Rock’n’ Roll, robots & reinventing British dining with Simon Woodroffe (Founder of YO! Sushi & YOTEL)

Well, hello and welcome to the Super Connector show, where I'm delighted to be joined by Simon Woodroff, who is the founder of the Yo Sushi restaurant chain and also they hotel brand and was also one of the original dragons on BBC Dragons. Then, Simon, thank you very much for joining me today. I'm delighted to be doing this with you, so I really appreciate it. How are you doing?

And I'm delighted too. I'm talking to you from my farm in Thailand and this is my home actually, so absolutely be here. No, I really really appreciate it. So I know we talked a bit before went live that our first well, apart from Yo Sushi and Dragons, then I first heard you speak at Young Entrepreneur of the Air Awards way back in twenty eleven, and I was just really struck by one an amazing public speaker.

You are very, very charismatic, and she had some fantastic insights and pills of wisdom to the business owners. I know that's something that you're really keen to do more of. On you you. Want to give back, you want to help others, which is why you've got this fantastic book Your Man, which is due out on the fourth of June, which we'll talk about.

So why have you written this now? Why have you wanted to bring this book out? Well, I think that the sort of key part of that question is now. And I actually had a publishing deal about ten fifteen years ago, and I'm just very pleased that I waited because it's been a sort of cap on my career.

I'm still doing things, but it's been a cap on my career, and it's been a real real pleasure to write it just to remember or you know, what an adventure the whole thing has been. So I guess, and I guess. You know, you get to an age at some point we're all going to go, you know, nobody gets away free from that one and be able to kind of look back over a career of what and everything that's happened, and the people I've been with, and the near misses and how I nearly fell off and what could have gone wrong.

I mean, so many things could. Have gone wrong along the way, and I often asked myself the question, would I have been able to pick myself up and start again? And I don't really know the answer to that, but that's that is. The reason that that that I have that I've written it now.

Yeah, well, well I'm about halfway through the books. I'm onto the Your Sushi story, you know, launching the restaurant. Okay, but what I what I love you talk about an adventure. It really is an adventure.

I think the Your Sushi and You Hotel a lot of that, and Dragons Dends a lot of that's very well documented. But the career you had before that, I didn't know anything about what you've done when you came out of school. How You've been a theater manager in the West End. You've been a roadie and a stage designer for an amazing, amazing bands like Ozzy Osbourne and.

You name it. I've got a long list here like Wam, who else we got here? You can say Abbat, Queen Alice Cooper, Rod Stewart, Led Zeppelin, Adam and Brian Ferry, you know, huge names that you've worked with over the years. And then you moved into being a TV executive as well.

So you you've reinvented yourself multiple times and you've moved into new directions. It seems like with no real plan about that. But you've still just seen an opportunity and you've just ran with it, which is what I think most entrepreneurs. I think that's exactly right.

I mean, you've done a very good summary of my early life, but it was the bit that you've left out is the crash and burns, because I think when Madonna was young, they've always used to say it was the mistress of reinvention. She reinvented herself for every show. And when I. Look back over that early part of my life, I reinvented myself in all the things that you've just described, but very often the reinvention happened because things went wrong.

And you know, when I look back at some of the things I did, you know, certainly the stage design side, I'm very proud of all that stuff, and the people I worked with was there at the very beginning of a touring industry that went took shows out all over the world and not just designing things that look good to an audience, but could travel around the world. Rod Stewart there was the first really big show I ever did. Was he knew, he knew what was going on, said, you know, we showed him.

I showed him these visuals of what we were going to do with the days before computer visuals. We had to make models and do renderings. And he said, he said, it's what I've always wanted. And he said, if it can travel, let's do it.

Because that was the day as that whole business grew up. But yeah, I had a lot of near missus along the way, as you read, and and I reinvented myself. And was it with a plan? Not really.

You know, I left school with two O levels. They were in those days, GCSS and I was. I was at Marlborough College where you know, Princess Kate went, you know, the Queen to Be. So I had a privileged background and then we didn't have a lot of money in the family, but I did.

My parents got bless of scraped and saved and sent me there and I left there when I was sixteen, and you know that was so Yes, it's been it's been an adventure that the whole thing. Yeah. No, I think you say, maybe you could argue you had a privilege upbringing, or you had sort of moved in the right circles or the family definitely was. It was quite well off part of the family, not necessarily your immediate family.

But you're that was that was you remember you're passing the test on having written by book. Yeah, you're right. That was the issue is that we had this semi aristocratic family and some of them were really rich, but my dad was in the army and we went so it always felt as if we were scraping and savings to kind of keep up with what I call the double barrel Jones's, if you know what I mean. And then we lived abroad all my life.

So when I came back and left, you know, school, my parents sort of wanted me to be part of all that sort of scene. And suddenly, and actually, you know, I'm not ashamed of it any these days. You know, I did some drug dealing very early on, and I went to prison for three months, so you could imagine what that was like for that family. It was like beyond their.

Ken and they'd lived over seas best of their life in Singapore and Germany, so they came back, they went really they were out of their depth about how to help me. So I had to forge my own way. And I was one of those kids at sixteen totally lost, you know, any young people listening, I really was, and I got my first job through an advert in the back of the stage newspaper which I randomly bought in some little news agent. I just saw it's all the stage.

