Claire Williams on Losing Williams F1: ‘I Have No Memory of That Meeting' (E336)

0:28Watch it early on the High Performance App. You can't quite describe it. I felt very at home in it. I felt it was my place and my family. How lucky am I? I got to grow up in that world. That is the voice of Claire Williams, the former boss of the legendary Formula One team, Williams Racing. I'm Jay Comfrey, and before creating this show, I spent a number of years hosting Formula One's TV coverage. In that time, I got to know Claire as she rose up the ranks of the team from press officer to taking full charge in 2014. In this conversation, Clara explains about her emotional first race as boss in the wake of her mum's funeral, how in her mid-30s she had to carry the weight of the Williams name whilst facing social media criticism and doubts from some people in the paddock.

1:12She explains what happens on the inside as a Formula One team starts to unravel, how she finally had to accept it was over, how she's turned to therapy to find happiness once more, and why losing the team gave her some magical final days with her dad. I left this conversation knowing more about Claire than I ever have and I know you'll find it revealing as well not just about her life but life inside Formula One as well we also cover how Toto Wolff helped her get her job as team principal how she convinced one person to lend her£25 million and what she'd say if someone offered her the team back tomorrow do stick around to the end of today's show as we've got a short but helpful chat for anyone listening to this who's keen to grow their business overseas because we've teamed up with the UK Government Department for Business and Trade and their free training programme, the UK Export Academy.

2:04And at the end of this episode, I speak to an expert who might just change the game for your business globally. But right now, on with the show as we welcome Claire Williams to High Performance.

2:20Claire, welcome to High Performance. I'm so excited to be here. Let's talk about how you feel this time of year because we're right at the start of the launch of a new Formula One season. It's still, you know, even though it's been quite a long time since I left the sport, I still find it really difficult. Last week or the week before when they had that mega launch at the O2, I wasn't invited. I was invited to a dinner the night before, which was just wonderful. But I didn't go to that. And I didn't really think too much about it. But we always watch TV at suppertime. And I went and put the telly on like, I normally go for deal or no deal or something like that.

2:56I'm a game show nut. And the launch came on and I looked at it. And I normally avoid things to do with F1 Ontario, like the plague, because I can't cope with it. It's too upsetting. I know that's really lame, but it is. And anyway, it was then, once you've turned something like that on, you can't stop watching, can you? And I couldn't. And honestly, the tears just came rolling down my face, because it's like, I miss it. I miss it enormously. So I think any time of the year with F1, it kind of pulls at my heartstrings. And I'm very honest about that. I don't really care for whatever people think about how I might get upset about it still.

3:38But I did because, you know, it was my whole life. Why do you think it's lame? Because you're not supposed to admit that you start crying because you watch the F1 and it makes you more there. My dad said to my mum once, emotion is weak, Virginia. and that's kind of stuck in my head, you know, you're not stiff upper lip, you know, typical British way. So I think it's a bit lame, isn't it? You know, get over it. Life moves on. Life does move on, but it was such a huge part of your life. What is it that makes you emotional? I just miss it. I miss, you were in the sport as well for a long time. You know what it's like.

4:13There's something magical about Formula One that almost, you know, it's very essence. You can't quite describe it. I don't know what it is. I felt very at home in it. I felt it was my place and my family. And, you know, I lost that. The people around me at Williams, I considered very much my family and those cars as well. So when I went to Miami, which last year for the Grand Prix, which is the first race I've been to since I left, I kind of held it together and I was absolutely fine. And then when I went into the garage for the first time, when I saw the cars, I literally was like, I need a moment.

4:50I had to walk out of the garage and I had another moment. Those cars, as much as they're inanimate objects, to me, they're very real and they have a heart and a soul. Again, I know that sounds really silly, but that is how I genuinely feel about them. They feel very much part of the fabric of my family. And I think they encapture everything that my dad was. and obviously my dad passed away and I was enormously close to him and I miss him. It's like missing your family that you don't get to see anymore. I think if you just say, well, I miss Formula One, you're perfectly entitled to be emotional about that.

5:24But I was on the train coming down here and we've known each other, let's just, you know, 15, 20 years, right? So we would have first met in the late 2008, something like that, when I first got involved in Formula One. So it is... It's a long time. The best part of 20 years that I've known you. And I was coming down here today and I know you've had lots of shows, done lots of podcasts. I was thinking, you know, what does still not feel I know about Claire? And I thought like, and actually I get almost a bit emotional thinking about this because I can't even begin to imagine how it is from your perspective that, you know, you lost your, you were given an incredible job, lost your mum, lost the team, lost your dad.

6:02And this was all in like a seven or eight year period. I don't know how I would cope with that amount of grief and loss, whether it's a parent, whether it's a Formula One team, whether it's my friends in the world I've grown up in. Yeah, you know, I took over the team the day after my mum's funeral. My mum got very sick and she kind of fought it off for three years. And then over the winter of 2012, we knew that she wasn't going to last a whole lot longer. And it was that time that I was asked to take over the team and we kind of tried to coincide me taking over for the Australian Grand Prix, which was the first race of the season in 2013 and then my mum passed away my mum actually passed away on the same day that my dad had his car accident on March the 8th which was extraordinary and then so we postponed me actually being launched I suppose as TP at a Grand Prix until after her funeral and so we had my mum's funeral on the Thursday I was due to flower on the Friday and then my PA after literally said goodbye to the last guest at the wake phone me and say, Claire, I'm so sorry but your flight tomorrow has been cancelled.

