35: WW2 Child Survivor, Billion Dollar Tech Mogul, & Inspired Philanthropist // The Story of Dame Stephanie Shirley

As a refugee, total strangers helped me through and now I'm the stranger who tries to help other people through. I have the drive to justify my existence, to make sure that each day is worth living and that my life is one that was worth saving.

Welcome to From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. I'm your host Eric Gilbert Williams and this is the podcast where we explore personal stories of people who hit absol rock bottom, then got back up, wiped off the dust, kicked failure to the curb, and now they're rocking it like you'd never believe if you didn't hear it. Live right here we cover subjects in business, sports, and life in general. If you like this podcast, please share it. These interviews are intended to inspire, to motivate, to give hope and vision. So please share this episode with someone who needs it. Use your Instagram Account, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn hand signals. Trained pigeon sent smoke signals up in the air. Use Morse code, whatever you like, just share the love and share this episode. Also, email me anytime. Podcastericilbertwilliams.com Send me questions you would like to have asked of future guests and I will incorporate them. Or just send me some suggestions on how to run a better podcast. Or just say hello, I'd love to hear from you. That's podcastricilbertwilliams.com I know you're going to love today's interview, so let's get started with us here today on From Rock Bottom to Rockin. It is, in my opinion, one of the most fascinating people on the planet. Her name is Dame Stephanie Shirley, also known as Steve Shirley. I'll let her explain why, and I say she's one of the most fascinating people on the planet because I'm currently reading her autobiography, Let It Go and I encourage you to check it out as well. And I'm captivated with every word. Literally. Now, for those of you who have not checked out her TED Talk or read her book, do it first of all and I'll make it easy for you by adding links to the show notes of this episode to both and for the purpose of the show and to bring everyone up to speed so we can dive into some discussions and we're not all left behind. I'll give you the 30 second recap. Is that okay if I give the 30 second recap or do you want to do that?

Oh, you need much longer than that?

Well, it's not possible. Exactly. Is it okay if I do my best effort of a 30 second recap or do you want to do it? Have a try okay, I'll give it a try. So to bring everyone up to speed at least a little bit. Born from a Jewish father, she escaped Nazi Germany by way of her parents, sending her to England on the Kindertransport rail line to basically live with temporary foster parents while the war and its horrific acts ensued. She then, of course, built a software empire where at its peak, to my understanding, had about 8,500 team members. One of the highlights would be coding the black box in the Concorde jet. And obviously that company ended up being worth billions. Now, we're talking the punch card era here, right? We're not talking about computers that have a screen and a keyboard like we have right now in our laptop. We're not talking about smartphones. This is pieces of paper and holes in it. And that was computer programming. Right. So just keep that in mind. And that means that we're back in the 60s, the 50s, the 70s. And so essentially we're talking about a female pioneer in the tech world, literally making some of the most significant headway for women everywhere getting into technology. I think it's fair to say she invented the term freelancer. Now, my current startup, tech startup is built on freelancer. I think I have to thank her for. Yeah, thank you for letting my company exist today. And she also it while raising a severely autistic beautiful boy, which sadly ended in tragedy. I'll let her talk about that. Now, as a powerhouse philanthropist, she's making the world a better place to live for all of us, including some of the most significant work in the realm of helping kids and their parents living through autism in their lives. And I think that all that justifies the title of one of the most fascinating people on the planet. We're in the presence of greatness here, everyone. Dane, Stephanie, Shirley, Steve, welcome to From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. You're the embodiment of the show's name. Thank you for being here. How you doing?

Welcome. Thank you indeed for that lovely introduction. I can feel my head swelling with your confidence.

You're welcome. We just pump it as big as we can. Hopefully I didn't screw any of that up. Did I get anything inaccurate there?

No, that sounds right.

Okay, good. And so what are you working on right now? I ended here with saying you're a powerhouse philanthropist. I know you're doing tons of stuff, but what is currently.

Yeah, I think the last benefaction was to our National Museum of Computing here in the uk where they are doing a three year study of incorporating young men. They all happen to be men with autism in their research. And so that's the sort of project I'm a venture philanthropist really I find the project I think how I can make some difference there and then I put a little bit of money but also energy, ideas and very often introductions to help a particular not for profit. Most of the benefactors are benefactions are try again. Most of the beneficiaries are charities but some are not for profits universities and so on.

One of my good friends is the mother of two beautiful kids, a boy and a girl and they're also severely autistic. They're I think roughly 10 years old now. And for the first five years, six, seven years, I hadn't met them because we live in different areas of the country. We just kept in touch via electronics. And I had absolutely no idea what it really meant to be autistic or what it meant to be the parent of an autistic child. And we ended up hanging out last year and I got sort of the more raw version of being in the grocery store and her boy would scream as if someone is literally hitting him and people running in and looking at her, the mother, as if she was abusing her own kid. Which obviously is not the truth at all. It's just how autistic kids end up expressing because of the challenges. And I had no idea what that was like. I don't know if you can share any thoughts. Anyone listening right now that is working and raising an autistic child. Where is this headed? What kind of progress are we making with this?

