"This Is My BIGGEST SECRET For SUCCESS & HAPPINESS" | Joe Foster

They'd stop manufacturing. He stopped manufacturing about four years after we had left and he just opened a retail sports shop, J. Fuster, and kept selling shoes under the same name. But yeah, we got some reconciliation. I think Mother was more pleased about that.

Welcome to Stuck to Unstoppable, where we interview the world's foremost thought leaders to break things down in order to help you get past your hurts and habits and hang ups and finally level up and move forward. I'm your host, Stephen Scoggins. Now let's go ahead and get into today's guest and our featured conversation.

You're not going to want to miss it.

What does it take to build a billion dollar brand that's known all over the world? Well, we're about to discover just some of the principles used by Reebok's founder, Joe Foster, that he used to go from actually living in the building behind the factory to actually building a global brand that has stood the test of time. Not only that, totally innovated the entire athletic shoe space. Joe's vision for brand became ever clearer as the setbacks he faced and near bankruptcies taught him very tough but very valuable lessons that he used to push Reebok and himself harder towards the future. It wasn't long before Reeboks were worn onto Hollywood red carpets, on the feet of rock stars, and even played an overall starring role in the movie Aliens being worn by Sigourney Weaver and as she took down extraterrestrials in a pair of Reebok alien stompers. And now Joe is well on his way to the New York Times bestseller list with his brand new book, Shoemaker. Guys, please help me in welcoming Joe Foster. Joe, how are you doing, my friend?

Well, thank you very much for the introduction. That's fantastic. It really is. And I'm doing very well. It's amazing what happens when you write a book and it's a story that tells not just my life, retells of the Foster family. It really goes back to say where we started from. So thank you for that introduction. Great.

Absolutely. I mean, you know, I gotta be honest with you, I can't put the book down. I'm at chapter 11 right now in full disclosure. But I have already made it through some of the, obviously the military service. I've made it through, obviously some of the transitions with your family. I've made it through some of those things. And to be honest, I'm excited to have the call because I feel like in especially we got the entrepreneur crowd.

That obviously listens to the show.

They don't necessarily understand sacrifice and the price that you have to pay in order to kind of achieve the level of success that you've had the benefit of achieving, because there's obviously been a ton of sacrifice. They also don't understand some of the nuances that come into just becoming a better person on the life side of things, on the same side of things. So, again, I can't put the thing down. So I really appreciate you taking the time and being so transparent and vulnerable with it, man. It's amazing.

Really is. Oh, it's a pleasure, really. I really wrote the book because it spans a long time and there's a lot of misconceptions out there of where did Reebok come from? How did it happen? And Wikipedia, you can read all sorts of things. So I thought at least if we get this out, we will have a continuous story and that people will go away and say, that's what happened.

Well, that's kind of what I keep bumping into. Not only is it a highlighter book.

I've got my highlighter out and I'm.

Highlighting things, but it's also one of those things that the story continues. And as the story continues, you're just kind of drawing closer and closer and closer in. So not only is it a good read, it's also good for the brain and good for the mind, for sure.

Please. Sounds interesting.

Everybody get it?

That's my opinion.

Anyway, I wanted to touch on the early onset of your story. Obviously, I'm not going to give away all the.

All the.

All the goodies in the book, but there is one that I see that a lot of people still chase to this day. And one, a concept that really stands the test of time, and that's the early onset about chasing the affirmation of our parents and how it means so much to us. I know one of the things that you mentioned early in the book is obviously, you know, seeking the approval specifically of your father at the time. How much did that play a role in your overall development as a young man and even throughout the course of your career?

It's very difficult to understand that because.

You'Re not really conscious. When you're young, you're not conscious. But I do think that you prefer to be with your parents. And I know my parents well. Certainly my father, he was a bit standoff. We didn't get too close. Mother always looked after us. But I think this was the time of the century. This is what happened. I think fathers were father figures. And not, you know, they were disciplinarians rather than they were there to give you a hug and play games with you. Yeah. That wasn't their role in those days. I know it sounds funny to me because I think people today and where families are, and I look back, and father got up in the morning, he went to work, Mother got us up, had us breakfast, off to school. When it was school time, we came back, we have tea without father. Father comes home, something after 6pm he sits down, he has his meal alone.

Oh, God.

And then. And then about an hour later, after he's had a rest, he goes out to the pub. So he's with his friends going for a drink. By the time he comes back home, we're in bed.

Yeah.

We grow up with that distance. So we, I think had we been close and that would have probably happened later in time, as time goes by, maybe things changed in that way. But had we been closer, maybe we would have made some differences to the business. Because as you've read, you know, we did at a point have to leave the family business.

Yeah.