I said, that looks good, have a look at that. And in the back it said staff wanted professional. And I got a job in the West End there's a stage manager very early, very early days of fringe theater. And I got a break and then everything kind of happened from that, and one thing led to another.

I'm always saying to kids, you know, the thing to do is, you know, if you're not sure what to do, is just get. Out and do every anything. And I think I did. But what I always really advocate for kids is and actually for anybody in this world, in life, in anything, is to over deliver.

That's what I think. I mean people, what am I going to get out of it? You know? And I know that when people over deliver to me, I want to put my arm around them, pay them, give more, keep them whatever.

But it's those people always looking for as an employee, so as an employer, So as an employee, I say, just over deliver. In whatever you do. You know, regardless of what you get pat you get ripped off occasionally, but so what you know, in the long run of things, it works, that really does work. That's that's that's good good advice because there's definitely people who will do the minimum or the other thing.

Well, why why should I do that if I'm only going to get the minimum wage or I'm not going to get paid anything. Well, even myself, I think whenever I've moved into a new role, I've usually done something for free, voluntarily outside of work to get me in a position where I've been mixing with certain people that are gaining skills or experience sort have allowed me to move into that new role. I've taught myself. That's exactly what I'm talking about.

And to be a likable person. I don't know you very well, but my first impression is your likable person. You're not overrun with me and all of that. And if you can be a likable person.

You talk about charismatic, but you know, if you can be a likable person, and that takes practice and it's a skill to do. You're in a way you're I call. It acting as if almost you're acting the part in life. Obviously you want to be authentic, but you're acting the part of being you and that to develop.

That's you know, that's why that book all those years are go how to win friends and influence people, was not about how to do business. It was how to have the personality. And I think that over delivering is a key point in that, and you know, and listening of course is the other one. And then just doing things.

I have this little secret thing that I do, which is when I'm trying to help somebody, or do something with somebody, or do something jointly. Is in my sixties vernacular, you know, way back in those days, you know, when we used to do peace science and me in them. I want to blow people's minds. I want to surprise people so much, you know, so they go home to their wife or their friends.

This guy is working for me. You wouldn't believe what he did today, but boom, you know, and if you can get those points going, it's unbelievable business. Much better than saying. Well, I'm not you know, I'm not being paid enough to do that, so I'm going to do that, you know, I'm going to do this, do more that sort of person naturally.

That takes a bit of acting to play that part. But the war is when you see the drop jaw, which is like, h what. I was good. Yeah, well I've got I've got to two teenage kids and that they are amazing kids.

But I'm trying to get this across to them at the moment where my son, in particular, I don't think the pennies dropped with him yet that he for him. He has to learn from experience or from somebody who's. Not his dad exactly. I've got to be mindful of that.

That like, just because I know a lots that have got a great deal of experience, it comes across as a lecture from me, you're a dad. They don't believe that they want to get from themselves. Yeah, so when now that Yeah, covered a lot there. But I'm just going to talk briefly about you, maybe not briefly about your childhood, because you know you did you did have a difficult time did your school in particular.

And you you talked about being lost. You definitely you hated school and you really didn't do well there and couldn't wait to get it get away. And but you're still. So I think, and then you're talking about how you were very confident or you or your acted confident and you were a bit of a sort of joke here and like sort of life and soul of the party sort of things.

So where did that come from? Do you think? Did did you feel like you. Just had.

The brigadeer? My dad, who used to you know, it's one of those geezers, wasn't a geezer at all. It was a chap and you used to wear a handkerchief, you know, one of those ones in his check. But he was he was a sort of you know, he.

Was always you know, bravado and pigged himself up all the time and you know, talk to anybody. You know, some of that is useful, but you know, actually you want to be a good listener as well. And he wasn't that graid of this, So I guess that was it. But yes, I think I did have a difficult childhood in many ways.

I don't blame them for it. They had their issues going on, no dubt. But you know, I've met people who have had very happy childhoods and actually don't really do an awful lot with their life. And I've also you know, like me who had kind of difficult time as a child and went on to, you know, to really do a lot and to be very happy and success in the widest form of that word success And I always called it a bit of brit in the oysters.

I mean, if you're listening there and you are one of those what can I call it, you know, got a chip in your shoulder, a bit chippy or angry or you know or whatever that you know, you could be on the right track. You know, that's not such a thing to have that gets you up and going our bloody show them, you know, but you've got to you've got to have a good actor to be able to make some friends along the way. I mean, you don't have to be friends with people all the time. I've met people who were just you know, pretty awful actually, you know, not people you really want to be friends with at all.

Done well, So there's no formula. It's finding your own formula that works about how you can, like I said earlier, how you can win friends and influence people. That's what you're really after. Yeah, no, that's that's good again, really great advice.

I mean, your book's full of great advice actually, but when I was reading it it did resonate quite a bit with me because you know, I haven't had the same childhood obviously, in the same upbringing anything I've I've had a good childhood, a good upbringing, but there's probably a bit in me, not a chip, I'm sure, but I always feel like I have to prove myself and always have to try harder, and never quite even though I've had a lot of that. A lot of people say I've been very successful and amazing things like you have as well.

