The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - How To Chase Your Dreams Without Fear Holding You Back with Fran Millar

Episode Date: February 8, 2021

My guest this week is an inspiring woman and a brilliant leader, Fran Millar. Fran was recently appointed CEO of the UK fashion brand, Belstaff. Prior to Belstaff, Fran was the former CEO of Team INEOS (formerly Team Sky), the world famous cycling team. Fran led the development of the team’s operational and governance systems alongside all of the business and engagement strategies. Fran has been with team INEOS from the very beginning and during this time she has played a key role in the successes and gained considerable experience in all areas of the team. She previously held a dual role as both Director of Business Operations and Head of Winning Behaviours at Team Sky. Returning to head up all the team’s ‘off bike’ functions in 2015, her responsibilities included overseeing the team’s marketing and communications strategy, stakeholder management, and all the commercial and legal aspects that come with running the world’s number one cycling team. Fran worked alongside the incomparable Sir Dave Brailsford for over a decade, as well as leading sports psychiatrist, professor Steve Peters. Prior to working at Team Sky, Fran set-up and ran her own successful athlete and event management agency for 7 years, initially representing her brother, David Millar and going on to represent some of the UK’s highest profile cyclists, including 2011 Sports Personality of the Year winner Mark Cavendish and 2018 Tour de France winner and 2018 Sports Personality of the Year winner, Geraint Thomas. During her career in cycling, Fran had to deal with some tough challenges including getting caught up in tan infamous doping scandal that involved her pro cyclist brother David. Fran’s story is a fascinating one, one that has twists and turns, one that would have left a lot of people behind but not Fran. Fran is tough, she’s tenacious, she’s inspiring.  Follow Fran: Twitter - https://twitter.com/franmillar Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the united states and i'd be recording a lot more over in the states they put a massive billboard in time square um for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you to all of you that listen to this show let's continue why am i doing this i'm doing this because society wants me to do this i'm doing this because my mates want me to do this. This is bullshit. That's not going to happen. And I think you show that little boy inside

that was just like ruined by it. Sorry, it's still quite emotional. What an amazing story. What a cruel, amazing, twisting career. My next guest has one of the most fascinating journeys through business and through life that I think I've ever heard. She spent her life surrounded by a couple of people that I actually consider to be inspirations of mine. One of them is Sir David Brailsford, who's been the sort of elite performance coach and cycling coach for Team Sky which went on

to win more than they were ever expected to win. He's the I guess the author of this this marginal gains thinking which changed how business and sports teams function. The other person she was surrounded by throughout her career is Steve Peters who a lot of you will know from the book he authored The Chimp Paradox which redefines from a psychiatrist's point of view how our mind works and where our behavior comes from. And the other male figure in her life that's important for the story you're about to hear is her brother, David Miller, who was this incredibly sort of highly regarded cyclist, British cyclist, who had this cruel twist to his career where he got involved in the doping scandal which really left a stain on British cycling as we know it and David Miller recounts the story of him being sat

in this this cafe shop with David Brailsford and being tapped on the shoulder by three men wearing suits who would then raid his house and find syringes and that was one of the key moments in British sporting history where I think in many respects, things have never been the same. And we always view our elite performers with an element of skepticism. But this is Fran's story. And Fran's story is one of tenacity. It's one of success. It's one of jumping off cliffs and figuring out how to build your skydiver as you fall. Her story is inspiring. It's peculiar. She went from starting her own business to spending i think 12 years at team sky worked her way up to the very very top and when it became team inios she became the ceo leading a predominantly male dominated industry and then out the blue in the middle of

a pandemic when retail was on its ass she decided that she was going to change lanes and become the ceo of bell staff which is a brand that has been struggling, that's been making losses, and then was then kicked up the rear end by COVID. She's brave. She is unusual. She's inspiring. She's tough. She describes herself, or at least she respects the idea of being a difficult woman, something we'll talk about. So without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody is listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. Fran, I've done a lot of stalking of your, your history, your past professional career, and I was stalking your Twitter feed the other day and I saw a quote that you'd, um, you'd written,

I guess, in, in honor of your brother, um, David, who is a world renowned professional, incredibly accomplished cyclist. And the quote said, following a boy who loved it so much, he got absorbed into the fabric of it and has spent a lifetime carrying the weight of the cruelty wonder brilliance and tragedy it would bring him um is ultimately what got you into the the world of cycling i was slightly taken aback by some of those words cruelty wonder brilliance and tragedy can you explain why you chose those words oh that's a big opening question um yeah I mean listen my brother was was and is a very talented guy he was we were so when we were about 10 and 12 my parents got divorced my dad went to live in Hong Kong my mum stayed in the UK I stayed with my mum my brother went with my dad and so when we were like kids we'd cross in the air so he'd come home from Hong Kong I'd go out so he'd come home i'd go out and he had nothing to do when he was here because we'd moved so he

had no he had no friends around so my mom entered him into a cycling club um and he'd go and he'd do the time trials he was super good at it by the like literally from like 15 to 19 he'd gone from never really riding a road bike to being like courted by nine of the biggest teams in the sport and he got signed very young by a big French team and they kind of made all these promises to my mum about it and he was obviously you know he was a kid he was desperate to win the Tour de France and to go and fulfill his dreams and he totally fell in love with the sport and he was completely enamored by it and in the space of five years he'd gone from this excited talented you know brilliant kid to this damaged incredibly sad deep deeply deeply shamed young man and it was like how has a sport done that like how is it it's a it's a game right like sports a game it's

entertainment how is it something that is fundamentally to entertain people basically ruined him, like, taking him down to the core of who he was? And it just... And then he built himself back up and he's, you know, he's gone on to do incredible things.

But it was just a... The sport has had this unbelievable impact on my life, on my brother's life, on my life, on everything, the decisions I've made and everything else. I guess that's why I chose those words give me some detail on you talked about the sport bringing him down to his core and and bringing him what caused that

so he went into the sport in 1998 he turned pro which for any of your listeners who know anything about cycling was the festina year so it was the year of the big festina scandal where they raided all the hotel rooms and the guys all kind of protested and sat down on the road and only a few of the sort of teams were able to finish because so many guys got pulled out of the race and it was the it was the dawning of the epo era so it was the era where they discovered effectively you know athletes and coaches had discovered that you could use EPO in the same way that you used to be able to use altitude training to perform to increase physical performance um and it was just a transformative

drug it it was they couldn't detect it they couldn't test for it and they brought in some interventions like a hematocrit test so if your hematocrit went over 40 uh 50 you'd be pulled out of racing but it was a it was a health check it wasn't a doping check and it was rife basically so when he this young sort of dreaming kid went into the sport he he genuinely thought you could do it clean you wouldn't ever have to cheat I don't even think he really knew that much about doping at that point in his life and pretty quickly he realized that actually most of the guys at the very top were doping, that the doping was endemic, that the expectation was you would dope, that that was what you would need to do if you wanted to be a professional and you wanted to be any good.

And he resisted it for a really long time. He was a time trialer, which is race against the clock, basically only racing yourself. And so he really stuck to his time trialing because he was like I can do that like with the technology with aerodynamics with focus on my training it's a shorter period of time there's less requirement to kind of be as cardiovascularly supreme as the guys who are trying to win the tour are and so he did very very well time trialing went to his first tour de de France and won yellow like day one. And but what was happening was behind the scenes, this sort of erosion of his belief that he would be able to do it clean. His recognition that actually, if he if he really wanted to take it seriously and try and win the tour, he was going to have to cheat. The people around him that the kind of network and the sort of framework around him was people who weren't

looking out for him weren't thinking what's best for him weren't trying to work out how to make help him fulfill his potential they were trying to work out how to get him good enough to make enough money to win you know for them as a business they he was a commodity in their business um and I like I haven't actually ever told this story but Francois Migraine who owned Coffides which is like a company that basically does telephone loans I don't actually ever told this story, but Francois Migraine, who owned Cofidis, which is like a company that basically does telephone loans. I don't know what they do now, probably online loans. But he met my mum. So when we had all these teams that were sort of courting David,

he met with my mum and he promised her that he would look after him, like promised, looked her in the eyes and said, I'll look after him. And yet he did nothing. Like he built a team that was allowed to just get on with it. He sort of closed his eyes to it. And actually when the big investigation into Cofidi started, it was Francois Migraine who effectively called out my brother. He was like, I think Moncoutier is probably clean,

but David Miller, I wouldn't put my hand on my heart for him. And it was like, you motherfucker. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And he's 24 years old. Like, what? The only exposure he's had to the professional sport is your team. So if that's what's happened, it's your team and your people.