But mother was always very close. But I say, I think we have that difference with Father. And of course, during the war years, if he wasn't sort of going to the pub, he was doing Home Guard, as they called in those days. Yeah. And I mean, we made a lot of fun of all that with many programs sent to the war and the Home Guard. But yes, he had his gun and he used to have to go out and so just stay out all night. How much he stayed awake, I have no idea. But, you know, so with the family, I think respect for father, but I don't think there was that closeness. That would have been a difference.

Yeah, Well, I know, like I said, you know, I think all children at some level want to have the approval of their parents. They all want to feel like the parents, you know, support what they're doing or, you know. I know, I know one of the things you mentioned in the book is obviously maybe you weren't necessarily very gifted at running, but you did discover your sphere of genius as an improver. So how did. How did you actually come across, you know, noticing that really, where your sweet spot kind of laid or. I guess. Yeah, laid. The laid's right word. How did you discover that's that's where your sweet spot of genius was, is actually as the improver? How did you discover that?

Well, again, you know, I mean, today they call people entrepreneurs.

Yeah.

It may have been in the dictionary. It may even been in the dictionary that I won, but it's not something I read, not something I knew about. You know, we had rich people, we had industrialists.

But we don't have this sort of spirit of business and what. What drives you, what motivates you want to do that. I think it was always sort of eager to do things, to get on and. Okay. We were part of. Both Jeff and myself were part of Boy Scouts and we both did national service. And they do sort of set you up to look after yourself. They give you something, which is self motivation. And. Yeah. And because of that, you don't. Again, you're not that close. You're not that I say, dependent on family.

But I think I was always the outspoken one. My brother was two years older than me, and he was very satisfied with just life ticking along. Even when we were in business together, he would look after the factory. I had the best.

I did the designing, I would go meet people, I would try and sell the business and everything. So Jeff never worried about that. He let me get on with it. In fact, I think he was so happy that he didn't have to do it. But for me, it was the challenge.

Little did I know, we set ourselves up for a massive challenge.

We were just saying, no, no, we need to do something different. But what a challenge that was.

Well, you know, and I think it's important because, you know, I. I believe that sometimes discovering your genius, or sphere of genius, so to speak, or, you know, the area that you're most gifted at to either, you know, create a life you love or create a business that you love really comes from within. And discovering that as early as possible is amazing. One of the things that I respect, I think, and there's a ton of things I respect about your career and everything that you've done over the years. I mean, you've done a lot of different things. You faced a lot of different adversities along the way. But I've always, as an entrepreneur myself, who owns six companies and things of that nature myself, one of the things I always appreciate, that I always appreciate seeing in other people is this willingness to do the early work first. But I think you kind of stumbled your way in to obviously sewing shoes early on and all kinds of stuff like that. But talk a little bit about the importance of apprenticeship towards mastery, because it seems like the early apprenticeship actually set you up ultimately for the career that you ended up having.

Well, I think that what is very important if you are to become an entrepreneur, if you are to run a business, is to know it, know right from the bottom, right from the bits that come. And in a case where we're in a manufacturing business, we're producing a product, then you have to know that product. I was never a good salesman. I knew my product, so nobody could talk to me about my product and tell me what was wrong with it. I knew if there was something wrong. I knew. And that didn't worry me because I could tell them my works were going to be changed. So knowing exactly what your product is, where you're going, I mean, that to me is so important because if you know right from the bottom and you know how it's used, you know the techniques, I think that it's so, so important if you going to be successful in your business because so many times that you have to fall back on, well, why are we here? What are we doing? I used to, when I did web selling in the early days, I just go in my car and would call on sports stores and I'd be selling to the man, say, I'm Reebok. Hi. And he was saying, reebok, who's that showing the product anyway? And he said, just a minute, I'm going. I did this. I've got Dunlop. Why do I need Reebok? And that, to me was a very important question.

You don't need Reebok, do you? Why didn't you Reebok shelf space? That made me realize that he wasn't my customer. My customer was the athlete. My customer was the one who would put the shoes on, and I got to get to the athlete, the retailer. He was in between. He would. He would make access for my product, but my customer was the athlete.

Yeah.

And I mean, and that's when I realized I had to find a way through to the athlete. So it is. It is understanding what you're doing, what practices, and then learning how to sell.

Yeah, I definitely believe that. You know, it's fortunately for me, many of the companies that I currently own, I have. I have done every single role in the company at least once. Now, I'm thankful to say that things like accounting, while I like what accounting does, I'm not necessarily gifted at it. Like, I can read numbers, but I hate staring at spreadsheets all day, so I totally understand that. The other thing that, again, one of the things I mentioned as we were getting started in the intro is.

This process where you took massive risk and massive advantages. I mean, you mentioned that obviously you and your wife were in a new home or at least a home, and then had to sell the home to kind of get Reebok off the ground and start. And not only did you kind of move out of the city that you guys have kind of, I guess, had been in all your life, also ended up living in the shoe factory for a while as you were kicking things off, is that right?