Never quite satisfied with what I've done, and always worried about money and never having quite enough money. And it's not all about money. I want to do things that have an impact and excite me and excite others. But I always feel like there's a lot more to do.

There's a lot more talk. I'd say that, as you've just described as a very good example of what I'm talking about, you know that it wasn't totally and you had something to prove, And why have you got up and done all the things that you've done. Is to do with that. Yeah, there's one line that I really like, which is along the lines of that, if you do what I'm talking about and go out and act as if you're the best part of the person you can be and learn all of those things that you know, some really magical I say magical.

I don't want to be too bushy wishy about it, but you know, some really great things happen. And I like the line that you know, fear of financial insecurity will leave you. And I'm sure that a lot of people are mist listening. I certainly as you described it, that fear of financial insecurity, you know, unless you've got some big qualification as an accountant or a lawyer, and I wouldn't want to have that life myself, although it's a good training for being an entrepreneur, that's for sure.

You know, unless you've got a big salary job and you can see the rest of your life mapped out, which I don't think is really that good a formula for great happiness and fulfillment. Then you know, having that grit in the oyster is a good way to get out and get yourself going and do things. And I always used to think it was special people who went out and did things like well, like you and I've done, Paul, and started businesses and done things. I always thought that they were sort of special people, but actually mostly I've discovered they're ordinary Joe's.

But who somebody who's got a niggle, who wants to do something and it's willing to put wet in and think about what the solution is, because I mean, one of the things that goes on in my mind when I've got anything to do, and I've got a few things on at the moment. Actually I've been talking about today. In fact, this result we're building out here is that there is when you don't know the solution and I don't know the solution to a few of the things that I'm trying to do, is you've got to wait, and there is a solution to everything.

And actually I'm actually I've been putting in. Calls to people and saying, look, I'm not quite sure what to do on this situation. What do you think? People love to give you advice?

And it's amazing you asked, right, you can listen and you know, very often the advice isn't that great because they've got another issue of their own that they think of it from their point of view, so you can filter it. You don't have to take that. And I never ever asked the should I do it or shouldn't I do it, but I do what other people say and from that take action. And there is a solution to however stuck, because people listening and they feel stuck.

However stuck you are, that is always a solution, and often usually the solution is to do with a change within you, not a change with other people behaving differently, because you can't do that, and sometimes it's difficult and painful and hard work and you know, quite a. Steep learning curve to get that. But as I always say, you know that the harder you work, the more which you're sweat, the more you go through, the luckier you get. And that really is that is the truth I would.

Say, Yeah, I'm totally. I think I do agree that if it's humanly possible, you can make anything happen, can't You Like, if you speak to the right people, you know that there is always away. And it's not even the right people, you know, because people will be listening. Well, I don't know how to get to the right people.

Okay, for you, you know you can do it, but you. Can, and you have to be an actor to get there, to have the confidence. You know, fear comes into it, Shame, you know, I'm embarrassed. I don't want to make a fool of myself.

Well people don't want to, you know people. That's Richard Branson says. You know, when you have a fall and you've got to have fools, when you have a thought, you've got to you've got to dust yourself off, get up again and dust yourself. Off, regroup.

It's really true, but it's it's it's you know, that thing of. Fading a lot. You know how many times I used to have this plan to I'm going to have six failures today, and you know, I come back when I've got six in my bag and the yes. Positive.

But that was my little game I paid with myself in order to get through those difficult times. So we'll talk a bit about your associate at the moment. But I know, or maybe maybe there's a bit in the book where you talked about how it used to be known as a steam roller, but that was maybe born on your TV. And but you also say, like sometimes when you want to bring something to life, like a new idea and your business menture, you have to have that drive and that you have to push and you have to make things happen and you have to otherwise no one else is going to do it.

But but being. Able to let go or bring the people in is not easy once you get once to get things gone. That's that's something you've learned along the way, isn't it. But yeah, I think in a in a in a short set.

Look, everybody's got their own way of doing things. To find your own way. But my way has been megala maniac control at the outset of any venture. I even had partners mostly sometimes I have, but megalo maniac control.

It's and that's what Steve Jobs used to do. You know. He would say, I want you know, watch me. I'm making money, I know how to do this.

I want this done by the end of the day. That's it, finito. If you don't like it, you know, you can piss off, you know. Is it like that?

And you know meglo maniac control my way or the highway. You know. I would also listen to people and take things on board, and I really would do that, But in the end I'd decide mega control. In the early days, maybe the first whatever, early first one, two three years, and then the key for me has always been to completely let go, not just a bit, but that's what a lot of people who start things that find it very hard to do.

Let go and let do things their way, not your way necessarily, and don't check up on every little tiny bit, but let them motivate them and make sure they're rewarded properly and they have a proper goal to get to, and set them free to do it. That said, I met a guy in Barley years ago who was a zillionaire of some sort oil like he was in and he was actually a nice guy, and he really shocked me at the time. And I remember because he said he said, one thing I've learned is the time to fire somebody is the first time you think about it.

Well, and that's very true. The time to make a change is the first time you think about something. And often we're too busy in our daily lives putting the fars out or trying to survive, and the first time you think about saying so I'm very impulsive like that, I will. I will make changes and do things very impossibve, knowing that I can always correct them later.