7:08The only time you could go is Saturday but you won't get in until Sunday morning or tonight. What do you want to do? And so I was like, well, what would my mum want me to do? And she would say, life goes on. And so, yeah, I went and did that. I got on the flight that evening and went and ran the team. But that's, I suppose, demonstrates how close, you know, we all are as a family to Williams. But, you know, there was, you know, And then I suppose Williams for me was my therapy, losing my mom. I, you know, it was, I bury, I'm quite like my dad. I bury my head in the sand and work for me was very cathartic.

7:46And, you know, I had a job to do. I wanted to almost rebuild the team in my mom's honor because I knew that she was quite heartbroken when she died that the team was doing so badly at the time. And then, you know, I looked after the team, I suppose, for my dad because my dad wasn't in great shape either for those years that I was in charge. And then, yeah, then I lost the team and I lost my dad. I lost so much of my life, but, you know, I've had a wonderful life and I can't complain. And I think that's one of the greatest lessons that you must always appreciate what you have in the moment because you never know when you're going to lose it.

8:20But it's been a massive transformation, I suppose, for me, because, you know, that day when I left Monza, my last race in September 2020, I suddenly was faced with a whole new world. And my identity had been so wrapped up in Williams. And, you know, I was Frank Williams's daughter till the age of about 30. And then I suddenly became, when I became DTP, I got my own identity and I was Claire Williams. But it was all wrapped around Formula One. And now I've had to go out into the big wide world and work out who I am. And who are you? Oh, I'm still working that out. I think there's always a bit of a shadow Formula One around me.

9:01I'm still quite heavily identified with that. I'm forging a new life for myself that I struggle with sometimes to kind of not be a part of that Formula One world anymore. But there is so much outside of Formula One. And I'm actually a really simple person. I like nothing more than being at home. I've always been that way. And we did a big house move last year, we moved to the South Downs. And, you know, I get to go dog walking every day in Forest. And I am normally a trail runner up until I break my ankle doing it last year. So running is a massive thing. But I like being at home. I'm a homebody.

9:39I like making sure my house looks all pretty. And, you know, I'm a mum and I'm a wife. And I wasn't a very good one of those. And that's first and foremost, my job now is to make sure I'm a damn sight better than I ever was doing that when I was in Formula One.

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11:34Why were you not a good one? Because you can't have it at all. And I know that's controversial, but I thought you could. And I learned very quickly that I don't think you can. I think you have to make choices in life and you have to make sacrifices, certainly if you're running a Formula One team. you know that's why um i didn't have a child until um i was you know quite late i hadn't i had nate when he was when i was 40 um because people told me when i took over the team well don't even think about having a baby now um it's formula one or family they actually say that out loud yeah yes they did um how did that feel do you well it was back in like 2011 2012 and you people said things like that then and it was absolutely fine.

12:19I mean, that was hardly, you know, one of the worst things that was ever said to me during my time in Formula One. You just, you know, you get on with it. You know, that's just part and parcel of life. So, you know, I did leave a lot of stuff late. And, you know, when you are running a Formula One team, your focus has to be your Formula One team and kind of everything comes secondary. You know, I did the best job I could being a wife and a mother but you know I have they're my priority now and making up for that lost time and my poor long-suffering husband I hope certainly has forgiven me for the crap that I gave him while I was running that team.

12:58Before we talk about what happened at Williams and your life in motorsport can you explain to me your relationship with regret? God that's a I've never been asked that before that's a really difficult question um i think that's it can be a really complex relationship and obviously during um i think hindsight regret is such an easy emotion and you can get really easily lost in it and i try really hard not to do that there are so many things that i could really easily and simply sit here and go well i regret doing x y and z i regret the fact that i had to sell the team i regret you know did I put enough effort and time into the whole thing?

13:44You know, all that kind of stuff. But all I can ever say to myself is, at the time, I did the absolute best that I could with the best intentions in my heart. And I think that's all we can do in life. You know, and so I sit there and I go, well, if I know that I did that, and I absolutely know that I gave Williams everything, every single fiber of my being I gave to that team, then how can I regret that? things went wrong that were out of my control or they were but I thought I had made the best decision with the information that I had at the time so why live with regret I think regret can lead to bitterness and I've been down the bitter road and it is not good and I don't want to go back there you've just summed up what we've learned in over 300 conversations on this show Damien who I sometimes co-host with and I we've nailed high performance down as the best you can where you are with what you've got.

14:42It sounds like you feel you did that. Yeah, I did do the best that I could with what I had. And I think a lot of people don't understand that. It's so easy to be my CEO at the time, the brilliant Michael Driscoll, used to say, oh, it's so easy being a Monday morning armchair quarterback in his kind of half American accent that he had. And, you know, it's so true. We all judge everybody, don't we? It's so easy to do it, but nobody walks in your shoes. So nobody really has a right to. Nobody understands what you're going through at the time, what you're having to deal with, what are the circumstances involved.

15:22So why are we judging everybody for that? I did everything that I could for Williams in the moment with what I had. And Formula One at the time that I was in the sport, it wasn't an easy environment. and that's not to take away the fact that we may or may not have made bad decisions internally but equally outside of our team the sport was not what it is today it was in a really difficult place or a challenging environment it's a really harsh world what do you mean by that well you know the rules were incredibly complex i know that they still are um but if you got them wrong you could spend your way out of it because there was no cost cap.

16:07And the bigger teams just every year came into the sport with a bigger checkbook, you know, the likes of Red Bull and Mercedes. So if things weren't going right, you just threw more money at it. If you're an independent team like Williams, like we were, and we were one of the last remaining family owned independent teams in the sport, how do you do that? Because your whole income is based on sponsorship and prize fund money. When did you realise it wasn't going to be all right? In the kind of first quarter of 2020. So at the end of the last quarter of 2019, our title sponsor, Rocket, started some shenanigans.