Well, not exactly in the factory. The factory used to be an old brewery and at the front, it fronted onto a major road, and the front part of that were living quarters, as it were. You know, the proper kitchen, proper bedrooms. So that was part of the building. And the, the brewery, the old brewery was at the back of it. So our factory was at the back of this nice place to live. When I say nice place to live, it wasn't exactly what we sold. We had a very nice bungalow that new. And this was very old property.

In fact, it doesn't exist anymore. But, you know, the thing is, do you see your surroundings? Do you see what it is? Or are you. I mean, we were just focused. Yeah, focused on what we're doing.

This just happens to be somewhere that living on the property, that's good because when you put things down at 6 o' clock at night, you just open the door and that's it. You don't have to make that journey. And I've made many of those journeys, but you don't have to. So that was good. And, you know, I was 23, Jeff, my brother was 25. We were young. Yeah, we were totally indestructible.

I remember those.

So, you know, failure. No, we won't fail. We're here to win. We're not here to lose or come second. We're here, we're enjoying ourselves. And it was, I mean, after having so many years trying to persuade the family that we've got to move forward, to be on our own, that was the release. So that wasn't a burden, that was an experience. But, yeah, we enjoyed it.

Well, I always want to set the stage up, obviously, for people to understand that if you want to do anything of importance or anything that's going to have a massive impact, you're probably going to have to overcome a massive adversity of some kind. You know, we'll get into your, obviously the relationship with your dad in a little bit. And when you guys had to part ways to create Reebok to begin with, you know, but kudos to your wife who obviously, you know, took ownership of the new living quarters and did her best to make it home. I was loving that part of the story where she Was kind of mentioned, like, you know, she went to anywhere and everywhere she could to kind of nestle it and make it feel like home so you guys could focus, you know, so you didn't have the overall stress, as you know, on that spit, because there was enough stresses coming the other way for sure. But no kudos to your wife for that, for sure.

Oh, yes, absolutely. I mean, I think the. We spent three years trying to persuade. After doing national service, three years trying to persuade my uncle and my father, who wouldn't speak to each other. So, you know, why we expected we could get some changes, I don't know. But we did. We thought we could probably get them to understand that the company is dying, Fosters is dying. We need. And we're young, you know, we need to do things. So I think that during those three years, I'd come home in an evening to my wife because. And I think she was so tired of me going on about.

It's driving me crazy. It's. I think she was so happy that that shut me up.

That move has stopped me complaining.

My wife treats me the exact same way. So I don't totally understand what you're talking about.

I want to pick your brain a little bit about perspectives. Perspective shift. Obviously, you know, when you were growing up in Bolton, you left Bolton for a brief stint, if I'm correct, served in the armed forces with the British military, or at least getting trained in that aspect. But then you come home and in the book you talk about how that. How that being away from Bolton had shifted your. Your perception about what you either thought was possible or at least kind of like the small.

Small town mentality. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, I think that, okay, we'd done scouts, and scouts did help us go out and about and learn things. We spent time in the Lake District camping and looking after ourselves. But when we went away.

You know, you didn't have mother to make your food, wash your clothes, do everything for you. And, you know, that was an automatic thing. You'd just grown up. We had 18 years of growth within a family unit, and you just did that. You went away for two years, you learned something more. And what you did learn was independence, self determination. You learn how to make. Okay, I went into the raf, but I spent half of my time playing badminton. I was pretty good at playing badminton. So how do you get around this? Well, okay. Oh, he plays pretty good. So I play for fighter Command and, you know, that was. That was great. So I was away and when I Came back to my base, they didn't have a job for me, so I just did anything. And you'd learn then that, you know, just a minute. You know, you, you're in control. Okay. You've got to be careful about that guy over there because he knows a bit more and he's a bit more. You're. Yeah. Up there. So you don't, you don't get the wrong side of him. In fact, you get the right side of him. Yeah. Yeah. Instead of doing nothing, you knock on his door and say, what can I do?

Yeah. And people are surprised that, you know, you want to do something, so you do something different. And so you make, you get on with the people you know you should get up with. And you learn that self determination, that it's not just something. Day by day you get up, you do this, you do. No, you learn that life is more than just getting up in the morning, going to do something and coming back and just living in that same circle. And that gave us that independence. And when we came back, seeing we couldn't be satisfied with coming back to that same cycle, we had to question him. And.

I don't think father, I think father had grown up in that bubble where you go round and round. He'd grown up in his family business. I don't think he could see what we were trying to do and why we were trying to do it more than anything else. I mean, he would say to me, look, when I'm gone and Bill's gone, this business will be yours. I would say to him, dad, don't want your goal, not what we're waiting for. But this business will be gone before you go.

