Jimmy McLoughlin OBE, ex-business advisor @ N10

It's so weird, I feel like I should be saying welcome to Jimmy's Jobs of the Future, and for once we're not doing that. Sorry, go on.

Okay. Jimmy, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me.

Or thank you for having me in your studio.

Yeah, if you could just start off with telling us a little bit about your career journey so far.

Yes, so I suppose I've always spent my journey at the heart of business and politics and kind of where they intersect. So what I'm most famous for is being a special advisor in 10 Downing Street between 2016 and 2019. Immediately prior to that, I was the head of external relations at the Institute of Directors, which is a sort of lobby organisation for generally small and medium-sized companies, about 35,000 people. And when I left Number 10 in 2019, I was trying to work out what I was going to do with my life. Just started a family and so on. And a long story short, I ended up on the idea of Jimmy's Jobs of the Future podcast, which primarily interviews entrepreneurs and thought leaders about where they think the future of our economy is going through the prism of jobs, essentially.

Yeah, and why a podcast? Because, I mean, why did you think that was the right next step in your career?

So the way that it worked was I left the I left Number 10 at the end of 2019, and I said to Boris Johnson, who I'd worked with before, it was time for me to go and do something new. I was about to start a family, and I said to him, look, I'm gonna be a crap dad and a crap spad, so it's time for me to leave and do something new. I wasn't sure what that was going to be. I thought I just needed a bit of headspace to kind of work it out and so on. And one of the things I did was go to Stanford University to study on their Entrepreneurship Ignite course. And actually, we took the whole family out there and we had a brilliant 2 months. And one of the ideas that I was working on whilst at Stanford was building an Economist for a new generation. So I thought that my generation had got most of our business and finance news from The Economist, and whilst it's a great publication, it can be quite hard to sort of, you know, it can be quite hard to understand it all properly. So that was the idea I was working on and trying to work it all out. And at Stanford, they're trying to teach you how to build a billion-dollar company, which, just for the avoidance of doubt, is really difficult. It's really, really difficult to do theoretically on paper. And then we got back when the course finished in the middle of March 2020. Everyone remembers that March 2020. My wife went back to work, and she— because she works in the NHS, so she went back to fight the pandemic. I became a stay-at-home dad to our 5-month-old. So So I'd gone from Downing Street to diapers and couldn't see anyone, couldn't do anything. And so didn't want to doomscroll, obviously. She was too young to watch television or anything even. So we basically listened to lots of audio and podcasts. I felt like we did our mealtimes with, you know, Nick Robinson on the Today programme, Martha Carney on The World at One, and Evan Davis with PM. And during this time I thought, well, is this something I can do to help tackle the unemployment crisis coming up? I thought, well, maybe I could do a podcast. And I thought back to the conversations that I used to have with the PM in Number 10, and one of the ones that always used to stick out was I would get the phone call from Debenhams or from Wilkinson's in the last few weeks saying, we're about to make 10,000 people redundant, wanted to let you know before we let the stock market publicly know. I would go and tell the PM that at the 8 AM meeting. And she would often say, but we're still at record high employment, all I ever hear about is job losses, like where are all these jobs coming from? And so it was all these different strands that kind of came together to make me think at the beginning of the pandemic, um, well, you know, is there something that I can do to help tackle this unemployment crisis? I'd obviously got a pretty good contact book from my time at Number 10, so I was able to get some pretty good guests to agree to it. And the great thing with podcasting is it's pretty low entry costs, right? So yeah, it was like £50 mic from Amazon, um, spoke to a friend who could help on the editing, and you know, before we knew it, we were kind of up and away. Uh, that all makes it seem a bit more simple than it is. You will know as a podcaster, you've got to choose a platform you want to do, you've got to choose the sting, you've got to choose where to promote it, and all these sort of different things. But that was it really, um, and it was, it was great to be doing something, right? Because I'm quite a sort of energetic, high-octane person, and so sitting at home 12 hours a day with a 5-month-old, I was finding quite constrictive in lots of different ways. And so, yeah, it was just great to kind of like get out there and do stuff again and have something to tell people that you were doing, because it can be very hard in life when you don't know where to kind of like channel your interests and your energies.

I'm interested in your relationship with learning because for someone who's held such a prestigious job, you know, you would have— you went to university when you were younger at Birmingham, and then you went back to education after having had a very prestigious job. And then even with a podcast, there's a lot of learning in each episode. You really challenge yourself, meeting people that are doing things completely different to you. How has it been different at each stage of your life, like how you approach making these new learnings.

Yeah, well, it's true. I mean, learnings is one way of putting it. I suppose being nosy is another way with a podcast about people's jobs. But I think it's imperative always to learn. And I think one of the things, if you are that way inclined, that you're always looking to learn and so on, you partly realize how little you know. And that's one of the things that I've had with starting a business and so on, is there's just so much that you don't know. There's obviously the amazing tool of the internet now, which means that you've almost got the world's knowledge and information just sitting a few finger clicks away. And I find that kind of really inspiring and so on. But yeah, I think generally as a country and as individuals, we need to move to a lifelong learning process. And yeah, I just love finding out things that I didn't know and understanding how the world kind of like fits together and how things interlock is something that's kind of fascinated me.