16:46You know, your title sponsor brings the biggest chunk of income. So we lost that, but we spent three months fighting for it and it just never materialised. And now, you know, everybody knows we've won our battling court against them. and so we had this massive gap so I was like what the hell am I going to do you know I've got to fill a 20 million 25 million pound hole here to keep going racing in 2020 anyway I came up with a little brain wave and someone very kindly bailed us out and I literally went and I had a conversation with somebody and I said please can you help me over breakfast one morning and we can imagine going and asking somebody for 25 million quid and they said yes and um i probably i still get quite emotional about it because you know that man saved my team i wrote him a letter afterwards because i was always taught to write thank you letters and it just felt like what do you do you don't send someone you can't say oh here have a bottle of wine thanks very much for bailing my formula one team out but it was like i'll just write a thank you letter what did you write in that letter?

17:55I can't remember the actual words, but I thought, is this, is he just going to read it and go, what a Wally? Why do you write someone a thank you letter for lending the net? But he is incredibly gracious human. And I thought that that's, you know, I couldn't believe it when I walked away from that table. I thought, my God, I've done it because I wasn't expecting him to say yes. I was like, oh my God, we're weird. What was that feeling like? I was just, I was like, blinking Nora, you know, how have I just done that? That's incredible. And I phoned Mike and I phoned my husband and I said, we've got the money.

18:26We're okay. We can go racing. And so we all thought, okay, I mean, we weren't, we still needed more, but I knew the cost cap was coming in because I'd spent three years lobbying for it along with some other TPs. And I knew F1 were very much behind it. And we then started hearing about COVID and this weird, crazy thing that was going on in the Far East, but then was kind of rippling its way through Europe and Italy and the like. And we were about to head to Australia and we were kind of questioning, are we going, are we going, are we not, should we? And we got there and it was all kind of a bit, all hell broke loose.

19:05And then obviously everybody knows what happened. But that time I wasn't really thinking, well, you know, this could be the end of Williams for us. This could be our final nail. I was just thinking, right, what do I got to do to get my team home safely? And then when we did get home, And it was like, my God, what on earth are we going to do? Are we not going racing? How long are we not going racing for? And how on earth do I manage a business in this environment now? And then obviously it quickly became apparent that we weren't going to be able to go racing for a long while. And if you don't go racing, you don't get money.

19:37And at Williams, our two main revenue sources were sponsorship and prize fund money. And I knew within, you know, a quite short timeframe, having been on these massive conference calls with all the other team principals and the board of F1 and the FIA that we weren't going racing for a good while. And at that point, the Williams board, and we had a board meeting and we knew it was game over. What was that meeting like for you? I don't remember. I have absolutely no recollection of those conversations where I think we decided that that was it. We would have to finally put the for sale sign up. I remember the aftermath of having to go through what was called a strategic review process which is a real misnomer because it wasn't a strategic review it was a sale and I had to I was the one effectively selling the team so I was the one having to we would what it involved basically was people we had obviously a advisor agency and then my CFO and CEO and I would do the calls because we all had to do all this on zoom it wasn't like we had face-to-face meetings which would have made life easier.

20:49But all of these like sale meetings, so we had people that expressed interest and then they were vetted and then people deemed to be legitimate. We would then jump on what would normally be anywhere between a two and a four hour Zoom call where we would have to pitch Williams for sale. And being me, I was the one that was doing most of the talking and didn't feel good, I have to say. Well, so you're on a Zoom call trying to sell a team, which is the last thing in the world that you want to do. That I don't want to do. Yeah. No. And the weirdest, I remember distinctly when we did go back racing in July, I was in, I don't know where we were, Hungary or something.

21:33And so I'd be at the track all day. And then these sales calls, sales Zooms were scheduled for the evening. So I would come back, have to kind of do a rapid change, put on a business outfit and then sit at my laptop for another three hours, like at 10 o 'clock at night, doing these sales calls and just sat there going, what the hell is happening in my life? And why had you ended up in this position? Because I remember when you first took over as team principal, I was involved in Formula One at the time. And after most races, I saw you running down the pit lane, heading to the podium because you were picking up trophies because you were finishing in the top three.

22:10Yeah. So for people that don't necessarily understand the world of Formula One, they'll be thinking, hold on, you were doing okay. And in a very short space of time, you were the only team that found yourself in this position of having to sell to survive COVID. Could you explain to people the dynamics of what happened in the period before you had to sell? There were the external factors that didn't help us. But, you know, there were a lot of things that were going wrong inside the team. So if you don't have, I always call them sugar daddies, if you don't have like a Red Bull drinks manufacturer or an engine partner or whoever bankrolling you, I mean the Williams family weren't able to bankroll the team, then you're in a catch -22 of just not being able to spend your way out of the problems because you can't bring in new people.

22:59you can't make a new front wing for every race just in the hope that it might bring you a tenth here or half a tenth there so there were a lot of things that were going on behind the scenes but again I can't discuss them unfortunately but there were just a lot of things that all just conspired I wonder, although you weren't on social media you would have been well aware of what people were saying, right? Yeah I wonder how much of people's opinion of your leadership at this time was dominated by the fact that you were the daughter of the founder of the team and also a female? I think a lot. I definitely think that probably influenced it.

23:38But I also think there are a lot of people in this world that are just genuinely really unkind and like to have their opinion. And unfortunately, that's one of the pitfalls of social media, that it gives people a platform to talk in a really unpleasant, deeply unpleasant and hurtful way about people. And probably, you know, those people wouldn't walk down the street and say it to anybody's face, but, you know, social media allows them to say it blindly. But it's not right and it's not okay. And I'm really pleased that I was strong enough to keep myself off social media because, you know, there were a couple of accidental times that I did look at it and I was horrified.

