Your Mind Matters With Maria Kempinska – Fi Bendall & Martin Pitt, Entrepreneurship & Mental Health

Welcome to youo Mind Matters on Women's radio station and Men's radio station. My name is Dr. Maria Kempinska. I'm a trained psychotherapist. I'm a deep psychotherapist and also a businesswoman. I've also always been fascinated by how the individual mind copes with events beyond its control. Your mental state affects your actions, your plans, your finances, your relationships, your family, your health and in fact, the whole of your life. The greatest pleasure in my life is meeting fascinating people who've gone through difficult times in their lives and hearing how they've overcome their struggles. In fact, the extraordinary lives out of the ordinary. My guests today are both successful and dynamic and the epitome of the word entrepreneur. They've both created their own businesses more than once and lost them too. Can you fail in business and get up again? And in particular, what mindset does it take? In fact, it begs the question, does your mind matter? So I'd like to welcome Fi Bendel and Martin Pym. Can we start with you, Fi? Tell me lesson. Hello. Hello. Thanks for joining me today. It's a pleasure. Do you want me to just refer to what's happened to your. To your business, to your life? Oh, my Lord. So I started my own business 27 years ago when I had a child, very much like many mothers. Going back to work didn't seem an option and childcare costs were very expensive. And I the first business quite successfully, but then found myself with a man who was my husband. He's been one of my greatest teachers who left me pregnant, went bankrupt, lost my house, so I had to start again pregnant with a second child. Hiding that pregnancy, of course, because people don't really want to do business with pregnant women. And that second business was very, very successful. Actually expanded in London and into New York. And I worked with some significant names and businesses through the 90s, which was a heady time in London and New York. And then I obviously, I think I shop down the wrong shopping market alley for gentleman in my life because I married an Australian and went to Australia and set up a business there and did very well, actually became quite well known as a woman in technology there, but started a very big network of women and bringing women together and did a lot of work with the Australian government to change the fortunes for what I call mompreneurs, the biggest group of women starting businesses and mothers and very much my story. And it was my passion, you know, four years of just changing laws, getting up to the G20, working with the Canadian Government who are amazing, actually, and Prime Minister Trudeau with the G20 and really championing and advocating for women. And that commercialized itself. And then unfortunately, within a year, having moved my life back to London, my marriage fell apart, that business failed and lockdown happened. So I had to. Literally everything happened all at once to you. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I find that actually telling that story and being vulnerable is more empowering than trying to pretend everything's okay. And for me, the pandemic has brought the worst, terrible things to my life and the worst challenges I've ever had to experience. But it's also brought some of the best, most positive aspects. But I found discovered people, ideas, creativity that was so unexpected and has inspired me so much. So it's a real kind of dichotomy of the worst and the best, I suppose. Yeah. And also, it seems that you've traveled, not only did you set up a business, went to America and then you went over to Australia. You set up that business, brought that business back to the uk, did you? Yes, I did, yeah. And managed to get investment here. Yes. But I was still running the Australian office, so it's like pretty heavy duty. And I think for me, what people don't understand when you run a business, and I was actually talking to another gentleman who's a very successful entrepreneur only last week, is managing people who you employ when your business is like. Is literally like your child, is really, really difficult, really difficult. It really stretches you and your mindset. I don't know what Martin would say about that, but I found people management probably one of the biggest challenges. And also entrepreneurship has been actually quite a lonely experience as well. Without all the personal juggling that you need to do too. Your dogs in the background. Yeah, that's working from home, isn't it? But also you manage to get, you know, sort of, you manage to get investment, which is incredibly difficult in itself, isn't it, to make the money to set up a business. Not only set it up, you've got to run it, as you say, you've got to manage people, you've got to manage your own life. And you have a daughter. Yeah. And it was. And the big learning for me around investments, I mean, only 7% of venture capital money goes to female businesses. Only 2% of procurement, global procurement, go to female owned businesses. And in addition to that, very little money is invested in female owned businesses compared to male owned businesses. But even with that, I learned a big lesson about the right type of investors. The people that introduced me to my investment group they didn't have the shared meaning behind the business that I had. And that made it a very painful, difficult experience and it also made a very difficult environment for the business to operate within. So if I was advising another woman about getting investments or man choose, it's like a marriage, choose who you marry very carefully and also really question and do your own due diligence on why they're investing. Because I think there is a lot of. Sometimes there's more self interest in that investment than you might think. Than them actually really being invested in your business. Yeah. Can you go into your mission statement that they didn't adhere to? Was it something that you understood implicitly and it wasn't, you know, sort of quite as overt, or was it something that they did you believed that they understood, but they didn't in the long run, what happened there? I've got to obviously be careful because of legal and confidentiality, but I think that the key was that there was a really mismatch between what my mission was and what I was trying to achieve, what their understanding was. And I think a lot of the due diligence was done on the data, not on how the business could operate or how it could be set up and how it could survive and why it was there. So I think there is a big gap