The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

Richard Osman is a television host, former creative director of a world-leading production company, and the author behind the biggest literary sensation since Harry Potter., the Thursday Murder Club series. In this one-of-a-kind conversation, Richard reveals for the first time what has motored him from a working class, single parent household to the top of the television and literary worlds. There’s more to Richard than meets the eye. He’s had to battle through self-doubt, addiction, imposter syndrome to have one of the most remarkable, multi-faceted and varied careers we’ve ever featured. We’ll let Richard take it from here.  Follow Richard: Twitter - https://bit.ly/3eG2bcD Instagram - https://bit.ly/3TBB5C0 Richards book: https://amzn.to/3EUM4lR  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 time square um for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you to all of you

that listen to this show let's continue my books wouldn't be as good if i if i hadn't gone through that trauma you welcome richard Osman, ladies and gentlemen. Best-selling novelist, television producer, presenter. You know, if you have a trauma of any type and you are looked after and you're guided through it, you can come out the other side. If, however, you're sort of left alone in your trauma, your own solutions never work. I never sat and thought, oh, I've got a problem with my life. But I would have addictive behaviours around food.

When did you realise that it was their strange behaviour? I mean, it's an addiction. There's no other way of putting it. It's like having a bottle of vodka, then having another bottle of vodka, then having another bottle of vodka. If you see somebody is different, they do not need to be told. I've had that with my height, you know, and I know you're just thinking, yeah, but it's just me. You think, yeah, but it's just you and five other people every single day. I

Didn't live the life. I should have done for many years I wish I'd been more myself in those years and I would have taken much less success and much more happiness What is happiness gosh, that's a good question. Well, here's the way I always think about it That makes a lot of sense. You think? Without further ado, I'm Stephen Butler, and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. Richard. Stephen. What do I need to know about you and your earliest years to understand the man you went on to be and all the things you went on to do? It's a good question.

Well, if you mean professionally, the man I went on to be. I grew up loving popular culture, loving mainstream culture, loving mainstream television. So, you know, that's always been in my soul. I came from a big working class family and now find myself in a very middle class world. So I sort of have a sense of what different people from different places in Britain like to watch or like to read. So that really, and you know, I grew up visually, I'm very visually impaired. So I don't see the world particularly brilliantly. But I'm always listening to the world. I'm always interested in what people are saying and, you know, getting that sort of thing. So I think that combination of things means I've had a career of sort of

working out what people might quite like, and then finding the right people to help me make those things. Your your earliest years kind of reminded me of mine in many ways, because I almost view my earliest years as two chapters. There was, for me, there was the first chapter, which was really pleasant. I remember it being a very happy home. And then there was the second chapter, which I could describe basically as dysfunctional. Yes. And a bit of a nightmare.

Yeah, there's similarities. So I was nine. My father left when I was nine. And this being the 1970s, we didn't really see him again. It wasn't touchy-feely. Oh, everyone still loves each other. It was, you know, off he went. And so, yeah, I was probably the same,

quite happy-go-lucky up to that age. And then afterwards, you sort of have to, you know, build a mask for yourself a little bit and, you know, pretend you're okay and pretend you're not in pain. Weirdly, that ability to sort of create your own narrative was helpful in my later career, you know, I'd rather not have had it. But that ability to sort of pretend that everything's okay and to write a different story, which is very much what I did. But yeah, I think that anyone who's had that sort of disconnect,

it affects them one way or another. And it was very, you know, an unhappy time. And it's led to lots of unhappiness since then. But it doesn't make me unhappy anymore, for sure. I've absolutely come to terms with it, come to peace with it. And, you know, I always say trauma is not the problem. It's an inability to deal with trauma is the problem. You know, if you have a trauma of any type, and you are looked after, and you're guided through it, you can probably come out the other side if however you're sort of left alone in your trauma and you come up with your own solutions your own solutions never work and so I definitely had that but um I try and use and you know I'm very connected still to the

nine-year-old weirdly because I've had that sort of interregnum where I was a slightly different person so I'm always able to um I'm always able to find that nine-year-old and that nine-year-old was very interested in new things and what's on telly and you know uh who's playing football this afternoon and you know what's in the pop charts and you know that's the stuff that I loved when I was nine and it's the stuff that I still love now I'm always always what's next what's next what's next you talk he talked I think it was a Sunday Times interview you did where you said at that age you had to manufacture yourself a little bit and I found that really interesting because I've heard this a few times from a few different people I've sat here with that have undergone uh sort of a tectonic shift in their early years yeah what do you mean by manufacture yourself a little bit

well I think when you get into your teenage years, you are working out who you are. And you know, we could we all of us change. And we change in, you know, in reaction to the world around us and think new things that we experience and new friends and new schools, you know, we become different people. But I think if at the heart of it, there is a lie. So my lie would be, everything is okay. I don't need my dad to be around. It's okay that I hear my mom crying at night. You know, if that's my lie, then everything I build is built on a fault line. You know, so everything is built on that fault line. So however big I build the, you know, my personality, there's going to come a point, and it happened to me probably late 20s, when there's an earthquake, because that fault line gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. So it's just, we all build our personalities. And if you build them on truth, if you build them on

firm foundations, if you build them on good faith, then you know, you have a chance. If you build them on fault lines, then it always comes out. That makes a lot of sense. You think? Yeah, because that's, that's completely consistent with when I've sat here with people who've spent decades of their life or decades of their career, even building themselves up on a lie, or as you've referred to as wearing a mask, the earthquake always comes. Well, here's the way I always think about it. Listen, people tell you there's no such thing as truth. And of course, that's true. I get it. There's no such thing as actual reality. But I think our personalities, we sort of have a true north, right, which if nothing goes wrong, or if we respond to trauma, well, we carry on our life and the true north goes up through us. And we sort of dance

around it. And we can sort of wander in and out the fields around this sort of true north. If you deviate from true north, especially very young, then suddenly true north is here, and you're heading off in this direction right and for quite a while you're not very far from your true north but if you're like 15 20 years in you're so far away from what you should be right now you don't know that you're telling a lie okay that's the absolute key you don't know that you're lying to yourself right so what you're seeing is the reality of the world seems alien to you and you can't work out why. You think, why don't I fit in?

Why am I not sort of doing the right things? And it's because you're so far away from where you need to be. And lots of people will fill that gap with addictions and drugs and booze and weird behaviours. But eventually, I think most people work out the reason the world doesn't seem right is I'm not right you know and

some people narcissists will try and drag the world to them look at trump he tries to drag the world to him all the time okay because of his childhood and which we get right but most people at some point just go no i need i've got to make that leap i've got to leap back to where i was which is a long journey but a worthwhile one but. But I think it's just, we just keep going just slightly off course, slightly off course. And the longer that goes on for, the further we are from where we should be. If you were to have stayed on your true north throughout that whole period, what would you have done instead? Oh, well, it's a very good question. I sort of think that I would have done roughly the same thing.

I think I would have ended up in TV or journalism or writing one way or another. I think that, and especially think this with the books, I think that it has given me an empathy for people all the time. And I see denial in other people all the time. And I think those things go through the books. So I think my books wouldn't be as good if I hadn't gone through that trauma. And again, I trade the two off in a heartbeat. So I think I would have done the same thing, but I don't think it would have had the same soul, is the truth. And therefore, I don't think it would have had

quite the same impact or success. You say you trade the two off in a heartbeat? Yeah. What, happiness for, because I mean, listen, you've been enormously successful, right?

But the question is why? Okay. What are you after? Right. Are you after money? Okay. You're after money, but why?

What is it that money is doing for you? It can buy you certain things. Okay. Why do you want those things? What are they doing for you? And the answer is always one thing, which is happiness, contentment,

right? Just comfort in and of yourself. That's what you want is to wake up in the morning and be comfortable with who you are, to have enough and to be comfortable with who you are. And I think that, you know, that's the thing. Happiness is the only thing we seek. And if I'd grown up happier, I think I would have found happiness easier to find. And, you know, my happiness has been hard won. And I'm happy, you know, now it's great, because I'm 51. And I'm in this lovely place. But then, you know, there's sort of 10, 15 years where you think, Oh, you know what, I wish I'd, I wish I'd been more myself in those years. And I would have taken much less success and much more happiness. I asked that question because I remember Mo Gowdat sitting here and talking to me about

the eraser test they did on people where they asked people if you could remove the most traumatic events of your life, would you do it? And he says that 95% of people says they wouldn't say they wouldn't. Yeah, I think it's interesting that because I don't think people, I don't think it's a real question because what you're really saying to people is, would you erase who you yeah and would you erase and you know of course you wouldn't of course you would not erase who you are because it's very dear to you however if you were able to live that other reality and live this reality and see which one of these do you prefer I think you'd say the one without the trauma is my opinion none of us would ever say yes I want to erase who I was okay I mean

it's crazy but actually actually, the truth is, if we had the two side by side, like, you know, a Costa and a Starbucks, and say, which would you prefer? We would pick the, we'd pick the, I don't know, which is the best one. I don't know.