Yeah, as a podcaster myself as well, and at a completely different stage in life, like obviously you would have felt a lot of accomplishment and satisfaction from your job before, and I wonder what your sort of relationship with that now is in terms of like, you know, throughout your week, like what is it, what What does a fulfilling week look like for you as a podcaster? Is it the numbers? Is it the guests you get to speak to? Like, how are you sort of managing that?

It's a good question. I mean, I don't always necessarily feel like a stage of accomplishment, and I know where you're coming from with that when you look at what I've done and so on. But you're always just wanting to push and do more when you're there, and I always have this kind of like worry that I'm not maximizing potential and impact, uh, and so forth. And I think that feeds your next question because it's really difficult to know sometimes with podcasting, like, what, what metrics to use, right? Like, over the last few weeks we've had a few TikTok videos which have sort of gone past like 200,000 views. Like, that feels great from a dopamine hit level and is terrific, but actually is it better to have 5 people, 5 extra people listening to the podcast for 40 minutes than that? And the truth is you don't know. I mean, a fulfilling week to me is where we get messages from people who've enjoyed the podcast and, you know, I got a message from someone the other day saying that they'd put it on their UCAS form, that they'd listened to it and it had been a big help for them in various interviews and so on. And for me, that's kind of like the, the great weeks when we get messages like that, because it means, um, yeah, we're getting through to people and we are providing the learning, right? Um, and we are sort of, you know, having all these amazing conversations that I used to have at Number 10 with all these business leaders about where they thought the future of our economy was going, and kind of like democratizing them and putting them out to a really wide audience is what I is what I enjoy most.

Yeah, and another thing you get out of doing a podcast is expanding your network, right? And our audience is predominantly, you know, young students or recent graduates, and I think for a lot of us, we don't really know what the word networking means and how you even go about doing it. I mean, has it changed a lot for you, the concept of networking? I mean, I feel like What it should really be is, you know, you meet someone, it doesn't have to be this sort of small talk, tic-for-tac kind of thing. It's just generally like having a genuine interest in each other, in what each other are doing, and then seeing how you can help each other out. But yeah, I mean, how's your sort of relationship with networking changed as well, especially now that that is pretty much what you're doing every single week?

Yeah, it is. I mean, I think, you know, when you start out, you should just go to as many things as you possibly can. There are so many events in London, you know, you guys are hosting great ones at The Graduate Guide as well, and just go to them. And particularly early on in your career, you're still at that point where you're kind of like making friendships and so forth. Like, two of friends I met early on, um, in my kind of political journey were Christian May, who went on to become the editor of City AM, and Harry Cole, who became the political editor of The Sun, right? And we went to things together. And have kind of like, yeah, we've all sort of risen on the same tide a little bit and kind of helped each other out when needed to, etc. And I think that's the way that you should try and approach it, right? Very much a kind of like pay it forward, you know, see what you can bring to the table and so on. And I think like one of the biggest things that's changed, right, and this is one of the things I say all the time, one of the big learnings from Jimmy's Jobs is it's it's the tools, right? So it's not the kind of— what you're doing with networking is always the same. You're building up relationships that you can then call on further down the line to help you with things. And I think that the idea— you used to, like, when I started 2009 in the working world, have a Rolodex that kind of like sat on your thing, and you would make notes on the business cards about like where you met the person and what event it was. Et cetera. Whereas now, of course, you basically just got LinkedIn, right, which is terrific and is even more kind of accessible really. And so I massively encourage people to kind of get on LinkedIn, send people requests with a little note about where you kind of met them. So it was great to meet you at the, you know, Founders Forum party last night, uh, would be great to stay in touch and on here on LinkedIn, because then that allows you to kind of keep a sort of tangential relationship. Because when you're first networking and you're first in the early part of your career, you don't really have a lot to kind of like bring to the table necessarily. But that doesn't mean you won't further down the line. And actually, LinkedIn is a great way of kind of staying in touch with people. I mean, I remember one of the things that I used to do when I was interning is that I would often combine my summers at university with sort of 6 to 8 weeks of interning up front and then go off and travel for the next 6 to to 8 weeks, and I would always send postcards to where I'd sort of worked in my internships, and they would often, I think it was because it was such a unique thing, they would often have been sat on the boss's desk when I would go back in the future. So, it's always trying to think of like little creative things like that as well. But yeah, so I think it's, you know, networking is an immensely powerful thing and is really important to do, but yeah, when you're young, it is hard to think, well, what can I sort of bring to it? But that's where LinkedIn is great, because you can see what people are up to, because, you know, prominent people post on there a lot now, and you can just sort of leave little comments and say, you know, I thought this was interesting, etc., and so on.