on both sides. I'm not casting blame here on both sides, but it was interesting. I was watching very bland television because I can't cope with anything too heavy in the evening. And there's a show where at the moment on Netflix, about investing in restaurants. And you see these investors and they really go in, they try the food, they look at how the restaurants are being run. And I feel that that was really missed in the process when I raised investment. And if I was going to do it again, I would almost demand that any investor worked alongside me for at least a month and really understood what I was about and what I was going to achieve. But it's hurt me so badly because it was a purpose led business to support women. It wasn't just about profit and it emotionally has scarred me and damaged my mental health to an extent that I've, you know, I have you as a therapist, Maria, which I'm deeply grateful for because your solutions led not just lying on a couch and listening. And also my doctor has been amazing. So I've reached out for mental health support. I'm proud of that. I'm not shy in telling people that I not only once tried suicide, but contemplated it twice very seriously, because I think it needs to be talked about. And that that business going down because it was so purpose led around my mission to support the advancement of women was one of the most difficult experiences in my life. And I'm still only. I'm not fully recovered from it at all. You know, have you still got that mission as part of your sort of life, if not through work? Is it part of who you are? Totally, absolutely part of who I am. And I won't let that take that away. I think my own background and my own family story and so on is I feel very passionate about. It's not like a feminism. So when I say it's not like a feminism, I mean like a Germaine Greer. I love men opening doors for me, I love spending time with men. I really admire men and their brains. But we are a different species. Women think very differently and we nurture and we feel and we think very differently. Which is why when you get a board blended of men and women, it's usually highly functioning and does very well than when it's just all female or all males. So it's not a kind of feminist drive I have, it's more of a fairness drive. You know, let's be fair. Let's recognize what women bring to the economy, bring to the home. And we are the soul, you know, with the salt of the earth. We're the soul nurturers. We give birth to boys and girls and take a highly responsible view of how we develop our children. Just because we're women, and that doesn't mean that men don't have a heavy involvement in that, but it's just a different type of involvement. So I'm still very attached to the attached the advancement of women. Been overwhelmed with offers to get involved with programs from the United States. For example, a major program with the advancement of women in sport, which is very exciting and fits very neatly with, you know, with a lot of the research and learnings and my understanding of the female brain and what women want and a lot of the research and, you know, you can't just suddenly read a report, you know, you really got to know this. And I live and breathe it really every day. Yeah, that's fabulous. You've really spoken so well and, you know, highlighted the issues without disparaging sort of men. And it's wonderful because we do need to work with men. And as you say, you and I are very similar. We like men opening doors, buying the drinks, going out, having fun, but also to have as many women on a board and understanding the feminine mind as well as the masculine mind. And perhaps now is the right time to go and ask you, Martin, about your story. Yeah, I kind of relate to Fee completely with, especially on the investment side. I've gone to investors and I've invested and you know, most of them it's just a figures operation for them, it's nothing to do towards your business. All it is as long as they can get return on their buck. And they have no real input to your business other than generally destroy it because they don't know the ethos behind it, which is really, really difficult. I mean, I'm currently with two investors now looking at one of our big projects. And to them they've got so much money that they don't actually care about the project. It's what they can get out of it at the end. And I'm not quite sure whether that suits our project. So I fully understand that it's very, very difficult to let go of your baby because that's what the business is. And, you know, they can do more damage, I think, sometimes than good. You know, it's hard. I mean, you know, I started business when I was 18, 19, so computer company. I learned the hard way. I'd done a personal guarantee for some stock and I ended up going bankrupt with my first business at the age of 25, sort of 25, 26. And then, you know, you have to just get up and rebuild yourself again. And I think, you know, it's like getting knocked down. You know, you sort of turn around and think, well, what have I done wrong? All I've done try to do is protect my business. Then people can't just take it away. I've had business partners in the past that have destroyed my business and crushed me by letting someone trust you, believe that someone has the same mindset as you for your business. And in fact, all they want to do is just rape it of money, which is absolutely ridiculous. And I've lost several businesses that way. I think now for me, finding a good business partner, to me, it's learning how to trust people again. And I think that's the hardest bit for me. I completely agree with that. I've actually taken this step. It's actually a friend who stepped in. I mean, I've got such a large network and that network's rallied around me in an extraordinary way. And one of my friends stepped in. He's actually ex homie, so he's quite strict with me, but kind of gone. Well, you've got all these opportunities for you and he's organizing that kind of business side for me. And he didn't even want any money. And it looks like one of those businesses could do quite well. And I've insisted that we must be fair and transparent and collaborate. And I want to be part of a new economy of fairness and collaboration and transparency. I feel like you, Marta, I just, it really hurts, you know, and the fear, you know, I've done a lot of in during lockdown. One of the things I've done is I've done Tara Stewart's course the Source and my done a lot of Mind Valley meditations around. Do you sit in fear and scarcity with all the threats when a business goes down, everyone starts shouting at each other and throwing