And you know, difficulties. It is the far people in this darn age. So that's one part of it. And then the other side is being able to say no, being able to focus down one thing.

And you know this from the read yo, man, is that I was all over the place. I was always coming up with a new idea, and I knew this, and I knew that. And what I have learned over the years is focus down on what you're doing and just stick to one thing and that a lot of times and your exceptions, You've done a lot of different businesses and things that help other people. But when I hear people I've got twenty businesses on the go, and there's the other there's not many of them who really make the success of that.

It's the people who focus one thing, get that going, and then like me, move on to the next one and let others. Roll it out. Yeah yeah, well no, that's that's that's again great advice. But I think so for the past ten years, I've had my own business for the past ten years, right in the vehicle for what I do is maybe changed, whether it's events or online content or blogs or videos or podcasts or whatever, but it's consistent what I've done.

It's always been the same type of thing that I've done over the last ten years, and even the fifteen years before that when I've had jobs doing it. So I am I am focused on what I'm doing and the mission and the purpose of what I'm doing. But the way I do it maybe changes over over over time, but definitely That's why I love talking now right now, and I love listen reading your book, And I've read lots of books and biographies and listen to podcasts as a have you heard of one called Founders by David Senra.

It's so what he does. He's obsessed with biographies. So he reads biographies famous or successful entrepreneurs, industrialists, pioneers, and then he summarizes them and pulls out. The key points.

But when you listen to you, Yeah, but when you when you're listening to them, it's it's so consistent how often they talk about focus, having that single minded focus on what they're doing, minimize distractions, and and just so sure of what they're doing. And they're always really frugal as well, try and keep control of the costs, and they always surround themselves with with good people who were all part of the mission and support what they're doing. But yeah, it's it's it's interesting how it's it's it's the same things that made people successful.

Yeah. Yeah, uh, let's talk about your sushi. Because you've had that successful career. I think it's I've got a puppy scratch of the door here, so if you if you can hear a puppy.

So yeah. So in you've had your career in theater. You've been in the you've been a ROADI you've been in the music industry as well, and you had had a lot of success. I think you know the people that you work with.

It was like two hundred two hundred or so sets that you've been involved in in design, and I know you well you directly involved or not. But your company did the Live Aid stage as well in nineteen eighty five, which is just mega. We we did, we did all those things. That's incredible.

I never made real money. I haven't made it. Real That's what I'm going to say. So you've had bion, Yeah, you'd had all this success or like, but did you still not feel successful despite all I felt?

I felt, you know, I was quite pleased with some of the things I've done, but you know, I hadn't made a million pounds. And that's that's it. Really, it's making that even in those days, that was even more money. But you know, to make the first million, that is the thing, and it's it's it's a doable it's a doable thing.

And as you say not spending, I mean I I still, even to the day, I wouldn't say I'm tight. John Peel always used to say about Rod Stewart. He said he's a sort of geezer. You're going to a pub, you say, would you like your pint?

And he said, yeah, I could have a Scott Jake as well. Please. You know I wouldn't stay tight in that respect, but I am. I'm very sensible with money, and I still don't like to expect go and spend loads of money on myself.

You know, I travel business class, but I don't. I don't have private jets or I have had yachts in my time, but I don't. You know, I've traveled fairly lightly through life, and that feels good that certainly when you're starting business. For some reason, I've just clicked off here.

I can still see you, I can still hear you. And let me let me just see if I can get you back, because and I have got this machine set on focus. So it shouldn't have done that. But let me just see it.

If I can just get that, do not disturber is on. That's weird, Okay, okay, well that's good. That's if I can get you back here. I can still will see and hear you, but you just can't see me.

I got you back pay. Yeah, just talking about how the aim was to be a millionaire basically, and and even though so and there is a bit that I love it actually at the beginning of the book where you're open with that. How you go into the cash point and you've got two million in your bank account and you were so happy in that moment, and then you got the guy behind you you you got him. To look at Is that true?

You? So how did you feel that? Was it just? Was it mostly a relief that you finally got to that point.

Well, it's a relief, first of all. It was when I first made the minute quit you. It was a relief to have got it ex its something I'd always wanted to do. But then there's then there's a of madness takes place if you're not careful, And my form of madness was you know, I met people.

Then of course you meet people who are much richer than you are, and you feel inadequate. And I do remember thinking at the time that is absolutely mad. I've got more than i'd hope for. And you know, I'm still thinking, oh, it's not enough of it.

But obviously I did go on. I made a great deal more than that. But yeah, it's you know. The other thing is if you do, if you are ever lucky enough, and I hope you will be all of you, because it's gonna happen to anybody if you put the work in, is that once you do make some money, the next thing is you're worried about losing it.

And that is a very real issue. It's very easy to lose it on thinking you're a magician and thinking your projects. When I wasn't dragons, then you know, there was a kind of sense among the dragons we know what we're doing. You know, we really do know what we're doing.

And I knew, and I got everybody to agree. Eventually, it's been privately anyway that we don't really know what we're doing. You know, we go into a new business and we've got some experience of the previous ones, but we were not magicians, and we certainly don't know every business, and the person who usually knows the most about the business is the one who's doing it themselves. So you know, that's why I say never asked, you know, ask ask people advice mine included, and listen and steal or whatever you will, borrow what you can learn from people.