What's particularly interesting to me about— with you is that you probably would have been used to going into sort of any political room and feeling like, okay, they know who I am, they know what I've got to offer, and this is what they're probably going to get from the conversation they come speak to me. And now that you're interviewing people that probably are less in that sphere, and, you know, one thing that really benefited me as a young student who didn't have a personal brand, I was just a history student like many other people in the world, is sort of embracing that naivety of not knowing anything because I think some of the most interesting conversation and dialect actually comes from a position of not actually knowing anything. You know, when you listen to a podcast of somebody where you've got someone who knows a lot about this thing speaking to someone who knows a lot about this thing, like, what are you really going to get from that other than just exchanging ideas? When you're asking someone maybe questions that they've not thought about, I mean, what's that adjustment been like, you know, sort of tailoring your questions and what you're trying to get out of someone now?

Yeah, well, I think like you have to think about what advantages you've got in life, right? And what you're sometimes referred to as your kind of like leverage, right? What have you got that the other person hasn't got? Well, as a young person, yeah, you've got naivety, but you've also got time, right? So if somebody does a podcast that you like the sound of or whatever you think is interesting, you listen to it and then send them your thoughts on it, right? Like that will, I can guarantee you, that will always be sort of welcomed and so on. In terms of my kind of adjustment of it in terms of the questions I ask and so on. It's— I do think there is, there is something very refreshing about asking very clever and very influential people simple questions and seeing the way they answer them. So a great example of this, uh, was when we had Rishi Sunak on Jimmy's Jobs of the Future when he was Chancellor. So beginning of 2022. And first question: what is the job of Chancellor? And actually, the way he broke it down as an answer— I've been in politics 15 years and worked very closely with the Treasury and the Chancellor and different Chancellors— I hadn't actually heard it broken down like that before. So, you know, I think there's something in that. Same when we had the Governor of the Bank of England on, right? Like, okay, we all sort of know the Bank of England is there to set interest rates and manage inflation, But like, what else do the 7,500 people that work at the Bank of England do? And so asking questions like that, you know, is quite interesting to see where people go with it and so on. Because we're not a, you know, we aren't journalists, right? We're not trying to sort of find out the things they don't want to reveal. We are providing a platform where they can use to recruit and inform people a bit more about the jobs that they do and the jobs that they provide or create.

Yeah, and you said when you first started podcasting, it seemed relatively obvious who you would first get on because you had a good network already. But I wonder now what your process outreach is like. How, you know, you start the week, it's Monday, you're thinking, okay, we need some new guests. So how do you go from, okay, I want to get this guy, or how do you even find that guy, and then Yeah, and actually go to having them south of you in the studio here.

Um, it's a very good question. Um, I mean, we do just sort of like follow our instincts a lot in terms of, you know, it'll be things that I'm watching. I remember one good one of being seeing the drones above Buckingham Palace for the Jubilee and thinking that It's extraordinary. Like, what are the jobs behind that? Like, who is doing that? Like, where is that going? And like, it took quite a lot of work to find out the company because it's not a public-facing company particularly. And then it took quite a lot of time to sort of get in touch with the, with the guy and find it and get it all set up. But you know, it's been one of our most popular episodes, right? Like, I mean, when you think of a job of the future, you— drone pilot is, is right up there. So there isn't really a kind of like set way. It's just people that we think are interesting and they've got an interesting story to, to tell. Um, and it's— there's a bit of a sweet spot in terms of you want people to have done some media interviews, because we've done some people that haven't done any media interviews and it actually sort of shows. But you also want somebody that hasn't necessarily been absolutely everywhere, right? Because you'll have heard their, their message quite a lot. So there's a bit of a sweet spot there. And then we always just try and think of people who've got interesting stories and taken interesting job decisions at various points, um, is kind of the key of what we're, of what we're looking for. But I mean, guests, we talk about it in terms of like guest flow, you know, it's not something that we, um, struggle with.

Yeah, it's funny, it can, it can literally be as simple as going for a walk.

How do you go about it?

Well, that's, I mean, it's hard to exactly pinpoint when it happens. When people ask me, like, how did you do that? I almost forget because it's like, you could just be walking down the street and you see, like, a piece of marketing that caught your eye and you're like, okay, there's somebody behind that marketing. I mean, for me, I suppose it's slightly different where even though I'm, like, very ambitious and, like, and I do want to try and speak to the the biggest people in the world, like, eventually I kind of know that there's got to be a little bit more strategy behind that in terms of getting their attention. And a cool piece of advice that I actually was given to any students listening, it's helped me quite a lot, is that don't go for the founder themselves, go for the person helping those founders, either their close team or, you know, you could even contact their PA and build that rapport through that way. I mean, It doesn't— it seems like very infeasible. It doesn't seem possible to get some of these people, but then you just— there's an element of just sort of going wherever the wind takes you. You know, you build that rapport with one person and then they know someone just by happenstance that you've been dreaming of having all this time. And then, you know, because one of the biggest things for me is I really want the episodes to be in person. Because I just think like it's so tangibly different. Like, it's hard to know if it comes across that way on a camera or whatever, but in person you can really feel that interaction. Like, my learning is about a— yeah, like the whole experience and then the rapport and relationship you build from that.