legal weight around. Or you think about abundance and rebuilding and that meditation process, sticking to it, reaching out for help from people like Maria as a therapist and my doctor has literally saved my life. It's not, you know, we went to a lockdown celebratory lunch at the weekend and I think some people were quite surprised. I got everyone around the table. I'm quite good at connecting people to tell a little story. And then everyone went, well, you've got to tell your story. And I think there are a few raised eyebrows when I said, you know, over the past three months, I've not only tried to commit suicide, but considered suicide another two times. But I felt that empowering to go, you know what, it's okay to be vulnerable and it's okay to reach out for help and it's okay to talk about it and it's okay to say I failed because I think the failing will be the part of my biggest success going forward. Fully agree with that. Absolutely. Martin, can I just come to you because as you've highlighted fi those moments of fear and I know, Martin, you were very, although you went bankrupt, you built your business back up again and were super, super successful. Can you go into that and then what happened and the turning point for that? Yeah. So with me, I got involved with a business partner, moved out to France on my own to start with. I've recently been married. So I moved out to France, got involved in securities trading and investing and lending money and become very successful to the point of at one point I almost had like a million pounds worth of cars. I had a beautiful seven bedroom house in cognac. But then, I don't know, something just happened. And you know, I think, you know, I didn't really understand what success was or what I wanted out success or what it meant. All I knew Is that I was earning a lot of money. I can have pretty much what I wanted when I wanted it. And to me, that was kind of what I. You know, to me, I thought I'd made it then, and actually I hadn't made it, so. Because when it all kind of collapsed around me, I ended up having a drug addiction for a couple of years at a late age. It was just crazy. I just sort of won. It was a New Year's Eve party. Everyone come to my house. I prepared lots of food, and they didn't arrive till about 10 to midnight. All they wanted was drugs from me rather than anything else. And that was the moment that was the on and off switch that just flipped. And it was like, you know what? I'm not doing this anymore. My business partner had found out that he'd been taking a lot of money from the pot. My shareholding had been ripped up and doesn't exist anywhere of the company. So for sort of four or five years of my life, it was just. It was. It was a roller coaster. You know, we used to have the local gendarmes come and borrow the cars. They used to cut the road off for us so we could drive our cars fast up and down. It was just an amazing lifestyle. But it wasn't. That wasn't successful. That wasn't success at all. Have experienced difficult partners and partnerships. When you realize that your partner is a difficult person or somebody that isn't on the same trustworthy note that you thought they would be or that you are, how do you deal with that, Martin? And I'll ask you as well, Fi shortly. Well, I just walked away from it. I'm very much kind of black and white. So to me, my only option was to lock the door of the house. I drove one of my cars to Onglem to the train station. I got on the train and I never returned. That was it. It was just a guillotine. An absolute, pure guillotine. What did that leave you with? Sorry? How did you cope? What did that leave you with? Oh, I felt destroyed. I felt absolutely destroyed. You know, we were lucky enough to keep the small property that we had here. And then, you know, that time my wife went through a huge operation as well. They found a fibroid the size of a baby, and we thought she was pregnant. And all of a sudden. So my life had gone from 100 miles an hour to having to look after someone for months, to then not having any money, and then to think, well, I have to do something. I have to rebuild I can't just sit here and not do anything because it wasn't the lifestyle that I was missing. Obviously, you know, money's, we have to have money in a day to day life. That's it. It's very simple. It's not, you know, we can't survive without it, however little or ever how much, you know, I think so. The proudest point of my moment when I had that money was being able to fly my mum out to France on my whole family when she had cancer so she was, you know, she could recover properly and I had a private nurse for her so, you know, the money could buy some really lovely things. But I look back now and think how much of a waste it was and how much it actually really mucks my mind up about trusting people. And that's really hard. Yeah. And coming to you then, Fi, how did you deal with a business partner that you found you couldn't trust? One I lost everything. So I'm rebuilding so I don't have any money. So I get that bit, Martin. But you're right, you can sit back and go, well, is that the end of it or am I going to carry on? And you know, I like, you know, I'm quite a creative, entrepreneurial type of person and so I'm, you know, I've used lockdown to create opportunities, some which aren't making any money at all, but they were great for my mind like the great big book club or, you know, some opportunities that have kind of arrived on my doorstep almost like an angel where, you know, I've gone, wow, this, this could make some money in the future, you know. But at the moment, you know, I'm just doing my best to make ends meet. But I think that I can really understand the trust issue because one of the, you know, the issues I have, like I said, I've shopped down the wrong supermarket aisle for husbands. So I'm about to case you're second divorce and he was a partner in the business and he's the father of my child. So when you talk about trust issues, that's a pretty big one. The other thing is that I blindly trusted people. I kind of walk around the world because I'm a pragmatist, but I'm also an idealist. I want to change the world. I want to change the world for women. And so, you know, people say the right things, I kind of respond and I'll overshare. And that's what I found really good. Now having a very close friend who I trust as A business manager, because he just cuts in at the point that people start saying, well, we'd love you to do this and love you to do that. And he goes, well, you have to meet me. And I think that, I know it sounds, it sounds quite pathetic really, but I think I need