And I like your story about that guy who reads every single possible biography because I've read them all as well, during the sailing books and the adventure books. And steal from all those people and take what you can and leave the rest. Because that is useful. Exactly.

Well, it's all familiar. It's your business, isn't it. So you have to make the decision. But yeah, you can still.

I encourage people to do that, to listen to other people, but they don't have to do what other people tell. Them to do. Definitely. I think the other thing, well, we're talking a bit more about money.

Just in the. Did you think did you feel like you were when you were on that push to be successful? That was the drive and factor? And was it so because of your upbringing and you you.

Sushi I was going to open in one year, and I was very lucky if I opened sushi at the end of one year, I open some little two bit sushi shop in a corner place. And it was in the second year that I developed all the things, the robots, the big side. That's exactly the right thing to do. So I can't remember what the question what, what the subject was?

Yeah, hold that thought what I was being, what I was getting at, as far as it was a clumsy clumsy question was about because of the family and your upbringing, because you could see wealth around you, and yet you could touch it and experience some of it, but you didn't feel like you were quite there yet. Was was that the drive? In fact, it was, yes, for exactly what was the motivation? I don't think that making money can be a motivation that lasts for you know whatever.

A working man's week is, sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. It was with me, I don't think just making money yo sushi. Ont I got it further along the real motivation. I wanted to see what it would look like.

I wanted it to be. I wanted to open the doors and see people coming in through the door. That was what the excitement was for me, that I was going to be a millionaire and get lots and lots and lots of money. It wasn't form in my mind the idea that I would survive and people would come and people would say it was good, and I could keep the thing going and indeed, maybe just have one restaurant from which I'd be able to earn a living for the rest of my life.

You know, that would have been a good sult for me. So I don't think making a ton of money. I'm sure it tis for some people, but for me, it's that's never been the motivation. It's always been you have an idea in your head, and I want to see it happen.

I want to see what I want to make it happen and go, Yeah, I did that, and not to lose money. I never got out of bed in order to get super rich. I did get out of bed early and work very hard. Not to be poor.

And I think my motivation has always been not to be poor rather than to be very rich. Have a different one, but that is the answer. That's the answer, I think to what you're asking. No, I like that because I've definitely I spent a brief time in recruitment and I liked it, but I didn't love it.

I loved. I love what I'm doing now and much more because the people that I was around they just weren't my kind of people. That they were just focused about money and for what purpose they had. They just wanted to buy things with the money.

But they had no substance really to what they were doing other than you. Know, I've been several times, quite a lot. I've been in bars late at night after you know, a few drinks or whatever, and I have heard people who probably more wealthy than me, working in the city dealing with financials, you know, just buying and selling gold or whatever it is, you know, futures, and they go and they're going, Ah, you've done something. You've actually made something.

You've built something and employed people and done something. All I've ever done is made money. And I'm not happy, and I must I did think to myself, well, maybe there's something in that. There's the happiness that I've felt, you know.

Facetiously, I tell people, you know, if anybody tells you that money doesn't make you happy, they're lying, you know, because it makes me feel right good when I got some money first time. But I think they're probably right. But the real is the achievement of being able to do something and to get something started make it actually happen. That is that's a pretty pretty damn good feeling.

And if that can then make money I or certainly not lose money, that is pretty cool as well. Yes, that sort of sense of you know, I'm a capable person. If you're doing exams at school, if you're younger and you're doing exams of you and then you hand in your work for your GCSS, your ail levels of Universe, the degree, and then there's somebody else judges whether you've passed or not. You know, really giving away your power, aren't you?

If you yourself and you know that you've done it, and you know that people are walked in through the door, nobody can argue with that you've done it, and that that is that is a much better feeling, that feeling of self esteem that comes from believing that you've done a good job. Yeah, no, I definitely That's what I've got out of what I do is just a feeling of having an idea and bring that idea to life and. Exactly seeing what it looks like in reality. Yeah, it's it's very very satisfying doing that and and is it being your own boss and sort of being able to work when where I want, when I want, with who I want is amazing.

Or that is great? And here we are, you and I sitting here sort of celebrating it all. But what we shouldn't forget to tell people is that you know that comes with with pain as well. There's a price nights and and worry and embarrassment and fear and yeah, terror even along the way.

And it's not easy. It's certainly hard work. It's not easy, and it's not it's not exactly. So it's hard.

It's hard for the people. It's hard. No, it's hard for the people around you as well. Isn't it so that that's another thing that resonated with me?

You obviously. It's never nice, but you were you were married and you got divorced and you had a young child, and and I've been married and divorced, and it's it's a bit of a cliche. Isn't it all about relationships to come and go? Come and go.

I'm very good friend for my wife, and my daughter's growing up to be a you know, she she went to university, she went to business school. I thought that's I said, that's kind of not the entrepreneur to you. But she's actually entrepreneurial. She's got a business, Brian, and she's doing things and I guess she don't she picked it.

Up along the way. Yeah, no, that's that's good. You mom and dad. They may not mean to, but they do.

Yeah, they they is I can't remember that thing. They give you all the faults they had had a few ones just for you. Yeah. No, Yeah, there's definitely a lot of truth in that.