Um, yeah, I totally agree with that. I also think like that as well is often the advice I give to younger people as well, is like, you might want Ben, you know, when you're picking a mentor or whatever and you're trying to get one, right, and it's similar for podcast guests as well, like, yeah, with the best one in the world, Ben Francis of Gymshark, isn't necessarily going to have, uh, the time to do that. But actually on LinkedIn, you know, you have on the right-hand side, you know, people also viewed on there, and they'll all be Ben— that will be basically Ben's kind of like inner circle, right? And you can go to those people, and then you can go to those people's profiles see who's— and you kind of like keep going until you sort of like strike gold, because most people generally do want to be helpful about their careers and so on. So I do think it's, you know, it's good advice, and there are tools out there to do that. Whereas 10, 15 years ago, you would have had to have like, you know, called the sort of Gymshark front desk to like try and sort of do all that. Now, I mean, you're literally there within 4 or 5 clicks, right?

Yeah, I mean, I I actually got given a piece of advice this morning by the co-founder of Huel, which I thought was like a really— I don't know, I always ask for feedback at the end of every episode to try and get better, and he didn't actually give any feedback at all on the episode itself or like any of the questions I asked. He said there was a bit where actually my camera stopped working and we had like 10 minutes to just chat, and he was like, that 10 minutes actually made the conversation after way better because you took that time to get to know each other on a more personal level. And he was like, you know, why don't you do that like more often? Why don't we have a long conversation before? I was like, well, it's imposter syndrome. I don't feel like I'm worthy of your time for the podcast, let alone half an hour having a beer or a coffee beforehand. Yeah, I mean, what's your sort of experience being like on the day of recording with these guests? I mean, are you— because I've never had a podcaster on— like, are you having a long conversation before? Like, are you stopping for a break?

Or— yeah, so I think it's a good question. I would say we haven't got it right, um, in terms of— hey, we don't have a set method, um, and we definitely haven't got it right. I mean, I do pretty much now always insist on a chemistry call with someone in advance of it. But you have to sort of be— you also then have the danger of sort of you're almost like pre-recording the podcast, right? And then you think, oh no, that's even more wasted time and so on. So I normally like, if we've got like a major guest on, like a Sunak or a Bailey, then we'll try and do sort of like try and have 10-15 minutes just chat before about, you know, kind of breakfast, routine, that type of thing, right? Even like just testing the mics and stuff, um, or yeah, mentioning something else interesting they've said on another podcast, right? So then you're kind of getting over the fact that you've done a bit of research as well and that you're sort of taking it seriously. But it is a tricky line to sort of, um, get right, and I don't think that we, um, we particularly have yet. I mean, we got approached interestingly, like, earlier this week by somebody who works for the MyEnergy founder, a lady called Jordan, who's done, like, an amazing job. And I hadn't actually realized, like, the company's based in Grimsby, which is one of our big things, regional thing, and she's a female founder as well. So that's two of our big things that we're always trying to get on Jimmy's Jobs. And Yeah, it's going to be quite interesting to see how that sort of conversation goes. So PR team kind of reached out and I'm like, yes, we'll definitely do that, but we also want to make that really good. So how do we do it? Do we maybe go to Grimsby for the day, go see the kind of like the facilities they've built and stuff like that? So all that takes quite a lot of time and can be a little bit fiddly, um, but it's also partly just the evolution of like getting better and learning. I mean, the other thing, the other thing that I heard the other day on a podcast. How meta is this? One podcaster talks to another podcaster about a podcast I listen to about podcasting, right? But it was really interesting, was like, if you want to interview someone and you want to do it, like, and you really want to learn stuff, like, the best way is potentially not, um, is not just sitting down for them like a one-on-one interview like we are now and actually getting them to do something else. And yeah, we've chatted a bit about this before, the way Gary Neville's been doing this with Buzz 16. His production company, yeah, about kind of like going for a walk with people or stuff like that. I mean, again, that makes it, you know, it's hard when you bring cameras into the equation, right, rather than just mics. But I do think that kind of stuff is going to be interesting because, you know, if people are thinking too much about— people can think too much about their answers and so on. And, you know, I mean, it was quite interesting, the big interview with Harry Kane 18 months ago, yeah, was done on the golf course and so on. So I think that will be the next kind of level of questioning that we perhaps get to, but we haven't got it, we haven't got it figured out. I think I read somewhere Joe Rogan invites people to his house the night before and they have kind of dinner together and stuff. I'm quite sure what my wife would make of that, but we'll see.

I thought only recently I've been able to exactly decipher the intention of why I'm doing the episode, or like what I want people to feel after having listened to that episode. And I feel like for me it's sort of humanizing or making it seem more possible to resemble somebody's CV. Like, because you see everybody's LinkedIn.

Yeah.

It's all out there and you're like, you know, you might have seen, I'm announcing this new role. I've— he's gone from there to from that job to that job, but you don't actually know any of the actual human process behind that. And I just think for like young students, it's like sometimes having LinkedIn, especially when I first went over there, I was like, is this just an app to watch successful people congratulate other successful people on their successes? And yeah, it's actually, it isn't that, it's really a vehicle for more.

