The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Mary Portas - How To Stop Living A Life That Isn't True To You

Episode Date: June 21, 2021

My guest this week is Mary Portas. You may know Mary from the high street, from business, or you may know her as the red bob, hard exterior business woman from the TV. In this conversation today I saw a very different one to the one I’ve seen in the media. Mary Portas is an English retail consultant and broadcaster, known for her retail and business-related television shows, founding her creative agency Portas and her appointment by David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, to lead a review into the future of Britain's high streets. She’s worked in various retail roles: John Lewis and Harrods, Topshop. Then creative director at Harvey Nichols – which was her rise to fame. In 1997 launched an agency called Yellow Door producing campaigns for clients including Clarks, Louis Vuitton, Oasis Stores, Swarovski, Dunhill, Boden, Thomas Pink, Patek Philippe and Mercedes-Benz, Sainsbury's, Habitat, Westfield, Liberty and The Body Shop. In 2013 she re-launched her agency as Portas Agency Ltd. Today, Portas Agency advises retail clients from every continent, and the businesses success is built on an obsessive understanding of human and cultural behaviour. Today she’ll talk about an idea thats fairly radical to some people, especially people that are building or have built big businesses which is based on her new book ‘Rebuild: How to thrive in the new Kindness Economy’. This conversation is incredible, Mary is hilarious, she is smart and she is kind. On top of all that her brutal honesty blew me away which is a central part of what we spoke about, the idea of being true to yourself or facing the inevitable of ending up in disappear. Mary’s been a public figure, a media star, she’s faced public scrutiny but through it all she’s emerged as this levelled headed, down to earth, warm hearted individual. I laughed, I realised and I was deeply inspired and you will be too. Follow Mary: Twitter - https://twitter.com/maryportas Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/maryportasofficial Mary’s book - Rebuild: How to thrive in the new Kindness Economy - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08V85WGNK  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 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 times 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 i like a really good life and i have a very good life i knew i was a bit different as well though you know you felt different i did feel different i I like a really good life and I have a very good life. I knew I was a bit different as well, though. You know, you felt different. I did feel different. I was doing TV shows, radio shows. I had my own collection. I had the business.

Oh, God, how shit is that life? And I lost me in that. There wasn't times where it wasn't fantastic. There was. But where was I? I didn't stop to breathe. We've really fucked this planet for you guys. We were blind. We're blind consumers living a life while we slowly killed the planet and our well-being. So it has to be you guys that go no. My mother died when I was very suddenly of encephalitis when I was 16 and she was the centre of the world

and I had to grow up very quickly and all that misbehaviour went into responsibility This is really painful yet somehow I wasn't able to express them. Mary Portis, you may know her from the high street, you may know her from business, or you may know her from her books, but the experience I had with her today is honestly incredible. She is hilarious, she is smart, she's witty, and she is willing to be honest at all costs and that really speaks to one of the central principles she'll talk about today which is this idea of the importance of being true to yourself she's made the mistake that 99% of people that are listening

to this are going to make are currently making or in the process of overcoming which is living a life that isn't true to who you actually are. And today she's also going to tell you about an idea that will be fairly radical to some people, especially people who are building and have built big businesses, which is based on her new book, Rebuild, how to thrive in the new kindness economy. She has achieved things that most people in business would never even dream of. She's been a media star, she's been a political figure at times, and through it all, through the hardest of times, through grief, through trauma, through broken marriages, through public scrutiny in the

press, she has emerged as an incredibly outspoken, honest, humble, intellectually challenging and stimulating, humorous, inspiration, leader, entrepreneur, and public figure. I laughed, I realized, and I was deeply inspired. And you will be too. So without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself mary um you're a very standout person with a very standout personality and you've managed to achieve some pretty remarkable things in your life and from a place of curiosity that always makes me wonder what it is that made you different

and I like to always start with people's childhoods and their upbringings because I tend to believe that that's the most influential part of their life typically so is there anything from your younger years that you think has been defining in the person you went on to become um well of course I think think that probably is the case. I was one of five kids, but I was the fourth out of five. And we were, my parents were Irish, had come over in the late 50s from Ireland. My father was a Protestant, my mother was a Catholic.

So, you know, from Belfast, from the north of Ireland. So this wasn't, you know, they, this was a time when that wasn't looked on too happily. So they came over and chose Watford to live in. It could have been Dagenham, but they chose Watford. Those were the two options. And I'm kind of proud, George Michael, Elton John. So we're kind of, and a good football team. But I think looking back on my childhood,

my older siblings, we often talk about this, we're very, very close, there's sort of a two-year, one-year gap between us all. And I was the fourth, and I remember vividly thinking, I'm not the eldest, I'm not the youngest, I'm not the first girl, and I didn't feel particularly special. But so I was very naughty as a child, you know, just spent a lot of time up to pranks and trying to find my voice, I think, really.

Very loving household. My father was very high, highly strong, hardworking working and my mother was um poetical musical and um was pushed us academically put us all through the grammar school system i remember my sister coming home from school and saying i'm number two in the class i looked at the register and my mother said and who was number one jesus so i think that gives you a sort of taste of what life is like but we were very close but my mother died very suddenly of encephalitis when I was 16

and she was the centre of the world and just by the place where I was in the family my elder siblings, my elder brother Michael was at university and my sister was just about to go and work, go training at UCH. And my other brother was hairdressing. And so I ended up looking after, being the one at home and looking after

my younger brother. And I had to grow up very quickly and all that misbehaviour went into sort of responsibility that's what I think happened anyway I mean you know and I just took on the role of the the I wouldn't say parent because I was not very good at that at all but the one who managed stuff at home and even when my older siblings then came back, and to this day, you know, it's Mary's house that we meet at. Really? Yeah.

Really interesting because I'm the youngest of four and I feel like I took on that role where I feel like I had, because my parents were absent by the time I was 10. Why were they absent? My mum just decided that, I think she decided that she'd raised all of the kids already. You know yeah it's almost like they've oh i've done my my work as a parent all my brothers and sisters were older than me so she would then just sleep at her shop because she was getting burgled a lot at her shop getting lots of like racial attacks on her shop so she

would literally go and sleep in the back room after after work wake up work go sleep in the back room but she had a 10 year old at home yeah and so i just learned this huge i had this huge void of independence i became super naughty breaking into my school yeah all sorts of stuff i set fire to mine that was by accident i thought i could do a little bonfire under the wooden steps but yeah oh my god the nuns i was run i looked after by nuns they desperate the passing of your parents at a young age, how does that impact you? Well, mine sort of went from, you know, this terrible traumatic,

my mother was the central figure, this sort of fiery redhead who just was the backbone. And I don't look back in hindsight and go, oh, amazing. But she was. I was just about baked, just about baked. You know, I'd had enough of love and time from her at 16. I think my younger brother, Lawrence, at 14, that was terribly difficult. So you at 10, I'm with you.

I can feel that. That's a very lonely place for a young boy. But my father remarried within a year. I used to come home from school and he'd be crying, you know, and I was actually then finding Lawrence and I were managing his grief. We were these young kids, really, you know. And he remarried very quickly and then he died of a heart attack nine months after getting married but in doing so left the family home to the new wife of nine months so we were all out on our own really after that and that I think I look back now I look back now and I didn't look

back for a long while didn't look back at all but I look back now and I see that I was in grief for about four years I mean I used to walk to school crying and then just get on the bus and smile it's grief but I don't you know somehow I suppressed that and um put it into a life that I never dreamt I'd have. That's for sure. Did you ever get help with that grief? Never. I remember the headmistress saying, you know, if you ever want to come and talk and the headmistress was a nun called

sister St. James, who was, you know, this wonderful, actually, I really, really liked her.

She was pretty scary by most standards, but I really liked her. But that was it. I wasn't going to go and sit in the headmistress's office and have a sob, especially with a nun, and have to beat my chest and say about 10 Hail Marys. So I didn't, no. I don't think any of us did.