But I know it's like it's it's it's not easy. I mean, I was my for thirteen years, but we sput up six years ago. But of friends, you know, we're and the kids have been. But I'm really proud that we've been able to do that.

But definitely, I don't blame there was no real fault on either side, but I think she wasn't fully brought into the entrepreneur lifestyle. She she didn't really like doing what I was doing. But it was in the job. Yeah, But but it was in me already before I met her.

And that's the thing. You call you You knew what you were getting when you're buried me. Well, well, but like you know, I just never felt really comfortable or settled working in corporate environments or what I was doing up until that point, but then much much happier doing my own thing, and I had amazing in his life, very very very hard. And look there's people listening going, yeah, well I've got a really good job, and I really liked my job.

What do you want about it? Spot on for you. That's what I always say. You know, absolutely go for it.

If you're doing something you like, you working for somebody, you've got some freedom within the business. Definitely. We've all got different own ways of doing things. It's just finding your way.

Yeah, no, totally. So so you'll you have to go back to your sushi. So to me, I mean, that was a brave thing to do, like to orban a restaurant. I look back on when I look back on the younger man, I was forty five when I started yr sushi.

There go, if you're in your mid forties and you're running out of time, that's a good place to be because it's a cool to action. But yeah, I was. I was in my mid forties, and when I look back at that young man me, I'm very proud of him. What he actually, did you know?

He put himself right on the line. I had two hundred one thousand pounds tied up in my flat. I put everything on the line. I got a government loan guarantee scheme matching it.

Beg borrowed and style. I didn't actually steal, but pretty close to get the rest of it, and I built a million pound restaurant, reopened and for the first two weeks nobody came, and the second Saturday we had a queue down the block. And I'm very proud. Of the Geese of the guy who did all of that.

You know, sometimes I actually sometimes wonder how I did do it. I'm not quite sure. And yeah, I think said to you earlier on it is and if it hadn't worked, whether or I'd be able to pick myself up, that's myself off and do it all over again. I think I would have done, but I don't really know the answer.

No, No, it's interesting that was it. But I mean, you're very obviously, very creative, very entrepreneurial, charismatic guy. I'm sure you would have done something else. But did you did you feel like it was a bit of a last roll of the day.

So I was like look, I've got to do something. It was definitely a roll of the dice. The last roll of the dice. It was definitely a roll of the dice.

And I would say that if you know, if you're talking a single dice roll, I would say that I also got some lucky rolls, you know. And I said, at least a couple of times I needed to throw a four or more, you know, the vibe. And I did and and I came through it all. So you know, things can go wrong along the way, that is for sure.

But you know, even when they go wrong, there's a way of recovering. I will say, you know, you get these what I call showstoppers. You know, certainly or restaurants, there would have been some kind of administrative thing from the government, regulations or whatever it was, or health and safety or something. You can't have food going around on the conveyor belt, fomare whatever and all the fire.

You can't have an open kitchen in the middle of the can they aveloped you know, whatever it was, they were showstoppers. And I always say, when you get them, you have to act. But go around stone walls, go around stone walls, just because there's a stone wall. There there's always a way around the stone walls and a building bridge is bill Golden Bridges.

That's ridiculous. I agree. He was my partner for a long time in the hotel and he had a big thing he used to go. We laugh about it now and he doesn't do it at all.

That but if something like that came along, you go, that is ridiculous. Good to anybody. Yeah, it might be ridiculous, but it's not gonna it's not going to fix the problem. Is exactly.

The words news to yourself and to other people are very important. Yeah, definitely. So it's I was reading before that it's you've got like your sushi is now one hundred restaurants globally, maybe maybe more. It was Luyo Sushi got up to one hundred and twenty five to complain about the sushi bart at one time.

It now has less less of those, but we around the world, but we now have I think nearly five hundred outlets because we have our own staff and our own making and everything in supermarkets. So you know, it's it's I never I never thought that that's actually where we'd end that. I thought it was a restaurant business. Actually it's well, so.

Yeah, yeah, I hadn't realized about. The yeah, the chaos. Yeah, I think there's three hundred two hundred, three hundred Tescos. In the UK.

Even that we have our own staff in making suitsheet and yeah, and they're very motivated and they definitely want to do a good job and really really do high quality. So it's it's it's. That's something I hadn't I never planned. No, it's a great success story for for the for the UK in particular.

It's international now. But so when when you first started, it was the plan to have lots of restaurant around the country or are we just focused on that one restaurant? You know, as I say, I was focused on surviving and I survived. And then one day a year in I got a call from a guy called dominic Ford, who had done all the restaurants for Harvey Nichols and a lot of other things.

Is kind of quite well, no restaurateur and he said, we Harvey Nichols want you to come and open on the floor, which is a very cool, trendy place. It was back time and you know, Joanna Lumley and absolutely fabulous was all happening and we opened Josushi on the on the top floor there and it was rammed packed, you know, with these high class ladies and all that stuff. And then I got a call from Selfridges French guy and Selfich's food hall. I can't remember exactly.

He was a very nice guy and he he later went to Harold's where we also opened one at one point, and you know, suddenly we were doing these that was what was happening. So I didn't have it all planned out that we were going to do it. And then Robin Rowlands, who was my operations director in those days, came on and I got to the point as I've described, which is where I said, right, it's time to let go and let him and Robin took up and really took you out, primarily into shopping malls around the UK.