Yeah, I think, I don't know. I don't want to endorse it. Yeah, exactly. It's exactly what I was thinking. I don't know whether it's a Costa or Starbucks. They're both fine companies. I imagine there's a lot of people listening to this now that have had a traumatic event happen to them or of course are going to

have traumatic events in their future what I'm really interested in is knowing the impact that your decision to no longer see your dad and however else you behaved at that time had on you later how in hindsight do you think it would have been better to act better for me to act yeah i don't think it's a question for me because i'm 10 years 10 11 years old right and i'm not i'm i'm i'm not the sort of significant actor in that situation you know you you're not able to rationalize the world correctly you know it's for the people around you and there's no disrespect by the way to the people around me because we were very very different times and my mum had just been through the most extraordinary trauma i mean much more than i had been through and so she was not in a position to act in my best interest there and my dad wasn't

in a best position to work in my interest and nobody was no one knew you know there's lots of talk about mental health now and isn't it you know but no one talked about that stuff back then i mean they really really didn't talk about that stuff back then. I mean, they really, really didn't talk about that stuff back then, you know, it just didn't exist. You know, you, it was the sort of hangover from the kind of post-war years where you just didn't complain, you know, and that, that's still the mindset we had. So listen, if, if, if it had happened more recently, yeah, it would have been much simpler. And listen, I'd have found a different trauma, you know, it's personality type seek out trauma is the truth uh and i would have found a different trauma um to explain away my differences but i think that um yeah i think that had it

happened 30 years later conversations would have been had people would have sat in rooms and we'd have worked out what the best thing to do was but it's the world was such a different place in sort of 1979 it sort of feels very very recent to me uh but you know the world the world was an entirely different place and we didn't even have to have those conversations in 1992 when i was born yeah i think that's right they started showing up about 10 years ago i think the conversations around mental health and mental well-being before then even the prospect of being mentally ill had this like horrible stigma associated with like stray jackets and asylums not yeah we didn't think of the fact that we all have mental health i think i think that's exactly right and listen there's an awful lot wrong with

our this new social media age but one of the good things is if you are different then you are supported and you have friendships around you unless you're also attacked that's the problem with social media age because you know suddenly you're seen as a group uh but you are supported and you can find like-minded people you can find people in the same position no one at my school was from divorced parents you know it just didn't you know when i went to comprehensive school was a few more but not really and now of course you know you can be on you know you can be online and you can meet a thousand people in your situation in one evening you know and that i think it would would be rather helpful you've talked about how you've come to peace with

that resentment that you had with your father. How? Oh, easily, because he's a human being. And I got it. And I got to the age that he was when he left, saw the situation that he had found himself in. And I thought, yeah, I get it. I see why you would do that. You know, I did the same. You know, I left the mother of my children, hopefully in a very different way. But, you I absolutely get it he found himself in a situation he couldn't get out of um so ran away and you know I met him in later life and he's an all right guy you know he's a perfectly decent man but he didn't have the language and he didn't have the brain space for for that sort of conflict he just didn't have it he just was in a situation he didn't want to be in and ran away which is which is which is very common. And again, people, you know, do it less now because, you know, you can, you can talk to people and men didn't talk to other men. Then, you know,

he found himself at a place in life where he just thought, I'm not who I need to be, you know, I'm unhappy. And so he found an excuse and left. And so I've always, you know, I have no resentment towards him anymore. I get it. I sort of wish know I have no resentment towards him anymore I get it I sort of wish that I loved him and I wish that there was that I felt that love and I wish that I had that big sort of family thing but gosh there's worse problems in the world um but but of course I understand why he did it you know this is the age-old story people have been doing it for generations and they'll keep doing it empathy was your yeah I think so and and it's um an empathy for one's enemies i don't wish to call them an enemy but you know what i mean for someone who's an

antagonist in your life rather than a protagonist people talk a lot about empathy and i think they don't have empathy for their their opponents or for people who disagree with them or for people who've lived a different experience and you think that's empathy empathy is not just saying i feel sorry for people or can we help people you know that of course is empathy and it's kindness but empathy is also why does half the country disagree with me you know why does half the country live their life in a different way why do they not care about what i care about that's actual empathy and that's that that's in shorter supply i would say but yeah learning to forgive someone who's caused you trauma

uh and not just forgive but but understand the French say to understand all is to forgive all, which I sort of get. You know, if you're inside someone's head, you go, okay, I see it. I see why he did it. So listen, I'd rather he hadn't done it. But I understand entirely why he did. And yeah, that's, I guess, a very good example example of empathy the sort of empathy you wish you didn't have to have but um you know it's very useful you needed more information on his contacts to get that empathy or was it because you used the word learning to forgive yeah which i think is an apt word because it's not easy to to do that it's not just a decision we can well it is i guess to some part but it's a very difficult decision to make to to really well i mean look in in my situation i hadn't seen him for 20 years and then i did see him, um, maybe a bit less, maybe, maybe 18 years. And so, yeah, I'd had a long time to build that wall around me. I had a long, I don't, you know, I'd had conversations with him in my head a lot. And, you know, the conversations you have with people who

aren't there become very powerful and, you know, you'll, you'll constantly have that conversation. Again, this is what I would say. This is what I would say. Uh, and then you meet up and you start saying a couple of those things and you're just there with a guy who's just saying look I was just unhappy and you know I love you and you know I wish I hadn't had to do it you just go it takes the sting out of all the conversations you've had over the years now for me he didn't have the conversations with me that I needed you know there was no it wasn't really apologetic he didn't really understand the first thing he said to me is i i bet you wonder what i've been up to since i left and i thought not really you know i sort of think maybe what i've been up to might be of interest to you and so he he he just

didn't he didn't have he didn't have the vocabulary to to reform the relationship it's the truth um and i sort of felt he hadn't needed it but i i'd said to him towards the end of his life i did say have you had a happy life though have you had a happy life since you left? And he said, yes. I thought, you know what, that's, that's fine for me. That'll do me. Listen, it's I'd rather he was happy. But um, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's a long journey to sort of go, do you know what? I get why he did it. And now the stuff that I built up around it is now my responsibility. And it's my thing to deal with, not his. And in that interview, I think with the Sunday times,

you said you, you went to his funeral and you found yourself very, you found yourself upset, but not at what one would think. Yeah. I found, I went down with my brother funnily enough, who had even less to do with him than I did. And did and my kids were there and it was so unemotional uh and you know I was

very careful you know I thought no remember that sometimes these things hit you and this is your father and he's died uh and I couldn't connect with him I cried briefly at the end because I cried because of what could have been because of the relationship I've missed but I wasn't crying for him uh and from the next day onwards it didn't hit me again there was no kind of aftershock uh and that's sort of the that's really upset me that there was not because I'm an emotional very emotional person I'll cry anything I'll cry at the repair shop uh and I was sort of thinking this, this is not knocked me particularly. And I thought that was very sad because what a, what a waste of love, you know, what a waste of things that could have been. And my brother was the same. I could, you know, I said to my kids, did uncle Matt cry? And

they went, no, no, no, no. So, you know, it's, it's the same thing. And, you know, people around him were crying and the people who he loved and who loved him. So he'd built that life, you know, it's the same thing. And, you know, people around him were crying. And the people who he loved and who loved him. So he'd built that life, you know, without us. But for me, I just thought, oh, that's, there it is. You know, my grandparents' funerals, I was crying. My father's funeral, it was just, I was glad I was there. But there was, it just, you can't lie and pretend that it connects when it doesn't. You seem to be more, significantly more shaped by Brenda.

Ah, my mum. Yeah, no, I'm definitely shaped by her. I didn't have any other option than to be shaped by her because it was just me, her and my brother in the house. And, you know, just very wise and very protective. And, you know, so I really, in the sort of lottery of life's parents, I have to accept that the one I had was an awful lot better than the two that many people have. Give me a flavour of her character and personality and her manner. Well, she is, let's say she's a she's a primary school teacher so she's used to um you know if you ever went into a into a class that my mom's teaching they'd be silent if she wanted them to be silent but she's very very softly

spoken and where she is now in her retirement village which is the basis of the thursday murder club books she's surrounded by people with very strong opinions of very strong personalities and my mom looks like she wouldn't say boo to a goose. She looks like she's very unassuming. But, you know, I know after these big meetings where they're all shouting at each other, my mum will be the one to stand up and just say, I wonder if we should do this and give the solution to the thing. You know, while everyone else's egos are sort of blowing themselves out, she sort of slips in and sort of says, I wonder if we do this. And that's not just by the way, oh, I'm kindly and wise.

It's also she wants to get her own way. And she knows that that's the way to do it. So, yes, she's very bright, very quiet, very unassuming. And sort of is the opposite of a tiger mother, you know, these mothers that make sure you're doing, you know, piano practice and French lessons and you're learning Mandarin and all this kind of stuff. She just let me watch TV. She let my brother play his guitar and sort of trusted that we'd find our way in life. And that's, I think certainly for me and my brother, often the best

way to bring up kids is to, is to let them find what they love and just let them get on with it. That decision to just let you watch the telly, pretty formative, I guess. Well, yeah. And, and, and, and and you know listen we can always look back in hindsight and go she was a genius she knew that that was going to be my career but I think that she realized when I was watching tv that I wasn't doing it passively and which is true when I was watching tv I was always looking at the credits who does what on a tv show what are the names of these people and you know if there were jokes on a sitcom thinking oh that's interesting why did that make me laugh but that that bit doesn't make me laugh or formats you know

how do why do they always end on a round and a quiz show where you can catch up loads of points what's that about so I was never watching passively I was always I was fascinated with I was always interested with it uh and I think that she I see it with my son and computer games he plays games all the time but then he's talking to me about the industry and he's talking to me about how they monetize it he's talking to me about you know different forms of games and I just think great you could keep playing games then because that's the thing that you love and so long as you're interested in how it's put together then you know that can become a career and I don't think my mum thought I ever would have a career in TEDx we didn't know anybody like that

but I think she just sort of trusted that something was going in and that you know I was never interested in schoolwork I just not it wasn't my thing at all. I could get by, but it never sparked my interest really. But TV always did and the stuff I was watching and sport always did. You know, I'd watch and watch and watch and that's, you know, almost all my lessons were taken, you know, again, with someone who's very visually impaired, I can sit up very close to the telly. So, you know, so many of my lessons are from TV, not from the real world. Because the real world, I can't really see it, you know? You can't really see it? Well, everything's in a fog. I mean, that's the point. So I never notice details. If I want to see a bird in a tree

or a cricket ball going towards a bat, I can't, that's not something I can see. Never will do. I can't drive or anything like that. Whereas on TV, the whole world is out there. I can go in, you know, I've never been a big traveler, anything like that. I want to stay at home, but I can watch any country in the world on television.