protecting from myself because my. I trust too easily. So those are the personal and mental precautions you put into place. Martin, have you found somebody that you can trust that helps you in your business? And fi. I'll come back to your personal life because they're both intermingle here. And Martin, have you found somebody that helps you? Well, yeah, to be honest, Maria, it's you. You know, once I was at rock bottom, I was very lucky enough to be introduced to you. You know, I ended up living on a farm, very, very secluded in Devon and you know, I was kind of rotting away. I had to do something. So, you know, I was very lucky to be introduced to you to, to start being creative again. So, you know, like the website design and things like that. So I think if there's anyone now that I trust and turn around to you, to be fair, it would be, you know. And what about you also working with somebody that has been a long standing friend of yours? Yeah, absolutely. So again, you know, even though I was doing the website and creative work from Devon, it was just been stagnating there. It's just, you know, it was so rural. So we started a project 10 years ago that we were trying to get funding for and we couldn't get funding. And he said, right, come on, you know, get yourself into gear, get out of Devon, come, come down to Portsmouth and start on this project again. This is the right time to relaunch our project. So I come here, February last year and I haven't looked back. You know, we've got the initial tranche of funding, we're looking for more investment. Obviously I still do the website and the creative stuff because that kind of keeps me occupied. And like Fee said, it kind of, you know, that's kind of the, the food on the table money where the project will be a long term commitment and hopefully will make me wealthy in the sense of both, I think mentally and obviously monetary wise. It's a ginormous project and it's something that I've worked very hard on for 10 years. Can I ask you both, is it, you know, during this time, is it better for. Often I find with charities, they're always saying to people who are in despair, distress, going through a difficult time, reach out, ask People, which is sort of what you've said, Phi. But at the same time, how important is it for other people to reach in to you, to come and give their attention to you, check that you're okay, ask you and help you and practically help you as well? I think, you know, I concur with Martin. I mean, Maria, you are what I would call a solution based therapist. You know, I've received therapy from other people, but you look at solutions, you know, there's, I think I said to you the other day, there's a therapist that says, how do you feel? And you go, I feel crap. And they go, oh. And how does that make you feel? Well, this just doesn't. It's just so unhelpful, like completely unhelpful. Whereas you, you know, you work through solutions and probably because you've got a business background as well as being a therapist, it's. For me, solution based therapy has worked really well. And you know, I very much appreciate the fact that you've called me every single morning since all this has happened to make sure that am okay and that my daughter's okay. I am a single mom. And you, you know, sometimes it's a two minute call just to go, hey, how you going? And needed, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and then I've been really surprised as well by, by being honest. The support I've had from people that I relatively don't know. You know, like my real estate agent, were just amazing with me. You know, I was living in this. It was awful. I was like living it. It sounds ridiculous to say it's awful, but it was living in this beautiful house in Mayfair, but the office was there, the everything was there, the bad memories were there and it was just, you know, awful. And some other stuff was going on where I was really getting a lot of harassment from my ex. And it was really important to me. Some of the kindness that was shown to me by people that didn't actually need to be kind and weren't there even on a personal level, but on a professional level, like, like the estate agent, for example, and, and then, you know, you start to connect. And I think the positive side for the pandemic for me was that, you know, I've got dogs and you walk in the park and you talk to people and you know, I've made a really lovely friendship group, but I've also put protection around myself with yourself, with my business manager who, you know, I trust implicitly, and some other people who just step in and go Right. Is it easier for women to do that than for men, Martin? Is it? You know, because for Fee, she's, you know, sort of asked, got this fabulous business mentor that steps in and she'll, in the middle of a negotiation or in the middle of a potential deal, will say, can you now talk to my business mentor? How do you deal with that? I guess to me, up until this past year, I've done everything on my own. So even when I had my business partner, kind of all the decisions ended up being sort of for me. And it's really difficult because I think. I don't know whether it is a male thing or not, but, you know, like Fi said, they're about nurturing your business. And it is. It is really. It's your baby. And I think to let anyone else get involved in that, I would find personally, as a male figure, very difficult. I think that could have been because my trust issues anyway, because of constantly being ripped off by other people. So that's the hardest bit. Have you put any precautions or protection into place the way Fee has? No, no. I mean, you know, I'm very lucky that my business partner that I have now, we've known each other as friends for a long time, and, you know, he's seen me at my lowest, and he's seen me at my highest. So, you know, when I. I started to sort of get back into investment again, I ended up going out to Azerbaijan, and I got into a lot of trouble there, and I was under house arrest there, and he's the one who bailed me out. I wasn't allowed to leave the hotel. We had security at the end of the hotel rooms. I had guns to my head. It was horrible. It was absolutely horrible. My passport was taken away, and to me, people like him was there for me when no one else was. And you kind of think actually that kind of makes the right to me. Business partner. Was he a business partner? And do you think it's. I always think men have a sort of magnetism between them, an unspoken understanding of not only the business world, but what it takes to be a man. And there aren't that many women in business or there aren't that many female