Stories Change Lives
Television Gave Us Celebrities. Podcasts Give Us People.
For most of the 20th century, television decided whose stories we heard. A handful of broadcasters controlled the cameras, the studios and, most importantly, access to the audience. If you didn’t know fame, notoriety, or weren't photographed, your chances of being heard were slim at best.
The internet changed everything. YouTube, podcasts, social media, have all dismantled the machinery that once stood between people and their audiences. We can now hear from almost anyone, anywhere, about almost anything.
Not all of this is good. Misinformation is aplenty, with long rabbit holes that lead to large echo chambers. We've created an extraordinary industry in which people become famous for simply being famous. And millions follow the daily activities of people who, frankly, don't appear to do very much.
There's another side to this revolution. One where I feel there’s more hope to be found.
Over the past few months, I've been developing and filming TableTalk, a podcast with people who build things, makers and misfits alike, and the lives they build around themselves to make it all worthwhile. I’m speaking with entrepreneurs, artists, business owners and people who've made unconventional decisions or taken unexpected paths.
I'm interested in what makes people tick. Not simply what they've achieved, but why they made those particular set of choices, what they sacrificed or refused to, what they've learnt and what they might have done differently. The idea was that the choices and regrets of others might help the rest of us learn a better way for ourselves.
But it’s interesting that the more conversations I have in my life, the more convinced I become that some of the most interesting people are those we've never heard of – the people who passing, we might simply walk on by and try not to look at too hard.
The Next Great Entrepreneur Is Sleeping Rough
Let me take you back in time for an interwoven story. We start in 1968. A 16-year-old boy found himself homeless in Dorset, his home life having been violent and difficult when eventually, his mother locked him out.
He was working as an apprentice hairdresser but couldn't afford anywhere to live. For a while he slept in the woods with little more than a poncho type affair to protect him from the weather. His name was Mark Constantine.
Today, Mark is the co-founder of Lush, a cosmetics business that began with a shop in Poole in 1995 and grew to more than 800 shops across 50 countries.
Between those two points lies a remarkable entrepreneurial journey. Constantine learnt his trade, developed an interest in hair and skin products, began creating his own formulations and eventually became a major supplier to Anita Roddick's Body Shop. When that relationship ended, he and his colleagues built Cosmetics To Go, a hugely popular mail-order business, but in 1994 the business collapsed, leaving Constantine bankrupt and facing financial ruin once again. He and his team started over, making products upstairs in a shop in Poole and selling them downstairs. So Lush is Constantine’s phoenix.
What's interesting isn't only that a homeless teenager became a successful businessman, but that his story might so easily have ended differently. In a recent interview with The Big Issue, Constantine reflected on the women who helped him through his early life. Their support mattered. And so did his ability to keep working despite his circumstances. Talent, determination and ambition are valuable commodities. But they're not always enough.
Support and opportunity matter too.
John Bird, who experienced poverty, institutional care, homelessness and prison, co-founded The Big Issue in 1991 with Gordon Roddick, Anita’s husband. The magazine didn't simply tell stories about homelessness. It created a business model through which people experiencing poverty could earn money by selling it. So here we have two entrepreneurs, both familiar with homelessness, who went on to build businesses that affected countless lives.
How many more Mark Constantines or John Birds have we never heard of? How many never discovered what they were capable of?
The Valuable Stories are the Ones Nobody’s Selling
Business owners will recognise the distinction. Just think back to the last networking event you attended. Which conversations stayed with you? The endless pitches, or the moments when someone stopped selling and started connecting?
But we've become rather good at confusing commercial value with human value. A successful entrepreneur sells a company for £20 million and automatically becomes a fascinating case study, despite being as interesting as drying paint. Someone who raises four children, supports a community or overcomes extraordinary adversity, and has a fantastic sense of humour, they’re barely noticed.
Here, my old and dear friend Dave Pentland comes to mind. Dave's early life took him through an orphanage and borstal. Hardly the conventional preparation for a successful career, or a stable family life. Dave worked for me for many years and the man I knew had the work ethic of a soldier, was a devoted father, and became legal guardian to four children who weren't his own. We first met very soon after my first son, now my business partner Felix, was born and I recall Dave reassuring me by imparting to me some wisdom. He told me that my children would teach me more than I could ever teach them. By the time Felix was ten, Dave's words had proved themselves many times over. And every year since... Dave was intelligent, interesting, unconventional and a loyal friend. He wasn't building an international business, he was building something rather more difficult to measure; a life that mattered enormously to other people.