Well, I try to be professional about this and so I know, for example, the work that has determined that the main carer of a child with autism is subject to the same daily stress as a frontline soldier. And certainly I found it like that. I found I was just living on my nerves. I wasn't sleeping because my son didn't sleep. My husband and I sort of when he was at work, it was just awful. And my generation, the parents were really blamed for not having brought their children up correctly. And that has gone. And we have learned to think of autism not as something that is a disability, something that has to be cured, but, but just a different way of living. Parallel homosexuality for example. It's a different way of living and it's no use thinking we're going to change it in any way. In a sense that makes us throws much more pressure on the non autistic people because we realize that it's. It's conceited to think that my way of living is better than my son Giles's way of living. Trying to live together was pretty grim. We finished up, I mean, I'll go into detail if you like, but my husband and I finished up discussing, though obviously not doing a suicide pact for the three of us. We just could not see a way out of an abysmal standard quality of life. It was just grim. And that went on for years and years and eventually, of course, I cracked up. But I'm not sure if you want me to go into the details of that story.

You're in one of the safest places here I've had guests on this show talk about. I mean, Kevin Hines jumped from the Golden Gate bridge and is one of the 30 people out of 2000 that actually survived. And hearing that story, and Joe Roberts becoming addicted to heroin and living under a bridge for eight years or however long it was before becoming a world class speaker and pushing a grocery cart across the entire country of Canada to raise awareness for homelessness. I could go on and on about Samra Zafar, sold as a child slave to a man she'd never met across globe and escaping and becoming a genius and graduating number one place in the University of Toronto. This is the place to talk about these things. This is what the show is about. To let people know they're not alone. And anyone out there who's had these suicidal thoughts, first of all, let's just acknowledge it happened, right? You're not alone out there in it happening, you know, right now what is the tragic death toll of COVID is somewhere around 10,000 a day. Or in the States anyways, It was about 3,000 people a day are dying from COVID Last time I checked the stats, There was about 5,700 people every day dying of suicide. Now why isn't that a pandemic? If suicide did not exist yesterday and all of a sudden today 5700 people in the United States committed suicide. I guarantee you the country would stop and they would treat it in a whole different light than they do right now.

Oddly enough, in the UK the suicide rate has gone down since the pandemic started.

Really?

I didn't know that with all the mental health issues that surely that is going to show up in the suicide figures. But it seems that those people who have these mental health problems feel now we're all in it together. Whereas when you are isolated, locked up as we were, in a small home with a aggressive and profoundly handicapped child, without speech, you're very, very much alone. And it's not really the child that is autistic, but the family becomes autistic. It's just not having proper relations with anybody outside. You're battening down the hatches and you're just living as best you can with the three of you.

And really we're all trying to do the best that we can. And that's, you know, everyone's got this different rock bottom moment. It's a relative, you know, one person's rock bottom is different to another's. Mine, of course, was getting arrested and seeing people get hurt and being in the drug scene and watching my people around me just deteriorate and someone else's drug addiction or someone else's fill in the blank. So thank you for, first of all, for having the courage to share the depth of this. I didn't know that part of your history at all.

Well, in a sense, my life has been like a roller coaster and as you mentioned, my refugee start on the Kindertransport, that has had more long term impact, good and bad. So perhaps you would find it helpful if I talk a little bit about that. When you are a refugee and you will have met other people with these experiences, your whole world is disturbed and you finished. I was five years old, so in a sense I didn't really know what was going on. I was clutching the hand of my nine year old sister. So it could have been worse. I could have been on my own. And she, poor thing, had the responsibility of looking after me. The need to adjust to a new family, new country, new language, new food, everything really was quite traumatic. And that's very positive because it allows me to deal with change. And I'm in the IT sector and the digital world really demands that you cope with continuous change and there is no end to the development of technology. But when I was with my foster parents, I'm talking about when I was 6, 7, 8, that sort of age, it was during the war and the grownups, not the children, really, really kept saying onto me, aren't you lucky to be saved? Aren't you lucky to be saved? And I knew I'm indeed lucky to have been saved. But it's not a healthy thing to say to a small child. And so pretty early on I lost my sort of bounce and energy and became very, very guilty about having survived. Why me? When a million children died during the Holocaust, why me? And some of that is positive, Eric, because it finished. It means that I have the drive to justify my existence, to make sure that each day is worth living and that My life is one that was worth saving and that's healthy or an incentive to a good, positive, progressive life, I don't know. But that survivor guilt really led me, and I don't know how or why a psychologist would, but to deep, deep depression. And I was depressed for many years, some of it. I mean, I was holding down a good job. I really felt so guilty for being there that I felt I was not fit to marry, that I was damaged irrevocably, that I couldn't really live the life, the normal life of a young woman living in London, actually. And that really stayed with me for many years until a friend suggested that I get psychiatric help. And it had never really occurred to me. This was before the days of our wonderful health service. But somehow or other I had 6 years kleinian therapy at a renowned Tavistock clinic in London. And this was therapy that had me going to a clinic three times a week for I think it was 40 minutes, very strictly timed always. And it was basically talking therapy that dropped to two days, to twice a week, that dropped to one day a week gradually, one day a fortnight. And after six years I was free. And it sort of loosened everything in me. I came to terms with myself. I began to respect myself again. I began to realize that, you know, yes, I had been a victim and start not to behave like a victim. And many women do behave like a minority and we feel victimized or they feel victimized. And so I've learned now to not have things happen to me, but to make things happen myself. So entrepreneurism has been very an appropriate solution for me though I was driven to that really by the sexism that I was meeting because having been, well, having been in Nazi Germany, I came out and I really wasn't going to be patronized for being a second class citizen, just for being a woman. And I really began to fight and have become a bit of a feminist. So all that really is based on that rock bottom boat time when I was five years old.

