#752: Terry Crews and Richard Koch

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4:27 S Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it is my job to sit down with world class performers. From every field imaginable to tease out the habits. routines, favorite books, and so on that you can apply. And test in your own lives.

4:49 This episode is a two for one, and that's because the podcast recently hit its 10th year anniversary, which is insane to think about. And past one billion downloads. I've curated some of the best of the best, some of my favourites. From more than seven hundred episodes over the last decade.

5:07 I could not be more excited. To give you these super combo episodes and internally we've been calling these The Super Combo episodes. Because my goal is to encourage you to, yes, enjoy the household names, the super famous folks. But to also introduce you to lesser known people I consider

5:23 Stars. These are people who have transformed my life and I feel like they can do the same for many of you. Perhaps They got lost in a busy news cycle, perhaps you missed an episode. Just trust me on this one, we went to great pains to put these pairings together.

5:39 And for the bios of all guests. You can find that and more at tim.blog slash. combo. And now, without further ado. Please enjoy.

5:49 And thank you. For listening. First up Terry Cruz. Former NFL player.

5:57 American film and television star of the expendables. Everybody hates Chris. And Brooklyn Nine Nine. Host of America's Got Talent And best selling author of six books.

6:08 Including the Tough. My journey to true power. You can find Terry on Twitter and Instagram. At Terry Cruz.

6:17 I thought we'd start somewhere that perhaps People Wouldn't associate you with if that's even English, but you guys get my drift. And that is art. So I went on to your Instagram. profile not too long ago and I saw a number of different profiles.

6:35 And then I started digging, and I didn't want to tease out too much because I want to talk about it. Can you tell us a little bit about Your background with art. You gotta know, I mean, growing up in Flint. There were

6:48 A number of obstacles. I mean crazy, crazy obstacles. Because I grew up At the height of the crack epidemic. And also the demise of the auto industry. So there were two things happening at once and they were both

7:04 horribly I mean It was like the eighties. Probably late seventies, all the way through the eighties into the nineties. was literally the walking dead.

7:15 And It was real. I mean you had people who were cracked out. I had friends, family who one day, you know, where they were good people, the next day they were stealing everything you had. all the way to everyone you knew were losing their jobs and and it was a panic. And I remember

7:33 There was two ways out. And one was through music. And performing Another way with athletics. But art, you couldn't get paid doing art. You know what I mean? It was kinda everybody like that's a wonderful picture, but it's you're a starving artist. That's the whole term, you know.

7:49 And I remember Just Saying okay. I'm gonna do this art thing, but I had to do the football thing too. And these were my ways out. Now I didn't believe

8:01 That I was actually going to get any kind of Light as an artist. But I had one teacher. One man. Mr. Eichelberg. I'll never forget this.

8:11 He said, Terry, you are an amazing artist. He was like, I'm the art teacher. You're better than me. And he said, You can go somewhere with this and I was like Okay, but you know, you know nobody's gonna pay me to do this, nobody it's good, but I gotta use football. Well he

8:28 Filled out all the applications. Bore me. And I didn't even know. Wow. This is crazy. And he took my pictures and my paintings and everything that I did, he took and got'em photographed.

8:41 Did all this stuff sent him to Interlocking Arts Academy. Now Interlocking is just world famous. Big deal. Big big deal Arts Camp up in northern Michigan near Traver City. And You study with people from all over the world.

8:57 And he literally c came to me. And told me he had already built out everything and he said Terry? You have a scholarship from Chrysler full ride. to go to Interlock and Arts Academy.

9:10 And I was like, What are you talking about? Like You know, first of all, I didn't think it was possible. This is the deal. There's a lot of things It's weird because you gotta let people believe in you, but I didn't believe in myself. And

9:26 When I got a chance to go to Interlocker and study with people from Europe and from Brazil and from and these was mainly music students and then they had art students and it was just this And coming from Flint. I mean coming from the hood. And then This this change my life.

9:43 Once I I remember We had an and it was really big on competition. Very, very big on competition. It was like If you were a violinist, you had to be the first chair and second chair. And I remember all these kids were disappointed because they kept moving down and they would just feel like they were crushed. And

10:00 The same thing with art. We w had to do two drawings and we had the whole class doing all these drawings. And they said, put your drawings on the on the wall and don't Put your name on'em. We have this guy coming from the

10:12 Cleveland Institute of Art. He's gonna judge each painting. And we wanna see who's the best. And I was like, Oh man, you know, and so I did my deal and I put on it was a wall full of art. The art guy pointed at Mine and he said, That one's the best one.

10:29 But he went all the way across the room and he said that one and they were both mine. And I was like Now Right? Is a confidence game.

10:43 Because then you couldn't tell me nothing. I was like damn it I'm good I got too arrogant, and I got arrogant. And then you have to be humble some other way, you know but That let me know. I was like wow. I can do it.

11:02 How can you go there? Like I'm really as good. These people, this is all over the world! And then I got a scholarship. to Western Michigan University in art.

11:14 But it was small. It wasn't full ride. But it was a small deal. So I got an art scholarship and walked on. To the football team. And my mom passed away.

11:25 About almost three years ago. And she always would tell me, she was like, whatever you do, I know you're doing all this football stuff, you're doing all this other thing, but never forget. You're an artist, babe. You're an artist. I'm telling you.

11:44 When I see what I'm doing right now. And I get to do so many things. That so many people never got to see. I get to go So many places and do.

11:57 So many things that none of the people whom Wanted to, were able to. I feel like there is a responsibility. But also If I don't do it.

12:10 Everything they've gone through is nothing. You know, so The way I approached things is really It's kinda bore everyone else. You know

12:22 I have to try it. I have to go for it. I knew Even as I was doing football and I was do all this stuff I remember

12:32 What? 'Cause football was hard. Football is a very, very again, another competitive deal. You know, you would get on the team and I would get cut. I was like I have to depend on This art thing because this is what got me here.

12:46 And so I would go back in the locker room. And this is how I was married. I had two kids at the time. I would go back in the locker room and go to the players and I would ask them if they wanted their portraits painted. And the weird thing is they were like, oh man, come on, man, you can't do it. And I was showing my portfolio and they was like, damn, dude. Ha ha.

13:06 Ah, and I was like, look, man, I'm gonna paint you over this big, I'm gonna put you and you can be a giant over the city, and I can have wings, you can have wings and you can do And let me tell you, you know, football players are the most egotistical people in the world. They're like oh damn, yeah, man, I want the wings, dog. How much for them wave, man, you know and I was like And I would do these masterpieces. But you know, I have to tell you this too. I did have a scam. I had a scam. This is the scam.

13:35 In college. In college. I would'cause what happened is I was playing football, but When you play football You don't get money for supplies.

13:45 You only get book loans. See, scholarship is a gip. All you got, I'm telling you, the FCAA is a gip, dude. The whole deal. You are not a student athlete. You are semi pro. That's all it is. There's no student in it.

13:58 Just putting it right now. And what was crazy is that I was like, Hey, but I wanna study art. They were like, Uh, why don't you just study business or something? So it's easier. to get by.'Cause the whole thing is just getting by. Take a class so you can go to football practice. But I was like, I'm an artist. They're like, Okay, whatever.

14:14 So I would go to these labs and I would make this what I had it plan in the summer I would make. Like Probably ten paintings. And then I would make four of'em really suck. Like they would be really, really bad. And I would bring those in in the beginning, and these were these labs, and I would go to the teachers, I was like.

14:31 Man, you know, I mean what's wrong with this? Like Help me out here. You know, he was like oh Terry, oh my God, look. Okay, we're gonna work on your perspective and we're gonna do this and I was like, Yeah, no, help me. And then I'll go home and then I'll go to practice. But like a mut.

14:48 And never do anything else, because I had the paintings done. Yeah. I bring another one in that was a little bit better. And let me tell you, I did this the whole semester, and then I would bring out the masterpieces. And I was and I landed, I say, look how much you helped me.

15:08 You took me from here. to their sir. And they're like, you get in A, you were awesome. And I that's how and I again the whole thing was a scam. But I had to survive, I had to find a way. to stay in school'cause this is the thing a lot of people don't know. Is that they could take your scholarship.

15:27 It was crazy. It was one of those things where You're there as a body. And if you don't perform, they'll find a way to get rid of you. When I

15:37 was looking at your history and your book and your backstory, one thing that I paid attention to the pattern was an uncommon degree of self reflection. And that's I want to rewind the clock a little bit back to High school.

15:51 in Tribe of Mentors is related to My question related to Favorite failures or A failure that set you up for later success.

16:02 Could you tell us a little bit about that, please? Oh man, yes. Nineteen eighty six. That was my senior year in high school. Um I went to Flint Academy and it was a classy school. But we were highly ranked in the state. And I was a used to be a basketball player. I mean that was you know, hard to believe now, but

16:22 Basketball was a a big sport for me, but I was the starting center. On this team. Um What was wild is we were picked to go all the way in the state. We had a superstar. on our team and we had a really, really good team.

16:36 We played against a school. Hm decided not to play. It was the district championship. It was right the beginning of the playoffs and these guys We take the ball down the court and pass the ball to each other.

16:50 At the top of the court. And wouldn't play. And we had a coach. Who was like Well, you know what? I'm gonna beat you at your own game. So we stayed in his own.

17:01 So we sit there the whole time and I'm telling it's the most boring game of all time. We just sat there with our hands up and they passed the ball. And if anything happened, somebody do went and got it and it was you score two and It was just a mess. So the score was really, really low. They were up 47 to 45. And it was literally under a minute.

17:22 Uh I'm freaking out because now we're going to it's evident we're going to lose'cause I'm going, man, this is a dumb defensive strategy anyway. We should have been going after it. But What happened is a guy threw the ball, their guy threw the ball cross court. I intercepted it.

17:41 And with literally five seconds left to go. And I take the ball. All the way down the court. You gotta understand. I'm thinking I had visions of oh my God, this is the thing, I'm the hero, you know. The heart is it's like pounding. It's you I'm already at the party. You know what I mean? And I go with this layup and I bring it up there and it totally w it gets around the rim and it rolls. Thank you

18:09 Yeah. Uh And let me tell you that place goes nuts'cause it was the upset of the year. And I collapse in a heat. And I know.

18:20 My life is over. And you gotta understand, and this is another thing. Shame among men. It's like you, oh how could you do that, man? Y other players were yelling at me. The coach.

18:34 I was in the locker room, he was like, You had no business taking that shot. And I stole the ball! No. It wasn't like we didn't have a shot anyway. But he was like, you have no business taking that shot. You should have passed it.

18:47 Man, it's your fault! And everybody in the room was like, yep. And I was like they didn't let me off one and I remember just going, Oh my God. And then I went in the paper and the paper the next day was like Terry Cruz had a shot and he missed, you know. And let me tell you it was the most dark and I mean when you're Sixteen years old.

19:08 I was I mean beyond Quirth. I One guy was taunting me, I got in a fight after the school and the whole thing, and I was just like, this is awful. It's horrible. And so it was a couple days went by and I was in the deepest bump. I'm sitting on my bed.

19:25 And I shared my room with my brother. But For some reason he wasn't there.'Cause I I always remember him being there. It was kinda crazy. I don't r ever remember being alone except that time. And I remember being alone. And

19:40 Just thinking about man, what I should have passed it. I should have passed it, maybe I messed up and You know, what else could I have done? And then another little voice. It said

19:52 I took the shot. I took The Shah. I'm sorry. I do.

20:00 I did. And it was kept and I kept thinking, it was like man, look. When you Had the chance. When everything was on the line. You took your shot, man.

20:12 You did that. You did that. And all of a sudden I was like, that's right. That's right. I took him.

20:21 And I learned from then on. I said, man, wait a minute. If I went in Or about fail. It's going to be on my terms.

20:31 It's going to be up to me. I if I have the opportunity, I have To go for. And then I felt really good. About losing the game.

20:43 It was red. I it was it totally now. This you can call it reframing. A lot of people have scientific ways or psychological ways to d you know, to do things. But I learned Always to kinda reframe things. So that it's to your advantage.

20:58 You know what I mean? And you look at these things like wait a minute. You took the shot, man. And this is another thing because what's so crazy Is that no one ever remembers that game.

21:11 If it's one of the least important things in my life. But the lesson I learned. If Guiding me today.

21:21 The fact that Go for it. Take your shot. Take your time. When you get that thing, when you have that opportunity. Don't mess it up.'Cause this is another thing, and I want to tell you

21:31 Tim. The scariest thoug ever. There's one thing that blew me away. Is that You really do get what you want.

21:41 Now let me tell you what I mean. There have been times When you can be self destructive. And you think it's something else or you think like I discovered for a long time like if I show up late for something twice, I don't want it. And

21:58 You get. What you desire. Everything about you. You get what you want. Now the way your life is True believe, you want it.

22:11 And now that's hard. That's hard to say because a lot of people are like, no, wait, there's so many other options. It's this and this and this and this. But the truth is is that if you wanted something different, you change it. And that hit me like It's scary.

22:25 Because if I failed or if I didn't, if I showed up wrong or messed up on something, I was like, I didn't really Do what it took to get it. Again, that comes from taking That shot way back. In high school

22:40 So one of the things I really appreciate about you and that's led me to want to reach out to you is how forthcoming you've been about your difficulties. and some of the challenges that you faced because I think a lot of folks we see on magazine covers and so on Unfortunately give People the impression that they're flawless. They have it all figured out. And then people feel uniquely flawed in some way.

23:02 that they're damaged because they're not that person. That's unachievable. Could you share with us A story of Any Dark period.

23:12 in your life and how you found your way out of it. Things that helped you too. Oh. Navigate your way out of it. Ooh, that was a lot of dark. Dot time.

23:24 I'm I'm a share of this story. Which changed my life. I was literally just got my first job. in entertainment. I was on a TV show called Battle Dome where they they literally put me in a cage and I fought my way out. Um it was so entertaining, but you know

23:41 It was pre M M A, you know I mean, so people hadn't seen blood on TV yet. You know, we were like the first. It was really nuts. People were bleeding, going to the hospital. It was called Real Warriors, Real Pan. And I play this character called T Money, and that's my actually my wife's pet name for me now. She's like, hey T Money. And we call this the Christmas from Hell. Because here I wanted to come home. I went home to Flint, Michigan. With my family. Now you got to understand my kids.

24:10 At the time I had three. I have five total now, but I had three kids at the time. And the girls were and they were all girls, they were very small. They had never grown up. with violence in the house. Okay. They've never seen it.

24:24 And so I told my father before I came, I said, hey man, don't act up. Do not act up. And He said, I ain't gonna do nothing. You know, and I'm like, Okay, so I'm bringing a family.

24:37 I know it's Christmas time, so just relax, man, and we're gonna be there. It'll be fine. So we get there, we're having a we're having a good time. My wife and I are going out. We actually are driving to Detroit to hang with friends. And I get this call. And it was

24:52 panic. My aunt called me, he's a Cherry. Your daddy hit your mother. In front of the kids. Yeah man. He knocked her tooth sideways.

25:06 I think. I told him. Told him. No. Wait, literally.

25:13 I stopped the car. Turn it around, I told my wife Okay, we're gonna go over my ass house. You take the kids, go over the ass house, the whole thing. I'm done. I'm dealing with this.

25:26 First of all, I went in this house, he was had the nerve to still be there. And I said, dude, what? Are you doing? He was like, shut up, leave me alone. I can do what the hell I want. Bom. Let me tell you something. I beat this guy.

25:42 For about an hour. He was pleading for his life. I was like, I'm not a child anymore. I am a grown ass man. And how does it feel?

25:57 You are about to get what my mother has felt. And I laid it on him. He was hurt. Bleeding laid out. I'm surprised I didn't kill him. And I fell.

26:12 Not one. Ounce. Yeah. I remember falling on the ground Crying.

26:20 In tears. It didn't make me feel one bit. Yeah. Not one. Mike.

26:26 Now I was just down there with him. This is the revenge I've dreamed about my whole life. And now. No, I'm just like you.

26:38 And I remember just feeling Empty. Cold. It's probably the darkest place I ever been because This here's the man

26:47 Who's the reason I'm here. And I put him in his place, so to speak. And I'll never forget. It was just the most hollow, hollow

27:00 We got out of there. It took me years. To overcome that. We got outta there, I got the kids out. We never came back. I mean we l like forget the holidays, we're not doing this. But after years of therapy and this is this was

27:14 Literally about Well six or seven years ago. What I'm talking about happened Like ninety nine. Okay.

27:23 So I go back. And I go back to my father. And I've been listening to things and trying to do this thing correctly. And I remember

27:33 I just said I have to find one thing. That I can tell him. That He did good. And I said.