But you can feel like that at the beginning, but that's where I also, I mean, you know, it sounds like The Graduate Guide brought to you by LinkedIn. But like, it's, um, yeah, you can just go on there and just comment on things and, and just say, even if you're just saying like, you know, and look, LinkedIn is a bit, you know, it can be a bit sort of like performative, but you know, just saying that was an interesting episode, or you know, I really enjoyed his answer on this, or something like that. You know, all that stuff is, you don't, you always have to like adds value to the kind of debate, right? It's just being there and being present in it.

Yeah, but you're trying loads of new things aside from podcasting, like stand-up, for example, something you've been venturing into. I mean, I think it's awesome that you're doing that, and like probably the most debilitating reason that you wouldn't go and do these things at a younger age for our audience is the sort of social pressures that come with it. It's like, what are people going to think if I do that and upload it? I mean, maybe you don't have that right now, but how did you— what were some learnings that you made throughout your life, your career, to get you to a point where you're just like, fuck it, I'm gonna do this?

I'm gonna do this. And then, yeah, well, look, for a long time I wavered over actually hitting the upload button on that. So just to give a bit of context, because you mentioned it there, but I did a stand-up comedy course at the start of the year and then did a show kind of at the end of it and then sort of uploaded it and so on. And I can come back to how and why I decided to do that, but to your original question of like, you do care a lot about, particularly when you start out, what other people think. And we all care what other people think, right? It's always that classic I don't care what anyone thinks about me. Well, we all do, right? So, but I certainly care less than I did about that. And I take advice on what people think from people that I care about. So if somebody just has a random go on like Twitter or LinkedIn or whatever, I don't I don't get kind of worked up about that, but if it was one of my mates or somebody that I respected, and if one of them, you know, said to me, look, I think, you know, you need to rein this particular bit in or whatever, that would be okay. Well, then I'd sort of think about it. And that's how you need to kind of like have systems and teams of people that kind of like set up. I remember one of the pieces of advice when I started at Number 10 was, you know, you want to keep several groups of different people, and the way they Put it was like you want some outside outsiders in terms of, you know, for me it was friends from Derby, never been really involved in politics, etc., but could give me the kind of like salt of the earth view on like what we were saying and what we were doing, and that was very helpful. And then you also want some informed inside outsiders in terms of people that have been in there, sat in your desk, knows what it's like, but are now on the outside, so know the kind of pressures and so on. And that was something that I kind of like kept very sort of firm in terms of doing those types of things. But you just become more comfortable when you get older about like who you are and what your kind of story is and what you want the world to know and so on, right? And we also have this thing, you have this thing like called spotlight syndrome where you think everyone's looking at you the whole time and you worry that everything things being interpreted. Well, that's not really true, right? People are busy, like, and people have got a lot of stuff going on in their lives and actually don't really spend that much kind of, right, time thinking about what you're doing. So I think it's one of those things. I think you're like, I think, you know, with your audience in mind, I think your, your 20s are far harder than people kind of like give credit for, like. And actually, you're trying to make it in the world, you're trying to get a steady kind of career, you know, you also probably got your kind of like first serious relationships around then and so on. And all these things are just actually quite complicated. I mean, that's a lot of where we set Jimmy's jobs up, was partly to think of that 22 to 32 year old who's maybe got the first or second job and is now, you know, just gets it after university or school without too much thought and is thinking maybe 5 or 6 years into their career Am I totally sure I'm doing the right thing here, or do I want to do something else? And that's what we're trying to do, is sort of, you know, just give you the different options of what is out there and so on. So yeah, does that answer?

Yeah, it does, but it made me think that as you get older, yeah, you may become more confident and care about the social pressure less, but the flip side of that is that you were very competent, like, say, your job before and known for that. And then you, I mean, did podcasting come naturally to you? Because like, did you like sit down and think, oh, this is a bit weird, like I could go up on stage in front of, you know, 100 of the biggest people in the UK and give a talk on business, but now I'm like starting from fresh again? It's like, you know, you could use the example of, I don't play golf, I'm very bad at it, and but I'm quite good at playing table tennis, for example, why would I go try and play, learn to play golf and I won't enjoy it and I will enjoy playing table tennis? Like, yeah, what was that first initial bit of doing the podcast like for you?