You know, that's the thing that I can see. And I'm interested. The reason I don't want to travel is I don't want to travel. I don't want to get on a plane. I don't want, I don't want all of that, but I want to learn about places. I want to see things and TV. You just, it just shows you everything. And it showed me everything. Uh, and it introduced me to people., you just, it just shows you everything. And it showed me everything. And it introduced me to people. And, you know, even now I watch daytime TV, I get so much information about human beings from watching those shows and seeing people's reactions, which I don't see in real life, you know, cause I'm up close to it. I get to see it all. And TV has given me all of that, you know, and, uh, I think TV is so huge and such a huge part of our culture. We sort of, I think we forget it exists.

I think we forget quite what a powerful thing it is. We talk about cinema and music and all this kind of stuff. And this is the age of television. You know, this is my generation. I think perhaps your generation, the next one, it's going to be much less so. But television is the thing. It's in the corner of everybody's rooms, you know, and it shows us so many things. It teaches us so many things. But it's so awkward it became too successful that we sort

of take it for granted and now we'll say oh tv's collapsed you go yeah but country files getting six million viewers you know that's like it's a lot of people you know and um i've so much of what i know about the world and what people like and politics and that comes from TV and what and what people watch the stigmas is that how you pronounce the stagmas yeah stagmas yeah stagmas that's the condition you've had since birth yeah so you wouldn't you wouldn't know any otherwise yeah exactly I've always um yeah my ass it's always been blurry and it's like an uncontrollable moving of the the pupils i did once i never use autocue on television so i can't see it and once when i did have i got news for you they because it's all

gags that are written you have to and i was hosting they said you're going to have to use it you know usually i can learn stuff but that is a whole script worth of gags so i couldn't so they gave me they said look this is the autocue that brucey uses so you'll be fine and even that it wasn't big enough i said you've got to move it nearer make it bigger in the end that we got we got it big enough uh but when people were watching it they said oh is richard osmond drunk because they could see the effort of having to focus on something my eyes were going absolutely crazy so people think you're drunk and so i never hosted it i just went you know what i'll be a guest where you know i don't have to do and i never use autocue on any shows.

And again, that's one of those silly things where what feels like a disadvantage is a huge advantage because, you know, so many TV shows, and we were talking just before we came on air about how shows are edited. And I'm thinking about House of Games, I'm thinking about Dragon's Den. They're edited in a very sort of military way. You know, they've got the same shots each time.

And the one thing I've got control over is what I say. And the second something is on autocue, you say the same thing because the producers put the same thing in because they've got other things to be worried about. And the fact that I don't have it on autocue means I just say different things each time, you know, and it's looser and it's freer

and people can watch five episodes in a week and I haven't introduced any of them in the same way to the others. And so I've turned that thing of not being able to see to an advantage which is you know I present television shows differently in a way that's hopefully a bit freer and feels a bit more natural the other thing you talk about and I've seen this in a few interviews is your height being something you've almost contended with and it's you know it's interesting because um a lot of short men want to be tall men and hear a tall man say yeah speak as if he would rather

be a little bit shorter is quite surprising well i'm six foot seven which is too much is the truth and you know it it makes you extraordinary look my eyesight is not people can't see that right okay so that's mine and that's internalized and you know i deal with that how i want to my height is something that people can always see and i find it i find it fascinating again in this world of social media when when people talk about microaggressions and stuff that you must have seen your entire life which is if you're different in any way right you're reminded of it non-stop yeah mostly you know people are not being cruel sometimes they are now i have a height so i'm not being discriminated against because of my height, right? It's not, you know, I'm not, it's not costing me anything, but I do know that every single day of my life, I'm reminded of it every single day, just nonstop. And so I know that

to be a person of color, to be differently gendered, to be all of these things, I know that the microaggressions I get, you're getting nonstop every day of your life, and in a much more harmful way. So I've always hopefully really, really understood the idea of microaggressions and the idea that, please, I hear this every single day, even if you're trying to be kind, you know, if you see somebody is different, they do not need to be told, they do not need it pointed out every single day, because everyone has told them their entire life that they're different you know and i know you're just thinking yeah but it's just me you think yeah but it's just you and five other people every single day forever and you know i've had that with my height forever and ever and ever and for incredibly self-conscious and most people

are perfectly nice some people are horrible because some people it's a really good radar for what people are like i call it a c-word radar sometimes this being different in any way and which perhaps you'll agree with which is so many people are sort of lovely and chat but then you know a couple of times a day there's just someone who wants to shout at you out of a window or just wants to make you feel small ironically you know that's what they want to do and you just think why what someone's a bit different to you and you've got to shout something and make yourself feel a bit better you know and so being different in any way whatsoever I think really teaches you about people and about the hate that's out there and about the unhappiness that's out there because

that's where it all comes from and so being tall yeah has taught me about microaggressions and and has made me try and fight for people who are different and has made me just say to people if someone is different right just talk to them normally you don't need to it's we never had the word but sometimes i'll sort of tweet something about oh i love this film or i went to see this gig or blah, blah, blah. And like 10 people go, oh, glad I wasn't behind you. And you know what? It's a perfectly harmless joke, right? Perfectly harmless. I get it.

I understand why people do it. But I get it every single time someone does it. So just think for one second. Has this guy ever heard this before? Has he heard this thing before? Is it a fun thing to say to him? Because to me, if I go to a gig or a cinema, it's a nightmare because I don't want to be in front of anyone I go out of my way to be as far back as possible which when you can't see it's impossible or you know sit on the island

a cinema yeah I take it seriously and every single time they say it now that's just a tiny example but recently people said they've started saying oh you mustn't body shame I thought well that's interesting because body shaming is sort of something that um you know certain people would say that or that's what a snowflake talking about body shaming but actually it really I think yeah that's what you're doing that's what people have done to me for the last 30 years they body shame me like because they've talked about my stature and I felt ashamed that's body shaming I mean I mean, that's what that is. I would never have thought of it as that. I just was embarrassed. It just made me feel shy and made me not want to go out. But it's body shaming. And actually having it named, you just think,

oh, good for you. And it's the younger generation who do it. They're so great. And they just say, no, come on. That's body shaming. And you think, oh, that's such a lovely sort of thing to have in my armory. They're going to kind of go yeah that's exactly what you're doing uh and again 90 of people they mean nothing by it and i get it but it's just boring and 10 of people it's you just think oh you're you're very unpleasant i am i never i'm so glad to hear that because it's really changed my perspective because um and i mean genuinely mean that like i wouldn't sit here and just go yeah I agree I genuinely have learned something yeah and um and I think I think it's I think it's because of how I phrased the question to start in the sense that a lot of people feel a ton of shame for being slightly

shorter which is again it's uh it's it's a point point of being different um and I've never heard in my experience someone say but it's completely right that wherever they go they must be continually reminded of the fact that they're taller than everybody and how that might might make them feel when did that first start happening in your life well sort of in my teenage years i was sort of very tall from about 17 probably i was always tall but kind of nice oh you're the tallest in your class and that's you know which is quite a fun thing to be you know that's what you want you want to be six two right that's what you know anyone who's five nine or six seven we all want to be six two uh and yes it's sort of 17 18 and when i was off to university which again is very you know so i'm sort of this guy who is much too

tall and is awkward about being tall who can't see anything and he's quite an introvert anyway uh and so and i sort of had this false self anyway from when he was nine years old and his dad left and everything's okay um so you know there was a real sort of storm of things brewing there as I say all of which have bought me good things in the end but uh you know I think um meant that you know I didn't I didn't live the life I should have done for many years because I was sort of hiding away from things some things I have to hide away from because with my eyesight I just can't it's not safe for me to do various things and some things just my height and sort of thing I'm going to look stupid oh I'm going to look stupid going on a roller coaster thing and also what if I cut what if my legs

don't fit on that and you know just silly silly little things and you know the world will not the world is not shy and letting you know that you're weird you know that there's something weird about you and certainly that's what I felt I felt weird and of course as soon as you feel weird you have to sort of you know you live with it and your behavior sort of changes and you're going to go oh no I am a weird person so I have to hide that away or explain away why I'm weird you know I'm very grateful that the one thing I always had was I was good with words I was able to put things into words I was always able to make people laugh. And so for years, I've been able to paper over the cracks of all of that, because I had all this stuff. But I knew

that I could sit in a room and make people laugh. And I knew I could say the right things to people. And so I sort of I got away with it for years and years and years is the truth. You referred two times now to this storm in your 20s where kind of I guess this was the point about your true north you must have realized that you were far from your true north and you needed to kind of turn back or get across towards your true north what was this storm in your 20s well I don't know it's an interesting one really because you know professionally I was doing the thing that I loved you know I'd started working in telly at 21 I haven't had a day off since and you know I was being successful because I because I came from a home where I watched tv and I was in an industry full of people who didn't watch tv it

was very very easy for me to rise through the ranks and to make shows and to invent my own shows and to sell them because you know I felt very very at home uh and so I was being successful and I was you know exec producing shows and and all sorts of things. And, you know, I had kids very young, which I'm delighted I did, because I'm 51 now. And they're like, both in their 20s, which is amazing. You know, what my big presenting issue was, was a food addiction and weird behaviour around food, which I can sort of see would be what a nine-year-old would have would have set up for himself. And what do you mean by that? Well, I think if you're, if you are going to be an addict, which is almost always, how do I run from this pain? How do I run from the fact that, you know, I'm not where I need to be when you're nine food is probably the only thing

that's available to you. The food attachment, maybe, you know, there's, there's, there's, there's only a certain amount of things and a nine-year-old uh has at their disposal hot wheels i mean there's there's not a lot you can get addicted to uh and so you know i i would have addictive behaviors around food and that i never sat and thought oh i've got a problem with my life right i never thought that i never thought oh you know i'm i'm not who i'm supposed to be but but i definitely thought was why why do i have these eating behaviors that's weird uh and in a way that explained my weirdness away for me i went you're weird because because you have this weird eating patterns that's the thing that makes you weird and you think no that's

lots of things that make me weird um and so that's the thing that i went to get help for you know so that's the first time I went into therapy, which again, from my background, is not something I would have considered. But it had got to such a stage and I was so tired of this behaviour, of how weird it was and how dumb it made me feel. What was the behaviour?

