i love failure i fail every day i don't

care about it just get on with it

a prayer so now you've got itsu you are

absolutely an entrepreneur at heart as

all the fish are going in one way you

suddenly look around you think damn it

i'm going to go the other way when you

look back at pran at business you ended

up selling for 2 billion i had no idea

what i was doing it wasn't planned

endless moments of magic moments of

bizarre creativity and confidence what

was motivating you i wanted to make a

difference i suddenly found myself with

this responsibility to open a restaurant

from that start we built

76 of them we started developing it so

it could become the future

the absence of both parents he was quite

distant my father my mother committed

suicide when i was seven that created a

loneliness

to create something new you've got to

put yourself in slightly uncharted

territory business isn't just business

to you is it it's not just about the

money no and it shouldn't be to anyone

i'm far more interested in the

relationships with the customer and the

staff and the product i was obsessed by

that obsessed it's incredible what

people can do people don't trust them

people don't nurture them because

they're too busy being selfish nurturing

themselves

what's the worst crisis you've ever had

in your business i don't even want to go

into it i want to hear it

so without further ado i'm stephen

bartlett and this is the diary of a ceo

i hope nobody's listening but if you are

then please keep this to yourself

julian yeah

i was exposed to a number of hardships

as a child

you said that

what did you mean

i love the way you start off with a real

killer

i can't remember who i said that to

um

and

i was expecting well i'm not i'm not

alone by the way a great many people

watching this or listening to this were

exposed to hardships far greater than

mine but the death of my mother when i

was seven she my mother committed

suicide on boxing day

uh so i was left and my parents were

divorced

so we we lived uh the three of us my

brother sister and i lived with our mom

but that was a difficult thing that was

a that created a loneliness

did you did you realize that at the time

did you realize the impact that incident

had had on you growing up

probably not

no i think i

that you don't when you're lonely you

don't really age eight or nine or twelve

you don't really know you're lonely you

just you don't feel whole i suppose

you don't feel completely whole other

people seem to be jollier than i was at

that age that's for sure

as an adult did you ever

look back and try and understand the

significance of that particular event

and how it might have shaped you i think

the event

i don't know if it's shaped me but it's

definitely added um

a complexity to my character which has

made me

which has helped shape my my my

relationship with people my relationship

with work my relationship with

everything yeah there's no doubt it

would be

silly to pretend that it didn't

reminds me of something that um i talk

about this guy a lot this guy said to me

he came on this podcast he was michael

jordan and kobe bryant's trainer

and he talked about how

some of the things that happened to us

early that are traumatic end up

being the cause of our what he called

light side which is the talent our

brilliance the thing we become known for

but they're also the contributor to our

dark side which can be our complexity

our insecurities all of those kinds of

things

um

do you think that event so early on or

any event early on in your life

that particular event let's focus on

that particular event hadn't

contributing factor to what people would

consider to be your brilliance this

incredible career you've had

listen i think i think people people

work people become obsessive and they

become successful and they work

extremely hard for all kinds of

different reasons

they want to become relevant they want

to be

they want maybe

to be careful or seek admiration they

didn't get or they have parents who

didn't acknowledge them i really i don't

know all i know is it must have probably

had of course it had some effect on the

way i've i work and the view my life and

have lived my life yeah

but i but i think um over time over over

many years it's

it's it it's waned

um as i've

as i've kind of developed

as a person

i i also i'm right i'm nervous about

even suggesting that

you know to be fulfilled and to make

change and to really contribute to

society you have to come from a dark

place because i don't think you do

um

certainly not as as dark as something

like that

i you know i i think about when i meet a

lot of obsessive people it tends to be

the case that something quite uh extreme

had poked them yeah in their life at

some point to make them give them that

chip on their shoulder yeah whether it's

michael jordan or kobe or whether it's

eddie hearn yeah and that feeling of

living in his father's shadow and the

insecurity of that and these other you

know the sons of billionaires that i

meet who've built big fashion empires

yeah they're very um they're very

dominant fathers have have made them

incessive obsessive by convincing them

vicariously that they're not good enough

for example and so that's why i always i

always tend to go in search of

understanding what

where that obsessive is you're right

dude there's there's bound to be a

correlation as you know from all the all

so many of the people you've interviewed

and you're clearly very empathetic that

you will find a a train a common

denominator there but it's not

it's it's not everything it's certainly

not for for a great many people

listening or watching who who have not

faced tragedy or sadness like that um

they need to know that it's it's not an

essential part of being able to get on

and and do do good do extraordinary work

what about your father

my father was uh he was quite distant my

father um

[Music]