Don't get me wrong. David absolutely has to take responsibility for his decisions in that. But I, for one, know that when I was like 19 to 25, I wasn't making the best decisions I've made in my life. Do you know what I mean? And I had some influential people around me who had, they told me to do things. And it's that insidious thing, isn't it? It's a bit like kind of, I was listening to a book the other day about decision-making and,

you know, how, if you look at like Nazi Germany and people say, oh, they were just following orders. And there was this big study done apparently where they put people in a room and they told them like, there's going to be some, there's going to be a student in there. It's a study. I can't remember the name. I think it was my grandma or someone who did the study. And you're going to press this button. Don't worry because to shock them.

And the shock's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. And it's like, and 65% of the people would have pressed the button that would have effectively killed the person in the other room. And it's like, what? And that's the human condition right so this idea that we that we would make a better decision or we'd make a better choice or that we do it differently people seem to impose that on guys who decide to cheat in sport decide to make these decisions like well how dare you make that decision it's like if you're in an environment in a culture where that becomes the norm where that becomes what people do this idea that you're going to be the one person

who and don't get me wrong I know there are other people who do that and fair play to them. That's impressive, you know, that you've been brought up in a certain way to enable you to make those decisions. But David was, he was fragile. He was impressionable. He was a dreamer.

He was doing something he'd always wanted to do. He was passionate and desperate, desperate, desperate to be a success. And I think he just got taken down the wrong path you know and you do you feel like you went through that with him as a close family um I'm trying to understand the impact I had on you being the sister and I know you you guys are very close yeah I mean the impact I had on me was I was he never he never came to he went to my mum and told her that he was dating and they, they, they sort of, she just said, well, just

stop, just come home. Like, don't worry about it. You know, sort of at the very beginning, he said, there's a lot of drugs. And my mum was like, well, just come home, go to art school. Don't worry about it. It's just cycling. Um, and yet he stayed and he persisted. And then I think when he, in 2001, when he eventually made the decision to kind of cross the line as it were he he had he spoke to my mum I think in that period and she was just

like you you know you have you have to stop you have to come home and he was a bit like no I want to do you know I want I want to be successful I want to go on this journey he never had that conversation with me all I ever saw was the kind of it was like an erosion of him do you know I mean it's like I could tell something was going on I wasn't an idiot I mean it's like he's probably he's probably cheating but we had all been indoctrinated into it as well it was like well that's kind of you turn a blind eye you kind of think well you know he's he's doing really well he's you know on the cover of all the magazines he seems happy-ish and it was only when he'd come home in the off season and he'd come come and stay with me and my mates living in London and he would he would drink so heavily

that you'd be like okay this isn't normal you're a professional athlete and he would the the depressions he'd sink into and the self-loathing that he that would come out and it's like in vino veritas you know that kind of this and I'd be like what on earth is going on here and then eventually it kind of you I realized what was happening and I kind of felt responsible for never stepping in and saying something and never being like you don't need to do this I was just like well you know if you're happy and you're enjoying it and you're doing well who am I to judge kind of thing um so I think as a family it kind of bonded and pulled us apart like we kind of we all turn a blind eye to it I think we've all got our demons to deal with

from that perspective um my dad I think was had a very different view of it all my brother and my dad sort of you know have it have an ongoing difficult relationship my mum and my brother are very close I'm very close to my dad and my mum but you know so as a family we've kind of it's it's definitely created divisions because everyone had a different view of it and then in terms of the impact on me I went into cycling I ran my own cycling agency I was working in the cycling industry I totally rode the coattails of my brother's success and I was like shit okay now it's all going to come crashing neck like he got arrested and put in prison and you know I was like oh god this is not ideal and I literally remember speaking to him afterwards and he'd just come out of you know the 48 hours in custody and he was like and I remember it being like a week and a half before the tour and he said

to me don't worry France um they're still gonna let me ride the tour you know you're like it still makes me want to cry because it's like David they're not gonna let you ride the tour that's not gonna happen and I think it you show that little boy inside that was just like ruined by it sorry it's still quite emotional but yeah so it just it just impacted everything it impacted all my decisions because at that point I was then like shit now I've got to go into the office the next day and I've got to stand in the velodrome at events and I'm David I'm not David Miller's sister the kind of glory front cover of the magazine I'm that I'm the sister of this shamed cheating lying horrible human being who no one likes anymore and who has disgraced British cycling and is is a you know he he's like a

complete social pariah and I'm like oh shit okay now I've still got to go and do my job and did you feel that yeah you felt the judgment and yeah massively people were really and it was in the days of forums you know like when forums were a really big deal and I'd be like okay I'm just gonna go and have a little bit of a look on a forum and see what people are saying and I'd see people people I work with commenting, you know, people who were at the Velodrome who were like doing the timing at my events. And they all, you know, literally like people wishing him dead. But, you know, it was just like, it wasn't cool. And yeah, I really felt it. I felt it for him.

I didn't, I wasn't embarrassed because I was like, you know, it is what it is. He's made a set of decisions. He's paying the price for it um but it was at that point sort of about six months after that I was like I probably can't represent him anymore because if I have to have another conversation with a journalist an ignorant journalist about this kind of binary right or wrong conversation where you're like this is not how life works I'm gonna end up punching someone in the face so i should probably stop doing that speaking of punching people in the face i heard you no um no um i heard it just felt like a good turn towards one of the things that i saw you share online which was this article about being a difficult woman and the

importance of dispelling this sort of like niceness aura that women typically are associated with in business that I think the article was suggesting holds them back. How important has that been, especially, you know, when you were dealing in an industry which is pretty much full of men and you got to the very very top as the CEO of Ineos how important was it to be willing to punch people in the face being a little bit difficult at times as it's such an interesting question because that whole being a difficult woman I think is the older I've gotten the more I've kind of explored feminism and explored kind of this sort of female condition, the human condition. It's like women are judged very

differently for behaviours that in men would be seen as completely normal. So, you know, there's the sort of famous kind of meme that's the sort of, you know, men are assertive, women are chippy, you know, men are confident, women are arrogant. You know, it's like the same behavior gets viewed very differently through a very different lens. I've never filtered myself. It's not been anyone who's ever met me knows that I don't really come with a filter. And I think it's really, really important that young women recognize that they don't have to apply a filter. You don't have to be the quiet one in the room. You don't have to, I remember reading Sheryl Sandberg's book about leaning and it it was like um you know young women will come into a meeting room and they won't sit at the table like they physically won't sit at the table they'll sit

like at the sides and I was like fuck off who does that and then I go to meetings and I'd be like I'd notice that like the 19 20 21 year old younger women in the room they'd wait for the guys to sit down they'd be like what the fuck are people why are people doing that? And you just, until you realize it's happening, you don't realize it's happening. And so, yeah, I've always felt quite strongly that you just need to be yourself, be confident, be willing to get told you're a bitch, get told you're, and don't get me wrong, when I was younger, I was actually a bit of a bitch. I probably didn't measure that behavior. I was a bit like, well, it's just who I am and everyone needs to suck that up.

And actually, you still have to be polite and have manners and you still have to recognize that being aggressive is actually just sometimes being aggressive. It's not being assertive. And that balance, I think I've learned as I've got older. But I think it's, yeah, I think women are judged totally differently for behaviors that men would be absolutely, it would almost be, uh,

sort of respected in a man for certain behaviors and in women it's reviled. There'll be, there'll be young women listening to this and they'll be thinking, do you know what, I'd love to be like that friend and I'd love to be a bit more, you know, assertive and et cetera, et cetera. But I just, you know, it's just not who I am. And so kind of the question that popped into my mind was where did that, you know, some might see it as confidence, but it's like a confidence in being your true self, right? Where did that, do you know where that came from in you? Was it, you know, is it experience? Is it something that happened in the household? Is it your mother was taught you that behavior? Your father? Yeah, I think it's probably half nature, half nurture. Like,

I think I, you know, my mum tells a story about when I was little and I said you know I'd just literally go off and speak to people like she'd she'd be sat at you know the bar you know on a holiday and she'd want to know what's going on with a couple over there she'd be like Frances go and ask them what they're doing and I'd be like okay and off I'd go and chat to them so I think I've always been very innately confident and that doesn't that's never gone away um but equally I think I've been very lucky. I've been very blessed. I've worked with people and in and around people where I've been allowed to be myself. I've been allowed to kind of grow up and make mistakes and fail and be a bit of an idiot and get told you're being a bit of an idiot and not have that be a judgment upon me and limit me.

