E30: Alan Barratt - From £27 to £72 million

This week I spoke with Alan Barratt, CEO and Founder of the worlds fastest growing sports performance and weight management brand, Grenade. Alan and his wife Juliet started Grenade in 2010 with just £27 in their bank account. After a few short years, 50... 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.

• 0:07Steven Bartlett?

  This week on the Diary of a CEO, I've got one of the UK's most incredible, incredible CEOs joining me. This conversation epitomises why I started this podcast. It has it all. A remarkable underdog success story, a brutally honest, lovable entrepreneur, heartbreaking sacrifices and life lessons that only someone in his position could share with me. There was laughter, there was tears, and I walked away feeling deeply inspired with a new perspective on what matters the most in life. This week, I welcome to the Diary of a CEO, Alan Barrett, the CEO and founder of Grenade, the world's fastest growing sports performance and weight management brand, but also one of the most exciting companies in the United Kingdom.

• 0:51Steven Bartlett?

  Alan and his wife Julia started the business with £27 in the bank account, and a few years later, the business was worth 72 million and counting. I'm obsessed with their products. And I'm not bullshitting you when I say this because he came on the podcast. I'm actually genuinely obsessed. I can't remember the last day I didn't have a Grenade bar or a protein shake in the office. And when he came to my office, he saw 10 bottles of protein shake on my desk. I promise you, he's not paying me to say this. Protein products always taste bland and powdery to me, and Grenade tastes like heaven, and it's nutritionally good for you. It's an actual miracle. My manager told me she listened to this podcast back five times, and that's a

• 1:34Steven Bartlett?

  record for guests I've had on this show. So I think that says something. And I couldn't be more excited for you to overhear the conversation I had with Alan. So without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody is listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

• 2:00Steven Bartlett?

  Alan.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 2:01Steven Bartlett?

  Thank you so much for coming today. I've probably overwhelmed during the last hour since we've been talking with my admiration for yourself and the product you've created. And I think it's worth me just starting with this. You're the CEO, founder of Grenade. And my, my life is pretty overwhelmed with Grenade. We also work together in sort of like a, with a marketing sort of partnership. But outside of that, if you go to my hotel room right now and you can't find 10 bottles of either drank or yet to be drank Grenade, then I would be blown away. If you can't find 10 bars of Grenade in my hotel room, specifically on my desk, there's more than 10, I know there is, so I'm just saying tend to be safe, then I would be absolutely blown away.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  Are you inviting me to your hotel room? Because we're on camera.

• 2:47Steven Bartlett?

  Not quite, no.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  Slightly creepy.

• 2:48Steven Bartlett?

  No, but you did just bring, you did just bring a bunch of Grenade bars and drinks with you, with you when you came here today. So I will be, they will be making it back to my hotel room. I shall not be sharing. But you've created a tremendous, a phenomenal business, a UK sort of born and bred business in what I consider to be a tremendously short amount of time, when I think about the other players in this space. And when I read your story, I think this is the first place I wanted to start. I read that you started with 27 quid in the bank, right?

• 3:15Speaker 01

  That's right. Well, actually, we started with 500, but it was quickly down to 27.

• 3:19Steven Bartlett?

  Well, there you go. And one of the questions I get asked all the time, right, is by entrepreneurs is can you start a business without loads of money? There's this preconception that you need like rich parents or millions of pounds. So can you tell me how Grenade began?

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. So we'd had, without going back to my childhood and boring everyone senseless, the business that we had in a safe week, because my wife is the co-founder, so my wife and I started Grenade. We had a distribution business, which I started in 1999, just out of my, out of my garage at home. And the idea of that was to import American-made sports nutrition products and distribute them throughout the UK. I won't bore you the whole journey of that, but met my wife in 2003. She then came into the business in 2005. By 2008, we'd got bored of that business and sold it and basically decided to follow the dream, which was to have our own brand, which was, which was Grenade. So.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's, we'd spent, we spent four years trademarking, so between two thousand six and two thousand ten, we spent four years, which took a lot of discipline and time and effort to be able to do, did everything ourselves. So to date now, we've accumulated over two hundred design marks, trademarks, pending patents. So we locked Grenade down globally as a brand, which I think is probably the best thing that we ever did. But yeah, we, we, we just had no money to, to operate with in terms of doing anything. So we didn't pay ourselves a salary for four years. We, we, we didn't take a day off for four years, so we couldn't afford to employ anyone. But we really, I think, learnt quite quickly in, you know, the, the, the power of doing

• 5:01Speaker 01

  something with very little money and, and, and being very cost conscious. So when it came to, say, doing a, a trade show, for instance, and a lot of our competitors, the big sports nutrition brands would have Formula One cars in there and they'd have giant tyre booths that took a week to build and you could pretty much live in and they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And we couldn't do any of that. So we got a friend of mine, we convinced him to lend us his tank, so we, um, he's, he's more eccentric than I am. We borrowed, we borrowed this tank and we drove this tank into this show. And we just stole the show. So, and that was our booth. So we just, we just drove it in, we put like some camera netting over it and we had some products. And then my wife and I just stood there and we got like a T-shirt each that we paid sort of six pounds each for or something. And just, just the two of us.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  I'm not really sure at what point what we thought we were doing when I look back, but it seemed like a good idea at the time and then probably wasn't. At, at that show, we, we had, there were a few Americans there, this was a British show, and one of these American guys took a picture of our tank and this product and he, he sent it to the buyer of, of, the weight loss buyer for GNC in the US. And this guy contacted us and he said, I've worked at GNC for twenty years. He said, I am, I see a hundred and twenty weight loss products a week and yours stood out. So at that point then, I think, we just thought, you know what, we're on to something here. So.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it it's it's certainly, I'm sure, would have been a lot easier if we did have rich parents. I've got far from rich parents. But, you know, it's if you've got the time and the willingness to do something, then yeah, you don't need absolute pots of cash. I think you just need the the willingness and the ability to go and do something and make a difference. That's such that's what we've done. And disrupt disrupting doesn't necessarily have to be expensive, it just needs to be disruptive.

• 6:38Steven Bartlett?

  And you you started that by saying you don't want to take us back to your childhood and bore us with that. But I I'm really intrigued about your childhood because I think with successful entrepreneurs, there's a bit of a reputation, I guess, that they they're all bad in school and they're all dropouts. And I've been known for saying things like, I think university is a scam and so on and my my educational background. But what was yours? What was your experience like in school and stuff like that?

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, so my family had had their own business, said they'd only ever worked for themselves. Since post Second World War, they had a heavy goods vehicle mechanics business, only just my basically my my dad and my uncle and my granddad. And they'd worked exceptionally hard, too hard, really, I think, and never made any money. I mean, my uncle, for example, you know, he never moved out of home, he never had a girlfriend, he, you know, he nowadays, I think he'd have been someone who was probably prescribed as having, you know, definitely some sort of social disorder. He probably never spoke to 20 people in his whole life. And he worked with my dad in in this business. And the expectation was I'd go into that business.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  And anyone that knows me, I'm not practical. I couldn't put together something from Ikea with the instructions and all the parts. I'm not mechanically minded, I I I physically just can't do it. And I've just got no interest in how things work. I just want them to work, I don't have the patience for it. So I was never going to go into that that heavy goods vehicle, you know, the the family business. But I I I think what I learned there was this tremendous work ethic that they had. But, you know, my my my own my granddad died at work and he was 84. He went blind and still went to work because he still didn't have anywhere else to go. My uncle had a stroke and went to work because it's what he'd always done. My dad had had one day off work in 30 years when he had mumps. So it's just this amazing work ethic.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  And I thought, you know, I'm I'm going to work hard, but I want to I want to have something to show for it. And it not about making money, but they just didn't really have anything to show for it, to be honest. So. I used to go to work with my dad when I was eleven and help out and I just hated it. I said I wasn't interested, but I was, from the age of fourteen onwards, I was really interested in in in weight training because I wasn't interested in any other sports. I wasn't interested in rugby, cricket, football, or any of the traditional stuff. So I was kind of interested in being healthy and doing something, but I didn't know what it would be because I, you know, again, my family weren't interested in those type of sports either. So from the age of fourteen, I went to a gym on work experience and in the late eighties,

• 9:16Speaker 01

  all the big movie stars were Jean-Claude Van Damme, Arnold Schwarzenegger. You know, it was it was a big deal to kind of watch Commando and Predator in the late eighties because it was an eighteen and we were like thirteen. So and I remember thinking, I want to look like that because I was really skinny. I was like, I was just under eleven stone at six feet tall. So everyone used to call me Big Al for a joke because I was so bloody skinny. Went went on work experience and and actually my dad and my family were really against it. Like you're wasting your life, um, you know, you'll, uh, it's a waste. Because academically, I'm fairly clever, but I just hated school. I just, I found it really boring. I couldn't get on with the teachers. And I was just, I was probably disruptive, not in the sense of, you know, swearing and throwing