Just overeating and binge eating and all that kind of just inability to control food in any way whatsoever or if I was controlling it just being incredibly strict so either sort of dieting or being out of control with food which is much more common than I think we allow as a culture I think you know alcoholism and drug addiction we get we understand and there's pathways to sort of getting better but I think food addiction is the sort of last taboo but you know i haven't spoken about it before the the messages i get from people just saying yeah that's me or you know my husband came into the kitchen and

in tears and just said that's that's me that's been me for 20 years and that that's the thing that i've got uh and has never spoken about it to people. So I think it's really, really, really common. Also, why wouldn't it be, you know, given the food industry, right? Why wouldn't it be? Why would food addiction not be a thing? And so I think, yeah, those behaviors where you just go, do you know what? I've got these wonderful kids. I've got this great career.

And yet I'm still secretly eating and feeling deeply ashamed of myself you know what what's that right and after a while you think oh maybe it's not the food maybe it's me you know maybe the food is a symptom of something rather than the problem uh which of course is the case you know booze is never the problem is it drugs are never the problem that what you're running from is the problem so yeah I went to therapy and honestly from the first session I did I I'm that's my path to getting better and we you never not be an addict but that's my path to kind of going okay I get it I see I see what this is most people I don't think will understand when you when you say binge eating and overeating I think a lot of people listening think well I overeat yeah yeah you know what I

mean but but what I've read from what you described is a very very different to just overeating a big meal once in a while can you give me some detail as to what you mean by yeah and again look it's it's it's shaming for me to do so but but a good example would be i remember one of the first years with with a you know talking to the therapist about it and and it was it was sort of mid december so i wasn't going to see him for a few weeks and he said look i hope that, you know, I hope Christmas Day is not too triggering because people eat so much on Christmas Day. You know, the classic thing on Christmas Day,

oh my God, you know, all this and all the chocolates and the crisps and we had a meal anyway and then there's cheese at night and blah, blah, blah. And I said, honestly, I've eaten like it's Christmas Day every day from my 20s and 30s. That's, you know, that's what I've done.

When I'm in an episode, you know, everything what i've done when i'm in an episode you know everything is like christmas day i'm not eating because i'm hungry i'm eating because the food is there and because i need i need to not be sitting by myself you know and thinking about whatever i need to be thinking about it so you know it's that it's that idea it's that it's that sort of it's not oh aren't i naughty i had a cream cake you know it's aren't i know i had a cream cake and then i had the other three and then 20 later, when I there's even the tiniest amount of space, I went out and got some more food. You know, it's that it's, it's, I mean, it's an addiction. There's no other way of putting it. It's like having a bottle of vodka, then having another bottle of

vodka, then having another bottle of vodka, it's the same thing. And the second you shine a light on it, this is some people listening people listening won't believe it exists. That's, by the way, absolutely fine. You know, listen, we believe what we believe. But I'm talking to the people for whom this behavior might feel familiar or who've got friends or relatives to whom this behavior might feel familiar.

It's real. You know, it's a real thing. And it's quite hard to get your way out of because you have to eat, right? But there's ways through it. And the first way through it is to there's ways through it and the first way through is to shine a light on it and just say oh no no no that's uh that's me and to and to and to try and take that shame away from it a bit when did you realize that it was a in your own words a

strange behavior because i've got a friend who's been through a similar well i've got two friends who've been through very similar things um one of them's i mean they're the two closest people and you know i know they've both talked about it very publicly um one of which in a podcast one of which does talks she talks about it all the time on her instagram and i've the two closest people in my life went through that and if one of them who again she's talked about this publicly um that resulted in bulimia um and a bunch of other very uh destructive eating patterns how did you figure out that that it was different well i think you can't you know you can you can fool everybody except yourself you know finally and just you know a lifetime you know when i was a kid i would secretly eat and i

would find ways to get food and to you know and my mom would go where have all those crisps gone that's weird and you'd be like and you know then she started hiding the crisps in places because she thought they kept going missing just every day of every month of every year since then just just hunting down and finding the food that I wanted uh and feeling ashamed about it afterwards so I I knew amongst the success I was having and the friends I had and the lovely time I was having with people I knew I had this weird secret thing that wasn't going away and that made me unhappy and certainly made me unhealthy uh and that probably at some point I was going to have to

do something about but it took it took a long time I'm shocked about how long it took before I finally went do you know what this is I need to do something about it but is we often understand how normal our behavior is by comparison yeah were people saying things to you like like making little jokes and comments and stuff like that no not really i mean i could tell i was overweight but but like most addicts you know you can it's amazing how secret you can be about things is the truth you know how you can buy things in secret, consume them in secret, lock yourself away, you know, not be around people just so you can eat. You know, and plus, of course, don't forget, you can then go out for a pizza with all your

mates who were having their one meal of the day and you've been eating all day, but you think, great, I get to have a pizza as well. So, you know, socially, you can eat a lot as well and then go home and eat more and eat more convenience foods and what have you. So, yeah, I always knew. I always knew it was I always knew something was wrong. But again, I think probably I'd added it to the list of things that were weird about me that I'm tall and I can't see. And I got this weird food thing.

So I just thought, you know what? You're not really fit for this world is the truth, you know know and you have all of these things that are up with you so I think I just put it in the list of things I wasn't probably I wasn't built to live the life that other people were living and again of course these days you realize everyone is everyone's not built everyone goes home and does something weird not everyone but you know what I mean so many people have got their thing but I didn't know that in in those days I didn't know. I just thought that I was uniquely, you know, not fit for these times. Being a kid born in the 1970s from a working class background, as you've said, is, you know, the idea of therapy, that the notion of mental health is quite an alien one. So that day where you decide to make the call to a therapist, what's going through your head on that day honestly i was i was i was really ready

for it is the truth i wasn't even kind of i wasn't even i was i was praying that was going to work rather than thinking it wasn't going to work and from the second i walked in this guy called bruce and he's brilliant and he you know he said talk me through the problem just you know and i said oh blah blah this is the problem and I'm you know I don't over eating but you know maybe it's okay because you know but you know so I was giving it all this and I was saying but actually it's sort of fine because you know I'm I'm doing this and you know I'm uh I can I can control it uh and he let me talk for about 10 minutes and he just said um and how's that all working out for you and he thought yeah well you're right it's working

out terribly for me and from that moment he had me I just okay let's go on this journey and like a personal trainer you just think okay I trust you you know absolutely you've seen it all before you understand all of these things you can use my cleverness to your benefit and it's just been a I'm so immensely grateful for everything that he's done and the wisdom he's shown me uh and one of the things i try and do in the books and in everywhere is is try and pass that on because i was lucky enough to be able to afford this guy who's not you know it's not insanely but it's difficult to find a therapist uh and part of my job is any bit of wisdom he passes to me is i try and pass on because that's

I feel like that's something that I can do and try and give people that the thing that I've been given what are some of those ideas that he those kind of unlocking whether it because I'm thinking I assume there was like some bit of eureka moments where someone says something you've kind of you detailed one there where he says well how's that working out for you yeah were there any like thoughts that he's given you that Bruce has given you that you can that we can all apply to our lives that will help us understand ourselves better or free ourselves from whatever we've imprisoned ourselves with yeah i think i think his key thing is is this idea of shame and the things that make us feel ashamed uh because here's the thing if you start feeling ashamed you then start feeling ashamed of being

ashamed in the same way anyone has ever had a panic attack will tell you if you start panicking you then panic about panicking or if you start feeling anxious you're then anxious about your anxiety and that's the absolute thing you have to stop that's the cut off so if you're feeling shame or you're feeling panic or you're feeling anxiety let it be okay stay for a reason it's looked after you for many years okay and that which is another thing you've got to make peace with this way that you've tried to protect yourself through shame or through panic or anxiety right just let it be what it is and once you do that it burns itself out and listen it'll come back tomorrow and it'll come back the next day but what it doesn't do is spiral and spiral and spiral and lead you to self medicate. You know, if you can

just let shame be what it is, if you can let panic or anxiety or however you experience what it is, however you experience the thing, where you just realize that this ain't right. You know, this is not who I want to be or how I want to be, whatever that feeling is for you, let it be what it is for a while, because it's not going away anytime soon. You know, if you want regime change, right, that's slow, you know, that's that boots on the ground, you know, it's bit by bit. So let it be what it is, allow it shine a light on it. And he'd always say, you know, if you're in a moment of shame, and you can become conscious about it, in some right so say i've just eaten some food and i'm feeling ashamed about it because i just was sitting there and just thinking that was so dumb

why have i done this again uh have a conversation with yourself you said right now that conversation that's you talking to you okay that both of both of those bits are perfectly valid now one bit is the one that's harmful to you that's you and now one bit is the one that's harmful to you that's you and the other bit is the bit that's trying to save you that's you as well and the key thing is is just start practicing the muscles on the one that's trying to save you you know just give it a bit more air time each time let's give it a few more arguments each time the other one's never going away and it never will any addict will tell you that's never going anywhere it's power and some days it's like so powerful you know but you have to let the other side of the argument you've got to give it some strength you've got

to send it to the gym you know and that's that's the thing it's it's saying you're always going to have this all right because most people's addictive behaviors or whatever it is come from childhood and come from a self that we built up almost always to protect ourselves from something okay so you have to love it a bit you have to love this thing that you've set up to protect yourself but also you have to talk to it and when you're talking to it you have to understand that there's two sides of yourself and you've got to build up the one that's talking to it you've just got to build it and build it and build it and give it strength uh and it's hard to do and you'll find different ways of doing it. And different people will find different ways.

