E46: Diane Modahl - Doping, Defeat and Determination

How would you feel if your career, the career you’ve worked at all your life, was suddenly destroyed? This is how my next guest on The Diary of a CEO felt when her whole world came tumbling down due to a fatal error. Diane is truly inspirational. Her... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:11Steven Bartlett?

  How would you feel if the world turned against you? If you lost your hard-earned career, your reputation and everything that mattered in a second? If the world's media called you a liar, a fraud, a cheat? And if it was all because of something that you didn't even do? This is exactly what happened to Diane Modahl, one of the most talented Olympic athletes this country has ever produced. Her story is heartbreaking, it's emotional, it's unjust, powerful, it's ultimately incredibly, incredibly inspiring. But she's so much more than just an ex-Olympic athlete. She's now an entrepreneur, she's a philanthropist, and despite everything that happened to her, she's just a really good human being.

• 0:56Steven Bartlett?

  You really do have to hear this. Without further ado, this is the Diary of a CEO and I'm Steven Bartlett. I hope nobody is listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

• 1:17Steven Bartlett?

  My girlfriend's birthday was in July, right? I might have got that wrong, I'm really fucking shitting myself now. My girlfriend, I'm gonna go with it. My girlfriend's birthday was in July and for her birthday, her present was a trip to Jamaica. And then, a week after, I got an email through an inquiry and it said, "We want you to come and speak in Jamaica." So I'm thinking, this is fucking perfect. Because I hadn't booked it yet, right?

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Have you told her the story? Is she aware that you didn't actually invest in the present?

• 1:50Steven Bartlett?

  She is aware that she's going to Jamaica. No, she's aware. I said to her, I said, babe, I've just had this inquiry come through to speak in Jamaica, which is perfect. So should we go at that time? She was like, yeah, perfect. Amazing. Makes a lot of sense, right? Because she can, she can then come and see me speak as well. She's never really seen me speak before, so.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  How do you feel about that, about her listening to you and seeing you speak live?

• 2:11Steven Bartlett?

  Um. It makes me wanna make sure I do an even better job. It doesn't make me feel nervous. It makes me really wanna make sure that I'm on my, on my game.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:17Steven Bartlett?

  And sometimes when I show up, I, I don't prepare anything until I'm there.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:21Steven Bartlett?

  So like, I don't even know what I'm gonna say before I go on stage. But I've done this hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times that the minute I hit the stage, something just comes over me. It works out for me. Um. In this particular case, because she's there, I'll make sure I know what I'm gonna say, you know?

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, a little bit.

• 2:38Steven Bartlett?

  My approach to that isn't because I'm lazy, it's because that's what works for me. And I actually think I'm better when I go, I go up there and I just give it, I, I speak from like passion, you know?

• 2:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's, that's interesting that.

• 2:52Steven Bartlett?

  What about you? Like, how do you, how do you prepare mentally for, you know, the Olympics?

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah. Well, that's years of prep in a way. But it, it's planted initially just from uh the, the fact that you might have a dream. So in my case, I was reasonably decent at running. I could run. I was rubbish at school. I was really poor. I was not academic at all. And uh when everyone else was saying, oh, P E, do we have to go outside? It's raining. I'd be the one changed plimsolls on, shorts on, you know, T-shirt on, whatever we were wearing. And I'd be doing the hockey, uh the high jump, the cross country. I wasn't good at all of those things. So, um.

• 3:39Steven Bartlett?

  Why? Why were you out there doing that?

• 3:41Speaker 01

  I enjoyed it.

• 3:42Steven Bartlett?

  And you thought you were good at it?

• 3:43Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:44Steven Bartlett?

  You didn't think you were good at it? Okay.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  No, I, I was having fun. And what did good look like at that stage? Because I wasn't always winning. Um. There were lots of people, you know, in, in school who was quicker than me, could jump higher than me. I couldn't hurdle. I was rubbish at things like that. Trampoline. I mean, I can't even do a somersault for goodness sake, but I would try because it was fun. It was good fun. So that Olympic dream was born out of in many ways, just an opportunity to have fun and do something that, yeah, I, I, I was enjoying, I suppose.

• 4:19Steven Bartlett?

  How does one prepare? Because I remember when I was younger, and this is something I've always tried to understand about myself, but the higher I got playing football, the more I didn't want to play. And I remember one day I got scouted to play for Devon and like Plymouth Argyle. And it was, it was the day that I almost gave up sports. And that's strange because I, I'm not someone that's intimidated by pressure these days. But when I was fourteen years old and I got scouted to play for this massive team, which is basically my county, and then had trials for England schoolboys. I didn't like football anymore.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  What was that about?

• 4:55Steven Bartlett?

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

• 5:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. So did you just stop enjoying it that day? Was there an element of pressure or expectation?

• 5:09Steven Bartlett?

  Do you know what I think it, it might have been for me? And you never really know, because you can only like, I'm only hypothesising in hindsight. I think that the minute it became not just about the fun, and it became this high pressure thing, and I was the striker and I had these big expectations on me. It just felt like work.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  It felt like work.

• 5:27Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  I was the opposite. So the minute somebody said to me, if you knuckle down, if you work hard and your work ethic surpasses anything else that your potential tells me you've got, you could be pretty good at this. And that was, I suppose, the direction and focus I needed. And I remember going into arenas packed with eighty thousand spectators, world championships, Olympic Games, European Championships, Commonwealth Games, and loving it. It was like I was walking into my living room.

• 6:01Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  Uh, the louder the crowd got, uh, the more pressure where I was expected to, to win or do well.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  I lapped that up. I loved it. I loved it.

• 6:13Steven Bartlett?

  I do now. I can't, I've never got my head around why, why I reacted in such a way. So on that point, how do you, as an athlete, show up every day? Because, you know, it's a similar sort of, I guess, dynamic or probably a similar concept to how, as a business leader or as an ambitious person, anybody with a goal, in order to achieve that goal, you, you, you can't just show up at the Olympic Games. You've got to show up every day before then and you've got to have the right mindset. And, you know, we all feel like shit some days.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:42Steven Bartlett?