He did a good job of doing that. Yeah, no, amazing. Well well after I think at the beginning I thought about how i'd heard you speaking at. A young Man of the Year award when you were brilliant.

But then I met you again a few years later where it was the launch event for your sushi concession inside Fenix department. Store in Newcastle. In Newcastle yeah, but in Newcastle now has its own your sushi store, which which is great to see. But yeah, I just remember.

But so it was that part of the rule, that was a big push. Together, that was part of it all. The next was the first one we did up at this big department of that Mark Fennick, who's the guy did it? He was he before he went He went off to run the family firm and he ran Phoenix for very many years if he still does, but he was I knew him because him.

He was the he was with goodness, what was his name anywhere? The guy who managed Robbie Williams for many years, recently deceased. The two of them managed Roxy Music and King Crimson, a lot of the early dands that I knew them from all of that. So I remember turning up with those sus and he.

Went, how come we got from there? To hear? You know? Awesome?

David David Hoven was Robbie Williams manager. David I made. I made. I've done a lot of different things in my life, and one of them is I made a record with the Blockheads.

Remember I've been listening to joining a lot. I wrote that it was the whole story, but I read about it in the book I wrote this song. I remember. Uh calling him and his account Kevin Healy, who who was on my accountant for a little while, up on the Court Hall one day and I send them a copy of the CD that tracks for the Blockheads and they played it and David just managing Robbie Williams and answer, what do you reckon?

David? And he's in reseaill I think you're a bit past your cell by date. In his lyrics and anyway, I did it, and it's out there and it's some people downloaded and. Listen to it and said it how I got my yeo?

How I got my yeo on Spotify? Anyway, David, I always said, I always said to David, already knows about boy, but man, you know you don't know about mature artists people like me. When when did you do that? Was like, what stage did you?

Did? You put that out? Because I have been listening. To but ten years ago I made that with you know it was It was actually soon after Ian Jury died and the Blockheads were an incredible band, I mean really incredible band, like those guys from and I worked with them and and actually I remember thinking, because I haven't got a very tuneful voice, and I remember thinking.

I could write a. Song like that, you know, some music all type song like Ian Jurry's songs were. And I wrote this song called how I got my Yo, never got to owe until I found by Yo. I hope you find your doorway so that you can too, And I sent the lyrics off the Chaz Jakular written all the songs for Ian Durry had written the music anyway, it was there the wordsmith and and and he didn't call back for ages.

And then one day I didn't really know him. And then one day he called me out of the blue and he said, he said, look, he said, I've i've I'm going to have a go at this since and dad, I haven't really done much, but he said, I'm going to have a go at this, and he called me back. Another three months went past. He called me back and he played me this track on his keyboard, him singing, and I was in I remember I was in Tesco's and where I lived, in the country, in the in the food and vegile, and I was listening to this thing, and I went, it just sounds like the Blockheads, and he said, yeah, what it would do, wouldn't it?

He said, I wrote it anyway. Within within a couple of months, I was in the studio in Lots Road in the edge of Chelsea, where the enduring the Blockheads had made new boots and pants and all of that with the same engineer and the order of the band, and beyond my wildest dreams, I was lead singer of my favorite group, that one deed that I'd sew. And I think that's a good that's a good example. Well, it's it's it's it is good like it's yes, it's not.

I'm not just saying it. It is good. It sounds good. But the lyrics are clever as well.

But it's just an example of just putting an idea out there and and running with it. And yeah and exactly and not, you know, because I could have been really slated for that, you know, who the hell you are and all of that stuff. But I did it with good spirit and I wasn't ashamed of it, and I wasn't embarrassed. I thought to help with it, you know, that's just what I want to do.

And I think that's that's just what I want to do is such a good thing if you can get away. I think it's a shame in its widest form embarrassment. What will people think? Do people like me?

All of that business that can hold us back as much as anything can. And if you can just practice of saying, well, I'm going to do it anyway with it, yeah, only. And having fun as well along the way, which which I think you're clearly yeah yeah, but it fits with your creative spirit, your entrepreneurial creative spirit. So it's just part of which, of course, my creative spirit came from leaving school young because I didn't have the the the creativity knocked out of me.

I think that the education system is changing in the UK and and you know around the world actually because we're you know, actually in the future. To get out of the difficulties that we're in in the West at the moment is long termation and you know, reading, writing, arithmetic is really important to be able to do. But all the rest of it, it's here instantly. So the rest of it is how to is how to be a good person, how to learn how to be do all the things that we're talking about on this podcast.

You know, that's the stuff to learn in school, and I think that will happen more and more, and certainly even AI is teaching all that stuff. Yeah, I think is that is the big the big change that will happen and will bring us up. But it's going to take ten twenty thirty years, and having a government that changes every four years or in our case have rich two years. Isn't a route to success.

I think I personally believe that eventually we'll get too political here. But I do believe that eventually we will have a very small executive, not this enormous parliament with people arguing with each other, executive people like they do in Switzerland or Singapore, who execute the. People and will of the people. I'm obvious once we have digital voting and you realize that we can vote for issues rather than political parties.