But just remembering that the one that's saying, hold on, maybe I shouldn't have a drink, you know, that that is equally valid as the one who's saying I should have a drink. The one who's saying you should have a drink. It's got a point. Of course, it's got a point, you know, it kind of works for you. It numbs things that you know, listen, you wouldn't do it if it hadn't worked, you know, and you like it. So that's, it's valid. But this other one is also valid. And maybe, maybe listen to it a bit more often and just give it a bit more airtime.

And then over the years, you might find that it's got more power than the other one. Is that what you found? Yeah, I have found it. And listen, it's really, really hard is the truth. And I get it with alcoholics and drug addicts, you can just cut off drinking booze and taking drugs. It's incredibly difficult. And I see the struggles that people have with it. And again, it's a lifelong thing.

And every day you think, please, today, just let me drink today. I would love to have a drink. You know, you'll never meet an alcoholic who wouldn't just love to have a drink today. And with food, you do have to eat. So you have to put in a slightly more different set of rules but you know you just have to give yourself boundaries and know that you mustn't cross those um those boundaries but yeah i think that honestly shining a light on things is the thing talk to people about it talk to people you love you know you'll be shocked and i was shocked when i opened up to people and the people closest to me i opened up and they went yeah of course of course I know of course I know that uh but once they know about it they can help you know and that's very powerful and it's very very important and then you know

it's it's nice for me to be able to speak publicly about it because I do think probably there aren't enough male role models saying that food can be difficult and food can be an issue um and so i'm happy to be one i'm sort of not i'm embarrassed don't get me wrong it's embarrassing for me to talk about i've absolutely put that on the record you know i'd rather not be talking about it but the things that come from it are more powerful and the more i talk about it the less power it has over me and hopefully the more i talk about it that the less power it might have over other people one of the things i've learned from sitting here with with people from all walks of life that have been through a variety of different traumas is um i used to think that we could cure this stuff like we could go to therapy we could read this thing read this quote spin around tap our head

and it's gone yeah and i've come to learn that that's it's never gone yeah i now i almost view it in my head is almost the scales and if you what you're trying to do is in fact make the allow the decision to be made by the the better side yeah but the the trauma or the the beliefs that you've built as a child about the world and yourself and your relationships whatever is always going to be there and it can be triggered and inflared like a flame with oxygen i think that's it and the key is not to panic when it when it rears its head again. The key is never to think, oh, I'm never going to be rid of it. The key is to go, oh, I'm never going to be rid of it. That's the thing. As soon as the second you go, oh, it's always going to be there. It's very freeing. Because you kind of go, okay, listen,

every now and again, it's going to flare up. But I don't need to panic. I don't need to go all this work I've done all this work I've done on myself all these books that I've read and it's still there it hasn't gone away and the second you go it's staying right it's like a sofa you don't like in your living room right it's not going anywhere okay you just have to learn to live with it you know sometimes you can look around you don't even notice the sofa anymore and sometimes you go oh my god look at that sofa right it is staying and if you it gives you a lot of power to know that it's staying and that when it's in charge, which it will be sometimes, that it's okay just to go, no, listen, just let it, let it do its thing. And the one thing that that addictive part of your personality wants you

to do is panic. You know, that's the one thing it wants because that's where it thrives. You know, it thrives on the chaos. That's what it wants wants it wants you to be off balance so you have to sort of occasionally just go i get it you're in charge for a few days or for a week or so or a month uh you do your thing i'm going to try and just live in good faith in the rest of my life and and and just sort of let you burn out 20 years in the in the tv business roughly yeah is it 20 yeah so what So it was 30 really. If, if I still count as being in the TV business now, which I, which sometimes I forget I am. That's a long time to be in TV. Tell me, tell me about that phase of your career and really like what it, um, what, I guess the question, the question I wanted to ask you is how come you

were so successful in TV? I know no one ever likes blowing smoke up their own ass or whatever, but, um, you were very very very successful you you produced some unbelievable formats that you know go beyond luck or chart you know so in hindsight why why you well i love well it's a good question i mean i love and one i feel more comfortable talking about now i've now, I've sort of stepped off that carousel now. I think that I loved television, you know, and I loved seeing what entertained people. And I've got quite mainstream taste. So it was in my DNA.

I wasn't having to leave university, go into television and think, right, what do people like? I've never, ever, ever had to go into work and say, what do people like? Right. I sort of know that something I like enough people will like that it's a TV show. So I've always loved that. I've always loved creativity. I've always loved, you know, sitting down with a pen and paper and knocking things into shape. And I've always loved sport and the formats of sport and knockouts and stuff like that. So in jeopardy, that's very, very natural to me as well. But then I also, for reasons unknown to me, I love sales. I love selling, you know, I absolutely love going in and pitching. And the thing I love about it is working at what people want and why and how they're going

to respond and how to give them the thing that they want. And so that combination of, I would come up with things I was proud of and then I would try and sell them. And, you know, that's the thing. That's the thing that I love. If I've had any success, it's been thinking of ideas that I would like to watch and then packaging them in such a way that someone at Channel 4 or the BBC will give you four million quid for it, which is a big ask. You know, selling a TV show is quite a big ask. It's like being a car salesman. You know, you don't need to sell that many cars to be successful, you know, and the TV is the

same way. You've just got to make sure that you've got the best car out there. And so, yeah, I think, I think a mix of the introversion of loving sitting down and working things out and working out formats, and then the extra version of being able to say to people, I think this is really going to work for your channel. You know, those two things together have always driven me I'm creatively I'm incredibly ambitious I love to create new things and in business terms I'm also incredibly ambitious which is I like to build value and I like to make money for people there's two thoughts there which in my head almost sit in conflict one of them is i i make things that i would love to watch and then figuring out what other people want well that's the thing is i've never really i've never

bothered thinking about what what people want and i think the second you do that that's a lie actually when so endemol which which i ran with with a group of people for many years after big brother and various things there was a point probably sort of 2006 2007 where we got so huge and so powerful that we could sort of sell anything if that makes sense or not that we could sell anything but people were so desperate to have product from us that they were buying substandard things so you know there's a couple of times where i went in and we sold shows that actually i was thinking i don't know about this and it's very rare that i would go into a pitch meeting thinking i don't know about this one but they's very rare that I would go into a pitch meeting thinking I don't know about this one,

but they would buy it in the room. And then you've got to make it. And guess what? It's really hard to make because no one cares. No one watches it because they can tell it doesn't come from anyone's heart. So you don't get a second series. And TV business is all about second series and third series.

You make no money from a first series. So I've definitely been in rooms where I pitch stuff that I didn't care about. But every time there's something you really care about and you can sell, and then you will give it your absolute best shot making it because I know how to make it because this is the thing I want to watch. It was like books. I wrote books that I would like to read that I didn't see out there.

And with TV programs, it's just, oh, my God, you'd have an idea in the morning, just go, I would love to watch that. I would love to watch that. Then you sit down, you workshop it, you work it out, and then you go and pitch it. And you know, that was my entire career. I never really got involved too much in the real business side of things and, you know, in exploitation and rights and foreign sales and distribution and all of that. I was just sat in a creative hub really just coming up with ideas just sort of feeding the engine and I was able to do it because I would sort of be doing it anyway I would be I would sit at home and do that if I wasn't in that office I would be thinking this is the thing I would love to see on tv and I was just lucky enough to be in an environment where I could have an idea on a Tuesday and we could set it on a Thursday

and it comes from I loved it but the second the second you second guess yourself or the public or go what would people like I don't I don't buy it I don't buy it when people write books like that I don't buy it when people make TV programs like that and I was surrounded by people in that industry early on not so much at Endemol where we were tv lovers but earlier on where I was it was full of people who were just in it for the lifestyle and it didn't watch telly there's people even now who don't watch telly you just think come on do something else what is creativity to you then so so you know you've described a few things there but what at its essence what is creativity and how does one can one go about being more creative or becoming more creative yeah it's it's a it's a

tricky one that because it's always a it's it's it's always just been the way that my brain has worked i was talking to um the husband of a friend of mine who's a he's a he's a working class french guy who is a maths genius this guy so he grew up in the banlieue of paris uh and at about 11 years old gets plucked out of the school system and taken to this like a cold for mathematicians because he's a genius and since has made a fortune in the city right there's algorithms right that's trading algorithms right because it's the maths uh as i was talking to him we were on holiday recently and i said um so you just you come up with stuff that's new that other people haven't spotted he's like he's yeah he does a French I won't do his accent

it's very almost comically French uh and he was saying yeah that's that's exactly what I do and I say how do you experience that I said because I know how I experience it and I experience it there's five or six clouds of things going around the outside of my head at any given time something I've just seen on tv something I just read in the newspaper, something, something somebody said to me, something my mum said to me, something that's happened at home, five different things. And occasionally, two of those things will bump into each other. And you go, Whoa, I never thought of that before. And so without saying that, I said, how do you experience creativity? And he said, Well, I just, I've got all these concepts,

sort of, they sort of rush around the outside of my head. And occasionally two of them will bump into each other or three of them will bump into each other. And suddenly I've got something new. And that's how I've always experienced creativity. Now, is that useful to people? I don't know. Other than to say, keep your eyes open and your ears open all the time

and be listening to the world. Just see how the world is spinning. See how it's and sometimes there is if you're in tv it's seeing how a particular television program works that's sort of a very direct bit of copying but almost always it's then you're on the bus and someone says something to their kid or someone's late for school and they're running and you kind of go wait a, that reminds me of something. So it's eyes open, ears open all the time and just allow things to bump into each other, I would say. There's a point, there's another piece there, which I've just noticed from you saying this,

which is I love the analogy of the clouds. So I was thinking, okay, so I need more clouds in my life, which is more points of inspiration. And then the second thing is, well, there's loads of people who've got loads of clouds, but they don't have the intent to connect the clouds which is like you have a uh you've designed a life where you have you actually have commitments to make the to when the clouds bounce to turn it into something a lot of people's clouds are bouncing

and they're just going oh look the clouds just hit each other yeah i think that's probably i've never thought about i think that's incredibly wise two different things yeah firstly increase the number of clouds, which is increase the amount of people. If you want to be creative, by the way, you don't have to be. It's overrated. But increase the amount of clouds, increase the data points that are coming into you.