entrepreneurs. Let's. No, there should be a lot more. And I think, you know, I think it's, you know, with this project, we've had a young lady come in who's so well qualified for our project that we can't wait to get her on board, you know, because her CV just screamed what we needed. So I think it's important that more and more women get on board with, you know, getting out there and doing what they want. You know, I've got a daughter as well who's 27 and she went to college and studied beauty and things like that. And I'd love to set her up in her own business. You know, we need to have more people like that. I really do. Do you think it's then important for men to equally nurture and promote the way Fi has her business manager, who is a man to nurture, promote and protect, not in a. In a sort of babying way, but protect on sort of business front for women. I think for both men and women, you know, I'd quite happily have a woman on our board looking after us. Do you know what I mean? Because I think they bring a lot more to the table than sometimes men can. At the end of the day, I think, you know, as you're right, you know, we're quite stubborn. We both have like this viewpoint. We've got an agreement now that if we both disagree on something, we'll walk away and then come back and talk about it later, you know, so I think a mediator or a business manager or something is a good idea now. We're creating our board now. Even though it's kind of our project, we know that, you know, we've only got our certain skill sets, so we need other people to be involved where we can't. You know, I think that's very important as well, that people should realize that, you know, you're not a jack of all trades because, you know, everyone tries to run their own businesses. And I think a lot of people forget that. There is a lot of advice out there to help people. I think trusting the right people to give that advice is hard. Trusting the right investors is hard, but it's a roller coaster and it's a process of elimination, I think. I think few will agree with me there. It's like battle through them until you get that one person that goes right. Actually, I understand you, I understand your business, and let's work on it and build it together. Because that's what it's all about, isn't it? It's building your business together to make something for everyone. So when you were both. Can I just ask, when you were both at your rock bottom, when you thought, I've lost everything and you know, you need to move forward, what were the thinking processes fee that you went through? I've got to get up, I've got to make something happen. Is that your natural dynamic. Is that who you are? Is that your drive? I didn't think I could. Everyone was like, oh, Fi, you're a survivor. You know, you've been through this before. You've, you know, the lack of trust, some of the family issues I've experienced, you know, people who are supposed to be your blood, you know that you end up not being able to trust is, you know, that trust issue. And trying to find people with a shared set of ethics is really, really important. Just going back quickly to the board, the biggest mistake I made was having investors on the board and they weren't there for the right reasons. They weren't there with the right skill sets to help the business. Just wanted to add that to what Martin was saying in terms of getting back on my feet. Everybody expected me to bounce back and I couldn't. I really felt like in the blackest hole I think I've ever felt in my life, consequently suicidal. And I found it really, really, really difficult. And then slowly things started to happen. I think the meditation and the understanding the difference between fear and scarcity and abundant thinking, and I don't mean that around money, but thinking positively and abundantly and stopping your mind from the fear self eating you from inside out, I think is really important. I think I was fortunate that, you know, I have done quite a lot of good for people, for women, and the support. Even the head of the bank in Australia sent me a personal email. It was devastated for me that my business had gone down because they knew what had happened, you know, how much good I had done and that it was originally, it was never supposed to even be there for purpose and to see it destroyed it, it was such a devastation and I couldn't just bounce back. And it did take. It took a lot of work, to be honest with you. And then now I'm on the. I'm not on the other side of it, but I've got coping strategies. I've got people around me. There's still times I just go, you know, do I really want to get up? But actually I want to get up more now than I've ever wanted to get up before when I was even had the business and it was going okay. There were mornings I didn't want to get up, whereas now I'm actually quite happy to get up in the morning and go, wow, I'm alive. This is really cool. Let's see what happens today. And creating that abundant open mindset has definitely, definitely, definitely changed me. Being not shy to reach out to us for help is something that I'm proud of and I'm proud to say I've got help from the doctor. I'm proud to say I've got help from you. I'm proud to share with people the type of help, solution based, practical help. It's not sometimes just about talking, it's actually about helping someone muddle through. Yeah. Creating structures. Can I just come back to you or giving me a better understanding on. You were talking about scarcity and fe. So for you and the abundance that there is something out in the world, there is more for you to do and gain in the world. And then separating fear from scarcity, was it better when you were able to separate all the areas of your life, the emotion from what was really going on? Yeah. I started reading the Source by Tara Stewart and I've still got a little bit of that to go. And then I started to do the exercises in that and then I got into two particular meditations I personally like by Vijay Makhani, which is a six phase meditation I do every day, and Bob Proctor does a really good one. But it was actually Tara Stewart's book that she really put in right at the beginning because she'd had a really hard time about how she was a neuroscientist. So this wasn't kind of like spiritual, abundant thinking, although obviously there's an element of that. This is actually the way our brain functions. And that fascinated me because I've done a lot of work as you know, in economic psychology, you know, with data science and so on. But that fascinated me how in her book she talked about the neural pathways and the difference between scarcity and abundant