Wow, that's so powerful. This is a new concept for me that I've learned recently is that mental illness isn't something that really goes away. It's just something that I get to learn how to live with. And I don't know your perspective on that.

I don't think I agree. Really.

Okay, yeah, let me hear that. I'm curious.

You know, I've had measles and I've recovered from measles. I've had cancer and I've recovered from cancer. I've had Mental health issues, severe mental health issues. But I have recovered from them. And quite honestly, eric, the last 20 years, I would say I'm an extremely happy person. I really enjoy life. I am doing what is in me to do. I feel fulfilled. I've got over. I mean, I dreamt about my late son last night. But in the main, I'm not mourning him anymore. I'm just remembering him and that's a lot healthier. So I think you can recover. I think most people do.

Interesting. I like that perspective. I mean, I didn't even know that I had mental health issues until just a few years ago that I realized there's a word for that. Since then I've looked at it in a different light.

How did it attack you?

My parents split up when I was five and there was a lot of yelling and I was fortunate that there wasn't any hitting. So that's a positive. When I was in school, I found myself very sensitive to things around me. And if we want to call that energetical or empathic, that's the word I would use. But some people have a different word for it. That's fine. When I was in that classroom and the walls were closed around me and there was 20 kids in my bubble, to me it was complete emotional collapse. I couldn't speak or focus or do anything, which meant that I failed at all my classes. And then I couldn't speak to boys or girls, so I had no friends or dating concepts, which also meant I was a big target on my back for being a bully. So I was beat up and picked on by people. I remember very vividly. And then when I went home, I didn't even know how to express myself properly to my mother. And my mother was an educator. She's a retired school teacher now.

He was an educator?

Yeah, retired school teacher. I'm the first person in my awareness anyways, in our entire family line to basically drop out of the school program. My grandma was a teacher and my cousins were teachers and all that. When I went home and tried to explain that this isn't working for me, I was really simply told to just go back and stop telling me because you're being silly, pat on the head type thing. And that's nice to hear. Go back to work and make sure to go play outside. So I go play outside, get beat up again, go back into class, fail, not know how to express it, and turn into a cycle. And after years and years, I had zero self worth. And that was this feeling. Worthless is and was for me the biggest aspect of what became.

So I think in that way we're very parallel.

Okay, well, yes, based on what I'm reading in your book, that was a common thing that came out. You were explaining about your father and about being the younger and. Yeah, without going all into it, you guys got to read the book if you want to catch up on that thought train. So remember to pick that book up.

You used an expression a little bit time about the walls were moving into you and I thought you were going to say something else, but that certainly happened to me. There was one stage when I was so stressed with my son, I basically ceased to function. I could hardly eat, I could hardly walk, and I was still trying to go out. And so basically my job is selling. These days, I think all entrepreneurs, we have to sell.

Absolutely.

But the walls started to go in on me physically. I was frightened of being crushed. And I think the metaphor was very clear there. I felt crushed and I really needed a lot of help to get out of that.

When I talk about the walls in the schoolroom, I essentially end up leading exactly in that direction. It was suffocating, completely suffocating and overwhelming. And I didn't know who I was or how to function. And I ended up creating an identity for myself that was tiny, a speck, an inconvenience and a disturbance to everyone else's happy lives. So one day I picked up a cigarette at high school and in one instant I had 10 friends just because I was smoking. It was magic. And one little passion I found in life was buying and selling things. I bought and sold lawnmowers in the newspaper, bought and sold trading cards and made a bunch of money on that as a 9, 10, 11, 12 year old. A whole bunch of other things.

So you had a natural gift for.

I did. So you can imagine what happened when I discovered marijuana as a 15 year old boy.

I don't know anything about it.

Well, you can sell it for money.

Short term happiness.

Short term happiness, immense amount of friends. In kind of a way that I resonate with that movie Good Will Hunting. At the beginning, when Robin Williams is talking about. Well, no, no, that Matt Damon's friends, this is his family, they got his back. These kids had my back. The first time in my life people were going to stand up for me.

Yes.

And of course buying and selling, I mean, marijuana is legal now in Canada, so it's not a big deal anymore. But back then it was very illegal and treated harshly. But it was a way to make money. And so I had this entrepreneurial thing kick in, and I had this instant friends that popped up out of nowhere, and I realized that I actually have control over my life.

Goes, when did you start selling pots and pans or something that is not quite so emotive as marijuana?

Basically, when I went clean, instead of doing ethical business. Is this what we mean?

I do.

When I was 18, selling marijuana led me down a path for a couple years where I learned so much about myself and I became a strong human. But I also was in a path that was very dangerous to my health and was morally questionable. And When I was 18, I had a mentor reach down and say, you have some skills there, boy, and you get to choose what happens next. And I decided to follow his guidance, and he led me down the path of moral, ethical, positive business decisions that ultimately helped uncover this raw passion that I have, which I call entrepreneurship. And this is literally what I think saved my life and brought me to be where I am today. It was my creative expression.

This business of choice is very important. When you're working with vulnerable children. All you're trying to do is give them choice in life. People ask what my wealth gives me. It gives me choice, and that we always have a choice. I read quite a bit about the Holocaust, as you might guess. There's a wonderful writer there, Viktor Frankl, who writes about his experiences, but he summarizes his humanism by sort of saying that this is the one thing that's left to him. He can still choose what is in his brain. He can still choose his thoughts. And I think I try to practice that. I try not to be too influenced by people around me. It's a very natural thing to want to fit in. But I think about how I can grow and develop and be the very best that I can be. And the anthropologist Margaret Mead had a lovely expression that you are unique, Eric, just like everybody else. And this is how it is. Each of us is unique, and yet we all have that commonality. We're all different. I've taken the conversation a little bit in a different direction.