he was kind of old-fashioned

my parents were very very different my

mother was ukrainian

immigrant uh and and

kind of wild and wonderful and my father

was really kind of iris posh

aristocratic instrument rather distant

and cold

he then made a mistake of marrying um

someone for a very short period of time

when i was about 10 11 that that ended

very that did not end well for any of us

uh the three children um

so it's not a great time between seven

and and sixteen it was a messy a messy

uh childhood i think

did you live with problems

did you ever go in search of

answers as to why your mother

made that decision

ah

no i i i didn't

i didn't because not not that many

people knew my mother actually we we

lived alone with her um

i

she was just she was

just had serious mental issues

because she was

just ill

and and sad and and it's awful you know

terrible terrible it's common i mean

listen it's common this happens all the

time

um

this happens too much

um

too much too common

that that distance from um

the absence of both parents that's

that's kind of what i've ascertained

from what you said so far there was an

absence of

of both parents to some degree

what i i i resonate with that for my own

reasons yeah i um my mum was was working

so hard that she decided to end up

sleeping in the shop so i was i'm the

youngest of four as well and typically

what you find i think is the youngest

one gets treated like the older ones

yeah at a certain point especially if

it's a boy and so by the age of 10

neither of my parents are there when i

wake up and neither of them are there

when i go to sleep on one hand that

gives me great independence yeah it

means that i stop going to school yeah

because no one's going to punish me if i

don't yeah um and that is maybe in my

case what led me to becoming in my view

an entrepreneur there was a void of um

responsibility or sort of accountability

which led to independence so i started

selling things and doing what i liked

that made me very bad at following rules

later in life which i think is i'm going

back and connecting the dots in

hindsight but i think that led me to be

able to i'm sure that's true that would

make complete sense um so both of us

have that in common

but then you know so so do a great many

others

um

in addition to my i had a real problem

with authority i went to really

old-fashioned schools i was sent away to

schools age seven and in both cases the

schools were really really old-fashioned

and in my opinion terribly badly run

with all kinds of

bad things going on it was just shocking

so i had a really bad relationship with

authority i felt it completely let me

down on every level

um i still do actually

so maybe that's why i branched out on my

own early to try and i just

you know

so many of us

are let down by

people in power and authority i find

you know it's sad it's irritating it

really is irritating actually it doesn't

matter if it's people who run companies

or people in politics or people who run

schools it's just

particularly schools i think

um

people who are in charge of young

children need to nurture them and look

after them and help them build their

confidence and strength

not put them through a meat grinder

that's what happened in your school

the uh the first uh private school i

went to was

just just shocking yeah really really

i didn't want to go into it because it

would just

upset your view of your view

i want to hear it no no no i'm not going

to go there i refuse together but it was

just not a good

experience not a good place and so that

that's where i think i learned very very

early on to seriously distrust authority

and deeply

and and perhaps then realize okay you've

got to forge your own path and work with

people who you trust and people who are

worthy of your your love

and people who give back

rather than people who

you know climb that ladder into

positions of authority

but

a great many of us

suffer from this a great many of us are

working

our asses off for people who don't

really

support us or appreciate us or want to

develop our characters or skills or

anything

so

commerce is selfish

the people who do well in commerce

if you look at your success

90 of it is because of your

your understanding of the way human

beings work

it's about giving and taking and giving

and thinking long term

that's what really builds success

i think

i really do i mean one advantage i have

my father

used to spend a lot of time uh

entertaining very very kind of powerful

people particularly from america and and

i realized they were in the end mostly

just pretty average human beings but it

achieved a lot

and i started seeing them with all their

faults and warts and realizing wow

to make a difference

it's not impossible

but you need the right structure and i

think so many of us work in a structure

which is simply not possible

whether it be politics or fear or our

own insecurities or whatever it is

there's just not enough transparency in

this world

you know a great many of

us are working with no transparency at

all in in our place of work

don't you think

i get the feeling you

you you thrive off transparency you like

it you face things head-on and you like

people around you to face things head-on

that's that's the way to build

it's the only way

yeah i've been on a journey i think i

think when i was a bit more insecure i

think transparency felt like a risk and

then as i've developed my in myself and

also in my businesses transparency felt

like a great motivator yeah and i

actually said to my team some of which

are in the room now

at the start of this month

that every quarter i'm going to show you

all the financials of our entire

business so you can see everything and

also you're going to see that i've never

taken a pound out of this business ever

because i want them to understand

because in that that's an example of for

me transparency in a business context

being a real big big motivator then one

of the younger girls in the team when i

was in the car one day turned to me and

said by the way you doing that

completely changed my perception because

i think yeah i think they thought that

like i was making this money from doing

this podcast or whatever it is or my

business and then taking the money into

my pocket from as it comes in so to show

them that i've never taken a penny ever

i it kind of i think

yeah

aligns us no no listeners transparency

and people being open and honest and

building trust is by far the most

important characteristic

ever for the day i started my work for

the last 40 years i've now realized it's

what you should value and crave more

than anything it's worth everything

transparency is everything and so many

people work in an environment we're

simply not there they're just not used

to it they can't expect it they can't

demand it and they're not going to get

it and that's bad

move job change

don't don't don't you shouldn't work for

people who aren't transparent

and that's

transparency is a wonderful thing you

get some honesty a truth truth is

wonderful can you define your definition

of what you mean when you're saying

transparency

well

i mean to keep it really simple let's

let's let's stick to the world of

commerce and the world of commerce is

and probably politics but i don't know i

have no understanding of politics and

i've no inkling ever to be a politician

but

in the world of commerce there's not