This was the late 70s. I do remember, it's funny, like last night, I've got a little eight-year-old, and he's into Elvis Presley for whatever. And I put on some YouTube and we were dancing to Elvis Presley. He was trying to do the little movements. And I said, he said Elvis died, didn't he, Mum, in 1977? I said, yes, the year my mum died.

So my mum died in the July and Elvis in the August. And I remember everybody grieving Elvis. And I was going, no. And I couldn't get on this. I was like, what? And everyone's like, Elvis has died, the headlines. I'm just thinking, no. And I couldn't get on this. I was like, what? And everyone's like, Elvis has died. The headlines.

I'm just thinking, no, my mum's died. This is, this is really painful. Yet somehow I, I wasn't able to express it. The grief for those four years,

how did, how did that impact you thereafter? And also not processing that grief well i think i had a lot of anger yeah i mean my temper was very quick i don't have that now i've done a lot of work on it it's called meditation really yeah and also being able to come to a place of acceptance and having techniques on but I think I had a lot of anger I mean my father would you know was very quick-tempered um but then with five kids running around screaming the house I think I would have been so I think that was there um

and I I don't know I just I think what I did was I just kept going blindly I mean I didn't have any any goal or any vision it wasn't like oh I'm going to show them I just kept going and I think what I did was ignored the deep sensitivity the deep me I think I ignored that so I believed I was this naughty, going fast, quick-tempered individual. Actually, I'm not. I'm really soft. I wasn't that. But I didn't know that for a long, long time. Was that sort of exterior, the slightly tougher exterior, some form of emotional reaction or defence from something, do you think? Because if that wasn't who you were, I'm wondering where that must have came from. Well, I think it was a part of my personality, my behaviour, but I think I believed that that was me

and I believed that that was going to be part of my success, you know, being quick-witted, you know, fiery, doing things fast, which has, you know, been a part of my work. But I think I didn't ever discover the deeper sensitivities. And there were times when I felt vulnerable and there's times I felt lost and I wanted to be understood. And it was like, oh, it's Mary. And you'd go, well, no, because everybody judged you on that.

Weirdly, even I think the persona that I had on TV with the orange bob was that and people would edit me to that. And I would often think, but I spent so much time behind the scenes sitting with those shopkeepers holding their hands or talking to them. Nobody wants. Nobody wanted to see that. They wanted to go. And actually, yeah, deeply there was another part of me that wasn't expressed.

You talk about this um stepmother i wouldn't even call her that really what would you call her the woman my father married i mean i i again i i think about that and i'm i'm talking with my children on this and um and when i had to write my memoir you had to go back on this. And I just cannot understand anybody not looking after children who are grieving for their parents. I can't imagine, you know, being with anybody or me marrying anybody. I mean, I was married a second time to a woman and she took all my children. I can't imagine anybody doing what she did.

I just, it doesn't fathom in my head. Here's a woman who had a child the same age as my younger brother who left us homeless. Left you homeless? Well, my father left her, our family home. We were 19 and 16. We had no home. We had nowhere to live. And she didn't let you live there? Oh, she sold it she took it nine months of being married to my father after 25 years of marriage

and a family home that he built are you still resentful about that? no were you at the time? no that's another thing I don't feel resent I don't

no all we wanted was for dad to be buried with mum. Because, you know, we were brought up Catholics. And when mum died and she was a deep Catholic, we booked the plot so that dad, the plot so he can be buried on the same ground. And she didn't want that.

So we had to bring the family priest and go and see her. And we got that in the end. No, I didn't ever, ever feel a dot of resentment. Do you carry those feelings? Resentment, regret, grudges? I just genuinely don't regret a thing. My life's been extraordinary. Extraordinary amounts of pain.

Extraordinary heights. And it's been colourful and one that I would never have predicted. When you think about the pain, think of the moments of the greatest pain in your life. What are those moments? Undoubtedly, my mother dying. That where you wake up and it's like something's on your chest. And I remember it was sunny, sunny, hot.

I didn't like the summer for years. It was July, hot July in the late 70s, that summer when it was boiling hot. And I just associated that, and I used to love when it became autumn or cold, you could go indoors and hide. It felt like a security to me. And everybody was out playing tennis and walking and happy and somewhere.

And you just, this heavy black pain deep inside you. And both separations, I've been, you know, in two big relationships. I've been married. And that, when you split up a family, and I'm a family person, when you have to sit and go, okay, how do I do this? How do I do this? How do I sit with you, my children, and say, you know, this little life you've got, this is moving on.

That was those. I actually remember, you know, lying awake three nights on the road, not sleeping a dot and getting up. There must be so much adrenaline in my body I mean I don't know I lost about a stone in weight and I'm pretty slim I remember putting on my trousers and it sort of dropped below my hips I'm like oh my god that sort of stress and pain but you have to keep going because you are responsible for these children that's what I wanted to ask you about is having been through so much stress and pain which is just this unavoidable part of the human experience you can't avoid it right if you

try and avoid it you probably end up with more um when he talks about the bruises the poet sufi poet rooming the bruises and how we learn from those bruises tell me about that well he's just one of my great i've discovered him um a 13th century sufi mystic and he talks about the bruises that we hit and how they repair but that's how we grow what have you what have you learned about how to cope with unexpected bullshit and pain that life throws at you because you know you never see it coming i mean a lot of people have had it over the last 12 months, right? Last 18 months with the pandemic.

Couldn't have seen that coming. Lots of people's businesses just smashed to pieces. They've lost loved ones. How does one cope with that kind of like grief, whether it's a professional grief or, you know, the grief of a lost loved one or the grief of a lost relationship? Is there anything you've learned over the course of your life where you think that's probably the best or only approach? Well, there is the wonderful line of this too shall pass, and it does.

For me, I have found great, great resolve from some of the great teachings and the philosophers who I have read for a long time now, probably about 15, 20 years. And even if we look at the basis of most religion, which is a patriarchy and has been completely screwed and bastardized by most men. But actually, if you look at the truth at the heart of it, it's much the same thing that we all have to follow. And you have to just connect deeply with your inner, whatever you call it, whether it's your spirit, whether it's your soul, whether it's your, as Oprah says, my inner frequency, you know, when that gets shoved, or you're not aligned, that's when you start to behave and you follow whatever's happened to you rather than actually connecting truly back with your strength, your resource. So that for me has been, and I've tried to guide my children on that and actually found that that has been, I wish someone had done that a little bit more.

It was shrouded in religion when I was a kid, the Catholic faith, which I just could not connect with at all. You know, my mother literally, you know, going to confession. You used to go into the church, you'd see these 80-year-old women beating their chest and say, dear God, you know, I've sinned. You think, what's she done? You know, this is crazy. This isn't life. What, there's some poor old woman kneeling down, beating her chest. That's not what the world's about. You know, that's what I've discovered is if you try and get back to your essence and know and try and align and connect with some deeper strength, whether it's through meditation or whether it's just pause and breathe, it will come through.

And it does. And that's not to say we have to go through grief. We have to go through mourning. We have to let that go through our bodies. Leaving it in your bodies is the worst thing you can possibly do. And I've done that over the years. And I've had my back put out. I've been laid low because it's in there. So I've learned to do that. I had, you know, at first when COVID hit, it was shocking for me. I mean, all my clients in my business, which has been my backbone for 21 years, just closed down. And nobody said, are you guys okay? They just stopped work. I had 55 people. What the actual fuck is happening here?