This is my favorite part. When we go on the tangent, we're totally on track, I think. And anyone who listens to the show frequently will know that one of the things that we always gravitate to is this question of choice versus circumstance.

Is it?

It is. And I was watching Imitation Games again last night because I think it's a great movie and interesting. And there was this line that Chamberlain, I always say his name wrong, Cumberbatch says, and he was Told as a boy said, sometimes it's the people who no one imagined anything from that do the unimaginable.

Yes.

And how much of that is choice in circumstance? You know, there's people listening to the show that are having a rock bottom moment in their life, whatever that is to them. It's very personal and unique to everyone. And it's very, for lack of a better word, easy to give in to the forces around us and say, Covid forced my business to shut down. Therefore fill in the blank. That's why things are bad. Or I was cheated on by my lover. Therefore fill in the blank. This is why this is happening. Or opiates are too. I was on a show yesterday talking about opiate addiction and a guy that had recovered miraculously and he's like, opiates, they're so powerful, it's easy to just give in. Where does choice come into play? I mean, I know where it does, but I'm curious about your perspective.

Let me ask another question before we go there. Do you have any religion? Does that affect your choice?

I would call myself spiritual and I believe in love and evil and love and darkness. And if a religion, any religion, comes from a place of light and you can usually sense that within the first 30 seconds of conversation, then I believe in that. And similarly, if any religion is coming from a place of darkness, then I don't believe in that. One of my closest friends is a very gay man and was essentially excluded and cut out from his family, which was very Catholic. I kind of grew up with an anti Christian or Catholic sentiment because of my good friend's experience. One of the greatest things to me that happened over my last few years was to learn about the concept of the Holy Spirit is something that people permeates all and isn't confined to a single book or a single word or a single person. It's the spirit of love. And I think the spirit of love permeates through everywhere at all times. And if we want to call that fill in the blank religion, then we can. But ultimately I believe in love and darkness. So I don't know if that answered your question.

Similar because again I talk about, I try to lead a spiritual life. I try to lead. I wanted to join the major religions but just found I didn't have any faith and I was just pretending in order to belong to something big and stable and good. But I find that to me a spiritual life is one that gives importance to the non material things. Art, music, love in nature. And religion is one of those Things or can be. So I would love to have been able to find a faith, but I didn't. My husband had a faith when we married. Big discussion about that. But he has lost his faith, which he says is because what God, what good God would ever put a childlike Giles on the earth? Because nobody was happy. He wasn't happy, I wasn't happy, my husband wasn't happy. There we go. What were we talking about?

We were talking about choice and circumstance. And imagine all these people in the planet right now having that rock bottom moment. Do all of them have the choice to turn it into something beautiful? In your book, you were talking about in the early days of your freelancer company. And side question, how do you like to be addressed? Do I call you Steve? Do I call you Dame Shirley?

You introduced me just perfectly as Dame Stephanie. Thereafter, you're talking quite right. I'm Steve.

Okay, perfect. So, Steve, thank you for clarifying that. I was not asking, but wondering. Glad that's out of the clear the air. So, Steve, I remember you're sharing in your book that people need to pick up, by the way, that you were working 12 hour days instead of eight, seven days a week instead of five and a half days through the holidays. And the compound accumulative advantage that you got over putting that much work ethic in puts you leaps and bounds ahead of the competition and essentially gave you something to live for. This was your way to fully live authentically yourself.

Yes, I think many people were very surprised that I could do something so apparently positive as building up a quality organization at the same time as trying to rear a profoundly vulnerable child. But in fact, the sort of two balanced each other for many years. So that the only time I forgot work was when I was with my son. The only time I forgot him was when I was working. And I still thoroughly enjoy my work. Other people wouldn't want to live the way I do, but that's what I enjoy. It's not just something I do because I have to or because I'd prefer to do something else. I actually enjoy the work that I do and have made it happen.

And where I'm going with that thought train is what's the difference between you and someone else? Because again, people listening to the show are having their own rock bottom moment. They want to get out and they want to do something amazing. And it's just a general question. Maybe you don't have the answer. I don't expect a silver bullet, but does everyone have the choice to make that much difference and impact on their own lives. Basically.

I think we all have choice as to how who we are. It may not be a choice of how we live or how much money we've got, but we do have a choice as to who we are. And I think that needs to be the first. I mean, always deciding to do the right thing, not just I'm a perfectionist, I want to do things right. But you know, you gradually learn that if I actually have a vision, if I'm going to do things, do the right things, then I can make a difference in the world.