We tend to judge people by their present circumstances - their job title, education, address, bank balance. But these are snapshots, not biographies. And some of the most extraordinary lives would make very ordinary LinkedIn profiles.
Which brings me to something we're trying to do in London.
The Extraordinary Power of Being Listened To
I've been filming TableTalk at the studio at New London Media in London Bridge, working with Nigel Cross and his team. We've been discussing how the facilities, equipment and experience we already have might be used for something beyond our own programmes. And Nigel pitched an idea.
Nigel wants to give people who might otherwise never have the opportunity, a professional setting in which to tell their stories.
People experiencing homelessness.
Young people facing disadvantage. Underprivileged communities. Even students.
Not because we think they're all extraordinary entrepreneurs waiting to be discovered. But because we don't know who they are, what they've experienced or what they might have to teach us.
There are benefits in several directions.
For the person being interviewed, it may be an opportunity to reflect on their life, develop confidence or to create something they can share with an employer, family member or potential supporter.
For the audience, it might challenge an assumption, reveal an unexpected perspective or inspire someone facing similar difficulties.
For businesses, it might introduce a talented person who would otherwise never appear on their radar.
And for society, it gives us something that seems increasingly scarce: the opportunity to understand people whose lives are different from our own.
But we might find an Andrew Faris, who spent six years sleeping rough before founding Rhythms of Life, a London charity that feeds people experiencing homelessness using surplus food that might otherwise go to waste. His experiences helped him recognise needs that others had overlooked.
Recording an interview won't solve homelessness, poverty or social exclusion. But sometimes being listened to is valuable in itself. Sometimes a conversation creates a connection. Occasionally, that connection opens a door. And we’ll never know if we don’t try.
Success Makes a Good Headline.
Failure Makes a Better Story.
Business publications are full of success stories. The founder who sold for millions. The entrepreneur who built an empire. The executive who transformed an organisation. And there can be plenty to learn from them.
But in my experience, I learn a lot more from my failures than my successes. And I suspect we can learn at least as much from the people who got things wrong, who lost everything, who started again or simply chose a different definition of success, than from the success stories alone.
A failed business can teach us about judgement.
A difficult childhood can reveal remarkable resilience.
A life devoted to others can challenge our assumptions about ambition.
In fact, one of the problems with our obsession with success is that we tend to hear from people only after they've achieved it. The uncertainty, the mistakes, the unlikely friendships and the small acts of generosity that helped them along the way get missed.
Mark Constantine's story isn’t fascinating because he built Lush. It’s fascinating because of the frightened teenager sleeping in the woods, and the people who helped him become the man he is today, and that he built Lush from that.
Sometimes we look for extraordinary stories in the wrong places. And perhaps, the next person who has something important to tell us isn't sitting in a television studio, a boardroom or a podcast green room. Perhaps they're sitting on a park bench.
To start off, we're hoping to give 50 people the opportunity to tell their stories. And for a few, it might change their lives. We can provide an hour in a professional studio, with the technical support and production needed to create a video they can share for £150.
So, our first fundraising target is £7,500.
We can't promise to change someone's life but we can create the conditions in which something is more likely to happen. Our intention is to increase the opportunity of luck for those we get to speak to.
Perhaps someone will find work. Perhaps an unexpected friendship will begin. Perhaps a story will reach someone who needs to hear it.
And perhaps the greatest benefit will be ours, as listeners.
Stories change lives. Sometimes it's the telling. Sometimes it's the hearing.
If you'd like to help Nigel give 50 people that opportunity, you can support the initiative here. We thank you for your donation, no matter how small, and if every subscriber to my Business. Better. newsletter gave just £5 today…
WE’D SMASH OUR TARGET!
If you know someone whose story we ought to hear, put us in touch.
And if you’re a founder who should be on TableTalk, apply here.
TableSki
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January 10th - 17th. Don’t regret not joining us. Register for info and pay your deposit here.
Easter Eggs in this week’s article
“20th century” – My Iron Lung, by Radiohead
“fame” – Fame, by David Bowie
“interesting people” – Christopher Street, by Leonard Bernstein
“walk on by” – Walk On By, by Dionne Warwick
P.S.
Who will you help?
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