And I'm talking to my kids about being connected to your source. And I'm like, Jesus wept. I've got to pay for all this. And I don't know where I'm going to do this. And I'm just looking down the barrel at 60. And I suddenly went into that complete fear. I was like, you need to pull this back. I was actually pretty, I felt, I was a little bit ashamed that I wasn't better, if I'm honest. I was such a shock, such a shock. And I've written about it in the first chapter of my book because it was so shocking. And it was like, well, they were falling down like dominoes with the clients. And we were like, what we thought as a business was just going. And it just slowly but surely, I kept on connecting back to that sense of me, that deep truth that the world will look after you.

There was a great interview I heard, and I can't remember who it was. And I can't remember, I'd like to think, but I remember he was a philosopher and he said, we're talking about money. And he said, think of a time when you've never had enough. Can't think of a time when I've never had enough money. I've had very little money, but I've lived. And I remember just holding on to that. When has the world never, ever truly looked after you? And if you can realign back

into that sense of connecting and not go for the short term, whether it's, you know, following a route that you're trying to short term fix it through stress or through that anxiety. You connect back to that true source. It always works. You said during the pandemic, you felt, it almost was as if you were saying you felt shame that you weren't good enough.

I wanted to get more detail on what you mean by that. No, what I meant was the work that I'd done on myself, on knowing that, you know, this too shall pass, connect back, you will be all right. The world will look after you. I didn't. It took about a month. And then I was like, okay. And I had all the kids under one.

There was homeschooling happening. I was on, you know, phone every single morning with the CEO of my business. We were on FaceTime. It was, you know, we were on Zoom calls. Hideous. It was like all the time. It was this world that you'd been thrown into where I thought, all right, you know, approaching 60, ease up now, poor Tess,

you know, you don't need to be doing as much. Everything just fell apart. Bam, like that. Like that. So, oh, my God, what has happened here? So, and I was a bit disappointed that I wasn't more, you know, om, baby. Really? Yeah. I was like sort of done a lot of work on myself, but I got it back. so and i was a bit disappointed that i wasn't more you know um baby really okay so you i was like sort of done a lot of work on myself but i got it back i got it back she says talk to me

about so i want the detail as to because i i read that you'd said you you felt like you were spiraling out of control a little bit when the pandemic first struck and i think a lot of people can relate to that that sense of um panic total uncertainty and i mean we had all of our like high street clients completely just cancel all work not even because they were they'd gone bankrupt but because they just didn't have certainty themselves so they just stopped it was either like totally stopped or paused or we don't know what's happening here right so if i and I, and you, you have in your agency, you have pretty much all high street players. Right.

So I can't imagine. And so I want to know when you say you were spiraling, what does that mean? Well, for example, one of my clients was a big piece of business that we're doing the other side of the world. I won't mention it.

It was a million and a half pounds, bam, closed up. Stop. That stopped. You're like, what? What I meant by that was I've never in 21 years ever had anything where I thought financially, I've made myself so financially secure

over those years, I've never had anything that I thought that might go. I've never wanted huge amounts. I like a really good life and I have a very good life. But I've never wanted, you know, the big amounts. I've always thought, you know, this is really good. And so I've never, I've always shared the pie as it were. You know, I like a big slice of the cake, but I also, I like sharing it out.

So I was never, oh God, I've got to, I was never that. I like a it out. So I was never, oh God, I've got to, I was never that. I like a lovely life. And so suddenly this was like, that might not be the case. And you, as a young lad, you've got to put through school. You might be working until you're 70, whatever, to get this back up. And I was like, I don't want to do that. You know, so it was going against my my flow and my energy as well you know that I wanted to go off and do other things I was ready to go and do the the things that one should be

doing at 60 plus when you've had a very big career and doing stuff that and I was suddenly going oh god I've got to get this back on and so I just didn't like the way that that frightened me it did frighten me you know there were sleepless nights. But then suddenly this place of acceptance came and you realize there was magical times where I thought I am in lockdown with all three of my kids. You know, one of which had left home, one who was doing a master's and one who was eight. This isn't going to happen again, you know.

And there was times when they were just out in the grass playing rounders together. That's the magic, you know. That's the magic for that little man there with his big brother and sister. There were times we just would sit up on a place near us in Swift's Hill and just look at flowers and draw flowers.

And I thought, this isn't going to come again like this. And so I was able to sort of slowly but surely build back. And things got better. And there's a huge debate now about what the new normal will look like, especially as it relates to working and remote working. And I wanted to get your stance on this whole remote working debate. I'll give you my opinion first, because my opinion tends to be quite controversial i tend to think people have overestimated the um remote working thing and i

say this because i believe that the office is one of the last sort of institutions of like community and human connection dating's gone socializing facebook social media dating we now have all these dating apps and it's felt like in my life especially it's like a 25 26 year old whatever that going to the office was actually one of the places i actually got to meet people in my life and and connect and form communities and go to a football team as an adult and if that all moves to zoom now like every other part of my life is dictated by a glass illuminated screen i worry um and we have had people sat in the chair from mental health psychologists and all sorts and the the consistent theme for them has been if you can give someone

community and connection in their life then they um then they do better they are healthier and i felt like the office especially and i know you've got an amazing office i've read about it i've read about the atmosphere there and and how impressive that is and we also went to great lengths it says when i was reading about your office it felt a lot like mine we've it's not hierarchical you wouldn't know who was in charge people are themselves it's very flexible and open we don't have these rigid archaic systems in place and so it was a really enjoyable place to be and i would hate for that places like that to be um to disappear i think the old office has to change and die and be reinvented but i wanted to get your take on that well i think you said it i think you know

i think i think there's a lot of businesses jumping on the bandwagon thinking how can we you know save money on rent yes and not looking at the mental health well-being i've seen this i've opened my offices we opened them up as soon as we could. We have two days where we say we want everybody in because we believe that is everything you've talked about. And I know even when I go in and I will see them all and we will have a laugh and we'll talk about stuff that's not even in the work world, but those nuggets, those little messages, those little nuances that happen are what makes us human. It's ridiculous to think we do. I heard Google aren't opening theirs up for another year. And you think, what the actual, stop this. Have they actually asked

their people? I have a young daughter who's been working at home consistently since she went out to the world of work, and it is not good for her mental well-being. And I have watched my children get up at 8am and go straight on Zoom. That was, where's the travel time where you listen to a podcast or you listen to a piece of music or you read something or you bump into someone on the street and say, morning, did you fancy a coffee? Yeah. I said, where's that gone out of our lives? We take this away and we take what it is to be human. When I did my high street report, I talked about exactly what you're talking about. We lose this. We lose what Jane Jacobs, who wrote The Death of the American City back in the 60s, well before I talked about this, she talked about those little things where you bump into someone on the street

and you say, morning, are you getting a newspaper? And you say, can your daughter babysit tonight? She said, these little things are trivial, but the sum isn't trivial at all. It is a social infrastructure, a web of security that makes us human. The office is the same. The office is the same.

Now, I started in my office with saying, you got a baby, you can bring it in. Bring dogs in. This was like 10 years ago. What? You know, we need to ease up and realize that we need more of this in our lives. I've had to sublet parts of my office because we had too much space. But we bloody went out and sublet and fought because we wanted to keep it because I knew that this was deeply important, especially to your generation. And, you know, I know there's people and my kids have seen it. They said the sort of 40 plus is, yeah, it's nice having some time. I understand that you can pick up the kids, of course. But let's get that balance.

Let's get that balance. Let's get that balance. And you're right. The more we close down, the more we squeeze our little souls, because those small trivial things are what make up our lives. I know that. So I would be so pro it. And I really think this needs to be the things that are part of our society, which are deeply important, that do need bloody government intervention. I know Tories don't want to intervene and it's a free market and all that crap. Transport's one, our high streets are one, our national health service is another. And the way we work and connect, I think, is another. So I would be putting this on the agenda.