24:21And in actual fact, one of the reasons I broke my ankle lost, year was because I was out on a run and giving him like some welly because the night before I had looked at a story about me online I don't know what it was and then I stupidly as I've trained myself not to do went down to the comments and there was some absolutely hateful stuff and it was just I'd just come off a really nice weekend break with Mark you know I was in a really happy place you know I'm not involved in a sport I don't consider really myself in a public eye at anymore. And people still have this vitriol towards me. And I was just heartbroken.

24:59I was in tears. It was like, how do people think that it's okay to say this stuff about people that they don't know? They've never walked a day in their shoes. They don't know what's going on in their world. How would you like it if I came and said that kind of shit to you? It's unacceptable. And it really needs to, someone needs to get a hold on this because it's really harmful as we've seen in so many ways. I'm lucky I've got thick skin and I'm strong. But you know, the next day I was like, I'm going for a run. I went and ran and I was thinking about these horrible people and I fell over and broke my ankle.

25:30So yeah, you know, it's not nice walking around. And you know, in the paddock in particular, I did used to kind of almost walk around with my head down in those last few years because I was embarrassed. I felt shame that people were looking at me going, she's crap she's useless or whatever so it wasn't it wasn't easy but I've always been taught to hold my head up high and I knew that I was trying to do the best job um and that's all you can do I mean the constant thing coming out of this conversation around this period anyway is one of resilience and you know you grew up in a house where the bailiffs were knocking on the door because your dad was struggling to run a racing team in the early days you were then also in a house where your dad was coming home with winners trophies and championship trophies and the most celebrated person in Formula 1 you also grew up in a house where one day you would have found out that your dad had such a terrible accident that he was to be a tetraplegic for the rest of his life I'd love to talk about resilience and what those formative years in the Williams household both the highs and the lows gave you that you lent on in this difficult time as the team principal my older brother and I when we were little up until the age of two and three, mum and dad, really, they had...

26:50Williams wiped them out, literally, like you just talked about. Bailiffs were at the door. My parents... My mum used to hide behind the sofa when the landlord used to come knocking and have the curtains drawn. And the whole premise on them moving into this ramshackle house with the landlords where they would do it up because it had no curtains, carpets or anything. They lived in it for two years, no carpets or curtains. So I'm always... I say, oh, I was like... I was brought up in such a shitty environment. it's kind of like exactly things got better well my husband's like oh give over Williams you know we're talking about Silver Spoon it's just a joke and but you know I've had an enormously privileged life I have and I'm very grateful for it and I appreciate and recognise it every single day but there were definitely times where you know the bailiffs at the door certainly didn't shape any kind of resilience because I was too little but there were definitely times that I think my child, we all know that our childhoods form the foundations of our grown-up years.

27:53And, you know, as much as my childhood was wonderful, my dad was not around. Not that I ever really thought too much about that. I'm not sure that I actually necessarily suffered because he wasn't there. But, you know, at the age of nine, he had a horrific car accident that basically took my mum away from us as a family because she was trying to keep him alive for a year. And that wasn't easy. And then obviously, after my dad's accident, there was a huge amount of adjustment, but it was never talked about in our family. It was kind of like, well, this has happened to dad and we're just going to, you know, deal with it and carry on.

28:30And, you know, we were very, I look back now because I do a lot of work with the Spinal Injuries Association, and I know how people suffer after spinal cord injury in so many ways. But the one way in which we were very lucky, which I appreciate enormously now, is that my dad, because of the success he'd had in the sport up until that point, we were so lucky in that my dad was able to come home. Because so many people that suffer the same way, they don't. They have to live in rehab centres or they don't have the, even if they get to live at home still, they don't have the level of care that my dad was actually able to afford.

29:03But saying that, you know, as a nine-year-old girl, to see your dad come home with a broken neck, you know, this once vibrant, energetic, incredible man who was actually, you know, he was a competitive runner. He was running half marathons competitively every weekend when it was not cool to run, you know, back in the mid 80s like it is today. And, you know, suddenly he was this completely incapable human who couldn't even feed himself. And that was a really hard knock because as children, we weren't, you know, that time, you know, you weren't offered therapy as a child if something happened to you, just expected to get on with it.

29:38And then I was sent to boarding school. I really didn't like boarding school. I really, really struggled with it. I struggled with the socialization of it. I wasn't, I'm not very sociable and I, it was all girls and it wasn't, wasn't great. And, you know, and then I kind of went off the rails a bit. I didn't have the best relationship with my mother for a little while. And all of that definitely, I'm a firm believer that resilience comes from experiences that you've gone through, particularly in childhood. And I think that a lot of those experiences just built up my resilience. My parents were tough.

30:12They were lovely parents, but they were tough. You know, when we were taken to races, it was you are seen and not heard. And you are, you know, here, you might be here as the boss's daughter, but you are going to be working in the kitchen and making teas and coffees for people and doing the washing up and making the boys lunches. You know, we were put to work and we were sent off to the merchandise stands, you know, to go and get lost for a few hours because, you know, they were busy and important people in the motorhome. You know, I mentioned earlier that my dad once said to my mum, emotion is weak.

30:45You know, we weren't, it wasn't a family. We weren't a family of huggers, put it like that. And as much as we were very close as a family, we weren't, there was not a lot of hugging and emotions and that kind of stuff. It's not us. And so I think my resilience was very much crafted in that period of my life. And I'm a bit of a loner. You know, I've always in my 20s, I was, you know, kind of by myself quite a lot and just getting on with my career and my job. And, you know, that's where I think all your resilience comes from. It's just having some crappy experiences and knowing that the only way to get through it is to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get on with it with a smile on your face.