Yeah.

No, just didn't believe that orders came through the door. They made them to send them out to the other door. But that's grandfather. Grandfather had made a fantastic business, really during his time. He was incredible. Absolutely incredible. And we didn't know this because that wasn't talked about. They didn't know it.

Yes.

That's the annoying part. Father and uncle didn't know how fantastic and what a genius my grandfather would be.

Wow.

So you come back out of the forces and all this is rattling around in your brain and you think it, come on, you know, I'm going to do something. So you know, that's, that's the difference.

Yeah, I mean, it really is. You know, it's funny, there was an old saying that I heard, I remember how long ago it was, but it says the quirky brilliance of the founder can only take a Business so far. And in that particular quote, it might have been Dave Ramsey. Actually, I'm trying to remember who it was. But.

What they were basically going after was the father and the grandfather had taken a business from zero to. I think it was $1 billion. Okay. Which is a massive, obviously, accomplishment. However, once the court. The quirky brilliance, meaning what they did was they obviously did their best to honor the basically standing on the shoulders of giants. Obviously did their best to honor that. The children that took the business over ended up taking that business in one year's time from 1 billion to 6 billion dollars.

Right.

You know, so I think there's definitely an essence of being open to change and being open to innovation. And throughout the course of your book, that is one, I think, superpower that I think you also had was constantly looking at the market to kind of see what was changing, where things are falling, where the kind of the foster brand was starting to suffer and kind of the things that needed to change. And I know you, obviously, you spent a ton of time trying to talk your father, for lack of a better words, into a different direction, common sense approach, or at least the markets. You were watching the. Essentially your competitors begin to take more and more market share over time.

You then had to have this ultimate.

Moment with your father where you basically had to say, dad, I've tried to talk to you. I've tried. I've tried our best. I think it was you and your. You and your brother that said, okay, we're going to. But you were the spokesperson. You took all the heat.

Right.

And I think you're. Was it your dad either was holding a.

Paper opener.

Yeah, that had to be a little.

Intimidating, but talk a little bit, obviously, if you don't mind. I mean, this is an important part of your journey. Talk a little bit about that relationship, even maybe, you know, because you went from the Apprentice, the apprentice side growing up in the business, I'm sure there was a huge part of you respected and loved your dad, but you just knew you had to go out on your own and what. What that relationship was like and how, you know, kind of how that played into Reebok.

Well, we. I mean, we grew up on the. On the factory floor. So what you knew. You knew on the factory floor. Until we went into the forces, and when we came out after two years, Jeff and I saw all these things were wrong and we knew too little. So we did college at night. We went college and we learned about shoemaking. Okay, it wasn't sports shoe making, but, you know, the contacts we made was so incredible. And this was because whatever business you're in, we were in making shoes and all we did was put spikes in or make them bit different, but we're in making shoes. So we needed to be in that business. Apart from the fact that we needed to. To the Foster family, the Foster business, to grow, what we needed was to know more about the business. How do you grow not just in marketing, but how do you grow from manufacturing? What do you learn? How can you do this? And.

We couldn't get that round either, because the machinery that we were using, it was old. When we did leave, we managed to buy machinery. We couldn't buy new machinery, but we could buy machinery even a little bit better than what we had at JW Foster. And it costs nothing because once somebody has had a machine for, say, five years and it's been superseded, it's just metal scrap almost. So we were lucky. We could set up a factory from almost scrap. But we knew that machinery because we've been using it. But I mean, all these things were going on in mind, and that particular. The frustrations, though, of not then being able to. You know, we were young. Yes. But just a minute. We've lost three years of our lives.

Yeah.

You know, three years have gone by and we're not making any progress. So this was building up in me. Jeff was a little bit more sort of content with library. He knew he wanted the same. But it was on that fateful day when I decided, look, Jeff, we just gotta go. Well, you know, and he was sort of standing back a bit. I'm going in.

Yeah.

So I went in and it was father sitting down next to the desk, Grandfather's desk, which I have, by the way. And, well, actually it's in the archive now at Reebok. But he was sat down there and I said, look, Jeff and I are leaving. And he just didn't take it in to begin with. Said, did you understand we're leaving, you won't come with us, you're not willing to help, we're going to have to. And when he realized that, because his face just changed and he did pick up this letter and he said. And I. I didn't know what he was going to do with that.

I was not, I say, physically much fitter than he was, and I don't think it would have gone very far, but he actually turned it around and gave it to me and says, yeah, stamina. You know, it was like.