27:42 And we call him Big Cherry,'cause his name's Cherry too. So it's a Big Cherry. Man. I wanna thank you. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be here.

27:55 And if I had to choose my parents I choose you. Because the truth is He's the reason I'm eating. If it was another person, I'd be another person.

28:08 So I said if I had to choose my parents. I choose you. Let me tell you something. He could. He just broke.

28:16 Down. It's Harry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for beating Your mom, I'm sorry for everything I did. Listen, man.

28:27 Those words broke him down. He cried. In my arms. For about the same time as I was beating him years earlier. And I was like

28:39 This is not hollow. This feels good. This is healing. Ah. Man.

28:51 I have to use my strength. We're good. Because Everybody can knock somebody out. But to give a hug.

29:01 With muscles. There's a whole nother matter. And I said that It's how That's the vulnerability.

29:10 That's the authenticity. That's where real Healing takes place because shame wants punishment. It just wants to get back. Boom, boom. And it's temporary. But guilt.

29:23 Develops discipline. When you admit I was wrong. 'Cause shame is with secrets and you don't say anything. But guilt says, I did it. I'm sorry.

29:34 And then you develop discipline to change. Man I'm getting it was one of the Darkest periods in my life. But totally reversed. And I decided

29:48 That's gonna be my life. This is who I am. Now some people got their ass whooped but I'm trying to tell in between it. I'm trying to tell you one thing is some people try to take that and be like ah I can put you on. Get out of it. What?

30:04 But Uh what I wanna say is that The big thing was I knew That would never be the only way I would ever use that.

30:16 Is To protect. It's to protect. Not to get back. Not for women.

30:23 There's a time. But I'm telling you, man, that was a period that I learned Forever. Now again, my father I wish I could say he changed. He kinda went back through his old ways.

30:36 But I'm here. And I did the things I needed to do. I'm gonna ask one more question. And it's related to a question that I posed to you. In the book.

30:47 Because Whether it's looking at Some of your early decisions as a child or the toughness that you showed in athletics.

30:59 Or doing what other people might consider risky by trying to create your own category in many different worlds or having that second conversation with your dad. I think there's a quote that really exemplifies you. And it's actually a quote that you gave me in the book. And it was

31:17 In answering the question, if you could have a giant billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say and why? It begins with God will not. Could you give us that quote, please, and explain its importance? Oh man. God will not Have his work made manifest by collarance.

31:34 Ralph Waldo Emerson. It's my favorite quote. I literally have it. On my dressing room. put on the wall in in giant letters.

31:46 Because Fear begets more fear. But courage just begets more courage. And Like you don't even get to be born.

31:58 Unless your mother has the courage to have you. Any great Thing. Tschüss. Okay.

32:06 literally creating a business to The making art. It takes this courage. It takes this willingness to be looked at, to be judged. You have to face down your bears.

32:20 And you have to step outside. And go. It helped me to just lay out what I was afraid of. Because that's the big thing. You know, you have to ask yourself. What are you scared of?

32:34 And then you have to attack. You have to literally have to lay out I remember now you Tell about your swimming experience. I was always You know, you know, you when you grow up in the ghetto, they're they they kick you into the pool and these are not good experiences. Okay. Um and so, you know, we didn't grow up on a nice pool and the beach and the whole thing. It was like the hood and it's like, Oh man, it's not good. So My first experience was horrifying.

32:59 Almost drowned. And so the one of my fears was swimming. And I remember When I had a house with a pool. And I remember going in the back yard.

33:10 And just diving into the deep end over and over again. to get rid of the fear. And it's weird because you get near the edge and you go, Oh man I am. I have to beat it. So I'll just jump in.

33:22 Just keep jumping in. Keep jumping in. Until you're not afraid anymore. 'Cause remember it's a confidence game. And

33:32 That quote. Just When you think about anything that's made and Anything that's created, anything that you see that you admire. Takes so much courage.

33:44 Because people are going to judge it. And people are going and say, Ah, that sucks. You know, especially in the age of the internet. You know, everybody's coming in and chipping in with whatever they have to say. And you have to be willing.

33:58 And you have to be vulnerable. This is why vulnerability is actually strength. Because the vulnerability is part of courage. You have to be willing to let people judge your stuff. Willing to let people hear your song. Willing to let people hear you sing.

34:15 And it's so wild. Because I'll never forget, I got a story for that is that The first time I ever got a movie. It was a big movie. It was with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was called the six day

34:28 And I'll never forget. I'm like, I thought it was gonna be like a quick roll. It turned out to be a big job that worked six months in Vancouver, and I'm like, oh my God. And the first day I was on set. I had to say this line, Adam Gibson, come with us. You know, please come with us. And

34:45 I remember they said action and I walked up on Arnold and I was like Adam Gibson We need you to come with us. And he turned and looked at me. And I was like. Ha ha ha.

34:57 Damn it, that's all the day. And wait. And I mean lightning fast. Everything went through my head like you don't deserve to be here. You're just a dumb football player. You are bars.

35:11 These people are gonna figure you out. You are fake, you're a phony, you fool everybody. It's a wrap. They're gonna find out and they're gonna kick you out of here. Nothing. Lightning pass. And then something was wrong with the camera. They were like, Oh, you know what? We got a problem with the lights and

35:28 Can we gotta g give us five minutes. This was all split second. And I remember'cause I froze and I know I froze. And I remembered I I just went to the side and I was like, Terry? You survived the NFL. Do you wanna and I and after I left the NFL, I was sweeping floors, I was doing security and then I went to acting. And I said, do you want to go back to Sweeton Floors?

35:50 Do you want to go back to security? So man, go in there and see these lines, man. Mm-hmm. And I literally was cussing myself out. It was like Yo!

35:58 Get some guts, dude! And I walk back in there and they were like, actually I was like Adam Gibson, you know? And wait, and Arnold was like, This guy like his energy. He's got a lot of It's amazing. I like him. It's really And let me tell you, after that, I learned go in. Right.

36:17 Question There's never been a time I mean acting freaking Almost twenty years and it's never been a time those And this uh and that's why I wanna demystify this thing. I've never been a time that I don't have those bubbles right before action. Never. Ever.

36:31 It's always there. Don't let anybody trick you and act like, oh man, I'm good. If it looked if you that if they act good, they don't care. Trying to tell you. If you care. You're gonna always be nervous.

36:44 You're gonna always Have to base it. But when you walk in Turned into a mirage. And it just starts to disappear.

36:52 I remember on a set of white chicks. It disappeared. I remember I was rolling and I remember Keen and I be wins. I was like, you got any notes, Keenan? He was like, man, do what you do, man. And I remember just blowing and I mean, you know. People who know and that a lot of people here who understand it.

37:09 If you ever been in a flow. It's amazing. Like there's a time when all the line the writing just comes, the lines just come, the job is smooth. You're like, man, I could do this all day. That's by practicing facing that. Beer.

37:24 Beer. Just going in, going in, going in until you hit that zone. Man, it's a high like you will never, ever, ever experience. I encourage everyone And I'm not here I'm here to de demystify it. You will be nervous.

37:38 Always. But go anyway. Beautiful. Harry Cruz. Yeah.

37:52 Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Element, spelled L M N T. What on earth is Element? It is a delicious sugar free electrolyte drink mix. Element is formulated to help anyone with their electrolyte needs and perfectly suited to folks following a keto, low carb, or paleo diet. So if you're on a low carb diet, Or fasting, electrolyt a key role in relieving hunger, cramps, headaches, tiredness, and dizziness. Sugar, artificial ingredients, coloring, all that's garbage, unneeded. There's none of that in Element. And a lot of names you might recognize are already using Element. It was recommended to be by one of my favorite

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39:07 Element.com slash Tim Drink L M N T Dot com slash Tim. I And now. Richard Kosh

39:20 Renowned investor. And best selling author of books on business and personal success. Including The eighty twenty principle. And his most recent book

39:30 Unreasonable success and how to achieve it. You can find Richard on Twitter. That Richard K O C H 80 twenty

39:40 Richard, welcome to the show. I'm so thrilled to have you. It is In some respects decades overdue. And we were just chatting before clicking record. Could you please Get us started with wines and spirits. It's a great pleasure to be talking to you, Tim. Thank you very much for all your generosity in giving me quotes to put on books and things like that. That's very much appreciated. Um I'm not sure that this is a great place to start, but I was just thinking that you had reinvented the talk show.

40:11 And when I was seventeen And I had the first job in Windsor, England. As a van driver for a firm of wines and spirit merchants. They were called Lovey Bonds. And they were probably about the most old fashioned wine and spirit retailer you could possibly imagine. And one of the things which they did was deliver wine And spirits.

40:33 To quite uh Distinguished bunch of people, actually. I used to drive into Windsor Castle and give the brigadier his gin and so on and so forth. But one of the other people that I used to visit was Michael Parkinson. And Michael Parkinson, as you know, was a very successful sports writer and broadcaster who then branched out into doing chat shows. And some of the stuff which he did was marvelous. I saw a clip the other day of him talking to David Bowie, and it was fantastic. They were really enjoying themselves and they were moving very smartly from point to point. And that made me think about you, because I think you reinvented The chat show on podcasts. And it's just amazing. So anyway, that's my non story to start with. Well,

41:17 Give me time to disappoint and I appreciate the kind words. And I should also say for people listening Those people who perhaps have read the various policies on my website will will note or received one in my autoresponse via email will know that I say I don't give quotes for books, I don't do forwards, I don't do and I have a very long list of do not do's. The reason that I've made an exception is that and and if anyone else fits this bill, feel free to reach out because I know it's gonna be approximately zero.

41:49 If you've written a book Like several of your books that have traveled with me for more than ten years from place to place that sit on my shelves face out as a reminder, feel free to reach out. But that is going to be a very small number indeed. And Perhaps we could start. This isn't exactly the beginning, so to speak, but with the Bodleian library.

42:13 And if you could explain what that is and take us into Context from there. I think that would be helpful. The Bodleian Library is a fantastically beautiful building in Oxford, very close to the college that I was at. And I used to sit in there.

42:30 In the stacks. And look out of the window whenever I could. But the great thing about it was that it had almost any book that you could possibly imagine, and one day I decided that I wanted to read a book which I had read about called The Course of Economic Theory, but it was in French, written by our old friend Vilfredo Pareto.

42:50 And it was published in Lucerne. In I think eighteen six and and ninety seven. And I have no idea at all, Tim, why I wanted to read this book because it wasn't part of my coursework or anything like that. But that was a book in which I discovered the eighty twenty principle. And

43:11 He didn't call it the eighty twenty principle, as you know, but nevertheless, he had all these algebraic equations which showed the wealth distribution In England in the seventeenth century, eighteenth century, nineteenth century, and also in Italy, France, Switzerland, other countries. over those periods of time. And what he found was that there was the same pattern of distribution. Of wealth. Against the population.

43:37 And A remarkably similar chart could be drawn. From the algebra for any of those countries or any time. In order to show What proportion of wealth was owned? And of course it was a very small number of people or proportion of people.

43:53 Who actually owned most of the wealth or earned most of the money. So you might say well That's very arcane and it's not particularly interesting. But I instantly thought I can use this. I can use this to cheat.

44:07 In my examinations. Without actually cheating. And so what I did was to say, well I do know that I'm gonna have to write Eleven papers, three hours long each.

44:20 at the end of my time in Oxford. The Oxford degree is entirely determined by the final examinations. There's no assessment current or there are no previous examinations at all. So it's a very, very important thing. But I had noted

44:37 that on sample papers there was something like fifty questions or whatever. And it's impossible to imagine that I could actually research or do work on fifty questions times eleven. So I thought Well Maybe if this eighty twenty principle applies, there will be some questions which are asked much more frequently.

44:58 And lo and behold, I got the papers. for the history exams for the last twenty years. And it was absolutely true. There was always a question about the French Revolution. There was usually a question about the Russian Revolution. There was always a question about the origins of the causes of the First World War, and so on and so forth. So I said to myself well Yeah, I don't need to study

45:21 Very extensively. You could write the answers to three or four questions. It was your choice during three hours. So what I said was I will research six subjects. No more. For each paper.

45:35 And I will be word perfect. I will have very obscure quotes. I will use foreign languages that I don't actually understand. Absolutely word perfect. And if I do that I don't have to do much work. And I will get a top degree.

45:52 And lo and behold, that is exactly what happened. And then I thought to myself afterwards Gosh, this man Pareto was quite onto something, wasn't he? So That was my introduction to the eighty twenty principle. Perhaps I've never looked back in some senses. You know what is well to me

46:09 So funny about that in part is that I did something very similar. I just was not aware of Pareto at this point, but when I was doing my undergrad I about halfway through Began asking teachers

46:26 sort of plausible deniability because I I was hesitant to ask outright what is going to be on the exam because they're not supposed to answer such a question. But I would ask teachers, or I would say rather I know I need to study everything. that we've covered for the exam, but if there are any particular areas you think I should focus on, would you mind telling me? And they were very forthcoming. So it ended up having a very similar effect, although I definitely was pleased that in most cases not everything hinged on final exams. I think I probably would have been crushed under the sort of the psychological intimidation of that type of sink or swim setup. Yeah, I was quite nervous with my in my exams, but I I ha I found a solution to that, at least in the afternoons, was after the morning paper I would go down the pub.

47:11 And have Couple of pints of beer. And I found that calm minds. And it was notable that I got better results in the afternoon than I did in the morning. Well that that could be in one of your one of your next books if you haven't covered academic hygiene in preparation. If we're Looking at

47:35 Formative periods. Let's just say high school. College, university, however you want to label it. I'm looking at notes. As I do. in these types of conversations from an interview you did with Boing Boing a long time ago, an outlet that that I know very well. And

47:52 One of the questions posed was what advice would you give to a smart kid who's now in high school? And you can feel free to fact check this and correct, but the answer I'm just gonna read. Briefly and then I have a follow up. Discover what you're best at doing and enjoy that is different from what all of your peers are doing and that requires relatively little effort from you, then put huge effort into honing that skill so that it becomes monstrously greater than anyone else's. Keep demanding that each year you make your peculiar talent more peculiar and much more potent. Use the skill to make the world a more interesting place. Don't care about making money. If you have a fantastically different and useful skill, everything else you want will follow. So I have two questions. Accurate or not accurate quote. Secondly

48:33 What is your peculiar talent and how did you discover it? Well, it's totally accurate and it's very easy to give advice and and perhaps less easy to uh originate the advice or at least to exemplify the the advice. I was always very, very interested in history because it enabled me to develop a certain skill in analysis w non quantitative analysis. I'm absolutely hopeless at numbers. But in terms of understanding structures, in terms of understanding trends,

49:03 In terms of really getting to grips with what might have happened to other people Had not noticed. Then that's what I did. And you know, I came up with some pretty wacky ideas. during my time studying history, but I thought that they were plausible, and the examiners must have thought so too. I mean, for example, it seemed to me that Hitler had decopied

49:25 pretty much what Lenin and Stalin had done. So of course Hitler was a great an anti communist, and they were great anti Nazis. But He actually had followed Lenin's policy, for example, of a one party state, which no one before Lenin had really done. And of death camps for dissidents. And enemies of the regime.

49:46 Again, no one had really done that, certainly not on such a ruthless scale. As Lenin and Later Stalin did. So it was My theory that Hitler had based his policy on the Bolsheviks. That's just a little example. I d I I'm not absolutely sure that's true, but it's plausible. And it was sort of trying to winkle out.

50:08 Things that might be true which are interesting and important. But which no one else has spotted. That's what I try and do. That's what I enjoy doing. So you mentioned hopeless with numbers. Now Or maybe I injected the hopeless, but you were s very self deprecating with respect to Numbers and numeracy. And yet.

50:28 People would look at your track record of investing as an example. And ask how can that possibly be the case. So Again in my notes. I have BetFair here, which I would love for you to explain.

50:42 But it adds that you couldn't use their website. Now Please explain. Okay. The way of reconciling those two apparently different things. I do have a very good track record, thank God. I've been very lucky or

50:58 very fortunate at least in my investments. But it's not based on being an analyst in the conventional sense. I got fired from the Boston Consulting Group because I was no good at doing financial and market analysis, despite the fact that I was quite good at doing some other things which they didn't value very much. It is true that I'm not particularly numerous. But I believe that's a skill which is you know, readily available from other people. And

51:25 As far as Betfer is concerned. I base my investment as indeed all my investments are based on the star principle. Which was something that the Boston Consulting Group themselves had invented. Way back in the nineteen sixties. And this is the old chart of the dogs, stars, question marks, and cash cows. So I never make an investment unless the business is a star business or has the potential to be a star business. And BCG's definition, my definition of a star business is that market leader in a niche

51:58 A defensible niche. Where you can protect it against other people. Other competitors. And a high market growth rate. B C G said more than ten percent. I've

52:08 really try to aim at more than thirty percent. And The thing about Bat fit was that a friend of mine In two thousand one

52:18 came along and said, We've started this betting company and I'm a gambler and I like gambling and we think it's completely different from anything else because it's not a bookmaker. And I said, Well, what do you mean? And he said, Well, a bookmaker is someone who makes a book and basically offers odds To punters, gamblers who might want to bet on it.