• 9:58Speaker 01

  things around, but I've just always wanted to challenge convention. I remember once the the teacher, she'd, she wrote a word on the board and I remember the word was Mississippi and she spelt it wrong. So I remember saying, oh, you've you've spelt that wrong. And she said, no, I haven't. I said, oh, you have. It's M I double S I double S I double P I. And and what, I was six. You're joking. No, and she, I got into an argument with her. Anyway, she went and got, and she looked up a dictionary and was right. So and that happened probably quite a lot where the the teacher would mark something according to the answer. Very often the answer book was wrong, so I I I bunked off school a lot. And I pretended I was ill a lot, and because my mum was a bit of a soft touch and she knew I wasn't really ill. And I I I did kind of muddle through school and I did do quite well.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  But I started at A levels and I thought, you know what, I just can't stand this anymore. And I I dropped out after a year. I got into a big, big row with one of the teachers. I won't tell you what I said, but it got me into a lot of trouble. What did you say? I I started dating a girl when I was doing A levels, who was, again, quite disruptive in the school. And I think I was probably seen as someone who had got quite good potential academically. And I started hanging out um with with her. And um I I already discovered I liked going to the gym at this point, so. There were people there that were a good influence and there were people there that were a bad influence, but they were all ten years older than me. And I was all of a sudden surrounded by people I looked up to, who were a combination of sort of business people, just regular people and and just generally criminals.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  And I was I was going to the the gym and there was this big concerted effort, really, I think, from the schools and my my my parents to really stop me going into this environment because they just didn't think it was it was gonna be. Uh it was gonna be good for me and they just they just thought I was gonna be wasting my lives, my life. And I um. I'd been to a some sort of bodybuilding event, I think it was, on this this one evening. And I um I went and worked at this event and it made me late on Monday morning for, I think it was biology. And I I I I missed the class. And I um and I I I turned up and the the teacher collared me and she'd she'd been dying to have a go in here, I'd been going out with this girl who she didn't like. And she just said, um, oh, you know, where were you this morning? And the way she spoke to me, she was really quite rude, to be honest. And I said, oh, I'm really sorry. I won't say no.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  I said, I'm really sorry, miss. Um, I uh I I I worked last night and I got in at four o'clock this morning and, you know, I didn't get up in time. I was just about to come and see you. I apologize I missed your class. And she just started lecturing me and telling me off. And I've got a really, really short fuse for this sort of thing. I just don't like being told what to do. So I did just tell her to F off. And the um, and and she just, I can still see the look on her face, she was horrified. And she stood there mouth open. And actually, my form teacher saw and overheard. And she said, oh, you need to kind of apologise. I was like, nah. And I thought, you know what, I don't want to be here, I'm not enjoying it. I didn't really see myself getting anywhere. And I I was just, you know, with no respect to anyone else who goes to college, university or whatever, I just knew it wasn't for me.

• 12:56Speaker 01

  Um, I've always wanted to do something differently. And if, it's perhaps it's like, you know, not liking football and rugby and so on. If there's a million people or a thousand people or ten people going one way, I just always want to go the other way. I don't know if it's, you know, my wife thinks I've got Asperger's. Why does she think that? Oh, just because I'm I'm quite dyspraxic. I walk into things a lot. So if there's if there's a doorway, and it's even if it's ten feet wide, I guarantee I'll walk into the one of the door frames. I'm quite clumsy. I actually learned, I've I've I've met another friend of mine recently who's actually very heavily dyspraxic. And and and his takes the form as well, which mine does, where if I'm packing to go away, it takes me a long time to do it. I can't decide what I need to take, so I try and take everything.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  I have to be really disciplined. Like, I'll go away for four days and I'll take five pairs of shoes, six pairs of shoes or something. But it's like, when I think about it, you don't need to have, you know, more pairs of shoes than days you're going for. And just, I just, it comes back to your point you were saying about potentially decision fatigue you were talking about the other day, but struggling to make decisions and and and I get like a form of dyspraxia like that. Maybe it's just, I'm just pigheaded and awkward, I don't know. But I've just never really seen the point. If you want to make a difference doing something, do you make a difference by doing what everyone else is doing? Or can you make a difference doing by, you know, by doing something that no one else is doing perhaps? So I just decided I just, from that moment on, I I just didn't want to be um in in the education system any longer.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  And I went, I went straight, I took the bus from that sixth form straight to the gym I trained at. And I said, can can you give me a job? And he said, like, your mum and dad are going to kill us if we give you a job. I said, well, like, I've just, I've just walked out of college, so I need I need a job. And and they'd got no money either. So they employed me on less than minimum wage. So it was about one pound eighty an hour, I think. And you know, it was, this was mid nineties. So I know it's twenty years ago, but it wasn't much. It was about seventy pounds a week. It wasn't a lot. Then, and I took it and I loved it. And it's one of the best things I ever did. And I did that for four years, working in this gym.

• 14:55Steven Bartlett?

  So you, you, you talk there about hard work and how that sort of runs in your family, I guess, and how you were taught hard work as a sort of a principle or whatever, when you were very, very young. One of the, the things I hear often these days, and I'm just gonna try and be as, as honest as I can about this, is there's almost this movement that encouraging people to work hard is bad because it's negative for their like, mental health, they can get overworked and overstressed. But when I, when I listen to entrepreneurs that I respect, like Elon Musk, they all cite hard work as a clear, controllable advantage. And they all cite it as responsible for their success. So I guess, in your journey to building Grenade with your wife,

• 15:36Steven Bartlett?

  how much do you think, and how much generally do you think, hard work plays a, a role in success?

• 15:41Speaker 01

  I mean, I would say at its simplest form, and I'm not saying this is a, a good idea, because I think frankly, we probably, this is gonna sound a bit of a silly thing to say, but I think we probably worked too hard, in the sense, we probably should have taken a bit of a step back at some point. And maybe, when you're working in a brand, I think everyone should take time to step back and work on the brand. So we definitely went down a few rabbit warrens. And I think, with regard to hard work, but I'll tell you what did it in its very simplest form. Just by working more hours than anyone else was doing, certainly our competitors, you know, not having children, you know, working seven days a week.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  If we were awake, we were working on the brand. And actually, we, you know, we still are, because it's, it's very all consuming. So we never, when you've got your own business, you're never not thinking about it. Apart from when I'm flying, actually, that's why I like flying, because if I'm flying around, I'm hopefully not thinking about my brand, because I'm trying not to crash.

• 16:38Steven Bartlett?

  But just for context, Alan is a pilot and flies his plane. Anyway, carry on.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  And I have been in one plane crash, but not with me flying. Um, but I, I, I think because we'd never built a brand before, but we had this work ethic. I, I think maybe we used hard work as a substitute for, for, for lacking a lot of knowledge. So, you know, there's two of us, we've got no money, we, we know what we wanna do. And, and you know, within a year, we're trading in the US, and there's two of us, and we're working from home. When you think of it, really, it's just suicide. But I think approaching things fearlessly, because we were probably very naive, probably stood us in in good stead. And actually, I remember thinking at the time, you know, there's going to be no one that's working harder than we are, there's going to be no one that's got a better brand, there'll be no one that makes better products, we're going to do more sampling.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  You know, when we hire people, we're going to get the best people, we're going to have the best relationships with our suppliers, we'll have the best relationships with our retailers, we're going to build this amazing trust with our consumers, so. And I think, you know, hard work forms part of that, but I think collectively, I thought if we if we thought about it, we went and did it. Because someone said to me once, they'd rather, you said, well, you know, you're better off being a has been than a never was. And I always remembered that because I thought, at least if this all goes horribly wrong, I never want to look back and say, oh, I wish you'd worked harder, oh, I wish we'd done that, I wish we'd gone to that show, I wish we'd met that person.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  So actually, we always put just tremendous amounts of pressure on ourselves, and I think it's one of those probably issues I have today, whether it's um, yeah, as burgers or not, where if I think about something, until I've gone and done it, I I can't get it out of my mind. I don't know if that's just me, or that's probably quite common, but sometimes the strangest of things, nothing, we're not going to run around killing people or anything, like the thoughts in my head are saying right now, no, but I am, so. I I think hard work for us just meant, you know, getting up, putting the hours in, and I think that's what's been good actually about training for thirty years, it taught you a real, it taught me a real discipline of putting the weights away, consistency.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  I think consistency is so important, people never talk about consistency in business, but you know, it's one thing working hard, but how long do you work hard for? A day, a week, a month, a year, because what's what what does a year of hard work mean? You know, I saw my family work hard their whole life, so for me, I've I've worked hard my whole life, and I and I think nowadays, people just don't have the staying power, perhaps to do that, they get burnt out. And, you know, I've been through stages where I've probably felt pretty burnt out, you probably have as well. But that's where you really takes that discipline, that mental strength to to keep going and maybe, you know, reevaluate things you're working on, or perhaps take a bit of time to do something else.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  But I'm just one of those people that I can't do something half-cocked, I'm either all in or I'm all out, I'm just one of those extreme people. Someone said to me once, he said, Al, you see everything as a as as black and white, and there are shades of grey, and I just thought, I just, I can't operate in the grey, despite wearing all grey, apparently.

• 19:37Steven Bartlett?

  Going back to Grenade. I have my own answer to this question, but it's not for me to answer. I think I think I want to hear it from you. This the business has grown unbelievably. I think it's now the fourth most popular, correct me, if chocolate bar in the UK.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  That's correct. Yeah, I should I should caveat by saying in in the groceries and in single sales, but yeah, it's yeah, it's.

• 19:57Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  The technical I R I definition.

• 19:59Steven Bartlett?

  And you have multiples and multiples and multiples less support and resource in decades to your name than all of the competitors in that space. So for that to be the case, there must be something unique about the product, about the brand. From your perspective, what is that?

• 20:19Speaker 01

  I think, I mean, when it comes to a brand, I mean, I'm, you know, probably fairly eccentric person, as you probably gather by listening to this podcast, but brands are always extensions of of their founders, you know, good and bad. And I think I think because I care about the brand so much and because my wife cares about the brand and we built this thing that we care about. I think, hopefully, everyone we come into contact with, whether it's suppliers or retailers or consumers. I hope everyone we come into contact with leaves with a little bit of that. So I think, and actually, if we don't care, why should anyone else? So I think we've built this amazing brand that people really care about. And if people don't care about it, they don't like it, that's just as good.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Because for someone not to like something we're doing, they'll still go and tell people, but at least they've got an opinion about it. So I think with Grenade, hopefully, it stands for a lot of things that both are hopefully fairly obvious, and that's things like taste, where people can immediately see taste or or or benefits of product. The early days, we always focused on products deliberately, where there was um there was an immediate um feeling, so weight loss and pre workouts, where people could have it and within 20 minutes, they knew they'd had something. So because otherwise, if you if you have a product potentially, so let's say water, for instance. Most people can't tell the difference between water. So if you just drink another brand of water, do you genuinely think, well, it tastes better than the other brand?

