't be able to do, right?

[365] But speak to me about the challenge.

[366] So you decide to take this job at Bell staff, and it is a big challenge.

[367] It's widely reported that Bell staff has been, had, you know, struggled across the years.

[368] It was acquired in, I think, 2017.

[369] It was making losses then and the losses of, I think, narrowed over the last couple of years to some extent.

[370] But it's a big challenge, right?

[371] A big challenge.

[372] It would have been much easier to take a different job.

[373] So first and foremost, I didn't take it.

[374] I was, I literally had a conversation with my chairman and in Eos about, you know, maybe, maybe over the next couple of years I want to think about moving on and doing something different.

[375] And when Dave B comes back from the tour, this was in September, I said, when he comes back from the tour at the end of the season, I think I'd like to sit down and have a chat with my chairman and my boss, Dave, about my future.

[376] That was the sum total of my conversation.

[377] And literally a week later, I got a call saying, Jim would like you to be the CEO of Bellstaff.

[378] And, you know, with the best one in the world, when Jim Rackcliffe asks you to do something, you don't kind of go, let me have a think about that.

[379] And I just thought, okay, well, what an opportunity, and I went for it.

[380] But I didn't, I wasn't looking to change.

[381] I wasn't, I hadn't, like, planned to move on.

[382] So that was, in some ways, whilst it was quite traumatic, the sort of three or four weeks of, because I literally, I got phoned like on the 16th of September and I was enrol on the 1st of October.

[383] Wow.

[384] So it was like, yeah, like two weeks of just.

[385] Why did you want to have the conversation, though, when they've got back?

[386] Because I wanted to, so I wanted to, I'd sort of been thinking, like I said, about the conversation with Steve, about kind of, I'm not sure if I'm happy doing this job anymore.

[387] and I'm not sure if I'm fulfilled.

[388] I've kind of reached the point sort of middle of last year where I was thinking, you know what, I do need to start thinking about my future and my life and my career.

[389] And I don't know whether that's always going to be in cycling.

[390] And I don't know whether the CEO of the cycling team is 100 % why I won.

[391] So I wanted to speak to my chairman first to kind of sound him out.

[392] And then when Dave gets back from racing, so I don't want to interfere with the racing, have a conversation about my future.

[393] So I just literally put it on the radar of the chairman.

[394] And probably a little bit out of frustration for myself as well as a bit like I want to feel like I'm moving this on because otherwise I'm going to sit and not do anything with it.

[395] Do you know what I mean?

[396] I'm going to.

[397] Did you feel stagnant in the role?

[398] Is that the main, the crux of what you're getting at?

[399] What was the person if I can relate?

[400] I felt, so I had done what is effectively 20 years in pro cycling.

[401] It would like you say, it was all I knew.

[402] It's all I'd done.

[403] I know everybody in it pretty much.

[404] You know, I've been in and around it my whole.

[405] life.

[406] I'm David Miller's little sister.

[407] It's like, you know, part of my DNA.

[408] We got a, we, and I loved being part of Team Sky.

[409] Like, we did that for 10 years.

[410] And it was a sort of always you say cut me in the middle.

[411] I'd bleed blue.

[412] And I absolutely loved it.

[413] And then when Sky said they were out at the end of 2018, I was like, right, I'm done.

[414] I'm out of here.

[415] I'm not going to do this anymore.

[416] I went straight today, B. I was like, it's been amazing.

[417] I've loved it.

[418] But I'm going to, once the team stops being Sky, I'm going to go.

[419] And he was like, okay, cool.

[420] I don't I think he believed me. He was like, okay, cool.

[421] And then he said to me, look, would you help at least find a new sponsor?

[422] Let's see if we can find a new sponsor.

[423] He's a bugger like that.

[424] So I was like, okay, I'll try and help you find a new sponsor and then I'll move on.

[425] And then, you know, February comes 2019.

[426] You know, he meets Jim.

[427] Jim decides that he wants to acquire the team.

[428] You know, Jim's arguably one of the most successful businessmen in the world.

[429] We went and met with him and talked about, you know, the design of the kit and everything else.

[430] And I was like, I'm going to get sucked into this shit.

[431] And then one of the other senior managers and the team decided to leave and go and work for another team.

[432] And Davey was like, would you stay?

[433] You can be CEO, which was what I really wanted to be.

[434] It's a massive opportunity.

[435] And I was like, okay, I'll stay.

[436] And I think that was the point of the decision there that I was like, you know, this is a big career decision to me that I'm staying.

[437] Again, I told them my mates I was going.

[438] I was like, you know, this is it this time.

[439] This time I'm going.

[440] They're like, mm -hmm.

[441] Okay, Fran.

[442] And so I stayed at INEOS.

[443] And then we worked on this.

[444] the 159 project.

[445] So Elliot Kipchogi sub -two -hour marathon.

[446] And Dave obviously was the project lead on it.

[447] He was the CEO, my boss, but he very sadly got prostate cancer in that period.

[448] So he was off doing the Tour de France.

[449] Then he had to go and have surgery.

[450] And so I took on like a deputy CEO role, kind of delivering the sort of vision that he'd come up with.

[451] And he'd structured all the performance team.

[452] But then I was doing the delivery of the event, everything from kind of working with the London Marathon team to supporting the performance guys to doing all of the engagement piece and everything else.

[453] And I, I loved it.

[454] I felt like I was working 18 hours a day for like what was about five, six weeks in the buildup to the first of all the test event and then threw into the actual event.

[455] And I just loved it.

[456] Totally different, totally new challenge, new people, different approach.

[457] I was like, I was on literally cloud nine.

[458] I couldn't have loved it more.

[459] And I was working so hard.

[460] Like I was literally crippled by it.

[461] But I loved it.

[462] And I came out the other side of it.

[463] Not so much just because we'd done it, obviously.

[464] that was incredible.

[465] But it just really made me realize that I was just going through the motions in the cycling job.

[466] I was just, I was ticking over.

[467] I was really comfortable.

[468] I was good at it.

[469] I loved it.

[470] I was happy.

[471] I liked the people.

[472] But I wasn't growing.

[473] I wasn't developing.

[474] I wasn't learning new stuff.

[475] And I wasn't kind of, and I'd been going at a million miles an hour, you know, sort of in the team, like on all these stuff where I was helping other people develop and helping other people achieve their potential and helping other people kind of, you know, rescue their reputations or enhance their reputations.

[476] And I was a bit like, what do I want to be doing?

[477] Like, why am I, I'm not, none of this has been about me. And even actually cycling is a little bit about David.

[478] Do you know what I mean?

[479] I was on kind of this journey to this sort of save young British talent from going through what David went through.

[480] And it's like, actually, what do I want to do?

[481] Maybe I want to do something different.

[482] And that just planted a seed, really.