That'S not what this is about. Yeah, what this Is about is a future. Yeah, our future. But you know, that was it. It was like, okay, we'd gone and we, we left that it was Friday evening. So we had a weekend to start. Everybody had a weekend to, to think it over, but we didn't have a weekend to think it over. The next day we were down there doing things, preparing machinery, preparing, getting ready and finding materials. So you know, I look back and sometimes it's incredible. It's like we had, you know, when we had no leather, we had to go to a tannery and got out the company vehicle, which was Jeff's scooter.

And we're on a scooter driving over the Pennines into the next county to WL England. I think it was. They were the tanners and looking at us like we buy a roll of leather which is rolled up and tied so I can sling it on my back and Jeff can drive the scooter.

Those are sort of crazy early days. But you know, we did it. And that makes the difference between being a startup really getting it going or somebody said, oh, we can't do this. That didn't enter our heads at all. It was, let's go.

That's amazing. I love it. I love it. Now to come to make things a bit more complex, obviously, if I'm not mistaken, your brother ended up staying with your father in the house, living there for a short time as you guys were getting going, which had to offer a little bit of complexity with Yalls creation of a brand new business.

Well, I guess that that was another part of father believing that Jeff was talked into this by me, that I led him astray. And I'm sure Jeff didn't do anything or say anything to change that.

He probably just threw his hands up and said, well, Joe was happy to do this. And I do think that yeah, he stayed there. So I say.

It was probably a bit awkward. Then again, I don't think he worried too much about it as Jeff wasn't. He didn't speak too much. He was a man who was practical. He preferred to be in the factory making the shoes. And he could make the shoes right from the start. He could make a pattern to make the shoe. He could even design the last. That was good for him. I was a shoe designer. But he was a practical man. He could make it work. And in fact, when we did set up and we did start making shoes, he stayed on doing a day a week at college just to get more knowledge and I'd be on my own just making shoes. Or doing whatever. But yeah, you reminded me of some very early days now.

Well, I think the early days are important to share because a lot of times people look at, you know, where a career, you know, is, you know, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 30 years, down the pipeline, 40, you know, they look at the overall, you know, the. I mean, the fact that you guys are able, you know, in a pre. Covid environment, that you and your wife travel quite a bit around Europe throughout the course of the year and, you know, and. And have a lot of freedoms that a lot of other folks would obviously, you know, would love to have, you know, but they don't. Also, people don't take into account the struggle that laid the groundwork for that to actually become reality. We seem to, as a. As a culture nowadays, doesn't matter what part of the world we're in. We seem to celebrate the win and somehow discount the struggle. And I'm. I'm of the mind that I celebrate the struggle and then downplay the win. And that's just kind of where I've been from. That's one of the things that I'm kind of. That I feel like we're. That you and I are in unison on as I. As I read more and more of your book. And I think it's one of those things that needs to be communicated on a more resonant basis with people in general. And I'm just. I'm proud, proud to see you have done that and being as vulnerable as you were.

Oh, yes, definitely. I think the journey. Because at the end, I did get out of the business when we were about $3.8 billion. Because at that point.

It'S no longer the excitement, it's no longer the struggle, it's no longer the challenge. The challenge is different. As you were saying, you know, there's a period of time when you're really useful to the business. And then when you get to a certain point, no, I end up in an airplane traveling to different cities, being picked up by a limousine, going to the best hotels and having a meal and talking with people. And.

That, to me, was not what I was about. I could celebrate the growth, but I didn't want to be there just being just simply. I'm still an ambassador, but just simply being an ambassador. It was better outside of the business to do that rather than to be trying to take a daily role. So, yeah, I think the journey, it's like. It's like, say it's better to travel than arrive.

I love it. Well, let Me ask you this, what was missing in the marketplace that, you know, had you in your own mind, say, you know what, I can build a better shoe or I can build a better business around a shoe? Or was it just the simple fact that that was the business that you knew and you were willing to compete? Or was there something missing in the marketplace when you actually found it and created Reebok?

I think in those days, I don't think there was anything. I think at that time, Adidas were very, very aggressive and people were around and they were building, they were taking the business. I think really there was a lot of annoyance there. You know, just a minute. This is our business. Grandfather had gone to business. He was dealing with all the top football clubs in the United Kingdom. I don't know if you know much about football. Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, the big teams that are in the premiership today. We have a 1920s letterhead and we replicated it and it generally has all the names of all the teams they were supplying. And so you look at that and you think.

This man, he grew something big. These people coming in now, you know, why do we. This is why we. In those three years, we were rattling the bars and doing all things, but we couldn't shift. Father and uncle, they were just so happy in the way that they were living and working. They thought it would go on forever. They just thought it would go on forever. So, yeah, we were sort of looking, was there a space? No, we want to be there. There wasn't a space. We had to muscle our way in. You know, come on, you know, this is our right. We could be angry about the whole thing and be excited and could we do it? You know, how could we do it? So.