I love that. And as soon as we come back from this short little break, I'd love to ask you a little bit about being a female pioneer in the tech world. And you're rocking it moments like those moments because we've been talking about some deep stuff. This is some heavy stuff. And this is great that we're sharing. It's so helpful to everyone who's listening. So thank you for that, Steve. When we come back from this little break, let's talk about the moments that you knew you'd overcome those rock bottom moments. And they were far in the past that when we come right back. Thanks everyone for joining in on this month's episode with Dame Stephanie Shirley. And right now I'm going to focus on in honor and in tribute to name's Stephanie Shirley and to a friend of mine who have had children with autism, I'm going to focus on a program called Quick Start. This is an early intervention program for autistic children and parents of autistic children. And the idea here is to get in there early, get in there quick. Anyone that doesn't know anyone who's autistic has no idea, for example, I have no idea what it's like to raise a child with autism. I only hear the stories. And if you haven't heard the stories, to say it's a handful is an absolute understatement of the year. Dealing with autistic children means you need help. And the earlier that help comes, the better. And the idea here is to shorten wait times, get the help early, help the child's mind develop and grow and give it the special nurturing and the special secret sauce, the fertilizer that it needs to work past some challenges that maybe some people thought weren't possible. The stories that are successful are just inspiring. And I encourage you to check out the Quick Start program at quickstart Autism Ca. That's quickstart Autism. I just went on there right now and made a Small donation of my own money because that's what I like to do. As you know, every time we do an episode, I like to go on and do a little contribution and lead by example and show people what it's like and show you guys that I like to put my money where my mouth is. You know, every little bit helps. So go on there. Refer the website to someone who needs help. If you're a parent of an autistic child, know that there is hope and there are people like Dame Stephanie Shirley that are working really hard and have made big advancements in this world. 100 years ago, the kind of resources that were available were not like this, but they're here now and they need to get better. So the more we get involved and volunteer our time and support and raise awareness to the cause, the sooner we're going to get to a place where some of these children are going to have their minds developed and they're going to have a life experience that's more positive than their predecessors in previous generations. So check it out. Quickstart Autism ca and share this episode with your friends. And now back to the show. Thank you for everyone listening here too. From rock bottom to rockin it. We are here with Dame Stephanie Shirley, one of the most fascinating people on the planet. And let's talk a little bit about being a female pioneer in the tech world. I'm in the tech business right now, and I have very, very, very few female people that apply for jobs with me. But it does happen. I was helping out with this tech girls movement. It's a charity that I was basically helping girls aged 6 to 12 that want to get inside the tech world. And when did this start here? When did you have a rockin it moment? When did you have this experience where you thought all those dark days were all just leading to this or that? You're so proud now that you've made it past that to something great. What was your rockin it moment?

I think it was towards the end of my IT career when the company was a success, was recognized as a success without people sort of smirking at me. But what it opened for me was again, this business of choice. And I chose to try and give back what had happened to me as a refugee where total strangers helped me through, and now I'm the stranger who tries to help other people through their black moments. I think when I started in philanthropy, it really was like a sort of salve to my pain. And for the first time I realized that I could lead the sort of Life that I wanted to, that life was good, that I still had a lot of life and drive and energy left and it was up to me to exercise that choice in a wise way.

When you had shared with us a moment ago about making this pact with your husband and your child about the concept of suicide and you expressed that might have been one of your rock bottom moments and also being sent on the kinder train as a five year old girl being a rock bottom moment. If you had 60 seconds to go back and you're able to go back in time and talk to your past self, what would you say to yourself?

You're young, there are still people who care about you and you've just got to learn to make that into something positive. I don't have the answers, but you have the choice. I think that's what I would say to my younger self.

Thank you for sharing that. I think that people listening, maybe they can hear those words as you speaking to them and take something from that. Now I'm stubborn, jumping because my brain does that sometimes. Back to your rocking moment and being a female pioneer here. If I were to ask you where do you think we're headed in the next 10, 20 years with equality? As a Canadian, for example, I didn't really know what racism was. One of my best friends when I was 10 years old was a very, very black girl and we were absolute best friends for years. And then my first year in California, which was last year, the riots happened.

And I saw very different, very different.

Out of this world. And similarly, I'm not exposed to inequality between genders, between male and female. It's not something obviously that I understand and I think it's fair to say you've seen a huge transformation. You've been in many ways spearheading and assisting with a huge transformation in the world. If you could tell us a bit about that.

When in the UK women were not allowed to vote, women's rights were not included in human rights. That was before my time. By the time I came into the world, women were generally second class citizens. They had pockets of success. For example, the early computer work at Bletchley park in England, which was the big coding center that was predominantly female and software was thought of as just coming out of the clerical sector, traditionally very female. But when I was young, sort of women were. I was physically frightened sexually most of the time when I was out in public and life was like that. I didn't have the confidence to walk around London during the sort of thick fogs that we used to have by myself and in fact I learned some self defense, I went to some self defense lessons. So I learned how to cope with something. And what did that do? It just gave me confidence to walk past the group of people and not be scared. How did we get onto this fear business?

I was asking about the evolution of human rights basically and you've seen this transformation from the world you're describing where women were second class citizens essentially into where we are today. So I'm wondering if you have a sense of a trajectory where we're going in the next 10, 20 years, whether that be with men and women and maybe with different races as well.

I think the Western world at least has embraced the concept of diversity. We know intellectually that a diverse group is much more innovative and certainly business innovation is the one thing that is really, really valued. You can't really buy it, you've somehow got to engender it. Now diversity, whether it be by age or race or religion, makes a tremendous difference to the lives of people. I'm starting to get. I'm 87 years old and I am really beginning to be very conscious of ageism. To be honest, it hasn't made much difference to me. The last time I met ageism was when I was 18. I was told I was too young to do something. So it comes in different guises. And the sheer, the sheer principle that everybody is equal and have their own needs and desires and wishes, you've got to stick to that. Otherwise you might say, well of course if you haven't been to proper, haven't had a proper education, you're not really, I mean we used in the UK to give voting rights, double voting rights to graduates. And you know, there's a certain logic about that. These are people who've been educated better than perhaps you or I more to give, so let's listen to them more. But you don't go down that slippery path and you don't know where it leads you and it might be a concentration camp. Everybody is equal and you just have to work at that. And we all have our unconscious biases that we're not really aware of that we, I don't know, dislike people with ginger hair and cross eyed or something. But we have to fight those very natural reactions because they are not loving.