[483] And I think I probably went and spoke to the chairman and you know if i'm honest i went because i thought i want to go and do something different i'm ready i'm ready to move on i'm ready to do something that's not this anymore and it was all it was almost like a kind of involuntary i think everything else about me was like just stay because it's comfortable and it's easy and you get good money and it's you know nothing's going to nothing bad's going to happen but my like soul was like you've got to you've got to go and do something else now and it was literally like in the space of two weeks it was like boom i'm out of here so it was not see almost identical to me in a sense of something niggling at you.

[484] And then for me, there was like a trigger moment where I was like, I was like, send an email.

[485] Yeah, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[486] And then you send it like, fuck.

[487] And then, but that idea of being able to throw yourself into uncertainty, it's like throwing yourself off a cliff when you were like cushy in the house on the side of the cliff.

[488] And you was like, oh my God, I'm going to jump.

[489] And you're throwing yourself off into the unknown in the hope that so you'll build your glider as you fall in, then land somewhere better.

[490] And a lot of people can't do that.

[491] Like, most people can't do that.

[492] How do you feel, though, about, because I found it really traumatic.

[493] Like, I kind of, I felt like, who, first of what I felt quite out.

[494] It was like, I'm out of control of this now.

[495] I literally said goodbye to my team who I'd worked with for 10 years and got on a train, woke up the next day and went into Bell staff and like, hi, I'm your new CEO.

[496] And I, and the trauma of kind of all of it, it felt I had to move out my house.

[497] I had to go and say goodbye to people, do, have a different email.

[498] I had the same email my whole life.

[499] Do you know what I mean?

[500] It's like all that kind of stuff.

[501] This doesn't, shouldn't be that important, but felt really significant.

[502] How did you feel, did you find it traumatic or not?

[503] So I, I'd quit a business that was my baby as well.

[504] When I was, I started a business at 18, quit that one when I was 21.

[505] So I'd been through it once before.

[506] So earlier when I said, the key thing for me was trusting myself.

[507] I've done this before.

[508] I know the feelings.

[509] I know that I don't know what my future holds.

[510] But when I did that when I was 21, it led to this even bigger business that was 200, times bigger and 200 times more successful.

[511] So that was, that's been this guiding thing in my life.

[512] Like I dropped out of university after one lecture and it worked out.

[513] So when you have those case studies, you think, do you know what?

[514] I have no idea what the future holds, but I'll back myself to figure it out now.

[515] And that's because I've done it like three times before.

[516] So I imagine the next time in the future, if ever, that you decide to jump ship from Bellstuff or whatever, you'll have that case study or that evidence in yourself that you've been.

[517] And that, that I think, will calm at you a little bit.

[518] The first time I quit, I was all kinds of emotions and worry and not sure what I was now and all those things.

[519] But slightly easier the third time.

[520] I'm a bit of a prolific quitter.

[521] I think it's a really underrated skill.

[522] Yeah.

[523] People talk a lot about starting as if it's the be all and end all of success.

[524] But quitting is the thing you do right before, right?

[525] You start something new.

[526] So I was reading about this winning behaviours role you took on, which is a very curious title.

[527] Yes, it is.

[528] What was your remit as the head of winning behaviours at Team Ineos?

[529] So it was when it was Team Sky.

[530] But same, same.

[531] So basically, 2010, we first started racing.

[532] We'd started the team into, we sort of begun the journey of starting the team in 2008, off the back of the Beijing Games.

[533] Started racing in 2010.

[534] We were shit, like, embarrassingly shit.

[535] And we'd been like smoke and mirrors and like, you know, we kind of, we had the big bus.

[536] And we had all the money and we were sponsored by Sky.

[537] And it's like, oh, we're going to be amazing.

[538] and we were rubbish.

[539] So we totally reset everything.

[540] And Dave, to be fair to him, he's like a master of, okay, we're going this way.

[541] It's not working.

[542] We're going somewhere else.

[543] Like, he's incredible assy.

[544] And so he totally shifted the way that we're going to run the team.

[545] We took a totally different approach.

[546] We started to be very successful in 2011.

[547] We'd obviously set the objective when we announced the team that we were going to try and win the Tour de France with a clean British rider in five years.

[548] And that was in start 2010.

[549] Bradley won the tour in 2012.

[550] So in the space of two years, three years, effectively we'd done it.

[551] The following year, Chris Freeman won it.

[552] And we had gone from being this team that was like on a mission, like heads down, arses up, and we were going.

[553] Like there was nothing was going to stop us.

[554] We were full on.

[555] And so when people sign up to that, you know, people are signing contracts in 2010 with a team that doesn't exist that has never raced on the road before, that comes from a track background that's full of Brits, who aren't historically that famous for road cycling, they were signing a kind of, you know, they were adventurers, right?

[556] They were like these bold, ambitious, this is a bit bad shit crazy, but we'll do it.

[557] When people were signing contracts at the end of 2013, they were signing with a team that had won the Tour de France twice, that was arguably the most dominant team in the sport that had gone on, you know, sort of achieved these incredible feats.

[558] And they had a different expectation of what they were joining to what we were.

[559] And we sort of suddenly realized that actually if we were serious about continuing and continuing to be successful, codifying what had got us.

[560] us where we were was going to be crucial.

[561] And we'd also seen, for those of your listeners who are cycling fans, we'd had the Bradley Wiggins and Chris Frum's kind of divide.

[562] So Bradd had obviously come first in 2012, but Freemey had come second.

[563] Bradley didn't even, Bradley never rode the tour again.

[564] So Bradley didn't ride in 2013.

[565] Freeman did and he went on to win.

[566] And you started to see this divide in a team where it's like, well, I'm team Bradley or I'm team Frumie.

[567] And it's like, I know, check your paycheck, your team sky.

[568] And that kind of actually, who are we?

[569] What do we stand for?

[570] what do we expect from people?

[571] What do we need to be able to do to be the best in the world of this?

[572] Needed codifying and it needed a way of a sort of charter almost to tell people this is how you're going to have to do this.

[573] And really, it was about eradicating losing behavior.

[574] It was about saying to people, bitching, backstabbing, saying your team free me or your team Brad or, you know, criticizing people behind their back or whatever.

[575] That's not acceptable.

[576] But being head of losing behavior would have been shit.

[577] So it would have been bad behavior.

[578] So it was all about creating.

[579] a set of behaviors for the organization that enabled us to say to people, this is what it means to put this jersey on.

[580] This is what it means to be a part of this team.

[581] It's not just about, you know, the glory and the winning.

[582] This is hard graft.

[583] This is, you know, it was arguably the hardest thing I've ever done, you know, working in that environment.

[584] It's, it is unrelenting.

[585] It is, I mean, it's brilliant and it's amazing and incredibly good fun, but it's hard, hard work.

[586] And you've got to go all in, you know, this isn't, this isn't, this is a, for the faint -hearted and so the whole winning behaviours thing was about creating an environment where we could give people the parameters that we expected them to live by, but also ensure that they felt supported, safe, able to deliver their very best in an environment that is actually very high pressure.

[587] So that was my job effectively helping Dave create the behaviours in the first instance with the whole team and then helping keep them alive within the business.