I heard it on one of those, what is it called, question times, which I keep getting asked to go on. I think, oh, dear God. And I was listening to it. It was all these sort of aging politicians who weren't running businesses, who didn't see the impact of getting together. It's vital. Please, please, anyone listening. And if you're listening and you're a millennial or a Gen Z and you don't think you've got any power pull together get your pals and put pressure at the top and arson open back up i think that clip will go viral on linkedin so that's that's great i think you're gonna reach a lot of people with that one my linkedin's very highly engaged so i think that will bang um but no i you know i think that I'm more at ease because I think in the professional world, it's going to become a battle of employees choosing where they want to spend their time and where they want to work. And so my objective here isn't to, so what I, what I tend, what I feel like I saw was these kind of fragile, dare I call them leaders in business, doing all this kind of virtue signaling on social media and online going, oh, we're going to let our employees decide. And if they want to work, and I've said

publicly, like you, as a leader, you have to have a backbone and your company culture should be reverse engineered from the mission. So, you know, if you're, if you're, I don't know, building cars, then you need your people at the factory, but also work should be, it should offer more than just pay. And if it is to offer more than pay something meaningful it would be community connection and these things so my stance as an employer is i'm going to create the environment which offers you more community than you're going to get anywhere else good pay more free more flexibility around things that matter in your life kids etc and i think i'll be able to hire all your staff that you have working from a zoom screen at home and i think eventually you'll figure that out and you'll go back but yeah and that's my sucker yeah that's what i think i think it's a competition

of like you know what i mean with you you know it's it's look you as i say you're younger i remember when i wrote work like a woman i was like looking at this and thinking who who created the code who wrote this shit how do we want to? I want people in my business to have a voice that feel, I will sit with a 23-year-old, and I know we'll sit and have a great conversation as much as I will with a 45-year-old who's running the business. We've actually put that with these two days

when the chief exec's in, we want everyone in because this is the time when we learn. This is the time we laugh. And we really do laugh. I mean, I'm the biggest joker, the biggest kid in the office. And my daughter's been coming in so she can get some just some interaction. She works in food policy because I'm completely different. And she goes, Mom, you're the biggest kid. I said, I know I need people around me. I need it. And I love to laugh. And it's just fantastic when you're in an office and you hear that. And it's not difficult, this stuff. You know, it's all fantastic when you're in an office and you hear that. And it's not difficult, this stuff.

You know, it's all about when you feel as confident as you do, you're able to give up that control. Yeah. That's what you're giving up and saying, you know what? I know who I am and I want you who works with me to know who you are. And so let's give up that control. That doesn't mean that I'm going to have any lazy bastard coming in and, you know, sauntering in whenever they want and taking, no, they know, I talk about the kindness economy. The kindness economy is doing what's humanely right.

It's not taking the piss. So you have very, you know, strong ethos and ethics and guidelines of what you believe your business is and where you want to go. But let everybody be themselves within that. And part of that is connection. I mean, it's fine for me sitting in my North London, you know, home working or I'm in the Cotswolds. What about the ones who I've seen them on Zoom in their bedroom, sharing a flat? You're waking in there and you're doing Zoom. And if any owner of a business or organisation isn't understanding that, shame on you. And think about it, they're then probably picking up a phone to do their dating. Then when they're hungry, they pick up the phone and open Uber Eats and deliver and order their food.

And it's conceivable that this generation, and I actually write about it in my book, I show how we're getting more and more stagnant as the years go on, because we're optimising for productivity and financial gain as opposed to human connection we're actually optimizing we're doing everything in our power to sacrifice human connection and socializing and even things like exercise and movement for increased productivity and um i think it's time to you know do i think the government would be effective in intervening i mean oh i've given up yeah i was gonna say i don't know what they ain't gonna come from them they had some like loneliness i think theresa may appointed the first ever loneliness czar for the uk who was that jesus i don't know but i've been knocking on your door

there dystopian like image of this like these like tannoys in the streets but i fucking talk to each other like do you know what i mean like i just feel like stop me and have a chat i think um i think it's gonna come that's why in my book i think it's going to come from business and i think it's going to come from people like us changing that 100 agree i think it's 100 politics i think once we get past this little woke virtue signaling thing which leaders are doing now where they're like we'll just let our employees do whatever they want and they can just be all at home whatever i think then you'll have the second wave of that which is um which is reality um you need to talk about it on your show you need to talk about this when you're doing business you need to get this out there you

need to be a voice for that because you know it's um it's only by sharing our voices and having an opinion doesn't matter who knocks us so who comes back that you go no this feels right this feels right this is deeply important deeply important to the next generation you know we've really fucked this planet for you guys, you know, my generation. The generation before me, the baby boomers, they know that. So we have to. We have to hold on to something deeply precious here.

And there is a movement and understanding that's greater and deeper. We were blind. We were blind consumers. We thought that having it all was having more stuff and living a life while we slowly killed the planet and our well-being so it has to be you guys that go no if we get one thing out of this that's going to be there that we're going to change all those ridiculous ideas that my generation and the baby boomers bought into you say they're having it all and having more stuff we thought that was it which leads me into something else i want to talk to you say they're having it all and having more stuff we thought that was it which leads me into something else i want to talk to you about i read you'd said um that you're in the public eye you're

making more money than ever and it was extraordinarily exciting but at the age of 48 you found yourself crying almost every day i was probably physically exhausted um i just didn't get that joy you know i, I just was on this, I was doing TV shows, radio shows. I had my own collection. I had the business. I had two kids. It was, it was crazy. And I was the matriarch. I was the centre. It wasn't like, you know, I had some husband who was breaking with me. It was me, you know, and I thought, yeah, but I, and the more that comes, you'll know this, the more it comes, the more it comes, the more it comes. It comes, keeps coming, keep coming, keep coming. You've got to do this, got to do that.

And there were parts of it that was just, you know, incredible. I look back and think, what, some great years, but I was exhausted. And you're not allowed to say that. Actually, I was thinking about that. At that time, there would be those, you know, women on the front of the Sunday Times Magazine like that. We can't show our pose, but it'd be like that. You can have it all. They got eight kids and they would get up and they would be doing, you know, yoga at 6am and then having a global call with China or whatever. Then, you know, they'd be dropping the kids off at school

while chatting to God knows whoever, sorting out the day. And you're just like, oh God, how shit is that life? Where are you? Where are you? And I lost me in that. There wasn't times where it wasn't fantastic. There was, but where was I? I didn't stop to breathe.

I didn't stop to truly connect, truly connect with me. And I remember I went away to some very expensive spa place where it was all om shanty and downward dogs and eating bad stuff. And everyone's all this, you know, you go where rich people are because you got money and you go and you discover. And I remember sitting in this yoga session and I just was crying. And I was like, please stop, please stop, Mary, please stop. And there's all these sort of women in their Lululemon

and I was going, just crying. And I thought, and I went in to, there was this wonderful Indian guru. He used to sit in this little room where you could go and meet and chat with. And I remember going in to see him and he didn't say a word and I just was crying and I didn't want to speak with him, but I wanted to go to the bookshelf that was behind him because I knew there was some books there.

And I picked up Eckhart Tolle's New Earth. And I just took it and as I left, he went, that's the right one. And I went back to my room and I read it and I read it on the beach day. So I was like, oh my God, I've got the world wrong. I've just completely got this wrong. And that was the start of my journey i took my young i'm still you know getting still partly hybriding that life i'm never going to sit in an ashram but i i discovered how to connect back truly with me and stop loading this stuff in your life mary and and saying no

two questions there which is regarding this book, this Eckhart Tolle book that you talk about, A New Earth. What was the key lessons that it imparted on you about life and how you were living? I was living totally outwardly to my ego and my persona. Mary Portis, Mary with Bob, Mary the businesswoman, Mary the mother. I was not connecting truly with who my spirit, my soul.

So everything was done to feed that. And you believe that that is you. You believe that that is your personality. You believe all of that. You talk about you thought you'd become a bit of a caricature. Oh, for sure. But I also milked that. That was very profitable.