Yeah, it was quite a sort of steep learning curve really, and it's always, that was something that I thought about quite early on in my career. Your analogy I think is quite true of You know, I used to talk about Wayne Rooney and obviously being one of the best strikers in the world. Now, did he go and work on his defending and his tackling that much? Or would there be any point in Wayne Rooney trying to go and be a professional golf player? It's the exact analogy I used. I think it's different, right? But you can do these things and go out and do them. And the sort of stand-up comedy, partly like I've been touched by how many people I saw at the Toy Party Conference that said, you know, is this your thing now? Is that what you're doing? And it's like, no, it's just like a sideline. It's just like a bit of a hobby really. And you know, in the same way that people go out and play football, right? Doesn't mean I'm necessarily going to turn professional. So I think that's true. And I think that it was quite a steep learning curve with the podcast in terms of There is something about being a broadcaster and doing questions for broadcasting that's— that was different, right? I was obviously very used to asking people questions, very used to asking businesses questions and trying to get information that was going to be valuable for the Prime Minister and her aims, right? So that was what I was going into these 45-minute meetings with business leaders about. It'd be, right, these are the PM's top 4 or 5 priorities, You know, it could be something like food inflation. I remember that was one of the big things that we used to do at the beginning was because of the volatility in the exchange rates when Britain initially voted to leave the European Union, it was kind of having an impact on food inflation. And so we would often have the big supermarkets in and, um, yeah, we'd ask them what are they seeing kind of like real time when it's food inflation, and they would say, yeah, we're expecting food inflation. I mean, God, it seems quite twee looking back at it, but like food inflation's peaked by 4.5% by the end of the year. And that would go in a note to the Prime Minister, and you know, that was sort of really useful information for her to kind of be aware of. And so I was quite used to asking questions of getting it, but then the playing field of a podcast is very, you know, you're in a private room there and you're trying to get information out that you can give to the Prime Minister, people are pretty willing to do that in a private sort of setting and do that, you know. Asking kind of a retailer that question in a public forum, they might be a bit more kind of like caged about it, probably add more caveats to it. And so it's definitely working out those scenarios has been different. And again, it's like changing all the time about, you know, and it It's sometimes as simple as, you know, what mood is that person in on that given day as well, right? You know, how do you create that sort of, you know, interesting and safe atmosphere to kind of do it? I mean, sort of banging on about one of my greatest hits here quite a lot, but like when we did Rishi Sunak, it's interesting when you listen to him. The beginning of the interview, he's literally come off a visit where he is very much kind of like in politician broadcast mode. Here's my messages. This is what I want to get across. And then something changes about 10 minutes into the interview where he just sort of like softens quite a lot. And we were talking about Stanford and we were talking about his kids and like, and he just gave like a whole different set of answers. Now his team still reference that as like one of the most personable interviews he's ever done. So it's worked really well. But yeah, it's sort of that there's a lot when you're interviewing people that you can't kind of be in control of? This is getting a very, very in-depth answer.

No, yeah, I think that's a podcast. Those are my favourite answers, though, honestly. I agree. I think actually the biggest compliment that you could give anybody is to call them infectious, whether that's their sort of, um, their humour is infectious, their energy or their intelligence. Like, it kind of separates leaders and and not leaders, because if you can go into a room and completely change and dictate the energy, I mean, that's sort of what I aspire to as a host, is, you know, no matter what mood or what's happened to them that morning, um, what's happened to them, yeah, but I will try and sort of set the tone of the interview.

I think business, entrepreneurship, and careers are incredibly exciting, and I think it's one of the most impactful things that you can do with your life is what you choose to dedicate your career to and do it right. So I do just find this stuff like, yeah, really exciting. I think that's true that, you know, being infectious. I mean, look, it's what Boris Johnson did to like unbelievable abilities, right? But he made people feel good about themselves, right? He made people feel energized and so on. And as a politician, I mean, it's just complete gold dust, right? We haven't really had anyone else that's kind of done that in Britain over the years. I mean, Tony Blair is the only other one that's sort of comes close. So I think it's a very good kind of like aspirant to sort of go for. I remember one phrase, it was actually used by— we were very lucky at my school, Sir Clive Woodward came just after winning the World Cup in 2003-2004 to give a talk to the school and to the first team, and he used a phrase which kind of stuck with me, which is people are either radiators or they're drains, and they either radiate energy or they drain your energy away. And you basically want to surround yourself— and for different people, they will have different reactions with different people, right? But I think it's, it's one of the things that I've always thought about, is like, you know, surround yourself with radiators and, and try and be one yourself as well. Well, it's not always easy, yeah, and what's happening on any given day.

It must be pretty eye-opening for you. I mean, obviously you would have grown up following and knowing about politics, but then when you were in that space, you know, getting to know them on a human level, like, people don't see politicians as humans sometimes.

Yeah.

I feel like, to be fair, that's one of the best things a podcast can do, and why I find that the podcasts where people don't normally have a voice online like they're the ones that always do best. It's not the ones that— because you're just like, what is this? Like, what is this? You know, you even see them going on reality TV shows now. It's just, it's something that's never happened before. And I mean, do you think that this is less to do with careers than anything, but do you think in terms of like maybe bringing the population together and sort of agreeing on someone to lead the country, like actually learning more about them as a person is a helpful tool?