[588] What were some of those?

[589] You mentioned a couple of them there about not being a backstabber and understanding the importance of hard work.

[590] What was some of the other, let's just let's Just focus on losing behaviours.

[591] Some of the traits or some of the threats to success that you'd see in the team.

[592] I'm thinking this from an organisational standpoint as like someone that's worked in business.

[593] So we separate them into five different areas.

[594] We had self -team, communication, continuous improvement.

[595] And what was the other one?

[596] Well, it's gone.

[597] Anyway, quickly how quickly you move on, right?

[598] But so they were, self was all about identifying your.

[599] managing your own emotions, being in control of your own emotions.

[600] So a losing behavior of that would be losing your shit, you know, being aggressive and arrogant with people, not being able to recognize when you were too emotional to be in a high performance environment.

[601] We have this, the whole chimp model, you know, Steve's philosophy around that is there's nothing wrong with being emotional.

[602] There's nothing wrong with having a chimp, but you have to know when to get out the room if that's what's going on.

[603] Don't bring your emotion into an environment where you're expecting people to perform at their very best.

[604] So that kind of management of self, absolutely critical.

[605] And then team was all about the impact that you have as a team member.

[606] You know, I think people kind of think teams are this kind of static thing that you create a great team and that's it.

[607] It's like, as you will know, having run very successful businesses, teams are like these organic, ever -changing, you know, you could bring one person in and it have a massive impact on the team.

[608] You could take one person out.

[609] It can ruin a team.

[610] Do you know what I mean?

[611] So the dynamics of a team and your role within that are crucial.

[612] So, you know, not wearing a team kit, you know, wearing a slightly different trainer, you know, criticizing the team, not buying into the sort of collective opinion, not sort of, Dave B has this really big thing about he'll listen, he'll seek counsel from everyone, he'll listen to everyone's opinion, he wants to get to a collective opinion, he wants to get to a collective view of what the right direction is, but ultimately if we can't get there, he'll make the call and then you've all got to be on the bus, non -negotiable.

[613] If you sit in a meeting room and you agree with something and you say, yeah, okay, whilst I don't agree with it, I buy in, you know what I mean, you my point of view, you've said it's not the way we're going to go, but I buy in.

[614] And then you walk out the room and you're like, I don't fucking buy that.

[615] That is one of the worst losing behaviours you can have because it's insiduous and it goes around, you know, a whole organisation can be destroyed by, yeah, it's like a virus.

[616] So it's things like that.

[617] Fascinating.

[618] I am, you don't do a lot of public speaking, right?

[619] Used to.

[620] Haven't done it for a while now, actually.

[621] Yeah, a bit like white collar crime, I think, sometimes.

[622] But yeah, I sort of, I, you know, used to love doing it.

[623] Like I really did used to love doing it.

[624] But I've also, I feel like the bit that I talked about, which is some of the stuff I've just said, I feel like that's a bit of my past now.

[625] And I want to build a new, build a new path for myself before I figure out telling people about it, if that makes sense.

[626] Yeah.

[627] Same.

[628] I don't want to take talks on social media anymore if I can help it, to be honest, for the same reasons.

[629] Yeah.

[630] I mean, you talk a lot about Dave as well, Sir David Breltsford.

[631] And very fondly, I think a lot of your tweets from my stalking were were centered around him and things that he was doing.

[632] Yeah.

[633] What are some of the key qualities of him that have made him so successful and his mindset or, you know?

[634] Oh, big question.

[635] I mean, him and Steve Peters are the two most influential men in my life without a shadow of a doubt.

[636] You know, they are symbiotic because they are, I think if Dave hadn't had Steve, he maybe wouldn't be who he is.

[637] And I think if Steve hadn't met Dave, he maybe would be a slightly different version of himself.

[638] of.

[639] So they, they compliment each other brilliantly.

[640] Dave is, is a brilliant man manager.

[641] He's, he's, he's incredibly visionary.

[642] He's very brave.

[643] You know, you said the thing about jumping off a cliff and hoping you get your glad as he was, you thought, Dave's the king of that.

[644] Dave's like, we're going to go, we're going to achieve that.

[645] And everyone's like, fuck it off.

[646] And he's like, come and let's go.

[647] And people are like, okay.

[648] And because he's so, he's so bold with it.

[649] He's so confident with it.

[650] And he's an incredible leader that people would literally, I mean, I would have followed that man off the edge of a cliff and I think that he has that quality in him you know he's unrelenting you know anyone who's well he's difficult you know like all geniuses are he's a he's a tricky guy he's why um how maybe is a better question in all kinds of ways you know he's very I think I've spoken about it on other interviews I've done he can be very um he can be very particular he's very detail orientated he's he wants to know all the facts before he makes a decision he'll he'll go after something for ages and ages and he'll like oh my god makes a decision or get on with it and then he'll make a decision that's totally off to the other side and you're like oh so doesn't make sense it or it's or it's brilliantly genius because you think oh all that work that you would have made and just got on with it and made the decision would have taken us that way and that would have been the wrong way and it's and it's that kind of you all the way through my career with him he would do that and I'd be like it's just he's just clever like that he's he's ferocious appetite for learning he unrelenting work ethic you know expects incredibly sets incredibly high standards and expects people to meet them and not all people can right no absolutely and he and you know we openly say that not all people can there's nothing wrong with not being able to meet them you've got to be compassionately ruthless you know that's what he always says which is basically if you're not if you're not you set a standard and if people can't meet them then then they're not in the right organization and it's better it's a bit like the arrogant asshole It's better to be honest with them and say, you know what, this isn't for you, than to kind of allow them to keep failing.

[651] I think that can be very cruel to people.

[652] You know, if they're in an environment, they're constantly trying to be better, but they just can't do it.

[653] That's, yeah.

[654] You talked a lot about when we're talking about winning behaviours, about this important about high work ethic.

[655] And you've expressed there that Dave has a relentless work ethic as well.

[656] Yeah.

[657] You've probably observed how this narrative around hard work has become somewhat toxic over the last couple of years.

[658] And now I, you know, almost feel.

[659] bad sometimes when I'm saying that I don't know how I would have been successful in what I've done if I hadn't have worked hard.

[660] In fact, I don't really know anybody that's really successful in their discipline or their sport or whatever.

[661] That doesn't work hard.

[662] So I know we're not trying to give anyone depression and anxiety by saying that, you know, they have to be a hustle porn star.

[663] They won't be happy.

[664] But I still can't get to the point where I will tell anybody that hard work doesn't matter.

[665] It really, really matters to me. And it's, I can't imagine.

[666] And you know what?

[667] I was in the gym last night, and I was thinking sometimes words really mess people up, right?

[668] So when people say work, they think of me on like a, in a factory, like, or in like, I don't know, in a mine hammering some rock all day.

[669] But I was thinking, because I enjoy my work so much, imagine if I just changed the words and went, hard pleasure.

[670] Yeah.