nearly as much transparency as this

should be so sharing information sharing

truth saying what you feel

um being honest with your

your your colleagues your teammates as

well as the people who work with you and

for you it's just

you can't take that that stuff for

granted because it doesn't happen in

most places

you i don't know you need a collective

um you need you need uh

you need to to um

i don't know why

you tell me why why do you think 90 of

businesses are not nearly as transparent

as they should be and could be we know

what they are it's all about people

protecting their own fears it's about

their own insecurities about protecting

their own pay their bonuses there are a

thousand reasons why there's not the

transparency we deserve as human beings

because

to achieve the truth so say like i'm

just for as an example say i run an

organic

um vegetable store yup

i can on one hand

go to the extra effort of actually being

organic which means it costs me more i

have to do a bunch of stuff in the

supply chain whatever or i can say i am

and

get the same return exactly

two decades ago

it would be very hard for you to find

out i was lying because the world wasn't

connected with the internet there was no

glass doors social media tweeting

instantaneous communication so i think

the world of business grew in a black

box approach where

your your pr your marketing your

messaging was painted out on the outside

of your business by the marketing

director we're now in a glass box world

where everybody can see inside and they

can talk with someone in australia in

a second so i think that there's been

this i think transparent businesses in

the last 10 years

in the connected world have really won

um for that reason okay

there's no doubt it's much harder to lie

with the gut to your consumers there's

no question but i'm more interested in

in the lies that deceit and and the the

lack of transparency and the darkness

with the relationships people have with

their employees

and their employer

where a great deal of stuff is never

said

well i mean how many people do what is

the percentage of people who wake up on

a monday morning want to go to work i

mean it's frighteningly small why do you

think that is i mean if if 80 percent of

the people who you work with

you find out they didn't want to come to

work wouldn't you find that devastating

wouldn't surely wouldn't you look in the

mirror and say what on earth am i doing

wrong

i think if that was the case i also

wouldn't want to come to that place of

course you wouldn't

but the thing is now you've got to ask

yourself why does that apply to

70 of all working people and what are

they meant to do how do we sitting here

around this round table what do we mean

how can we help them

how can we help nurture a thing where

people have got the courage to be

transparent and say what they feel

what do you think the answer is i don't

know

but but we're living in a times where

it's beginning to happen

i mean listen just look at the metoo

movement who would have thought a few

years ago that could have generated the

speed and power it did it's an

incredibly good thing

i mean you know

that went from

i dare not say anything to the whole

world saying everything in just one year

two years

it's fantastic

there's a small example of absolutely

zero transparency

sick

power corrupt

this awful thing

but we know this is true

we know it's true as you're a boss you

you know you have a position of huge

responsibility you know

i know we all know that

what about affection

what is affection one of the things that

one of the things that was definitely

absent from my childhood was affection i

didn't even call my parents mum and dad

i still don't to this day

um their absence i think was one part of

that but also just i didn't have

affection so growing up the thought of

calling someone a friend yeah a best

friend

still to this day makes me cringe

it's just a little bit

yeah in your case

are you an affectionate person i

i've never been asked that question i

have absolutely no idea

how to answer it um

because do i compare myself to other

people

um

i have no idea you don't know if you're

affectionate or not

i think i'm affectionate

in your own way but

i also know for years i struggled with

my like like so many with self-esteem

and you know um and i i i'm sure i felt

completely unlovable for decades

probably i'd i'm sure

um

but then you know i i've had

in my opinion uh i've been blessed with

amazing relationships with friends and

and and family i mean just completely

blessed and and and i'm not a baby so

i'm six you know i'm 62 years old and so

this

you know i've

two of my children work with me

uh i mean what more could you possibly

dream of than that so

i must have some relationship with the

concept of affection

how where it came from when how i grew

it i i'm not entirely sure because i

certainly didn't get it from my mother

and father i must have got it from

from from close friends and and maybe

just looking and learning that there's

no point

trying to go through life without it

what you what you give you get back you

know pratimagi started you know as like

it became a kind of incredible family

and the warmth and love and care which

went into the building of relationships

and that company was breathtaking it was

like a family where it started with one

store and ended up with hundreds but

there was a time when it was truly

extraordinary extended family and that's

i think where i grew

to understand the power of of of of

deep

affection love and trust

yeah it definitely came for me much

later than for most people yeah

you said there was you think there was

probably decades where you didn't love

yourself yeah well i mean decades as in

in my teens and then in my 20s

um

you i don't know how good you are at at

reflecting and self-discovery i'm i'm

kind of a five out of ten probably

i i mean i i pushed myself therapy and

and even doing this i think called the

hoffman have you heard about it he's

coming here yeah i did the hoffman he's

kind of great he's what a genius that

guy was but

so i try

what was your question or how long the

decades of self-loathing i don't know no

not how long just what were the symptoms

of of that

just just probably um

just that ongoing feeling of being

completely unworthy

that's what you get when you don't have

parents

so much or

loving

you're not nurtured you know

so you feel lonely

you grow up with that

that feeling of

unworthiness

and i always believe i i actually wrote

it i think in my book on my notepad or

something that the things that made us

feel invalid when we're younger end up

being the things we seek validation from

when we're older that's

complete common sense and true

what so did you feel unloved

it was i knew my parents loved me that

we just didn't have i just didn't learn

what affection was so like think about i

don't even call them dad and mum today i

didn't learn what it was i also because

their relationship

was incredibly

dis like loud and so i've said this a

million times before it's in my book my

mom would scream my dad for seven hours

a day my mom is african she can really

hit some notes and my dad would sit

there he's a he's a guy from coventry

you know he was a middle-aged white man

and he would just be totally silent and

that was my model of relationships if

you're with a woman you are in prison so

i i didn't get into relationships 27.