You know, I knew it was brand Mary, the red bob, the rings. You know, I've always loved fashion. I've always loved, but it was very much, you know, a signature. So, and yeah, of course course i mean i i advise businesses globally on brands i was i suppose a brand myself and i i just didn't want to be that anymore philosophy is very clear on this idea of like abandoning your true self and the consequences your ego your outer ego yeah yeah and it seems like such a clearly losing game and i think people listening to this are probably have to be well you are some stage in the process you've either um

you're probably you're either at the start and you've not yet tried to abandon yourself because you think that you know because the outside world has convinced you and incentivized you to do so especially social media that'll have you trying to abandon yourself and become the kardashians whatever whatever or you are in the process of um abandoning yourself or trying to and you're feeling the sense of despair and probably um lack of orientation that comes with that or you've come out the other end which it kind of sounds like you've you've got to where you've realized that you try to abandon yourself and the only true answer is to to be yourself because everything else is despair you either succeed in abandoning yourself is this one i think it's called stoddard this swedish philosopher used to say if you succeed in abandoning yourself then you end up

in despair if you fail in abandoning yourself then you end up in despair so the only true true path to to joy is to accept who you are yes i think you know, you know, the thing is, it's, you know, it's knowing what the truth is. It doesn't mean that we're not going to have this. We are truly connecting on a truth here. I don't think we're, you know, performing, but part of it is performative because we are doing a job that's going to be this podcast.

But it's being on the path. Some people never even know that path there. You know, most people don't. And that, you know, I remember when I first discovered it and people were like, don't, you know, don't talk about that because you might sound a bit odd on, you know, spirituality. Don't talk about that. And you're like, and I didn't for a long while.

You know, I even was chatting to a great producer at the BBC saying, why isn't there a show on something like this on the BBC? And they're like, no, don't mention spirituality in the BBC at the moment. And you're like, what? This needs to get out there. And it's not hokey pokey stuff. This is our truth. And I think what I've tried to do is to allow the people who work with me

express that and know about it. And we share it, we share it in the business. And it just opens this whole thing up. And there are times when you have to be, as I say, performative and be, I'm Mary Portas, you know, going out, I'm working, I'm writing a piece or I'm doing a course, but I'm rooted in who I am deeply. And I think it isn't whether, whatever we call it, whether it's spirituality, whether it's our soul, whether it's our spirit, whether it's our truth, whether it's our vibration, whether it's our, you know, whatever, our vortex or our frequency, as Oprah says, whatever, getting back to that. You know, I remember I was listening to the lovely Irish poet,

and I'll think of his surname and I'll think about it and they'll all come to me after I've done this. But anyway, I remember him talking about when he used to give the last rites, he used to be in Ireland and he'd go to give the last rites to whoever was dying and he'd go in and he'd go to give the last rites to whoever was dying and he'd go in and he'd see these little pinched faces that had lived a life that wasn't in line with their true self because they couldn't they had no choice and he just said it used to make him feel so so sad and then he would give them the last rites and he would literally see the pain on their faces, their skin just unstressed and unwrinkled

because they were able just to be. And that is the greatest gift I think we can give to anything and to our kids, you know. I mean, I put them through a great academic system because I could, but I always said, you choose. I remember my daughter coming to me when she just finished Oxford, she got into Oxford, and she was like, I was deeply proud. And she finished her degree and she said,

Mum, I know everyone's going to expect me to go in and make a lot of money. I don't want to do that. And I said, why are you explaining that to me? Like, you know, I'm really going to judge you on that. And she wanted to do something that just connected, not with what, but with where her truth was. really going to judge you on that and um she wanted to do something that just connected not with what but with where her truth was and that's the only thing i think we need to try and find in life now your truth probably was that you know you wanted to get to that place where you were able to

say i did this because that's the truth that was important to you because everyone else was telling you can't do something you're not sitting in this system. I was much the same. Much the same. I met some old school friends and they were like, whoa, you know, my life,

because I was just always the one in trouble. I remember getting 17% in physics and thinking, I don't give a shit. I don't give a shit. And I was like, oh my God.

I was like 17. I never felt embarrassed. I was just like, I knew I was a bit different as well though, you know, you felt different. I felt different. Oh, 100%. I felt different.. I never felt embarrassed. I was just like, I knew I was a bit different as well though. You know, you felt different. I felt different. Oh, 100%.

I felt different. But I wanted to be like the middle class girls that were living in Chorley Wood. And I came from the working class. So it was the kids from Watford that got into the grammar school that were the sort of, that parents didn't have the money. We used to get the bus out. And then the middle class from Chorleywood and all those areas, their parents used to drop them off in cars.

And then they'd get to the sixth floor and they'd drive in themselves. I was like, oh my God, I want to be this. And then I went, nah. Nah, I don't want to be that life. I want my life. I want my life.

Brony Ware talks about the same thing. She interviewed people on their palliative patients, I think it's called on there. Who did this? Brony Ware. She was an Australian palliative patients i think it's called on their who does this brony where she was a an australian palliative nurse i don't know if that's the right word and she interviewed people on their deathbed and asked them one question which was what's your biggest regret as they were dying wow the number and she released the blog in it the number one regret of the dying as she writes in her blog was quote

not living a life true to myself oh man i remember watching the film of alan turing and it just actually heartbreaking and here was a gay man who could not live his life and i just thought that has got to be i think that's sort of the 50s and 60s was worse than any time you know that american dream of the housewife and being the two kids and living the American dream of that. And actually you had to suppress your sexuality, your frequency, your truth, your love, your ability to soar. Isn't that just the worst? Torture. Torture. Torture. Daily, hourly, deeply subconscious torture almost.

Yeah. And it's still going on in Hollywood. Yeah. You married a man. I did marry a man. Then a woman. Then a married woman. And I'm with a woman now.

Well, I never, it's interesting. I don't know whether female sexuality is particularly different from male sexuality, but I've been in love with two men in my life and I've been in love with two women I've never sort of I never as a child thought oh my god I'm a lesbian I fancy Linda Evangelista I've got to do something about it and I had relationships with women I had relationships with men and it just didn't ever bother me. But once I had fallen in love with a woman, I remember, you know, saying to my sister,

she was like, but you're not a lesbian. I said, well, I don't know what I am. Do I have to put a label to it? And the interesting thing is, when I did and, you know, and married Mel, that all the prides and the, you know, they'll grab hold of you and put lesbian. Oh, okay. Well, I got to do this for the sake of all of you

and be a voice, which I wanted to be. But you kind of also go, now you're also labelling me. It was a really, but I also don't want to let you down, Stonewall. And I will do the opening speech at Pride because I know you need women. And I've just had another one that came through on, you know, LGBT, virgin, radio marriage,

you're going to, but I don't want to be also categorized in that way because I'm not that. It's a form of prison as well, though, isn't it? Well, it is. But I also don't want to not be a voice because I think it's important for, you know, when I did Meet Mel, there was no women in the public eye besides Sandy Toxic who were in same-sex relationships. And I remember this, my children having to, you know, when they went to school, there was no books on it.