I think that, yes, we knew our. Almost our birthright, almost our DNA, if you will, was in not just in shoe business, but the sports shoes. And not just within it, but winning and, you know, we needed. We heard all about the winners. Alf Shrub in 1904 brought three world records in a one hour race in granddad's shoes. Yeah, yeah. The Chariots of Fire. You know, the athletes that, that really, really immortalized Alfred Shrub, Eric Liddell and Lord Burleigh, they all won gold medals in the 20s and they'd won them in Joe Foster's shoes. Yeah, it's like, come on, you know, we gotta, we got to do some things here. So, yeah, it was really a challenge. You know, we, we knew why, why does all. Why does this family business. Why does this family knowledge. Well, this family involvement die yeah, no, yeah, that's.

Yeah, I'm glad.

I'm glad that you stood in the gap and you cared enough to continue your grandfather's legacy, even through your father. I'm sure there was a time it was incredibly painful to be in that process. You know, I didn't have the fortunate privilege of having a father around early part of my life, but when he could, you know, later in my life, he came back into the picture and tried his best to be a dad. You know, I was playing ice hockey at 35 years old for the first time at a men's league at night, and all those games are at midnight or 1am Right. So. And my father never missed one. He never missed one. You know, and I would. Does your story with your father have a. Have a pretty good happy ending? Did you. Were you guys ever able to reconcile as you built your own business and as he went into more of the retirement area?

Yeah, I think to an extent we did. Yeah. I mean, he eventually accepted that we would, you know, we were being successful, we were doing okay. He did suggest later on that we probably get together again and call. Call the company Fosbok.

Many shaking of heads.

No, dad wasn't a marketer.

No, no, we don't do it that way.

So we did spend time together and he was helpful as much as he could be. You know, he did lend us money on one occasion. So, yeah, I suppose there was a bit of repairing there. And I think he became to know that in his own knowledge. Yes. You know, they weren't going the right way, that we had to change it and we had to go. But he never admitted that when it was like, you know, because the J.D. foster business did close down maybe. Well, it was about 9:79, so a good few years after. But they'd stopped manufacturing. He stopped manufacturing about four years after we had left and just. He just opened a retail sports shop, J.D. foster, and kept selling shoes on the same name. But, yeah, we got some reconciliation. I think mother was more pleased about that.

As mothers normally be, because Mother.

Always stayed sort of belonging and part of. And, you know, I probably would have loved to have heard some of the conversations that they had sort of not just immediately after. I'm sure she probably shouldn't say immediately, but I think if she progressively wore him down to sort of say, you know, don't be so stupid. You know, they've done something. Look what they're doing.

And, yeah, going from those guys to. Those are my boys.

I do know that my father died in 1976, and he was just 70. And after that, we. We, of course, were doing very well. And as we grow up, we were driving nice cars, a Porsche, whatever it is. And when I turn up at mother's, you know, she would say, oh, your father would love this.

Just a car. So, yeah, I think there was a certain reconciliation, but again, we're probably going to go back to the 50s and the way that people then treated families. The father was the father and he was a bread earner. The mother brought up the children, so we were mother's responsibilities.

Well, I can tell you, for one thing.

I have to say, your book's probably one of the best ones I've read this year. And again, I still have a little ways to go.

But at the same time, I'm really enjoying it. I'm really enjoying what it stands for. I'm really enjoying that it covers a true entrepreneur journey, that it also covers life journey. There's a lot of transparency in it. There's a lot of vulnerability. There's a lot of, you know, this happened. I learned this. And the way it's written is just beautiful. It's almost poetic in a certain respect. And everybody needs to get it for sure. Hands down, they need to get the book. That's going to be easy.

That's the objective right now. The objective right now is to get people to read the book. It's like making shoes. It's not good writing a book if it's just, oh, that's my book, and I put it there. No, no, everybody's going to read it. You write a book to be ready, and that's it. And I hope. I hope people can probably look at it and say, well, what a mug. He was doing all those things.

Oh, that was great. Yeah, he must have enjoyed that. A lot of people grew up in their own small town. They got a business there, they do things there, they travel for holidays. But then beyond that, they don't see the world. They're just there with whatever they're doing and happy to be there. And I think that was my father and uncle. They just sort of went in that circle. And.

I think, you know, people ask, what do you regret? I think the only thing that I can think of regretting, and it doesn't help in any way, but for at least 10 years, probably more, I traveled an awful lot. I was going around the world maybe three or four times a year. And I would say that 75% of that I was on my own, you know. Yeah, maybe 20% I was with a lawyer. That was important to get those deals done. We were doing all the distribution deals and then maybe 5%. My wife eventually came with me. She'd had the opportunity to manage her. She didn't like traveling.

Yeah.

But of course, when we were going to Monte Carlo, meeting all the wait listers, doing that. Well, I can manage that. Yes, of course. And. And there were some very exciting days at that time, meeting some very interesting people. But. Yeah. So.