And I think it's really interesting that kind of, you know, being assertive or being your true self has become a bigger and bigger thing that people talk about. And actually, being your true self doesn't mean you have to be assertive and confident. It means you have to be your true self. And for a lot of people, that is a bit more insecure, a bit more, and that's fine. You can bring that to the table. You know, you can be an emotional person. You can be, lack a bit of self-esteem and just be honest about that so for me I think it's just partially how I was brought up but more the people I have been surrounded by on the journey of my life and career I've been incredibly blessed that they have allowed me to make a lot of mistakes and correct and course correct me as I've gone on that that point about being assertive and being

direct and being open and honest you know what um I was I on. That point about being assertive and being direct and being open and honest. You know, I was actually chatting yesterday about one of the, how I've changed over the last 10 years from like the kid at 18 to the kid at 28. And the key thing I said to my team was like, the big change that I've seen in myself is I'm way more direct and I'm not sure why I'm doing that. I'm like, I don't know whether it's because I've got so many things to do that I'm trying to save time at all times. I'm way more honest with my feedback. And there's this sort of fine line between being an asshole and being honest and direct

and trying to be time efficient. And like realizing that sometimes your feedback or the way you say things might hurt people's feelings, but that's secondary to what we're doing here. How have you towed that line? I imagine from what you've said, it's more difficult as a woman to, to, because people will, you know, they'll, they'll determine the same behavior to be a really negative thing. But how do you tow the line between being like direct and firm, which is so important in my opinion, when you're dealing with

teams and especially if you're dealing with teams of, you know, high testosterone, testosterone men, how do you tow that line? And, and also also i guess the more important question for me is do you agree that it's an important trait to have okay so have you read a book called radical candor it's up there on my bookshelf somewhere but i've not read it yet okay so yes i do think being honest is important i think being a dickhead to people is not acceptable. And so I think I, I think honesty can get veiled. Sorry, being a dickhead can get veiled by I'm being honest, right? Like, well, I'm just being honest and it's feedback and you should take it. It's like one of the sort of best lessons I've ever been taught. And one of the most influential people in my life by a mile is Steve Peters, who's a forensic psychiatrist. And he always says like,

you have to be compassionate. Like even if you're telling someone they're losing their job or, you know, if you're having to give someone really honest, be compassionate, be sensitive to the fact that you're going to get a better response from someone if you're just nice to them. You know, you can say some really, really shitty things to people and it get a horrible response, or you can say shitty things, but get a really positive response back because you do it in a different way. So I think it's really crucial to be honest. It's really crucial to be authentic, but that doesn't mean you get a license to be a dickhead. And have you, is there a place for aggression and anger and being annoyed in business in your view? No.

Not ever? Well, you can feel those things, but I don't think you can inflict those things on other people, no. I don't think that's acceptable. It's remarkable how many of the world's most sort of admired leaders, when you read their biographies and stuff, you find out how much of a dickhead they are like steve jobs was a good example where i was told you know from a friend that they basically had to put him in his own building and warn people that worked in that building that you know the way steve was and elon musk in his biography is is very very similar but uh the reason i asked you about radical candor is when i read it it made a lot of sense to me about

about people like that. So that she basically describes this quadrant where effectively you've got how much you care about people and how willing and honest you're able to be. And so if you're very, very honest, but you don't care about them at all, then you're basically an arrogant asshole. And if you really, really care about them, but you're really, really honest, then you're radically candid. But if you really, really care about them and you're not honest, then you're kind of, it's almost like a malignant empathy. Do you know what I mean? It's like, I'm going to be really nice to you, but because I'm not going to be honest with you, you're not going to develop. And so that for the first time, as she said, in a business, it's better, it's way better as much as it's counterintuitive to be the arrogant asshole, because actually the feedback is's important so if people are getting the feedback they're being told the truth they are

like some people might not be able to handle it but the people who can handle it will develop and get better so it's worse to be empathetic and not be honest than it is to be an arrogant asshole and I was like oh that's why there's so many arrogant assholes in the world because actually it does work like on the and genius you know it forgives a lot right when people are geniuses they can behave very differently and they get away with it because they're geniuses and there is merit in that and i think if people are very very very honest with you and give you brutal feedback as long as you're like able to take it on board you'll get better but if someone's lying to you and saying you're doing a great job steven don't worry about it it's absolutely fine because they don't want to hurt

your feelings you're never going to develop it's true you you switched from working at any or over to bell staff um quite relatively recently um and i was reading i think i was listening to one of the the podcasts you'd done and you talked about how you'd worked in cycling pretty much your whole life it was your pretty much your everything in terms of your professional experience. I've also recently quit my job. And how does it feel? Everything. You feel everything, right? You feel, you know, it's bittersweet. You feel excited. On one hand, you're unsure about the future, but I trust myself enough to know that I'll figure it out because I always have. But yeah, all feelings. I guess my question for you is, and the bit that I found particularly interesting is,

people will do a thing for 10 years, for five years, whatever, and then they'll tell themselves that they are that thing. They'll like give themselves the label. I work in cycling. I'm a cycling person. It seems to be incredibly difficult,

especially if they've been in that industry for a long time, to then take on a different label. You're now working in fashion with a whole new set of challenges completely outside of your comfort zone to some extent in some ways how did you make that switch what how did it feel tell tell me all about it um it's again I'm going to reference Steve Peters but I remember because I was so wedded to my job in cycling like I lived and breathed it I loved it I cared deeply about the people it like

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

You're letting it influence what you, your value, your worth, your, you know, your sort of substance, your contribution to life. Like you're, you're letting, it's a job. It's like, it's a job. And I was like, you don't get it. You don't understand. It's more important than that. And you know what, when I got asked to go and do Bellstaff and I left and it broke my heart. Like I cried my eyes out and I started at Bellstaff and I felt awful saying this, but within 48 hours I was like, oh my God, I love it here. And I love the people here. And this is brilliant. I'm so excited. And actually it is just the job. That was just the job. And yes, I miss it. And yes, it was incredible. And yes, I love the people and I still love the people, but it's just the job. It's not my family. It's not

who I am. It's not my identity. It's just a part of my life and I'll be eternally grateful for having done it but now I've got a new challenge and I was like I'm really pleased I did it when I did because everyone I think had been saying to me for a long time you know once you leave you'll be like oh I should have done this five years ago and I don't feel like that at all I feel you know I did that for the right amount of time I loved it I've banked it moving on to something else and it's that point there about thinking that that job was your identity that I think really like holds people down yeah um because because you're right jobs they're friends they're community they are purpose they are as you say they're your identity um

and that's dangerous really that's dangerous you know because actually because actually they're not, they're not your identity. And no matter how much you love it, no matter how passionate you are about it, this would be the lesson I would sort of give to myself, the sort of, it doesn't matter, it's a job. You're being paid to do it, it's a job. And I would have railed against that even a year ago. Like, no, it isn't, it's more important than that.

And, you know as soon as you as soon as I left I was like and my brother always used to say to me your team aren't your family your team aren't your family and I never really understood what he meant because I thought well they are my family like you know what I mean I love them that they are my family and they leave me like oh no what he means is your family are there forever your family are wedded and you can't unpick your family they there's something that's whereas when you leave a job you you take away the memories you take away the happy times take away the good stuff but you're the fabric of who you are doesn't change and that's what i try and do i just

finish writing my book on there's a chapter on this idea of labels and me trying to resist these labels to make sure that i continue on my journey of challenge keep myself you know stimulated and i don't get to you know a certain age and feel like I'm having a midlife crisis because I don't know who I am and I can't leave and I don't have any new skills. And to really sort of realize that the label I have is me. It's like Steven. I'm a guy with a bunch of skills and experiences and I can apply these skills and experiences to a bunch of different challenges. I'm not social media CEO, you know what I mean? And that I find really liberating. So I quit. I started DJing. We're doing this, putting on this theatrical play. I'm not social media CEO, you know what I mean? And that I find really liberating. So I quit, I started DJing. We're doing this, putting on this theatrical play. I'm just trying to do all of the things that I think I shouldn't be able to do. Right. But speak to me about the challenge.