[671] You know what I mean?

[672] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[673] Can you have too much of hard pleasure?

[674] It's exactly well.

[675] You know what I mean?

[676] I have to say, let's not go down that room.

[677] Yeah, yeah.

[678] It's interesting, as you were asking me the question, I think that my response, because I actually similarly read something that you'd written about, you feel a bit of, you feel a bit bad that you sort of heroed the kind of I'm working to, yeah, the kind of 18 hours a day and I'm going at it.

[679] Yeah, bragged about it.

[680] Yeah, and I sort of think, I get it, get why people feel like that.

[681] And I think there's a difference between being exceptionally busy and working all the hours God gives and thrashing yourself and all those sorts of things and working really hard with purpose.

[682] They're very different.

[683] Do you know what I mean?

[684] And when you're working really hard with purpose and you're passionate about what you're doing and you love the people you're working with and you're enjoying the sort of striving for the achievement, there's no shame in that.

[685] For me, that's absolutely part of motivated, ambitious people.

[686] That's what you want them to feel.

[687] And people are just doing what's something of the work -life balance.

[688] I was like, there isn't a work -life balance.

[689] work is my life and I make no I make no sort of excuse for that I love it I'm passionate about it I enjoy it I have it's hard pleasure you know it's it's brilliant and I like the challenge of it and I you know I chose not to have kids I don't have a partner it's it's the passion point of my life is my work and that's right but that doesn't mean I need to be you know not going out and seeing my mates it doesn't mean I need to be up until midnight tapping out emails do you know I can still I take days off I you know I live a normal life but I work really, really hard.

[690] I've also struggled in the relationship department.

[691] Yeah.

[692] And surprisingly.

[693] Never, you know, been that good at relationships.

[694] I've never been able to hold a relationship down.

[695] I can't really see how it happens necessarily.

[696] Talk to me about that part of, I was going to call it sacrifice, but when it's somewhat intentional, and when you're aware of it, it's hard to call it sacrifice.

[697] Just doesn't motivate me. I know that sounds awful.

[698] I'm not motivated to have somebody in my life.

[699] I'm not motivated to be like, right, I want a partner.

[700] I want that companionship.

[701] You know, when I arrived, we were chatting about how this environment that we're all living in, actually, I love being on my own.

[702] I'm very happy in my own company.

[703] I'm very passionate about what I do, and I think that fulfills the space that maybe other people have other passions for, right?

[704] And so, yeah, it's never been a goal of mine.

[705] I've never dreamt of the white wedding.

[706] I've never wanted to, and there's never a bit of me that sits at home and thinks, oh, I wish I had someone to sit and watch telly with, ever.

[707] doesn't even cross my mind and my mate's always like do you not get lonely or do you not worry and I'm like no I feel like I should because it would make you all feel better but you know about five or six years ago because everyone was on at me all the time I'd like did a bit of dating did some internet you know use some apps everything else I was like this why am I doing this?

[708] I'm doing this because society wants me to do this I'm doing this because my mates want me to do this it's bullshit if it's right if it's right it'll come if it's not it won't did you did you date at all throughout the last I guess decade.

[709] Did you...

[710] Here and there, but it's like, kill me now.

[711] You know, that kind of small talk.

[712] Oh, God, it's like my idea of hell on earth.

[713] Going and meeting a stranger, having small talk, slightly awkward, with kind of one end game.

[714] Do you know what I mean?

[715] And it's like, and I'll know within two minutes if that end game's happening and I'm like, I don't really need the small talk.

[716] Yeah, yeah, you've got to sit there for an hour and a half.

[717] Yeah, we don't need to dress this up.

[718] So, yeah, no, I just, yeah, it just never...

[719] Yeah, I did a little bit, but it's not.

[720] it's, I'm not looking for that.

[721] And I think if I'm looking, if I wanted, if I wanted to get married, if I wanted to get into a relationship, I could.

[722] And I'm not, I'm not adverse to it, but I'm just not outseeking it.

[723] And I think you get what you look for, right?

[724] Yeah.

[725] So other sacrifice.

[726] I don't think it's a sacrifice, by the way.

[727] Yeah.

[728] No, I, I, I, I, I, I, you know, the reason why at, when I was younger, I wouldn't have thought it was a sacrifice.

[729] And then I started reading all this stuff about the importance of like, you know, 18, 19, 19, and 20, even 24 year old Steve would have thought, you know, I don't need fucking anybody.

[730] and I can just, I'll be fine on my own.

[731] I'm a lone wolf.

[732] Yeah.

[733] And then I fully went for the whole recluse thing, like wholeheartedly.

[734] And I was broke, so I had no choice anyway.

[735] You weren't how to use.

[736] So I was broke and I was just on this renegade that was determined to build businesses.

[737] And then I started reading some stuff and it talked about the importance of like meaningful connections and relationships.

[738] And I realized that I didn't really have those.

[739] And if I was going to become wildly successful, then it would just be me and my louveton bag sat up inside in my house.

[740] And then I started to change my perspective and thought, Steve, do you know what?

[741] You need to create a little bit more openness or balance towards that stuff.

[742] So I tried a little bit more.

[743] But that doesn't, I see I have incredibly meaningful relationships and incredible connections.

[744] I have my friend, I have like five or six friends who are my world.

[745] I mean, I'm incredibly close to them.

[746] They are, their kids are, you know, my godchildren.

[747] I feel very, very connected.

[748] I don't feel isolated in any way.

[749] I don't feel like I'm missing out or sort of not having...

[750] And I actively participate in the lives of my friends' kids and in my friend's lives.

[751] And I think that's my connection.

[752] That's my tribe.

[753] Do you know what I mean?

[754] And, you know, I would go to war for them.

[755] And it's...

[756] I just don't think that added bit of a companion for me right now.

[757] You know, I'm not saying not forever.

[758] But I'm not sure that bit for me is something that I need.

[759] And I think that it's that...

[760] There's a difference there.

[761] Because I do agree with you.

[762] I think you absolutely have to have connection.

[763] the human condition is to feel connected, to feel part of something to feel, you know, sort of that you'll have a purpose within your community.

[764] And I think having your own community and having your own tribe is crucial.

[765] I don't think that needs to be through companionship with one other human being.

[766] There's a pressure that, as you talked about, the societal pressure, you know, and I've got to be honest, right, I'm just going to be completely honest because I would be really dishonest if I didn't say this.

[767] I have been guilty of when I have a friend who is struggling in that department feeling like I need to help them because again that's my own world if you pressed upon them I'm thinking well in order for me to be happy I would need that so I need to make sure you have that thing right that pressure especially for women is intense post 30 and it causes a ton of anxiety I see it in my direct messages from strangers not easy well it's interesting though so when I'm 42 now and the pressure drops away because I think you get to the point where people think it's rude to ask you if you're going to have kids Because they're like, can you still have kids?

[768] Okay, right, fine.

[769] You get to that age, right?

[770] But certainly all through my 30s, when are you going to settle down?