thinking. And you know, her approach is quite scientific to it. Rather than it being the law of attraction, it was kind of the law of attraction with scientific fundamentals of how you can actually make yourself or get yourself out of that dark space. And that was definitely. I would highly recommend that to anyone. Anyone. That book, the various areas, Martin, did you find the same that you had to almost separate the dialogue that was going on in your head and the emotions. Were the emotions overpowering and overwhelming and then you had to talk them down? Yeah, I think for me it was almost creating tasks that I could achieve like on a daily basis and, you know, try and if you can achieve those tasks on a daily basis, it automatically then comes like routine to me. I didn't want to let anyone down, family, friends, you know, because that's not in my, in my makeup. So to me, I had to get up and Sort myself out to be able to start again. You know, it's one of those things where you lay in bed as Fee said, you actually think, well actually there's no point in getting up there, there's nothing to get up for, you know, why should I get up? You know, you'd sit there at night, you'd open a bottle of wine or two or three and all of a sudden it's like, well actually you know it's just not worth, just not worth doing. And then all of a sudden you kind of think well actually there's a lot of people out there that you know were relying on me and you kind of think I've got to do something. I can't just sit here and just wallow in self pity because I think that's what it becomes. My 16 year old daughter has been my, you know, just like you say, it's like here she relies on me, she's a key driver and I love her so much. You know, it is such a motivation to go, you know, I want to just really try and keep her in school. I really want her dream to come alive to go and study in America design, you know and I really want to do. And that is also a big motivator because am I going to go bankrupt, I might as well end my life, you know. You know it was the isolation, the isolation, devastating. And Martin Anfi, how much of your early childhood actually gave you the drive to be who you are today? Not only did it drive you to start your own businesses and starting businesses, I don't think unless you've run one and started. Do people really understand what it takes? There's a tremendous amount of energy, not only self belief, you've got to get the money, you've got to be creative, you've got to look after everything then for it to all be lost and then to start up again. How much in your early childhood did that help you get to where you were and make it all start again? Martin? Yeah, I mean my childhood, you know, councilor, state, child, then my sister dated someone who ended up with a very successful business and that was kind of my drive. I wanted to be like him, you know, it was amazing. I, you know, I hadn't seen wealth like that before, you know, he worked hard for it. So to me I guess, you know, and then something happened with him and my family and you know, it was all just, it went quite horrible. And then they moved to Australia. My brother in law and my sister, we never spoke. And then there's Kind of been like that hatred for him for many, many years. In fact, you know, even probably up to about a year ago when we all met up again because of my dad with his cancer and stuff. But to me it was, you know, I was the only one in the family that I felt that I could make something to give my parents back what they lost from him. So that was my continual drive throughout my life up until a year ago. And it was the wrong drive, it was the absolutely wrong way of doing things. It lost me two marriages, it lost me probably both, well, three of my businesses because the drive was just too much. You know, I just had to succeed, even though I didn't know what success was. And I think now I've got such a better idea of what success is. And it's not all money. It's not about money. It's about happiness and it's about, you know, caring and, you know, family. You know, I've lost both my parents this year. It's just, you know, I think it's been a big wake up call for me. And what have you learned? What was your driver before? Was it money? And what is it? Yeah, absolutely money. To be able to. I think to me it was because of what happened to my parents, because of my brother in law, what I believe to have happened, which obviously now a year later, the story's actually come out and it was Noah, what we thought it was. I think my drive had been purely financial and it's completely wrong. I mean, you know, obviously companies have to make money to survive, but mine, it wasn't greed, it was just I just had to succeed to be able to do something that I wanted to do for my family. That's what it was all about. And for you, Fi, what was from your childhood that drove you to start your own business? Was it freedom? Now, I won't talk too much about my childhood because I think if my family heard this, they wouldn't appreciate it. But quite different on the surface, we seem to be the perfect family. You know, middle class bordering on upper middle class. And of course, underneath, behind the closed doors, life is quite different. And you know, I think what that taught me, I left home at 16 and never went back. I was just fortunate. I got picked up. I got spotted on the streets of Manchester to do modelling. I mean, I was in a Benetton AD at 15 and no one in my family even noticed. I kind of just got on and did it and then I never went back. And I have, you know, I'm kind of the black sheep of the family. I have, you know, had a very difficult relationship as a result of what went on, you know, behind what was the, I suppose the surface of, you know, a very good family, basically. And my experience inside behind those doors is a very different experience to what I suppose the rest of the world would say. And my biggest. I have a very poor relationship with my father. My biggest. But he's been my biggest teacher. And I have a lot to be grateful to him for because he has given me me resilience. And that resilience. I think that when you go through some quite traumatic things when you're younger and they're not recognized as traumatic. So my family didn't recognize that I was feeling traumatized by what was going on. I think that you can either fall over and I could have ended up on the streets, or I chose resilience. And that resilience. I'm deeply grateful for my. For my family, for whatever problems, whatever, you know, we're isolated since my mum died from each other. I'm deeply grateful that that whole family experience