  So how do you show up every day? Like, what's the, was there something that helped you?

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Two things. The first is having a crystal clear goal. And you said it there, really. Having a defined reason, a purpose, uh, that you and that I was driven towards and wanting to make a difference is actually the catalyst that makes the whole difference. Uh, as an athlete, uh, a lot of us aspire to be the best in the world. That's finite. There's a ranking system. You can rank yourself against what other athletes in your distance are doing. So it allows you to measure yourself against that, that defined ranking, world ranking. In business, without a goal, what are you striving for?

• 7:29Speaker 01

  So there's no difference, whether it's, uh, to, uh, achieve a sustainable business model, whether it is to inspire a generation of young people to fulfill their own potential. The goal has to be really clear. And the second thing that I think drives me and drives the business forward is, uh, actually, the value, adding value, um, to myself as an individual every single day. Because what we can lose and get wrapped up in is the bottom line, the business, the next event, the next presentation, the next meeting. But actually, at the heart of that is people and is a person.

• 8:10Speaker 01

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

• 8:31Steven Bartlett?

  So a fairly famous entrepreneur once said to me, he gave me some advice and I wanted to get your take on this because you you almost alluded to it then. He said to me, he said, Steve, make sure along the journey, you really enjoy it because it'll be over before you know it. And I remember him saying that because I think at the time I was almost living in a constant state of like preparation. You know, preparing for something all the time and I'd been running a business for four years. I'd gone through all the start phase, did the business that I run now. And when he said that, I realised that we hadn't really enjoyed it because you're always thinking about, as you said, then the next event. Do you regret or how, what's your thoughts when I, when I said that about enjoying every single day?

• 9:12Steven Bartlett?

  Because, you know, you do all this preparation for years before to be at this Olympic Games and then it's over like this. How do you like be in the moment and enjoy it?

• 9:21Speaker 01

  It's incredibly hard. The nature of a performer, somebody who is achieving or trying to achieve excellence. And a culture of high performance means that you are constantly critical about how you are doing and what you are not doing. And it is difficult to then celebrate where you've had success. So for example, on winning medals at championships, the first thing that athlete and coach often does is look at where you went wrong. Where you lost that tenth of a second or why you didn't win gold, you you ended up winning silver.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Because the nature of trying to strive and be the best means you are looking for those marginal gains. And that's where the attention goes. So in many ways, I've had to teach myself to reflect and to stop. And to look at actually, how have you done? And and how is it going? And I've only really been able to do that as the business has reached a place where we are more stable. We haven't achieved a state of stability that we would like to. But it's inbuilt in our culture, in recognising and celebrating what we are doing.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  And and one of the headlines that we are striving towards as a business is to celebrate our successes.

• 10:48Steven Bartlett?

  And you, when you look back on the high performance elements of your career, do you, do you have regrets about not, not enjoying it more? In the moment or being more in the moment?

• 11:00Speaker 01

  That's a really, really deep question.

• 11:02Steven Bartlett?

  They're all like this on this podcast.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  My head goes straight away to um things that I haven't been able to control.

• 11:13Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Um, I think um my way of dealing with things is I am pretty much a pragmatist.

• 11:21Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  I will give you the best that I have. In fact, I won't give you the best, I'll give you all. Cause the best isn't really all you can give me, is it? If I say to you, give me how many press ups you think you can do, you'll say probably. Yeah, I'll get to four and I'll say, I bet you can get to five. And we'll have this debate. And I'll say, okay, let's do four. Let's wait a minute, do four more, wait another minute, do another four. So I want all you can give me, not just your best. So um I know that on any occasion I've given all I can, hundred percent. Um, so my regrets have come from where I've sort of

• 12:05Speaker 01

  lost control of the situation. And and there, what I'm talking about is a really difficult period in my sporting career. Where um uh right at the peak of my performance, uh I wasn't able to achieve what I was able to because I was pulled out of a race and um.

• 12:23Steven Bartlett?

  For a doping allegation, yeah. Yeah, you can talk about that story because I think it's super important because these are the um the uncontrollable um moments of like bullshit or suffering that one could never plan for. One one had no control over that I think show up in all of our lives at some point. And the the like, as the saying goes, we can do very little about the it showing up. But the only part we have control over is how we handle it. And that's like synonymous in everyone's life. I was I was actually looking at this um scatter graph at three AM last night. And it was about suffering and the nature of suffering and how it's how it's distributed. And let's say there's a civilization of a hundred people and there's a hundred moments of suffering.

• 13:07Steven Bartlett?

  They continually put them on. This graph, right, randomly using this computer. And it shows that virtually everyone has a chance of something really unfortunate happening just by random in their life, if there's a hundred points of suffering. In fact, suffering when it's randomized also means that some people get four points of suffering, some get none. And so it made me think, I was looking at this graph of a hundred pieces of suffering and a hundred people and it randomized onto this graph. And there's only like three people out of a hundred that get through life with no major events of suffering. You could, one could arrive at the fact that ninety seven percent of us are going to go through a moment like that, which is out of our control, which we just have to fucking deal with, right? And so how did you deal with that? And can you tell that story like the?

• 13:50Speaker 01

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

• 14:06Speaker 01

  In nineteen ninety four, I was at the Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada. I was there to defend my Commonwealth Games title. I'd won gold four years before. And I was in the best shape of my life. The morning of the race arrived, beautiful morning, the kind of morning every athlete prays for. It was still, so no win, great for breaking records, the sun was shining. And I woke up on that morning, left, left the Commonwealth Games village to do what I would do on any typical race day and started a warm up, run a couple of miles, do some drills