52:40 But Bedfair doesn't do that. What it does is is it started an electronic market. which enables people So Either Act as the bookmaker.

52:50 Or to act as a punter. So you can go onto the the site And you can see Post it up there the odds other people will. give and the odds for the punters are vastly better because there's no bookmakers profit. No I said no it can't be true because

53:07 that felt has to make some money. How do they make money? What's their business model? He said, Well they have a very small commission, which they take, and they only take that On winning bet. So I said, Well, that sounds like a fantastic idea, so what's the problem? And he said, Well Do you want the real truth? And so I said, Yeah, of course I want Anthony, of course I want the real truth. What's the problem? He said, Well

53:29 No venture capitalist, no professional financial firm would invest in this company. When they first had their round they started about six months previous to this. And he said then there was from their point of view a very good reason for that, which was

53:44 None of the managers in the business had any experience I said, Oh, you mean they didn't have experience in the industry? He said, No. No, they don't have experience in the industry. Well one of them used to be a professional gambler, but that's not experience which uh venture capitalists would recognize as being unhappable. He said no. They've never run anything!

54:06 And I said to the So Anthony, you're telling me that I should put money into a business. that has people running it but never run anything else. You said well one of them used to be a financial That person. at Morgan Stanley. And he was making You know, he was trading loans and and doing that sort of stuff.

54:26 Yeah. And he said, You know, trading loans is not a million miles away from running a betting exchange. But The truth was that they really Were all sports enthusiasts or gambling enthusiasts. And none of them had had any experience in management, which explained why

54:41 It was only friends and family who'd been able to invest in or been willing to invest in this particular company. So I said to Anthony, Well, what's the attraction? He said, It's a star business, Richard. And Antony had work for me in LEK and also in a company we set up after LEK called Strategy Ventures. And So he knew that I knew that the way to make money in investing in small businesses was to actually invest in something which could be or was a star business. Well Even though it was tiny and even though it was losing money.

55:14 It was clear that Beth there was indeed a star business. And why was it clear? Because no one else was doing what they were doing. Their business model was completely different. Their cost structure was completely different. Their customers were completely different. All of their customers were sophisticated and quite large. Not all of them, but most of them were sophisticated and quite Large gamblers. And so they didn't compete with Ladbrooks or Corals the Toads the other British bookmakers. And in fact they didn't compete with anybody because there was there was nobody. There's actually another firm set up originally in San Francisco called Flutter. It had a slightly different business model. So it had no competition. It had infinite

55:54 Relative market share. So I said, Well that's fantastic. So he said well Let me give you the the website. You can go on and see how how it works. Well, unfortunately I couldn't because I didn't know how to work the website. And

56:09 I went along and talked to the people and just tried to make sure that It was indeed a star business. and that I thought that, you know, it could actually Get some professional management later on. And so after an hour I decided to invest

56:26 One point five million pounds in in that business. Um They were quite shocked by that. They said well Are sure? And I explained to them what a star business was and how it was wonderful and how they should be very pleased to be having a star business and all the rest of it. But they were quite taken aback at that.

56:43 And they had been trying to raise money again from institutions that all said no. And the mates that they had who put the money in originally You know, didn't want to put more money in. particularly as he used that money much more quickly than expected. The reason that he used the money much more quickly than expected was that the growth was fantastic. It was a tiny, tiny, tiny business, but it was growing at forty percent, fifty percent, even sixty percent a month. And I said, Well, the other thing which I believe in apart from the star principle is compound growth rate.

57:13 And so I I looked at their financial projections and I thought they're incredibly conservative considering the market growth rate. And so I investors. And I went onto the board and about four years later

57:26 The chaps had And away day. at which I said how wonderful star businesses were and so on and so forth. And then I said and actually last week I decided it was time that I actually learnt how to use The website that you have.

57:42 And they all fell about laughing. They thought I was joking. And I said, No, I did, I think it's great. Great website. And they they said to me, Well How could you possibly have invested in the business without sort of going onto the website? And I said, Well, it's a star business and they said I think I went down in their estimation quite considerably as a result of that mission. And of course now I use the website

58:05 most days. I think it's a wonderful website. I've sold my shares, so I'm not advertising the company or anything like that. But I ended up making about a hundred million pounds profit out of that investment. So that's the power of the star principle. So how can someone who's not numerate Make money. out of what is generally a highly numerous industry. Well the answer, Tim, is is very simple. I believe in principles and I believe in the star principle. And it works. I'm the only investor in the world that does this. And I think I'm the only investor of the world at my scale that doesn't employ anyone.

58:39 And that does it on the basis of probably about a day a week of work. I do use my personal assistance to do some of the work. I do use contacts for special particular jobs, but you know, I don't have any staff. And you know, when I tell people this they say, Well your portfolio is un unbeliev absolutely unbelievable.

58:59 I said, Well, you know, I've only got one question. When I invest in a business, isn't it a star business, or could it be a star business? And once I've invested, I want to retain it as a star business or make it more dominant. And the the only question is how do you do that? And so life is very simple. Uh

59:17 Mm-hmm. I'm laughing because we could have five hours and I'm gonna run out of time before I run out of questions. So let's bookmark a few things. We're gonna come back to knowledge versus principles. Okay, so we'll bookmark that. I want to just Make it clear. At least from Wikipedia and Wikipedia, of course. is subject to debate, but often an accurate and Betfair is

59:39 described as the world's largest online betting exchange, just for for those who are looking for some type of perspective and are not familiar with the company. And You had mentioned gambling and liking gambling. I want to dig into that because It strikes me

59:55 That you may enjoy gambling, but you're also very good at placing That's And those are not necessarily the same thing if we think about the psychological dynamics drivers and and criteria involved. And I want to explain also to people listening that investing is a Wonderful

1:00:12 Metaphor. and framework for exploring Principles that apply elsewhere. Thinking processes that apply. elsewhere or perhaps even everywhere. So my question for you is very specific.

1:00:26 One point five million. How did you decide on that bet sizing? That was all the money I had. Holy shit. Wow. Okay. So you just pushed in all your chips? Yeah, I mean all my liquid assets, you know, and this is quite typical for me. I mean I want to be full of yeah, something we'll talk about later, which is that I one of the things which is quite absurd about me is that I actually don't have very much money.

1:00:51 to spend and I don't really mind that. I tend to when I'm in London, for example, in normal circumstances, I would take public transport. I would go on a bus or the tube. I would cycle if I possibly could, but I wouldn't take a taxi or an even an Uber unless It was absolutely you know, I was I was desperately short of time. And I don't believe in being desperately short of time. I always make sure I have plenty of time because I don't want to be rushed and because I can always use the time to think or whatever. So How do I just decide on the bet size of you know, it's just a matter of what I have available if I think it's a good bet. I hasten to add I don't make money out of my horse racing gambling. That is purely an entertainment and I don't place particularly large bets relative to my net worth either. Yeah, if I can go for eighteen months without having to put any more money in my account, I'm very happy.

1:01:41 It's a different kind of bit. I mean Gambling conventional gambling, whether it's poker or it's at the route casino, or it's uh horse racing, or it's betting on tennis, or baseball or football or anything like that. I think There are people who make money at it. But they usually either have some inside information or they are incredibly skilled. at judging probabilities and they often have

1:02:04 Yeah, even research. I know someone who had fifty employees tracking football. in order to see whether the odds on particular football matches were right or not. And he would take positions and he made a lot of money out of that consistently every year. But you know, someone like me who doesn't know a lot about football, knows nothing about football, doesn't know a great deal about horse racing Is it a certain disadvantage. I just I have a particular method which I use which is based on looking not where the horse came in the race, but on the time relative to other times. And all that is calculated on the Racing Post website. It's called something called top speed. And whenever I make a lot of money in in horse racing it's because

1:02:46 Top speed has shown me a horse which is not far away from the favourite, but might be at odds of thirty to one, or in one case it was even three hundred and thirty to one. That's unusual. But Betting on Companies is fantastic. Because if you understand how important relative market share is, and if you understand whether or not a company is able to segment itself and therefore have a defensible position in a particular segment like BetFair, then it's absolutely fantastic. Because you can you know, you can basically invest

1:03:19 And no. that you might lose your money, but o overall you're going to do very well out of that. And Yeah, I have very rarely lost money. on star businesses. The cases where I've lost money is where I thought something might become a star business and it wasn't.

1:03:35 Does that answer your question? It does, and I have a whole handful more to follow up So you wrote an entire book on this, The Star Principle Two Thousand Eight. It that was published in two thousand eight, work and investing in star businesses. That was the focus. When you say segment itself, businesses that can segment itself. And uh you mentioned Bedfair. What what does segmenting itself mean?

1:04:00 It means that it it's defines the market in a way that nobody else Has done. that very few people do and therefore that it's possible to become a market leader in it. So BetFair's a very good example of that. It's a betting exchange, which is an electronic market where people can post bets on either side, buy or sell.

1:04:21 It doesn't take principal positions. As bookmakers do. So it's um once it's overheads of covet, it can't lose money. And it competes against other betting exchanges, not against the big bookmakers. Because anyone who's a big gambler

1:04:39 Isn't going to go to Ladbrooks or Corals or the Totes or Patty Power or any of those conventional bookmakers because they know that the bookmaker typically takes out about ten percent on each event. And Betfair takes out maybe two percent, but that's only half the time, if you win half the time, lose half the time. So it's one percent players. Ten percent.

1:05:01 And therefore it means that the customer profile is completely different and the way that the cost structure operates is completely different. So it's a separate business segment. Because it's not competing. with conventional Betting firms. So it means that a company has to do something differently. It either has to be have a price advantage or

1:05:24 And therefore a cost advantage in the way that Bet Fair. does or it has to offer something which is so attractive. that people will Pi. Even if it's the same price they will actually go to go there. So

1:05:37 The three things that you want to do if you want to what I call proposition simplify, uh you have to have something which is very useful. You have to have something Which is easy to use and Preferably you want something which is aesthetically pleasing, which gratifies you as a joy.

1:05:54 to use and if you think about any of the Apple devices, then they created their own segments with the iPod and the iPad. And the iPhone. and other devices Because it was different from conventional competition. Even the Mac really didn't compete head to head.

1:06:11 with IBM. And anything where you can get a big price premium, for example, thirty percent plus. As Apple's been able to do on all of its devices, at least at the start. You have something which is a separate segment. Because it's not competing. against the low cost competitor.

1:06:28 And if you are going to be a low cost competitor, you want to be low cost in a segment. Which is different from The other segments because otherwise the existing large companies will eat you for breakfast. You are unconventional in many different respects. And I I'd like to ask you a personal question. You can feel free. to decline to answer this question, but I'm very curious

1:06:53 As to what your investment portfolio looks like, what principles govern its composition, because you had mentioned that you're quite happy to have Small amounts of Liquid assets, you know, cash available. So what does your portfolio

1:07:10 look like to the extent that you're comfortable discussing it? What are the principles that govern its composition? Well It's uh pretty much an illustration of the eighty twenty principle, but more so, I suppose my most valuable single I've got about forty assets. Companies in which I've invested. And the most valuable company

1:07:29 in the portfolio constitutes about the half the total value. And another one constitutes about a quarter of the total value. And so in a way that also simplifies my life because if I take care of those two particular assets and know that they're going to do well or think that they're going to do well. then I can be relatively relaxed. I'm quite happy to increase my share

1:07:53 in companies once I know Or think I know, and I'm not infallible, that they are going to be successful. So for example the company That is my largest single investment. I started off with a relatively modest investment that might have had about two percent of the company, and I'm now up to sixty percent of the company.

1:08:13 And basically what I'm doing is buying my shares from the existing shareholders. Whenever there is an opportunity to make an offer for shares, which is When I've got some money. So that's The principle I don't have any

1:08:26 Rules on Industry? I don't care what industry it's in. I don't really care very much what the management is like because if management doesn't perform, management will eventually get replaced. I don't really care. Where it is, as long as it's not

1:08:41 Well, as long as it's in Europe, because I think I understand European markets. I won't invest in the US because competition is too great, and also because I don't like the IRS. And also I don't know anything about American investment. So

1:08:56 It's basically a European portfolio. Industry irrelevant. And I don't care about concentration. In fact. Uh.

1:09:05 Rather light concentration. Let's go back to getting fired. Just just to warm up the conversation. So What happened after You were fired. And could you actually tell us more about

1:09:18 The day. that you were fired. What was the conversation What was that experience like and then what happened after you were fired? Well, it was a slow firing and in fact it was a very gentle firing. B C like McKinsey McKinsey invented the phrase up or out.

1:09:35 And uh McKinsey they would say that after three years You would be a fest and if you were really good at their business You would get promoted. And if you weren't, you'd be asked to leave. But they will do it in a very, very nice way. Because they were sort of dividing the sheep and the goats. The the sheep were the people who were good enough for McKinsey, and the goats were people who were good enough to be McKinsey clients. So that was their their philosophy. And they were terribly nice to the people. But in fact it was kind of like

1:10:05 It was a form of I don't know. It was a form of sort of psychological up one upmanship. Because the the people who left generally Won't as bright. As the other people. It wasn't that they could do things that the

1:10:18 McKinsey people couldn't do. It's that it was that they weren't as bright in terms of the strategy of the business and analysis and so on and so forth. So that worked extremely well. Well BCG did not have quite as rigid A formula as McKinsey But they did have this policy that if after three or four years you had not been made from a consultant into a manager, the consultant was a typical entry level for someone who'd been to business school.

1:10:45 You'd be pretty much An anomaly would be the way that they would probably put it. And therefore you might start thinking about what you wanted to do. And so I had a number of those conversations with people. But I said to him look You're dead wrong. This was me, this is me in my arrogant youth, and maybe I haven't got rid of

1:11:05 Yeah. I said, look. I'm no good at analysis, but I can charm the clients. I can talk to the clients. I'm quite articulate. And I can understand what the issues are.

1:11:18 the strategic issues and I can relate those to the client. So You know, I might not be very good at being A consultant. I might not even be very good at being a manager, but why don't you make me a vice president? Because I can actually do rather well. And they were chortle. They would say Richard, you know, we have to have a hierarchy. And I said well

1:11:37 You know, X, Adrian, for example. Adrian's now a vice president. We all know That he was a pretty good consultant. But he wasn't a terribly good manager because he w couldn't command the analysis and that's the heart of Yeah, what B C G does. So he had to rely on other people to do it. But now he's a vice president. He's selling a lot of business very successfully and helping clients. So I'm like Adrian, basically.

1:12:02 And they would again chortle a bit. But eventually A guy call very nice guy called Phil Hume, who's later started Computer Centre and made quite a l lot of money out of Computer Center. sat me down and said, Richard, you know You are running out of road a bit. And I said, Well look, I got a fantastic assessment from Roy Barbey the other day, you know, and he said how much the clients love he said, Yes, Rich, we know that, but basically you can't do what

1:12:28 is really our power alley. So You maybe you sort of think about looking around. And I came out from that meeting thinking. Is he right? Is he right about this? Or am I right? And I thought to myself, well

1:12:42 Maybe he's right. So I actually then Very quickly. Went to Other consulting firms to McKinsey and to Bain and Company to see whether that's May I say something, Richard, just for a second. That is for people who don't have any context on management consulting. When you say McKinsey, when you talk about Boston Consulting Group, when you talk about Bain and Company, Just as a point of reference for folks who may not be familiar with this industry, when I was studying at Princeton, there were exactly two industries that recruited heavily. You had the investment banks.

1:13:14 You'd Goldman Sachs and a handful like that. And then you had what were considered the elite of the elite of management consulting and that included McKinsey. BCG, in other words, Boston Consulting Group, Bain and Company, and so on. So these are the most prestigious names in the world of of management or strategy consulting. I just wanted to To add that.

1:13:35 As a bit of background. Yeah, I assume that everyone knows and they don't. I mean it's a very when I was doing it, it was a very obscure industry. And now it's less obscure, but it's still pretty obscure. Anyway I went to McKinsey, they said no You're a bright guy, but we don't think you should be doing this management consoling stuff because you want to make decisions rather than Advise.