So you decide to take this job at Bellstaff and it is a big challenge. It's, it's widely reported that Bellstaff has been, has had, you know, struggled across the years. It was recent, it was acquired in, I think, 2017. It was making losses then and the losses have i think narrowed over the last couple of years to some extent but it's a big challenge right a big challenge it would have been much easier to take a different job so first and foremost i didn't take it i was i literally had a conversation with my chairman in eos um about you know maybe maybe over the next couple of years, I want to think about moving on and doing something different. And when we, when Dave B comes back from the tour, this was in September. So when he comes back from the tour at the end of the season, I think

I'd like to sit down and have a chat with my chairman and my boss, Dave, about my future. That was the sum total of my conversation. And literally a week later, I got a call saying, Jim would like you to be the CEO of Bellstaff. And, you know, with the best will in the world, when Jim Ratcliffe asks you to do something, you don't kind of go, let me have a think about that. And I just thought, okay, well, what an opportunity. And I went for it, but I didn't, I wasn't looking to change. I wasn't, I hadn't like planned to move on. So that was in some ways, whilst it was quite traumatic, the sort of three or four weeks of,

because I literally, I got phoned like on the 16th of September and I was enrolled on the 1st of October wow so it was like yeah like two weeks of just why did you want to have the conversation though when they've got back because I wanted to so I wanted to I'd sort of been thinking like I said about the conversation with Steve about kind of I'm not sure if I'm happy doing this job anymore and if I'm not sure if I'm fulfilled I've kind of reached the point sort of middle of last year where I was thinking you know what I do need to start thinking about my future in my life and my career and I don't know whether that's always going to be in cycling and I don't know whether the CEO of the cycling team is 100% why one so I wanted to speak to my chairman first to

kind of sound him out and then when Dave gets back from racing so I don't want to interfere with the racing have a conversation about my future so I just literally put it on the rate the radar of the chairman and probably a little bit out of frustration for myself as well as but like I want to feel like I'm moving this on because otherwise I'm going to sit and not do anything with it do you know what I mean I'm gonna did you feel stagnant yeah in the role is that the main the crux of what you're getting at what was the first if I can relate uh I I felt so I had done what is effectively 20 years in pro cycling it like you say it was all I knew it's all I'd done I know everybody in it pretty much you know I've been in and around it my whole

life I'm David Miller's little sister it's like you know part of my DNA we got a we and I loved being part of team sky like we did that for 10 years and it was I sort of always you say cut me in the middle I bleed blue and I absolutely loved it and then when sky said they were out at the end of 2018 I was like right I'm done I'm out of here I'm not going to do this anymore I spoke went straight to baby I was like it's been amazing I've loved it but I'm gonna once the team stops being sky I'm gonna go and he was like okay cool I don't think to go. And he was like, okay, cool. I don't think he believed me, but he was like, okay, cool. And then he said to me, look, would you help at least find a new sponsor?

Let's see if we can find a new sponsor. He's a bugger like that. So I was like, okay, I'll try and help you find a new sponsor and then I'll move on. And then February comes, 2019, he meets Jim. Jim decides that he wants to acquire the team you know he Jim's arguably one of the most successful businessmen in the world we went and met with him and talked about you know the design of the kit and everything else and I was

like I'm gonna get sucked into this shit um and then and then one of the other senior managers in the team decided to leave and go and work for another team and Davey was like would you stay you can be CEO which was what I really wanted to be it's a massive opportunity and I was like okay I'll stay and I think that was the point of the decision there that I was like you know this is a big career decision for me that I'm staying again I told all my mates I was going to leave I was like you know this is it this time this time I'm going they're like okay Fran and so I stayed at INEOS and then we worked on the 159 project so Elliot Kipchoge sub to our marathon and Dave obviously was the project lead on it all he was the CEO my boss but he very sadly

got prostate cancer in that period so he was off doing the Tour de France then he had to go and have surgery and so I took on like a deputy CEO role kind of delivering the sort of vision that he'd come up with. And he structured all the performance team, but then I was doing the delivery of the event. Everything from kind of working with the London Marathon team to supporting the performance guys,

to doing all of the engagement piece and everything else. And I loved it. As I felt like I was working 18 hours a day for like what was about five, six weeks in the build up to the first of the test event and then through into the test event and then threw into the actual event. And I just loved it. Totally different, totally new challenge, new people,

different approach. I was on literally cloud nine. I couldn't have loved it more. And I was working so hard. Like I was literally crippled by it, but I loved it. And I came out the other side of it, not so much just because we'd done it obviously I mean that was incredible but it just really made me realize that I was just going through the motions in in the cycling job I was just I was ticking over I was really comfortable I was good at it I loved it I was happy I liked the people but I wasn't growing I wasn't developing I wasn't learning new stuff and And I wasn't kind of, and I'd been going at a million miles an hour, you know, sort of in the team, like on all these

stuff where I was helping other people develop and helping other people achieve their potential and helping other people kind of, you know, rescue their reputations or enhance their reputations. And I was a bit like, what do I want to be doing? Like, why am I, I'm not, none of this has been about me. and even actually cycling is a little bit about David you know what I mean I was on kind of this journey to sort of save young British talent from going through what David went through and it's like actually what do I want to do maybe I want to do something different and that just planted a seed really and I think I probably went and spoke to the chairman you know if I'm honest I went because I thought

I want to go and do something different. I'm ready. I'm ready to move on. I'm ready to do something that's not this anymore. And it was all it was almost like a kind of involuntary. I think everything else about me was like, just stay because it's comfortable and it's easy and you get good money. And it's nothing's going to nothing bad's going to happen. But my soul was like, you've got to you've got to go and do something else now. And it was literally like in the space of two weeks, it was like, boom got to you've got to go and do something else now and it was literally like in the space of two weeks it was like boom i'm out of here so it was that see almost identical

to me in the sense of something niggling at you and then for me there was like a trigger moment where i was like i was like send the email yeah yeah yeah yeah and then you send it like and then but that that idea of being able to throw yourself into uncertainty, it's like throwing yourself off a cliff when you were like cushy in the house on the side of the cliff. And you're just like, oh my God, I'm going to jump. And you're throwing yourself off into the unknown

in the hope that you'll build your glider as you fall and then land somewhere better. And a lot of people can't do that. Like most people can't do that. How do you how did you feel though about because because I found it really traumatic like I kind of I felt like who first I felt quite out it was like I'm out of control of this now I literally said goodbye to my team who I'd worked with for 10 years and got on a train woke up the next day and went into Bell

staff and like hi I'm your new CEO and I and the trauma of kind of all of it, it felt, I had to move out my house. I had to go and do, say goodbye to people, do have a different email. I'd had the same email my whole life. Do you know what I mean? It's like all that kind of stuff that just doesn't, shouldn't be that important, but felt really significant. How did you feel? Did you find it traumatic or not? So I, I'd already, I'd quit a business when I, that I was my baby as well. When I was, I started a business at 18, quit that one when I was 21. So I'd quit a business that was my baby as well. When I started a business at 18, quit that one when I was 21. So I'd been through it once before. So earlier when I said the key thing for me

was trusting myself. I've done this before. I know the feelings. I know that I don't know what my future holds. But when I did that when I was 21, it led to this even bigger business that was 200 times bigger and 200 times more successful.

So that's been this guiding thing in my life. Like I dropped out of university after one lecture and it worked out. So when you have those case studies, you think, do you know what? I have no idea what the future holds, but I'll back myself to figure it out now. And that's because I'd done it like three times before. So I imagine the next time in the future, if ever, that you decide to jump ship from Bellstaff or whatever, you'll have that case study or that evidence in yourself that you've been. Yeah.

And that I think will calm you a little bit. The first time I quit, I was sort of all kinds of emotions and worry and not sure what I was now and all those things. But slightly easier the third time. I'm a bit of a prolific quitter. I think it's a really underrated skill. People talk a lot about starting as if it's the be all and end all of success. But quitting is the thing you do right before, right? You start something new. Yeah, yeah.

I was reading about this winning behaviors role you took on, which is a very curious title. Yes, it is. What was your remit as the head of winning behaviors at Team Ineos? So it was when it was Team Sky. Okay. But same, same. So basically, 2010, we first started racing we'd started the team into we sort of begun the journey of starting the team in 2008 off the back of the beijing games started racing in 2010 we were shit like embarrassingly shit and we'd been like

smoke and mirrors and like you know we kind of we had the big bus and we had all the money and we were sponsored by sky and it's like oh we, we're going to be amazing. And we were rubbish. So we totally reset everything. And Dave, to be fair to him, he's like a master of, okay, we're going this way. It's not working. We're going somewhere else. Like he's, he's incredible at it. And so he totally shifted the way that we're going to run the team. We took a totally different approach. We started to be very successful in 2011. We'd obviously set the objective when we announced the team that we were going to try and win the tour de france with a clean british rider in five years and that was in start of 2010 bradley won the tour in 2012 so in the space of two years three years effectively we'd done it the following year

chris free won it and we had gone from being this team that was like on a mission, like heads down, arses up. We would go in like there was nothing was going to stop us. We were full on. And so when people sign up to that, you know, people are signing contracts in 2010 with a team that doesn't exist, that has never raced on the road before, that comes from a track background that's full of Brits who aren't

historically that famous for road cycling. They were signing a kind of, you know, they were adventurers, right? They were like these bold, ambitious, this is a bit batshit crazy, but we'll do it. When people were signing contracts at the end of 2013, they were signing with a team that had won the Tour de France twice, that was arguably the most dominant team in the sport, that had gone on, you know, sort of achieved these incredible feats. And they had a different expectation of what they were joining to what we were and we sort of suddenly realized that actually if we

were serious about continuing and continuing to be successful codifying what had got us where we were was going to be crucial and we'd also seen for those of your listeners who are cycling fans we'd had the bradley wiggins and chris freemes kind of divide so brad had obviously come first in 2012 but freemey had come second. Bradley never rode the tour again. So Bradley didn't ride in 2013, Freemey did, and he went on to win. And you started to see this divide in the team

where it's like, well, I'm team Bradley or I'm team Freemey. And it's like, well, no, check your paycheck, you're team Sky. And that kind of actually, who are we? What do we stand for? What do we expect from people? What do we need to be able to do to be the best in the world at this?