[771] Do you not want to have children?

[772] And I feel very, very lucky that I feel the way I do.

[773] I've never really had a biological clock that's picked, ever.

[774] And I've never felt the need for companionship of one other person.

[775] Like I said, my tribe is very important to me. And I think that's potentially biological.

[776] So I think I'm lucky.

[777] I don't, because I do, I have friends who, you know, they would, they're desperate to meet someone, they're desperate to have children, they're desperate to move on to that bit of their life.

[778] And I've just never felt like that.

[779] So it, and I feel very lucky because of that, because I think if I'd have felt like that, my whole life would be very different.

[780] Does not you play a role in that?

[781] Because I know it did for me. Yeah.

[782] My parents were toxic for each other.

[783] Like watching my mom scream at my dad for seven hours a day, every, my mom's like this African, Nigerian woman.

[784] and the decibels she's able to achieve is like gold medal worthy.

[785] She is unbelievable at shouting.

[786] Right.

[787] And she can do this amazingly high energetic scream for seven hours a day without flinching.

[788] And I watched that as a kid growing up.

[789] My dad sat there, this passive English man who didn't say a word ever.

[790] And this African woman just torturing him with this loud sound.

[791] And me thinking, like the lesson I learned was relationships are prison.

[792] And this is the lesson I like for a man. you are trapped and it is torture.

[793] So any time when I was young, like 16, a girl would like me and I'd chase her and I'll try and get her on the playground, whatever.

[794] Minutes she said she liked me, deep feeling inside of me of like escape quick.

[795] So I would like come up with all these reasons why girls that I'd spent the last year pursuing, why we were not right and we couldn't be together and she needed to leave me alone.

[796] And I didn't notice that until I was like 25 and then I started to work on that part.

[797] Okay.

[798] But nurture, does that play a role, do you think, in your views on relationships or men or that whatever or women or whatever.

[799] I think it probably plays a role in my view of having kids because my mum was adopted.

[800] So my mum literally didn't know who her mom and dad was.

[801] She was kind of picked out of an orphanage by my grandparents and never hadn't, until she had David and I had never met anyone who looked like her.

[802] You know, like we all, you know, connect to our families because we've got similar features, whatever.

[803] She'd never had that.

[804] And so my mum loves my brother and I with a kind of wonderfully oppressive.

[805] kind of dominate it's and it's that you know she she just loves us with everything that she's got because we're with for a whole host of reasons but also i think because we're the only physical you know sort of biological connection she's ever had and that love always used to scare me a little bit you know not from her but i used to think like i've got dogs and i worry about my dogs and i've got nine godchildren i've got two nephews and a niece and the minute they get on a plane or they i'm panicking like what if the plane crashes what if they die what if it's like i can't handle it And I'm like, Jesus, if I'd have had my own kids, that would, I wouldn't have been able to handle that that amount of love.

[806] I know that sounds ridiculous.

[807] But I think that always played quite a big part for me that I was like, the responsibility of it, the constantly having to worry about it, the constant, all of my female friends who have kids, they live in a state of almost permanent anxiety because they worry about their kids all the time.

[808] In a love way, you know, it's like that wrong love you have for a puppy.

[809] but and I don't think I ever I've never felt that I wanted that in my life I never felt that I needed it and I never felt that I wanted it I always felt quite like no I'm good I've got the right amount of love going on in my life I don't want that additional responsibility and burden in many ways of having something that is always ever present and and would cause me I think quite a lot of anxiety is that in part because you have so much responsibility and naturally, honestly, worry that comes from your other love in life, which is your career.

[810] Yeah, for sure.

[811] Yeah, because that's the way I feel is like a kid as well.

[812] I really have one.

[813] Yeah, no. Yeah.

[814] And it's why I don't think I need a companion because I already have, I get so fulfilled from my job.

[815] I get so, I get so much from that and so much from kind of working in and around people and having that kind of, I've got the community of my friends and the community of my work.

[816] And I think those two things I find very fulfilling.

[817] So the idea of having a companion or children.

[818] or anything else in the mix of that didn't really ever appeal to me in interest.

[819] I mean, I was engaged to be married when my brother got served his band, so 2004.

[820] And I'd been with the guy for like, I don't know, seven years.

[821] And I remember, like, moving into how we bought a house together in Shepherd's Bush and we moved into the house.

[822] And I remember, like, vividly putting the key in the door, turning the lock and thinking, I don't want this.

[823] Like, I don't want this.

[824] I loved him to bits.

[825] He was an amazing guy.

[826] But I was like, I don't want this kind of, I don't want to be in a normal life with a normal, husband and a house and kids and I just didn't want it I wanted something different I've got a tattoo that says a life less ordinary I just wanted to just do it differently and I don't know where that came from but I've had it my whole life that kind of I just don't I just didn't feel the need to conform to society's kind of pillars of okay you go to university and then you're going to get a job and then you're going to meet a guy and then you're going to get married then you're going to have kids I was always like but I'm not interested any idea why no and I'm fascinated by it because I feel very blessed because of it.

[827] Because like I say, I think it's it given me a freedom that a lot of people don't have.

[828] Had you wanted it, had you wanted that, you know, the typical life that society says people have to live and followed all the timelines and milestones, do you think you would have been able to achieve as much as you have?

[829] I was in my head, my ego was going, I would have been amazing at it.

[830] I'd have been like the boss.

[831] No, because I don't think you can.

[832] I don't, you know, I'm, I'm a feminist.

[833] I'm, you know, I'm absolutely passionate about equality.

[834] I'm passionate about women's ability.

[835] You know, women can do anything that men can do and should have the opportunity to do that.

[836] But I equally don't think it's possible to have it all.

[837] I really don't.

[838] I don't think you can have.

[839] And I know there are women who do and hats off to them.

[840] I think it's incredible, you know, you read about these women in the city who've got like five kids and their CEOs and it's like fair play to you, but I couldn't do that because I would feel constantly compromising.

[841] And I don't like compromise.

[842] And you're obsessive a little bit.

[843] in terms of your focus?

[844] I don't like compromising.

[845] Yeah, I probably am.

[846] Obsessive makes it sound a bit like I'm not in control of it.

[847] I'm in control.

[848] I'm aware of what I'm doing.

[849] But it's a bit like I, so I'm, we were talking about having a Peloton and, you know, I kind of feel if I'm going to go all in on my fitness and my health and get lean and everything.

[850] So my 40th, I got like down to 65 kilos.

[851] I was like a boss and I was like all over it.

[852] But then I was a bit like, oh, crap, I've got to do my job as well.