When it comes to sort of thinking of your life and your story and the people, I think had a remarkable life, a remarkable journey, and I wish more people could have shared that with me.

Yeah. Well, I think because of your book, I think many more can. All they have to do is read, learn, and apply. And that's one of the reasons that I love books so much. A lot of times. I do have a question about the book. Why did you decide to kind of put it out now? Why not earlier? What. You know what. What made you decide that now's the right season to release Shoemaker?

Well, you know, I started writing the book about seven years ago.

Okay.

Which does take us back a little bit. But I needed help because I got. I done the experiences. What I needed people to do was to help me put it together so that it read correctly. Also to put the emotion into it, because I'd say, oh, well, I did this, this and this, you know. What was that? Well, that was a visit to the palace in Monaco.

You know what you're like, well, what colors the walls and.

Oh, yeah, you know, Ginger Rogers dance studio was great. The house was fantastic. You are, you know, But I probably didn't expect it. Just the things I did, you know, when you meet up with so many of the stars, which, of course, the steps had been gradual. So overnight. Overnight, we were a success after 31 years.

Yeah. Right.

To be an overnight success. Well, you know, I'd taken every step of those 31 years, so nothing was a surprise to me. Everything was. But, you know, when we became number one, number one, we were bigger than others, bigger than Nike.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, that does just sort of hit home. You know, we became. I think it's in sporting goods intelligence, we were described as numero uno. I can't remember what Adidas described. I remember that Nike were the Eager Beavertons. But those things were also. When we got that five stars for the Aztec, that was the entry that was the key to the American market. Yeah. There's some things like that that just. Wow. Yes. Fantastic times when you Thought you'd just taken that extra step, you'd just done that extra bit. You were not just on the outside, you were inside, you were part of it. So there were a lot of very exciting moments in my life.

And why did it take me so long? Well, yeah, I decided to step back and in 89, at the end of 1989, that was me. I was leaving my role at that time. I was looking after international and I put on all the distribution and we had a good distribution. There was over a billion. Over a billion dollars in the global distribution outside of usa. And as I say, I was just traveling around the world and where it is time, it's time to get off and time to step back and you can look at the things. There are many times a bit like the Eagles and Hotel California you can check out, but you can never leave.

And that was the same. I was always being driven back for wanting another lots of things. But it was better to be on the outside. I didn't have a daily role or anything. So I continued working and continued to be there. So was there a time to write the book? Probably, yeah. Maybe it could have happened earlier, but I don't think in those days I had the time to do that.

Yes.

Yeah. It's amazing. It's like when you. When you do retire, and I doubt that you're retired at the moment, but when you do retire, you. You do look at life and think, how did I have time to do a job? Because I'm busy doing this and life is so busy. But I started, decided to buy a property in Tenerife, which is nice weather, beautiful. So, yeah, it's like eternal spring. So it's brilliant. And lying there on the sort of nice lilo decks or whatever it is. Nice thing. It was like thinking and again my wife saying, why don't you do something? Like what? Write your book.

So after a short while and you piece it together in bits and bits and a memory comes back.

But then it's. How do you structure a book?

Yeah, yeah.

That is. Writers are good at that. They know how you structure all my stories there. Put a bit of this, put a bit of that in. So I must have had four or five drafts. And then even when it was done and we had a publisher, it's taken two years to get to being published. It's amazing. These things take so long.

It is a process.

That's right. So. So.

I think you can look back and appreciate it. And I think that's what helped in me writing the book. I can appreciate that. That really did take effort. And at the time, it felt effortless. It just felt effortless. It was things I had to do, driven by something. But like I said, once the challenge was over, once there were too many lawyers.

Too many accountants, you know, numbers are running the business.

Yeah.

And you're thinking, well, yeah, it's successful. Let's stand back and watch it grow. Let, let's. Let's see now that, you know. And he did all right. But of course, it did have his problems a bit later on. But for me, you know, that was the challenge, that was the enjoyment. And so that's why I wrote the book. And probably I'm so, so happy you did.

I really am. I've enjoyed the stories, I've enjoyed the lessons, I've enjoyed the con. I mean, just, you know, maybe it's. It's been worth the two years it took to get it published officially, because, I mean, it's very well written. It's. Like I said, it's a. It's a super. It's a super meaty, easy read, which is rare. Normally you have a meaty book.

Yes.

It's not easily read, or you have an easy to read book and it's not very meaty. You know, And I think your book is a. Is a beautiful combination of both. It's one that I'm personally enjoying right now. I can't. I might be sad when it's actually over. Everybody should go get it and all that good stuff. I mean, one of the things that I'm super passionate about in my life is, especially in this time frame, you know, I'm still in my mid-40s, and my ultimate goal is to create a legacy that outlives me. Not just for my kids, not just for the brands that I own, not just for the creation of the companies that I've built and stuff like that, but something deeper than that, which is why, you know, I'm, you know, I've written books and things of that nature because those book, those books become historical mentors.