1:13:58 And I said, Yep, that's probably true. Bon and Company I'll come back to in a second. I then said, Well maybe I should be a headhunter and I was actually approached by firm headhunters Some of whom knew me personally. And so I went off to see Egon Zender in Zurich. with a view to becoming an Egon Zender was the leading at that time, probably still is the leading European headhunter.

1:14:21 Just a footnote there for people headhunting. means recruiting, right? At a very high level and taking very large amounts of money from the club. So anyway, I talked to the gun center and And he offered me a job on the spot and I very nearly accepted on the spot. But when I sort of examined my heart, I came back to the conclusion that I thought BCG was wrong. And uh

1:14:44 I might not suit B C, but I thought, you know, maybe I can get the job in another consulting firm. There happened to be another individual who had left the Boston Consulting Group and joined Bain and Company, a guy who rejoiced in the name of Floyd Bradley the Third. You might tell he was an American very, very nice guy. Quite a smart guy. Anyway, so he I arranged to have a drink with him and said I'm not too happy with B C G I don't think they're moving me on fast enough.

1:15:11 How about Do you think that they would be interested? Yes, they're always looking for people there that find it quite difficult to recruit people at this stage. And so I said, Fine, I'll go along and talk to them. So I went along and talked to the head of the London office and he said, We'll send you off So both. Now this was very interesting for me. It was my one chance, basically, to stay in the industry that I wanted to stay in. The only problem with Bain and Company was that it had a reputation for being an extremely hierarchical, strict Controlled.

1:15:43 Almost mystical. outfit where you had to do what you were told. Whereas B C actually was a pretty free willing entrepreneurial sort of firm, reflecting the difference in character between the guy who had started BCG, Bruce Henderson, and the guy who runs Bain and Company. I should say that he's dead now, so I can't be sued for

1:16:04 libel or slander or whatever it is, and neither can you. Although I have the utmost respect for Bill Berners, I'll come on and say it in a second. So they sent me off To Boston. So there I was. I s I had a Yeah, a four o'clock appointment was to see Bill Bain. In the afternoon, so I got off the plane Got a cab to the off Bost Boston office.

1:16:25 turned up at the desk and said, I'm here to see Mr Bain. At four o'clock. And the woman sort of Looked a bit confused. And basically What had happened was that the someone in the London office had not told the Boston people, although they'd given me a ticket to go and see him. Given me a an appointment time, apparently it had not somehow not got into the agenda of Mr. Baiden. So they said, Come back following morning. So I went back the following morning.

1:16:53 And There I was. You know, I went through the offices. They were the offices were quite remarkable. Beautiful offices, but The associates, the the consultants and the researchers were all hunched together. It was not quite a sweatshop. It was a very nice sweatshop, but you could see that they were either expanding very fast or very tight on the rental cost. And then I went into m

1:17:15 Bill Bones office and it was palatial. You know, it was stuffed full of basketball and baseball trophies and insignia and paraphernalia of all sorts. And he was sitting behind this large desk and got up very graciously to meet me and said, Do you want anything to drink? And I said, No, I don't want anything, thank you. And then he started talking to me. Well, it was very fortunate for me because I didn't find out until afterwards. But it turned out that Bill Bain was a historian. That was his undergraduate degree, and in fact he had Spend a year doing postgraduate research, which he eventually gave up because he thought it was terribly boring, and because he got offered a better job as the development director of Vanderbilt University. But during the course of that interview

1:18:00 Bill Baines said something and I thought, Well, I want to ask him a question, but he was in full flood, so I let him carry on talking until probably about twenty minutes afterwards and then I went back to it and said, You know, if I got it right Mr Biden. You said earlier. Such and such and such and such. And I want to ask you a question about that, blah, blah, blah.

1:18:20 And he said, You're incredibly unusual. And I said, What? And he said well. You're a very good listener, and not many people are good listeners. And I wasn't aware that I was a good listener, and maybe it was just I was so desperate to get a job that actually I was actually listening. But I was also very curious about the business because right at the start when I had

1:18:40 joined BCG, I thought, what a wonderful industry this is. It requires no working capital. And basically they charge huge fees. They don't pay people a hell of a lot of money. Eventually they give them bonuses, which is where the working capital comes from, the difference between the standard pay and the markup, which is some of which is eventually rebated to the professionals involved. And it's expanding very, very fast. And they've got this great model. called the growth share matrix because it's got market growth on one axis and it's got the relative market share

1:19:13 on the other. So they call it the gross share matrix, but it's more popularly known as the Boston Box. And it's this thing which has cash cows. Dogs, question marks and stars. The one thing I just wanted to say also as an observation of friends who have come out of McKinsey is that it seems that two by two matrices Are very popular.

1:19:33 For organizing thought. Yes. And in fact McKinsey went one better. They s they developed an imitation of the Boston box, which was a three by three matrix. But as always, economy is everything and it wasn't as good and it isn't as good at my I'm anyway. The end of the story is that Bill. was quite taken with me and I quite was quite surprised and he said, I want you to come and talk to Ralph Willard, one of the

1:19:58 Oh the Founders of uh Bain and Company. And Ralph was a very jolly chap and we got on very well and so on and so forth. So they they actually offered me a job. And Then I said to them, Well Ralph said, How much do you want to be paid?

1:20:13 And I said, Well I'm owning such and such a Boston Consulting Group, but obviously if I'm gonna take a step like this, I want a fifty percent increase. Fifty percent That's ridiculous. And I said, Well, you know. Maybe you can just make me an advance for for joining and not consolidate it into the salary. Yeah.

1:20:32 You know, at that stage I was feeling confident that they wanted me. So I sort of raise the stakes a little bit despite the fact that At the beginning of the day I was totally desperate. And if they'd offered me a job After an hour. I wouldn't have cared what they were gonna pay. But anyway. They did eventually pay me quite a large amount of money to join and

1:20:52 At the same time I then went back to B C G and said, You know, I think you're making a mistake. But if you want me to leave Yeah, I've got all this money which I'm due in a few months time as a bonus and rest and please can I have that? And to my surprise they said yes, okay.

1:21:07 I mean they were so desperate to get rid of me. That they agree. So I made quite a bit of money from BCG and from Boning Company So it was quite apart from the fact that the previous two or three years have been very, very miserable, I redoubled my efforts to succeed at B C G I worked eighty hours a week I got fat in the face from eating fast food at night.

1:21:28 I basically neglected my personal relationship. I stopped exercising. It was A complete Disaster and If I was to give advice to anybody who's in a similar situation or even a less desperate situation, I would say if you're not succeeding, In a job.

1:21:44 Give up. And go somewhere else where, you know, your talents can be better appreciated or your your talents are more suited to what that firm does. So I just Tim, I just could not admit failure. This was the thing, you know. I just

1:21:59 To me, personal success was absolutely essential to my happiness. And it affected my self image and all rest, and I could not believe. That these very intelligent people at BCG couldn't see The things that I could do.

1:22:14 And It would have been far better for me to say, Well, you know, they just have a different business model, analysis, quantitative Heavy duty stuff is their bag. And you know, it's not something I can do particularly well. And so please

1:22:27 Give up and stop and and you know, decide whether you want to be in the industry or decide If you do want to be in the industry, go to a competitor. So the long and short of that story is that it worked out extremely well in the end, but it was absolutely Balls aching, very unpleasant. I wanted my pound of flesh at the end of it of all the suffering that we've gone through. What did Bain and Company appreciate about you or utilize In you.

1:22:56 that was not utilized or appreciated at PC G Oh, it was it's very simple to answer that because I've always been interested in what I call the theology. Of

1:23:07 Business. And By that I mean the business model that a particular firm has. And BCG and Boning Company were very, very interesting to me, and this comes back to your first question about what am I good at doing. I actually

1:23:22 did analyse in my mind, not quantitatively, the business model that BCG had and the business model that Bone and Company had. And they used the same concepts. They were all all using both using the the Growth Share Matrix of Boston Box, et cetera, which incidentally Bill Bone had helped to originate. So it wasn't really plagiarism. And indeed BCG had put the stuff out there in the public domain. So it wasn't you know, they weren't doing anything underhand, but they were using all BCG's concepts. But the firms were completely different. And let me try and describe how they were very different.

1:23:56 D C as I said before. Was a very sort of decentralized Company. And the Vice Presidents who are in charge of particular clients.

1:24:07 were sort of almost autonomous profit centres. Bruce absolutely believed in the market. He was a red Capitalist.

1:24:17 You know, he really read in tooth and claw. He really believed in competition. And so on and so forth. So much so that that That he divided his firm uh at one stage, and this is quite interesting, this is before my time but he divided the firm into three different parts. And his view was that if one of those firms had developed a slightly different way of doing things

1:24:40 if or if they were successful for any particular reason, then the other firms could learn from that and the market would clear, as he was fond of saying. And what happened was that he put Bill Bain, whom he had hired from Vanderbilt University, where he was the development director and met Bill Bain because he was had the begging bowl out as an alumnus of of Vanderbilt. Bruce's and numbness. And he asked Bruce

1:25:06 Will you give money to the Vanderbilt University? And Bruce said, No, but come to Boston and we'll talk about giving you a job. So Yeah, that was kind of like the backstory from that point of view. But BCG was very, very decentralized and even each individual consultant Or all the professionals were actually profit centers. They were rewarded at the end of the year not on how well they'd done, not on their team performance, not on anything really. But their what he called their bill ability, which was the number of hours that they had actually billed.

1:25:41 And incidentally I was probably one of the most billable people because I I was willing to work very long hours. And because initially at least anyway people wanted me on their teams. And if they didn't want me. I could even sell my own work, so I had to be included in the people who were w on on that. But it was very, very decentralized. Bain and Company on the other hand

1:26:01 was a very, very Controlled. And I actually called it Stalinist later on organization. Well It radiated out from Bill. Bill did all the thinking initially.

1:26:15 And then the Trusted vice presidents, who included Mitt Romney, who was a great guy. Guy I've got tremendous admiration for. And four or five other vice presidents. And

1:26:28 The formula in Bone and Company was very Very Tight. And I'm forgiving. Which was that they generated all of their business.

1:26:37 From a relationship with the chief executive. Or the head of the company sometimes. President. or the chairman of the company, but usually the chief executive, or maybe they were president and chief executive. And they would not work For anybody who was not the top dog

1:26:54 in the organization. So they wouldn't work for, you know, the head of Europe or they wouldn't work for the head of manufacturing or marketing. Or any other function. But they had a spill which they gave to The Chief Executive of the Company, which was

1:27:10 Mr Chief Executive. We want you to be very successful. Because if you're very successful, we will be very successful. We've got this funny little stuff called strategy which really works and we can explain it to But basically you should think of it as a wonderful formula. kind of like a secret source for increasing the market value of your company, profits and the market value.

1:27:32 And If we do the work with your company, your share price will double within the first year or so. over the first two years anyway, and it will continue doubling every few years. Because we have got a way of making a firm much more valuable. And then we can describe that. But it relies upon

1:27:52 You Being willing. So Accept us as equal partners. And again this was very, very different from the whole of

1:28:01 The rest of the industry. Which was In a way. Salesmen for hire or cabs for hire. That you know, consultants would do anything as long as they got their daily rate. and so on and so forth. They didn't really care too much about which firm they were working for. They would work for competitors and so forth.

1:28:19 Bonan company said, We will only work for one company in in an industry or later they refined that to a competitive system, which was sort of slightly more sophisticated way. Of saying industry. And Therefore You know, we won't work for your competitors.

1:28:35 You won't hire our competitors. So therefore you'd be giving a monopoly on strategy consulting or any other form of consulting really to a Boning Company if you decided to hire them. And the way incredibly smart Yeah. It's very smart. And and the way in which they got clients, Tim, was that they w they had no website. But that wasn't unusual at the time. They had no business cards. So I had no marketing

1:29:01 Sha. And the only way and they were very secretive. The only way in which they got business was by personal recommendation of one chief executive to another chief executive. And then within that firm, once the client had been signed on you know, Guinness or Dunn and Brad Street or Baxter Tragonal or whoever it was.

1:29:23 Za would then have Almost a military Operation. where within each client organization

1:29:32 Someone from Boning Company would be assigned to work alongside or with Nominally four. you know, the head of manufacturing or the head of a particular product area or however the firm organized itself.

1:29:46 And they would Make sure. That they understood what that person was thinking. They would help them by gathering this very valuable information which Bain and the company did very, very well about competitors and customers.

1:30:00 And costs of the competitors. And they would you know develop a relationship. I I couldn't believe it when I was told Bye. Take the head of manufacturing out to dinner.

1:30:13 And discuss things with I thought Yeah, I said the last thing I want to do is have dinner with the head of manufacturing who's a very boring man. And uh it was all part of the job and it was incredibly effective. Because You know, whereas at B C G they they would go away for six months and they'd come back and give a presentation which was dazzling. But Then

1:30:34 People in the audience, the the managers might were free to disagree with what was recommended and and cast often did cast doubt on the credibility. of BCG as a result of that, rightly or wrongly, usually wrongly. In Bonin Company, everything had to be pre-wired. So all the work was specified from the top down. But it was validated from the bottom up.

1:30:56 So that once you've done a piece of work, you then had to show it to the relatively low level manager and make sure that they agreed with it. And if they disagreed. They could only disagree about data. They couldn't agree disagree about concepts because we were the kings of concepts. We knew relative market share was important and we could explain why. We weren't unreasonable. But

1:31:17 Nevertheless. When it eventually got to the chief executive and then later to the board It had all been pre wired, which meant that Everyone had agreed to everything. And therefore there was no disagreement.

1:31:31 And the only discussion which there'd be at the end of the presentation was about what Bain always used to call next steps. Well Let me tell you what next steps were. Next steps were, this is how we're going to make our next million dollars by consulting to you on this issue. But of course it was justified because Baining Company was a fantastic machine for in getting consensus in organizations and getting consensus about some very radical Strategies which might include getting out of half the businesses that they're in selling them Or in some way hiving them off.

1:32:04 Or closing them down if they were cash negative and no one would buy them. and then making acquisitions to strengthen existing businesses or even to go into new areas where Baileen Company would do all the investigation because particularly if it was outside the industry that the company knew about, of course they hadn't they had no idea. So it was a wonderful machine. for getting growth from existing clients. And this was what Bill Bone always used to say, I have no idea why everyone's interested in new clients. We don't need new clients. We should have built in growth from existing clients if we're doing our job correctly, if their profits are going up and the market value is going up. And of course they didn't say no to new clients, and they use the existing clients who are satisfied, particularly those who sat as non executive directors, outside directors on the boards of other companies, to say, you know

1:32:55 I'd like to show you some a a sample of the work which Bowen and Company has done in our industry. And I participate in one of those events. In New York. Where We were working for an information company and we went to

1:33:10 Present to a board of that information company, but one of the people on that board was the chief executive of A scientific company And subsequently they hired Boning company largely

1:33:24 Because I think of the recommendation of the chief executive and to a small degree the quality of the dazzling quality of the presentation I made. Well As a result of that Boning company made me

1:33:37 A partner, nominally a partner, a vice president. Whereas I went in as a consultant. And that would normally take several years. Well that happened after eighteen months. And It was a very interesting conversation with Bill Bain when he told me that I was going to be a partner of a firm. And what he said to me was Richard You know, I'm gonna say something which might surprise you. You know, we've had our eye on you.

1:34:00 Ever since you've come and talked to me, blah, blah, blah. And I want you to be one of my partners. And I thought, you know, this is ridiculous. I Yeah, I didn't expect this. And he said, but There is something which we're gonna do, and I don't think any other firm in the world has ever done this. Not to my knowledge. Maybe you can correct me. But What they said was We are going to promote you, but in only in nine months time.

1:34:24 And It's a done deal. You know, there's no question that you'll be one of my partners. And I can even give you something to sign and sign something myself.

1:34:33 But You know, if we made you a partner now, people might wonder what on earth we were doing. In that nine months, you've got to behave as though you're already a partner, without the authority of being a partner. But just through force of personality and through knowing that you are reflecting the bone way of doing things, you will when we actually make the announcement that you are gonna be a partner of the firm, everyone will say, Well, of course.

1:34:58 Of course. Rather than say. How come that cautious got promoted? That's unbelievable. So Bill was such a clever man at controlling his organization. And he didn't work very hard.

1:35:12 But he he didn't work very long anyway, but he gave a great deal of thought to the procedures. and to the management of his own company to make sure that everything that happened in Bain and Company had been initiated in one way or another by Bill Bain and make sure that that was the thing which was going to make the most money for

1:35:33 The Obama And also I'm making it sound as though it's just incidental thing, but it was very important. It's the whole foundation of it for the client organisation. It was just a fantastically well run organization. And it grew at forty percent a year for twenty or thirty years, whereas BCG has struggled.