I mean, I'm talking, what are we, Milo's now 26, so I'm talking, you know, he was nine. There wasn't. So I thought I had to do that. And I did it, and I don't mind doing it. But, you know, there is a fluidity to it. Labels are good and bad yeah those kind of labels

those like socially categorising labels where they put you in the label because they A maybe want to understand you but because they want you to like lead the charge

of a movement I get that obviously young black you know guy business there's not actually many of us up here in the young black male category

so you kind of go well I've got to do that I like represent them and i'm only actually half black i'm as black as i am white because my dad's white my mom's black and i'm like i will represent the black you know like yeah stand behind me and then you feel okay yeah i you say yeah as you say uh yeah you know there's probably a net positive impact of me doing that for society so i'll take on that uh responsibility but then i go back to all i know who i am so write what you matter yeah write what you like and say what you like because i know intuition topic i've heard you talk about a lot you'd said previously that the biggest mistakes

in your life had come from not listening to your intuition what comes to mind when i say that which mistakes i think you know i i think i'll know when i'm needed to have got out of you know relationships and it kept telling me something and kept telling me and you're like oh no no i've suppressed that i've suppressed it in times where i've you know thought in business i don't particularly like this person, and yet they're paying me a lot. I've suppressed that. And it always ends up, always, you know, you feel it, you feel it. And ideas sometimes, you know, they just come. If you're really, really feeling free and in tune,

they just come and they're wonderful. It's been my, I'm not sure it's yours, but it's been my, you know, ability to sort of feel something deeply and know that that's right. And you can get people that can analyse, put data behind it, logic. And I've listened to them in the past and I've let things go. Oh, not regret, but oh, that, you know. Even, you know, now I've always bought, I've always wanted to do, and it's just trying to get an idea, you know,

a totally sustainable, secondhand, recycled, vintage, take a whole space, like a massive mall that's closed down and create tomorrows where you everything is about you know recycled upcycled vintage remote and i've got to get on and do that but it's too big if i go no no no i'm not sure how that could work how do you but i just know it will you know and so i have to follow the instinct on doing that but i think just just sometimes you just it's the small things as well it's just the small things where you feel it's come from there and you push it down because you put too much logic and reason behind it. And I think in business, we need to let that open up so much more. Certainly in my

area of business, I reckon we ended up with so many crap businesses because logic, data and systems overtook instinct, creativity and innovation. And we need to bring that back. And interestingly, you talking about high streets, what has come back is people understanding the importance of connection and community through high streets. And we will see that coming back. And, you know, I had the Labour Party get in touch with me and saying they wanted to re, you know, look at what we were doing on the High Street Report 10 years ago.

Because when I did it 10 years ago, they didn't understand that it was all about bottom line, all about bottom line. What's your view on the younger generation coming up? You know, there's a lot of, I think we talked off microphone about some of the themes coming out of you know this this uh instagram generation like you know it's like really binary cliches like find your passion there's this idea that like um working hard is now toxic um and just generally what's your what's your if you were to impart advice or you were to give a perspective on this kind of like instagram generation who and their perspective of the working world, what advice would you have for them?

I think, you know, there's the good and the bad and the ugly, isn't there? I mean, I think it's a really tough world to be in that you are always on. That's a very tough place to be. And I purposely, you know, don't do as much even though I should be, you know, because I just say I only want to do something when I really have something to say. And I know it drives some of my agents around the bend. As in social media?

Yeah. And I think it's deeply difficult. I think we've got two strands coming through. I think it's used as an incredible place for voice and change to happen. And I think the Gen Zs are going to be probably the best generation that we've seen in a very, very, very long time. And the more I read about them, the more my, I have a social anthropology unit in my agency, the more we research this, the more I utterly love them. And the more I want them to make this world better. And I think they will.

And you young millennials, absolutely. I think, and I think there's a And you young millennials, absolutely. I think, and I think there's a lot that comes out of it that's fantastic. The other part of it is, oh boy, I would love to change what are now used as icons and role models, especially around beauty, fashion, and young women. It is just too much to live up to. And I find it, that I find just terribly stressful for individuals and the way that they've been sold, how they need to look, how they need to behave, how their body needs to be, what their beauty regime should be. It's ridiculously tough.

And I live in a society where I'm seeing a young generation that are pushing against that, but there's an awful lot of young women, particularly, and men out there, who, how they are looked and how they're perceived and what their life is like. And 40 pluses. I look at some people on Facebook and I think, really? You're still doing this shit? You need to go out there and show what new shoes you've bought or what you had for brunch or where you ate?

Really? Really? Isn't it a bit of a pyramid scheme? Not a pyramid scheme, maybe like a network marketing scheme in some respects or some kind of like network effects. Because what's happening is you've, let's say you've got, I don't know, the Kardashians at the top. Then you've got people below them

looking up at the Kardashians and thinking, fuck, do you know what? I need to get a fake bum and I need to change this and I need to change this. And I need to post when I'm wearing my Chanel bikini on the side of that boat. So they follow suit, which then cascades downwards and everyone's just trying to. This is what I'm talking about. The pressure.

I'd love the Kardashians to turn around and say, let's not buy any more stuff and let's recycle. Wouldn't it be brilliant? Imagine what that would do for consumerism. That's probably the most impact they could have on the world is if they just cut out the fakery and yeah lived more ethically but they just they're pinned back by the financial incentive but i you know when i was doing my research my book and looking at the spend on the pressure on young people who follow the Kardashians to get the new this, the new that. It's insane.

It's insane. Because I used to look back and think, well, you know, my mother couldn't afford stuff. So we just put up with it. But we weren't sold the marketing dream. We weren't sold this shit. And this has gone so deeply into society, so deeply, that we do need people like you that go this is just crap

standing up and saying this is crap and anyone comes on dragons den trying to sell that crap it's almost like the way i see it is um like social media in this that the world the kardashians it's like they're holding a bit of your self-esteem hostage and the ransom of the apparent ransom is you've got to go get that bag too or whatever and then when you pay the ransom you get the bag you don't get your self-esteem back and it just increases the ransom just increases now they're like now you've got to get an even better bag and it's just endless like exactly what i wrote about i was part of that when i was creative director at harvey knicks i was i sold this stuff to people thinking yeah bloody brilliant look i'm gonna make this sexy and and uh and it was it's not

dissimilar now it's just got faster and faster and faster and faster and faster and it is totally all based on i'm not good enough i'm not good enough we have to convince them that there's something they don't have but need we really need this revolution there is part that are doing it but there's a whole part of society that are still buying into this this lack of self-esteem and we as marketers have been selling that for years i've definitely been selling that yeah so have i at my previous business mayor culper you said you know it was something that i i thought maybe i was the only person in the world that also felt which was before started recording, you said that you don't get excited about things. Yeah, I mean, I have great things in my diary

or someone said, oh, aren't you excited you're doing that tomorrow? And I just think, no, I just don't get excited. And you said you don't either. I don't know. Well, so I didn't actually say anything, but then my camera guy here, Jack, that's worked with me for some time,

says Steve always says that. And it's because there's people who will say to me oh my god you're doing this next week or you're going on holiday you're going to this place are you speaking in Dubai are you excited and no yeah when they hit me with the question I go no no as if I'm trying to work that through because I've never sat with anyone and worked that through or talked that through and I and that but it doesn't stop me really enjoying like and experiences the experiences and there and now i don't put it up there maybe that's the thing for me i thought and i might be wrong but maybe we're going to work it through now i thought my lack of excitement was a defense mechanism

because i also need to defend against going down when bad things happen so i think over time i've just developed this character trait where i'm just here in the moment, focused on what I have to do right now. And I'm trying to be stable and calm. So I don't swing upwards with great news. I don't swing downwards too heavily with bad news. And that also means I don't swing too far into the future or swing too far into the past.

That's a really good analysis. Maybe that is it. Maybe that's it. Because my friends get excited about small things and big things oh i've got dinner i've got that table at brat and you're like great but it doesn't it doesn't excite me yeah i don't know that maybe that is maybe that is a subliminal thing that we've both done i i hadn't thought about that but i felt i even had it like my my partner said to me oh you, you've got that, aren't you excited?

And I said, no. And I actually have to tell you, I don't get excited. It was like I was going into therapy. I have to sit you down and tell you, I don't get it. That doesn't mean I don't feel joy. Yes. That doesn't mean I don't feel complete. But I don't get excited.