[853] And I sort of feel like I'm not great at doing having two or three focuses I can go at one thing and be brilliant at it but if I start adding in layers of complexity like I can stay on top of my health I can stay on top of my fitness but I can't if once I start going down there right I'm going to get super lean I find it hard to manage my word you know what I mean so I don't know if there's a obsession or whether it's just myopic I'm myopic sure yeah if people were to you know people they read about you online and they say you've been the CEO of this amazing sports team you ran your own agency before that you're now the CEO of Bell staff a lot of people especially young women are going to think that's exactly what I want to do they're going to think that's amazing there's always a disclaimer that comes with all of these things what is the disclaimer in terms of the cost of the success you've achieved what are the things that you know if I'm you would turn to me as a as a young aspiring ambitious person and say by the way before you follow in my footsteps here's what you need to know you know I wouldn't have fun because I think I think I really wouldn't.

[854] I feel exceptionally blessed.

[855] I feel really, I love what I do.

[856] I've loved the journey I've been on, like all the mistakes I've made.

[857] And like I said at the beginning, you know, I've been very, very lucky to be allowed to make all kinds of mistakes and them not follow me around.

[858] It's like I've been kind of carried and supported and encouraged to fail and to try and to do stuff that other people just wouldn't have got the chance to do.

[859] So I'd be like, no, go for it.

[860] it like don't don't worry about it like don't worry about fucking up don't worry about making mistakes let's get on with it what would you tell me though that i had to have in terms of my qualities would you say okay well if you're going to follow in my footsteps then you're going to need a little bit of this and a little bit of that it's so hard isn't it Stephen because you can't follow in someone's footsteps it's true it's impossible and that's the thing i think that people you know i would say you can't you can have your own footsteps and you can go into your own thing and jesus if someone has said to me at 25 this is the career path you're going to follow.

[861] I've been like, there's just no way I could tell someone how they're going to do that because it's bonkers.

[862] I explain to people, some, you know, people are like, oh, you know, tell me a bit about your background.

[863] And I hear myself saying it.

[864] And I'm like, that's bonkers.

[865] So I don't know you can follow in someone else's footsteps.

[866] But I do think it's like a bit like the beginning where I was like, you know, just be yourself.

[867] You know, be nice to people.

[868] Be approachable.

[869] Take the opportunities when they're given to you.

[870] Recognise that sometimes things are scary and you're going to have to do it, scared and actually change is sometimes the best thing that can happen to you.

[871] And, you know, all those things that you read and cliche memes on Instagram are pretty much true.

[872] You know what I mean?

[873] It is.

[874] And you've just got to take that approach in life because you're not going to get another one.

[875] But it's not easy, Fran.

[876] It's the stress of your job.

[877] It must be pretty intense.

[878] You're running now a big company that's, you know, in the process of like sort of turning themselves around and kind of reinventing themselves to some degree.

[879] And I know the stuff that you have to deal with because I've dealt with it.

[880] Yeah, but I'm not curing cancer.

[881] But it's, I feel like a lot of it's relative, right?

[882] Still, big problems are big problems for relative to the challenge you're facing.

[883] So like, that's, I guess, tell me about that perspective, though, because a lot of people would be like, oh, my God, that's a tough, you know, you're in a tough job and there's problems every day.

[884] I'm so lucky, Stephen, that's the thing.

[885] I think you're lucky.

[886] I'm so, someone, you know, an incredibly successful man bought a business three years ago and has said to me, it's not working very well.

[887] I really like what I've seen you do in the two years.

[888] I've been exposed to you, could you go and run it for me?

[889] It's like, yes, yeah, I'll go and do that.

[890] What a great opportunity.

[891] And I'm, and I'm just, I just feel very lucky.

[892] And yeah, they're big challenges and, you know, Brexit at the moment's bonkers and all our shops are shut because of COVID and I'm having to meet and work with new people.

[893] But, you know, I wouldn't change it for the world.

[894] I think it's an, I think I'm, I think if you can, and this is where Steve Peters has been so powerful because he's like, it's a bit about it not defining you.

[895] Just try your best.

[896] do you know what Jim Rackleaf actually text me I text him to say thank you very much for the opportunity we're not friends we don't like hang out exactly we don't hang out but I just text and say thank you so much for the opportunity this is incredible because I hadn't spoken to him about it at all it was all via sort of you know the chairman in the business and he just replied and said Fran the only thing I can ask you to do is your best and you know when you're like the freedom of that but the and that's what Dave B's always been like he's like you can just do your best friend you can't there's nothing more you can do in life and I think if you release yourself of expectations and what's the standard you've got, and this is, don't get me wrong, I did not feel like this for the last 10, 15 years.

[897] This has been in the last probably two years that I started to realize, you know what?

[898] What is the worst that's going to happen?

[899] Like, what's the worst case scenario here?

[900] Bell star folds, let's say, or when I was in the cycling team, we didn't win the biggest bike race or, you know, whatever.

[901] As long as no one's dying, as long as nothing's, you know, as long as people are okay, the people are okay.

[902] I'm kind of, I'm kind of alright with it, you know, it's, it's just life.

[903] And one of the things, I mean, I completely, I completely understand.

[904] I tend to believe that anything, caring about anything beyond your best is like anxiety and worry and useless.

[905] Yeah, it's like that Mark Twain quote, isn't it?

[906] It's like, there's a men will spend their whole lives worrying about stuff that's never actually going to happen.

[907] And isn't it, that's what worry is because you're worrying about something hasn't even happened yet.

[908] Or that sort of, there's a brilliant Brene Brown procast where she talks about foreboding joy, and it's this idea that you, something really exciting is happening, but all you're thinking about is shit, what if it goes wrong?

[909] So rather than enjoying the joy of it, the kind of, you know, she uses the example that she's on the plane to go to her first Oprah appearance.

[910] And she's like, I spent the entire plane journey there worrying the plane was going to crash.

[911] Then I spent the whole car journey there wearing that I was going to make a mistake on the show or say something stupid.

[912] Then I spent the whole time in the green room wearing I was wearing the wrong outfit.

[913] And at no point did I stop and think, I'm going on Oprah.

[914] This is amazing.

[915] And it's that, isn't it?

[916] It's like I think you can burden yourself with all this responsibility and all these kind of negatives.

[917] And actually it's like, we just want an opportunity.

[918] Why don't, try and flip it, try and see the world in a bit more of a positive light.

[919] And I feel like that, that's something I'm really working on for myself.

[920] Because I just think, like I say, we only get one of them.

[921] You get this one opportunity.

[922] I've been very lucky.

[923] There's nothing in my life, Touchwood, that has caused real trauma or, you know, that I feel that I would go back and change.

[924] And I think when you're halfway through, that's not a bad place to be.

[925] You took the job in the middle of COVID?

[926] Yeah, it was October 1st, first started.

[927] October the first.

[928] That's brave.

[929] In retail.

[930] I know.

[931] I'm crazy.

[932] That's well, yeah.

[933] Brave.

[934] But being positive, being optimistic about it, you're coming into this business and it's, I mean, it's been smashed in all directions by all things.

[935] What's your, what's your approach, what's your strategy?

[936] What are you thinking?

[937] I mean, at the moment, well, the first sort of three months in the business, I just wanted to get to know everyone there.

[938] So I did one to one to everyone.