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Most people couldn't tell. So we always try to focus on something where the stuff that we were good at, hopefully shone through and certainly consumers feeling something was really important to us. And that's still the case now with our bars. I think, you know, our bars just taste better than everyone else's. A quality ingredient to be used, and everyone says this, but that's it's really true. We really do go over and above to find the best ingredients and the best suppliers, and no one else just seems to bother. And that's not just in this industry, that's in lots of industries. We spend years on product development, literally years. I spent two years working on our first bar, which was caramel, which we launched in 2015. That was a two-year project. The last bar we just launched, which we launched a few weeks ago, which is the white chocolate salted

• 22:31Speaker 01

  peanut, that was a further 18-month development project just on flavour. So even though we actually had the concept and bars, just 18 months on a flavour, I just don't know anyone that goes to that much, into that much trouble. Again, maybe it's the OCD thing or something, you know, I don't know. But it's strange, whenever we talk to people about the brand, people's faces light up. It just, it just seems to put a smile on people's faces. So that's priceless.

• 23:00Steven Bartlett?

  How important was, because I think this sometimes about our business, I think, you know, we were at the right place in the right time in some respects. But how important was this concept of luck or opportunity, do you think, to your business?

• 23:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I certainly, I would never, ever say we've been lucky. I don't really believe in luck per se, but I do think if we were to find, were to try and define luck, it's really just an opportunity meeting preparedness. So definitely, we are having a moment in time. And lots of businesses get this. It's actually, I've talked about this a lot, in fact, in terms of timing. You cannot, I'm pretty sure, as a business, you can't outmaneuver bad timing. Clearly, we've, we've, in a

• 23:49Speaker 01

  An era where people are more health conscious, certainly younger people, sugar is is the enemy. I just don't see it changing anytime soon. We've come along with something which is high protein and and low sugar. You know, with our drinks and bars. So um we're certainly helping a lot with that wave by making sure our product is everywhere that we think it should be. So but yeah, we're definitely having a moment in time. And I I think, I mean, in some ways, actually, we we've been quite unlucky with some things that didn't come off, that were were quite quite unlucky. One of which was, we had a huge Bollywood star that loved our our weight loss product. And he was talking about it everywhere and we couldn't get product into the country and it got stuck in customs and.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  This guy's like, his his, one of his films in India is, it's still the highest grossing film of all time. It's bigger than the Harry Potter movies. And you've had like, India's a big country, we had a lot of people talking about it, but there's no product. That was actually quite unlucky, really. Uh, you know, I think potentially, and by the time we got product into the country like a year later, just the buzz had died down. So we we kind of missed out there. But a friend of mine invented lactose free milk, for instance. Lactose intolerance is quite a big thing nowadays and it's everywhere. Nearly bankrupting, we lost a fortune, it all got poured away because he invented it in the nineteen seventies and no one knew what lactose intolerance was. So um timing's huge. So yeah, we're we're we're never gonna turn around and say we haven't had good timing because we have. Then again, you know, the opportunities that we've had through timing, everyone else has had as well.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Including a lot of the, you know, the really big players that we compete with. So they've had access to the the same consumers that that we have. And I think, you know, if we're gonna talk about potentially disrupting the the confectionery industry. Because lots of people now, rather than go and buy a regular chocolate bar, will go and buy one of our protein bars. The, when I actually saw the top ten bestselling chocolate bars in the UK, I was actually quite surprised because we were the only brand that had been launched in the last twenty years. Really? Um, yeah, it just hasn't been disrupted. And if you think of what Uber have done and Starbucks and Amazon and Airbnb. Mostly these are brands that weren't around twenty years ago. And there's been a lot of disruption in the drinks space. And, you know, we've seen it with Fever Tree and BrewDog and they've come along with something different or done it better or been a challenger brand.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  And actually, no one had really done it in chocolate or with food. And I think because most of the brands are so big and powerful. That no one had really thought to do it. But again, it's back to that, if everyone's doing one thing, I'll go and do something else. Um, so we've really managed to disrupt a space quite effectively there, I think.

• 26:16Steven Bartlett?

  And I guess the incumbent sometimes gets complacent, right?

• 26:19Speaker 01

  Definitely, definitely.

• 26:21Steven Bartlett?

  Twenty year old brands just thinking, well, we're number one, we're number two, we're number three, you know, we've got our spots, we're in, you know, distributions, key areas and who's going to knock us off our perch?

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:31Steven Bartlett?

  And then the wave comes in and Grenada, they're on the surfboard with a great product.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Well, that's why a lot of, we do a lot of NPD, which is new product development. Half of my time is what we call EPD, which is existing product development. So we, we are always redeveloping our own product to make them better because technology change, ingredients change, we're learning all the time. I'm a big, big fan of, of learning. The minute you're not learning, you know, I'm bored, I always want to be learning, which is weird bearing in mind that I hated school, but I wasn't learning anything. So I spend a lot of time doing EPD. My thought of, you know, if I can make my product better, then so can someone else. So I'll do it first.

• 27:06Steven Bartlett?

  Ah, disrupt yourself.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm always disrupting myself.

• 27:09Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. You, you mentioned that, that the, the incident with the Bollywood star where, you know, you had someone talking a lot about you in, in another country, but you couldn't get the product there on time. And it felt a bit like a bit of a failure or, or missed opportunity, shall I say? I think that people see entrepreneurship because of like Instagram and movies and whatever else as a very rock star glamorous thing. And of course there is, you know, as you said, you've got very nice cars, you've got Lamborghini, you've got planes, et cetera. But what I don't think they see enough of, because we generally tend to shine the light on the finish line as opposed to the journey, is all of the bullshit that comes before that.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:47Steven Bartlett?

  And all of the hard times and the sacrifice and those things. So could you speak to, I guess, your personal sacrifices and also what your hardest moments were on this journey?

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, when, yeah, we had some fairly dark, I mean, you do, you do still have, have dark days. And I mean, yeah, this is going to be probably quite a broad answer to this question. People say to me a lot, you know, what's it like? Oh, you're successful, you've made it. Firstly, we don't consider ourselves successful. And I'm probably sure most entrepreneurs never think they're successful because you just look for the next best thing. And that doesn't mean to say that you're never satisfied. It just, people say, oh, you know, you've got there. I haven't got there. I don't know where there is. So that's something that, you know, we're always pushing ourselves and it's disrupting ourselves and keeping going. In a way, that's probably quite, quite sad because we don't ever give ourselves probably a pat on the back, um, you know, for, for, for a, a, a job well done.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  But, you know, the job hasn't been done and having a brand, a brand is never finished. So we're always working on the brand and, and trying to improve the brand and the brand evolves. I mean, in, in the early days with, you know, my wife and I, we, we had a genuine conversation about, you know, us having to potentially losing the house. Um, and actually we said, you know, if, if we end up like, you know, a one bedroom bed sits somewhere together, you know, as long as we're together, we'll, we'll be fine. Excuse me. Uh, so yeah, really hard. Like I said, we didn't have a day off for four years, but we were pretty much, you know, we were enjoying ourselves and having fun and, and, and working hard. But, you know, we had the sacrifice of not having children. I mean, that would probably be a, a big regret. That was a conscious decision we made because we, we just didn't really have time for children.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  And when your wife and you are just both working 24/7, you know, in the business, there's no time for anything else. So people, yeah, don't, don't see that. And it's very nice to have nice things, but nice things are the icing on the cake. You know, it, it, it, it doesn't, it's not, it's not the, the, the cake itself. So, yeah, we've, we've had hard times. I'm sure there's probably still hard, hard times to come, but as long as we're happy and healthy and, and, and the people around us and stuff are, are, are happy and healthy, then, you know, we're hopefully doing good work. Um, but yeah, I, I wouldn't, being an entrepreneur is quite a lonely life. It's not an easy life. You know, very often I'm probably quite, probably admire people who can be content

• 30:07Speaker 01

  in doing something that's perhaps a bit more regular in terms of having a regular job or, or whatever, and they have kids in the family and they go on holiday a couple of times a year and stuff, you know, I sometimes look at that thinking, that's probably quite nice because you know what it's like. It's nice getting on planes and going places, but you've always got a thousand phone calls, a thousand emails. Wherever you are, you, you're supposed to be somewhere else. Um, I go to America a lot, but I go for the day, you know, so it's. I try and make it enjoyable, but a lot of the time it's not enjoyable, it's miserable. You're in hotels, you're on your own, you're stuck in traffic, you're, you know, missed planes, late for planes, planes is delayed. But I just always try and reset at the end of the day and think actually, you know, we're really lucky to be here and doing what we're doing.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  And we're having this moment in time. So I really want to try and enjoy the roller coaster because there's a lot of highs and lows, as you all know.

• 30:58Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, and you, I can relate to all of that. You talked about there never really being a there, there not really being a finish line. So, so what, you know, because I think, I think we're all guilty of living our lives in, with this sort of narrative in our heads that we'll just do this this year and then we'll, we'll, we'll stop and enjoy it.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:19Steven Bartlett?

  But as an entrepreneur, what I've gathered from you there is you'll never just stop and enjoy it. It's the industry's changing, your brand's constantly changing. This isn't a four term, four year play and then you're going to retire and stop forever. So how do you ensure that life is good on the journey? Not just in this invisible imaginary date in the future.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  By trying to do what you said to do, actually, one of your LinkedIn, one of your LinkedIn episodes months ago, last year. So, because, because I've actually quoted this quite a lot because it really resonated with you said this. And I think you said, I'm going to misquote you now, but you said something like, don't cut down the rainforest and then donate to the bees.