31:26So you're an optimist? I am. I'm a massive, like overly so. I said earlier, didn't I, that something always comes along. I am a massive optimist. And I genuinely believe that life is good and people are good. And I think when you have that attitude, you know, you always think good things are going to come around the corner. How valuable was that for you? Invaluable. Yeah. I couldn't have done it otherwise. But, you know, there were a lot of other things in the mix as well that kind of kept me going. It wasn't just, you know, up here or what's in my heart. You know, I made sure that I was very conscious of what I needed internally and externally to get me through those times.

32:08I knew like for me, exercise and sleep and having great people around me and, you know, my husband and all that kind of thing was going to keep me safe in those times. And it was going to keep me buoyant and moving through those moments and I was very conscious of that and so I made sure I looked after myself in that sense and you know looking after yourself physically and mentally I think can also provide a great platform to carry you through times of trouble. I think it's really helpful for people that listen to and watch high performance to give them some advice on how to deal with overwhelm when your brain just goes as you said I have no idea what to do here how do you then make the next decision?

32:46breathe so I started doing um a bit of meditation and that kind of stuff in those last years I had a moment where we had we were really good I think at Williams with health and wellness and well-being it was something that we put in place probably from from there like the early days like 14 and 15 we had a um a physio coach who came to look after the mechanics and the team at the race weekends, who then kind of did some stuff at the factory as well. And then we kind of beefed that up a bit. We had actually a qualified nurse on site who would look after anyone that had any issues could go and see that lady.

33:24And I took myself to see her once because I was struggling mentally to cope with the overwhelm and the pressure. And just having that first conversation just made it all better. And she said, you need a toolkit. You need to decide what needs to go in your toolkit to help you through these moments. Know that everyone's got your back, but there'll be some things that you can really use. And it was from there that I kind of found things like meditation and calm apps and that kind of stuff where I could just take a moment for myself and to just breathe. I think we sometimes forget to breathe. And when we forget to breathe, our whole body can go into meltdown, shutdown mode.

34:03And so I did that. You know, I would do a bit of yoga, the running like really helped me. I think just getting out of your brain, doing anything to distract yourself just were tools for me that really helped. But then again, I had brilliant people around me. I was so lucky in that I had a wonderfully supportive husband. My CEO, Mike, was just brilliant. And just having all these rocks around me that I knew that I could rely on, who I knew had my back. I knew my whole team had my back. And that gave me the most enormous amount of support. So I think it's about all of those things that you can put in your toolkit that you know work for you in those times of difficulty.

34:46Even knowing that going and watching some absolute rubbish on TV, you know, my rubbish at the time was TOWIE. You know, I used to just go and watch TOWIE and go, huh, there is another life out of here. And you know, those people are as worried about their Botox as I am as about my Formula One team and you know we're not saving the world here get some perspective yeah it'll be all right tomorrow and have you ever apart from that conversation with the nurse had therapy I'm in therapy now what prompted your journey into therapy I really struggled leaving Williams and I'm not ever embarrassed or shy to say that I need help I think it's one of the most powerful things that you can ask for um so I'm not or I'm not okay or I'm not good enough to do this.

35:30One of the first lessons I learned when I got to a senior position at Williams was the way to be a bad leader is thinking that you're better than everyone else just because you're the boss. And you should surround yourself with really good people because they'll make you look even better. And also nobody is infallible or perfect. We've all got weaknesses. And so you need to fill those weaknesses with people that are strong in those areas. And I think that's why Mike and I work so well, because, you know, we were ying to each other's yang, you know, he was brilliant in some areas, but weaker in others and vice versa for me.

36:04And so we just complement each other so brilliantly. But sorry, going back to the therapy, I was struggling when I left Williams. I had my dad, who was really ill. He came and lived in the house next door to us. We had COVID. I had a team of 11 nurses that I was having to look after to look after my dad. I was with my dad every day. For that year and a half, you know, I was kind of his prime, I wouldn't say carer because I didn't do the nursing stuff, but, you know, he was my responsibility. And as I said, I was really close to my dad. Like, I thought he was bulletproof. I never thought he'd die.

36:39And then he just, he had quite a few moments during that year and a half where he got, you know, he was hospital admissions repeatedly. COVID was around. I mean, he actually got COVID and he survived it. So I really did think he was bulletproof considering. And then he got really ill. He was taken into hospital and he passed away within 48 hours. And then I think because I'm a delay tactician, you know, when my mum died, I took over Williams, I buried my head in the sand. When Williams was sold, I buried my head in the sand and looked after my dad with all my ferocious might. And then when my dad died, it was like there's nothing left i'm gonna get really upset um they're gone yeah and that's hard it's hard to your when your whole life changes it's hard so you know my poor husband can't bear the brunt of you know me being miserable or angry or bitter or whatever it is um with all the emotions that i was trying to deal with so what was what was the quote that your parents used about emotion emotion is weak emotion is weak it was my my father to my mother your dad so yeah um often when you live in and grow up in a household and we've had conversations not dissimilar to this with many people including the british prime minister saying that he didn't say what he wished he'd said at the very end because they lived in a different time yeah i wonder whether you were able to bridge that gap of not showing emotion and saying to your dad what you wanted to say?

38:11Yeah, definitely. And I had a very different relationship with my dad in that last year and a half. It was a proper, amazing, like non-work related, because that was really all we, you know, that we had before. Not all that we had, but we didn't have Williams taking or diluting the family side of our relationship in that last year and a half. So, you know, I've never been on a family holiday with dad that was never going to happen but you know we went on family days out you know we took him to the brooklyn's museum and we took him to the zoo he'd never been to the zoo his whole life and you know i got to take him to the zoo with my little boy i got to take him to brooklyn's and um you know we went to savile gardens at virginia water and we and my dad if i couldn't make it for whatever reason on the old occasion went and collected nate from play school.