1:35:52 to grow at twenty percent. fell on hard times, I think, in the late nineteen eighties because they did a leverage buyout, but that's another story. I'm not going to say any more about Boning Company. Well, I'm not gonna let you off the hook that easily. You explained rather than

1:36:10 What Bill Bain asked of you to behave like a partner, even though you won't have the official title and we can't make the announcement until nine months hence. In practice. What did that look like? What changed.

1:36:23 in your behavior or in what you did. Oh, it totally changed me. It totally changed me. For one thing, it made me loyal. And I was always someone who was on the verge of committing you know self destruction, self destructing because

1:36:38 Because I'm a natural rebel. I'm a non nonconformist. I'm very opinionated and almost unemployable. And that was the conclusion that everyone eventually came to, but you know, it In B C G I was well known for going off script. And I remember one of my appraisals was

1:36:57 Most of the time Richard He's like a volcano, this guy wrote, in a formal written assessment and I've I've still got the assessment. That's lovely. It said he's like a volcano, most of the time he's sort of, you know working away and there are no rumblings and it's all very smooth. But occasionally he It runs.

1:37:19 Like a Vulgar. And he says something to the client which is not what we want the client to hear. And he basically goes off at a tangent or he you know, he has his own view about things. So when I'm with Richard And talking to the chief executive of the new, you know, big information company in Holland or whatever. I am very nervous. I never know what Richard's gonna say. In Bone and Company.

1:37:45 I'd have been fired if I'd if I'd have said my Vice President said you know, something. And I said I agree with ninety nine point nine percent of that, but here's a slightly different view on the naught point one percent. I'd have been out the door straight away. So it was it was a complete contrast. So the first difference it made was that I was I felt very loyal to Bill personally and to the organization, which I'd never really done before. I didn't do loyalty. I didn't really do teamwork very well. So that was the first difference it made. The second difference it made was that

1:38:19 I decided that I would become much more Direct with the people who were working with me if we're same level If they were below me and the organization, or even sometimes if they're slightly above me. But I did it very nicely. And so if I thought they were going in the wrong direction, I would say, Well, you know, I've been thinking about this Fred. And

1:38:41 I think there's a better way of doing it than this. Instead of interviewing the customers in this segment, we should interview them in that segment, we should ask these questions rather than those questions. Et cetera, et cetera. So it made me much more It paradoxically, Tim, it made me more diplomatic, but it also made me more assertive. And so It was great. I mean I actually thought

1:39:03 Gosh, they're gonna make me a partner and I'm gonna be a very successful partner and that's fantastic. But it made me feel But a little cautious because although Bill Bonus signed his bit of paper and all the rest of it, I knew that That meant nothing if he if he wanted to change his mind. So I thought well the prize is well within grasp. But I feel confident now.

1:39:23 It gave me confidence. So I was able to do Yeah, it's much more effective as a result of that. In fact I was probably more effective when I wasn't a partner than I w when I was because I was I wanted it so much. But at the same time I felt that in some ways, although nobody knew that I had authority, in reality I did. And that was a tremendous thing. And I I don't understand why firms don't do this more broadly. It's a fantastic way. of encouraging personal development and also of keeping people who might otherwise decide to leave before they're given the nod that actually

1:39:57 They are really appreciated and they are gonna get promoted. I was going to ask you more about L E K, which was the consultancy you started, which experienced incredible growth, and we may get to that, but I want to Skip ahead. A little bit.

1:40:13 in a foreshadowing fashion by mentioning the eighty twenty principle, which we'll come back to. In an interview. That I have in front of me a separate interview. The question is, what book has had the single biggest impact on your career? And you answer my own book, The Eighty Twenty Principle, because it sold more than a million copies and it's been translated into more than thirty five languages. And it goes on and on uh about that, which we're going to return to. And then you say at the end of the answer.

1:40:36 that many of your books and much of your investing are related to ideas on strategy consulting. And you learn those firsthand, not from books, but that you can recommend a book called Perspectives on Strategy, edited by Carl Stern and George Stock. Can you speak to what people might learn? in that book and why you have recommended it. It's a collection of the ear perspectives of the Boston Consulting Group. And a perspective was what um Evangelical group would call a tract, I suppose.

1:41:11 It would be something like five hundred words, maybe a thousand words. Pretty short. It would be snarly presented in the livery of B C, which was a very Quite a nice Dark green colour.

1:41:23 Yeah. And it would be mailed to the senior directors of companies. in America and Britain and then and wherever BCG had offices And The very valuable thing about the book is that a lot of the stuff is by Bruce Henderson himself.

1:41:40 But there's also more modern stuff. And it outlines the theory that BCG had in the early days, which I think is still entirely valid. Of Competition.

1:41:52 The experience. The Boston. box, the Grow Share Matrix, et cetera. And it's just a very, very good primer. And

1:42:02 There are many, many books on business strategy, including one which I've written. But I think this is a very Very good thing. And it's very easy to read because it was deliberately designed. To do that. Bruce laid out the principles for the perspectives very clearly, which was

1:42:19 Anything that the chief executive would be likely to agree with was not argued. I mean it was stated. And anything that the chief executive would be likely to disagree with, which was quite a lot, because BCG was on the mission of saying companies should reduce their costs and reduce their prices steadily. Whereas the conventional wisdom in business at that time was if you get a higher price, stick with it. Don't worry too much about the costs. And Bruce had a whole theology around that. And it's great because it's a collection of those different perspectives and it's over several years, so you get the more modern stuff as well. I think it was published in two thousand or something like that.

1:42:58 So it is difficult to get good books on strategy. There's a book. Fye. Someone called Richard Oh God I can't remember his name called Good strategy, bad strategy. He'll come back to me. But anyway, you type it into Amazon if you want. Good strategy, bad strategy. That's actually a very good strategy book. Very not very nice short.

1:43:16 Strategy book. And there's my Financial Times guide to Strategy. Out of print at the moment that I'm producing the fifth edition as we speak at the same time. In the same Period of time. Good strategy, bad strategy by Richard Rumelt. Does that sound correct? God, isn't the web amazing? Aren't you amazing? It'd be far more impressive if I was actually pressing the keys and came up with that myself, but I don't do that. Well, I'll give away one of my tricks, and that is if I'm recording

1:43:47 an interview like this, I don't use my keyboard. I have my phone on silent so that I can tap the screen without making noise to find things like that. Very clever. Well you do that you can have a funky who did that for you, but it's very impressive that you do it yourself. That's true. Well it's just for on the spot tap dancing like that. Earlier in the conversation I made a promise to the listeners and that was In the form of alluding to knowledge versus principles, which I think is perhaps a useful way to segue to the eighty twenty principle. And

1:44:21 From mergers and inquisitions dot com, which is a great website. The distinction that I've read you drawing is the following. What I learned from consulting is exactly what I've been teaching. Knowledge is great, but principles are better. Principles are ideas that enable you to sort the knowledge, help you to analyze it and get to the essence of the matter as as simply and quickly. Would you like to add anything to why principles are important and the second part of that is how did the eighty twenty principle Come to be. as a book because it it was a very much and sort of underground became an underground bestseller. So

1:44:53 principles, anything more that you would like to add, and then where did this book come from? No, I think you put it very well. I just think There are certain meta principles, and I think there were probably only about half a dozen of them. for the benefit of myself and the people that I work with and Invest with invest in, rather. It's basically the eighty twenty principle and the star principle.

1:45:14 So if you know what those are, then you can look at the business in a way that most people don't look at the business. Very quickly and see whether there's potential for improvement. And we'll talk about that in in regard to the A to twenty principle in a second, no doubt. But How did the book come about? Well

1:45:32 Again that's quite interesting. Which is uh I wrote something called the A to Z of management. Because I had an editor

1:45:43 who was currently working at Pearson and later left to start his own firm. With another. Editor there. And the editor was called Mark Allen, the other editor was called Richard Burton. Very, very skilled guys, very nice guys. And they We're looking

1:46:00 Two Sort of. Try and get Something by me published. And Mark Allen said to me. You've written this thing called the A to Z of Management, which is basically a paragraph about various different

1:46:14 Concepts. And it covered all the principles I could think of. It also covered Important. Theorists in business. And it covered

1:46:24 Anything which was of interest. in business. And also covered jargon phrases like, you know, what did what did people mean by work in progress and s stuff like that. Anyway. I'd written half a page On the eighty twenty principle.

1:46:39 And I went to see Mark Allen one day in his offices in Covent Garden and He said to me, Richard, I've got a book for you to write. I said, Yeah. And he said, What about writing a book about the eighty twenty principle?

1:46:52 'Cause you've got this half page on it here, and it seems to be quite an important thing. You say it's very important. And I can understand it's very important. So why don't you write a book on that? I said, Mar I couldn't possibly. I can possibly write a book about the AD twenty principle. I've said it all. In a paragraph.

1:47:10 And I could maybe pad it out. To A page. If you really put a gun to my head, I could write a chapter.

1:47:18 But I'm not gonna write a whole bloody book about this because there isn't anything more to say. And he said, Well, I'm not so sure about that. Then he decided that they he would go off and start this other publishing company. So he wasn't interested in me doing it for them and they had not got themselves organised. So I went to see A guy called Nicholas Breary, who was the publisher of the eponymous firm Nicholas Brierly. And

1:47:46 Very, very, very nice man, but incredibly smart guy. And I'd written a book for him called Managing Without Management, which was a title which he suggested was very clever because it basically said managing and particularly mineral managing was a complete waste of of time and so you could manage without it, managing without management. And the book. wasn't a huge success, but it sold, I don't know, twenty thousand copies, which was good enough for uh Nicholas Brayley at that time. And I went to see him

1:48:15 about another book shortly after I'd had the conversation with Mark Allen and he said Do you have another book in mind? I said, Well, not really. But this this sort of idea that someone's given me And you know, they've got first dibs on the publishing it if I could ever write a book about it, but I don't think I could write a book about it. And then I described him what the A twenty principle was, and honestly I didn't take more than about sixty seconds, because I there wasn't much to say as far as I was concerned. And he said the hairs on the back of my head are rising. And I said

1:48:46 What do you mean? I thought I thought he lost his plot or something like that. And he said, That can be a big successful book And I said, No. I mean Yeah. But How do I pad it out to a

1:49:00 books length. He said, Go and do some research. You know, you've mentioned Vilfredo Pareto, you know, read the book again, read all the other stuff, read all the stuff on the web, you know, and the truth was that there was a hell of a lot of stuff on the internet and this was back in nineteen ninety six, book was eventually published in nineteen ninety seven. You know, this was a Golden the beginning of the golden period of the internet. And I hired a researcher and said find out everything that's going on on the Internet only.

1:49:26 eighty twenty principle, at that stage I I didn't know how to use the internet. So she came back and gave me this whole wad whole file and I said Diane. Is that all about the eighty twenties principle? And she said yes. And I said, Well, maybe I could write a book. So uh anyway, I went through it all. And the more I went into it, the deeper it actually and the more interesting it was.

1:49:50 And so that's how I ended up writing books. So I went back to my original guy, Mark Allen, said, Do you want to publish this book? He said, No, we can't. We've left Pearson at the time. And we haven't started our firm yet. So I went back to Nicholas Breerly and he was very pleased. And that You know, the first draft I produced, he said Very politely and said, I think you go need to go and do some more research. And it was pretty hopeless, actually. But the second draft I took back and he more or less published

1:50:19 it as it was, uh because by that stage I'd I've worked it through. And it was a it was a great thinking exercise for me and it The whole point About making a book out of it. Was uh I extended the reach of the principle.

1:50:33 The basic eighty two hundred principles I'm sure n nearly all your listeners know is that If you look at any particular relationship between sales and another variable or you look at time and another variable you might be interested in. Yeah.

1:50:50 It's usually true. That there are very few events or Taisa. Which account for a large majority of the total.

1:51:00 And so if you look at the profits of any company By customer. Usually there are very small number of customers, a very small proportion of the total who account for eighty percent of the sales and maybe more than a hundred percent of the profits of a company. And likewise, if you do the same thing,

1:51:20 for products you're likely to find the same thing. This was a well known economic concept. Anyone had been to business school and heard it was generally called the Pareto rule at that time. But I wanted to call it the eighty twenty principle because it was more descriptive. The rule. To me sounded too deterministic. Principle sounded to me exactly right. So I actually invented I think the eighty twenty principle. I don't think anyone ever called it that beforehand. They would call it the eighty twenty rule or the Pareto rule.

1:51:50 So The idea seemed to me to be applicable well beyond the sphere that had been used before, which was for Really. Analyzing sales and profits.

1:52:02 And I said, Well why can't we use the eighty twenty principle in other areas, in people's personal rights, for example? And so I I became quite fascinated by the connection between time And results. And then

1:52:18 It was a short hop from that to extend that. So basically I would say to people, Well The hypothesis And the whole thing about the eighty twenty principle is not that it's a rule, but it's uh an observation. So you come up with a hypothesis and then you test whether it's true with data if you possibly can, but with You know, saying if you think it really is true.

1:52:39 if it's s something much more subjective and squishy. So you actually Could then say well It's probably true. It may be true that twenty percent of your time generates eighty percent of your useful output. So tell me what the most valuable things are that you do.

1:52:57 And I would say that to people at work and they would have no difficulty at all in saying, Well, it was inventing this new product or it was selling a large job to this particular customer. Or it was writing some copy, which is, you know, very, very effective, or it was making a website, or whatever it was. And I would say to them, Well You know, you've got to do more of that and less of the other stuff.

1:53:19 And I'd also say to people that if you manage to do something which is hugely more valuable than the other stuff, and you do that in half a day, take the rest of the day off. And if you do that for two days, take the rest of the week off. If you want to. You know, if you want to carry on working and do even more. That's right. But As Parkinson said, work expands to fill the time available spending expands to fill the budget which you've got to spend it, whether it's inside a firm or it's your own money. I was quite interested, incidentally

1:53:48 In hearing an observation. Which one of your other interviewees Fiddle. About the Wall Street of the uh well, I don't know, was it nineteen eighties or whatever.

1:53:59 And Basically people got very, very used to the money which they'd earned. They were hugely overpaid, but nevertheless They found ways to use that. And that was a big trap for them, not for him, but for for the others. Because what they did was that they got locked into working for Salmon Brothers or Goldman Sachs or whatever. And after a time they couldn't really leave. Because their wives or their

1:54:24 Their own personal tastes had developed to such an extent, or their husbands they needed the money. You know, they had to have half a million dollars a year. They couldn't live on less. So I was saying to people, Well Let's extend this. to your personal life as well. So if time is important at work, then maybe time is important elsewhere, and maybe you get most of your happiness from a relatively small proportion of your time. What are the periods of time where you actually feel

1:54:53 that you are being fulfilled, but you feel you don't notice time escaping when you feel So this is great. And you wake up and you find that, you know, the night's gone. It might be playing poker, it might be Talking to friends. It might be reading something that's very exciting, might be going to see a movie or whatever. But one of the times that you are happiest

1:55:17 And then just try and multiply those times. And then I said, Well, you could apply that to friends. Let's take the eighty twenty hypothesis that you get eighty percent of your relationship satisfaction from twenty percent of people. I mean it's a bit gross in a way, but It's very true. I found when talking to people that very often they spent time with people that they didn't really like very much. I mean obviously Sometimes it was their boss, so

1:55:43 You know, that was a disaster. And they Might be well better get a different boss or different firm. But Sometimes it was as simple as things like, Well, but your spouse actually liked these people, but you didn't. So you ended up spending a lot of time with neighbours or with other People or members of his or her family. That you didn't really want to spend.

1:56:02 And What you really wanted to spend your time on was something different. And so I said to people, Well You know, you might want to be a bit more ruthless about that. And so There's a chapter on happiness.

1:56:15 in the book, which I was re reading recently. And I think it's actually rather good. I mean it's taking the sort of rather Arcane dusty economic principle. And then seeing whether it could apply to other areas of life. And I invented the concept of happiness islands. Well happiness island is part of your life, which is sort of not the main part of the life, but when you get a huge amount of satisfaction from it. And I said, Well live on those happiness islands and try if possible to make them happiness continents. So if there's a particular type of work which you like doing at work, then try and get yourself in a position where you're spending all your time doing that sort of work. And so on and so forth. And I see it in many ways.

1:56:54 As a kind of amateur. version of the flow. I did. Which is that you know that these times According to the guy with the unpronounceable name.