yeah yeah so i learned all of those

models and then you know i would chase i

would chase women when i was young i

would chase women when i was 14. i would

chase women when i was 21. the minute

they turned to me and said yes

i would dissuade them i'd immediately

talk them out of it

but why do you think that's because once

you had them you felt that you didn't

deserve their affection or was it just

the competition of getting them to prove

that you were worthy of them because was

it i would pursue them because of the

reasons why we pursue anyone because

they're beautiful and i have those

hormones and there's that desire and i

you know i have that okay

the minute we got to commitment yeah

we're going to be boyfriend and

girlfriend so you were frightened of the

commitment i was i would have me

immediately felt like my dad trapped in

a cage

okay so i would dissuade them from it so

it was literally i it took me until i

was 25 to figure out what was going on

while i was running away from women that

i was chasing um the minute we got to

commitment boyfriend and girlfriend if

it made me my skin crawl and it made me

feel like i was trapped so i dissuade

them

so in your case

that could have just been because what

you witnessed 100 so over over years you

just witnessed this dysfunctional

relationship where in a way your father

was trapped so it kind of

so mine was different to that because i

never saw my parents together ever

i don't think i barely ever saw them in

the room together that's not quite true

my father used to come down occasionally

on sunday but i never saw them arguing

um

so

my my take on what love was and should

be was was

that must have been my own invention i i

don't know

but i've come to it's a fascinating

subject don't you think when you study

people who in uh supportive wonderful

relationships i find it enthralling i

mean fascinating

fascinating so the most fascinating

um thing to study

how

people

uh

adapt their life to be completely in

love with someone

and and and live their life

uh

just showing warmth and kindness and

forgiveness and love is very enriching

if you can do it

it's definitely something to um

it's a goal

it's a great goal

i mean it's a goal there are other girls

but that's got to be the greatest i

guess

i think we admire and others the things

we don't have in ourselves right so

people would look at you and go how the

hell the greatest goal is to build prep

and i would look at someone else and say

what you've just said i'd say the

greatest goal is to how the [ __ ] did you

stay together for 50 years when i'm

struggling to stay together for two or

one yeah

yeah i guess that's what makes life

fascinating in the sense that some

people can achieve the goals that that

you and i think are really very very

difficult but doesn't stop us

stop us struggling to get there what was

the consequence then of you you growing

up being in your early 20s and not

feeling like you were quote-unquote sort

of enough

was that what did you see well on the

dark side i guess it made me focus more

and and

and made me more determined i guess more

determined uh

just it's it where most people uh

packed off and went home i would i would

i'd be prepared to stick it out

um but you can't i had an interesting

conversation with someone the other day

about the use of this expression hard

work he said it's not hard work it's not

it's it's a great many people work very

very hard

and they don't um

it's it's not that it's about

it's about

the evidence it's about can you make

change are you getting better is your

product better is your service better is

your relationship with the people you

work with is it better you know it's

about proof it's about real facts it's

not just hard work hard work

we just use that expression i work

really hard i know a lot of people who

work really really hard but they don't

work in the focus way that you and i

work

so it's it's worth kind of thinking well

what is the difference between them and

us what is it

and if we have to guide anyone if that

if they seek if they already are in a

rich wonderful relationship and they

want to run a company their own company

they want to be self-employed how can we

guide them

what is it that we have that they don't

um and would we swap their wonderful

rich incredible relationship

to have another 500 employees i'm not

sure

i i think you can have both oh that's

what i i

um that's my goal

you know i i i'm determined to have both

determined to have both

you don't have to have one without the

others not true

i mean it's hard to have both but come

on

it's gotta be worth aiming for isn't it

do you have both now yeah

not not in full because my career is

only half there and i'm

oh i'm not running out of steam but it's

so annoying i'm running out of time

um and my relationship with my you know

i have seven kids i've got

four step kids three of mine i've got uh

how long have we been together 15 years

brook and i mean yeah i'm i'm bloody

lucky

i'm really fortunate i think i i think i

picked really well

um

you know i'm bloody lucky with that

but i mean i could blow it i guess but

i'm gonna do my damnedest not to

when you look back at um starting prep

we're talking about what's driving you

there was there any epiphanies around

what was really driving you on that day

when

someone first came along and said they

were going to buy your company because

for me i thought i was being driven by

money until someone offered me it

and i thought oh god

there must be something else motivating

me here i don't know about that myself

it's

i've often wondered did money

and the pursuit of money ever driving i

don't think so because i think i saw

enough people when i was young with a

lot of money who are absolutely

miserable and dysfunctional and

miserable actually my mother had a lot

of money and lot obviously lost it all

and died

so there i had a very good example of of

someone with a huge amount of money who

had nothing well i didn't we didn't

inherit any of her money but

she was um it was a good example of

someone who's miserable with money money

doesn't

it's awful uh you know when people like

you and i say money doesn't make you

happy it's nothing more irritating

there's a statement like that when a

great many people uh don't have a large

cash reserves in their bank account but

the fact is uh we both know that it

doesn't what was motivating you well i

think i wanted to make a difference i

wanted to be relevant i wanted to be

admired

yeah i wanted to do something

interesting and great i wanted to people

i wanted people to look at me and think

wow he's

this this guy's serious he's on to

something

he matters

then i wanted to to

create these important relationships

with people i worked with i wanted to

see people flourish around me that

really mattered to me i wanted to try

and wipe away all the some of that pain

i wanted that and then deep down i

really love and passionately creative

the creative process of what i did so

the design and the food and the taste

and the look and the feel and and

breaking down every barrier which i just

as far as i was i only kind of saw

opportunity

you have to be very resourceful and

determined

in in my particular business

you know because it's

as we as we were saying before and it's

basic if you want to sell the best cake

in the world at the best price you've

got to be damn resourceful you've got to

work with geniuses you have the best

equipment the best everything

and and that doesn't happen overnight

you don't get that by picking up the

phone and ordering something you have to

create it

and it's you have to be

unbelievably resourceful

but i i that with regard to the food the

design and my belief in in what food

should be and could be for people um

knows no bounds no end no end i'll stop

at nothing

love it

those

dinner parties

your father threat yeah yeah did they

have any lasting impression or lasting

impact well no most of the time i was in

the kitchen actually so i'd meet these

these remark these many remarkable

people but my love of food started

because i used to spend all the time in

the kitchen and there was a a guy used

to come and cook he was really talented

tony and i'd spend the night with him

watching him work from the age of about

14 13.