Needed codifying and it needed a way of a sort of charter almost to tell people this is how you're going to have to do this. And really it was about eradicating losing behavior. It was about saying to people, bitching, backstabbing, saying your team threw me or your team Brad or, you know, criticizing people behind their back or whatever whatever that's not acceptable but you being ahead of losing behavior would have been shit so we called it so it was all about creating a set of behaviors for the organization that enabled us to say to people this is what it means to put this jersey on this is what it means to be a part of this team it's not just about you, you know, the glory and the winning. This is hard graft. This is, you know, it was arguably

the hardest thing I've ever done, you know, working in that environment. It's, it is unrelenting. It is, I mean, it's brilliant and it's amazing and incredibly good fun, but it's hard, hard work. And you've got to go all in, you know, this isn't, this isn't for the faint hearted. And so the whole winning behaviors thing was about creating an environment where we could give people the parameters that we expected them to live by but also ensure that they felt supported safe able to deliver their very best in an environment that is actually very high pressure so that was my job effectively helping dave create the behaviors in the first instance with the whole team and then helping keep them alive within the business.

What were some of those, you mentioned a couple of them there about not being a backstabber and understanding the importance of hard work. What were some of the other, let's just focus on losing behaviors. Some of the traits or some of the threats to success that you'd see in the team. I'm thinking this from an organizational standpoint as like yeah that's worked in business so we separate them into five different areas we had self team um communication continuous improvement and uh what's the other one oh it's gone anyway quickly how quickly you move on right um but the the so they were self was all about identifying your own managing your own emotions being in control of your own emotions. So a losing behavior of that would be losing your shit, you know, being aggressive and arrogant with people, not being able to recognize when you were too emotional to be in a high performance environment.

We have this, the whole chimp model, you know, Steve's philosophy around that is there's nothing wrong with being emotional. There's nothing wrong with having a chimp, but you have to know when to get out of the room if that's what's going on. Don't bring your emotion into an environment where you're expecting people to perform at their very best so that kind of management itself absolutely critical and then team was all about the impact that you have as a team member you know i think people kind of think teams are this kind of static thing that you create a great team and that's it it's like as you will know having run six very successful businesses teams are like these organic ever-changing you know you could bring one person in and it have a massive impact on the team you take one person out it can ruin a team do you

know i mean so there's sort of the dynamics of a team and your role within that are crucial so you know not wearing your team kit you know wearing a slightly different trainer you know um criticizing the team not buying into the sort of collective opinion not sort of we dave b has this really big thing about he'll listen he'll seek counsel from everyone he'll listen to everyone's opinion he wants to get to a collective opinion he wants to get to a collective view of what the right direction is but ultimately if we can't get there he'll make the call and then you've all got to be on the bus non-negotiable if you sit in a meeting room and you agree with something

and you say yeah okay whilst i don't agree with it i buy in you know what i mean i've given you my point of view you've said it's not what the way we're going to go but i buy in and then you walk out the room and you're like i don't fucking buy that that is that is one of the worst losing behaviors you can have because it's insidious and it goes around you know a whole organization can be destroyed by a is like a virus so it's things like that fascinating i am you don't do a lot of public speaking right used to haven't done it for a while now actually yeah a bit like white collar crime i think sometimes but yeah so i i sort of i used to love doing it like i really did used to love doing it but i've also i feel like the bit that i about, which is some of the stuff I've just said,

I feel like that's a bit of my past now. And I want to build a new, build a new path for myself before I figure out telling people about it. If that makes sense. Yeah. Same. I don't want to take talks on social media anymore if I can help it, to be honest,

for the same reasons. Yeah. I mean, you talk a lot about Dave as well. So David Brailsford. And very fondly. I think a lot of your tweets from my stalking were were centered around him and things that he was doing yeah what are some of the the key qualities

of of him that have made him so successful and his mindset or you know oh big question i mean him and steve peters are the two most influential men in my life without a shadow of a doubt um you know they they are symbiotic because they are i think if Dave hadn't had Steve he maybe wouldn't be who he is and I think if Steve hadn't met Dave he maybe would be a slightly different version of himself so they they complement each other brilliantly Dave is is a brilliant man manager he's he's incredibly visionary he's very brave know, you said the thing about jumping off a cliff and hoping you get your gliders. You thought Dave's the king of that.

Dave's like, we're going to go and achieve that. And everyone's like, fuck off. And he's like, come on, let's go. And people are like, okay. And because he's so bold with it. He's so confident with it. And he's an incredible leader that people would literally, I mean, I would have followed that man off the edge of a cliff.

And I think that he has that quality in him. You know, he's unrelenting, you know, anyone who's he's difficult, you know, like all geniuses are, he's a, he's a tricky guy. He's, um, how maybe is a better question in all kinds of ways. You know, he's very, I think I've spoken about it on other interviews I've done. He can be very, um, he can be very particular. He's very detail orientated. He's, he wants to know all the facts before he makes a decision. He'll,

he'll go out, he'll like go after something for ages and ages and ages. Like, Oh my God, makes a decision or get on with it. And then he'll make a decision that's totally off to the other side. And you're like, Oh,

so it makes sense. Yeah. Or it's, or it's brilliantly genius because you think oh all that work that you were doing the decision I would have made and just got on with it and made the decision would have taken us that way and that would have been the wrong way and it's and it's that kind of you all the way through my career with him he would do that and I'd be like it's just he's just clever like that you know he's he's ferocious appetite for learning he unrelenting work ethic you know

expects incredible sets incredibly high standards and expects people to meet them and all people can right no absolutely and he and you know we openly say that not all people can there's nothing wrong with not being able to meet them you've got to be compassionately ruthless you know that's what he always says which is basically if you're not if you're not you set a standard if people can't meet them then then they're not in the right organization and it's better it's a bit like the arrogant arsehole it's better to be honest with them and say you know what this isn't for you then to kind of allow them to keep failing i think that can be very cruel to people you know if they're in an environment they're constantly

trying to be better but they just can't do it that's yeah you talked a lot about when we were talking about winning behaviors about this important about high work ethic and you've expressed that dave has a relentless work ethic as well yeah um you you've probably observed how this narrative around hard work has become somewhat toxic over the last couple of years and now i i you know almost feel bad sometimes when i'm when i'm saying that i don't know how I would have been successful in what I've done if I hadn't have worked hard. In fact, I don't really know anybody that's really successful in their discipline or their sport or whatever that doesn't work hard. So I know we're not trying to give anyone depression and anxiety by saying that, you know, they have

to be a hustle porn star, they won't be happy. But I still can't get to the point where I will tell anybody that hard work doesn't matter yeah it really really matters to me and it's I can't imagine and you know what I was in the gym last night and I was thinking sometimes words really mess people up right so this I like when people say work they think of me on like a in a factory like or in like like I don't know in a mine hammering some rock all day but I was thinking because I enjoy my work so much imagine if I just changed the words and went hard pleasure yeah you know what I mean yeah can you have too much of hard pleasure it's exactly well

it's interesting as you were asking me the question I think that my response because I actually I similarly read something that you'd written about you you feel a bit of you feel a bit bad that you sort of hear heroed the kind of i'm working the hustle point yeah the kind of 18 hours a day and i'm going at it about it yeah bragged about it yeah and and and i sort of think i get it i get why people feel like. And I think there's a difference between being exceptionally busy and working all the hours God gives and thrashing yourself and all those sorts of things and working really hard with purpose. They're very different. Do you know what I mean? And when you're working really hard with purpose and you're passionate about what you're doing and you love the people you're working with and you're enjoying the this sort of striving for the achievement

there's no shame in that that that's for me that's absolutely part of motivated ambitious people that's what you want them to feel and people are just doing what's the name of the work-life balance I was like there's there isn't a work-life balance my work is my life and I make no I make no sort of excuse for that I love it I'm passionate'm passionate about it. I enjoy it. I have, it's hard pleasure, you know, it's, it's brilliant. And I like the challenge of it. And I, you know, I chose not to have kids. I don't have a partner. It's, it's the passion point of my life is my work. And that's right. But that doesn't mean I need to be, you know, not going out and seeing my mates. It doesn't mean I need to be up until midnight tapping out emails. Do you know what I

mean? I can still, I take days off. I, you you know I live a normal life but I work really really hard I've I've also struggled in the relationship department yeah unsurprisingly never you know been that good at relationships I've never been able to hold a relationship down um I can't really see how it happens necessarily talk to me about that part of I was going to call it sacrifice but when it's somewhat intentional and when you're aware of it it's hard to call it sacrifice just doesn't motivate me I know that sounds awful I'm not motivated to have somebody in my life I'm not motivated to be like right I want a partner I want that companionship you know we when I arrived we were chatting about how this environment that we're all living in actually I I love being on my