• 14:51Speaker 01

  and some stretching and then some run throughs where I'm testing my legs and making sure that the energy is there, the pace and the rhythm is there. Oh, I was so excited to get started. And on my way back into the the village, I was stopped by a team official, Susan Deves. I'd known Susan since I was fifteen years old, through coming through international competition. She'd been a team official for a long, long time, somebody I knew well and I trusted. And Susan said to me, Di, I need to have a word with you. Have you got a couple of minutes? And my natural response was, actually, I don't. Um, I'm preparing for my race. I've got a couple of hours.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  And I need to go back to my room, shower, eat and start to to mentally focus and prepare. And Susan said to me, I actually do need to have a word with you. Can you come into my room? And typical athlete mode, I'm on this tunnel vision now, got to prepare, I've got a title to defend. And it wasn't until she forcibly encouraged me into her room. That um, I realised, okay, I'll give her the minutes that she needs and then I'm off. And then she did something really bizarre, which on reflection now was so beautiful, actually. She took hold of my hands and she looked directly into my eyes and she said, Diane.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  A drug test you gave nine weeks ago has tested positive. I'm stood in this room, uh, in a village and she said. I said actually to her, you've made a mistake. I need to get back to my room and prepare for my race. And it wasn't until Susan said, no, Diane, I have to pull you out. That I realised it wasn't a mistake. She was talking to me and this was real. To be fair, I don't remember too much of what happened after that. I do remember waking up on the floor.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  With Sue, this team official, looking over me, smacking my face, saying, breathe Diane, breathe, you must breathe. And I looked up at her thinking, what's she talking about? Why is she telling me to breathe? Um, the room then became packed with doctors and nurses. They were so concerned about my health. Apparently I had passed out. I was unconscious for some minutes. And very quickly I was sedated with Valium.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  I was put on a plane with a nurse and arrived in Heathrow. And that was the day my life changed forever.

• 17:35Steven Bartlett?

  And what what happened from then, you land back in Heathrow and your your head's full of thoughts and, you know. Imagine a fucking immense range of emotions.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  On the journey back from Canada to uh London, I couldn't speak. I wanted to speak, I wanted to shout out loud and say, what the heck is going on? And I just couldn't, I just could not articulate any words. So I started to write. How scared I was, how desperate I was, I was totally out of control. And when the plane landed, everyone else was allowed to leave the plane and myself and the nurse were asked to stay on. And a security guard came on and he said, look, love, there's press everywhere on the tarmac. And um it's not going to be easy for you.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Uh apparently the story had broken, I was not aware of this, but on the flight home, the story had broken in the national press. And he said to me, do you want a blanket to cover your face? And I am so relieved that despite being sedated, I had the strength to to turn to this official and say. No, I don't want to cover my face, I've done nothing wrong. And these plans were being hatched, how are we going to get her off the plane to protect her, to take care of her her health and her security? And they decided to take me off at the back of the plane where food is normally transported up on a little conveyor belt or a lift type thing. So myself and the nurse were ushered off at the back of the plane.

• 19:15Speaker 01

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

• 19:46Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm, Christ, typical man thinking that.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  How ridiculously beautiful at the same time.

• 19:53Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  Because that just normalized the trauma I was going through. And what that said to me was. We don't know what's going on, but I love you and we're gonna get through this. He didn't say that, but just seeing him and that action. Gave me some strength and literally overnight, we had to become experts. Scientific experts, legal experts in trying to understand what happened to that sample. And we were able to bring on the best experts from all over the world, actually. America and uh London, the best barristers.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  And what happened to my sample after doing a race in Portugal nine weeks uh prior to being told I had. Apparently cheated was the sample was left on a windowsill at the peak of the summer. Uh in July, uh and it had given rise to bacteria. The temperatures at the time were seventy two degrees. It was on the windowsill for forty eight hours. And that's all we had to go with, that the sample that I gave was no longer the same sample that was now being tested in the laboratory. But at that time, there was no evidence to back up or to prove that a degraded sample.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Would give rise to a false positive result. So we went to the hearing in December, having been sent home in August. And told, we we lost the hearing, we lost based on uh there was no evidence to to back up that theory. You go away, you prove that a degraded sample can give rise to a false positive and then we'll we'll talk again. Of course, we appealed. So we had a a number of months to go out and prove that theory. When you are innocent and truth is on your side, you will do anything to get to the truth. And that's exactly what we did.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  So with our experts, we took two random samples, um, an international tennis player and an international marathon runner. And we were able to replicate knowing what happened to my sample when it left me and ended up in the laboratory. Where it travelled, how it travelled, how long it was left on the windowsill for, the temperature at that time, we replicated everything. And allowed those two random samples to degrade, to become contaminated with bacteria. And guess what happened? Both those samples tested positive for testosterone. We went back into court and we won on appeal.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Um, but in many ways, that's where the journey just started. It wasn't a victory, it wasn't one of those punch your fist in the air moments at all. By then, I'd lost my livelihood, my reputation, my confidence. Everything, every mile I had run, every weight I had pushed, every squat I did. I was told, was a lie, didn't happen, you cheated.

• 23:06Steven Bartlett?

  Uh huh.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  It was a hollow victory and sport for me was no longer a place where I felt at home.

• 23:14Steven Bartlett?

  And did you, did you stay within sport much longer than that after that moment?

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Ironically, as much as I hated sport. And what it had done to me, I'd been a kind advocate at that stage for almost eighteen years and this is how it treated me. The way I got through it was by running, I ran myself into the ground. Um, to my detriment, I became poorly just running, running and pushing. Uh, and what my coach, who, who was also my husband at the time, realised was the only way. Besides the evidence and being exonerated and cleared, the only way I would restore at least some of my reputation. Was to get back on track. And do what I do best and start winning again.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  And I had four years from being sent home to try and regain the gold medal that I I should have won. Um. In fact, I did come back. I won a bronze medal behind the Olympic champion Maria Mottola. But that bronze medal, Stephen, was worth ten times more than the gold medal I had won. And the Commonwealth Games record I had broken uh back in nineteen ninety. And although it was hard fought and won that bronze medal, it was more than that. It was, in effect, two fingers up to the authorities to say, you know, fuck you.

• 24:43Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  You got it wrong.

• 24:45Steven Bartlett?

  And when you reflect and uh over that whole journey, which is just this tremendous injustice. How did you come out the other side, not being full of resentment for that process, those people that were involved? You know, the the the lady that called you into the room to break the news to you. How do you emerge from that without resentment? Or do you? Because, you know, when I asked you the que- when you started talking about the subject, I could tell that you didn't want to talk about it.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 25:12Steven Bartlett?