[939] I think it's really easy to kind of go into a business with preconceptions of what's gone wrong and what you'd fix.

[940] And I tried, I spoke to all the kind of mentors I've worked with over the years and said like, what would you?

[941] And they all gave me the same advice, which was speak to people, listen.

[942] Don't make any rash decisions.

[943] You know, wait, get a proper plan, but give it, you know, the kind of 100 days piece.

[944] And initially I was bit like, I don't need to do that.

[945] And actually you just really do, you know.

[946] So I've just spent just trying to understand how it went.

[947] And the other thing is I understand the industry.

[948] You know, like I literally knew nothing about the other than I buy clothes.

[949] I didn't know anything about fashion.

[950] So, so yeah.

[951] So now my plan is, you know, as is always my ambition, I want to do the best possible job of it.

[952] I believe in Belfastaff as a brand.

[953] I think it's an incredible brand with an incredible history.

[954] I think the product is amazing.

[955] I think the design team have been doing a brilliant job over the last three years, getting the product to a place that's really true to who we are as a company.

[956] And I would really love to take it to profitability and beyond.

[957] You know, I really believe that it's possible to do that.

[958] And I think, you know, we're lucky to have the backing of Jim and INEOS to support us through what is going to be quite a significant period of transition and change.

[959] But then I think we build the foundations for growth and go from there.

[960] And retail's changed a lot.

[961] Yeah, totally.

[962] Totally.

[963] How does, you know, thinking about the high street and how, you know, in e -commerce and the internet now, like, there's in ways when you saw Debenham's being bought by Boohoo and also just bought Topman and some of the other Arcadia brands.

[964] It's a moment of transition that's been accelerated by this pandemic.

[965] What's your thinking about the changes in retail?

[966] I mean, God, I'm so early to it that it's, you know, but I mean, I think like anything, it's just, I think it's accelerated what was happening anyway, right?

[967] Like the high streets were dying, people were moving online.

[968] I think the rapidity of that change has just been, you know, accelerated.

[969] massively.

[970] So people's behavior around how their shopping was on the cusp of quite significant change.

[971] I think that change has flipped massively.

[972] So, you know, people are much, much happier shopping online, even like an older generation who historically wouldn't have been.

[973] I do fundamentally believe when we all start opening up again, people are really going to want to go shopping.

[974] Do you know what I mean, I think people are going to, this idea that people aren't going to go to the shops, I'm not sure I buy it because I think it's like, yeah, let, you want to get out.

[975] It's going to do stuff.

[976] Even you might want to, Stephen.

[977] then.

[978] Well, there's always hope, isn't there?

[979] You know, I see shopping is not actually for the purpose of shopping.

[980] I see it as an experience.

[981] And I see the internet as a place where if I, almost the utility and shopping is like a thing to do, right?

[982] So I do wonder if retail will seize hold of that part and be like, we're an experience.

[983] Yeah, exactly.

[984] I think that it's going to have to because I don't think it's ever going to be there to be making money.

[985] So I think it's going to be about adding on the experience of the brand for people, particularly for our brand.

[986] You know, we, we can create an and a story and a narrative that other brands maybe can't.

[987] You know, but 96 years old.

[988] Yeah, we've got all of that heritage that I think we can speak to.

[989] So I definitely think that experiential piece will be quite a big play over the next few years.

[990] This is a morbid question, but I like to ask it sometimes.

[991] I think it sometimes, are you scared of dying?

[992] No. No. Are you?

[993] No. I was when I was religious up until about 18 years old.

[994] And then once I realized that I was going to the same place that I came from, which was nothingness and peace, it was quite a liberating feeling.

[995] And I thought death was actually, I would dare I say it not a good thing, but not something to be scared of.

[996] Interestingly, I had to say, when would it have been?

[997] So three years ago, I crashed my bike and landed on my head.

[998] And I got like, I mean, for some reason whenever I crash my back, I landed on either my face on my head.

[999] And I landed on my head.

[1000] It's all those brains.

[1001] I wish.

[1002] And our team doctor at the time was like, because I'd got a bit of concussion.

[1003] He was like, I think you should go and get a brain scan.

[1004] He's very overcautious.

[1005] So I went and got an MRI.

[1006] And they made my mum come up because I don't have her husband.

[1007] I have to have went out to go.

[1008] That's the one downside, actually, to being single.

[1009] So whenever you have to have, like, somebody come and look after you, it's like, Mom, I'm 42 years old, but please, can you come and stay at my house?

[1010] So my mum had had to come up because of the concussion.

[1011] I wasn't allowed to go home on my own.

[1012] And I got this phone call from a brain surgeon who had been given my MRI.

[1013] They'd looked in my MRI.

[1014] and they'd found all these patches in my brain.

[1015] And he was like, there's these, we've found, is, are you, he rang me and he's like, are you with someone?

[1016] And I was like, yeah.

[1017] And he's like, oh, we've got, yeah.

[1018] And he's like, we've got, I know, I don't know, right.

[1019] Just tell me. Bedside manner needs improving.

[1020] And he said, we've got your brain scans.

[1021] We've gone through them and there's, we're seeing changes in your brain.

[1022] And you know, and you're like, but I've never had an MRIs.

[1023] How can you, how are their changes?

[1024] Anyway, long story short, I've got all of these unused.

[1025] usual patterns in my brain like patches that could be, they were like they could be potentially the starts of tumours, they could be just your, I know right, they could, and so he went to this excuse me, rude.

[1026] I had to go and like, so I went with my best mate actually and go and meet the brain surgeon, he talked us through it.

[1027] And I mean, it was one of those hilarious and horrible situations all at the same time because he was sort of going through, because she works the NHS and she was like, but what could, what else could it be?

[1028] If it's not tumours, what else could it be?

[1029] And he was like, well, you know, have you ever been like a very heavy drug user?

[1030] And we were both like, no. She was like, just, there's weed.

[1031] Yeah, she was like, just we're like, Lizzie, we don't need to go into this.

[1032] He means heroin.

[1033] She was like, oh, no, no, we've never done heroin.

[1034] And so, and she was asking all these questions.

[1035] And so basically, I had about a year period where they weren't sure what it was.

[1036] They still aren't.

[1037] I still have them.

[1038] And it's symptom -based.

[1039] So they're like, we could do biopsies and see what it is.

[1040] And I'm like, no, you're all right.

[1041] Or if I ever develop symptoms, which would be, you know, sort of electric pulsing or anything like that.

[1042] And I think that period was quite good for me because it, and it's probably where a lot of the positivity and the actually doing what you only get one chance thing came from because I was a bit like, shit, if I have tumours growing in my brain, that's quite intense.

[1043] And what does that mean for my life?

[1044] Like, what would I change?

[1045] Like, what would I do differently?

[1046] And I genuinely, I remember being sat in my living room, having everyone had gone home by this point and I sort of had had my first proper other scale.

[1047] It's like a two -hour MRI, which is quite intense.

[1048] And I was like, you know what?

[1049] I wouldn't change anything.

