The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 24 - Mary Portas on Finding Your Truth When You’re Feeling Lost

Episode Date: September 23, 2021

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. It’s becoming more and more apparent that in the modern world, many people are losing touch with who they really are. The systems of society which we live in today are turning us away from our truths and toward becoming who we think we’re supposed to be. Like many others, Mary Portas was once one of those people. The high street queen had it all, and yet she admits something was missing. In this moment clip, Mary reveals how she lost herself, and thankfully, how she found her truth. Episode 85 - https://g2ul0.app.link/yapp2HjGLjb Mary: https://twitter.com/maryportas https://www.instagram.com/maryportasofficial/

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 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 you say they're having it all and having more stuff we thought that was it which leads me into something else i wanted to talk to you about i read you'd said um that you were 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. I just didn't get that joy, you know.

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. 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'll 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 they'd be dropping the kids off at school while chatting to God knows whoever, sorting out the day. And you just thought, 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 um to some very expensive spa place where it was all om shanty and downward dogs and eating 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, please stop. And there was 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 who used to sit in this little room which 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 was just 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 were 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 saying no. Two questions there, which is regarding this book, this Eckhart Tolle book that you talk about, A New Earth. What was it? 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 um yeah of 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 be yourself

because everything else is despair. You either succeed in abandoning yourself, as 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 path to joy is to accept who you are. Yes, I think, 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 like no don't mention spirituality in the bbc at the moment

you're like what this 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 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, 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 whatever our vortex or our frequency as oprah says whatever

getting back to that you know i remember i was listening to the um lovely irish uh 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 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. 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.

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 they were like whoa you know my life because i was just always the one in trouble or i remember getting 17 in physics and thinking i don't give a shit i don't give a shit and then it's like oh 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 didn't feel 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.