  Because you didn't want to go, you didn't want to open that that box again. And I was wondering why you didn't want to talk about it. And that for me maybe says that there's the the analysis that I was playing out in my head is that even though. This isn't like a total, like just me guessing, even though everyone knows that it was an injustice. There's not a person on planet Earth that doesn't, right? In my mind, anyway, right? It's obvious, right? But even having to say, tell the story feels somewhat like shameful in some respect. And and that was that was one element of it. But then uh the other sort of hypothesis I had was that it unlocks a bunch of negative emotions that you don't really want to unlock all the time.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  It makes me feel sad.

• 25:50Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 25:51Speaker 01

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

• 26:09Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  But that element right there, I can't control because it's an emotion that takes me to a place that you're absolutely right. There's no doubt about it that.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  I was robbed of a retirement that should be a positive reflection on being a loyal servant to sport. And I think resentment, regret, no. But we were never, ever given the justice we deserved. We never received a full apology. We never received compensation. And my husband and I, who was my coach at the time, and also guilty by association, we never, ever fully returned to a reputation of winners.

• 27:04Steven Bartlett?

  Uh huh.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  And that is what makes me feel sad. And talking about it also reminds me that the hope is dying forever, receiving the compensation that we deserved. And hope is the last thing you ever want to lose.

• 27:24Steven Bartlett?

  Uh huh. Have you forgiven the situation?

• 27:28Speaker 01

  No.

• 27:28Steven Bartlett?

  Have you forgiven the people involved in the situation?

• 27:31Speaker 01

  No. And I never will.

• 27:34Steven Bartlett?

  Really?

• 27:35Speaker 01

  Never.

• 27:36Steven Bartlett?

  Does it not, does it feel like you're holding on to like a, a very heavy load that you don't, a load that you don't want to carry? Like, cause I remember that someone said to me one day, they said, you know, when you, when you forgive a situation, it's like letting a prisoner go, but then realising in some respects that you were the prisoner the whole time. And when they said that to me, I reflected on the little grudges that I have, my ex-girlfriend, all the, you know, all these little things. And I just thought, you know what? None of, none of this is, at this stage in my life, serving me positively anymore, because it's making me live with certain moments feelings of, you know, negativity. So I've always, and again, I'm just, I'm trying to understand because I'm, there's, there's nothing that's, there's a couple of things that have happened to me. I remember one particular day, driving to work and someone hacked our emails. I think it was an ex-employee,

• 28:20Steven Bartlett?

  emailed all of our clients as I'm driving to work, really abusive stuff from my business partner's email, pretending to be them. So I get to work that day, and there's 70 people in the office, and they've all lost their clients. And the clients are calling me, telling me I'm a coward, and that it was my business partner, and all these horrible things. And that felt like a moment of injustice, because we'd done nothing wrong. I just went to sleep. And 20 of my clients had now insulting me, telling me that I'm this and that and the other. And um. I I think it's different to your situation. It doesn't even compare, if I'm completely honest, it doesn't compare. But at some point, I've realised that I was gonna lose again. I was gonna take a second L, a voluntary L, if I didn't let that go.

• 29:04Steven Bartlett?

  And that's the way I looked at it. I was like, I've taken the first involuntary L, right? But the second L is my choice. Like, the second loss is my choice. And I just, I just don't want that person to win again. I don't want that situation to win over me again. And I don't want it to win over me every day, for sure, you know?

• 29:18Speaker 01

  I am flying. I have found my life's purpose. I know that where I am right now is where I am supposed to be. I am giving my all in this second, in this moment, on this day. What happened to me almost twenty five years ago does not influence where I am headed. But emotionally, deep down, I refuse to quit and accept second best. I am worth so much more than that. But more importantly, so is my husband and my family who lived through this tragedy.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  So part of me feels, if I say, die, box it, it's done, move on, I am quitting.

• 30:07Steven Bartlett?

  I hear you.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  And I'm not gonna quit. If there is hope, I will continue to write letters to Sebco. I will continue to be brave enough to stick my head up and say to the International Athletic Federation, it was wrong that what happened to me and to us. And history is important. History is important. And until we put right what was done so terribly wrong, how can we have faith in the system moving forward? So I see it as a duty, almost, to continue to be the thorn in the side of the authorities.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  If I never get compensation, I will accept that. I will live with that. My husband won't. He'll have, you know, a different view on it. However, it's deeper than that because.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  This case, what happened to me, my husband and my family, never happened prior. I was the first British athlete to to test positive and to overthrow the the verdict. And it's important that we protect innocent athletes and there is no guarantee that this couldn't happen again.

• 31:21Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:23Steven Bartlett?

  It's an unbelievable story and it's incredible that you had the resolve not to um to fold and accept it. Because I think a lot of people would have probably tried just to run into their shell, the the the thought that you could overcome such a thing. I'm sure no, there's no force involved in that situation that wanted you to be able to prove that there's errors in the system. So that's it's it's a fascinating story and I I when you said it, I just thought, fuck me that that. In a in a in a way that I think a lot of people won't appreciate, it gives you a tremendous power to talk about overcoming injustice as well. And being a real, as you say, like a spokesman for not just that particular situation, but more broadly. Because we know that injustice and suffering is going to fall, as I said, randomly on all of us at some point.

• 32:07Steven Bartlett?

  And it's really like the, as I said, the reaction piece is the bit that I think is within our control.

• 32:13Steven Bartlett?

  But listen, changing subject, the podcast sponsor, which is Boost by Facebook. They are a dedicated one stop shop for entrepreneurs, for CEOs, for small businesses, job seekers and anybody with ambition. That's looking to thrive in this digital economy. They launched with the aim of creating a place where all of us can understand this new world of digital and social. It can be incredibly intimidating. My mum, I was talking to her about Boost with Facebook the other day. She doesn't know how to use a phone. She doesn't know how to type and she's trying to run a business in two thousand and twenty and compete against people that do. Boost is a place for people like her, where she can learn more about the digital economy, about features and skills and training and all of the things that matter.