39:06You know, grandpa in the van would go and pick Nate up and he came to Nate's little play. I mean, it's just a whole different world with my dad. I got to enjoy an experience for a year and a half of him being just the best dad and grandpa. He used to, I used to take Nate to, after school, after play school and I picked him up every day. We'd go to grandpa's and Nate would pretty much every day have his supper at grandpa's on grandpa's bed because he was bedbound at that time and they'd watch Peppa Pig together and my dad loved as it turns out Peppa Pig I mean who doesn't love Peppa Pig but I've got a brilliant photo of them watching like completely transfixed at the tv and like it was magic so I definitely am very different to my parents I can't as you've seen I can but I'm very I can be very emotional and I think I took that into the team as well and I kind of transformed the culture in the team off the back of the fact that I had a bit more emotion about me.

40:06And look, it's obviously still painful that, you know, you lost Williams under your watch, right? But that year and a half you had with your dad would never have happened had you still been the team principal of Williams. And don't get me wrong, I am not sat here going, oh my God, poor me. I sit here and I go, I actually now, five years later, because I can't believe it's been five years, I pinched myself and I can't believe that was my life. How lucky am I? I got to grow up in that world. I got to call myself Frank Williams's daughter and be the daughter of someone that won that many world championships and create this iconic team that so many people love.

40:44And to top it all, I got to run it. But also now, I now have an opportunity to live a really different life. Not many people get to say that. And I'm so lucky. and I have a brilliant husband and I have a brilliant little boy, two brilliant stepdaughters, and, you know, we're the Waltons. If you're still overpaying for wireless, it's time to say yes to saying no. At Mint Mobile, their favourite word is no. No contracts, no monthly bills, no overages, no hidden fees, no BS. I made the switch because I was tired of those ridiculous bills and sneaky charges from my old provider. With Mint, I'm paying$15 a month and getting the same high-speed data, unlimited talk and text, and coverage on the nation's largest 5G network.

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43:09Before we move on, just sticking with the conversation about therapy, because it's a recurring theme on high performance. I believe we lived in a world where we used to think that people who were struggling in some way with their mental health were weak but actually I think we're coming around to an understanding that the most powerful people of all are those who can struggle and keep on moving forwards right what was the moment that you decided that you would go to therapy and what has it done for you I can't remember the actual moment but I think I've been seeing my lady now for a year and a half but I'm going I'm this is my last block actually we're going to see how I do because I feel I'm in a really good place.

43:47I thought you'd go into it and they would sit there and they'd kind of go, oh, they're there. Or, you know, you're amazing. You know, the world is great. Don't worry about it. But they don't. You just talk. And it's, I never realised. Like the first, like first bit I did of it, I was like, well, this isn't, I'm not sure this is helping. But then suddenly something flicks and it's incredible how powerful it can be. But I think that's obviously when it's guided with a trained therapist. And if you connect with your therapist like I have with mine, it can be really powerful and valuable. And it's going to, you know, it's transformed me and brought me back to a kind of even keel.

44:29And I'm very lucky with that. But I think having anyone to talk to when you're struggling can be so useful and valuable to anybody. is to talk. You know, that old adage, a problem shared is a problem half. You know, there's a load of truth in it. You find someone to talk to if you're struggling. You don't hold it in. You just, I read something the other day that I'm so into all this stuff now. I love the Mel Robbinses of this world and I'm reading her Let Them book at the moment. She's Harriet. She's well into it. Oh my God, I wish that she had written that book when I was in Formula One because if I'd have had that philosophy of let them let me and not worried about everybody else or what people thought of me or trying to control everybody else and what they were thinking, even now, like I worry about all that stuff.

45:24But who cares? Can't control what everybody else thinks of you, can you? But yeah, just going back to the talking thing, all of that stuff, like if you hold it in, if you don't make changes, how are you going to expect things to be any different if you don't take action. I started following Spencer Matthews. Right. You know when he did that amazing desert marathon thing? Like all that kind of stuff I get a bit obsessed by. I just find human endeavor and what people are able to achieve extraordinary. Spencer Matthews wrote this thing about giving up alcohol, the best things that he's done in the past however long, things, alcohol.

46:02And I gave that up. I thought in Christmas, I was like, I don't want to drink anymore, not interested. and that's really unusual for me. And a couple of years ago, I did the same with meat. So I just don't want to have meat anymore. So I became vegetarian. I've never looked back and had the same feeling about alcohol. So I thought, well, I'm not going to, I've had this before. I'm not going to go crazy. I'll just try dry January thinking I would last a week, never even entered my head to have a drink the whole way through January. And what is it now? End of February. And it's the same. I tell you, I wish that I'd never, ever had a glass of anything in my whole life because not having alcohol in your system, I don't want to sit here like a weird evangelist, but honestly, and now the research that I've done on it, it's like, wow, what alcohol does to your system is terrifying and can even change the way that you think.

46:54My life in the past two months has been completely different. The transformation in my thinking and emotions and even how I think about Williams, completely different. You know, lots of the conversations that I've heard, you've spoken about what's happened at Williams, but you haven't really revealed this newfound freedom that I'm getting a sense of and this kind of clarity of thought about how the future looks. And I wonder whether actually for the first time in a few years, you are actually really excited about the future and you are looking forwards more and backwards less. Yes, I'm definitely looking forwards more.