It's interesting times, definitely. Yeah, something will. Change the pendulum when things get difficult that they are in there. The pendulum always has to swing too far before it can swim.

Ever again, So we'll see. As my mum used to say. Oh yeah, exactly. Well, I've said to you know, we've got four kids between us, and they're a bit like shocked by what's recently happening in the UK with some of the local elections, And I said, look, just wait and see, just see what happens, because you can't predict anything when it comes to politics.

And you're just going to crack on and and just stick stay the course, do what, do what you believe. And actually ignore it and get on because you know it's a distraction. It is a distraction for a lot of people. But Britain is an entrepreneur country.

You know, we're no longer a nation of shopkeepers or a nation of entrepreneurs. And actually it's our job to get on and do something in spite of government, actually in spite of government, and actually to put up our bags and say no, we don't want this, We're going to do this anyway. Where are this very creative country? You know we have been throughout the age.

You know, if you'd had a spaceman, you know, an alien land on Earth and say where's all this action been happening in the past thousand years, and you say this, this is a little island in the top right and corner at the Atlantic. You know, you wouldn't have believed you wouldn't have believed it. But we're incredible nations and actually love it or hate it. The one thing that Brexley has done is to give us the opportunity to reinvent ourselves, as I've done, but to reinvent ourselves as an example for the world about how to govern us acceptsful country and how to get the entrepreneurial spirit right through corporations and everything.

And that is that is the really big opportunity. But you know, the political parties arguing constantly it doesn't. Of work, No, no, not at all. Something's going to break something.

I definitely feel like I've ordered three recently. Actually, there's definitely a lot more entrepneurs being a lot more outspoken recently on social media in particularly, and I think that's a good thing. You know. I think the business leaders should be should be.

We should all stand up and say what we think and and and actually be the ones. That express bold views for bold change. And when I do speeches or when I talk to people and I talk about some of the things I've just been talking to you in the last ten minutes, a lot of nodding heads and people going, yeah, it doesn't make sense. We don't want to watch.

These people arguing with each other all day, thousands of people in parliament. You know, most of those people, you know, professional politicians. The people at the. Top are pretty smart.

But them in the middle, I wouldn't employ most of them, to be quite honest, and they haven't really got that now, and so having having our future with them does not make sense, as does and what doesn't make sense either is trying to control everything from the top. It's too complicated. Then age is too complicated, and it's too bossy, as David David Hoptey always says this little badge on these days, and it says, stop bossing us now, and that is true. Yeah, yeah, it's it's still one other people.

Yeah, definitely too top down and too centralized as well, too much fun. Yeah, they're trying to teach the government of trying to tell people what they should teaching classrooms. Teachers and head teachers should teach to their local community what their local community needs. Hospitals should administer to their local community what those people need.

Mhm. Yeah, no, I totally I agree with I agree with everything you've said there, and I like it that you and others are start to be I mean, I'm sure, but speak speak a bit well, and I'm really enjoying all the videos that you're putting out on social media as well. I think it's excellent on Instagram man TikTok as well, I think on YouTube. But I've been really I've just been consuming lots of your videos on there, on Instagram and TikTok, and great great words of advice on there as well as as well as in this interview today.

So thank you for doing that. Absolute pleasure. Well, you know, this advice world, I'm always very worried about it. All I can do.

I try to be very careful not to give back too much advice, but to just tell people what happened to me, what I learned along the way, and if people want to knit those ideas or do it, that's up to them. But I'm not telling you what you should do. I suppose I do a bit. I suppose, yeah, because unsolicited advice is not great advice.

You know, the best thing is to say less and then for people to say, tell me more. That's the words. You're always one on one to tell me more, and then you've got there. Yeah, that's why I don't believe in elevator pictures get to know people over period.

Hmm. I think that's why interviews like this are really good, you know, because people can get to know you better than if it was just a quick SoundBite or or a short short videos are good. And it's not getting people's attention. You are very good at the short videos, but the longer ones like this and the podcast, you get to understand someone at a deeper level.

And even at an even deeper level. Definitely encourage people again to get Your Man, which is a brilliant book. It's out on the fourth of June, but you can order a copy now and there's going to be links underneath this as well. Are you back in the UK?

Thank you, Paul Ashamed, he says, unashamed of the. Yeah, no, that's great. Are you going to be back in You're going to be back in the UK next. Most of June.

I'm going to be in the UK, and then I'm going to be in the UK at in September as well, and as usual after the Ideas Fest, which is as of business ideas in the field, which is fantastic, and doing lots of signings and events and things. So you're going to be sick and tired of me. I'll just do my best to make it fun. Yeah, definitely, well the your man, you're definitely very good at that.

So thank you, Simon. Really really appreciate you doing this today. There's a lot of comments that being coming through, so I'll respond to them and maybe you and your team can respond to them as well on LinkedIn as well. But thank you, and yeah, thanks for doing the book as well.

I'm really really enjoying it. Absolute pleasure. And when I was finishing to tell you that when I was knocking on people's doors, I always promised that if I ever got to be the one that people were knocking on my doors, I'd always respond, and so far I've been able to always respond to people. Yeah, you're great.

I really appreciate how quickly you came. Yeah. Yeah, all right, thank you later everybody. All right, thank you, have a great day.