• 32:55Steven Bartlett?

  The things that might level the playing field for her as someone that doesn't know about this new world that we live in. You can learn more about this at facebook dot com slash boost with Facebook UK. Um. And if you do check it out, drop me a message and let me know how you find it. I always pop on there every now and then to to to try and make sure I'm staying ahead of the curve. But yeah, do let me know how you find it. A question I get asked all the time, all the time, which I think is a fundamental misconception. But I want to ask you the question and just see how you react.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Um, I'm thinking and it's a very difficult question to answer because. I don't wake up in the morning and say, I'm gonna be motivated today. I'm gonna motivate the team. I'm motivated because I wanna be here. I love what I do. I wanna challenge myself more to be better than I am. It's almost innate. I can hear it by what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing and the individuals I'm around. But motivation for me is about um who I am and what I want to achieve. And it comes back to what's your purpose? Why are you here? What's your why?

• 34:08Speaker 01

  And it's about goals. Without a goal, where are you headed? So my, I stay motivated by challenging myself, by adding value to myself daily. By um, you know, asking people, how am I doing? What's my experience been like with you recently? Uh, so I'm looking to to fill up my own reservoir so I can be better every day.

• 34:35Steven Bartlett?

  And and do you ever have days where you're not motivated?

• 34:40Speaker 01

  I have days where I'm tired and I have days where I think. Flipping heck, why has, why is it so difficult? Why can't that just be done? We've spoken about that or that's happened. But um, I don't have days where I think, I can't be bothered. Or I can't be bothered to get out of bed today. I wanna get out of bed. Wow, have you looked outside lately? It's awesome out there.

• 35:09Steven Bartlett?

  It's raining.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  It's raining. Yeah, I've got a couple of umbrellas, but um. That I suppose for me, much to the annoyance of people I am around. Um, I come from a a family of people who have worked hard to achieve.

• 35:30Steven Bartlett?

  Uh huh.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  You know, my mum and dad left everything behind in Jamaica, like most immigrants, to make a better life for themselves here in England. And they landed in flipping Sunny Moss Side, you know.

• 35:44Steven Bartlett?

  It's crazy.

• 35:44Speaker 01

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

• 36:15Steven Bartlett?

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

• 36:59Speaker 01

  I think disadvantage comes in many different guises. And I I do not dispute for a second that there is subconscious or institutionalized racism that exists in business, in.

• 37:17Steven Bartlett?

  In all of us, right?

• 37:17Speaker 01

  In all of us, absolutely. And that will have a direct knock on effect on the opportunities that are available for men, for women, for disadvantaged young people, and.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  Part of me feels and agrees with the fact that we should have positive discrimination if over the amount of time that we have tried and failed to encourage more women uh into boardrooms, into strategic positions. Part of me agrees with that, but um.

• 37:54Steven Bartlett?

  I don't. It's weird. It's always made me feel really uncomfortable. I've never, uh do you know, I did a Facebook post maybe seven years ago. Bear in mind, seven years ago, I was broke, right? So I didn't do it from my fucking crystal, you know, diamond tower in the sky, right? I did this Facebook post saying, when I heard about this grant for young um minorities, I thought, well, that's racist.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:15Steven Bartlett?

  And I thought that we're not trying to make a, that's the racism we're trying to fight, like level the playing field.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  How do we level the playing field? So I.

• 38:23Steven Bartlett?

  I guess it's um equality of opportunity.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  Correct. And that's where the disadvantage sits. So I don't think any of us, whether, whichever um marginalized group you sit in, want a hand out. What we want is a hand up. And in order to get that hand up, um if society and the stereotypes and that uh um institutionalized racism exists, you're never really going to get a hand up, not through will of trying, just through circumstance. So if one of the ways to do that, provided you can do the job, you've got the skills, your values align and the behaviours are uh are there to be able to do the job,

• 39:11Speaker 01

  then I think a hand up is essential. It's essential because in my line of work, uh we work within the top twenty percent areas of deprivation, working with uh young people who are desperate for an opportunity to be seen and to be heard, to become the best that they can be. And we all know that Manchester is a great place to live. It's vibrant, it's thriving. And in fact, I think it's ranked as one of the best places to live. But there are thirty four wards in Manchester, twenty nine of them are the most deprived in the UK. We are ranked fifth worst in terms of income deprivation.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  So as a young person growing up in this city and you might be living in a chaotic lifestyle, let's say. Where is the opportunity for you going to come from? More importantly, where are you going to find the confidence to put yourself forward in the first place? Uh, to be able to access some of the opportunities. So, um.

• 40:16Steven Bartlett?

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

• 40:20Speaker 01

  To go hand in hand.

• 40:22Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  Because often what needs to happen is you need someone to say, I see a spark in you. If you work hard, if you listen, if you're on time when I come and knock on this door to take you to training. I can help you fulfill your potential. And those small steps then enable that individual to build and grow their confidence. But if you're at home and somebody's saying, clean your room, where's your tie? You are late today, you've got another detention. It will slowly suffocate the potential ambition that you have in here. So, um, you need someone to say, how are you doing?

• 41:00Speaker 01

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

• 41:37Steven Bartlett?

  And and this is a lot of the work you're doing with your foundation at at the moment, the the Diane Madoff Foundation, right?

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Yes, we we we set up for for one reason and one reason only. My husband and I established the the charity in two thousand and ten. This is our tenth anniversary year and we're very excited uh about that. Thank you. Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. So the, the mission, our drive in terms of the foundation is to open more doors, to create more opportunities, to say to young people, um, nothing in life is free. If your ambition is to be the next Usain Bolt, we will go on a journey with you on that.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  If you want to be the next Dame Kelly Holmes, let's make that happen. Let's help you map out a plan so that you can achieve that. If you want to be the next entrepreneur with the next new idea, let's be an enabler to, to fill in some of the gaps that, that, that need filling in order for that journey to happen. So our work is very much about, um, developing character and establishing the right positive behaviour habits that will enable young people to be absolutely world-class athletes, but world-class citizens that are able to give back to society, give back to the economy and, uh, to be amazing people.