• 32:01Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  And, and, and you know, what I took from that was actually, yeah, always looking for that next best thing. And trying to get somewhere else, whereas actually it's fine to just stop and say, do you know what? I got there, I made it, I did it. Everything we set out to do, we've done, which actually we have to be fair. But there's a few more things I want to do, but it's really hard to remember that. You have to constantly say that back to yourself because otherwise you get drawn back in again and think, oh, I'll just do that. I'll just do that. I'll just do that. And yeah, you just, you almost want to run out of things to do, but it's never going to happen.

• 32:34Steven Bartlett?

  When you think about saying to yourself, do you know what? We actually did it. We actually did what we set out to do and we, we, you know, we did, achieved great things. Do you ever worry that that narrative in your head will make you complacent or less hungry? Because I used to.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, do you know, that's my biggest fear, complacency and boredom. And, you know, I said before, just, just not learning, just my, my biggest fears. So.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  You know, the day that I'm not at Grenade is, you know, is gonna be a strange day. That, you know, that first day, whether it's, you know, a month, a year, 10 years, 20 years, I don't know. I know that I'm unemployable, so I'm never gonna have another job. So this is the last proper job I ever have. So I would, yeah, I absolutely fear that. And actually, that's why I got back into my flying over the last 18 months. Because I'm gonna, I'm gonna wanna transfer the 70 plus, 80 hours a week I spend on Grenade. You know, I'm gonna wanna transfer it somewhere else. So aviation's quite a good thing, because I've known people who've been flying for 50, 60 years, and they're still getting qualifications and ratings.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  So, you know, I wanna go and do my rotary licence and become a helicopter pilot. So I'd like to have helicopter and fixed wing ratings and stuff. So I'll have to go and find other things to do pretty quickly. But, you know, as long as I'm at Grenade, I would hope we'd never become complacent. And I certainly try and surround myself with people that, you know, I don't wanna let down, they don't wanna let me down, and that we, you know, we all care to the point we go out and do, do the, make the best decisions possible we can for the brand. Because if we make great decisions for the brand, who loses? No one. You know, it's great for us, it's great for the team, it's great for our investors, it's great really for our competitors, you know, put a lot of value in this space. Most of all, it's brilliant for consumers.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  They get great product in the locations they expect to find it, and it's better for the health.

• 34:39Steven Bartlett?

  I am, you touched on something there as well, about investors. And there was a point earlier you referenced about what you might do, you know, after Grenade, et cetera. I read that you sold part of Grenade for 72 million valuation.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  That's correct, yes. So that was of March, March 2017. The last clean valuation we had was Lion Capital came in, valued the business at 72 million.

• 35:05Steven Bartlett?

  That's interesting, because you had 27 in the bank.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  Yes, that's right, it's the exact opposite. Yeah, I know, it's bizarre, yeah, from 27 pounds to 72 million. Yeah, so.

• 35:14Steven Bartlett?

  Good headline, that, we'll use that.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, yeah, definitely use that. So that was, yeah, a couple of years ago. And they've been great partners, again, we've learnt a lot. They know a lot about brands, they've invested in lots of big consumer brands which people will know. Because, you know, no one's done this before, so. You know, when it was my wife and I and we're at home and there's us and four cats, you know, no one's done it before. There's no one to ask, there's no path to follow. You just have to go and do what feels right at the time. And, you know, some things we got right, some things we got wrong. But but even then, I remember the first time, for instance, we got into Tesco's. And we we found out the products had gone live in Tesco. This was the thermostatator, our weight loss product. And it was a Friday evening.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  And we drove out to go to our local Tesco, which is about twenty miles away, because it was only in the big stores. To go and see the product and we were leaving the house and driving out of our road at like ten, eleven o'clock at night. And the neighbour drove past and he said, oh, where are you going? And we said, we're going to Tesco. He said, to go shopping? No, we're just gonna go and look at our product on the shelf. But he said, but you know what it looks like? I said, yeah, but we've never seen it on a shelf of a supermarket before. So it was a really weird conversation because he was quite right, but he didn't really get it.

• 36:26Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  We still do that.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  I can't go anywhere in the world. I'm like, I wonder if we're in there. And I go into like. Walmarts and stuff in Canada and we go to quite obscure places and. There's lots of places again, like out in the Middle East and stuff, we can be found and just really obscure places and. I've got friends in the forces and they send us pictures and they're like, yeah, we're at this really obscure place in Afghanistan and your products are here. And and so it's, we get, we get a lot of pleasure from going out and and and seeing that. So, like I said, it is, it's probably like having a Grenade's baby. It's probably like having a child and seeing them. You know, swim for the first time or something. It's probably, or, you know, walking. So. When Grenade makes his little baby steps of doing something, we just get tremendous amount of pleasure from from seeing that.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  You know, and and we still do. So I can't imagine a time where I ever. Won't care about that or it won't be impactful to me. So, yeah, whatever's in the future is whatever's, you know, is is gonna be in the future. But. Yeah, we we do get a lot of pleasure from going around and seeing products around the world and actually talking to people about it.

• 37:31Steven Bartlett?

  I can tell.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  Putting a smile on the face.

• 37:34Steven Bartlett?

  On the on the point of, you know, this this investment from Lion Capital, right?

• 37:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 37:39Steven Bartlett?

  One of the things that I think a lot of people think, especially when they don't have money. Is that money will be the answer to all of their problems. It will make them, you know, exponentially more happy. And. Once you have money, everything is. Is solved. Um, going from a place where you didn't have the money to now having the money, what, what can you tell people who are thinking about that?

• 37:59Speaker 01

  I can tell you that being brutally honest about it, I have, uh, I've not had money and I've had money and I know which I prefer.

• 38:06Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  But, um, there, it's really weird how people think there's a link between money and happiness. How can those nondescript bits of paper with a queen's head on just make you happy? You know, it, it's, uh, that the, I think there's a, the missing link there is it, you know, it, you can buy stuff that might make you happy temporarily. But I think really all, all having access, having some financial means does, it just gives you options. Um, so, you know, you've got the option of maybe having a, a, a newer car. Or a bigger car, or the option of, of going on a, a, a different holiday, for instance, but, um, as far as I remember.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Um, and you, you'd have to say my word for this, but even as a kid, when I was in infant school and I was walking around the school and I was like five, six years old. I remember a teacher saying to me once, Ali, you're always smiling. And, and she actually put when I left infant school and went to junior school, she wrote some book and she put keep smiling. So I just remember always being happy and we never, ever, ever had any money as when I was a kid, we never really went in or did anything because mum and dad couldn't afford to, but. They, they always gave us loads of love and if they could do something, they'd do it, but they always gave us time. Um, more so my mum than my dad, because my dad was working all the time. So I didn't really see my dad when I was little because he worked seven days a week. So I didn't really have much relationship with my dad till he was older, but having money just gives you options. It's really got nothing to do with, with happiness. And I think if you're unhappy.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  You know, having money or, or whatever i- is, is not the answer. And I think, I'll, I'll go one step further. I think for people who potentially. You know, you could, you could win money, you could inherit money, or you could make money. Now, I've made money by hard work, so I've got the gratification of, you know, knowing the value of a fiver. If you win money or inherit money, I honestly can't imagine anything worse. And I think, I mean, they call it the curse of the lottery, don't they? Where people win the lottery. And all of a sudden, you've got people who win millions and millions of pounds. And for the first time ever, they've got options that they never had. And I think they think it's probably going to be amazing. And I'm sure. For the most part it is, but then people go out and buy like three helicopters and stuff.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  And then they realise that actually it's quite a lot of time and effort and work having a helicopter. They're really expensive things and they go wrong and they depreciate and they're quite dangerous. And all their family and friends would change. So I think the nicest thing about the way that Jules and I have built the business and we've created value is the fact that our friends and family have seen us do it and seen the sacrifice and everyone says, you know what? You deserve it, you know, the sacrifice you've made. Now, people might say something different behind our back. I don't think they would. If anyone would ever say, you know, if ever we would ever have a, you know, a negative comment about that. It's just people that just don't know us and frankly, I couldn't care less anyway, to be honest.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  But yeah, if you, if all of a sudden you won the lottery, you know, do you think most people's friends and family would be pleased? Because I bet they wouldn't, because jealousy creeps in and I think it's hard to be jealous of someone that's worked hard because anyone can work hard.

• 41:11Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  It's not unique to that one person, whereas yeah, if you do it via luck, by winning the lottery, I think people wouldn't like that. And I think people would realise how their friends and family would change.

• 41:22Steven Bartlett?

  I always prefer the detail because it gets me thinking. I'm going to ask you another question, which is just, I'm not going to give any context to the question. And it's a fairly deep question, but I just, I just like asking this question sometimes to some people. Are you scared of death?

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Oh, that's a good one. I don't think so, but ask me 10 minutes before I'm about to die. I don't, no, I don't, I don't think I'm, I don't think I'd be scared of it. I've never really been around death much, touch wood. I'm very fortunate to have close family and friends nearby. I mean, I guess it probably knows, I guess it's probably how it happens. I mean, yeah, and if you believe in reincarnation and that stuff, I'm probably going to come back as a toilet plunger or something. If reincarnation is a thing, but I, something actually, I, I live opposite someone who passed away about four years ago.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Who was extremely well known, who passed away about four years ago, who was extremely wealthy, nearly a pretty much billionaire. And he had this enormous empire, but he never got married, never had children.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  And I think he was actually probably quite a lonely guy. I never actually met him because he passed away just after, just after he moved in, but we exchanged a few messages. But I actually knew one of his close aides and they were there when, when he passed away and he'd, he'd actually had cancer. He'd spent something like a hundred million dollars on prostitutes, drink and, and, and drugs. Um, but when he passed away, he said to this person that was there, he said, oh, how can I leave all this behind? But he'd had an amazing life and been around the world, done all these sorts of things. So I, I, I guess it depends how long, you know, that, that, that time period is between perhaps you know, you're going to die and, and, and you're dying. I mean, I've, I've thought potentially, what's worse, would you want to,

• 43:17Speaker 01

  you know, if you had a long drawn out illness, but at least you had time to do things.