it was fascinating and that's really

where my love of food started with him

watching him work so it was a

combination of of of becoming obsessed

with what food could be and should be

um and at the same time

not being frightened of of all these

rather dysfunctional but immensely

successful people who i met

through my father i didn't really get to

know them very well but a few

at the time it's hard to determine when

you're building a business and it's

going well it's hard to determine at the

time what's actually making it brilliant

and the specialness as you've called it

before in hindsight i think it's much

easier to look back and go that's why

we were special and different that's why

we won when you look back at prep at

business you ended up selling for two

billion or something crazy a huge number

yeah okay it doesn't matter it's a huge

number um what was the specialness what

what did you

unintentionally intentionally do right

what was the

well certain amount of it it wasn't

planned

it happened

endless moments of magic endless moments

of of

moments of bizarre creativity and

confidence exactly the same with with

your business it just it's so difficult

it was you didn't write it all down and

plan it it just it happened with moments

of confidence endless endless moments

you know of swimming upstream as all the

fish are going in one way you suddenly

look around you think damn it i'm going

to go the other way

i'm not going to swim

in this direction this can't be right

and that takes guts it takes bravery it

takes relationships with people it takes

hiring talent you have to have the guts

to hire talent people's often much

better than you you've got to prepare to

listen and listen until it hurts you've

got to be prepared to fail over and over

and over again

i love failure i love it

because it's just a damn journey

i really love it i fail every day

and i don't care about it i just get on

with it it's wonderful

um but with prep

food is a magical thing to be able to do

it's like music or film i mean it's

it's it's because when we know it's good

it's wonderful

it's wonderful

and in those days in 1986 when we

started it was in the doldrums it was

also boring and awful

um so it was just a question of

but but prep wasn't just built with food

it was built with a combination was kind

of built with a

magical magic approach to the

the respect and love and obsession about

creating pride and trust within with the

with the team with employees i i was

obsessed by that obsessed by that

actually how how important was it for

you that you were naive because i think

naive oh it's very important i had no

idea what i was doing

none why was that i have no idea what

i'm doing most of the time actually

because i spend my life casting myself

out into never never land i know what

i'm doing half the time but you learn

you listen you talk you speak to the

right people and you learn

because to create something new how

you know

you've got to you've got to put yourself

in slightly uncharted territory

you know and then you've got to be

prepared to fail many many times and

keep going

that's all prep was just a series of

hundreds of failures that's all it was

moments of failure and then moments of

glory moments of

wonderful moments

of bravery yeah that was it like you you

know exactly what i'm talking about it's

moments endless moments where light goes

on you think okay i'm going to take that

risk i'm going to do it

it feels right something in your heart

says it's

go for it

it could be

it could be

working with people promoting people or

giving them extraordinary opportunity or

or developing something which no one's

ever eaten before or i don't know

hundreds of different things

or when systems don't work and you're

not getting

you're not getting the behaviors or the

warmth or the trust you crave then you

have to think outside the box you got to

think again

we used to

there was one store after about 10 the

10th pressure i think i i couldn't

understand why the atmosphere in this

store was so bad fleet street oh it's

fleet street yep bloody hell and it was

the first time i had paid a recruitment

company for a top manager suit and tie

the whole thing

and yeah it's true i met this girl who i

recognized who worked in the store a

young scruffy girl on the tube on the

way home she burst into tears and she

said i'm leaving on monday

because her manager was a dick

and i didn't need her to explain what

dick meant i knew exactly what she meant

my god i'd been at school

i'd been all the teachers were dicks

i knew exactly what she meant and i

hated

i hated the idea of this this determined

brave

trustworthy wonderful loving fabulous

young lady

being bullied by dick

so we we fired the dick and we promoted

her to a manager and i never looked back

i think i learned more from that young

lady than any anyone i've ever learned

in my life actually

the hope and the joy did you see

yourself in her

oh my god i've never thought about that

oh my god maybe

but no one ever gave me that opportunity

i had to fight for it i didn't give her

that opportunity she earned it actually

she earned it

just by being herself

she was a great manager too actually i

don't know how i knew i wasn't i didn't

know she was going to be a great manager

there was something about her

there was something about her and by the

way there's something about

a great great many people i meet they

all have

so much going for them they just don't

believe it they're just not working in

an environment where they're giving the

opportunity they deserve

people don't trust them

people don't nurture them because

they're too busy being selfish nurturing

them themselves

sounds like you're talking about your

school teachers oh well they're just

they were idiots they were just

complete idiots

and they're just downright no one should

be they shouldn't have been

paid

but a lot of authorities like that

i mean a lot

and that stores sales doubled or

something oh my god yeah double triple

yeah of course

why because there was there was trust

there was care there was pride there was

love and forgiveness there was goals

there was there was everything wonderful

in life right there

right there

business isn't just business to you is

it it's not just about the money

no and it shouldn't be to anyone but it

is because we worked short-term goals

so many of us are controlled but bossed

around

we have to we're

you know people's emotions are

incredibly inconvenient in commerce

aren't they let's face it

and and some people like you and other

people have found ways

of being

you know

find ways of of of bypassing all that

[ __ ]