own I I'm very happy in my own company I love being on my own. I'm very happy in my own company. I'm very passionate about what I do. And I think that fulfills the space that maybe other people have other passions for, right? And so, yeah, it's never been a goal of mine. I've never dreamt of the white wedding. I've never wanted to. And there's never a bit of me that sits at home and thinks, oh, I wish I had someone to sit and watch telly with ever. No, it doesn't even cross my mind and my mates are always like do you not get lonely or do you not worry and I'm like no I feel like I should because it would make you all feel better but and you know about five or six years ago because everyone was on at me all

the time I'd like did a bit of dating did some internet you know use some apps everything else I was like this why am I doing this I'm doing this because society wants me to do this I'm doing this because my mates want me to do this this is bullshit if it's right if it's right it'll come if it's not it won't did you did you date at all throughout the last I guess decade did you here and there but it's like kill me you know kill me now you know that kind of small talk oh god it's like my idea of hell on earth going and meeting a stranger having small talk slightly awkward with kind of one end game do you know what I mean and it's like and I'll know within two minutes if that end game's happening and I'm like I don't really need the small talk yeah we don't need to dress this up so yeah no I just

yeah it just never yeah I did a little bit little bit, but it's not, it's, I'm not looking for that. And I think if I'm looking, if I, if I wanted, if I wanted to get married, if I wanted to get into a relationship, I could, and I'm not, I'm not adverse to it, but I'm just not out seeking it. And I think you get what you look for, right? Yeah. So other sacrifice. I don't think it's a sacrifice by the way. Do you know what the reason why, when I was younger, I wouldn't have thought it was a sacrifice.

And then I started reading all this stuff about the importance of like, you know, 18, 19 and 20, even 24 year old Steve would have thought, you know, I don't need fucking anybody and I can just, I'll be fine on my own. I'm a lone wolf. Yeah. And then I fully went

for the whole recluse thing, like wholeheartedly. And I was broke, so I had no choice anyway. You weren't Howard Hughes. So I was broke and I was broke so I had no choice anyway so I was broke and I was just not this renegade that was determined to build businesses and then I started reading some stuff and it talked about the importance of like meaningful connections and relationships and I realized that I didn't really have those and if I was going to become wildly successful then

it would just be me and my Louis Vuitton bag set up inside of my house. And I, and then, and then I started to change my perspective and thought, Steve, do you know what? You need to create a little bit more openness or balance towards that stuff. So I tried a little bit more. But that doesn't, I see, I see, I have incredibly meaningful relationships and incredible connections. I have my friend, I have like five or six friends who are my world. I mean, I'm incredibly close to them they are their kids are you know my godchildren I feel very very connected I don't feel isolated in any way I don't feel like I'm missing out or sort of not having and I actively participate in

the lives of my friends kids and in my friends lives and I think that that's my connection that's my tribe do you know what I mean and they you know, I would go to war for them. And it's, I just don't think that added bit of a companion for me right now, you know, I'm not saying not forever, but I'm not sure that bit for me is something that I need. And I think that it's that,

there's a difference there. Because I do agree with you. I think you absolutely have to have connection. The human condition is to feel connected, to feel part of something, to feel, you you know sort of that you'll have a purpose within your community and I think having your own community and having your own tribe is crucial I don't think that needs to be through companionship with one other human being there's a pressure that you talked about the societal pressure you know and I've got to be

honest right I'm just going to be completely honest because I would be really dishonest if I didn't say this I have been guilty of when I have a friend who is struggling in that department feeling like I need to help them because again that's my own world view pressed upon them I'm thinking well in order for you but in order for me to be happy I would need that so I need to make sure you have that thing right that pressure especially for women is intense post 30 and it causes a ton of anxiety I see it in my direct messages from strangers um not easy well it's interesting though so when I'm 42 now and the pressure drops away because I think you get to the point where people think it's rude to ask if you're going to have kids because they're like can you still have kids okay you get to that age right but but certainly all through my 30s when you're going to settle down do you not want to have children and i and i feel very very lucky that i feel the way i do i've never really had a biological

clock that's picked ever and i've never felt the need for companionship of one other person do you see like i said my tribe is very important to me but and I think that's potentially biological so I think I'm lucky I don't because I do I have friends who you know they would they're desperate to meet someone they're desperate to have children they're desperate to move on to that bit of their life and I've just never felt like that so it and I feel very lucky because of that because I think if I'd have felt like that, my whole life would be very different. Does nurture play a role in that? Because I know it did for me. Yeah.

My parents were toxic for each other. Like watching my mum scream at my dad for seven hours a day. Every, my mum's like this African Nigerian woman. And the decibels she's able to achieve is like gold medal worthy. She is unbelievable at shouting. Right. And she can do this amazingly high energetic scream for seven hours a day without flinching and i watched that as a kid growing up my dad sat there this passive english man who didn't say a word ever and this

african woman just just torturing him with this loud sound and me thinking like the lesson i learned was relationships are prison and for this is the lesson I like for a man you are trapped and it's torture so any time when I was young like 16 a girl would like me and I'd chase her and I'd try and get her on the playground whatever minute she said she liked me deep feeling inside of me of like escape quick so I would like come up with all these reasons why girls that I'd spent the last year pursuing why we were not right and we couldn't be together and she needed to leave me alone and I didn't notice that until I was like 25 and then I started to work on that part okay but nurture does that play a role do you think in your views on relationships or men or

whatever or women or whatever I think it probably plays a role in my view of having kids because my mum was adopted so my mum literally didn't know who her mum and dad was she was kind of picked out of an orphanage by my grandparents um and never hadn't until she had David and I had never met anyone who looked like her you know like we all you know connect to our families because we've got similar similar features whatever she'd never had that and so my mum loves my brother and I with a kind of wonderfully oppressive kind of dominant. And it's, you know, she just loves us with everything that she's got

because we're, for a whole host of reasons, but also I think because we're the only physical, you know, sort of biological connection she's ever had. And that love always used to scare me a little bit. You know, not from her, but I used to think, like I've got dogs and I worry about my dogs and I've got like nine godchildren I've got two nephews and a niece and the minute they get on a plane or they go I'm panicking like what if the plane crashes what if they die what if it's like

I can't handle it and I'm like Jesus if I'd have had my own kids that would I wouldn't have been able to handle the that amount of love I know that sounds ridiculous but I think that always played quite a big part for me that I was like the responsibility of it, the constantly having to worry about it, the constant, all of my female friends who have kids, they live in a state of almost permanent anxiety because they worry about their kids all the time in a, in a love way. It's like that wrong love you have for a puppy. Um and I don't think I ever I've never felt that I wanted that in my life I never felt that I needed it and I never felt that I wanted it I always felt quite like no I'm good I've got the right amount of love going on in my life I don't want that additional responsibility and burden in

many ways of having something that is always ever present and and would cause me I think quite a lot of anxiety is that in part because you have so much responsibility and naturally honestly worry that comes from your other love in life which is your career yeah for sure yeah because that's the way I feel it's like a kid as well I already have no. And it's why I don't think I need a companion. Because I already have, I get so fulfilled from my job. I get so much from that and so much from kind of working in and around people and having that kind of, I've got the community of my friends and the community of my work. And I think those two things I find very fulfilling. So the idea of having a companion or children or anything else in the mix of that didn't really ever appeal to me.

I mean, I was engaged to be married when my brother got his band, so 2004. And I'd been with the guy for like, I don't know, seven years. And I remember like moving into how we bought a house together in Shepherd's Bush and we moved into the house. And I remember like vividly putting the key in the door, turning the lock and thinking, I don't want this. Like, I don't want this. I loved him to bits. He was an amazing guy. But I was like, I don't want this kind of, I don't want to be in a normal life with a normal husband and a house and kids. And I just didn't want it. I wanted something different. I've got a tattoo that says a life less ordinary. I just wanted to just do it differently. And I don't know where that came from,

but I've had it my whole life. That kind of, of I just don't I just didn't feel the need to conform to society's kind of pillars of okay you go to university and then you're going to get a job and then you're going to meet a guy and then you're going to get married then you're going to have kids I was always like I'm not interested any idea why no and I'm fascinated by it because I feel very blessed because of it because it's like I say I think it's it's given me a freedom that a lot of people don't have had you wanted it had you wanted that you know you know the typical life that society says people have to live and followed all the timelines and milestones do you think you would have been able to achieve as much as you have I was in my head my ego was, I would have been amazing at it.