47:29And one of the things that I loved about Formula One is the variety. No one day was the same for me. And now that I've kind of stepped into, really stepped into kind of revving up my career a little bit, it's like, what can I do? And the great thing about life for me now is that so many different things come across my desk that I can get involved in or I can't. I need to work. I want to work. My brain and just in my DNA, I'm a worker. I like working. so you know that was never not an option for me I took a couple of years when my dad was still alive I did a few little bits but I wanted to focus on him and my family for a couple of years and really just decompress after leaving Formula One but now I'm like right what can I do let's go I love it because I never know what's gonna come like you messaging me it was like brilliant next Thursday I'm going on Jake's podcast amazing and like that's so cool to do to do all these different things and I love I get to say I've got a portfolio career now because you know I'm nearly 50 but that makes me sound like you know quite a cool 25 year old.

48:34I love this conversation we had a guy called Robin Sharma you had a Robin Sharma he wrote a book called The 5am Club he's a he's an amazing guy and he spoke about the fact that when we don't do something that we used to love doing all we see is the thing that we're not doing so it's not dissimilar for me I've stopped doing TV in the way I used to you know I'm not for the first time since I was 18 I haven't put an earpiece on and done live telly every single week and for a long time after i stopped doing the football um i i really all i all i focused on was what i wasn't doing not what i was doing and then roman came on and he said you he said you know that nothing comes for free so if you were still doing the football all the experiences you've had for the last two or three years you would never have had and if you were still running williams if you were still the team principal there all of the moments of awakening you've had since 2020 you wouldn't have them exactly it's not about what you've lost is it no i think there's time to focus on what you've lost because it's there's always a grieving like you you did what you did for a long time and you must have missed it enormously because you miss what you do you miss what it gives you and you miss the people and you're you need time as a human we all need time to transition out of you know big things that we do in our life.

49:47But it's about then the ability to pivot your brain, I suppose, and to go, right, but you know, life is about so many different experiences. There is so much more than just pigeonholing yourself in one place, right? There's so much to learn. I'm a big learner. I love learning and I love reading and like podcasts. I've just found podcasts, which is nuts because I know that like people have been listening to podcasts for years and years and years now, but I'm new to this. Every morning I listen to a podcast. You know, I do like a lots of like meditation and calming and all that kind of stuff. And your life is about embracing it and, and seeing what you can learn and find what's new in it to bring you joy each and every day.

50:31And I'm lucky I have the time and the space to be able to do that. But equally for me, if I was still running that team, the most important thing that I value and appreciate now is if I was, I would have missed out on the wonderful, joyous moments that my child has bought me. And even when he comes home with a picture of himself sat in a McLaren car because he went on a school trip to Brooklyn's this week, still brings me joy. The first Lego car that he made was a McLaren. I mean, I like Zach, but I'm not sure Grandpa would be very happy about this. But also, you were able to lean into real life.

51:10Yeah. You know, and in Formula One, you can be tricked into thinking that it's real life. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, it is real life when you're in it. And it's so important, but there are so many other things. And yeah, don't get me wrong, probably if someone waved a magic wand and said you can have your team back, I would struggle to say no for a variety of reasons. But equally, I might struggle to give up what I've forged and created and quite honestly worked hard for right now to get to the point that I am at in my life. um and yeah Nate's quite a mommy's boy I don't think he'd be happy about it Mark certainly wouldn't be I think the joy that um you're going to be able to bring to people is that you've got so much experience of an of a world that people know so little about and your job now can be bringing those experiences into the world for people who listen and watch podcasts like this to understand so I'd love to talk about a few of the things that you experienced in your time and the lessons you took from them um Toto Wolff yeah what did you learn from Toto oh wow um Toto so Toto came into Formula One via Williams he bought a shareholding for my dad and it was only because Toto was called by Mercedes to go and run Mercedes it was kind of his brainchild that I would run Williams so I have an enormous amount to be grateful to tell us the story because it is a great story oh the story that yeah when I was called to I was about to move house it was just before christmas i'd taken the day off and i got a call from burn from toto the night before saying bernie needs to see it wants to see us in london tomorrow so at this point he's a shareholder in the team and like executive director i was kind of side by side with him but yeah um and i'm like yeah but toto i'm moving house tomorrow dude i can't like this is not fair it's the 22nd of december i've given it my all this year this is my one day to move house, been in a diary.

53:03Everyone's known about it. I said, yeah, but I think he's got a big sponsor for us. You need to come. You know, we can't say no to Bernie. So I'm like, clearly we can't say no to Bernie. And so I'm like, all right, I'll be there. And so drop all the packing and all the rest of it. And I go up to London and go to Princess Gate, which is where Bernie's offices were. I'm put in his office. And I think Bernie, his secretary just says, Bernie will come see you in a minute so Bernie comes in says hi how are you doing and I'm just finishing up a meeting I won't be long are you happy just to sit here so I'm like fine no problem so I sit there and I sit there and I'm like you know Toto said 12 o 'clock or something he'd meet me there and like this point it's quarter past 12 so I phone him and I can't remember the exact order but he makes up some rubbish about the fact that he's stuck in traffic and then you know another 20 minutes I'm still sat in here in the room by myself going well what the hell yeah I should be moving house and where is Toto?

54:00And then I phone him up and he's, I'll be there in five minutes. I would love to do his Terminator type voice, but I can't. And, um, and so I'm like, well, this is just unacceptable. You know, I've been waiting 45 minutes now. I've got stuff to do. And then I get a text from him going, Claire, please don't be cross with me. I'm really sorry. So I'm like, well, that's really weird. What's going on? And then a few minutes later, both Toto and Bernie kind of walk in the room together, looking really secretive and a bit dodgy. And I'm like, this is weird. And I sit down and Bernie sits at his desk and Toto and I are on either side.