And I want to talk about your book and about some of the philanthropic work you're doing just before we jump into that building on this subject of equality and where we're going and tying it into technology. You know, I was Having a conversation with a friend the other day and she deleted her Facebook account and she never uses Google Search. She uses one of the others. She's deep into conspiracy theory and Instagram and Facebook are evil. Da da da. In her words. She wanted them to just burn to the ground because she thought it was evil. Ooh, yeah. And of course I don't hold that view. So do I argue with my friend or do I just kind of reflect on it? So I chose to just keep playing guitar right now and we'll not talk about that. And now that I'm talking with you, to me, when I look at. Sure. Are there questionable things that may have happened in Sergey and Google's history and Zuckerberg's history with Facebook? There's tons of controversial things. But when I look at the net benefit to humanity on the connection level, we're connected now. Now if people want to criticize, haven't.

We enjoyed it during this pandemic? We are connected.

Where would we be if it all wasn't there? And you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to say immense benefit in connection that these giants are giving us that I think we should all be grateful for. And I guess you've kind of answered that question. But the impact. Do you think that this is helping to bring awareness to equality and balance equality across genders and races that were connected like this?

I think one of the things that's happened recently in Europe is the concept of to ally yourself, the concept of allies that I don't really know anything about the Black Lives Matter, but I'm definitely an ally and I try to speak out when things happen that are racist or sexist or nationalist or whatever it might be by using my simple voice to counter some of the issues that cause so much trouble in the world. I do think one needs to be proactive and you notice how one person can make a difference not overnight, but over time you can make a difference and then move on to the next thing.

I'm going to quote a. I'm going to probably bugger it up too, but I'm going to quote this Mother Teresa quote that I heard at one point which said, you'll never see her at a anti anything rally or cause, but if it's a pro cause, she'll be there on the front lines. And this is this concept of let's focus on putting positive energy into the world as the primary which naturally displaces the negative. Let's not give the negative any more energy that it Already has.

I always quote Mother Teresa and I've only read some of her extracts of what she said. That is, it's not how much you give, but the love that you put into your giving. And since I now spend my time on philanthropy, I really, really try to practice that. I try not. I was patronized when I was big, supported by charity. I try not to patronize people. I try to make sure that my giving is open, it's transparent, it's measured. I could probably give a long list, except I've forgotten them.

Well, on this note, as soon as we come back for this short break, let's talk a little bit about some of the work that you're doing and also talk about your book. So when we come back, this short little break, let's explore all of the positive energy and love that you're sharing into the world. That when we come right back, thank you so much for sharing this show and spreading the love. Every time you click that share button or put it on your social media, it makes a big difference to those who listen to it, to the guests that I have on here as well, and to me personally. This is a passion project. And so all of your help, sending me feedback, sending me an email, clicking that contact me button on my website, all of that is amazing and it really touches my heart because when I was little and struggled, I dropped out of school, I got into drugs and violence. It was very difficult. And I hit rock bottom. My own rock bottom in that context was when I was around 17 years old and I thought I was going to jail for a long time. I didn't know what was going to happen. And I got out because people reached out to me and helped me. People picked me back up and gave me motivation to move forward, just like you're hearing in these interviews. So this really is a passion project for me and I'd love it if you checked out my book as well. I tell my whole story on there. You can find it on my website, ericgilbertwilliams.com just click on my book. I would love for you to download a free copy of the intro and prologue. It's there right now anytime. There's an audio version as well. And now we're going to go back to the interview. Talk to you guys soon. Okay, thank you everyone for listening. We're here on From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. Remember to share this episode with anyone that you think needs to hear it. Whoever in your life might need to hear these messages, just share it with them. That's the best thing you can do in terms of helping me on the show. I don't make any money on this. I do this because I love it. So share the love. And on that note, Steve, sharing the love with the world, let's talk a little bit about what kind of love are you sharing with the world? What kind of organizations and initiatives are you doing?

Well, I focus on things that I know about and care about, and there are really only two, Eric. Information technology, which was my professional discipline long, long, though I'm still involved with the Oxford Internet Institute, and autism, which was my late son's condition. And then within that big sector, I try to focus on things that are pioneering. I've always been in research. That's what I know about, that's what interests me. So they're pioneering. Never more of the same, no matter how worthy they might be. So pioneering and also strategic. What do I mean by that? Things that, if successful, make a real difference in the world. And that usually means long term, you can't make a real difference in the world on most things in weeks or months or years. It's probably going to take decades. And so that drives my giving and I have a wonderful, wonderful time. It seems that, I mean, wherever I go in England, I'm close to some project that I'm supporting, but I've been involved with. I've never just given money, I've always given. I've become involved. I've started four charities, three of which are now freestanding and together employ a thousand people. So, you know, they've become quite sizable. I've started charities that failed after. Well, not failed, but they closed themselves down after 11 years. During those 11 years, they did a lot of good. I mentioned the Oxford Internet Institute at that. It's very selfish, really. All my wealth comes from the IT sector. Surely some of it should go back to the IT sector, even though I'm terribly interested in autism. And so I do support a couple of major IT projects, different to what you might imagine. Eric. I sort of tend to do strange corporate things. One of the things that gave me enormous pleasure was taking my company to co ownership. I don't know if you've ever thought about doing that in that to actually share the potential wealth perhaps. Well, obviously share the risk. And I mean, I found it absolutely exhilarating when I actually managed to get. I aimed for 100%, but I only managed to get 25% of the shares into the hands of the workforce. No cost to anyone but me. But I had a complicated system of voting, so that actually at that time, the staff had 62% control of the company. And 62% is, if I remember correctly, more than 51%. So it was a very. I was doing okay.