Or maybe someone's going to listen to this some really incredible psychoanalyst and they're going to go we'll work this out and tell you why it is really interesting because you

I think it's so important for you to say what you've said there which is you still enjoy yourself when you're there and doing these things but it's the like future anticipation

and I think that must come from living having lived a very intense life where the most important thing in your world is being in the present right now and fixing the thing right in front of you yes and you've probably not had a ton of time to sit but then also also i have to say the privilege of having had so many great experiences yes you know so there's not really a restaurant you've not been to that's been amazing you know like you've been to amazing restaurants you've been to amazing places you've

done achieved amazing things so you're you're sort of like threshold of what might but it doesn't seem that anything excites me do you know i remember now you've said something and i remember just i i think it's being what you talk about, totally connected. I remember a true surge of joy coming through my body when I was walking to a supermarket. This has nothing to do with the supermarket, but I have my baby daughter in front of me and I have my husband with me, with my little son, and I was totally in a place of joy in a supermarket. But there was something about this place of these two beautiful kids I had, love. And I remember this surge coming and I thought, my God, I feel really happy. And I've had other times like that.

And they've not been sitting in Cannes at a restaurant. They've been really fundamental, simple, simple, simple places where I felt that surge of joy, okay? Where you feel your, I can feel it now, right? Where you can put it and you can feel your energy going through your body, which is beautiful. And I would rather have that than this excitement. If I told you that later today you were going to walk down the street and feel that same surge of joy that you got from the supermarket,

would you be excited? No. If I told you now that when you walk out this door, as you walk out down the street, I promise you you're going to feel that surge of joy, would you be excited to? No, but I'll feel that warmth and that energy going through my body that thinks yes i want to be in that place but it's not excitement and because what i was trying to figure out there is if excitement uh us i was trying to figure out if we've the reason

why we don't get excited is because we've realized that true joy doesn't come from the restaurant or from the holiday or from the going and doing the tv thing whatever it's actually really the joy comes from something that's actually very hard to predict it's like those really meaningful moments and so when someone says aren't you excited to go to do that experience on tv you think well that's not joy and in fact joy will come in those really random moments random yeah i sat in the garden with my sister last week and i my sister i love my sister she's just one of the great people i know she was always quieter as a kid and she always let me be like she was three years older but she was always like you know when she was 18 and i was 15 she'd take me out to the clubs like no one's done it you know You know, like, she was like, come on. And I just sat with her.

And it was just a moment. We were just sitting together. We weren't speaking. And it was just that moment where that connected. I can see it in your face. When you describe these moments, your face lights up. Yeah. That's joy.

That's why, when you talk about The Office, and we talk about The High Street, it's the trivial, what we think are trivial that's what makes the world that's what makes life that's what fuels us laughter in the hallways and those little jokes and catching up on what happened on the weekend and stuff those totally or like me trying to wash the dog in the garden the other way and i my partner nearly was wetting herself laughing because i couldn't get the dog i I said, bring him over here. And the hose was going everywhere. And it was just that moment of madness and joy that the little dog running around the garden.

It was just those things. But also maybe we don't resonate. I was just thinking then with the word excitement. Because think about what that word means. When I think of the word excitement, I think, oh, that's not a state that i live my life in never so when someone says are you excited i think well am i no no never so maybe there's a better question which is are you looking forward to the experience or are you um i don't know maybe there's a better question but i don't do that either yeah looking forward isn't because you're

not looking forward you know are you happy you're doing it i don't know there's an answer maybe we're deeply evolved and we don't know it yeah or just like deeply depressed and we don't know your mission now in life seems to be focused a lot on um as you say like making businesses kinder and it seems to be much more philanthropic than it has it's ever been before why why does that matter i don't know just came to me it's one of those things that came to me certain point certain time or well i i i about five ten i can't remember years where they go but about seven years ago i looked at my business and thought i remember it no it no longer than that it was eight years ago and I my little baby son was born and um this beautiful little man came into the world and on he he was born on the Monday and on the Saturday my 18 year old son was going out into the world to university and i mean obviously this you can

imagine the emotions that are going through my body there's this young man that's coming to this world and this young man is going out to this world and it was just visceral and i i i do cry when i'm feeling you know um happy or sad or listen to great music. I can. It clears me, especially if it's Nick Cave. And I kept on crying and just this movement. And I remember sitting with Milo, who was going off to do, he's a very bright lad, he was going off to do philosophy and economics. And we were just chatting on the

bed i remember clearing his bedroom there's a little cricket bat there and i get emotional because i remember going off to find the cricket bat and i remember also being really fucked off because all the sports shops is closed and they become jb sports and jay-z sports you know like no that's not a sport shop i want to go to a sport shop where someone says i'll give you the cricket bat and knows about sport and but I found one in in in Sherbourne where a friend lived I found this and I was looking at the cricket bat and thinking all the memories you know it's just that lovely and I'm packing his stuff and I'm just looking at his little hands sitting next to me on the bed all big hands and Stuart what do you think you'll

probably do he goes well I don't know because I'm doing economics he goes and I suppose I'll end up going into finance in the city and I was like I just remember this like this deep and I remember sitting there and thinking that's not your frequency that's not you I mean you're go-getting but you've grown up

with me and you're going to have to change you to go into that world and then I looked at little Horatio the baby thinking and you're going to have to change you to go into that world. And then I looked at little Horatio, the baby, and thinking, this is what we all do. We all bloody have to change. And I thought, actually, I've done this.

I've changed. I became, you know, when I was on the board of Harvey Nichols, the businesswoman, when it was Mary, queen of shops, when it was Mary, whatever, on the TV, I was that. What the hell am I doing? Am I still doing this? And so I went on that journey then. And that's when I decided to change the whole way that I ran the business. And I wrote work like a woman on that, realizing that actually what I had suppressed was my deep sensitivity. And I called it my feminine instinct because I do believe the

power of the feminine has been suppressed over millennia. There's no two ways about it. There's no two ways about it. We have created a male dominated alpha energy in the world because we killed and we threw through the church, millions of women who were the sages who were we've suppressed femininity and that power is the power that's going to take us through into the next part of the world and i started looking at this and i started i never saw myself as a feminist because i'd you know look at me i looked at my life why do i need to be that you know and? And I started to go, what are we doing with our children through work that we, this young man has to suppress his creativity, his sensitivity to go and be a bastard basically, because they get to the top. This was at the time of, you know, money, power,

fame. Those are the ones, your Trumps, your Philip Greens, you have loads of money, yeah, mark and knight them, they're brilliant, yeah, service. And I started to go on that journey then. So that's exactly when it was, it was eight years ago, nearly nine. And I wrote the book, created a new culture in my business, opened up, started to talk about stuff that made me feel vulnerable, started to bring in this more compassionate way of working and actually connect with what would have been seen as soft skills or HR department. Actually, I believed we're going to be the new power skills, love, kindness. Actually, because before, you know, 12 years ago, if someone wasn't working, I'd be like, oh, done, out. You know, boom, onto the next thing, you're not good enough ago, if someone wasn't working, I'd be like, oh, done, out.

You know, boom, onto the next one. You're not good enough. How do you do that? What's going on in that person's life? I remember discovering one of our great creatives suffered with depression. He'd actually told someone else. No wonder he's like that. I've never looked at that before.

Okay, how do we work with this? So I started on that journey then. And then I realized that, you know, over the years, that even the planet that we were killing was all part of this. The way that we suppressed ourselves in search of more. We've just killed the planet. We've killed our well-being. And I just kept on going on the journey. And then I did a TED Talk on it. And they asked me to do a TED Talk.

And I thought, what am I going to talk on? It just kept on coming up, this theme. So I talked on, when I called it, we need the kindness economy. We need an economy that isn't about growth, that isn't about money at any cost, that just doesn't measure linear. How do we create well-being?

It's not that I'm anti-capitalism. I like money. How do we create a world of that? And I started to go on it. And then COVID hit. Bam. And it was there. It kept going, this is what you're meant to be doing, Mary.