Oh, I mean, undoubtedly it would be, right? And understand, I mean, most politicians go into it with very noble aims and have got very sound reasons for going into it, actually. And I think having a bit more of that is quite interesting. Yeah, George Osborne now just launched his podcast with Ed Balls called Political Currency, you know. In some ways, Osborne in the last 6 weeks has had more kind of relaxed conversation than he will have ever had in his sort of, you know, close to 20 years in the public eye prior to that. And I think it's, you know, it's kind of really interesting on that. So I think it, it is a good way. Um, I've got another example that I was going to say about— oh yeah, podcasting and, and seeing people because politician stories are generally interesting. So there aren't many people that follow politics and more aware of it than I am, I would say. But I actually listened to Ed Davey on a podcast the other day on Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart's Leading podcast. Just giving some minor podcasts here a bit of promotion, just help them out. But, um, and it was really interesting listening to Ed Davey, who's the leader of the Liberal Democrats. I didn't know his story at all. I, to be honest, I had assumed he was sort of a bit of a sort of generic kind of Lib Dem person. And actually listening to some of the stuff that he'd been through with his childhood and through his early adulthood as well sort of completely changed my perception of Ed Davey. I'm never going to vote Liberal Democrat, but I did— it changed my perception of him and made my kind of respect for him kind of increase. And that's because I would have only ever seen Ed Davey do 2 or 5-minute clips in here and there and hadn't sort of sat down to him, you know, talk about his story. And it was, yeah, it was really interesting. So yeah, and I think that'll be good for democracy, right? But the challenge is, is how do you get people to sort of listen to those things and so forth?

Well, I mean, you say how do you get people to listen to them, like, I think what a big problem that's happening in politics right now is that people are getting to, you know, 16, 17, 18 and thinking like, I don't even know who I'd vote for, and that's, you know, making the country less democratic. And I feel like probably podcasts are pretty good for that in terms of the people— how many people actually sit down and watch like BBC News at 10? Like, in our generation, it's all kind of got to be online and clipped up and on TikTok and everything like that. Um, oh, as we near towards the end of the episode, I, I want to ask a sort of a question about Do you feel, having done what you've done since leaving Number 10, that, you know, all the learnings you've made, all the people you've interviewed, that you, if you were hypothetically speaking to go back into the job, like, you would have been, yeah, you'd be better, like, or at least more aware and sort of knowledgeable of things you wouldn't have been, haven't maybe had time to even indulge yourself in before?

Uh, yeah, I mean, I think I would be better at it, right? But that's partly just because it's just another sort of 4 years of experience of it, and having run kind of like a startup as well myself, I think I'd be a lot better at sort of understanding all those challenges now and so on. So I think I'd be better at it in a number of different ways, and I understand the pains of kind of running a business more because I spent more time with these people people doing it. So yeah, in short, I think I would be better as a result of it, but it's probably less because of the conversations and more the actual like running of it, my, um, running of it myself, I think. But it's a good question. I was asked the other day, like, with everything you know now, how would you approach the job differently? Which is a slight spin-off of your question of asking it. I think there is I think realizing just how busy fast-growing scale-up companies are and their challenges, I think we would be a bit better at sort of— there's a danger when you're in Number 10, you think getting an invite to Number 10 is all that people want, and it's a great thing for them, and it's wonderful for them to have a photo out the front door and meet other people. And that's all true, but I think particularly for fast-growing companies, you need a bit more— we're inviting you in to help you with 'X, Y, or Z,' or 'Get your opinions on things,' and being a bit sort of clearer with what we are sort of requiring from that side of things. Um, I've written down here that I was going to tell you about— I didn't quite touch on the stand-up comedy stuff, but I think it's quite interesting for people that are thinking about doing career switches and changes and so on. And partly because the internet's much easier to do side hustles and all these kind of things, But basically, when I left Number 10, I wrote down 3 different plans for what I could do. And the first path was like the most obvious one, which was kind of set up a political advisory company to help entrepreneurs and people engage with government and so on, which is kind of what I'd done before I was at Number 10 as well, but like do it on my own. Second path was create some kind of careers education start-up. And then the third plan was like, what's the really ambitious, what's if you stripped everything away, financial, social inhibitions, all that, what would you do? And that was like, be a stand-up comedian, I thought would be brilliant. And so doing those kind of like different plans, and the irony of course is that sit here 4 years on, I've basically done a little bit of all 3 anyway, right? I do some political advisory work with entrepreneurs like I like, that I feel that I can help. I'm running Jimmy's Jobs, which I spend about 80% of my time on, and then as a kind of hobby I've done a bit of stand-up, which has been like an amazing thing to do that course. And you know, I actually got advice from it from John Bishop, kind of one of the UK's leading comedians, when I was in Number 10. And yeah, it's been great to kind of do that and put that out into the world and and so on and do it. And it feels like— not that it was a tick box exercise, but it feels amazing to kind of have done that. I think that's one of the things with life now. It's like so much simpler to kind of like prototype all the things that you want to do and so on. And it's only by doing things that you realize the bits that you don't like of doing things. And actually, like thinking, oh, I want to be a stand-up comedian and I think that'd be great. Like, why is that? Like, is it because you like writing jokes? Because that's completely different to getting up telling them, right? But you can only go through the process by doing it. Do you realize the other bits that you sort of, that you kind of like a bit? It's like one of the things I really enjoy with the podcast is thinking to one of your questions earlier on, it's like, how are we going to get that person, right? Like, what are the routes to that person and what do we need to offer them that are going to make them worthwhile and take their notice with it, right? And that's a real kind of like skill, and I spend a lot of time on that, and I— which is a really weird kind of like sort of technical part of the job that I enjoy. And it's like one of the good ones, Andrew Bailey, like we went on to the Bank of England's LinkedIn page, we worked out who his Chief of Staff was, you know, we kind of like sent him an episode on how to be a Chief of Staff and said, you know, you might like, A, you might like this, B, we'd love to like talk to you about getting the Governor on at a time that might suit. And they were like, actually, we think it's great, it's worked really well with some stuff we're doing. And that's one of the key things, like a lot of this stuff is timing and, you know, the sort of letter landing on the doormat on the right day. And the only way that you kind of increase your odds of doing that is is to write more letters.