I'd have been like the boss. No, because I don't think you can. I don't, you know, I'm a feminist. I'm a, you know, I'm absolutely passionate about equality. I'm passionate about women's ability. You know, women can do

anything that men can do and should have the opportunity to do that. But I equally don't think it's possible to have it all. I really don't. I don't think you can have, and I know there are women who do and hats off to them I think it's incredible you know you read about these women in

the city who've got like five kids and their CEOs and it's like fair play to you but I couldn't do that because I would feel constantly compromising and I don't like compromise and you're obsessive a little bit in terms of your focus I don't like compromising i yeah i probably am obsessive makes it sound a bit like it's it's i'm not in control of it i'm in control i'm aware of what i'm doing but it's a bit like i so i'm we were talking about having a peloton and you know i kind of feel if i'm going to go all in on my fitness and my health and get lean and everything so my 40th i got like down to 65 kilos i was like a boss and i was like all over it. But then I was a bit like, oh crap, I've got to do my job as well.

And I sort of feel like I'm not great at doing, having two or three focuses. I can go at one thing and be brilliant at it. But if I start adding in layers of complexity, like I can stay on top of my health, I can stay on top of my fitness, but I can't, once I start going down the right, I'm going to get super lean.

I find it hard to manage my weight. Do you know what I mean? So I don't know whether it's a obsession or whether it's just myopic. I'm myopic. Sure. Yeah. If people were to, you know, people, they read about you online and they say, you've been the CEO of this amazing sports team. You ran your own agency before that. You're now the CEO of Bellstaff. A lot of people, especially young women are going to think that's exactly what I want to do. They're going to think that's amazing. There's always a disclaimer that comes with all of these things. What is the disclaimer in terms of the cost of the success you've achieved? What are the things that, you know, if I'm, you would turn to me as a, as a young, um, aspiring, ambitious person and say, by the way, before you follow in my footsteps,

here's what you need to know. Do you know what? I wouldn't have fun because I think I, aspiring, ambitious person, say, by the way, before you follow in my footsteps, here's what you need to know. Do you know what? I wouldn't have fun because I think I really wouldn't. I feel exceptionally blessed. I feel really, I love what I do. I've loved the journey I've been on, like all the mistakes I've made. And like I said at the beginning, you know, I've been very, very lucky to be allowed to make all kinds of mistakes and then not follow me around.

It's like I've been kind of carried and supported and encouraged to fail and to try and to do stuff that other people just wouldn't have got the chance to do. So I'd be like, no, go for it. Like, don't worry about it. Like, don't worry about fucking up. Don't worry about making mistakes. Just get on with it. What would you tell me, though, that I had to have in terms of my qualities would you say okay well if you're going to follow my footsteps then you're going to need a little bit

of this and a little bit of that it's so hard isn't it Stephen because you can't follow in someone's footsteps it's true it's impossible and that's the thing I think that people you know I would say you can't you can have your own footsteps and you can go and do your own thing and Jesus if someone has said to me at 25 this is the career path you're going to follow. I've been like, there's just no way, there's no way I could tell someone how they're going to do that. Cause it's bonkers. I explained to people, some people like, oh, you know, tell me a bit about your background.

I hear myself saying it and I'm like, that's bonkers. So I don't know you can follow in someone else's footsteps, but I do think it's like a bit like the beginning where I was like, you know, just be yourself. You know, be nice to people, be approachable, take the opportunities when they're given to you, recognize that sometimes things are scary and you're going to have to do it scared. And actually change is sometimes the best thing that can happen to you. And, you know, all those things that you read in cliche memes on Instagram are pretty much true. You know what i mean it is and you just got to take that approach in life because you're not going to get another one but it's not easy fran it's the stress of your job

it must be pretty intense you're running now um a big company that's you know in the process of like sort of turning themselves around and kind of reinventing themselves to some degree and i know the stuff that you have to deal with because I've dealt with it. Yeah, but I'm not curing cancer. But I feel like a lot of it's relative, right? Still, big problems are big problems relative to the challenge you're facing. So I guess tell me about that perspective though

because a lot of people would be like, oh my God, you're in a tough job and there's problems every day. But I'm so lucky, Stephen, that's the thing. I think you're lucky. I'm so lucky. Someone, you know, an incredibly successful man bought a business three years ago and has said to me, it's not working very well. I really like what I've seen you do in the two

years I've been exposed to you. Could you go and run it for me? It's like, yes, I'll go and do that. What a great opportunity. And I'm, and I'm just, it's, I just feel very lucky. And yeah, they're big challenges and Brexit at the moment is bonkers and all our shops are shut because of Covid and I'm having to meet and work with new people but you know I wouldn't change it for the world I think it's an I think I'm I think if you can and this is where Steve Peters has been so powerful because he's like it it's a bit about it not defining you you just just try your best do and that was you know what uh Jim Ratcliffe actually text me I text him say thank you very much for the opportunity we're not friends we don't like

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

going to happen like what's the worst case scenario here bell star folds let's say or when I was in the cycling team we didn't win the biggest bike race or you know whatever as long as no one's dying as long as nothing's you know that as long as people are okay the people are okay I'm kind of I'm kind of all right with it you know it's it's just it's just life and one of the things i mean i completely i completely understand i tend to believe that anything caring about anything beyond your best is like anxiety and worry and useless yeah it's like that mark twain quote isn't it it's like there's a men they'll spend their whole lives worrying about stuff that's never actually going to happen and isn't

it that's what worry is because you're worrying about something it hasn't even happened yet or that sort of um there's a brilliant renee brown podcast where she talks about foreboding joy and it's this idea that you something really exciting is happening but all you're thinking about is shit what if it goes wrong so rather than enjoying the joy of it the kind of you know she uses the example that she's on the plane to go to her first oprah appearance and she's like i spent the entire plane journey there worrying the plane was go to her first Oprah appearance. And she's like, I spent the entire plane journey there worrying the plane was going to crash. Then I spent the whole car journey there

worrying that I was going to make a mistake on the show or say something stupid. Then I spent the whole time in the green room worrying I was wearing the wrong outfit. And at no point did I stop and think, I'm going on Oprah. This is amazing. And it's that, isn't it?

It's like, I think you can burden yourself with all this responsibility and all these kind of negatives. And actually it's like, isn't it? It's like, I think you can burden yourself with all this responsibility and all these kind of negatives. And actually it's like, we just want an opportunity. Why don't you try and flip it, try and see the world in a bit more of a positive light.

And I feel like that, that's something I'm really working on for myself. Because I just think, like I say, we only get one of them. You get this one opportunity. I've been very lucky. There's nothing in my life, touch wood, that has caused real trauma

or you know that I feel that I would go back and change and I think when you're halfway through that's not a bad place to be you took the job uh in the middle of in the midst of covid yeah it was October the 1st October the 1st that's brave in retail I know look crazy that's well yeah brave I know but being positive being optimistic about it you're coming into this business and it's um I mean it's been smashed in all directions by all things um what's your what's your what's your what's your approach what's your strategy what are you thinking I mean at the moment well the first sort of three months in the business I just wanted to get to know everyone there so I did one-to-one to everyone. I think it's really easy to kind of go into a business with preconceptions of what's gone wrong and what you'd fix. And I tried,

I spoke to all the kind of mentors I've worked with over the years and said like, what would you, and they all gave me the same advice, which was speak to people, listen, don't make any rash decisions, you know, wait, get a proper plan, but give it, you know, the kind of hundred days peace. And initially I was a bit like, I don't need to do that and actually you just really do you know so I've just spent just trying to understand how it went and the other thing is understand the industry you know like I literally knew nothing about the other than I buy clothes I didn't know anything about fashion so so yeah so and now my my plan is I know, as is always my ambition, I want to do the best possible job of it. I believe in Bell Staff as a brand. I think it's an incredible brand with an incredible history.

I think the product is amazing. I think the design team have been doing a brilliant job over the last three years getting the product to a place that's really true to who we are as a company. And I would really love to take it to profitability and beyond. You know, I really believe that it's possible to do that. And I think, you know, we're lucky to have the backing of Jim and Ineos to support us through what is going to be quite a significant period

of transition and change. But then I think we build the foundations for growth and go from there. And retail's changed a lot. Yeah, totally. Totally. How does, you know, thinking about the high street and how, you know, in e-commerce and the internet now, like there's, in ways we saw Debenhams being bought by Boohoo and it's also just bought Topman and some of the other Arcadia brands.

It's a moment of transition that's been accelerated by this pandemic. What's your thinking about the changes in retail? I mean, God, I'm so early to it that it's, you know, but I mean, I think like anything, it's just, I think it's accelerated what was happening anyway, right? Like the high streets were dying.

People were moving online. I think the rapidity of that change has just been accelerated massively. So people's behavior around how they're shopping was on the cusp of quite significant change. I think that change has flipped massively so you know people are much much happier shopping online even like an older generation who historically wouldn't have been I do fundamentally believe when we all start opening

up again people are really going to want to go shopping do you mean I think people are going to this idea that people aren't going to go to the shops I'm not sure I buy it because I think it's like yeah let you want to get out let's go and do stuff even you might want to steven well there's always hope isn't there you know i see shopping is not actually for the purpose of shopping i see it as an experience and i see the internet as a place where if i almost the utility and shopping is like a thing to do right yeah so i do i do wonder if retail will will seize hold of that part. Now the experiential bit. Or an experience, yeah, yeah.