You know, the people you're seeing, or, you know, just go and do something different. Go and learn Japanese. Whatever it is, something that gives you a different cloud. And then, yeah, it's, I guess, yeah, professionally, they've had to be bumping into each other for my whole life. So it's completely natural to me. But yeah, if you can force yourself sometimes to sort of think of the things that have gone around your head, think of the things that happened to you today. Think of the things you watch, think about a film you just saw and why you liked it, or a film you just saw and why you didn't like it you know think about an argument you just had with your mum and what she said and why it's annoying uh and you know is the same argument you keep having is there any way of fixing that in a different way so just keep those clouds going and then you know occasionally let them just sort of intersect and that's yeah i think by and large that's where ideas come from you know and it's you talk about it a lot on this podcast as well hard work is also a thing yeah you know actually

putting the hours in you know actually putting the hours in you know it's all very well to go oh no just had the idea on the bus and then i came in but you only have the idea on the bus because you spent four hours the previous day with a blank piece of paper in the office just thinking oh god i got nothing you know because that's dislodging so many things in your head so you yeah you you have to you have to work on it and then occasionally occasionally the gods give you a little gift. I've thought so much, you know, because I think,

I think we're all artists in some respect in our own way, whether it's blogging or DJing or if it's writing or making TV. I think that, and I also think expression is, it's almost therapy for us. So I really, I really, I've got behind this idea over the last year of like, we all have our own form of art.

And when we express ourselves, it's good for our minds. So the, the advantage that I think me and you've both had is we've been in careers where that art has been monetized or there's been a real reward for it. So it comes, so there's an incentive to drive it out of us. But for someone driving a lorry up and down this country,

walking the dog this morning before they go in, you know, go and go and work their job in a factory or, or, you know, I see all of the tags we get on a Monday when the episodes come out. How do they go about creating that incentive to, to, to when the clouds to connect, to turn it into something or to even to write it on a piece of paper, you know? Yeah, you're quite right. We both have very short routes to monetization. Yeah. But I sense that that's important to both of us as well. And

so we, so we we probably sought that out you know and found found a career where that where that happens and it's interesting if you're a lorry driver the greatest invention of the 20th century the thing that changed the world more than any other invention is the lorry driver who when he was sort of dropping off his load at the docks in boston and you know he's got all the kind of stevedores taking everything out the back of his uh you know lorry and then putting it in another sort of a big container to put on the ship just went what if the container on the back of my lorry was the same container that went on the ship you know uh and what if you take that off and you take the container from the ship and

you put it back on my lorry and then I drive it back down to San Francisco what if you did that and invented the technology for you know the container crates as we see them now and opened up all of world trade right that's one lorry driver just having one idea on one day you know and absolutely changed the world so there's no industries where you can't be creative because if you're a lorry driver you really really know your business right and you know uh what causes delays you know when your work is harder you know the five minutes you could knock off here there are the other you know when you turn up at a place the paperwork you have to go through you know that three of those forms could be two forms you know you know that if people knew you were arriving 10 minutes earlier you could leave half an hour earlier because

you know brake patterns could be changed you know all of that stuff and so work on that if that's the industry you want to stay in and if you want to make tv programs or write books or write social media stuff then just consume it a lot you know uh and i just think you can only be creative in an area you're interested in that's the truth you cannot be creative in an area not interested it just doesn't that's not how creativity works because creativity has to sort of be buzzing around all the time and be and be curious so work out what it is you're interested in and then surround yourself with it as much as you can it's hard if you if you're if the area you're interested in is not your job because that's something you have to do in your own time but if it's something

you're serious about and you're curious about and you have the abilities then just yeah think about exactly what you said which is intent which is surrounding yourself by by more things uh and then you know making those connections the the intentionality i'm always trying to understand because it links back to what you've done with your books which have been just the most insane smash hit I've ever encountered in the studio with TV formats. How intentional, how much is that sort of, I don't even know if intentionality is a word, intentionality versus like luck and chance and serendipity. Because you've seen this for your entire career.

So how much can you predict the success of these things oh you can never predict funnily enough Deal I Know Deal which just mentions the only show where after the pilot I thought this is a hit I thought there is no way this show is not going to be a hit and it was a huge hit but it's the only time and there's been shows I've done before where I think oh this has got a good chance and they've disappeared and shows where I thought I don't know about this and they've been huge you know you can't tell at all and that's why it's important to trust yourself and do stuff that you love. So the intentionality is that if I put a lot of work into something, and a book is the hardest I've ever worked on anything, if I put a lot of work on something, I want the upside if it works to be,

you know, I want there to be an upside, if it works, you know, I want, if I do this properly, I want there to be no limit to what can happen with it, you know, because I like output for, you know, if I put in input, I like output to come out. And with TV, it's sort of easier, because as you say, you can you can invent something on Tuesday, instead of on Thursday, with a book, you've got to spend two years. And so all the way through, I sort of thought, if I do this, well, I think this has got a chance so my my sort of creative mainstream brain was thinking that I wasn't thinking I need to make it more like this I need to make it more like that I 100% wrote the book I wanted to write but as I was writing I

think you know if you do this properly if this properly hits then people will really like it if no one had bought a single copy or if I showed it to an agent and she just said this is not for us that would have been fine too, by the way, because I'd written it. And that's creativity in and of itself is a thing. You know, you can paint a painting in your attic and it's like the Mona Lisa because you did it. But the fact that when it did come out, people liked it was, yeah, I'd say was a huge bonus. I read a quote and it said, there's a reason why great books become blockbuster movies, but blockbuster movies never become great books.

And he says, one of them is written by committee and one of them is written by a solo author with their own ideas and inspirations. And I remember thinking that, fuck, that's so true. Yeah, that's interesting. J.K. Rowling, yourself, you know. Spielberg bought your book?

He has bought the book, yeah. Well, he bought the rights to the book. I hope he's bought the actual book as well um you never know uh no it's true and listen publishing is a very interesting industry having come out of television i know you had a big hit book and it's a very very no this is a big mine was a pebble in the ocean but it's an interesting industry and if you bring any sales techniques into the world of books, I think there's a slight shock to their system. And it's a very, very, you know, I love it.

It's such a nice, kind, friendly industry. But, you know, I come at it from a TV angle, which is, you know, TV, you look at the overnight service, and there's millions, and, you know, that's what I've always judged things on. And in books, it's a slightly different market. So I've loved being able to apply some of the things I know and some of the techniques I know. So the book itself, listen, like with anything, you have to be proud of it. And I'm so proud of these books. I love them. Okay. That's the, that's the absolute base point of all of this. But once we've got that, I've loved the selling process, which I think a lot of authors don't love. we've got that I've loved the selling process which I

think a lot of authors don't love I love it I love the marketing process I've got something I'm really proud of I want as many people as possible to read it that's what I want I want as many people as possible to enjoy this book I want to entertain as many people as possible and that's a process that I've loved and a process I think publishing is not quite set up for is the truth and it's it's been fun sort of find it finding a way through that and when you wrote this book you didn't you wrote it all before you'd showed anybody from what I understand yeah but the first book yeah the first one because well because only because I'm on telly and you know that thing of celebrity authors and you know it'll be easy to write a chapter and say would you like to publish

it and of course they would you know because then again you don't have to sell a whole lot of books to make a profit in that industry. So I thought, I thought, I think that they would just say yes. And I wouldn't have any clue if it's any good. So I wrote the whole thing just to, because I wanted to prove that it was a good book, sent it to an agent who I trust very, very much. He comes from a very similar background to me. And I said, listen, you've got to look me in the whites of the eyes and tell me, would you represent this book if I wasn't on TV? And she said, listen, I would 100%. Easy for her to say, but she did.

And then before, just as it was going out to the publishers in the UK, we sold it immediately in Germany, right? And Germany was a big market, Germany, and they loved crime fiction. And from that moment, just thought oh okay i can now i sort of believe i liked the book but you know well sometimes i hated it and sometimes i liked it but i thought i think it's got something but the second germany bought it in germany have no idea who i am you know couldn't care less who i am and they bought the book just on the strength of their manuscript and i thought from that moment do you know what everything now i'm just

gonna go full steam ahead because someone who doesn't know I'm a celebrity has just bought this book and it's probably, and it's been top 10 in Germany for like two years. It's like, it's like nonstop out there and they don't know who I am. I'll go out there and do press and they're like, they have no idea who I am. They just know the books.

And yeah, so I was glad that I kept it secret because I never had that worry of, are people just publishing this because of who I am? Because I could see straight away from other territories that people who had no idea who I am. And Spielberg, again, within, I mean, we'd only literally only just sold it. So, you know, there'd be no hoopla, no announcements. And he bought the rights immediately because he'd read it and liked it.