and you let people

be themselves you actually encourage

people to be themselves to speak up

to be transparent

that's what you need that shot was

completely transparent it was beautiful

and that's what builds

great great companies or great teams or

great sports teams to know what it is or

makes great movies it doesn't matter or

anything

people need that feeling of uh

sense of purpose and trust

uh openness i think funny you talk much

more in terms of culture than you do in

terms of tactics and tricks and

discounting and these kinds of things

seems to start more with culture with

you

yeah i think it's it's if you're trying

to break down barriers and do things new

which i've now spent the last 20 years

really taking on almost

an extraordinary wonderful challenge

which we will we will win we will get

there with it soon yeah it's a

affordable nutritious food

and it is reinventing itself over and

over and over again i mean it's 20 years

old and it's had three reinventions that

the latest ones are beginning to be to

really pay i mean they're really

wonderful

because the world

the europe are the cities in which we

live desperately need affordable

nutritious food we are half 40 percent i

think plant-based

our entire menu is under 500 calories

most of it's under 400 you know this is

what people need we can't go on in this

in the developed world being 50 percent

of obese or something whatever it is now

it's shocking

but this is we can't blame anyone for

this there's no point blaming there's no

point even blaming us there's no one to

blame

but it's about

my responsibility i think

is with my team to carry on

pioneering the the systems and the and

the system to make it possible to sell

really nutritious good food for for

seven quid

it's possible you talked about hiring

and the importance of people and the

right people there one of the things

that i read that you'd done very early

on with prep was

to

allow the current employees to

sign off on an incoming team member so

when someone comes for an interview the

people that decide if that person is

going to get a job are the current team

members yeah so we the office used to

pay for for

we did interview people um we'd go

through the list of

of the shops which the predator managers

which needed

people coming up and we'd send them

there

and they would spend the whole day there

paid and at four o'clock no one would

know they wouldn't know this but at four

o'clock all the the staff would vote on

a napkin yes or no so they go around the

whole team that we would find ways of of

getting as many people to spend 25

minutes with them as possible and then

at uh four o'clock they'd vote and then

we'd ring the person up you got it or

you didn't and why why was that you

because

uh i wish i'd been able to do that at

school because i realized after about

seven or eight it was dysfunctional that

you only needed a slightly not

particularly reliable or trustworthy

manager and what would they do they'd

hire the people they wanted

the whole system would just be abused

and there were

a couple of examples where that was

happening and it just made me sick

because it was so bad for the team it

was bad for the culture it was

bad for the manager and it was really

bad for the customers so i i just

created this simple system which was so

beautiful it was beautiful because young

people

were voting on other people's lives

within a few weeks of starting that was

great empowering them trusting them that

was great good for them huh really good

for them

small details you know when i read

through your story of both your

businesses all your businesses i noticed

that there's a real eye for detail you

know if i think about itsu and the

orchards you have there you have real

orchards in the itsu's right

could very well fake them like i do i

mean i'm pretty sure there's some fake

orchards in here there's definitely some

fake orchards upstairs yeah you went for

the real ones in prayer one of the

things that's ultimately defined the

brand called culture at the right time

is the fact that the food is all

completely fresh so none of it has a

cell by date it doesn't stay there until

tomorrow ever these small

sort of concerns with detail

how defining have they been for you in

hindsight because sometimes people are

told not to sweat the small stuff yeah

okay so quite a lot of this stuff is to

me at the time it's just kind of obvious

in other words

if your product if you want expect your

customers to be loyal to you

you've got to treat them with treat them

with respect you've got to sell them

something worth worthy of their

hard-earned money but people care about

the bottom line give that cost you more

money now that's ridiculous i'm not a

very good accountant i i know

i don't i'm not interested in

in the numbers of the at all i'm far

more interested in the relationships

with the customer and the staff and the

product the numbers are just look after

themselves

they really really really do and anyway

i've always been lucky to be

to have wonderful brilliant people

around me who are much better than i at

numbers i hate numbers they're so boring

i shouldn't say that because without the

numbers you can't grow so i feel very

strongly that we have to have numbers

which enable us to grow because if we

can grow we can feed more people and

then we can give opportunities

someone's told you that after the fact

yeah i can tell that's not that wasn't

your default position it was a bit

exactly but i find the numbers awfully

boring compared to the product and the

relationships with the people

um

they're just like a school report in a

way aren't they um if you want to give

away and refuse to keep all your

sandwiches to the next day and what's

more drive them in a van to the homeless

people who need them clearly they've got

to be delicious

you know got a taste good enough so

people will pay 50p more or 30p more and

that's just basic common sense isn't it

i think the whole numbers thing's

reasonable it's just common sense

so you never even you at pratt you

didn't even throw the food away you

would drive it in advance yeah we had to

even when we were making no profits we

had a van to take it to the homeless you

know every of course yeah because you

can't expect people to make this stuff

to make the food with pride and then

throw it away yeah we obsessed about not

not not throwing it away you can't can't

throw it away

uh

and then if you

take the piss out of your customers

you'll lose them

don't you find it extraordinary how

often you get shocking service where

you've spent a lot of money and no one

gives a damn

i'm not going to name big companies but

i can think of some companies where i've

spent five or six thousand pounds on

something and they don't answer

i mean it can be shocking and they still

don't care

oh my god i will answer every customer

now today if customers write to me i'll

answer them before i go to bed no

question

at prep the other thing that was quite

i remember hearing about and thinking oh

that's cool and different is one in

every 100 coffees or something you would

give away no it wasn't that no it was

much more than that like was it okay so

we didn't have a loyalty scheme for

years and years and years because we

we couldn't quite know what to do and i

couldn't but what i realized is uh very

very early on

i think in prep number 12 or something

we said i know that what we'll just

really encourage everyone who works

there to give

whatever they want away to whoever they

want to

um

it was wonderful

we used to do these things called buddy

days

well the whole office used everyone had

a buddy shop

and um

and my buddy shot was oxford but we used

to

you could give away five or six or ten

products every single day to anyone a

regular customer someone who had a long

face

someone you fancied it just didn't

matter give because when you do good

stuff it always comes back

you get it back you've got to think long

term

and so this was a good example of where

we

begged everyone who worked for us just

be kind give it away they

exceed the expectations of customers

they'll come back

and you know what should i tell the most

extraordinary thing some of the most

profitable shops short term short term

we found weren't giving anything away so

the manager was saying to us no no no no

giveaways no giveaways

because their margins their profit

margin was better so we introduced a

button on the till called the joy of

pratt i didn't do this clive did this he

introduced a system whereby

at the press of a button on the computer

could tell us every single store which

wasn't giving away enough

because when you gave something away you

had to press you register on the till as

a giveaway so we quickly found out all

the managers who were being who were

running their businesses too tight they

were being a bit mean

they thought