• 43:21Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, I'd rather go in my sleep.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  Would you rather go, I think I'd rather go in my sleep and not know anything about it. Yeah.

• 43:25Steven Bartlett?

  I heard Ricky Gervais say the other day after his documentary Afterlife, he said that my one wish for humanity would be that everybody could die in their sleep.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's actually quite a nice sentiment.

• 43:35Steven Bartlett?

  You know what I mean? Because then it's really the, I think, and this is a bit of a morbid topic, but it's really the process of, I think, knowing that you, you're going to pass that I think is, is the cruel part because when I think about death, I think, you know, how did I feel a hundred years ago? That's how I feel when I'm dead. I didn't feel anything. I wasn't in pain. I wasn't lonely. I wasn't sad. I wasn't depressed. Do you know what I mean? I was just, it's a sense of almost.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  I think it's, well, it, it depends what you've done in your life, um, and what you leave behind. I really want to leave something iconic in sports nutrition because sports nutrition is my life. I've done it. I've been involved in it since I was, you know, thirteen, fourteen years old. So to, to hopefully do something big in an industry I'm passionate about and I love. You know, I, I, I would like to look back and say, you know what? I couldn't have done any more. So if I leave something iconic that lives on after me, I think that'd be great. Now, most people do that through children. But, you know, I'm the last of the, the Barretts. If I'm my, I've got a sister, but she can't have kids. So, you know, if I don't have children, that's it. We're, we're done. And, you know, we've got generations of, of, of, of, um, hard workers. So, um, you know, it, it, it's

• 44:39Speaker 01

  very often think, you know, potentially I'll, I will probably be thinking, oh, you know, we should have children or, or, you know, whatever. So that potentially something could, um, could, could carry on. Cause otherwise as well, what's it all for? You know, so if, if. Most people again wanna just make sure their kids are okay and look after their kids. But like I said, I can't do that. So I've, you know, it's been fairly important to me the last few years to be involved in philanthropy in some other ways to try and make, make things better, you know, for the people, the people who are less fortunate. So I would, I would hope that, you know, friends and family around, depending how many,

• 45:20Speaker 01

  if I've got any friends or family left at the time, I would hope, you know, would certainly look back and just think, oh, you know, he had a great life and worked hard and did everything he set out to do. Because actually, if, I don't have any regrets. And I think as long as you've got no regrets, then I'd hate to look back and think, oh, I wish I'd done that, I wish I'd, you know, I wish I'd done that. So what about you? Are you scared of death?

• 45:42Steven Bartlett?

  I'm, I'm not scared of death as long as I do myself justice.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:47Steven Bartlett?

  I think the only thing that I, it's kind of what you just said there, like, the only thing I'm really scared of is regret. And I just, you know, I just wanna do myself justice. I wanna like fulfill my potential, if that's even possible. Yeah, kinda like, you know, leave a legacy in terms of, in everybody that I encountered and hopefully their, their kids and their kids and their kids and their kids because of who I was and the way I conducted myself and the value that I brought to the world.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  It's really weird hearing yourself talk about yourself in past tense.

• 46:18Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, I know, yeah. It is really strange.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Especially when you're like half my age.

• 46:21Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, no, but I, I think I got to, I wrote in my diary when I was, and I've talked about this a lot on this podcast, I wrote in my diary at eighteen years old when I was broke, living in gun side, or whatever they call it, the, where all the gun crime is in Manchester, just after dropping out. And I wrote in my diary that I wanted to be a millionaire, have a Range Rover and all these things. And then by the age of twenty five, and I wrote before twenty five, and everyone's seen my diary, many pictures of it on the internet, I got there and there was this almost anti climax feeling because I thought, right, I wrote down, I've achieved everything that I set out to do. Like, I don't know what I was expecting, some like marching band to come out and start being like, you've made it, like and throw me in the air. Yeah, but I'm sat in my boxer shorts in my house and like, I've got to carry on tomorrow. So what, what do I do now? Just write more stuff that I want to get?

• 47:06Steven Bartlett?

  And it got me thinking about at like 24, 25 years old, like, what's the point? And I think this podcast was inspired by me kind of searching for the point in it all. So that's, I think, why I ask the question a lot.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, you're absolutely spot on. I've never thought of that before, but I think, yeah, something that you've really worked hard for and looked forward to, and it's something specific, is probably never quite as good when you get there as you think it's going to be. Yeah, you're right. What do you actually think it's going to feel like? When we, when we did our first big deal with Grenade in 2014 to Grove Point Capital, they came in and, you know, the brand's only four years old at that point, but, you know, we haven't had a day off, we're pretty tired. And they came in and they valued the business at 35 million and, you know, we sold half the shares and rolled half the shares. And that was before the bar was even created. So that was just a, they were just sport nutrition products. I remember feeling a tremendous sense of weight being lifted off me.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  But I, I think that was just the pressure of the deal and the roller coaster because they're on, they're off, they're on, they're off. You know, it's like, it's a, it's a very, very invasive thing to go through because someone is actually just backing you. And, and, and I remember having a conversation and we're great friends still with, with Grove Point. And they're taking a tremendous gamble because they're about to make someone overnight incredibly wealthy. And that does weird things to people. And, and you can, they didn't want to say that because, because they can't.

• 48:34Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  But, and I just, I actually, the night before the deal, I said, I said, you're really, you're really on the fence about this, aren't you? And I said, and I said, are you worried I'm just going to basically just go off and just start taking drugs and go off the rails because all of a sudden, you know, I've, I've got money that wasn't there a day ago or something. And he said, yeah. And I said, I can do all that now. And I said, honestly, if you're really that worried about it, don't do the deal. I said, let's not do the deal and I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. And let's just forget the whole thing. And I genuinely meant that. And it was a lot of money. But it really makes no difference, you know, other like I said, being able to have options and just go and buy stuff. So I didn't really care one way or another whether the deal went ahead.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  And actually, after we had that conversation, it was fine, it went ahead and, you know, they backed us to go and do what we said we'd do. Surprise, surprise, we exceeded what we said we'd do because that's what I think hopefully good entrepreneurs do. And, you know, we proved to the wider world that Alan and Juliet Barrett were backable. Next year, Lion Capital come along and they didn't hesitate twice to back us because we've got a track record of being backed. But that's not necessarily the case with lots of these businesses because, yeah, it does funny things to people and people go off the boil and become complacent and, you know, my problem is what to do with all the ideas I've got. I've actually filled iPads full of ideas and I don't know what else to do, but, yeah, you're right, they're having that bit of an anticlimax.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  So the point I'm making is the deal that night, the deal nearly got delayed because one of the banks involved just saw Grenade in a transaction and thought that we were arms dealers. So the money got flagged and held up. So we did the deal but didn't get paid. The money went into escrow, so we signed our half our company away and didn't get a penny for it until, that was on the Friday until the Monday when the banks reopened. But we went home and I had, literally, I had a curry and I had a Cadbury's cream egg. Because I like Cadbury's cream eggs and I just wanted to treat myself to a cream egg. So that was a really weird way probably to celebrate. Did you celebrate? No, not really, no. That was my celebration, I had a curry and a cream egg.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  But I don't drink, I don't smoke. I had a security business years ago, so I don't really want to go out to nightclubs. I can't, if I'm going to talk, I like to be able to talk. I don't want banging music over me and stuff. Yeah, I don't really do celebrating as such, not in, not in that way.

• 51:00Steven Bartlett?

  And that's

• 51:00Speaker 01

  Should do, but.

• 51:01Steven Bartlett?

  And that's the, that's what I, I kind of learnt was that the distance between one accomplishment or one major like sort of life achievement and the next is so, so far, right? And it's almost like, I can liken it to climbing Mount Everest. You climb the mountain for say, I don't know how long it takes, let's say thirty days. And then you spend ten minutes at the top.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:22Steven Bartlett?

  And so really like ninety five percent, ninety nine percent of life is in fact the climb. And we, we, we are not very good for whatever reason as entrepreneurs at celebrating the steps up the mountain because they seem so gradual and insignificant. So I'm trying to actively teach myself to get better at celebrating the journey. Because as you said earlier, the mountain top for me and probably for you, probably doesn't exist.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  No, and at some point, are you worried about having to come back down?

• 51:52Steven Bartlett?

  Um, I hmm hmm. As in, how would you mean as in like failing or selling out or?

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Either, still coming back down.

• 52:03Steven Bartlett?

  I do know.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  Because the problem is the higher the high, the lower the low.

• 52:05Steven Bartlett?

  Of course, it's gonna be one hell of a fall from the top of Mount Everest. Um, I don't actually worry about failure. And this is probably, I think our businesses are slightly different in a sense because my, I feel like, and maybe I'm wrong here. I feel like I, my business, we sell a way of thinking and ideas.

• 52:27Speaker 01

  It's less tangible.

• 52:28Steven Bartlett?

  It's less tangible.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  We make stuff.

• 52:30Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:30Steven Bartlett?

  I feel like we're slightly less dependent on, um, like, I guess, like distribution and wholesale and retail and we haven't got these big boys that are powering over us that can shut us down.

• 52:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:42Steven Bartlett?

  Uh.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  And that, that's a bit of a worry for me.