[1050] I would carry on living my life the way I live it now.

[1051] I wouldn't change anything.

[1052] I would probably go deeper and harder in some of the things that I really enjoy because I like my job and seeing my mates.

[1053] I would keep spending the money the way I spend it.

[1054] I literally wouldn't change anything.

[1055] And I was like, and it literally felt quite freeing.

[1056] It was like, great.

[1057] this is good because I think a lot of people would get that kind of diagnosis and be like right shit what do I need to do differently and I didn't have anything that I thought no I don't want to change but interestingly my job has now changed and I think deep down the reason I had the chairman conversation the reason I was willing to say yes to this opportunity at Bell staff is had I maybe not had that incident and had all of that associated thinking and sort of bit of deep deep sort of soul searching I maybe wouldn't I maybe would have said no it's right I'll stay at cycling, but I just thought, you know what, fuck it, it's going to give it a try.

[1058] What an absolute blessing that is to know, to know that you wouldn't change anything.

[1059] I think I am, I have this sand timer.

[1060] Is it behind me somewhere?

[1061] Is it there?

[1062] It's usually sat behind me. But the reason I have a sand timer in my house is because it's that sort of visual.

[1063] It's the only way you can really see time.

[1064] At some point, I realized that I was getting older and that you don't notice and that you can fall into the trap of thinking.

[1065] And as I think most people do, that will just live forever.

[1066] Yeah.

[1067] And it's not until you realize that life is finite.

[1068] You have those moments that you realize that, you know, like at some point I'm going to die.

[1069] And seeing my time pouring away is that reminder of like, is this important?

[1070] And am I making the right decisions?

[1071] And am I living true to myself?

[1072] And I wrote a little article about that called Deathbed Thinking, which pretty much says the same thing, which is that giving you that perspective of from your deathbed potentially, you know, what really matters.

[1073] Remarkable.

[1074] I mean, I'm so inspired by your story.

[1075] And every time I sit down with someone who's become a success in their career or their, you know, their pursue, I, it feels like there's similar themes, but so, so different in so many ways.

[1076] What does the future hold for you, do you think?

[1077] Do you know?

[1078] Any ideas?

[1079] Are you going to end up?

[1080] World domination, right?

[1081] Is that?

[1082] I would believe you if you said that.

[1083] That's the funny thing.

[1084] I took that seriously.

[1085] I don't know what the future holds.

[1086] and I don't really mind.

[1087] Like I don't mind.

[1088] As long as my family and friends are healthy and happy and as long as, you know, actually that's all it matters.

[1089] As long as my friends and family are happy and healthy and then I'm pretty cool as whatever the world throws in me. I'm sure it will be a laugh.

[1090] It would be fun.

[1091] Everyone else seems to need a plan.

[1092] No, there's...

[1093] Five -year plan, three -year plan.

[1094] Don't get me wrong.

[1095] I used to have five -year plans, but they're all hilarious.

[1096] When I go back and look at my five -year plans, I'm like, oh, I love how ambitious I was.

[1097] Like, where's that yacht?

[1098] I think when I was a kid, I was very, I remember actually when I set my agency out, my best mate and I set it up together and we got a coach.

[1099] And we were about 22, 23.

[1100] And the coach was like, right, go off into separate rooms and write out where you want to be in 10 years' time and then come back in and read them to each other.

[1101] And we were best mates.

[1102] Like we lived together for like three or four years, set a business up together.

[1103] He was dating my best friend.

[1104] We came back in and he, and we had them based written on a piece of paper, like, holding me from each other.

[1105] And he was like, right.

[1106] I want to be running a successful business, earning a good salary.

[1107] I want to be living in a nice house with a wife and three children, and I want to be healthy and happy.

[1108] And I was like, oh, fuck.

[1109] You've done it your list, and it's just like, I want a yacht and a chair.

[1110] I want to have loads of money.

[1111] Yeah, I was literally, I had this, like, really materialistic list about wanting to be, like, successful and a global sensation and have all this money.

[1112] How old?

[1113] 23, 22, 23.

[1114] Did you have stuff growing up?

[1115] up material stuff.

[1116] Yeah, we were quite not.

[1117] I mean, when my dad, my dad was in the RAF.

[1118] So to begin with, you know, middle class, but then when he left to go to Hong Kong, he went into civil aviation in the kind of the glory years of the expats.

[1119] So definitely very, very lucky.

[1120] And I got, you know, business class travel everywhere.

[1121] Yeah, so it was pretty next level, yeah.

[1122] It's incredible that you've wanted it for, for, for, so bad.

[1123] But now I wouldn't want, I wouldn't want that list now.

[1124] But it was just, it was that really interesting, like, oh, okay, we want totally different things.

[1125] And I'm, I didn't have partner.

[1126] I didn't have kids.

[1127] I didn't have a nice house anywhere.

[1128] I was like, I wanted the, I wanted the universe.

[1129] Do you know what I mean?

[1130] I want to go over there and do something massive.

[1131] Well, you've smashed it, Fran.

[1132] And I'm sure you've, you've been paid well along the way for that.

[1133] Money.

[1134] The money becomes irrelevant, though, right?

[1135] The money is not, the money is just a great tool.

[1136] Cool.

[1137] For helping my friends and family for doing cool stuff with people, for having experiences.

[1138] I spend all the money I earn.

[1139] doing stuff with the people I love.

[1140] Give me an example.

[1141] I took my sister -in -law to Dubai for her 40th birthday with my best mate.

[1142] We stayed on the palm in an amazing time.

[1143] I've sort of took my brother back to Hong Kong for his 40th.

[1144] I take my friends on holidays.

[1145] I just go and do stuff with the people.

[1146] I love experiences.

[1147] I spend my money on experiences going and doing stuff, seeing stuff, but always with the people I love.

[1148] And none of my mates can afford to go to the hotels I go to.

[1149] someone's like, well, I'll just pay.

[1150] Because I don't want to stay in a rubbish hotel, so.

[1151] I can relate.

[1152] Well, listen, thank you so much for all of your time today.

[1153] It's been truly fascinating.

[1154] And even, you know, researching your background and your mindset has been really, really inspiring and energizing for me. And I can relate to so many elements.

[1155] And the other elements I'm just amazed and impressed by.

[1156] So thank you for your time.

[1157] I know you're incredibly busy person.

[1158] So it feels like an additional honor of you to have said yes, to come and chat to me today.

[1159] And where can people find you?

[1160] I guess just, you know, these days, it's pretty easy.

[1161] You just Google someone's name.

[1162] Yeah, I don't do.

[1163] I have a private Instagram, and I do, I'm on Twitter, but I don't really use it very often.

[1164] So, and I'm rubbish with LinkedIn.

[1165] Well, if they want to speak to you enough, I'm sure they'll come knocking.

[1166] They'll find me, yeah.

[1167] And thank you so much for inviting me. It's been fascinating.

[1168] I've really enjoyed talking to you.

[1169] Thank you.