• 43:08Steven Bartlett?

  You said you have kids come to you with these big ambitions, right? This might not be the easiest question to answer. So if, if someone comes to you, and this has happened to me, it happens to me quite often, and they say, I want to be Elon Musk. I want to do, you know, this hugely just ambitious things, right? But you can see the gap between where they are and there. And this kind of goes against everything because, you know, the narrative typically, when you're trying to inspire people is letting them know that they can do anything and that they're completely capable. But you can see that their ambition is probably, and this is even hard for me to say as someone that just believes I could go to the moon, right?

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:49Steven Bartlett?

  It's probably not realistic, and I hate that word, realistic.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:53Steven Bartlett?

  But I've had people come to me, um, one particular guy I can think of that messages me a lot on Facebook, and he doesn't have the self-awareness or, or any experience whatsoever. And he's telling me he's trying to. Raise fifty million for a backpack that just has a um high visibility strip on the back of it. He he's so, he really is unself aware. He he's never been an entrepreneur before, but he messages me religiously on Facebook saying. I've got this high vis backpack with a high vis strip on it. I'm trying to raise fifty million and he sends me this picture of a drawing he's done. In that situation where you look at someone's ambition and you think.

• 44:30Steven Bartlett?

  How do I give, because the thing is that that person has been conditioned by people like me.

• 44:38Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, to not give up. So I I remember the day I messaged him and went, Brett, listen, bro, listen. And he goes, Steve, you didn't give up and I'm not going to.

• 44:48Steven Bartlett?

  So what do you do? What do you do?

• 44:51Speaker 01

  Um, I think this is a conversation that I'm actually having at the moment with my team. In terms of managing expectations for some of our young people. But in many ways, it is not the goal that is important. It's not the goal, it's the person he is becoming in pursuit of that goal. So it's right that you, myself and others who get approached all the time. Um, how do I become, you know, the next Usain Bolt, to encourage that? And it is a process and it is a journey. This trust uh that inevitably builds because of the communication that's happening is really important.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  But it's not on your terms. If we can't fund something or. Uh, if somebody isn't uh able to get into a competition because they're not at that level. That doesn't matter. We have to be honest with that and say, you're not quite ready yet, or I can't afford to fund that, but. Uh, you know, keep seeking, keep pushing. Um, so being truthful, acting with integrity and being honest. Is really important, but the goal is important to have because that is what is allowing individuals to get out of bed. In the morning. It might be their one thing, that purpose, uh despite everything else that is going on.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  But um it's the person that the individuals are becoming that is more important than anything else. I never won a gold medal at the Olympic Games, but my eleven year old self. Wanted to.

• 46:30Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  It was what kept me going um and on that journey, I'm now sitting in front of you, having this conversation.

• 46:38Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, I and I can, you know, I've I never was able to articulate it in such a way, but that's. I think there's tru- I completely agree. There's tremendous truth in that, that um the. Going on that journey, even like when I think about my first business, Warpark, which I started from Moss Side, by the way.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:54Steven Bartlett?

  Failed, right? Really badly um and uh. I ended up leaving after about three years and they tried to carry on without me, whatever, but um. I learnt so much from it about social media in particular, and it got me really interested in social media. I actually started building these social media pages. That this company owns now, when I was there. The week before I left, I actually started Social Chain. We were sat in a a small room across the street from where we are now, maybe like two hundred meters away. And I said to a couple of my, this was maybe seven, eight years ago, social is only five years old, said to a couple of my friends, let's think of a name for this thing with these social media pages and these these posts we do on them. And we came up with the name Social Chain um and then for the next two years, we never said the word again. We never said the name again, never touched it again.

• 47:36Steven Bartlett?

  So two years passes and I say, do you know what? Let's um, let's let's give that business a go and here we are. And this is that business and it would never have happened had I not failed because. And that's what I always reflect on when sometimes these entrepreneurs come to me and it's so clear to me that the idea is so fundamentally flawed.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 47:54Steven Bartlett?

  I remember a guy told telling me that Warpark was flawed, but I'm really fucking glad I didn't stop.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:59Steven Bartlett?

  Even though it ended in failure.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:01Steven Bartlett?

  Because it it it's a hundred percent what took me. This is basically that business.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:06Steven Bartlett?

  Right? It's just a got a different face on it and a different name.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:09Steven Bartlett?

  Um, so.

• 48:11Speaker 01

  It's a tough.

• 48:12Steven Bartlett?

  It's a tough one.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  It's very tough.

• 48:14Steven Bartlett?

  Because you don't want to waste their life and time and.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:16Steven Bartlett?

  You want to save them from.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  I agree and you're conscious of that relationship that you've built. They're looking to you to almost make that happen.

• 48:26Steven Bartlett?

  I can't lie either. I can't say to them, I love the backpack. I say I hate it, bad idea. And I say that because I say it in a constructive way and I try and explain to them. Ninety nine percent of the time, no one's going to understand because you you have to be deluded sometimes to win.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:40Steven Bartlett?

  And you have to be deluded, you have to believe your own bullshit to a healthy extent to get past all the cynics, the critics, the barriers, the the the stats for, you know, the stats that say you're probably going to fail. So you have to have this healthy level of delusion and bullshit bullshit believing or whatever, but they very rarely listen. It usually comes like two years after they'll message me, oh, by the way, you, the high vis backpack, yeah, not the gray, you know.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:03Steven Bartlett?

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

• 49:12Speaker 01

  I'm acutely aware that I am underperforming right now.

• 49:17Steven Bartlett?

  In what respect?

• 49:18Speaker 01

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

• 49:27Steven Bartlett?

  Have you ever felt otherwise?

• 49:31Speaker 01

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

• 50:12Speaker 01

  Uh, I think some of that work is is already happening, but, uh, what I'm saying is that I think boards now uh, is is what is driving me to get on boards, to be able to shape the agenda, but with a special or specific agenda in mind. Uh, which is about changing the landscape of of how we interact with the people who are coming from inner cities. Um, I also, uh, want to be able to.