1:57:07 Mikael check set me eye, something like that. Yeah. He's written a couple of books about this. It all boils down. I mean, I think that I say eighty twenty principle could be written on one page. I think that could all be written on one page, but but it's a fantastic idea. It's a slightly more sophisticated way of saying what what I was trying to say. And there's stuff on there in money and and all the rest of it. So It was a reinterpretation. of the principle to apply it to

1:57:33 Not just to business. But to people's personal minds and to try and say a few things which were really useful. And which people could take away. Which is what you do, isn't it? It's what I try to do. It's what I certainly try to do. And For all the reasons you just mentioned and many more, this is why the eighty

1:57:50 twenty principle, your book. Faces. Cover out on My bookshelf and has for a very, very long time as a constant reminder. Could you share just as examples, because it may help people listening, some examples of your own happiness islands or achievement islands.

1:58:08 Yes, I can do that. The things that I really like doing are writing books. And making money. And making money through investments, not through m not through gambling or anything like that. And talking to people. I really used to like Going to dinner parties in the days when we had dinner parties. I really like to

1:58:31 go for long walks with people that not many people, but a few people that I know We will discover something that we didn't know we knew beforehand. Those are the things that really are interesting Doing something like this podcast is a is a flow activity as far as I'm concerned, an eighty twenty activity. So it's that sort of stuff. It's books. It's writing books, it's also reading books.

1:58:54 And it's Talking to people. And it's also making money through investments. Do you have any regular or scheduled

1:59:03 Check-ins or calendared reviews where you assess your life to ensure that you're allocating your time and energy to match what you know to be happiness islands or achievement islands. In other words, how do you use If you do in any systematic way. The eighty twenty principle.

1:59:23 in your life. No, is the short answer, but let me qualify that a little bit. I do something which is very unsophisticated. Other people have therapists And other people have personal trainers. And other people have, you know, quite elaborate systems for

1:59:40 for keeping track of their objectives or their concerns, their worries and and so on and so forth. I have bike rides. Every day I go for a two hour bike ride in the countryside. It is every day unless I'm away or unless I'm in Cape Town. I've got a home in Cape Town and it's too dangerous to ride a bicycle. There.

2:00:01 Everywhere else I will ride a bicycle. And I take pretty much the same route every day, very unadventurous. I've got two alternative routes in in Portugal, for example. And During those bike rides Something will come up sometimes. Not very often.

2:00:18 But Something will always come up. At the very least I will work out what I'm gonna do that day because that's one output from a bike ride and it just happens automatically. I don't even have to think about it. When do you do the bike rides? answer emails, I don't look at my phone. I do have a cup of tea. And sometimes I take the dog for a walk, but apart from that, it's a bike ride.

2:00:41 It's wonderful. I mean, you know, I couldn't do without it. I mean when I'm away And I can't Ride a bicycle. I'm talking to you from Gibraltar, for example, and I do spend a fair bit of time In Gibraltar where I have an apartment. But

2:00:55 Yeah. It's also too dangerous to ride because the the the streets are too narrow and there I I have to substitute going for a walk. or going to the gym. But basically a form of exercise which is mindless, which is, you know, not too difficult. But Enjoyable.

2:01:10 Where I can just relax and let my unconscious mind do whatever it does. That's how I do those sort of things. And occasionally I go and sit on my fish pond. With a notebook. And so it's time to think about some reflections. I make a point of only doing that.

2:01:26 When I'm in a good mood. I never do it when I'm actually feeling slightly down. I'm usually in a good mood. Yeah. It's something to do when you're being expensive rather than you're doubting yourself.

2:01:37 And I keep those those notebooks and Very occasionally also I wake up in the middle of the night And I have thought of something that I had not thought of before.

2:01:49 And then I have a notebook by the bed. If it's not by the bed, it's in my office, which is very close to my bedroom. And so I will make a cup of tea, put the light on. Write my thoughts. Put the book down, put the lines out. Go to sleep.

2:02:03 And Those thoughts are usually quite seminal. They're very, very helpful. But it all happens sort of automatically. I don't have any systems or anything like that. Do you? Well, I would say I have acute hypergraphia and take copious notes, most of which end up never being read and certainly most of which end up being completely unimportant, but

2:02:27 Amongst all the garbage, there are occasionally useful things. I find journaling very helpful for me, uh different forms. It's the writing which is important, isn't it? It's the writing. The writing somehow engroins it on your mind. Do you find that that that it's not a as you say, one may never review the notes. I do actually review my notebooks when I'm on a plane and got nothing better to do and no book to read. But it isn't that. It's actually The process of I think the process of writing journaling is very, very, very useful. But I don't do it every day and I don't do it systematically. I just do it when I feel the need to do it.

2:03:06 I I would say I have two different types of journaling and then I'd like to ask you about your time at the pond in a moment and just what that actually looks like and maybe some examples from what you've written down. I would say I have two types of journaling. The first is almost entirely like emptying the garbage bin on a Mac. to purge the system. It is simply to trap my monkey mind and all of the bullets ricocheting around inside my mind on paper so that I can get on with my day in a better fashion. The second type is more deliberate and objective driven where I might sit down.

2:03:44 And Very explicitly do an eighty twenty analysis of the types that you've been describing, looking at how my time is being used, look at my calendar to see if if actually matches what I say is important to me, et cetera. So there are I say there's two Main categories. Morning pages.

2:04:03 from uh Julia Cameron's template would be in the former as as an example, but When you go to the pond and you sit down and you're in an expansive mood and you journal What does that look like? Is it stream of consciousness? Are there certain prompts that you might use? Could you give us any real world examples of what has come from those types of sessions? Yes. I mean what I do is I write reflections and I put the date and then I put numbers and then I just start writing.

2:04:31 And One of the things that comes out from that which came out from that recently was thinking about my investments and S I was struck by the fact that I was average So sometimes average timing each investment was would not be fair.

2:04:47 But I was spending a lot of time on stuff that actually wasn't At all. Important. And I was doing it partly through interest, partly because I perhaps felt some residual sense of obligation to the people who were managing the firm and other shareholders. So You know, one of the things which I decided was I was not going to

2:05:07 Worry about Any companies which were outside the first Yeah, half dozen in terms of the value of those companies. Unless the value was increasing very fast or it had the potential to increase very fast. And the other thing which I realised because I'm always almost completely invested, was that that was not actually a terribly sensible thing to do. And the next time I have a major realization

2:05:30 I should be prepared. And I should have two or three companies which are new companies. In other words, investments I have not yet made. Where they do have the potential to be star businesses or they already are star businesses, where I like the people involved, and that's a sinequa known for me that That I don't invest in things unless I actually like the people. And where

2:05:54 a relatively small amount of money might conceivably be another bet fet or whatever. So it's quite easy for me because I've got a couple of companies that are increasing in value quite fast and I'm reasonably confident that they will continue to do so the next to be sort of, you know, rather complacent about that. But in order to maintain the sort of rate of return that I've had historically and that I want I probably need to find a new

2:06:19 bet fare or two or three new bet fairs over the next five years. And I should give a bit more attention to trawling for that and talking to my contacts. that might conceivably know of such companies. And actually, you know, I do get some leads and don't always follow them up very well. So yes. So it can be useful from that point of view. And the other thing which I've realised

2:06:42 As a result of journaling. in the last few months is that I am too socially isolated. I mean I've got some very good friends I don't see them as often as I as I would like. And because I have such a really nice life. Living in very pretty places.

2:06:59 and living in sunny places generally, which is very important for me to be outdoors. So that I can play tennis or ride the bicycle or sit on the fish pond or whatever. I ought to pay more attention. to social interaction. and to spend more time with the people that I had spent

2:07:16 Enjoy spending time, but they're not Yeah, they're not close to where I am. So those are sort of conclusions which have come up in the last six months. And then there are the more philosophical conclusions which you sometimes come to. Which sometimes you write down. For example One of the things which I've learnt in the last few years is

2:07:36 I have been. Far too much of what I call a controller and far too little of what I call an adventurer. And My life has always run upon lines of saying, I must do this, I must achieve this, I must make this sort of amount of money, I must have this type of job, I must do this kind of thing, I must start a company, and so on and so forth.

2:07:59 But Recently I have realized that the people who have most fun in life are more the adventurer type than the controllers. In fact To come back to something that I hope we're gonna spend a little bit of time on later on, which is my new book

2:08:13 unreasonable success and how to achieve it. There are twenty people who changed the world, in my opinion, in that book. And Mm. It's not in the book at all, but it's something which I did after the event. I divided those

2:08:28 very successful people into controllers And adventurers. And I was quite surprised to find the Fourteen of them were actually adventurers in one form or another. Yeah. And

2:08:39 Only six of them were controllers. There were some who were both, but you know, that was the count taking halves into account. And for example, one of the people who was a controller In the book. was sort of my evil.

2:08:54 evil successful person. Which was Vladimir Lenin. And you know, his life was pretty unpleasant because he was always trying to control other people and it was you know very uphill struggle. And he achieved a great deal in his terms. I mean not things that I would approve of, but he was the founder of practical communism and he basically made communism a success in very large parts of the world a success in the sense that they remained communist. And they did develop the countries were perhaps not as fast as they would have developed under a free market system. But you know From that point of view, he was very, very successful, but he didn't have much of a great time. Whereas some of the people who were much more free willing

2:09:36 For example, the free wheeling. Bob Dylan or even also von Bismarck, they had much more fun because they Although they were determined to achieve things, they relied upon events flowing their way and they just bided their time until the right moment came along and then they Then they worked. Then they basically made a huge effort.

2:09:58 to control or not not to control events, but to actually steer them. I one of the great quotes which I like is from Bismarck, who said man cannot control the flow of events, all he can do is ride with them and steer. So I you know, y sometimes you get those sort of kind of philosophical reflections. Coming up. More often though, probably on a bike ride, and then I might write it down afterwards.

2:10:22 But I actually find it quite difficult to be As radical as that. Just sitting down and writing. I tend to write You know, things which are They're much

2:10:33 less important in a way, they're less distant. Let's uh this was on my My next note. to segue into that is the new books. Let's let's talk about the The Genesis story.

2:10:46 And uh This is always interesting to me as someone who occasionally And that is the sort of embarrassment of riches that you no doubt have in terms of possible subjects you could explore. So

2:10:59 Unreasonable success and how to achieve it. You've written many books. Why This book. I've always been fascinated by success and I've always been fascinated by the discrepancy really. Between as I see it The arbitrary nature of success in many ways, which is that the people who are successful are not necessarily the people who are most intelligent or most expected to succeed or

2:11:23 Or who Deserve it. Many of the twenty people that I highlight in the book weren't even competent. Winston Churchill was prime example of someone who was complete failure through most of his career.

2:11:35 got one thing right, which was that Hitler was a threat to the world and that he knew how to deal with Hitler. But basically the man was a disaster. And he Thought that oratory would propel him to become Prime Minister, but You know, as Herber Asquith said. It does not matter if you speak with the tongues of men and angels, if nobody trusts you. It was directed to

2:11:57 Exactly. So I've always been fascinated by success, but the actual Genesis of the book as you said, came on a a train journey. I was travelling from Paris with a friend of mine to Lyon. And

2:12:11 I always take a book with me and I didn't have a book a new book that I wanted to read so I took an old book. Which was Malcolm Gladwell's outliers. And you probably remember that in Outliers The whole thesis. is that success derives from deep experience and long exposure to doing something in a very narrow field.

2:12:32 And he came up with the idea of the ten thousand hours, which is now a trope something which Everyone talks about it. And He gave a couple of examples very early on in the book which resonate very nicely, which is the Beetles, for example, in nineteen sixty they were just rather Poor.

2:12:49 High street band. And then something happened to them, which was that they went off to the strip clubs of Hamburg, and they had to play Seven days a week, eight hours a day. And as John Lennon is quoted in the book as saying, we couldn't help improve with all of that extra experience.

2:13:07 And then he quotes the example of Bill Gates But because he went to a private school which unlike the vast majority of schools at the time in America or anywhere else had got computers You know, he was able to acquire expertise in coding and how to use computers and that was his sort of you know, he got his ten thousand hours in very very quickly. So the problem with that thesis is that it's not universally true. It certainly applies to Bill Gates, it certainly applies

2:13:39 To the bees, wasn't it? Applies to s some other people as well. But Of the people that I looked at. That couldn't explain it. And what I did was I took twenty people whose life stories I knew well. Some in some cases I knew them personally, such as Bruce Henderson and Bill Bain, whom I've talked about before, who were very important to me and hugely underrated in terms of the impact which they've had. on American and and world business in my in my opinion.

2:14:04 Yeah. I took those people and then I said Would it be possible? To do what Malcolm Gladwell set out to do and in my opinion did not succeed in doing. Would it be possible to look at the causes of success? for those people and identify things which were common to all twenty people

2:14:23 Which they all had or did It might be an experience that they had, or it might be an attitude which they had, or it might be a way that they exploited particular opportunities. Would it be possible to look at that and say that there are things which are so universally present that if you want to be what I call unreasonably successful, which is more than you deserve, if you like, that are terrifically successful in changing the world the way you want to work change it, it it might be a small corner of the world or it might be a big corner of the world. Would it be possible

2:14:54 To isolate the reasons for that. And I looked at fifty possible reasons. For example, I looked at would you need to be a high risk taker? And the answer was of those twenty people, only nine of them actually took very high risk of the twenty people in my book, only nine of them actually took very high risk. So that went away. And then I narrowed it down to nine reasons. Which were universally present in all of the cases, and I did not throw people out if they didn't meet the nine requirements. I was quite rigorous with myself. I said no. And the people that I the players that I took were besides Bill Byrne and Bruce Henderson, there was Jeff Bezos, Otto Van Bismarck, Winston Churchill, Mary Currie Leonardo, Leonardo da Vinci.

2:15:36 Walt Disney, Bob Dylan. Albert Einstein, Victor Frankel, the guy who was shoved into a concentration camp by Hitler but came up with a third wave of psychology after Freud and Adler, and was probably the first real existential philosopher. Bruce Henderson mentioned Steve Jobs, John Maynard Keynes, who saved the world from fascism and communism perhaps as a result of saying that you didn't have to have very high unemployment. And the state could step in and that would be fine. Under A liberal.

2:16:04 Templess. Regime. Lennon, I mentioned m Madonna, Nelson Mandela. Totally obscure guy who was imprisoned on Robin Island seventeen years. But somehow managed

2:16:16 To negotiate. a democracy in South Africa. JK Rowling, Helena Rubinstein formed the eponymous cosmetics company before anybody else had a cosmetics company. The person who I think was most successful of all of my twenty people Paul of Tarsus.

2:16:34 I don't like calling him Saint Paul because it makes him sound establishment figure. He was never an establishment figure. He had this vision of the living Christ. And he preached that throughout the Roman world. But he did something that none of the other followers of Jesus did, which as you said Following A Jewish

2:16:52 customer base, if you like, is not the way to make a new religion take off. We don't want to be a very small sect within Judaism. I actually want to convert people in the whole world. And therefore what we need to do is to turn You know, that sort of Jewish religion That Jesus had

2:17:12 And take away from that the things which actually were universally applicable. So, you know, without Paul what eventually emerged as Christianity would never have either achieved lift off nor transcended its Jewish roots.

2:17:28 So fantastically successful. You know, I mean who would have thought that Christianity could actually succeed? It was just a miracle. Margaret Thatcher was the other was the other one of the twenty people. So I came up with these nine Things like Common to all of them. I'll rattle through those if you'd like to. Definitely feel free to list the nine, but before we do that, if you could just take a moment to define success, since

2:17:53 Many people. To find success. Differently. Could you speak to what that means in the context of unreasonable success? Is it achieving what they set out to do?

2:18:04 Or is it something else? And then what I would love to know what the the nine Characteristics are. Yes, it is. I think success is very subjective and can only be The person's objectives. And I mean people said to me, Why how on earth can you put Lenin in the book? And in fact at one stage I had Hitler in the book and the

2:18:22 Publishers insisted on it being thrown out because they said the booksellers would never sell it. If it was in the book, they said, Well, we don't like Hitler in favour of Hitler. They said, No, Hitler's gotta go. So it's value free in the sense that it is what they achieved which changed the world the way they wanted to change it, whether that was a good thing or a bad thing or or an indifferent thing. That's unreasonable success in one definition. Success is a whole continuum as far as I'm concerned. And You know, I'm not against minor successes at all. They're absolutely great. But what I was really interested in in order to establish the most important causes of major success is what I called unreasonable success. And I had four criteria for that.