they were doing a good job by delivering

more profit what what they didn't

realize is no no to do a great job you

need to build a long-term relationship

with your staff and your your customers

so give them a coffee give them a

question just do it

do you have any evidence numerically to

support that that worked no

none

zero

and everyone used to come in

professionals and consultants just say

this is ridiculous what are you doing

your loyalty scheme is a joke

and i just

what can you say

just

no

it works great

but but it can't it you know

different different

it works great but you can't prove it

that's the typical ceo thing it's like

trying to explain it to a cfo it's just

like yeah just believe

just believe it

the only reason we're sitting here now

you and i is because

multiple times we've just made decisions

like this

um

half the time we've had to pretend to

people we work with we know what we're

talking about whenever we have

completely no idea but if it feels right

and you think long term you do it you

just persuade them you pretend you know

you justify in hindsight yeah of course

you find some study find some study or

just say let's try it and then and then

no and then finally say we're gonna try

it

i i wonder sometimes about how you know

in your story and in my story um how our

traumas and how our experiences with

authority or with our parents or with

shitty corporate jobs we had ended up

shaping the decisions we made in our

businesses and defining us because

that's why i referenced naivete not

knowing the correct answers and in some

cases having a problem with rules and

authority end up creating a more modern

culture that i think so yeah i'm sure i

see it over and over again eventually

all the crap we went through definitely

helped us

uh break through and just

just do things differently must do yes

when you know something doesn't work why

not just try something else

that's why founder led businesses even

you know you think about steve jobs

perspective on the world to remove that

keyboard and to do those small decisions

that they made maybe it was driven by

ego insecurity or whatever

but it but for some reason it gives

people courage of their convictions to

create new things yeah new ways

and also a never-ending pursuit for the

the better detail

to make something better

and it's endless that's the thing about

the food it is truly endless why did i

read that you don't like ambitious

managers in your business i read that

you like slow and beautiful growth very

ambitious people are a pain in the ass

often very ambitious people often not

always but often a very short term

and they're really

hiding all their crap for their own

personal

their own personal gain which i

understand they've got they've got their

own goals they've got their own desires

they've got their own dreams of their

own house this car this house this

school this whatever the hell it is

but that can be incredibly destructive

to someone like

myself and my team and an organization

which i take like a 30 year view to

everything i do

i really do 30 years which drives must

drive some people i work with up the

wall but i really like to think 30 years

30 years must be and if you if you get

someone who's very powerful in your

business who's thinking three years well

i mean look at that look and that's

that's quite common in commerce as you

know

so they can they can they can move

mountains and but

but then the mountains crumble

that's boring it's a waste of everyone's

energy and passion

and love and everything

in may 2018 you sold your final stake in

pratt yeah

why

because um i wasn't oh i wasn't asked um

i had no choice uh the the the the new

owners of pressure manager have nothing

to do with me i met them i've met them

once for five minutes they they probably

think i'm an absolute idiot they have no

i've never met them don't they have no

interest in working with me

that's their choice it's completely

you know

that that is um that's their choice

i hope it works for them

so you own the business with your

co-founder and then so that's a long

yeah it's a long story prep started in

86 and yeah and

i'm trying to i bought a founder in who

was who i who i met at uh at college

um who was much much cleverer than me

much more disciplined than me

and i had this really strong vision of

of wanting to do this but i knew i was

smart enough back then to know i needed

someone who was respectful of numbers

and discipline and the law

so i said to him look if you leave your

job i'll give you half this company and

he did he was brave he had a good job

and he left his job

um

and i think probably in the end after

about 15 years we we've become immensely

successful

the two of us and he wanted to retire

i think the pace that my endless

never-ending

pushing on the vision of what this could

be probably drove him mental um

but he he he was smart he retired

he works a bit now but he kind of

retired completely

which i respect completely that was his

choice did it suck at the time when

sinclair told you that he was going to

retire no no no no he was i rather

admired him

i could never do that i really admire

people who who are able to take control

of their life like that i can't

are you being dragged what's that mean

being tracked yeah so take control of

their life like that so no no i

genuinely i promise you i think people

who are able to to

take control and i'm gonna go walking in

the in the bloody jungle for six months

i have nothing but admiration for people

who can do that so let's ask if you're

being dragged because

like we said earlier you're admiring

something that you don't have yourself

yeah i don't have it

i don't have it i'm i'm you don't have

control of your life i do have control

over my life because i definitely make

the choice to do what i do and i

couldn't stop and i love it i really i'm

happiest creating

there's no question i'm completely in

love with what i do i love it i really

enjoy it

that may sound weird but it's the truth

i love it i don't want to be walking in

the jungle i love doing what i'm doing

every day i've just had a food meeting

now it was fantastic we've cracked

something we've been working on for a

year we cracked it today it's incredible

and millions of people will eat this

thing in a year from now and it's

because of our relentless

passion and hard work to get this thing

right and today we i think we cracked it

and that's wonderful

and then earlier this morning we cracked

a bit of design which was incredible i

really enjoy it so i don't want to be in

the jungle he did he wanted to retire

and i respect that but it left me in the

ship because we didn't have any

paperwork between us and and suddenly uh

different kinds of people came into the

business and they were much more formal

and and some of the joy went out of it

did he sell his steak at that point uh

yeah he sold a chunk of it but it really

changed it became professional

uh and then and then private equity came

in i mean we had a very good

private equity company a uk one they

were they were fine they were very

honorable decent people but it was

definitely um

the business became

more about becoming a very successful

business than than developing a very

beautiful relationship with the customer

and staff and it was acquired by

mcdonald's no that's not true no what

happened is um for a very short period

of time donald's owned a thirty percent

of it okay because i thought mcdonald's

or no i didn't

at the time the leader the ceo of the

business persuaded me that mcdonald's

would teach us the disciplines we didn't

have about global expansion

and i in the end he kind of caved in and

i thought it was a pretty weird idea but

i caved in

but after it was pretty obvious after a

few months it was a bad idea because

you know just they didn't really

understand our business

but i'll tell you what there was a very

very powerful distinction between

a pursuit of real beauty of a product

and a relationship with your customers

and your staff to running a business

and and generating

sales

striving at two different outcomes right

two completely different

a really clever person can do both

and we did do both the business was then

run by a friend of mine who's i still

work with now i have huge respect for

and he did a great job but

in the end the business was then of

course sold

in 2001 was it 18 18. yeah and will the

business continue to thrive i i don't

know i hope so i just honestly don't

know but they certainly don't want

anything to do with me are you

disappointed in the way the business is

moving

i'm not disappointed but do you ever

walk in there and go because i know i

did when i left my company when i

resigned my company had gone public and

i remember walking seeing things they're

doing and seeing seeing the office and

hearing this story and thinking oh [ __ ]