Yes.

We never know when someone's going to pick that book up and something and it's going to inspire them, it's going to challenge them, and it can change things.

Yes.

And I'm a big believer that the stories that people live are typically the biggest roadmaps or the best roadmaps on what is possible and how someone could live if they'll just put in the work. So thank you very much for writing Shoemaker. Again. Everybody should get it. Speaking of that how can people get it? What's the best way. I know how I got mine, but what's the best way for people to get the book?

Well, it's available now. It has been available in USA through Amazon and I guess some of the leading bookstores will have.

Is. I think they call it the export model, which is almost like a paperback, but it's a big one. The actual hardback will be there in January. The actual hardback itself. We're with Simon and Schuster. Simon and Schuster, of course, they did Nike's.

They did a Nike story with Shoe Dog. They did that as well. So I think that's what it made them think it was good. But this is the UK company who are doing it, but all over, so it's not this Hamlin Schuster. In America, we're doing the distribution and that's why we need to get more distribution. But it's available and I think the only way that anybody could get a signed copy because of COVID was to buy it through my website.

Okay.

And we've had a lot of that. In fact, we've done over a thousand signings, which has been, oh boy, this is.

And now your hands tired.

That's right. But again, it's been enjoyable and it's been sort of something to think, well, if a thousand people want my sign, my signature in the book, then we'll do it. And yes, so it goes. Too late for Christmas now.

Necessarily true. That's not necessarily true.

No. For first signed copy.

Okay, for signed copy, you can get the book. I have an audio copy of it now. And I also have an E copy of it now, just for the record.

Yeah, that's right. The E copies out there, which, I mean, that's so useful. Technology these days is incredible, isn't it?

Yeah.

You know, like I said earlier that you go back to the 50s. We had no computers, we had no mobile telephones. You know, if I want. If I wanted to talk to somebody, wherever I landed, I would be in the hotel and I'd have to phone the reception down in hotel and they would. With the telephone people, they would make the call if they could get through. And they said, we'll ring you back. So I had to stay in my room more or less sometimes for a couple of hours until this call came through. Sometimes they'd talk to me and say, we can't get your call today. Well, we can do it tomorrow. I'd be probably saying, well, that's not good to me because I won't be here tomorrow. I've got to move on. So communication was something entirely different. Even when we were back in the office, we only had telex. Telex in those days was a stream of paper that you type it out, it punches holes, then you feed it through. And telex was one of those things that really, you almost insulted people when you sent it because everything was so brief they couldn't tell what you were saying. You know, you had no time for saying, thank you, thank you very much, this and whatever, none of the small talk. So this is fantastic. You know, the fact that we can talk like this. And I've been doing a few of these and they've been all over America, all over down to Australia. I had one at lunchtime with Greece, so it's wonderful.

Yeah.

And everything is so small, so technology. Well, incredible.

Oh my gosh. Well, I. It's been a joy hanging out with you all this time. I really appreciate you taking some time out of your day to spend time and share your stories and obviously everybody go get the book for sure. Is there anything else that we can do to connect with you as you're, you know, you're now your authorship career kind of explodes?

Well, it would be nice. I mean, the thing we, we would like to do is to get more distribution in the usa. I mean, I think that's good. We're getting fantastic. In fact, the Amazon are out of, out of copies in the uk.

Wow.

They don't have any now. It'll be January, something about mid January, before they get more.

It doesn't surprise me because the book's that good. It doesn't surprise me at all.

Well, that's great. I mean, it's good. And yes, you know, it's like if you do something, you want to make sure that it's good and it wins. So we're looking to be a number one in usa. If we can get number one in USA as a book.

A bestseller, that will be fantastic. So anything you can do.

I don't, I don't think that's going to. I don't think that's going to be hard for you. I really don't. You're connected to all the right people that are obviously helping get the word out. And like I said, as a person who's actually reactively reading the book right now, it is one of the best books that I've read this entire year. So kudos to you. Thank you again for coming on. And if there's anything else we can do for you in the future, you just let me know.

We will do. Thank you very much. It has been an absolute pleasure.

All right, my friend. Well, you have a good one and I'll talk to you soon.

Thank you very much. I will do. Thank you.

Bye.

Bye.

What can you say about the founder of Reebok? That interview is probably one of my favorites. In the meantime, if you like that.

One, I know you're going to love this one.

We have a physical body and then an emotional body, and then we have a mental body. And then what's called the supramental body. S U P R A meaning beyond the mental, beyond all the others. And then right after that, we have what's called sometimes the.