2:19:03 You could say that in a word it's undeserved success, but that's that's a little bit unfair. Firstly, it's such success in changing the world, it seems unreasonable for one individual to do that. I mean we're we live in a world which is quite collective and which is governed by culture. And constraints which are quite immovable. We think the world's changing very fast, but in many ways the world doesn't change very fast. And then suddenly it does. And what usually is behind that is not a huge number of people doing something, it's an i individual deciding to do something and managing persuade other people to do that. So it's unreasonable in the sense that one person has all of that impact.

2:19:44 Secondly, it's success that is unexpected. And was not predicted when the individual was young or early in their career. So it's kind of Yeah, it's success which comes from nowhere. Thirdly, it's success that goes well beyond what the individual's skills and performance seem to warrant.

2:20:01 And Winston Churchill's jolly good example of that. Some would say that The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson as an example of that. Completely disastrous Foreign Secretary. probably completely incompetent in his dealing with the coronavirus. But nevertheless, I think may well go down in history as a great Prime Minister, because he has certain objectives that he wants to achieve, like making sure Britain did leave the European Union and maybe doing something about Yeah. Excessive price of housing in Britain.

2:20:30 fact that it's almost impossible for young people buy a house these days. And also, you know, Britain's a hugely overcentralised country. London centric country. And there are left behind areas of Britain, which basically is most of the rest, but not in the south east of Britain. And I think Boris Johnson wants him to do something about that. And if he's able to do that, that would be a fantastic

2:20:55 Achievement. I know that you're interested in very practical things, so in the book I discuss what do you do if you don't have self belief? And for example, one of the things that you can do is to realise it has to be in a specific domain or context. And so you've got to identify that context where you could really change things.

2:21:13 Secondly Find a fantasy mentor. No, this is I think it's quite an interesting and Perhaps original concept. I was driven to it by studying Bob Dylan.

2:21:23 Because Here this guy arrived in New York, completely unknown. Nineteen years old. But with uh fantastically high ambition. And one of the things which he did was to seek out Woody Guthrie, who was

2:21:39 Probably the template that he wanted. Which was Woody Guthrie had been not only a folk singer, but also a protester, really, and also someone who wrote his own songs. And in fact that was very unusual at the time. And folk songs were meant to be sort of they arose from the folk, not from individuals. And Guthrie actually Changed that. He wrote a lot of original songs. And Dylan did too. He started writing his own songs, one of which was called The Ode to Woody. And he went to the hospital in New Jersey where Woody Guthrie was suffering from a terrible, terrible disease called Huntington's syndrome.

2:22:17 And Whether or not Gaffer was really aware that Dylan was there. Whether or he actually thought Dylan was Going to

2:22:27 be the new Woody Guthrie. It's really unclear, but it's curiously irrelevant as well, because uh Bob Dylan took from that template that's what he had to do. He had to write his own original songs. He had to claim the heritage of Gaffery as some something which would perhaps get him some publicity and attention. And somehow he managed to get a contract with the all of the folk labels rejected him, but Columbia Records, which was a blue chip. Yeah, firm, obviously. Signed him and then you know, that gave him confidence and it gave him contact and it gave him gigs and goodness knows what else. And

2:23:01 he was able to produce albums and and Then he was made and also, of course, he hijacked, in a sense, the the protest movement. with songs like Blowing in the Wind, et cetera, which made him, according to certain people, the voice of the generation. So that's another way to find a fantasy mentor. Thirdly, to search for transforming experiences, and I'll say something about that in a minute. And fourthly to attract well deserved praise. And I'll say something about one breakthrough achievement also in a moment. And then narrow your focus until

2:23:35 Your work is unique. Some of those are landmarks as well. So the first one being self belief. The second one is Olympian expectations that you expect A huge amount from yourself. And then from other people. And the high priest of high expectations is probably Jeff Bezos, who's always banging on about this. And

2:23:56 you know, really believes everyone in his senior management team has to be an absolute A Player. Class A player. And He says, you know, if you put someone who's not used to high expectations on a high expectations team, they will adapt.

2:24:10 Fox. The reverse is also true. If you have people who are not high expectation people, then people's standards will slip. And one thing that Bezos has been incredibly good at doing is having the highest possible standards, his mantra, his customer service and unbeatable prices, and he's totally inflexible on all that. So

2:24:31 The second thing is Olympian expectations. The third one, which is particularly interesting because it's really original, I think. And I was thrilled to discover this in my research is transforming experiences. Every single one of these people had actually a an experience which transformed them in the sense that they went into the experience as one sort of person, and they came out

2:24:54 as another sort of person, or as someone who is a hundred times more powerful or more effective. Every single one of them had that experience. And again to take Bezos as an example of that, before he founded Amazon. He was a failed investment banker age twenty six, and a headhunter decided to send him As a last resort to see a guy called David Shaw.

2:25:19 who had founded a countercultural Quantitative. investment hedge fund. And Shaw realized before anyone else did in by about nineteen ninety two, that the internet was going to be huge.

2:25:35 And that it could be huge. not just for information and all other things, but for selling things, for retailing. So his idea was that his firm which was called Desco, D Shaw and Company. Should

2:25:49 Develop a program. for selling over the internet and then it should start a company to do that. And he put Bezos as the project leader on that, and he and They've also gone on very well like House on Fire. They're the same extremely quantitative, extremely nerdy, extremely ambitious sort of people. And between the two of them they developed the format for

2:26:15 Amazon. And they decided that the first category that they would go into was books. And they decided that they would allow people to write reviews on the sites. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It was

2:26:28 Amazon blueprint as it happened. And Of course. David Shaw wanted that to happen within Desco. But one day

2:26:37 Bezos went to David and said, I really want to do it myself. And David Shaw took him for a look. two hour walk around Central Park in which he tried to dissuade him, but incredibly generously. David Shaw allowed. Bas to go off and found Amazon. He didn't even ask for a share in the company. But then that was David Shaw, he was a very, very self competent guy, and his firm has been amazingly successful anyway. So

2:27:03 That was a transforming experience for Bezos for we talked earlier about Bill Bain. Transforming experience for him was getting hired by B C, by Bruce Henderson, when he was the Completely unqualified. Guy who'd never done any business, never done a business degree, didn't understand economics or whatever. A history researcher who managed to get a job as a development officer

2:27:27 At Vanderbilt University, where he met Bruce Henderson. And Bruce Henderson who had a tremendous nose for talent, then decided to hire Bill Bain, and Bill Bain took to Boston Consulting Group B C like a duck to water.

2:27:43 because he was a very, very smart guy. And because the power of the concepts, the concepts were so great. And Bill and Bruce developed them together, essentially. And then Bill decided to do the dirty on Bruce and leave and form his own Firm. We would never have heard of Bill Bain if it had not been for Bruce Henderson meeting him and deciding to hire him and the the formative experience of working within BCG. Let me ask you a question if I could, Richard, and I I imagine you you might get to this. I'm sure you have an answer. for it, but before we move ahead, if someone has not had a transforming experience, one might

2:28:21 Wonder if they're listening to this. Is it possible to engineer a transforming experience or do I sit on my hands and wait for Lady Luck to Smile upon it. Absolutely. That's the whole point. I mean one of the things I say in the book is that the whole point of trying to identify these nine landmarks is uh The people who

2:28:42 actually visited them, didn't intend to. They didn't actually say I need a Transforming experience. Let's have one. They happen to them. I mean for example the Transforming experience of Margaret Thatcher was having the Falkland Islands invaded by General Galtieri

2:28:57 Of Argentina. And she said that was the worst moment of her life, but it was absolutely the making, as it happened, of her and the experience of living through that. and commanding the armed forces and doing what everyone said was impossible, which was recovering the The islands. made it possible for her then to do what she really wanted to do, which was, in her opinion, reverse national decline of Britain. So

2:29:23 Yes. The people who had these transforming experiences did not engineer them, but having seen how important it is Understanding that you cannot In my opinion. Admittedly from a relatively small sample, but

2:29:38 It's amazing that every single one of these people had a transforming experience which is just described in the book. And I did not fake it. I just, you know, I didn't throw anyone out because they hadn't had a transforming experience. And I stuck to the rules. You can then say, Well, I'd better have a transforming experience, haven't I? And then you come to the question, Well, what is the the most likely type of transforming experience which will put me in luck's path? in order to then become much more powerful. So it could be going to a particular university and studying something which is very arcane and unusual. It could be finding a very high growth firm like B C or Boston Consulting Group or D E Shore and Company, and then

2:30:22 joining that firm when it's still very young. Because you won't be on the forefront of developing you see thing about companies in their early days is that they don't know what they're doing. And so if you don't know what you're doing, you can be very creative about it. And if you're involved in that process, you discover things that you never knew that you had. And not only that, you become identified with them and you become powerful and you become perhaps a large shareholder in the company. And and it's completely different from joining a company which is

2:30:54 on tram lines where basically is not going to do anything radical and anything new. It's so exciting. to actually be part of the company that's growing very fast, doesn't really know what it's doing, but has got something. Some rare knowledge. Which actually means that it can be very, very successful. And it doesn't have to be company, it could be a social organization, it could be a way of thinking, it could be anything that's growing very fast. and where it's unformed and where you think you've got some affinity with it and the ability to contribute and be creative. It's not easy.

2:31:26 To specify what someone's transforming experience should be. But I've tried it on a few friends and good acquaintances. And it's amazing that actually we do in the end come up with something which might actually work, and in some cases has. Before we get to the fourth, I just want to say a few things. The first is that my experience maps very well to a few of the things that you just described in the sense that when I was graduating from college and

2:31:54 was suffering from all sorts of quarter life crisis, existential angst about what to do with my life. And I asked a mentor at the time what I should do, what type of sector I should go into. And his answer was, it doesn't matter as long as it's growing very quickly. You want to be in something that is Growing quickly, not in a sector that is in decline or stagnant. And that ended up being exceptional advice. And I've found that it also applies to where you place yourself. That is to say, one of the reasons by example that I left San Francisco after effectively decade was that I felt like it was a place experiencing some degree of stagnation or even in decline. And I moved to Austin, Texas which was very much a startup of a city. It was rapidly growing, expanding where it was still taking shape and still could be shaped. So I just wanted to reinforce what you said.

2:32:47 And On that point, or I should say Moving on from that point. What is the fourth of the nine landmarks? Yes, I mean growth is

2:32:57 Gross is everything. I mean it ties in with the the Star principle. The fourth one is one breakthrough achievement. Now this is different, Tim, from the other Eight. landmarks in that it is not a how to do it, it's a what to do. And in some ways it's a bit odd of me to put it forth because it's the culmination of everything else and all the others really lead to this, but I wanted to put it in the book fairly early. Because I wanted people to be thinking about this as they go through.

2:33:25 Which is what on earth Are you going to do to change the world? And You're not going to succeed unless it's something really dramatic, or he's not going to succeed in being being unreasonably successful.

2:33:40 So You need to start thinking about that. It might take you A decade. It might take you several decades to actually work out. What it is. But it's it has to be something that you believe needs to be done. It's not a way of making you successful. It's a way of changing the world. And if you define it in those terms, again it's surprising you can actually come to some kind of resolution, some kind of

2:34:05 opinion. And for example Once Lenin had had his transforming experience, which was the hanging of his beloved elder brother that he i idolised and adored. Because he was imp implicated in an assassination attempt of the Tsar. When he was sixteen years old, Lennon

2:34:25 heard that his brother had been hanged. Instantly he decided that his whole purpose in life was to smash the bourgeoisie and to cause revolution in Russia. And it was a ridiculous you know, sixteen year old school boy ridiculous idea. And he wasn't political at all before. He wasn't he was a very nice sort of, you know, everyone liked him. But he became very bitter. And twisted but also very effective. So it's one

2:34:51 Breakthrough achievement. And it's not Two and it's not three and it's not one every five years. It's something that you do Which it actually is going to in some way change the world. I mean, my my breakthrough achievement was starting or co starting L E K. It's not on a comparable scale with the people in the book. But nevertheless, it was a you know a very successful firm which gave huge opportunity to Hundreds or thousands.

2:35:18 Of young people really who were trained and developed in that way. And it also made an impact on the corporate world as well. We invented the idea of mergers and acquisition strategy consulting, which is completely different from anything that anyone else had done. So one breakthrough achievement is the fourth one. The fifth one is make your own trial, which is you know, basically become bloody minded and work out a way of doing something that goes off path.

2:35:46 from everyone else. And I I describe how to do that. The Sixth one is to find and drive your personal vehicle. Again, one of the discoveries in the book Is that every one of these twenty people had some kind of vehicle which in some ways was sometimes it was a concept More often it was an organization of some sort of company, if it's in the business theor.

2:36:09 Or an organisation more broadly defined if it isn't. The British state, for example, was the vehicle. For Uh, Margaret Thatcher and for and for Winston Churchill, together with a particularly eclectic uh sense of you know what they were trying to do. Um the whole point about a personal vehicle is that

2:36:27 The paradox of the individual who actually does manage to change the world, is that they can't do it on their own. But on the other hand. It doesn't get average. It's not sort of a committee deciding what to do. So someone like Jeff Bezos

2:36:43 Decides to Make internet retailing. The thing which he does and the thing that The Everything Store was the name that they gave it originally.

2:36:53 And no, not just to be a successful internet retailer within books, but to be a successful retailer on the internet everywhere. And to be totally dominant in doing it. You know, an incredibly ambitious thing. But in order to do that, he needed to have an organisation which was totally under his control. Just the same way that Lennon needed to have

2:37:15 The Bolsheviks. You know, a group of people who were totally dedicated to Lenin. Not very many of them, but a couple of thousand. And that is necessary so that you You overcome the inertia.

2:37:29 That society And culture has So that an i individual can change things by being very determined about it, but they don't have to do it all themselves. And The choice of the vehicle is is terribly important. May I ask just before we move on, are there any particular

2:37:46 unusual or unorthodox examples that come to mind for both Make your own trail and Find and drive your personal vehicle, if you could give perhaps one for each. Yeah. Yes. I mean your your own trail is is very much

2:38:02 I think Walt Disneyland. I don't mean I do actually mean Disneyland. The thing about Walt Disney Is that he couldn't decide what he wanted to do initially. He was a very good Actor.

2:38:16 When he was in high school. And they used to do double acts with a friend of his which were Yeah. Don is a huge man. And then he

2:38:23 decided that he actually wanted to be an artist, but then He narrowed that down to being a cartoonist. Thanks. His firm which he started, his studio which he started. In

2:38:35 I think nineteen twenty three in Los Angeles was not very successful for the first few years. The big breakthrough that they came up was was Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse made all the difference because they gave a ridiculous story about a A mouse who wanted to woo a lady mouse by flying a plane. It was a really silly story. But Well Disney did was not only sort of

2:38:59 film called Plain Crazy, which he turned into a very expensive film which almost bankrupted him and his brother and various other people. But he decided to give voices to the characters from the screen, which people had done before, but never with cartoons. So that was the sort of you know. his personal trial in the Nineteen forties he became disillusioned.

2:39:23 With Disney as a corporation. It was a very successful corporation by that stage. But nevertheless, he was disillusioned with the fact that They were trying to take him away from the studio. He didn't have the sort of excitement of doing that. He didn't really feel that he was creating something new.

2:39:42 And so he went in to find his own personal Trial. He Actually Spent quite a bit of time with Salvador Dali and they created a

2:39:53 A very surrealist movie which then the board of Disney. Tun down. And

2:40:01 Walt Disney was outraged by that. And he had to tell some of it all that that you know, they they did not think that having the board approve it was anything other than a formality, but the board said no, you Lost your marbles. Yeah.

2:40:15 As Peterson Waterman would say, later stick to the knitting except they didn't use those words, but that was the that was what they said. That's what they meant. And so Walt doesn't he decide to go off and do something completely and utterly different. Which was Invent Disneyland. Until then, amusement parks had been the province, as Disney called them, of hard faced

2:40:39 Men. who basically were thugs. But what he wanted to do was create something which would be a monument to the past, the present and the future of America. and all that was best in America. Now, you know, the first time I ever went to Disneyland, which was in nineteen sixty nine, I hated it. I thought it was too American and too plastic and all the rest of it. But it was a fantastic achievement in the early nineteen fifties and hugely successful commercially. Again He was making his own trail. The board again refused to invest in this. They refused to put up the capital

2:41:15 For all the Exploratory work for all the imagination that had to go into it, for building Main Street and the fire station and Abraham Lincoln and all the rest of it. They said, No, we're not going to approve this. Votes.