• 52:45Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, so I actually, and also because of where I come from, like I, you know, this business was started like two miles down the road in a boarded up house.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:54Steven Bartlett?

  Right, and I was there for every day of that climb. So the thought of me going, I was happy back in that house. I was as happy then as I am now.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 53:02Steven Bartlett?

  Like a hundred percent.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Not in the house because I wasn't there, but the same.

• 53:04Steven Bartlett?

  Do you know what I mean? Like, so, so if you take me back to that, I know I'm gonna be happy and I also know I've got way more. Of what really matters.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:11Steven Bartlett?

  Inside my head than I did when I started. So I'm like, well, take me back and it'll be quicker and it'll be, I'll do things so much differently and I'll just, and I enjoy the journey. The start is always, was for me, the most enjoyable part as well. So I'm not scared of it. I don't want to go back.

• 53:25Speaker 01

  No, no, no, you don't. Yeah.

• 53:26Steven Bartlett?

  Cause you know, I think the hustler slightly changes in you. You still work, I give everything, but different type of work. I'm not scared of going back, but I wouldn't want to.

• 53:37Speaker 01

  No.

• 53:38Steven Bartlett?

  I saw, I've seen a lot of photos of you and Richard Branson.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, he has thoughts about it now. Now we have to do it.

• 53:43Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. I feel like, I don't know Richard Branson, but I've, I've read his books and stuff like that. I feel like you share a lot of traits, specifically with the whole fearlessness thing. Cause every time we mention something, even the fact that you fly a plane, you're very just like, right, it's in my head. Now I'm doing it.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:57Steven Bartlett?

  And.

• 53:57Speaker 01

  Just do it. Yeah.

• 53:59Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. What does that come from? Does that come from somewhere?

• 54:01Speaker 01

  It's so easy, isn't it? Just to be scared of everything and just to do nothing. And, and most, actually my dad's a lot like this. He worked really hard and I guess he, and he worked for himself, so he took risk. But he, he would always look at the downside potentially. So he never really encouraged me to go and do more. And I, I don't mean in a bad way, but you know, if I'd have just gone and been a van driver for him, he'd just been very happy for me because he could understand that. Cause he, he could see you do it and you'd know what was involved. Whereas, you know, if I'd say, I want to go and do this, this and this, the first thing he'd say would be, but what if it doesn't work?

• 54:38Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  And you think, yeah, well, what if it does? And I think we probably get that a lot. I mean, don't get me wrong, there's, you don't want to get fearlessness mixed up with just like stupidity. Yeah. Being reckless. But you know, we went into the U S. Like I said, my wife and I, on our own to sell products. The first thing we did before we actually got there, you know, we went to, we went to one of the big fitness shows, which was the Mr. Olympia, went over there as consumers before we took the brand there, just to see what we were getting into. And we went in. So we did that. That was our due diligence. We went in, we thought, what, what's everyone else doing? If we rock up and do our thing and we're going to bring a tank in and we're going to bring in the best team we can get from the U K, are we gonna? Make fools of ourselves, you know, and we decided, you know what, there's no one here that scares us.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Not in an arrogant way, but you've got to have that sense of fearlessness because if you don't, you'll just never do anything. And it's just so easy to say no, and then you just say no to everything your whole life. Then you get regret and think, oh, I wish I'd done that. I can't think of anything I wish I'd done, to be honest, other than maybe wishing I'd done the same things, but sooner. So, yeah, I'd say to anyone, if you're just gonna go and do it, just do it, you know, what's the worst that can happen?

• 55:44Steven Bartlett?

  That was a great point, and I want to get more like, um, some more advice from you, based on your business experience and your success. As a young entrepreneur.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  I'm not successful, remember.

• 55:52Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, but yeah, as you're, what can we refer to as, we can say success so far. You've been success, it's funny.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  The journey so far.

• 56:00Steven Bartlett?

  The journey so far. From your journey so far, what are the key things, pieces of advice you would give to an aspiring entrepreneur? Someone sat in their bedroom right now, listening to this, with an idea that they've been considering, but they're umming and aarring. What would you say to them? You're speaking right into their ears, sat in their bedroom or on the train or at work. What would your advice be to get them to go from thinking about something, um, umming and aarring, to where you're sat right now?

• 56:26Speaker 01

  I mean, for me, I mean, as you just said, you know, just, just do it, but commit to it. Don't, don't half do it. I can only speak for myself and it, you know, depends what the idea is and what the person is like and what the downside could be if it all went horribly wrong.

• 56:40Steven Bartlett?

  So let's, let's play a game. I've never done this before. I'm gonna pretend to be that person.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 56:44Steven Bartlett?

  And I'm gonna rebuttal you.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 56:47Steven Bartlett?

  And I'm basically gonna rebuttal you with everything that I hear in my direct messages and emails. So you've just told me just to do it. I'm gonna say, well, I'm, I'll do it like next year because, um, like I don't have enough money right now and I need to pay my rent and I'm also, my mum has told me that, uh, you know, she needs help because she's got an illness, so I need to provide for her.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  Okay. How will circumstances be different in a year's time? How will you have more money or time, uh, a, a year from, a year from now?

• 57:16Steven Bartlett?

  I feel like I'll be ready then.

• 57:17Speaker 01

  Okay, but you, so you're not ready now?

• 57:19Steven Bartlett?

  I don't feel like I'm, I'm ready now.

• 57:20Speaker 01

  Okay, I mean, it sounds like you don't want to do it, so if you don't want to do it, you shouldn't do it. But.

• 57:26Steven Bartlett?

  But I do really wanna do it, cause I've I've seen, you know, a lot of.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  Have you got time to do it?

• 57:31Steven Bartlett?

  I mean, I I work a full time job in a call centre.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  Okay, so you've got your evenings and you've got your weekends, so you can make time if you want to do it. Is there a way you can do it so you can test the water somehow? Can you do it somehow, part time? Could you involve your mum in the business somehow? Is it something that she could help with?

• 57:48Steven Bartlett?

  Um, maybe. It's like, I wanna start a uh hairdressing salon. So it's probably gonna be hard to do it in evenings and weekends. I really, really wanna do it, though.

• 57:57Speaker 01

  Okay, but can people come to you evenings and weekends, or can you go to them? Can you be mobile? Does it have to be a physical site? Rather than commit to a physical site, can you build up a a client list? And go to them, do an amazing job, and get them to tell their family and friends, so that you can go to them as well? And actually build up a a client list, so then you can have your own location, then people come to you? Is that a possibility?

• 58:18Steven Bartlett?

  I just don't know where to start.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  Okay, are you cutting anyone's hair at the moment?

• 58:21Steven Bartlett?

  Um, I do my sister's and her friends.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  Okay, and so she's got friends, so. How many people, how many clients is that?

• 58:28Steven Bartlett?

  About, there's about, there's eight girls in total.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  That's about eight, okay, so you're doing that. And do they come to you, or do you go to them?

• 58:33Steven Bartlett?

  I go to their houses.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  Okay, and that's evenings and weekends?

• 58:36Steven Bartlett?

  Weekends predominantly.

• 58:37Speaker 01

  So do more of the same? You're you're already doing it. You know you just need to expand it. But look at it the other way, what does good look like? What's the dream? What would you like to have?

• 58:46Steven Bartlett?

  I wanna own the the biggest luxury salon chain in the country. I just don't know where to start, because I've I'm cutting their hair.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  You've gotta start by cutting hair and not working in a call centre?

• 58:55Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, I'm I'm cutting the hair, but I've only got so many, um, so much time on the weekends, so and also.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  Ah, so hang on a minute, so what else do you do at the weekend? So what's more important at the weekend then now? Than you taking a step towards your dream of having the the the the, let's say, global chain of hair salons? What what else are you doing at the weekends? You wake up, it's Saturday morning, what are you doing all day? You've got all day to do whatever you want.

• 59:18Steven Bartlett?

  Netflix.

• 59:19Speaker 01

  Netflix, okay, there you go. So you do have time, you just choose to spend that time doing something else? But now there's just excuses creeping in, so do you have time to brush your teeth every day?

• 59:28Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 59:29Speaker 01

  Okay, so you find time to do that. So you you you, there's nothing wrong with starting off small. Everyone starts off small. I started off small. When I had my distribution business back in ninety nine, my first sale was five pounds. I lost money on it. I drove a box of flapjacks.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  About a seven or eight mile round trip in the back of my car to to leave it in a gym for him to pay me two weeks later. So I had to make two trips to make five pounds, but that was the first way I got my first gym. And I ended up supplying hundreds of gyms. You have to start somewhere. Everything you do from this point on should be a step towards that goal, no matter how small. Because at the moment, working in the call centre and watching Netflix is not a step towards that goal. If you want that financial freedom, you want to change, change your life, only you can change it. It's not going to change around you.

• 1:00:28Steven Bartlett?

  I think that's brilliant.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  I don't think I've talked you into it.

• 1:00:31Steven Bartlett?

  No, I know, but.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  I'm gonna come back, you know, he's gonna be, he's gonna be, he's gonna be a hairdresser.

• 1:00:35Steven Bartlett?

  But that's, that's.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  Probably all out of the job now.

• 1:00:37Steven Bartlett?

  But that's literally the narrative that I hear all the time is I, I really feel like I want this thing, right? But I think you've hit the nail on the head. Actions don't align with the goal.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, they don't, and it's so frustrating.

• 1:00:50Steven Bartlett?