• 50:39Speaker 01

  I suppose I was gonna say from a family point of view, um, just be there for my family. I I always think that actually, uh, because I'm so committed to the success of of the business, uh, that balance is is is often difficult, but um, so for me, it's it's about deliberately being able to to get the balance right from being, you know, a a good family, uh, person as well as being a decent businesswoman.

• 51:08Steven Bartlett?

  Have you got the balance right?

• 51:10Speaker 01

  I'm getting there. I'm getting there. So we've got three girls and um, um, yeah, I I'm getting there. I'm getting there.

• 51:21Steven Bartlett?

  Do you believe you'll ever get there with the balance?

• 51:24Speaker 01

  That's a good point.

• 51:27Steven Bartlett?

  Do you honestly believe you'll ever get there?

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Probably not, because I think at some point I'll stop being a mom and I'll start being a manager because the twelve and thirteen year old at the moment need a mom. And they want me home in the evening, you know, being there. And I wanna be there too. But at some point, they're gonna say, oh, you know, what are you doing here? We we don't want you around kind of thing. So I suspect that that it's it's probably where it should be and that and how it should be right now. And yeah, we we are getting there, but whether we'll get there in terms of what that total balance looks like, probably not.

• 52:09Steven Bartlett?

  And um, if you if you were to sort of, uh, this is a slightly obscure question. And I always ask this question on this podcast. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I'd say about thirty five percent of the time I do. Um, are you scared of dying?

• 52:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 52:25Steven Bartlett?

  Why?

• 52:27Speaker 01

  I'm more concerned with living. Right now I'm alive and I wanna give.

• 52:35Speaker 01

  Every ounce of what I have to give whilst I'm alive. Um, I am going to die and that's going to happen, but it's that element of control. And that's the part that I can't, I'm not afraid of of dying. I don't want to be um in terrible pain when and uh that time comes. But I'm more concerned with living and I'm happy to be alive. There's so much more to achieve. Um, and you know, we talked about what does the next uh few years look like for me? Um, and that underperformance, the thing that is at the forefront of my mind is

• 53:18Speaker 01

  sustainability for the business. We're good at what we do in the sense of supporting young people to fulfill their potential. But my job as a C E O is all encompassing and I take that responsibility really seriously. And that's my priority right now. And I'm really driven to be able to uh connect with more people, network with uh more individuals that will enable me to achieve my goal, which in effect will positively affect the lives of of of young people.

• 53:51Steven Bartlett?

  If someone's listening to this now and they wanna, they want to get sort of get involved in your journey and get involved in your foundation and your businesses, how can they? What's the the best way for someone to do that? I know I'm getting involved to some to some degree. I'd love to get involved even more.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 54:07Steven Bartlett?

  But how could, how could someone get involved and help?

• 54:09Speaker 01

  Yes, well, obviously get in touch uh with me, my team via the the website. Um, we are launching our ambassador programme in our tenth year uh anniversary. We are seeking ten ambassadors from various elements uh to raise ten thousand pounds each uh for us to uh ultimately raise a hundred thousand pounds to change the lives of those young people. So we are looking for group ambassadors, so people who want to get together and do fundraising initiatives, sports ambassadors, brand ambassadors and community ambassadors. And we're looking for ten ambassadors.

• 54:50Speaker 01

  In our tenth anniversary year to raise ten thousand pounds to help us change lives. Come on board. You will have so much fun with us. We understand that we're in the business of entertainment. Sport uh as a catalyst for change uh forces an emotion. Whether your team wins or loses, or you get a P B, or something amazing happens. You feel something and as an organisation, we understand that clearly. So our team want to be engaged and have fun and be entertained. So anybody on our team will be having so much fun. But also making a huge impact to the lives of young people across this city.

• 55:36Steven Bartlett?

  I'll be an ambassador.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:39Steven Bartlett?

  There you go.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 55:40Steven Bartlett?

  Ten grand.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  We like that.

• 55:41Steven Bartlett?

  Expensive sentence. No, but I know I know the call as well and I know the the work you do and I know the the where it comes from. So um I'd love to be, I'd I'd think that'd be awesome. And um I hope anybody listening to this might be keen to join me on that. And I know a couple of people who I think um who could also be great ambassadors. So yeah, uh for sure.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 56:02Steven Bartlett?

  No worries.

• 56:03Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 56:03Steven Bartlett?

  No worries. Um so last question then, a question I always ask on this podcast. Hypothetical dinner party, there's six seats, I'm in one of them, you're in the other. You get to invite four friends, people, they don't have to be friends, you can have never met them before, just four people. Um dead or alive, who who do you invite and why and what are the names that just pop spring to mind?

• 56:24Speaker 01

  Four people.

• 56:25Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 56:26Speaker 01

  Martin Luther King, do I have to say why?

• 56:29Steven Bartlett?

  I mean, not to me. Like not for Martin Luther King, but I mean for maybe for other people, maybe.

• 56:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it might not be for the reasons that are obvious. I would ask the most ridiculous question, you know. What motivated him, what kept him going? Because obviously his life was at risk every single day, but he kept going.

• 56:49Steven Bartlett?

  It's the exact same reason. I I I always give Martin Luther King as my answer because I he's someone that dawns on, he knew he was gonna die. There's this particular speech he does where he says to this audience of people that like a couple of days before he gets shot dead. He says to them, um, I've been to the mountaintop.

• 57:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:05Steven Bartlett?

  And I don't get there with you. But and he points to all the audience, he says, you get there though. And he goes, I don't get there with you. And he goes, but you don't need me now. And then after he burst into tears and his team like catch him. And he got shot dead a couple of days later. And it's the closest I've ever come to believing that. Maybe there is uh like a god or something because he knew he was gonna die and he was willing to. And when I think about greatness, I think anybody that's willing to sacrifice their life for such a for a cause. I'm like, would I be willing to do that, you know?

• 57:36Speaker 01

  It's a tough question. During that time, I I often ask myself this question, would I be on the streets marching? Would I have been on the streets, you know, putting my life at risk? Or would I be at home watching from afar thinking, you know, come on, you can do this? Can you imagine the choices people would have had to make? It's incredibly difficult.