2:41:31 And Waltz said, Well, screw you. In effect. I will fund it myself. And so he sold his houses, he sort of you know took second mortgages rather on on his houses. He sold one of them, took a second mortgage on the first house. He found investors

2:41:47 Who would Do this. And eventually at the last minute. that the Disney Corporation decided that they would come on board as well when they saw it was inevitable it was going to happen. They initially refused to let him use the characters Snow White and Donald Duck and all the rest of it. But they said no

2:42:04 If you do that we'll sue you. So If Disneyland had failed. Which was eminently possible. Disney would have been ruined.

2:42:14 And indeed, uh the parent corporation might have been in s some trouble one way or the other, but That was Finding his own trail because he had this vision and he wanted to pursue it. And it was nuts, basically. So that's an example of Making your own trail. Finding and driving your own personal vehicle. Well, I think actually Lenin is a jolly good example of that. It was the Bolsheviks.

2:42:37 You know, initially. The Dissident. Revolutionaries. In exile.

2:42:43 Round about nineteen hundred, et cetera. were dominated by people he later called the Mensheviks, by social revolutionists who were not as extreme and uncompromising as Lenin. And there was a conference, I think in nineteen oh three or something like that. at which Lenin deliberately antagonized the other people. and said I want to have my own party. I'm gonna split

2:43:10 The revolutionaries. And they said, Don't do that. We've got you know, there aren't very many others. Yeah. Please don't do that. But he said no. I can demonstrate that if I have Yeah, a thousand people who are dedicated to me and to my way of doing things, we can have revolution in Russia. Now

2:43:29 absurd because there are hundreds of millions of people in the Russian Empire. And how could it be that a thousand people could actually change that and ha make successful revolution. But Lenin had an answer to that. And it was a very good answer, which was he said, Look

2:43:46 Russia's a very backward country, it's an autocracy. It's not like Germany or France or Britain where, you know, there are lots and lots of different centres of power. All of the power is concentrated in the Tsarist army. And the bureaucracy And there are only about two thousand people in Russia who actually control things. There are no independent centers of social

2:44:10 Pluralism. I'm sure he didn't use that word, but you know, basically it's a very Top down state. And if two thousand people Can rule. Russia.

2:44:22 Why not us? And that was his theory and actually proved to be absolutely correct. So his vehicle was splitting the revolutionary movement, but having a group of people who are absolutely dedicated to him and got shot if they didn't, if they weren't. So The vehicle is very, very important. The vehicle doesn't necessarily have to be very large, but it hugely augments the power of the individual. But it's not a compromise. The vehicle must be totally the vehicle in the same way that Bain and Company was Bill Bain's vehicle, you know, he stepped out of line with Bill Bain.

2:44:53 You didn't get shot, but you certainly got fired. And so on and so forth. Boston Consulting Group was Bruce Henderson's view. He did it a different way. It was more let a thousand flowers bloom, but nevertheless. Unless you were interested in developing the concepts, which was Bruce's thing, then you weren't going to succeed. And he got people who were very good at doing it. Can I move on to the next three? I'm sorry, I'm probably taking it

2:45:18 Time. Oh no, that's that's totally fine. That's why this this conversation is long form. So let's move on to the next one. Okay, the seventh one is Thrive on Setbacks and this doesn't sound terribly original, but it is terribly important. You remember that Nicholas Nassim Talab wrote a book called Anti Fragile, which I think is probably his best book. And the thesis behind that, as you know, is that resilience is not the point. You actually have to like setbacks. And the reason that setbacks can be very helpful is two reasons. One is they give you feedback I might tell you that you're off

2:45:52 You know, you're on the wrong path. And the other thing is that either you're on the wrong path or you've got the wrong tactics and you it's quite important to distinguish between those two. Or That In fact. The fact that you've been unsuccessful in a big way means that you're gonna be very successful in a big way. It's quite difficult to describe, but I I also s think about Winston Churchill and his

2:46:15 Wonderful failures. He went away from those failures, obviously a bit depressed at times. He went and w did something completely different for a time, uh, getting out of politics after he'd ruined the uh Gallipoli campaign, the Dardenelles campaign in nineteen fifteen and sent Yeah. Yeah. Several thousand people to their deaths from a hair brain scheme that he'd invented. And he got out of politics for the time, he joined the regular army and he went to the Western Front in

2:46:42 In nineteen twenty nine he was on the verge of bankruptcy as a result of having invested heavily in stocks in nineteen twenty eight and when the crash came along Wall Street crash, he was almost Bancrupt, he decided to And also he was very unpopular with his Fellow

2:46:59 conservative leaders At that time because he'd made a number of mistakes. And nineteen twenty five in going on to the gold standard for Britain and in antagonizing the miners leading to the general strike of nineteen twenty six and alienating the whole of the organized labor movement. So he was unpopular with his party, he was on the verge of bankruptcy. He went off and did a huge lecture tour of America, which was very successful. And then he got run over on Fift Avenue by a car and suffered some quite serious injuries, but battered and bruised, he got up and did it again. And you can see from what he writes that he thinks what's happening to him is terribly important.

2:47:35 And most people would say, No, this is a semi comical drunk who's basically had a series of failures. But You know, Winston Churchill didn't see it that way. It's very very interesting. The psychology of not being resilient, but actually really liking faders because they They make you seem important in some ways. And then the last two are acquiring unique intuition, which requires deep knowledge, and here I think that I overlap a little bit with Malcolm Gladwell. You know, you really do the quality of intuition is a function of the degree of experience that you've had in a very narrow field. But also your willingness to

2:48:12 take notice of intuition, which some people do and some people don't. And the last of them is distort reality, which is uh Steve Jobs' phrase, of course, based on Star Trek. But What? distort reality means is refusing to accept current reality and redefining a way of making that different. And convincing your followers in particular

2:48:35 that you know how to get around or distort reality, convincing them that you have a reality distortion field. It works. It's just amazing. And and Bruce Henderson did that, Bill Bain does that, all the other people in the book had got a way of overcoming what was the incredulity. of other people that they could actually really change the world in a major way. I would love to make a few

2:48:59 observations based on a a number of things that you shared and also I'm gonna follow that by asking you for an example. of acquiring unique intuition because this is of of great interest to me, but I want to mention one, a piece of trivia for people that ties into a name that came up several times, Jeff Bezos. thriving on setbacks, although he didn't come up In that particular

2:49:22 Landmark. description if you go to relentless.com It will forward to where to Amazon.com. So relentless.com is one of the first domain names. Pointed to that website. And

2:49:37 What strikes me Is that many of these landmarks Or reinforcing for

2:49:45 one another, right? So you have, let's just say self-belief, Olympian expectations, and I'm gonna group them in a very deliberate way. Self-belief Olympian expectations. one breakthrough achievement, make your own trail, find and drive a personal vehicle, thrive on setbacks. And let's take distort reality because I'm not yet familiar enough with the acquire unique intuition, but all of those to some degree seem to be enormously enabled when you have A longer term

2:50:13 vision and horizon in mind, then your possible competition. So you if you look at Jeff Bezos, right? He is One of the few examples of chief executive officers who have been given a pass by Wall Street. I mean he's convinced his investors, if you go back and read his annual letters, which I encourage everyone to do, you can find a PDF of all past Amazon annual letters. There was always an emphasis on long Term.

2:50:38 Time horizon, longer term than a quarter, longer term than a year, always longer term. Bob Iger at Disney is another great example of this. Toby Lutke of Shopify is another incredible example of this and it it just It strikes me that this longer term vision and time horizon enables a lot of these. And without that

2:50:57 If you are in any sense feeling compelled to rush that you disable Some of these. Landmarks. That's just something that came to mind as you were describing these. I couldn't agree more. I mean that's absolutely true. You need a long time horizon. You need to expect that you're gonna have massive impact. But it might take a very long time. But you need to be sure about what you're trying to do and you need to be sure that you'll get there.

2:51:20 But you know Time is kind of you know, there's lots of time. Yeah. So acquiring unique intuition. Could you perhaps give us an an example of that that you like and if if there's one outside of Steve Jobs, that'd be great, but you could use Steve Jobs if you like. I think Jobs is a great illustration of that, but I'll take Nelson Mandela as my example on this.

2:51:42 Nelson Mandela was a leading member of the ANC who got caught and convicted and sent off to prison Total of I think nineteen years in prison, a life sentence actually.

2:51:55 He was quite lucky to escape the noose. And we were very lucky that he did. He was Um This island.

2:52:03 Called Robin Island, which I visited off Cape Town. It's a short boat ride away from Cape Town, maybe half an hour at most. But it's a world away. And it's that nasty, horrible, stark It's basically uh It's a scrapyard, essentially. I mean it's got rocks. A lot of rocks and that's it.

2:52:22 I visited the cell in which he'd been um Incarcerated and it's so small you wonder how he could possibly have kept his self respect. But During that period of time something very interesting happened. The Leaders of South Africa. including PW Botha, who was reckoned to be the great crocodile sort of, you know, very, very hostile to change.

2:52:46 Actually realised that they'd painted themselves into a corner. And the They didn't want to have. the possibility of bloody revolution and being driven into the sea as they as they saw it. Bye.

2:53:01 So population of South Africa. And the whites were Yeah, maybe five million people against fifty million plus who were blacks broadly defined. And

2:53:13 The A and C were ratcheting up violence. And the A and C were controlled by all of the Tambo in Lusaka, some distance away. Yeah. And here was this Nelson Mandela.

2:53:25 Got it. And he was When he was in prison on Robin Island Some interesting things happened. One is that he acquired the charisma of the sort of, you know, prison hero. So that

2:53:38 Within the A and C he was viewed as the natural leader. Another interesting thing which has happened was that there were various outside forces, including the British Commonwealth. that in the nineteen eighties sent people Two Robin Island. To talk to Mandela.

2:53:55 And try and see whether you know, there was any route forward there because they couldn't speak to the guys in exile. In Lusaka or wherever they were. And those guys were totally uncompromising and were trying to cause civil war. And they wouldn't have got anywhere.

2:54:12 And so there were a group of people who went there was a group from the Commonwealth called the Eminent Persons Group, very self deprecating. And these eminent people went and and of course they talked to Nelson Mandela because he was the yeah, he was recognised to be almost the shop steward of the prisoners. And he'd formed a sort of university there where they Yeah, basically develop knowledge of this that and the other. And Somehow. Nelson

2:54:39 Got the intuition that these people actually wanted a deal. They didn't want This to be continued forever. And they were willing to compromise in some way. Th the hard line nationalists who were nasty horrible racists do apartheid and they shot people and they were extremely unpleasant, there's no doubt about it. These people actually wanted a solution.

2:54:58 And he was the first person to realise that. The ANC had always said, and Nelson Mandela had always said we will not compromise. But when he met some of these people from the Commonwealth and when he met later some of the senior ministers from the government of the nationalist party, the ruling party.

2:55:17 He suddenly realized That a deal was possible. And He said to them. You know.

2:55:24 If you really want to deal, you're gonna have to have one person, one vote. And they said, We couldn't possibly have that. Democracy. No, we don't want democracy. There are more blacks than whites. We can't possibly do that. But you know, Nelson stuck to that. And eventually he formed personal relationships. With the head of the secret service, the secret police, as it were. With the

2:55:47 minister who was responsible for justice, with a minister who was responsible for state security, including the prisons. And eventually with PW both uh Himself. And It was all based on this intuition that perhaps they could reach a deal. And nobody else had that intuition. Nobody but Nelson Mandela.

2:56:08 Actually thought it was worthwhile. pursuing talks with those people and it it took five years. But in the end His intuition won out, and the result was That instead of having

2:56:20 A war. And Bloodshed going on. And possible revolution. And the only question for people

2:56:28 Really, was whether that'd be five years or fifty years before that whites would be thrown out and massacred. Instead of that, you might have a transition to black majority rule. And That could be done in a controlled way.

2:56:42 Where F W De Clerc, who succeeded Bosa would be the vice president and effectively the mentor. of Nelson Mandela. I've talked personally to F W Declerc about these days. For some reason I had an opportunity to do that. And You know, he was quite clear about it. If it had not been for Mandela, and of course he said himself The odds against this would be a thousand to one. It was just based on this intuition that there might be a solution where everyone else thought there wouldn't be a solution. And he would not have known that.

2:57:13 But for being in prison. On Robin Ireland for seventeen years And meeting all these people And gradually being able to size them up. including the heads of the prison who were varied in quality from unpleasant to brutal. But nevertheless

2:57:29 He worked out the way the wind was going, and nobody else did. As I was working in South Africa at the time, and we never thought that there was a possibility of any solution, nobody but I talked to did. But Nelson Mandela had a different intuition. I describe that in the book and it's very, very Oh it's very heart warming and there's some horrible stories in the book, but it's very heart warming. Intuition is hugely important. Thank you for

2:57:53 Sharing that example. I think it's a wonderful place to start to wrap up this round one. We may have to we may have to do a round two on the podcast if you have the endurance sometime. I would love I would love to do that. But Richard, I want to Ensure that people know where they can find you. Of course on on Twitter they can find you at

2:58:12 Richard Cosh eighty twenty eight zero two zero. Richard Cosh dot net. You've written many books. including many books that have influenced me, like the eighty twenty principle.

2:58:24 You have the star principle, which we've mentioned a number of times in your newest book is Unreasonable Success and How to Achieve It. I have Just one more question for you. And then certainly I'm open to any closing comments or anything else that you would like to share. If I've omitted anything, certainly, or if there's just anything in addition that you'd like to put forth. And I'll start this question with a quote as prelude. And this is from an interview that I found.

2:58:51 With you. And it relates to New Year's resolutions. This is a quote. Which you can of course feel free to correct. But this is attributed to you once a year. Rather than doing New Year's resolutions, I ask the same question.

2:59:03 What did I do that meant the most to me and my family and friends? And sometimes strangers too. And what could I do in the next year? More of the same is not a bad answer, but something fresh. Two

2:59:15 So this really struck me as an impactful question. And Good questions are impactful. So

2:59:23 A Is this something that you Do And might recommend. And number two, are there any

2:59:31 You might Suggest Listeners. Consider or ponder, let just date on their minds. Yes, it is true.

2:59:41 And I think it's right. The question I would ask is one again from from the book which is In your whole life, what is your breakthrough achievement going to be? If you want to change the world, how do you want to change the world? And

2:59:54 Ponder that maybe On New Year's Eve, maybe any other time. There's plenty of time to work it out. But Do you really want to have a major impact on the world? If you do

3:00:07 Not. That's really my question. It's a question I asked myself as well. I mean my own ambition is to have many more creative completely unreasonably successful people. And the thing I'm toying with Which I don't know if you think's a good idea or not, is offering to work with a number of people who've already been reasonably successful, but have not been unreasonably successful.

3:00:32 And take them through the process. And see whether we can generate Some unreasonable success from a lot of people. And to cascade that down and train other people to do that, because I think this methodology is robust and I think it could make a huge difference to the world. And I'd like to see whether I can demonstrate that in practice through a few pilot studies. So that's my personal ambition.

3:00:56 I love that. I think you should definitely test it and it could be a spectacular failure or spectacular success, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, and you do like to bet. So I figure this is is one good opportunity to do that and having some experience with vetting. I'm not volunteering myself, but I would say run a competition or have applications that are vetted. and can be vetted in some very simple way so that you're not overwhelmed. And pick a handful of finalists to take through that process. And what I'll suggest just as a placeholder is that people follow you on Twitter, Richard Kosh. eighty twenty eight zero two zero.

3:01:34 And if you decide to do this, you can share that on Twitter and that can be least a possible starting point. So that's People are alert that this is a possibility. And What a pleasure. It's been Richard. I feel like I know you in the same way that perhaps some people I meet who listen to the podcast feel like they know me, but it's been through your written words that I have have come to admire.

3:02:00 And Use. Quite frankly, with great effect. much of your thinking. So I thank you very much for taking the time today. This has been an incredible, incredible pleasure And

3:02:12 I hope it's not the last. Indeed. Tim, thank you very much indeed. I I reciprocate much more pleasure for me, I'm sure. It really is great. Anyway, thank you very much indeed. And I look forward to talking to you again at some stage. Maybe yeah maybe a bit a bit more frequently. That'd be wonderful. Well the the feeling is is definitely mutual. And to those listening, I will have show notes for everything we've discussed, including All of the books. All of the resources Including the

3:02:42 Most recent. work from Richard, which is Unreasonable Success and How to Achieve It at Tim.blog forward slash podcast. We'll have links to all the names, everything you can imagine. So please do. Check that out if you'd like to indulge in more exploration. And until next time, as always, thank you for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel.

3:03:22 It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading. albums perhaps gadgets gizmas all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends including a lot of podcast guests and these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun again it's very short a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash Friday. Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.

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