  It is, yeah.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  Let's rewind ten years. So we're doing the podcast, I haven't started Grenade yet, okay? So I come to you and I go, right, I want to, I wanna make a fat burner product, but I'm gonna put it in a grenade bottle. So it really, really stands out, but the bottle doesn't exist, so I've gotta go and make it. And then there's only me and my wife, we haven't got any money, but we've got four cats and we work really hard. But we're gonna do that, but the really, the end game is, well, I wanna take on Cadbury's and I wanna then learn and we wanna supply the military and we wanna have fat burners. Then we wanna take all the fat burner technology and we're gonna make protein bars and no one's eating protein bars then we're gonna make everyone eat protein bars. So, and we're gonna put them everywhere and all the locations where you'd never find a protein bar, we're gonna put them in there. Everyone's gonna love it.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  We're gonna go all around the world and it's not gonna make any sense, but we're gonna make an absolute fortune and someone's gonna come in and pay hundreds of millions of pounds for it. You'd probably go, Al, what are you smoking?

• 1:01:43Steven Bartlett?

  I would have definitely not invested.

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  But you'd have been wrong.

• 1:01:47Steven Bartlett?

  I would, I would, I would have been wrong and I definitely wouldn't have invested. I think I would never have discouraged you at that point because my belief was something like that. You're bigger than me, significantly bigger than me. But also, I, in my head, the first thing my brain thinks is, it doesn't really matter what you've said to me you're going to accomplish in that case, right? All it, all that matters is you. And I don't, at that point, I wouldn't have known you.

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  Oh, I didn't know you cared.

• 1:02:09Steven Bartlett?

  No, but do you know what I'm saying? I'm saying like, that, that's a huge ambition and the, the pattern that I've seen with successful entrepreneurs is, a lot of them have big ambitions. And at the end of the day, it just comes down to the person.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  Do you know what? I was just, while you were saying that, one of the best attributes anyone can have, over and above education, financial means, just about luck. I think just about anything else I can think of, personality.

• 1:02:35Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  How many times do you meet someone? Cause actually, I, I, I'm just me, like you're just you. So you don't, you, you kind of take it for granted because you, you know, we're, we're us. But actually, when I meet people I've known for 20, 30 years, um, and they go, oh, we always knew you'd do well, no matter what you did. Cause, because I'm just the type of person to go out and make it work because I'm determined and irrational, lots of other things. But personality goes a long way. And that's actually one of the things I learned from working back in the gym, um, you know, back in the day, 20 years ago. Um, is personality goes a long way. And I think, you know, having a decent memory and, you know, we had 500 members, I knew everyone's first name.

• 1:03:12Steven Bartlett?

  Really?

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  And that's really important to people. And it's good just for, you know, to learn and memory is important. But you could see what it means to people, the fact that you've taken the trouble to know the name. And I think some of the things I learnt there, you know, for free, um, interacting with people, learning what people like, don't like. All this stuff, we actually put into the brand in some of the simplest forms. Again, firstly, making it really memorable because all the weight loss products at the time, we'd all got really silly names that no one could remember. So having something simple, um, all the competitors at the time were like 12 capsules. Well, we knew, I knew from talking to people in the gym that people forgot to take capsules or just didn't like taking capsules. We thought, well, why is it 12? What don't we make it for?

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  So, um, it's just back to that point of learning all the time, but yeah, personality, personality is key.

• 1:04:01Steven Bartlett?

  My take on that, um, and why personality would be so key is because. As I've said a few times, the only thing that really exists in the world is other people. Like, there's not like physical barriers that are gonna stop you from being successful. In my mind, it's just a bunch of people that you have to convince of your of your your ideas or your products or get to love what you've created. And so personality kind of links to the the mover of these human obstacles, which is like sales, being able to sell.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:31Steven Bartlett?

  Product, your brand, and personality, as I can see from you, if you walked in and I was the the managing director of Tesco, because of your enthusiasm and your love and your like, your energy, I'd be pretty into, I'd believe in them, what you were telling me.

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  I I think that that's definitely, hopefully, the first win is, I'm not saying I'm likeable, but hopefully being likeable, or even just being memorable if you're not likeable, just being memorable. But I I think then quickly followed up with doing what you said you'd do and doing it well.

• 1:05:00Steven Bartlett?

  Contability.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  Or again, yeah, just exceeding expectations. And actually, that conversation has actually happened with with Tesco recently, where we've now got a probably six-year relationship with them. And stuff that we said we do, we've gone and done, and we've done it better than they thought they'd do. Now we've got some credibility with them, and actually, more importantly, some trust. And trust is one of those really infallible things that, it's either there or it's not.

• 1:05:22Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  Because people say, oh, yeah, well, I trust him ninety percent. You don't trust them then.

• 1:05:26Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:05:27Speaker 01

  Because you can't trust someone ninety percent. It doesn't make any sense. You either do or you don't.

• 1:05:30Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  It's back to my black and white thing again. Um, yeah, and and actually, they said, you know what? If you say you'll do it, you'll you you, yeah, you'll go and do it.

• 1:05:38Steven Bartlett?

  On that point, how, because that sounded a lot, and I know what people, I think some people will be thinking, oh, that sounds like visualization, you know? And it's a big, it's a big term in self-development and personal development. There's this idea that, you know, you can think something, you can want something, and people, I've literally had, I'll tell you a story that no one knows, right? I was in the back of a cab.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  Everyone's about to know.

• 1:06:02Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was in the back of a cab in New York, and I'm talking to this girl that I've that I'd just started talking to, this was a couple of years ago, and sat in the back of the cab, and she's asking me like, you know, how I created the business and things like this, and I'm just like, you know. Hard work, etcetera. And she goes, yeah, you build it into existence. And I go, what do you mean by that? She goes, well, you can think about something. And if you just really want it, it happens. And I was trying to explain to her that that's not exactly like how it goes.

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  Well, she did.

• 1:06:31Steven Bartlett?

  She literally said to me, you can think something into existence, you can think about it and then it appears. And I went, what, with like out all the hard? She was like, yeah, I got out the cab. I got out the cab in the middle. We had this massive argument in this car. Cause she genuinely believes if you just think about something, you can make it happen. And I got out the cab in the middle of the the street. No, wait, this is wrong. She got out the cab.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  Maybe it was really.

• 1:06:57Steven Bartlett?

  I chased after her and I got back into the cab because I didn't want it to be like unsafe. But it really frustrates me, this idea that you can just think about something. And there's this book called The Secret, which has kind of influenced people into thinking in this way. So I wanted to get your take on that.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  I, it reminds me of, and I'm not really, I don't read many books because I don't really have that much time. So I'm ashamed to say, but there's a lot of these kind of, I'm not into self-help books and all these. And that sounds like it's along that vein of, yeah, just think about it and it'll happen and positive thinking. Now, don't get me wrong. I do think negative thoughts are probably toxic, so you should try and avoid them and try and have positivity. But yeah, you know, positivity is great, but it's not going to get you out of, you know, lots of situations. There's been a lot of this, you know, four hour work week and take control of your life and you can make millions of pounds. But you work three hours a year and all that stuff. And I think, I just don't get that at all.

• 1:07:56Speaker 01

  I, maybe it's just what I've been exposed to on me, but I don't know anyone who has built a meaningful business. No matter how, and I'm not talking about in terms of size, whether it's, you know, your local butchers or, or, you know, a global media business. That hasn't put in a lot of sacrifice and hard work and had the timing and the tailwinds that we talked about. I can't think of one. I can't think of someone who just woke up one morning, had an idea, didn't really do it very well. And then all of a sudden, it was just ginormous. They made loads of money and then everyone lived happily ever after. I just don't think that's happened. Even if you look at the likes of Amazon and the stories of Jeff Bezos, like in his first desk was he's off his like a door and all and all this. And surely, yeah, I just, yeah, I. When people start talking about the power of positive thinking and self-help and they

• 1:08:40Speaker 01

  take away all the things we talked about, like consistency and timing and hard work and stuff, yeah, I'd rapidly tune out as well, to be honest. So I think I probably would have, I wouldn't have let her back in the cab. I'd let her take her chances in the Bronx.

• 1:08:52Steven Bartlett?

  It's so frustrating. Again, I completely agree. I believe that positive thinking and knowing where you want to go matters. But then I liken it to like getting in a car. You set the sat nav, but then you turn the key and drive.

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:06Steven Bartlett?

  Just setting the sat nav leaves you in the garage.

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:09:09Steven Bartlett?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 1:09:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does. I think we might have been separated at birth.

• 1:09:11Steven Bartlett?

  No.

• 1:09:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's entirely likely, definitely.

• 1:09:16Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:16Speaker 01

  But no, that's it. I mean, like you said, yeah, if you're just standing still, yeah, you're learning nothing. So it comes back to that learning piece again and just doing it, really. So we'd always really try and encourage that. And I think as well, I get asked to look and invest in lots of businesses and so far I haven't actually invested any businesses because, first of all, they're mostly once in time, which I don't have. I don't necessarily see that many people who I think are potentially that investable. And I think nowadays as well, because crowdfunding's been a thing and people, it's probably easier now than ever to obtain funding or obtain money, even if it's just the three F's, friends,

• 1:09:57Speaker 01

  family and fools, to get to invest in you. But people almost go off and start investing money, but they don't actually use their own money, or they don't take a risk on their own money. And someone said to me years ago with business, you know, I've always used my own money. It's always been my risk. It's been on me. If it went wrong, it hurts me and no one else. And that, I think, now is quite rare. People do like to go and borrow money from as many people as they can, but then if it doesn't work, it just...

• 1:10:24Steven Bartlett?

  It doesn't happen, yeah.

• 1:10:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, it doesn't hurt them. So you do need people to have skin in the game. And businesses I've looked at over the last few years, they just don't have enough... Skinning the game, if it, you know, there's almost no incentive for them to do well. We had to do well. Because we put everything into it. There was, there was, there was no going back. And, you know, if, if I had to go and dig holes in the road for ten pounds a day, I'd just, you know, hand me the shovel. I'd just, I'd, I'd start digging. I'd finish the day with ten pounds more than I started with.