This is my first time actually bringing co founders in on a venture. And also there's some angel investors that are. So I'm sharing ownership in a way that I've never done before.

Do you find it difficult?

Oh, you know, I actually find it liberating. It's difficult in the sense that it terrifies me to be responsible for other people's equity. And my decisions could have more than an impact just on their personal income and salary, but also on their savings and long term future that they're literally banking on and putting all these extra unpaid hours for. So that terrifies me. And it's a pressure, but it's also a relief and a freedom to know that I'm not alone in this thing and that I'm enabling other people to express themselves more fully than they could have otherwise. And it's so, to me, inspiring that we're building a better Instagram with a stronger community is what we're going for there. I put it out there. All these influencers on Instagram don't have a piece, they don't own it. They're building a business in Instagram that's great for them, but Instagram really is the beneficiary of all their businesses. So if we can share back to the community a small piece of that equity, they can build their own influencing account. But they're also building their future. They're building an equity base, something that's theirs that they can pass on and be proud of forever. That's one of my favorite parts.

How have you found the process of moving from sole ownership or majority ownership, shall we say, to having a smaller piece of a larger pie?

My last company, it was in construction and I struggled to scale it as much as I wanted to. And in tech, scaling is akin to its middle name. And by sharing and being open, I feel like I'm a part of something bigger. And I feel like we're able to accomplish more together as a team on sharing that cap table than I would be on my own. One of my biggest as an only child and having my own struggles when I was a kid, feeling alone and worthless and all that, seeing people that really believe in the vision enough to give up some of their wage in order to have some equity, it makes me feel like we're in this truly together. It's like a family. Outside of my family. I had that in my construction company with people that I'm great friends with, but it wasn't at this level. And being in business together, looking you in the eye and saying, hey, we're in business together. I trust you with this. I'm not going to question it. And vice versa. It's such a beautiful experience. I'm very happy I say that now before all the hard times.

I think women are intrinsically more directed at team working by nature. And so my company became what we termed collegiate. It was very acceptable for me to ask your help in the morning, for you to ask my help in the afternoon, because together we were going to do the very best work that we were capable of. And that is very satisfying. What it opens, though, is a vulnerability to hurt in that if you've got such a close relationship between business and friendship or I've never experienced this. It must be the same with business and family members. You're vulnerable to things going wrong. In fact, I keep my business relationships pretty separate from my personal relationships, and that is only because time after time, they have gone wrong. When I tried to meld them.

One of the biggest mistakes which I think was on me, that I made in construction was I hired someone I was dating, and all my friends said, don't do it. But I was just so passionate and open with no boundaries. I said yes. And she was great at what she did outside of the business, but inside the business, it changed everything.

Everything. All the dynamics.

It destroyed me emotionally, which led to physically, and also was stifling intellectually. And it ultimately commenced the downfall and ultimate breakup of that relationship. And I'm still not good at separating because I don't really have a broad social life at all. I'm obsessed workaholic.

That's my life nowadays. I have been advised, do not keep saying that you're a workaholic and you enjoy work because it's unfashionable. Young people don't think like that.

To me, it's art, though. And I had this conversation yesterday. To me, business is art. Now, I love music. I competitively dance in salsa.

It's creative.

It is. And some people get into business, maybe with an Ivy League or whatever it is, and they look at it strictly from a math logical perspective as a challenge. But to me, it's an expression, and I love that aspect. So anyone that workaholic is probably not the right word. It's just a pure life. Passion for me is. Yeah, that's where I go with it.

I mean, people do talk about passion in business now, I think, because one has moved from management to leadership, and you need that passion, a clear vision of what it is you're trying to do, as well as being able to communicate it and get people working together and behind you.

And, you know, I said this yesterday to someone, if you're a bus driver and you love seeing the smiling faces of children come in and brightening their day, and if that gives you joy, do that. Right. If you love swimming and competitive swimming and all you want to do is be in the water, do that. If you like playing guitar and performing, whether it's just for yourself or for audiences, and that makes you really happy, do that. And if you like business, do that with the same passion without feeling guilty about it, but do it for the right reasons. That's my words, anyways. It's got to be the right reasons.

Yeah. I do something parallel with my charities. I try not to confuse frugality with beneficence. That charity can be very charitable, do all the good things, and at the same time, it may run quite extravagantly, it may have more space, more staff, more something in order to develop its vision. I get enormous pleasure from seeing individual women do well and from seeing individual groups and charities in particular develop and grow. My biggest project, for example, it was big for me, was a 30 million sterling project setting up a school for children with autism. It's been going for 20 years now and they're just at the stage of starting to spin off some little commercial ventures, of extending to some adult provision. And I started to look at a site for a second school to really extend. And the satisfaction I get from that 20 years on makes up for all the horrors that I've been through.