they've lost this no no no i think on

the whole for years the relationship

between the company and its members of

staff has been wonderful so i'm often

inspired by that and i've never no i

never think that i think i don't i know

you never walked in and gone if i was

still running no i don't really what i

think i sometimes go in and think wow i

wonder what just think what that could

be

and then i think god how complicated

that would be to get it there and thank

god i'm not doing both because that's

what i'm doing on a daily basis now with

with itsu because itsu will become in

fight ten years from now

a really remarkable home for affordable

nutritious food that's it's that's what

it will be there's no question that's

what it is becoming

it's hard to see that right now because

it sells too much uh raw fish uh you

know 30 of our sales are a product which

it used to be ninety percent it uh it's

now down to 50 i think or something

but we're changing and developing uh all

the time now far getting faster and

faster at the reinvention of the company

i couldn't quite figure out where the

crossover happened between itsu and

pratt when 97 the first itsu opened

while you were still there i was out and

and we had a supplier um a wonderful uh

the head of marketing at the japanese

center was a young japanese woman

and she said to me i said to her why day

why are you working for this terribly

boring company why don't you open a

japanese restaurant which is affordable

because in those days japanese

restaurants were really stuck up and

really expensive really boring

and

and she said to me okay i'll leave my

job

if you help

if you pay for it

so i said okay i'll pay for it you lose

your you you leave your job

i promised you two weeks later she rung

me up and said i've left my job

and i said what have you done what have

you

so i suddenly found myself with this

responsibility to open a restaurant

um so when we found a site and we opened

the first itsu which was very different

from what it is now but it was a start

and from that start we built

76 or something of of them and then

about five years ago we started

developing it so it could become

the future

but but we had to open 76 and keep it

private it was a 100 private company i

never ever again wanted to end up in a

situation where i owned a minority where

the business would take over in other

words you will do this you will do this

we will deliver these profits

and we don't care about your vision

so i was able to build it to such an

extent with the team that we owned it

all of it and now you have what 75

stores in total yeah

we're opening in lots of interesting

places really fascinating just now in

the next 12 months we're open i think we

open bromley next week but it's changing

so much

what's the worst crisis you've ever had

in your business

well i wasn't there

i'd left prep when the crisis happened

when the the the um sesame incident of

that poor girl who had food allergies i

wasn't there then that must have been

very difficult for everyone then

and and and the ups and downs as you

know as you would have experienced in

your business there are ups and downs

every week every month so you often

think this is a this is

funny enough i think most of my job

today is telling people not to worry a

lot of people i work with um come to me

and say that we're in terrible this is

nice

no it's not it's going to be fine

this sesame incident

yeah we're referring to is a young girl

yeah who had an allergic reaction to a

sesame

seed a baguette

in a big in a sheet she had serious food

allergies and she had bought without

her mother wasn't there and she bought a

baguette and ate it

which was covered in sesame seeds i mean

it was tragic

very really sad and as a result of that

natasha's law has changed

uh

brought in far more labeling food

labeling in this country it's called

natasha's law yeah after her

but it was very painful for her her

family and everyone uh

proud it was awful

but the crisis uh they'll come they can

fast and we'll be fine

we'll be fine

how can you be so sure

because

because

just stick to the truth

the truth is

you know

the truth is good

in the sense that

of all the things which could go

catastrophically wrong

we kind of know about them uh with

regard to the dangers of being on our

businesses uh

health and safety for instance we have a

five-star record of the highest record

in this country every single one is five

star always no one else has achieved

that before and that is because the head

of the ceo of our company has a

fantastic relationship with their head

of say it's awesome unbelievable if our

head of

safety got up on stage last week and the

entire

220 people just completely clapped it

says a lot because usually those people

you know

so there's culturally that says

something so health and safety in our

industry is really really a fear

um what else all kinds of things

did that incident with natasha she 15

year old drops dead on a plane from what

i read um did it change you in any way

did it make you think differently about

because that's for me that's the

inconceivable it almost reminds me of

um bob iger

i read disney yeah bob iger's book about

four-year-old that was playing at disney

and a crocodile comes out of the disney

pond and eats him no

yeah and and bob i get about to go up on

stage in asia gets a message from a

senior leadership team saying

a four-year-old at disney has just been

eaten by a crocodile

and

i mean it had a pretty profound impact

on him to say the least so

well

he was the chief exec at the time i know

that it was terribly hard for the the

senior team at practice although they

hadn't i mean they everything they'd

done was completely within the law

uh not that that too cares about that

but it was i mean it was

you know the the it was just

a number of terrible

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a really remarkable thing happened um

in your life at a certain age when you

found out you had a daughter out of the

blue yeah

i had a feeling you were gonna ask about

that

that went public didn't it yes okay so

my yeah that is absolutely true and i

work with uh celeste now she's on the

board and she sits next to me two days a

week

uh and

it's incredible i had at some point in

my early life a man walked in he walked

into my my mum's shop

and he said

that he was my uncle turns out he was

yeah i didn't know i had any uncles in

this country turns out i did but tell me

about that day for you what how did it

happen how do you find out how what age

are you when you find out you have a

oh it's about 15 years ago and she was

20. i was about 45. you were 45 she was

20. no she was 19. oh 19. she had just

started at bristol university

and her mother called me who hadn't seen

for ages

um and obviously i had absolutely no

idea

that her daughter was my daughter no

absolutely no i'd never met her i'd had

no idea and her mother asked to see me

so i said yes me and we met and

we met in the king's road and she told

me i sat down i went you suspicious when

she asked to see you

no i wasn't suspicious i certainly

wasn't suspicious of that i thought

maybe she

needed help or i i don't know

um but she was a kind of cool

intelligent

rather wonderful eccentric brilliant

woman so i remembered her very fondly i

hadn't seen her for ages but so i met

her immediately and she and she just

told me there and then my daughter i

have a daughter and she's sure

she's your

daughter

so i asked

when did you tell her and how has it

gone down she said i told her two weeks

ago and not well

so then we then i tried to contact her

she was a bit

standoffish it was hard to get through

to her for a few days and then i drove

up to bristol university and we met

we met

and i had nothing but but um an

overwhelming desire to

a deep overwhelming desire to get in

there and and try my hardest

to build her muscle and her strength

and her you know what

what had happened to her was incredibly

unjust

and

i wanted from the depth of my heart to

do everything i could to try and repair

it and i will do that and continue that

to the dare die

i'm she's fantastic and she's really

close to my children and my other two

and

you know could be much worse but i feel

this is not an easy thing to go through

for her

not not an easy thing for anyone to go

through

so she's

strong she has she's married she has

two kids and a third one on the way and

she's really rather remarkable so the

person she thought was her father

wasn't wasn't correct

and why why

hadn't her mother told her to her father

because her mother she wasn't uh

when that when this happened uh they

they weren't close the mother and the

father they weren't they really weren't

close if you understand what i'm saying

they really weren't that close and he

the the father figure was pretty distant

through her life and when she got to the

age of 18 i think probably more distant

and i think the mother realized that

this couldn't go on forever and she the

mother was very brave she took this

hugely brave decision do i tell her the

truth or do i not i have nothing but

respect

and absolute admiration for the mother