has taught me resilience. And without that resilience, I would never, ever, ever have achieved what I've achieved. And you got that resilience by observing your family being treated the way you were. Complete adversity. So adversity gave me the resilience to drive forward, to create change. So it's not always. Not all bad or difficult family lives create a bad future. No, never. I think that this I did read somewhere you'd probably know more about this, Murray, than I would, that there's a certain psychological makeup that makes people respond with resilience under severe adversity. And then there's those that don't, don't cope. For me, it's definitely built a really strong resilience to keep going. And I think, you know, that that's been. That means that a bit like Martin, I'm like, I can recreate myself. I might have had just the worst year that could possibly have ever happened. And then the pandemic. But I, you know, that's adverse. That's adversity, right? It's a resilience to drive forward. And I think that my concern with the younger generation coming through because our parents were tougher on us just generally as a generation. That's a really generic statement. But generally our parents were tougher on us than we as parents are. And I think I've over parented my older kids especially, and probably my younger one's slightly different. She's a bit more like me, very EQ driven and emotionally driven. But I think we're not focusing enough as parents in our generation on building resilience in our children. And I think it's really important. Do you agree with that, Martin, general statement? Completely. I think, you know, again, it's very difficult to say, but I think our upbringings then, when we were younger, I think it was a lot more stricter in certain ways than it is now. But then, you know, is that because the youngsters of today and the young parents of today have had so much taken away from that they can't do to their children? You know what I mean? It's, you know, you've only got put one word out of place with your child and there's childline and there's, you know, there's lots of. I don't know, it's very difficult. It's a very, very fine line subject, isn't it? Yeah, it is. And I think, I think, you know, someone once described it to me with my older children as over parenting, you know, and, and not having those boundaries. And. And, you know, I've said to my younger one, you know, in hindsight, because It's a good 10 years between them, you know, the older two is, you know, love isn't unconditional. You can't treat your mother like shit and just think it's unconditional. It has to be conditional. And, you know, I think, you know, now my mum's passed away and I sort of reflect on the ups and downs we had. The unconditional love is not. Is not a positive thing. I think we all have to love each other based on conditions and boundaries. Yeah. And I think boundaries is the right word. I think, you know, a lot of the children now don't have the boundaries that we were set. Yeah. And, you know, like you say, political correctness for me has gone a bit mad. I mean, I sometimes don't even know what, what words to use for fear of offending someone. Absolutely. Absolutely. And how do you think that will affect your creating new businesses and how you work in business? What, the resilience or the language, the attitudes from one person to another. I found, and I pray, I pray this is an outcome of this pandemic. You know, it's a bit like Post World War II, you know, the world changed. I pray out of this pandemic that what I'm seeing at the moment is people collaborating in a very different way, talking to one another in a very different way. The greed drive. Do a Deal. Regardless, you're always going to have a certain percentage of people who are bastards. Can I say that word? Sorry. Maybe bleep it out. Who are bees. Yeah. And we'll take advantage. But I'm seeing so much more collaboration among women and men and a different type of business conversation. I think the fact that we've been having Zoom calls wearing like practically our pajamas has broken down a lot of barriers. I don't think I need to go and buy a pair of black court shoes because I don't know when I'll wear a suit ever again. Martin, do you think that your attitude in creating a business will be different that you work with and so on? No, I think that. I think Fi's right. I think, you know, the way that we communicate with each other now, especially through the pandemic, has changed, which I think is very beneficial for a lot of people. You know, I think that there was a lot of meetings that, you know, had to happen. I think, you know, there was a lot of face to face meetings that people realize now that actually they can do it via Zoom call skypeball. But I've been sort of a great believer in that for years and years. You know, to me, as you well know, Maria, if you have to get me up to London for a meeting, it'll be right. Well, do I have to come? Do I really need to be there? Can it not be done over the telephone? Because I feel that that's kind of wasting time, whereas I could be creative in front of my computer doing something else. So for me to. I don't. Businesses will definitely change because they'll have to change. But that's a time, sort of a change of times as well. Not just because of the pandemic. I think it's because of. Businesses need to think of new, innovative ways to stay afloat. Yeah, because the old masculine structure which we have in corporate businesses and most businesses are based on a masculine structure which is full of silos. Everybody works separately, everybody responsible for their own work. And this particularly shows in a boardroom, because a lot of people that go, as you were saying right at the beginning, Fi, they go. And you think you're all working towards a purpose, which is your baby. Both you and Martin have created. I've created. You create your baby. You go into the boardroom thinking everybody's there for the baby, which is the business, and then you find that people are pulling in different directions. Do you think that you will now when you go back into business and you're both heading for new successes, that you will be able to create a different structure in the boardroom and a different attitude because you will have the power to recreate the boardroom dynamic where everybody is looking towards the business as opposed to towards what they can get for themselves. Well, I've decided I'm never going to be a CEO or COO again. One thing I've learned is that I'm a chief rainmaker, I'm a CRM and I think that's important. It's taught me what my strengths and weaknesses