And he didn't know who I was. So from that moment, I just thought I have the right now to really put my foot down on the accelerator and and sell this because I because I because I believe in it you said sometimes you loved it sometimes you hated it yeah talk to me about doubt and as it relates to your creative work of your career generally well I think I think I mean anyone who's sitting at home and writing a book right now uh you know half the time you're just thinking what is this this is absolute nonsense or you know this is that wouldn't happen or you just think no one's going

to be interested in this story um and you know i still thought i thought it was book two and book three both when they came out i just thought i know i think maybe you've lost it and then the reaction is is sort of reassures you uh each time um listen i'll lose it at some point um yeah it's it's it's impossible to to you know i'll read it i'll read back scenes the next day and you know something will make me cry i'll make me laugh or there'll be a nice line i think oh that that's that's something but you're so close to a book that if you were thinking it was good something's up you know you have to think it's awful because you know it's like it's never going to be the the beautiful shiny thing that's in your head you know when

when I'm writing the fourth one at the moment and in my head I know that I know the story and it's so you would not believe how gleaming it is and how intricate and beautiful and like perfectly crafted and toned it is and I know that the thing I handed in what I handed will not be that you know because there'll be compromises and I'll make mistakes and there'll just be stuff that's wrong so I'll always be comparing it to the thing that's in my head you know and everyone every writer in their head has the perfect novel it's all up there and the thing you you you you give is is not that thing but the key with the key with novels i think is if people are engaged with your characters and love your characters and the nice thing is in this book people the characters speak to people

which is which is great if people love your characters then the rest is just craft the rest is just getting the story down you know the rest is just sort of putting them on a journey because if people love your characters and they care what happens to them so you can make stuff happen then and you know that the stuff that you make happen people will care about when you look back at the success of this book we talked earlier about these clouds that you can piece together what are the clouds that you connected in order to produce this book yeah it's well a number a number of clubs for a love of crime fiction that's that just sort of vibe, that idea that I sort of love a puzzle. And I think just that's that kind of thing of, that's an itch.

That's the kind of thing I would like to do it. Then I had an idea about a former civil servant putting off a massive bank heist. And there was a former civil servant who worked in a very boring job in the civil service, but it was so boring that people assumed that he was a spy because no one's job can be that boring. So you work in Whitehall, I bet you're a spy. And he wasn't, he was just a logistics guy. And so I had that idea and I'd had it for ages,

just this older guy, you've got this plan that he wanted to pull off. And then my mum lives in a retirement community retirement village down in Sussex and I was just down there just looking around I think I said what this would be an amazing place for a murder you know like Agatha Christie-esque and suddenly those things have looked you want to write a book and you had the idea about that the civil servant or sort of spy you had this sort of big plan and then you thought oh there's this there's this place and this group of people they're they're

all a bit older and this place would be perfect for a murder and then in that community they have every day there's all sorts of different clubs this french conversation club on a tuesday you know wednesday art history and literally the name thursday murder club came into my head with another cloud all the clouds come together they go into your brain and you just think okay let's start tomorrow because when the clouds come together in the right way, when the things connect together in the right way you sort of

it's interesting, you sort of, you kind of press your foot down on it to see if it holds it's like a sort of plank of wood has suddenly appeared underneath you or like a little rope bridge has appeared and you sort of tread on the first plank of wood and you think oh that's quite solid that plank of wood and then you step on the next one you think oh that's solid and you step on the next one and most ideas by the third or fourth plank you your foot goes through you think oh yeah of course i can't do that because xyz but sometimes

and you'll have experienced this sometimes you keep walking along the planks of wood and you're like i mean these are these are solid all the way to the other side this feels like i'm going to walk across this bridge you know i'm just gonna i'm going to take the chance i'm going to walk across this bridge and you know that that's that that's what happened really and that's that's how and that also is how i experience new ideas and creativity is that the idea of you just try and put a bit of weight on them and it holds you put a bit more weight and it holds and you know if it keeps holding then it's worth persevering with i've been through a really interesting um journey with some of my ideas where i've thought of an idea tested the planks all very solid i've got very close to doing it and then my gut has just gone don't do it because of like you know and i've and then i've had obviously

as i said many other ideas where i've had an idea to wake up the next day i think oh god put that on the shelf. And it's funny, you know, it's funny how you can go on quite an emotional journey, a conviction journey with an idea. And at the very last minute you can go, do you know something's just not right here. But I'll tell you the other reason for that, I think, is because you have walked the walk and you've built businesses and, you know, you know what it takes. You also sort of know if you press the green light on an idea, there's a huge amount of work ahead of you and responsibility. And you, sometimes you just think, I am not prepared to do that. There's not enough upside in this for me, creatively, whatever it is for me to do it. And that's the same. I know, for example, that idea,

like a novel, I knew two years before I wanted to write it, but I just didn't, I knew I didn't have the, I knew what it would take. And with this social media idea, I know at the moment it would be all consuming and that's not where I am. You nailed it. That's exactly what happens. I get right to the point of pressing the button

and then I'm staring the cost in its face, the cost I've known so well. This thought of, okay, this is going to be five years and everything, which when I think of cost now, I think, okay, that means my relationship with my partner is going to get significantly worse. My relationship with my friends is going to be five years and everything which and when i think of cost now i think okay that means my relationship with my partner is going to get significantly worse my relationship with my friends are going to get worse all my businesses are going to see less of me and is that really worth it and what is the upside there yeah but it's exactly that

but again that's not something you worry about at 21 at 21 you just think yeah great bring it on bring it on and now you you know you have the luxury of you know you and that's the thing about having 10 ideas the sooner or later one will come along you just think hold on i really like it it feels monetizable it's not going to take up a massive amount of my time because of the way it's structured and you know my my relationship will will survive and my friendship will survive and i've still got this thing that i'm going to love and you just you just have to sit and wait for that idea to come along because you know you can't no one wants no one wants to be that guy is working 24 hours a day their whole life because it's honestly the truth is it's not that hard to succeed if you're willing to you know do everything and to work 24

hours you know it's not it's doable with an idea and hard work but that's not that's not how your life should be so the success of this book you know there's there's there's a monetary element to it you're not you don't have an expensive taste so that's not really moved you much there's a the kind of validation of your own create singular creative vision which has been validated sincerely how has it impacted your happiness at all um i think do you know what i think it's i think it's a reflection of my happiness rather rather than a sort of a source of my happiness i think it's a book that i have only been able to write from a happy place and from a place where i feel comfortable with my demons and comfortable with myself and uh you know i think it comes from that so you know the characters uh the four main characters all of whom are sort of quadrants of

my own brain uh i think you can tell that I love those characters and they love each other. And that's probably not something I could have written 10, 15 years ago. That comes from happiness. Or it comes from self-acceptance. You know, it comes from, there's bits of myself I'm very prepared to sort of put out there to entertain and to, you know. So I think it comes from

happiness rather than being the source of it. Uh, obviously it brings me an enormous amount of joy and it's a load of fun and it's fun that it's a hit in other countries. So you get to go abroad and, you know, talk to them about it and, you know, uh, that's fun, but yeah. And, you know, in this book, the third one, there's, you know, there's, there's, there's lots of, there's, there's lots of love there and I'm getting married this year and so it's it's all little things where you just think the books listen they're crime stories so there's murders and that you know there's you know there's red herrings and there's clues and all sorts of stuff so that that sort of got it's got that agatha christie thing but the spirit of the book is hopefully a spirit that can

that can only come from having you know haven't found some happiness with yourself what what is happiness to you because it's such a it's such a small simple word to describe so much yeah and it's yeah it's it's uh it's a really tricky one i'm the key thing is is is to know that you can't be happy all the time you know it's not like a kind of you wake up every morning with a huge smile on your face you know there's still going to be parking tickets you know and the drains are still going to be blocked, you know, and there's still, you know, there's just, there's always going to be trouble. I think it's, I think it's, am I, am I content with myself? Am I, when I sort of close the door and I'm with either my partner

or by myself, do I feel contentment? Do I feel there's a nagging? I think I've had years, and most people do, just there's nagging questions all the time. It's just something or something's not right, or am I in the right place? And just that feeling that, no, hold on, I think I'm in the right place, which I think you have when you're a really little child. And I think probably we lose over the years, and I've been very, very lucky. And yeah, you have to fight to regain that, which is I feel happy and safe and secure and that I'm in the right place. Are there any questions still?

Oh, goodness. Yeah, of course there are. I mean, my one, you know, I want to, I've always, as I say, because I don't see so well and because I'm tall, I've always been an observer of life. I've always been an outsider, right? I've never really got my hands dirty, is the truth.

And, you know, I see the problems of the world. And, you know, I try and help financially and all that kind of stuff. I try and do good things. You know, I've never really got my hands dirty. And I think probably in the next decade I should get my hands dirty a little bit. You know, just helping and, you know, making people's lives a little bit easier uh that's the thing and that's the thing i've always been frightened of uh well because because uh you know i've i never really took part in life quite so much as other people because of my height and

because of my eyesight and because all of those things i always felt i needed to be on the sidelines and i needed to just commentate and i've been very really happy doing that by the way i'm an introvert. I love to do it. But I do think you have a responsibility to leave the world a better place than you found it. Listen, there's not much point to us being here. But if we've got anything, it's to do that. It's to sort of say, well, look,

for whatever reason I was put on this earth, you know, the one thing I can do is try and leave it in a better state. And so that's, I think, the question for the next 10, 20 years. That sort of service, what can I do? How can I help? What about any personal questions you have about yourself and your, you know, you've talked a lot about not feeling,

especially when you were younger, not feeling like you were right for the world or that you fit in the world. Do you have any of those personal questions left remaining? No, I think, you know, I do think that I'm probably not quite fit and right for the world remaining no i think you know i do think that i'm probably not quite fit and right for the world but i think lots of us do i think that's the that's the thing you know the world is a it's a weird place i mean it's weird that we're here right i mean it's odd right it's peculiar and it doesn't make it makes no sense we can look for a higher

purpose if we want and that's great but even But even with that, it's weird, right? And it's weird that we have this civilization. It's weird that we have this consciousness. It's weird that we're millions and billions of people around the globe or, you know, in different countries all thinking slightly different things with slightly different consciousnesses. It's weird, you know? Life makes no sense.