• 58:00Steven Bartlett?

  Do you know what I say to myself? I do the exact same thing. I say, well, you know, would I have been out there? Would I have had the courage to do what he did?

• 58:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:06Steven Bartlett?

  The answer is almost certainly no. But I then reflect, I say to myself, Steve, you could do that now. You could do that now. You could be in service of of, you know, there's tremendous injustices in in the world. There's. Parts of the world where people are being stoned to death because they're homosexual or this. I was like, you could fight for causes now and you're not like.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  I agree with that.

• 58:26Steven Bartlett?

  In this, I'm not saying I'm not, but I could commit my full self in the same way he did now.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  I agree with that. And potentially, the reason why we could have marched then is because the same inequalities don't exist. So it didn't, potentially in my mind, I'm thinking maybe, you know. As you've just described, when something is

• 58:44Steven Bartlett?

  Climate.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  Absolutely important to you. Yeah.

• 58:47Steven Bartlett?

  Something I dwell on a lot, you know.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 58:49Steven Bartlett?

  And I also, I also, one of the, the things that makes me feel a slight peace with that is some of the, the Buddhist mentors and stuff that I've spoken to, talk to me about how, something you described where you can't pour out anything unless you're full, unless your reservoir's full. And I've always, I've always played with this idea of like making yourself wealthy and is that a good thing, a morally good thing or whatever, but um, all of my mentors have told me that, you know, when, once you've created abundance within yourself, you have abundance to give.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 59:17Steven Bartlett?

  And as an eighteen year old kid in Mossad, I used to say, I remember posting my Facebook and having this conversation with myself, that if I stopped Wool Park now, I could go and save at least one kid's life. And would that be a much greater achievement than growing a business for myself? The thing that I've definitely learnt to be true is because I focused on myself a little bit in that moment and got myself to this position. The, the, the abilities that I have now to achieve that same objective have been multiplied by thousands, right? And that's something that I've, I've always.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  The only thing that you can change or we can change is you. And ultimately, on accepting that and making a positive change, we tend to pay it forward because we remember people along the way who was with us on that experience. And um, we only need to touch one life because they will pay it forward. Um, if we are kind and, and generous. Um, I would also have The Rock.

• 1:00:18Steven Bartlett?

  Why?

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  You need to ask.

• 1:00:20Steven Bartlett?

  Dwayne, Dwayne, well, I got reminded of the king, I'm like.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  He's a brilliant actor, so I think he will be around the table.

• 1:00:28Steven Bartlett?

  You fancy him? You're married, Ryan, I wouldn't.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  Well, that's why I can say that because I am married, very happily married. Um, I would have, um, I'm torn between Kevin Hart and Will Smith. I think I'll go for.

• 1:00:46Steven Bartlett?

  Kevin or Will?

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  Will.

• 1:00:48Steven Bartlett?

  Nice choice.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  I'll go for Will. And I have one more. Do you know, I'd like to get into the mindset of Michael Johnson.

• 1:00:57Steven Bartlett?

  Michael Johnson.

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Michael Johnson, American four hundred metre sprinter, double world, you know, multi world record holder.

• 1:01:05Steven Bartlett?

  Presenter now.

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I'm not going to say Michael, uh, because that the table is.

• 1:01:11Steven Bartlett?

  No, you've said it now.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  Have I said it?

• 1:01:12Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, that's interesting. Why, why him of all other, out of all the athletes that you've, you know, and have worked with and have seen, why him?

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  His mindset, it's, it's more than sport with him. He taps into what we all need in life, which is an attitude of. I get how life works and I'm gonna play it in my favour. So I will be looking to him to steady us down.

• 1:01:41Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  Cause we're all a bit giddy. Um, around the table, but, um, that's bad. There's me and those, and, and you guys, it's, it's not good. It's not a good table. It's gonna be boring.

• 1:01:54Steven Bartlett?

  It's interesting, really interesting. I always find that like, um, the table almost reflects the person in some respects.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:01Steven Bartlett?

  Or at least the, the person's aspirations. It's the same with, I, I noticed one day I bought all this art for my house. I bought eight world leaders. And I unboxed all the portraits and someone said to me, they were like, seven of them are, are male and six of them are black. I thought, oh, fuck, yeah, shit. And, and it's because, as is the case for everybody, you, you have role models. That you can almost see yourself becoming. And so if you were to ask, you know, you know. I, I, I would assume that the majority of the, the inspiring role models for, for young women are also. Successful women in the same way that a lot of the people that are drawn to me are young black men.

• 1:02:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:40Steven Bartlett?

  Right?

• 1:02:41Speaker 01

  I've changed my mind. It's either Venus or Serena Williams.

• 1:02:44Steven Bartlett?

  Amazing, yeah.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  I'd go with them because again, they've moved away from sport and they've got successful businesses. Outside of where you would expect to see them and their journey and their inspiration is, is crazy, isn't it?

• 1:03:00Steven Bartlett?

  Staggering.

• 1:03:01Speaker 01

  So I've squeezed another on the table, so we need to.

• 1:03:04Steven Bartlett?

  Fine.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  Expand the.

• 1:03:06Steven Bartlett?

  I'll get rid of Will.

• 1:03:06Speaker 01

  The table settings, if that's okay.

• 1:03:08Steven Bartlett?

  Done. Listen, thank you so much for coming today. It's been a pleasure speaking to you and getting to know you a bit better. And I think that the work you do with the the foundation is tremendous, super inspiring to me, and I really mean that, and those aren't just words. And it kind of reminds me of my obligation to to give back when, you know, once I've, once I've run my course, no, sort of pun intended there. And you're a credit to the city. You gave me an award as well, well, your foundation.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  On behalf of the city.

• 1:03:33Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, on behalf of the city, gave me the, inducted me into the Manchester Hall of Fame, and that was a massive, massive honour for me. I would, I'd probably say the greatest honour I've had in my life because of, as I said to you, you know, what the city means to me. So I want to thank you for that as well, and thank you for your time today. It means, means a lot to me for you to be here.

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

• 1:03:53Steven Bartlett?

  Thank you, Darren. Thanks.