are. And again, I'm not egotistical enough to go, you know, well, I should be the CR or any of that shit, you know, it means nothing to me. Any board structure. I will never ever, ever participate in a formal old fashioned board structure. I think it has to be collaborative. I think governance needs to be re looked at this over governing, over paperwork, over red tape where people can just throw you under the bus just because they want to and you don't even understand the legal language that they're using. And throwing at you when you're trying to run a business and make a business work and then you've got a board or investors who are just at you to the point that you can't even think straight is just so unhelpful. And so I personally will never ever participate in a formal board structure as it was known. I've been on board in Australia, which is as the only female on a board. It was a really financial services company. I didn't find it an easy process whatsoever. And that was not because of the individuals. You know, I was literally there as a board. I was not involved in the operating aspects of that business. But I don't want to participate in, I suppose if you want to say the pre Covid business environment of what a board was, I just will not do it. I, I found it unhelpful in every single instance that I've been involved with that. And that's not just because of gender. That's because you really need to have the right people around you working towards the right cause and goal. Yeah. Because there are very many women who are geared towards the masculine, not the male, the masculine structure. Martin, will you change the dynamic of your new company? Absolutely. We've already seen we're buying in knowledge to, you know, to help our business grow on a common ground. So anyone who's not interested in what our ethos is of our project, then we don't want them involved. It's very simple. However good they might be, as A mathematician or a statistician or whatever it might be. We don't want that. What we want is people that work to a common goal. And I think that's really important now. It's, you know, there's a lot of businesses that are failing now because of this board structure where people can't make a decision without someone else and someone else and someone else. And we're trying to keep it as almost like an open desk where everyone has their say and then we all discuss things about what the common goal we're trying to aim for. And I think that's a really important way of doing things now rather than, you know, one person gets to make the decision. You know, everyone throws their ideas in, but if someone, you know, it's the board's decision at the end of the day, which I don't think can work anymore. I agree. I think the old fashioned cooperative. Do you remember you have the cooperative businesses and I work with the pineapple farmers in Australia, believe it or not. And they set up one big distribution center to put all the pineapples through. Very clever. They make a lot of money because they. And that's how it should be done. It's about people with a common. Yeah. To this day they've got this big marketing distribution center and all the farmers put their pineapples through this distribution center and they do it as a cooperative. And there's no legal agreement done on trust. And Australia produced more pineapples than anyone in the world. And I just look at that and go, that's the way business should be done. Yeah. And coming back to mental health issues, do you think that the businesses as they are, create mental health issues? And do you think this new structure that we're all talking about will help people through any issues they have? And what would you add, Fi and Martin, but Phi first, what would you add to your business and generally in society to support mental health? My business that has sadly gone into voluntary liquidation has destroyed my mental health. And a big contributing factor of that has been the people involved with the organization. Without a doubt, you know, without a doubt. It's. It has, like I say, put, put me to the point where I tried suicide. So like, it is beyond. It goes beyond what I would describe as cruelty or even vindictiveness or agendas, you know, and I never want to be involved in anything like that ever, ever again. And. And I won't be. That's kind of. I believe that your mental health is as important as your business health. And I don't think and it's as important as your financial health. Like it's, it's. Neither is important more important than the other because you can't achieve it if you're feeling. I mean, I got to a point I was so exhausted and in tears and I never could make anybody happy. And all I was trying to do was build a purpose driven organization to support women that would eventually bring in money and build a technology platform and all of this kind of thing to drive an economy for other women. And I was just, oh, I can't begin to tell you. And it's how it shattered you. Pardon? Shattered you. And Martin, can I move on to you? And just coming almost to the end, Martin, mental health, workplace, does it affect mental health? Yeah, I think the problem is there's still the stigma attached to asking for help. And I think what needs to happen and I don't know how the right way is, is that it becomes more easier to be able to get the help that's needed. You know, I've gone through days like Fee has where, you know, it's just your mind just can't work. It's simple. And then, you know, talking to someone like you has obviously helped loads and loads and loads. But not everyone has that availability to be able to speak to someone like you. So it's how you get that stigma away from asking for help to the masses. I think that's really important in business. Yeah. I think what is changing there is a company called which is being created. Almost finished is counsellor in your pocket where you can phone online or communicate with a counsellor very quickly when you need it, day or night. And that is going to be live soon. I know they're working with women's and men's radio station and I'm working with them. But just to say thank you both Phi Bendel and Martin Pitt for an amazing conversation. This conversation needs to happen over and over again to put things right. And this program will go out on women's radio station and men's radio station and it's such a joy to be able to air questions and thoughts and the dynamism that both of you have brought to the whole issue of mental health and well being. Thank you, Maria. I've really enjoyed the opportunity. And Martin, as always, it's so great to talk to you. Yeah, lovely Faith, thank you.