Exactly. I think that it's going to have to because I don't think it's ever going to be there to be making money. So I think it's going to be about adding on the experience of the brand for people, particularly for our brand. You know, we can create an experience

and a story and a narrative that other brands maybe can't. You know, we're 96 years old. Yeah, we've got the legacy. Yeah, we've got all of that heritage that I think we can speak to. So I think, I definitely think that experiential piece will be quite a big play over the next few years this is a morbid question but i like to ask it sometimes i think it sometimes are you scared of dying no no are you

no i was when i was religious up until about 18 years old and then once i realized that i was going to the same place that i came from which was nothingness and peace it it was quite a liberating feeling and I thought death was actually I would dare I say not a good thing but um not something to be scared of I interestingly I had so uh when would it have been so three three years ago I crashed my bike and landed on my head and I got like I mean for mean, for some reason, whenever I crashed my back, I landed on either my face or my head. And I landed on my head. It's all his brains. I wish. And our team doctor at the time was like, because I'd got a bit of concussion, he was like, I think you should go and get a brain scan. He's very overcautious. So I went

and got an MRI. And they made my mum come up because I don't have her husband. So I have to went out to go. That's the one downside, downside actually to being single is that whenever you have to have like somebody come and look after you it's like mum I'm 42 years old but please could you come and stay at my house um so my mum had had to come up because of the concussion I wasn't allowed to go home on my own and I got this phone call from a brain surgeon who had been given my MRI they looked at my MRI and they'd found all these patches in my brain. And he was like, there's these, we've found, he rang me and he's like, are you with someone?

And I was like, yeah. And he's like, oh, we've got, yeah. And he's like, we've got- I've heard dickheads. I know, right? I was like, bedside manner needs improving. And he said, we've got your brain scans. We've gone through them

and we're seeing changes in your brain. And you know when you're like, but I've never had an MRIri so how can you how can you have how are there changes anyway long story short i've got all of these unusual patterns in my brain like patches that could be they were like they could be potentially the starts of tumors they could be just your i know right they could and so he went to this excuse me i had to go and like so i went with my best mate actually and go meet the brain so he went to this excuse me i had to go and like so i went with my best mate actually and go meet the brain surgeon he talked us through it and i mean she it was one of those hilarious and horrible situations all at the same time because he was sort of going through because she she works the nhs and she was like but what could what else

could it be if it's not tumors what else could it be and he was like well you know have you ever been like a very heavy drug user and we were both like no and she was like yeah she was like just we are like lizzie we don't need to go into this he means heroin she was like oh yeah no no we've never done heroin um and so and she was asking all these questions and so basically i had about a year period where they weren't sure what it was they still aren't i still have them and it's symptom-based so they're like we could do biopsies and see what it is and i'm like no you're all right um or or if I ever develop symptoms which would be you know sort of electric pulsing or anything like that and I think that period was quite good for me because it and it's probably where a lot of the positivity and the actually doing what you only

get one chance thing came from because I I was a bit like shit if I have tumors growing in my brain that's quite intense and what does that mean for my life like what would I change like what would I do differently and I genuinely I remember being sat in my living room having everyone had gone home by this point and I sort of had had my first proper other it's like a two-hour MRI which is quite intense and I was like you know I wouldn't change anything I would carry on living my life the way I live it now I wouldn't change anything I would I would probably go deeper and harder in some of the things that I really enjoy because I like my job and seeing my mates I would keep spending the money the way I spend it I literally wouldn't change anything and I was like and it felt it literally felt quite freeing it was like great this is this is good because I

think a lot of people would get that kind of diagnosis and be like right shit what what do I need to do differently and I didn't have anything that I thought no I want to I don't want to change but interestingly I my job has now changed and think deep down, the reason I had the chairman conversation, the reason I was willing to say yes to this opportunity at Bellstaff is, had I maybe not had that incident and had all of that associated thinking and sort of bit of deep,

deep sort of soul searching, I maybe wouldn't, I maybe would have said, no, it's right, I'll stay at cycling. But I just thought, you know what? Fuck it, let's go and give it a try. What an absolute blessing that is to know, to know that you wouldn't change anything I think I am I have this sand timer is it behind me somewhere is it there it's usually sat behind me but the reason I have a sand timer

in my house is because it's that sort of visual it's the only way you can really see time at some point I realized that um I was getting older and that you don't notice and that you can fall into the trap of thinking and as I think most people do that will just like live forever yeah and it's not until you realize that life is finite you have those those moments that you realize that you know like at some point I'm gonna die and seeing my time pouring away is that reminder of like is this important and am I making the right decisions and am I living true to myself um and I wrote a little article about that called deathbed thinking which pretty much says the same thing which is that giving you that perspective of from your

deathbed potentially you know what really matters remarkable um I mean I'm so I'm so inspired by your story and every time I sit down with someone um who who's become a success in their career or their, you know, their pursuit, it feels like there's similar themes, but so different in so many ways. What does the future hold for you, do you think? Do you know? Any ideas? Are you going to end up… World domination, right? I would believe you if you said that. That the funny thing I took that seriously I don't know what the future holds and I don't really mind like I don't mind as long as my family and friends

are healthy and happy and as long as you know actually that's all that matters as long as my friends and family are happy and healthy and then I'm pretty cool as whatever the world throws at me I'm sure it will be a laugh it'll be fun everyone else seems to need a plan no there's five-year plan three-year plan don't get me wrong i used to have five-year

plans but they're all hilarious when i go back and look at my five-year plans i'm like oh i love how ambitious i was where's that yacht i think when i was a kid i was very i remember actually when i set my agency up my best mate and I set it up together and we got a coach. We were about 22, 23. And the coach was like, right, go off into separate rooms and write out where you want to be in 10 years time. And then come back in and read them to each other. And we were best mates. We'd lived together for like three or four years, set a business up together.

He was dating my best friend. We came back in and we had them both written on a piece of paper, like holding it from each other. And he was like, right, I want to be running a successful business earning a good salary I want to be living in a nice house with a wife and three children um and I want to be healthy and happy and I was like oh fuck I want a yacht and a chair I want to have loads of money yeah I was literally I had this like really materialistic list about wanting to be like successful and a global sensation and have all this money. How old?

23, 22, 23. Did you have stuff growing up? Material stuff? Yeah, we were quite, not, I mean, my dad was in the RAF. So to begin with, you know, middle class. But then when he left to go to Hong Kong, he went into civil aviation in kind of the glory years of the expats. So you know, middle class. But then when he left to go to Hong Kong, he went into civil aviation in kind of the glory years of the expats.

So definitely very, very lucky. And I got, you know, business class travel everywhere. Yeah, so it was pretty next level. Yeah. It's incredible that you've wanted it for such a long time. But now I wouldn't want that list now. But it was just, it was that really interesting, like, oh, okay, we want totally different things. And I didn didn't have partner I didn't have kids I didn't have a nice house

anywhere I was like I wanted the I wanted the universe you know I mean I want to go over there and do something massive well you've smashed it Fran and I'm sure you've you've been paid well along the way for that um money the money becomes irrelevant though right the money is not the money is just a great tool. Cool. For helping my friends and family, for doing cool stuff with people, for having experiences. I spend all the money I earn doing stuff with the people I love.

Give me an example. I took my sister-in-law to Dubai for her 40th birthday with my best mate. We stayed on the palm at an amazing time. I sort of took my brother back to Hong Kong for his 40th birthday with my best mate. We stayed on the palm at an amazing time. I've sort of took my brother back to Hong Kong for his 40th. I take my friends on holidays. I, yeah, I just go and do stuff with the people. I love experiences. I spend my money on experiences, going and doing stuff, seeing stuff, but always with the people I love. And none of my mates can afford to go to the

hotels I go to. So I'm like, well, I'll just pay because I don't want to stay in a rubbish hotel so I can relate well listen thank you so much for all of your time today it's been truly fascinating and even you know researching your background and your mindset has been um really really inspiring and energizing for me and I can relate to so many elements and the other other elements I'm just amazed and impressed by so thank you for your time I know you're incredibly busy person so it feels like an additional honor for you to have said yes to come and chat to me today um and where can people find you i guess just you know these days it's pretty easy you just google someone's name but yeah i don't do i i have a private instagram and i do i'm on twitter but i don't really use it very often so and i'm rubbish with linkedin well

if they want to speak to you enough i'm sure they'll they'll find me they'll find me yeah and thank you so much for inviting me it's been fascinating I've really enjoyed talking to you thank you Thanks for watching!