And so the key is to stop trying to find the answer to what is life because that's not something you're ever going to find uh and and i think the question is is is how can i you know how can i help either how can i help if you find yourself in a position of power or how can i ask for help if you find yourself in a position where you don't have power and those are two very difficult things to do these are questions that that I think could only come from an introvert. Yeah, I think that's probably, I think I'm quite an alpha introvert. I'll say that. But yeah, listen, I love going home and shutting the door.

That's my favourite thing. Family at home. Two kids. Yeah. Well, they're not at home anymore. Yeah, they're old. Early 20s. Yeah, 24 and 22.

Wow. Yeah, crazy, right? well they're not at home anymore yeah early 20s yeah 24 and 22 wow yeah crazy right do you ever worry that because of that that what happened with your father that your and you talked about your your first marriage didn't work out do you ever have concerns or worries like because i i often wondered when we've had like somewhat dysfunctional homes how we then yeah either continue the cycle or sometimes it seems that people go very much the opposite way and really put measures in place to make sure they are the exact opposite the antithesis of the experience they had how do you find yourself reacting when you know you became a dad yourself yeah i mean listen i i obviously i did the same thing my dad did so i carried on the circle but

with the intention of breaking the cycle and that's the point i mean listen our intentions are one thing what actually happens this is something else and again because i think i was on a fault line i think anything i'd chosen to do in my 20s would have collapsed you know um but you know i have a relationship with my kids that i didn't have with my father and they're i love them and they're hilarious and they're brilliant and i love what they do for a living and that's all wonderful um yeah you can never you can you can be held prisoner by trying to fix the sins of your childhood it's the truth because here's the truth you know you're never going to fix them right they're not you're not going to fix them you know you you need to build something for yourself and I think by sort of thinking, I want a family because I wasn't

able to fix mine, you know, so I'm going to make sure that this next generation, I fix it in the next generation. And of course, it's doomed to failure. You know, you're not going to, you're not going to create the thing you wanted to create, I think. So yeah, you just have to, you just have to, you know, whatever happened to you and whatever you're trying to prove, you sort of have to just, you have to kind of do something for yourself, not to react against other people, I think. Not in a search for justice or, yeah. But of course you search for justice.

And I might, you know, of course I searched for justice. And, yeah, and I was searching to fix things. And, you know, I was not able to do either and neither would I ever be able to, but, but in order to try and do it, yeah, I, you know, I, I made my own mistakes. You're getting married this year? Yeah. December? December. Yeah. It's exciting, isn't it? For me, I mean, let's say for you, you're not that fussed. No, it was nice to, it was nice to read, read that you're getting married this year um i've been thinking a lot later been talking to all my best friends about this idea

of like one partner for life and i'm going back and forward i'll be honest with you because i'm here to be honest i was on you know i've got a girlfriend she's upstairs but um i was on um i was on don't tell her this i was on she might listen yeah she probably will but she um i'd say the same thing she's not listening honestly she can listen to you all day i don't i think there's so many podcasts i don't know if she actually listens to them exactly because we record for so long i was on google this weekend looking at chimpanzees mating patterns because i'm trying to figure out i'm trying to come to my own this is great listen i hope she looks at google history thinking wow chimpanzee mating pens this guy loves me i'm trying to figure out if because they've got like 99 the same dna as us if they stick around with the same partner

forever or if they mate within groups yeah what's your take on this i know this is such an obscure question to ask what's your take on whether we're meant to be with one person for the rest of our lives uh listen i'm sure some people are not meant to be with one person, but it's very, very hard to do that and not hurt people. And so if you decide, if you genuinely decide, I am not made for that, right? Enough of this human beings aren't monogamous, right? Forget that because lots of us are, right?

So forget it, right? If you're not made for it, if you don't want to be monogamous, right? Take responsibility for that. And taking responsibility for that means not hurting other people. And it means not being in a relationship with someone who thinks that that is a prospect or a possibility. And an awful lot of people take that get out thing of, I just don't think, is it natural? I don't think it's natural. And if you think it fine, right? Don't impose it on everyone else. Don't impose it on the women you're with. Don't impose it on partners, you know, let them be who they want to be. Cause it really suits a lot of people very, very well. I'm in

this relationship now that I pray with all my heart lasts forever. I'm absolutely certain it will. Cause we're made for each other, completely made for each other. Uh uh and lots of other people at home will tell you that as well and lots of people say they're in the wrong relationship but don't universalize it don't say oh listen everyone should just chill out you know like we should we will have multiple partners it's just it's the natural way listen i've been googling chimpanzees listen it's cool uh you know that's all fine but it's you right it's your responsibility and if you're not ready to do it okay you've got to stop wasting people's time uh and perhaps when you are ready to do it you'll be like okay this is i mean my heart was so was so ready and open

when i met ingrid my partner and hers was as well you know we both had our misadventures that's the truth you know we really have uh and but we absolutely were both ready and you know perhaps you're not ready to be monogamous at certain ages you know perhaps you're not but you have got to stop putting on other people and stop putting on chimpanzees and just say what am i what am i prepared to do and perhaps there's compromise you know perhaps there is sacrifice perhaps you perhaps there's compromise, you know? Perhaps there is sacrifice. Perhaps that's something that, you know, you'll measure against other things and you'll feel that you don't want to sacrifice

and don't want to compromise. But don't for a single second say, as human nature, it's not. It's you making a definitive decision at a definitive time in your life. You know, that's such good advice and I think I needed to hear that. But part of it it is because and i've said this in the last two episodes or so as it's been front of mind for me is seeing of my close six best friends total failure in

relationships over and over again and me me being earlier in in that and going why why are 50 of these things breaking if i'd gone to a shop and bought a tv and the guy said oh by the way there's a 50 chance that's not gonna last yeah probably wouldn't have bought the tv yeah but at the same time you spend years coming up with creative ideas and you know 50% of them will fail but you do them anyway true you know it's not a tv you know it's a it's a life and actually 50% that's not the worst bet in the world obviously for a 50 chance of lifelong happiness i mean you'd take that bet wouldn't you but also you know yeah you know you know by and large you know so the the odds can swing in your favor and it's uh you know i always think the best dating thing

anyone ever said to me and it's true for politicians and all sorts of things they say literally the first date is when people tell you who they are and then everything after that is backpedaling so on your first date with your partner you would have told her who you were and what you want from life and where you want to be and ever since then you've been backpedaling or saying oh actually no actually now i think about it i want this but you know listen listen to what someone told you on the first date you know that's who they are and that's what they want what other than the storylines and yeah um the narrative and everything that's in this book what at the very fundamental level do you hope that this particular book the third the third installment is doing for the reader at a very fundamental yeah level well you know my job is always

entertainment you know that's my thing and um in this book honestly it's the very act of of starting the next chapter that's that's that's, that's what that's what I aim for. You know, you finish one chapter, you think I have, I've got to read the next one. I want people to start a long plane journey thinking, Oh, God, I've got eight hours. And at the end of it going, Oh, my God, that's great. I got to read that whole book. You know, I want people at night to go and scream one more chapter, I just want to read one more chapter. And I want people at the end just to go, you know what that was a thumping good read you know that really really entertained me um i'm gonna tell my friends about it that's the thing you

notice about i mean it's so true in your business but in books as well everything is after the first little initial flush everything is word of mouth yeah everything you know and these but every it's like people telling people telling people telling people And if you've got the right product, then, you know, it spreads because people tell their friends. But all I want to do is entertain people. You know, I'm not going to be, you know, Shakespeare. You know, I want to give people a great read that entertains them, that makes them laugh, that makes them cry.

I want them to try and work out who the murderer is. You know, that's what I want their lives to be minusculely improved by having read the book. Richard, as you know, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest asks a question for the next guest. Great. And I only get to see it when we open the book. So here we go. Hmm. What was the most valuable lesson you've learnt in the last year and why?

Oh, who's that question from? Can't tell you. Oh, really? That's part of the mystery. Oh, that's fine. What was the most valuable lesson I learnt in the last year? Gosh, that's a good question um i think that uh i'm talking about my my my kids my my son was working at wagamama and hated it hated it it wasn't well treated is my view uh really didn't enjoy it but he's a grafter uh and he's now

working at a computer games museum which is like so far up his street it's amazing uh and i think the lesson that i've learned is i should have said to him two months before he quit you should just quit this is not do you know what this is not making you happy they're not looking after you this is not you you know and i know working hard is important but you have got to quit and go and do something else it's the truth and i think if you're not being looked after and you're not enjoying yourself and you don't see this as a path to riches you're allowed to just say i need to find a workplace where i'm respected which is what he's done now richard thank you thank you for your time and

thank you for um you know you've done so many amazing things in your career, especially on, you know, TV for the first sort of 20, 20, 30 years of your career, but writing a book that has touched so many people in such profound way that is in every corner of the world that you wrote yourself, as you said, it takes word of mouth to make a book reach these heights. And that in and of itself is a testament of how amazing, profound profound resonant these books are on so many levels so it's an inspiration to me you know I was I got so because I'm writing a book at the moment with Penguin understanding especially the creative the creative journey how you write where you write the discipline that it's also excruciatingly painful to you and you

describe it as a marathon has inspired me so much and there's something really really special i think in throughout this book but also just the way that you create in trusting yourself yeah and really in building anything it's like what you said earlier about make something that you would love yeah sometimes in my life i've not done that and it's and it's never gone well that's right and that's really sort of made me reorientate myself towards focusing on that that true alignment in my creativity in what i'm building in my work so thank you for that um i i think people are going to absolutely love this book well i know that for a fact to be honest um and i hope to be back here with you someday and have to continue this conversation thank you steven my pleasure Thank you.