• 1:10:52Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:52Speaker 01

  And at least while I'm doing it, I'll be thinking, I'll be learning.

• 1:10:55Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  I'll be thinking, I don't want to do this for the rest of my life.

• 1:10:57Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:57Speaker 01

  How can I not dig holes for ten pounds? So, um, you know, I get the fact people get caught in, in, um, in, in ruts, um, and stuff as well. But, yeah, people should be holding themselves accountable, I think, for if it goes wrong.

• 1:11:11Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  How does it hurt them? We can talk all day.

• 1:11:14Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. Let me, let me ask you one more question then. This is more of a, again, a little bit of a game. Dinner party, a question I ask a lot of people. There's six seats at the table. Two of them are occupied by myself and you.

• 1:11:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:11:28Steven Bartlett?

  There's four seats remaining.

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  I'm not sure to invite you.

• 1:11:30Steven Bartlett?

  Well, I'm at my house, so.

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay, so we've got no choice. I thought it was my dinner party.

• 1:11:34Steven Bartlett?

  Fine, I'm cooking. So, ordering the delivery or Uber Eats. There's four seats remaining. You can invite anybody to the, to those seats, dead or alive. Um, I'm gonna make a few rules. You can't, unfortunately, invite your wife on this occasion.

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  Okay, fine.

• 1:11:50Steven Bartlett?

  Cause, um.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  She's vegan.

• 1:11:52Steven Bartlett?

  She's vegan.

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  And you're cooking steak?

• 1:11:55Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:56Speaker 01

  She's not vegan, fine.

• 1:11:57Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, she's not, okay.

• 1:11:58Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:11:58Steven Bartlett?

  But you can invite anybody dead or alive. Who would you invite and why would you invite them?

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:12:04Steven Bartlett?

  It's very hard to do this game because it's a, I've put you on the spot there. So what I tend to advise is just like, what are those names that popped into your mind?

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm starting to gravitate towards people that I, I, I, I know, like, and I respect. I would, I'd, I'd definitely ask Richard. I'd ask, I'd ask the big man, Mr. Branson. Just because I never, ever, ever get bored of talking to him.

• 1:12:28Speaker 01

  And, you know, he's got fifty years of business, business experience and he's just a thoroughly bloody nice bloke, so.

• 1:12:34Steven Bartlett?

  What have you learnt? What's the one thing you've learnt from him?

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  Oh, I mean, definitely about being yourself. And again, humility, um.

• 1:12:42Speaker 01

  He has got this amazing energy that anyone who's around him just picks up on. It's incredible. And just the fact that he really cares. He really, really cares. So I've seen him, you know, he's just genuinely concerned about people. It's actually, it's quite miraculous to watch because they say, don't meet your idols, don't they? Because you're disappointed. But yeah, he goes far and above what you'd actually, your wildest dreams, what you'd expect. As one of probably the world's best known people and most successful people. But again, he doesn't consider himself successful. And frankly, I just don't know how he does it. I don't know how he crams everything in and that's quite remarkable.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  So definitely him.

• 1:13:30Speaker 01

  I would, one of my first early mentors that no one's gonna know, but that's actually a guy called Stuart Sapcutt. And I used to train Stuart when I was fifteen, sixteen years old. I was, I was his personal trainer. And again, he taught me, and he doesn't, he didn't know he did this, but again, wildly successful guy. Very, very low key, so no one would have heard of him. Big property development business, again, really, really nice guy. And he just always looked after me and sort of treated me like a son, really. Got lots of good advice, always very honest. And again, I saw, again, with him, I think, how to treat people, I think, and how to behave. So he was a great mentor, still kept in touch with him and his wife.

• 1:14:13Speaker 01

  So I'd invite him, and again, him and Richard would get on.

• 1:14:19Speaker 01

  In terms of other people, these are gonna sound really obvious. I'd have to, I'd have to invite Jeff Bezos.

• 1:14:26Steven Bartlett?

  Really?

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd have to invite Jeff Bezos.

• 1:14:29Steven Bartlett?

  What do you admire or like about him?

• 1:14:30Speaker 01

  I mean, again, I think just the ability to disrupt, transform. I mean, I learnt this week, for instance, all the things they've done that have failed, and there's a lot. And they've, they've spent billions on stuff that's failed. And just the ability to just fail quickly and and and plough on um and disrupt and put the consumer first. And again, you know, starting off with an idea of just selling books and then now it's it's everything.

• 1:14:57Steven Bartlett?

  Fifty percent US commerce.

• 1:14:58Speaker 01

  Oh, it's it's just insane. Um and doing that in like twenty twenty five years, I mean, it's pretty it's pretty spectacular. Um, you know, don't know what he's like as a person and well, I don't know if you like your cooking.

• 1:15:12Steven Bartlett?

  No, probably not.

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  But I think it'd be very interesting to get into the the mindset. And again, I like to meet people and see what they're like, because if you read if you read a a book, for instance, been ghost written by someone else, you never really know. You want to look in someone's eyes, don't you, and just you that that that emotion, you just, yeah, you you pick up on that. So I'd I'd invite him. I'd just be interested to know what makes him tick. Plus, him and Richard would argue about space because they're big space competitors. So that would be fun. So if the food was bad, we could literally sit sit back and just watch the two of them just tear chunks out of each other. Which again, actually, Richard wouldn't do because he doesn't get annoyed. I don't know if Jeff does. But I think watching them have an intellectual competitive conversation.

• 1:15:52Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:52Speaker 01

  Uh, would be good. How many have got left? I've got one more seat. Okay. Um.

• 1:15:57Steven Bartlett?

  I'm gonna tell you now.

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  Go on.

• 1:15:59Steven Bartlett?

  I would like it to be a female.

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  I was just gonna say it's gonna be a woman, isn't it? Um, and it can't be my wife. Oh, that's cruel, because, yeah, she's very entertaining as well. Um, do you know what I'd do? I'd I'd invite my mom.

• 1:16:16Steven Bartlett?

  That'd be interesting.

• 1:16:18Speaker 01

  I'd bring my mom, just because um she wouldn't get a lot of the conversation, but she's really lovely. And Stuart likes her. I think Richard'd like her. Um, and I'd like her to sit back and be proud, I think. I'd really like Richard to be proud. So so I think we'd like to um eat your food. And then and then I don't think it'd probably sink in with her, but if we sat there, you know, with with her son and Sir Richard and a few other people, she wouldn't know Jeff Bezos was. That'd be quite funny, because she'd say, oh, so what do you do?

• 1:16:50Steven Bartlett?

  Everything.

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And he'd say everything. And and he'd go, I own a I own a website, whatever. She'd go, oh, it'll never take off. Or what if what if it doesn't work? That's what she'd do, yeah. And we'd all be laughing. Um, and she'd carry on anyway. Um, and my mom's a very, very, very slow eater, so it would be a very long. Dinner conversation, so hence we get maximum benefit out of, out of everyone else there.

• 1:17:16Steven Bartlett?

  What's your mum taught you? If there was one thing you think, because I can think of, when I think of my mum, there's the overarching lesson, I think, that she taught me. What's the one thing that you think your mum taught you?

• 1:17:24Speaker 01

  Definitely hard work. Yeah, real graft, you know, compassion, you know, really caring. And, you know, again, did a great job of raising me and my sister with just, you know, very little means at her disposal. And I remember saying, weren't you, you know, we were having quite a hard time as a family and she said, you know, if she had to work her fingers to the bone, she'd, you know, she'd make sure we're okay. So, and, you know, when I was 12, I really wanted like a Sega Master System, like it was the computer system at the time, which actually just went and rebought a couple of weeks ago. It's like 30 years old and it still works. But I went because I sold mine, which I regretted, so I'm buying back my childhood stuff. So I went and bought another one, but, you know, she, she went back to, because she couldn't, she couldn't, my mum's got quite poor health, she's got osteoporosis.

• 1:18:09Speaker 01

  But she actually went back to work to save up to buy me that games console for, yeah, for when I was like 12. So I'd like to say I felt bad at the time, but I probably didn't, but I feel bad now. So it's fine. I bought them a bungalow.

• 1:18:21Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, there you go.

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  So it's fine. Yeah, I swapped a games console for a bungalow, so they've got, they've got a bungalow and a door set. So I did that. But yeah, I'd like to think I've made, made, made them proud. But the thing is, mum and dad as well are proud of, no matter what I did, all mum's ever said is, I just want you to be happy. So, and because I've always been happy, she's always been proud. So as long, as long as you're happy. But yeah, so there you go. There's the six.

• 1:18:42Steven Bartlett?

  That's great. Thank you so much. Many of the people you'd invite to the table are the same that I'd invite. I'd definitely invite Richard and Jeff.

• 1:18:48Speaker 01

  I hope you don't invite my mum.

• 1:18:50Steven Bartlett?

  Probably not.

• 1:18:51Speaker 01

  That's slightly weird.

• 1:18:51Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah. Jeff, Jeff and Richard, definitely. And yourself, of course.

• 1:18:55Speaker 01

  Obviously.

• 1:18:56Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. Genuinely deserve all the success that you've had, even though you won't admit you've had success. And if, and it's good to know that people like you are, are getting what they deserve out of life, because that's not always the case. So, but thank you again for, for taking the time to come up here, because I know how busy you are. You're much busier than I am.

• 1:19:11Speaker 01

  I really wanted to make it a priority, because, you know, likewise, and I, I'm not one of these, I don't tend to. Follow many people that I don't know, I haven't met, but every time I see some of your stuff on LinkedIn or whatever, I always watch it because it's always profound and it gets back to that learning piece. I always want to try and think, you know, I want to, I want to learn stuff because very different businesses, different stages in careers, but will have a lot of the same issues and problems. For sure. So it's really interesting to learn. So again, thanks for the invite, really means a lot. Thank you so much, thank you. Thank you.