I could actually speak to you forever, so I got to be cognizant and rein myself back in. I'd love to hear about what inspired you to write your book. What was that process like? You can buy it on Amazon, written or audible? I'm doing audible. So anyone that's listening, just check it out, Let It Go by Dame Stephanie Shirley. But tell us about that journey.

I think I wanted to persuade people into some of the ideas of that business is not separate from a good life. And when you've got ideas, the more people that hear them and can discuss them and can agree with them, perhaps the better. And a book seems to me a pretty obvious way of doing that. It took me 18 months and that was just working in the evenings when I felt like it. And I would dictate and then I would send the tapes. This is old style technology, isn't it? To my co author. And he would knock them into shape and correct my grammar and even do certain amount of editing. And then I can remember him saying once, you never explained what happened to such and such. So he would pick up themes like that. I did enjoy it. I was highly, you know, exhausted when I finished it. And then I thought that was it. But it isn't. You've got to sell this book.

Yeah.

And I've been going around giving speeches and book sales and literary festivals and getting reviews written. So it's hard work to sell the books. But my second book has become quite different. First one was published by a very small publisher who was the only one that look at me. And then was republished by Penguin and has come out in German as well and is being considered at the moment for Spanish. So that's very satisfying. But the second book, the even Penguin said that not a chance that anyone. Nobody bought books of speeches because what I did as my locker lockdown project is really go back to some of the speeches that I know, how much research goes into each of them, and pick out a range of them, following some general themes covering a time span of about 40 years, and then publish them verbatim. Very nicely laid out in a stylish way. But even that I told nobody buys books of speeches. And when you look at President Obama's book of speeches, for example, I thought this will be wonderful. But actually when you read them, they're quite mundane. It's only when he, with his charismatic personality, really delivers them. Were they so really remarkable and in written form they're not. They're better than I can do, but they're not. They're disappointing, shall we say. And we self published the book of speeches. We sold about a thousand copies to date. We've really enjoyed the project. And if lockdown continues, I'm sure there's another book in me about philanthropy.

I'd love to read that one as well. And I'm just not quite finished. Let it go. And actually, before I jump on right now, you've shared how you had a partner, I think her name was Pamela, who ended up separating.

Oh, it's quite early on, yes.

Just about halfway. Just the past, maybe like two fifths, roughly. And you're explaining about that struggle. And in 2014 I had a general manager that I hired to take over and I thought it was the time for me to relax finally after years of. And so I went away for a little bit, just a few weeks. And over the course of a few months, he drove the company in the ground. It almost went bankrupt. And I had to let go of almost everyone in the company that he had hired. And we were about two weeks away from not being able to make payroll, of whom most of the payroll were my close personal friends. So it was a whole new level for me.

Very tough.

It was tough. And the only way that I could think of was to, yeah, we got enough for tomorrow, so let's just do tomorrow really well. And then tomorrow ended and it was like, okay, well, we got enough for the day after, we got enough for another tomorrow, so let's do that really, really well. And we did. We just kept on going one day at a time. And then we landed a $1.8 million deal. At the time it was 44% margin, if I remember correctly, which literally, yeah, literally saved the company in one instant. And the end of that year, which started as I'm about to go bankrupt and lose everything I built for several years, that year ended with 30% less staff, about 20% increased top line revenue, and the most profitable bottom line that we had ever had as a company.

It shows what you can do. Yes.

And you said somewhere in your book, in the parts that I did read, I think you said that it's those who have nothing to lose that find a level of drive and determination that they didn't know that they would have had a reserve of drive and determination they didn't know they had and they would never have found had they not been put in that position. And that really resonated with me and hopefully it resonates to other people that are going through their rock bottom listening to this. So in the imminent threat that I ramble on for another hour, I'm going to wrap us up here and direct people to our website so they can find the link to your book. And to me, it's been life changing and I'll remember this forever that you came on the show and I had a chance to converse with you. So this has been wonderful for me. Hopefully everyone that's listening feels the exact same way, and I think they do. Thank you very much, Steve, for coming on the show. Do you have anything you want to wrap up with that you want to get out there that's on your chest? This is your speaking stick is with you.

Well, let's conclude as I started, I think this show is rather good.

Well, thank you. That's a huge compliment coming from all the work that you've done. I really appreciate it. It's just something that feels good to me. I like doing this to help back. I make nothing on it. I put some money on it. And we want to do a relaunch. We're accumulating, of course, a bunch of content. And I want this to become a place where powerful people like yourself feel comfortable coming to, whether that's movie stars or whatever. Anyone who has got a big story that can influence and impact a lot of people. I want this to be the safe place for people to share and for this to be recognized as a place that's making a difference in helping people find that courage to make positive change and to choose a better life for themselves. That's my vision. Whether it works or not, I'm giving it everything I got and we'll go one day at a time, just like anything else.

Lovely, Eric, really nice.

Thanks very much for coming on the show. Everyone who's listening, buy her book, share it with a friend. Buy 2 copies, why not 10? Pass this episode on to someone who needs to hear it and we'll talk to you all next time. Bye for now.

Great pleasure. Bye bye.

And that's it, my friends. For this episode. We will see you next time. Please send me an email, say hello, give me some feedback, let me know what you think, give me some tips and suggestions. I'd love to hear from you. Also, please share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, doesn't matter. Just get it out there. I really appreciate it and we'll see you next time on from rock bottom to rocking it. Have a rockin it day.