I think it's very admirable that you're still trying all these new things, and I think a big learning that sort of this— my audience can take from this is that everyone puts so much pressure on themselves to make the first right step in their career, thinking, oh, you know, I've had dreams of what it might be, and this is nowhere near my dream. But like, there is no age limit to just trying something new. And if anything, like, the more you sort of, like you said, do that thing, you'll learn, okay, I don't like this bit about it. Like, every single week you're gonna learn a new thing you don't like or you do like about a job, and then you're closer to your next job. So, yeah.

So Hemingway said, you know, first, you know, one of the world's most prolific writers and famous writers said, the first draft of anything is crap, right? And it's just, it's true, right? Like, your first podcast will be crap, your first article will be crap, like it just, it always will be. And once you kind of get over that, and that's where it gets harder actually, when you almost, you get older, because people, you can't—

Expectations.

Yeah, expectations that you can't be crap when you're older at stuff. And actually like you need to sort of do that. But then it's like I definitely like safeguarded against that with like the comedy stuff. That's why I went and did a course in it for 10 weeks. The reason I just didn't get up in a bar at an open mic night and do it, right, was because I was like, well, I want to kind of do it properly, and I don't want to be like— I want to be the best version of crap that I can be. This is why I did a 10-week course in it with a chap called Logan Murray at Comedy Museum of Comedy, which I'd recommend to anyone kind of thinking about that.

Yeah, I think you should definitely start doing things when you're young because, I mean, my first first few podcasts were like hilariously bad, like on not just a technical level but as an interviewer. I had my laptop in front of me. The reason I started podcasts is because all my mates were like, you just are the most sociable person I've ever met, and I'll speak to everyone, anyone in the smoking area on a night out, whatever. But then as soon as I had a microphone in front of me, I was like, oh God, this is like weird. And it was way more interview-based than conversational, which is— I wanted it to be conversational. Yeah, you gotta you know, sort of when you're younger, nobody expects anything from me, and they still don't really. Nobody cares if I upload on this day or the next day or whatever, but I think there is some sort of— the reason why there's a buy-in to the Graduate Guide or any kind of buy-in is, yeah, like an admiration that I have been putting out crap stuff, but I don't care. I'm just improving it the next week, and you can get to being sat on a seat Like speaking to yourself?

Yeah, I mean, I remember one of my first ones that I did where it was— yeah, I mean, I think we edited it in the end because it was just so shocking of like— yeah, I basically asked a question that wasn't really a question. I just came out of a load of like dribble and then basically said, "And what do you think about that?" It's terrible. Like, so I think it's Yeah, it's like there's inevitability with that kind of stuff. It's just gonna be— it's like your first, like, Instagram reel is gonna be rubbish. Your first, you know, TikTok's gonna be rubbish and whatever. I mean, I'm chatting to a guy on Thursday who's a big TikToker, and funnily enough, I went through some of his sort of really old ones and whatever, and they inevitably, they were rubbish as well.

My final question to you, and I ask all of my guests the same question. It's funny that you mentioned earlier that you're like, sometimes it's the very simple questions that you ask people that are the most interesting ones to listen to. But when you first, you know, graduated from Birmingham and you started your career, you would have had an idea of what a successful career and life would look like to you. And now, however many years on, and you've done so much and you know, tried so many different things. I wonder, what is your definition of success?

Definition of success is being happy, um, and for me, being happy is kind of having curiosity fulfilled, um, and having the time and the space to be able to follow your curiosity, um, and that's basically what interests you and goes back to one of your questions about, like, how do you continue to learn? So that's my kind of definition of success, is the ability to have that kind of fulfilled. Obviously, like, money is an important issue and is stuff that doesn't necessarily get, like, talked about because we're British and so on, but money is important as well. And, you know, you do have to sort of think a lot about that and work out with that, but there's quite a few studies that basically probably changed with the amount of inflation that we've seen lately, but like once you get to a kind of like £80,000-90,000 a year, that actually, you know, you don't get much happier sort of like beyond that. And obviously that's still like an awful lot of money, particularly when people are starting out, that seems like a great deal of money. But I've always, that's always something that's kind of really stuck with me as well.

Jimmy, it's been great.

Thank you very much for having me. It's been brilliant sitting the other side of the table. Nice.