And I'm looking at how to get back to make the same money as I did before. And all the while I'm chasing that. My God, my business is going there. And this voice is going there and this voice is going just it's where you meant to be and then one day I woke up and I rang my chief executive I said I think this is where we need to go and she's amazing and I'm also thinking well she's 40 something with two kids and she's you know in this business with me it's all right me going this is amazing can we but I think we should go this route and we talked about it and talked about it just and the more i talked the more it opened up and my head of strategy and

my anthropology and we were all like yes actually we need to be advising business on being better better to people and better to the planet and that's how it all started and that's my journey now this is it am i excited by it no but do i get up and think that it's deeply in there with me and i just have to follow it now and that's where i'm i hope that explains it no you have you don't know it was really powerful and i think it it perfectly ties into all the prior themes of listening to intuition and um i think that's super super powerful i i have two more questions for you one of them relates to what you've just said there which is um in a very

practical sense what does that mean for a business to become more kind you talked about people and planet but in terms of like the boardroom pay you know all of that all of it it's actually looking and going we we know that simon sinek the great books on, you know, why rather than just that. It's looking at what your business is here for. What is your philosophy and your purpose? Really understanding that and connecting it deeply to you on a human level, first of all. And, you know, you've got a lot of wokenism going on and oh yeah, our purpose is to make the world better. No, you know, what is your true purpose as a

business? And now, once you start to work on that and yourself, and I've done it through the book, you then create the environment through your people, through how you pay them, through how you inspire them, through how you connect to your customers, through the truth of how you manufacture, how you create, how you collaborate. You create a different way of being a business that's not siloed, it's not individualistic. You move from me to we. So everything that you do, you are thinking that bit wider than yourself. It's like being a mother or a parent in any sense.

Undoubtedly, I would always put them first. Always, not even a, always. So you think about that in your business doesn't stop me being me doesn't stop me developing doesn't stop me opening up doesn't stop me growing doesn't but i am being a responsible connected kind individual we need to do this with the world and the reason i put people planet profit in that order is the planet's going to go on without us. We'll fuck it and we'll all die, quite simply. And it'll regenerate. It's done that, as we know, whatever. But we can make that change happen. We can do it by being more humane,

by being kinder, and by creating commerce that feeds and gives social progress as well as financial progress. And it's possible. It's totally possible. You know that. Now, obviously, some people go, it's all right for us sitting from our money doing that. Yeah, I've made money. Yeah yeah but I'm doing it and there's people who are doing it who haven't and those are the ones I take the hat off to those are the ones and if I can just put a bit of volume on it

then I will because I've got a bit of a big male and I actually you know some of the people I admire the most one guy in particular called Naval he always talks about how if you want to start taking on some of these worlds the world's big problems like the environment etc what you have to do is you have to make sure people aren't worrying about feeding their kids first and foremost because i don't begrudge or blame anyone that can't feed

their kids that that isn't thinking about saving the environment you know what i mean because i would be of course you know so there's a bit of sort of fundamental social work that needs to be done for us to get to a place where well i mean we can look at that in terms but it's again what was value my mother had very little money but she fed us and she didn't make us obese by buying shit food that was too cheap yeah same with fashion and people go oh yeah but that fashion it's it's democratic everybody can afford it you stand at some of those shops everyone's coming out with three carrier bags of shit that's going to go into landfill. Or we don't market the hell out of it via that. And we tell the truth that buying something that lasts and recycles and upcycles and that you share is actually where the new sexy is. Yeah, sexy is a word, you know.

It's really important. That is is important i call it status status symbols we've moved to now we're into status sentience how do we create a world where we understand that being sentient and connecting with experience and life and being generous in the world is more important than symbols big move massive move and we need to look at. And we need to look at the brands. We need to look at power in business. And that's where I'm starting. I wrote down earlier, cause you said the word, and it's been something I've been very curious about the word of meditation. What role has that played in your life? And why did you embark on that practice? Because it steals my mind and your mind is the biggest tool you have that can just

fuck you over terribly, or it can really ignite you. Amen. Tell me about the upside of meditation as you've seen it. Well, I started by doing little podcasts to listen to someone tell me how to do it because I was a bit hopeless and me sitting still ain't great. And it's just I do each morning with it. I only do 10 minutes and then I'll try and do it at the end of the evening. And I still my mind and I just connect. And I feel my energy going to my body and I clear. And anytime a little thing comes in that says, I go, thought, and then I laugh at it. I don't get annoyed. I just go,

and I laugh at the me that's the thought that just tells you all this shit. And then I just open up my energy as much as possible. And then during the day where I find myself where I might be going out of sync, I just have this thing that just says pause. And I pause. And then I relax. And I could be sitting in a meeting like this and where i might be wanting to talk more i just stop

and let it come back in and it's just helped me hugely closing the tabs that's a really good visual closing all those tabs down but just they're not great lastly love relationships something i think very you know career-driven professionals like you um often tend to struggle with for various for a variety of reasons have you struggled with relationships love holding together relationships investing in them i don't think investing in them? I don't think I have. I mean, I don't think it looks particularly great that I've got two failed marriages, but actually they lived, there were some brilliant years. I knew they were long and they created beautiful things. So I don't see them as failure. I genuinely don't see them as failure. It's a part of my life. And I've changed. I am not the same person that I was when I met and I'm on a very different part of my journey. And that happens. And I think we can just get so hung up on that. You know, I've had incredible, I've had long relationships.

No, I've never really struggled with relationships, I don't think. No, I've had pretty decent long ones. I was on my own the last, which has been the first time in ages. That was really unique for me, you know. When was this? Just recently, you know,

I split up with my wife melanie back in three years ago and i was you know three years on my own still single now no but i'm not going to tell you who is that'll be a nice headline who are you with i i it's unfair to them you know it's just, no one in the public eye, in order we want to be thrown into it. But you found that's super exciting. Yes, yes.

Dare I say exciting? That's very nice, Joyce. Yes, lovely. But it came in a, I think I manifested it as well. Really? Yeah, I just thought, oh God, now I'm ready for something. And I genuinely feel I sort of opened up my, we spend so much time feeding energies

that just are not worth it. That you just have to keep pushing up. In that three years, what did you, what was, what did you tell yourself? Because a lot of people, when they, when the garage is empty, they just want to fill it with anything. Do you know what I mean?

Because that makes them feel, they feel complete. Or, you know, when there's someone there, they feel like they need someone just to fill the garage but what did you do for those three years to patience i guess or you know you talked about manifesting probably one of the most toughest three years of my life the last three years i i grieved first of all the loss of your marriage yeah you grieve and i think you have to grieve and um COVID hit not easy I had to gosh on your own and oh yeah you're on yeah yeah and you have your kids and you're resettling where you live so you're you everything changed everything so my business changed my marriage ended where I lived changed so it was

a huge amount of change. And actually the last thing I was able to do was bring anyone into that. I had to be with me. Yeah, and it was very, very painful. Very painful. And I think it's only in the last six to ten months I've come through. Amazing. Well, listen, Mary, you've been just the best guest ever.

Ever? You're so hilarious and intelligent and honest, which is amazing. I need to be more hilarious. I was just thinking, I need to be more funny. Am I funny? You are funny, yeah. Oh, that's the Irish I'm not.

You're funny through being honest. This is the thing. You're just honest. And a lot of people, they skirt around what they truly think because they're trying to find the politically correct words or phrases, and you don't seem to give a fuck which i think makes for great listening but you you're already there well yeah i i am but yeah but maybe you're more descriptive so it's even more hilarious um but i you know yeah just thank you so much that's my pleasure and thank you for rescheduling me i know i'm a bit of a nightmare you were worth it you

were definitely worth it. You too, my darling. I really appreciate it. And love and luck for all you do. Thank you so much. Please shine your light in the world that's needed. I mean it. I'll do my very best.

I'll watch you. Thanks for watching!