54:34And Bernie said, how do you feel about running a Formula One team? I was like, I'm sorry, what? And then Toto kind of explains the situation about he's been approached by Mercedes. And they think it would be a really great idea if perhaps I took over running the team. So as you can imagine, I'm sat there and at the time I was director of marketing and comms. I had a seat on the board. Yeah, I did have a seat on the board. But I'm minding my own business. And I've always been told my whole life, I am never running this team. It was never in the plan. And, you know, my dad is not in the room. And I, well, does my father even know about this?

55:09And that question was kind of ignored. And we ended up having this whole like 10, 15 minute conversation about whether I'm ready to run a team. And I was really like, like poleaxed. It's like, I was not expecting this. And really, why are you asking? I don't really understand. And, you know, is this actually a job offer? Or is we just having a, you know, like see the layer of the lantern? Anyway, so I was like, well, I'm not sure. And so obviously I was presenting quite a dubious response. And so they wheeled someone else in who they went, well, if you don't want to do it, he'll do it. I was like, what the hell is going on here?

55:45Wow. and then Bernie looked at his watch and said I'm late it's one of my daughter's birthdays and I've got to go for lunch and you guys can come so we went for lunch and then I went home and my boyfriend at the time and opened the door and I obviously looked quite shaken and I said I think I've just been asked to run the team and then I spent obviously Christmas talking it through with a load of people and then plans kind of fell into place from there. What did you say to the team on the very first day when it was Claire in charge? I still got a little bit of paper that I wrote my notes on. I've never been those.

56:21That would be those moments when I had to stand up in front of the team. And we did regular town, we call them town halls, where you got all the staff together. I mean, I would be in the bathroom in worlds of pain before that. That was the only time when I used to get really nervous was when I had to stand up in front of the team. And I distinctly remember, remember what I was wearing I remember the conversation I had with my best friend before I went in front of everybody I remember the words on my bit of paper they were really short I just said something along the lines of this is my team and I love it and I will give it my all and it's not in great shape now but I believe that we can get back to where we all want to see it but right now nobody should be wasting their time in here everybody needs to be working so let's get back to work guys and let's have a great next year the other area that i would like to talk about is female representation in formula one um sometimes i think people love to say oh things have definitely improved well i in 2013 saw a female team principal in the sport i don't see one today no let's be really honest about this are things getting better despite all the efforts of certain people?

57:33So obviously, I'm not at the coalface anymore. So I can't tell you the numbers. I know that when I was at Williams, and we did an enormous amount of proactive work to try and change this landscape. It had a really positive effect. So for example, when I took over the team, 9 % of our workforce were women when I left 19 % were women. And that was only done because we did a lot of positive work to change things in this area. And at that time, during those last few years, Formula One was definitely recognizing that it needed to do a whole lot more. So obviously, at Williams, we gave Susie Wolfe her first opportunity in a Formula One car.

58:13We then brought Jamie Chadwick into the team in our driver academy. So supported these two women that have now gone on to do incredible things to try and drive change but in the cockpit so obviously Susie's doing her great thing in the F1 academy Jamie is you know trailblazing in the states and has done over here as well and I think from a driver representation perspective the work that's being done is fantastic but I've always said I'd like to see you know the next female team principal come into sport. I left five years ago. And for the last five years of my time, I was the only female team principal.

58:52And when you look at even the level below that at C-suite level, you know, how many of those C-suite execs are female in the teams? I'm not knowledgeable enough. I'm not close enough now to know if there are any. I know there are a handful, but I don't know the ratio of men to women. And what I do know is that, you know, on the screens, we don't see a whole lot of women working behind the scenes in, you know, the other kind of roles. So the aero roles, the engineering roles, pit crew, we see a few. But I can tell you there are a lot more women behind the scenes working in the sport than you would see on the telly.

59:31So I think times are definitely changing. What I would always say, and when I go out and do a lot of my speaking stuff to young women that are looking at the sport, that it's a very welcoming sport for women. you know the sport is on the whole a meritocracy you're there because you're good at your job teams want to employ good people they don't actually care whether you're male or female so the the space is wide open if you're a woman and you're you know great at what you do go and work in formula one because it will always welcome you um but i think you know things need to change all industries have got this issue.

1:00:07It's not just Formula One, but at least Formula One are putting the groundwork in now. But I do think more can always be done. I think, you know, there are plenty of more than capable women out there running teams. Why aren't they beginning with those jobs? I think you're underappreciated and underrated as the team principal. I think that there are very, very few people that have had 15 podiums in the last few years that are leading Formula One teams, maybe Christian Horner and Toto Wolff, who else has had that number of podiums. So I think when I was in the sport, certainly, and I didn't work this out till I left, because obviously I had all my success at the beginning.

1:00:48And so probably everybody remembers me for those awful years. But the first four years, I took the team to two third positions in the championship, two fifths. That's pretty reasonable for an independent Formula One team run by a woman who was the boss's daughter. And those first few years, like you say, I got 15 podiums, which was, I looked it up, which was the highest number of any team principal for that decade outside of Christian and Toto. I'm quite proud of that. I'd like to remember that rather than any of the other stuff. You should remember that. Any of the other stuff. And so should everybody else.

1:01:22And I just wonder whether if you weren't a woman, whether people would remember that more. I'm not going to comment on that. I'll leave you to just leave that hanging in the air. Why? I'm interested in your opinion though. I don't know, because, you know, I could sit here and I go, yeah, I think I had a harder ride because I was a woman. But then I'll say that and then I'll be annihilated because, you know, if you say that, well, they'll go, well, you know, you were just rubbish. So you can't win. It's for, I think, other people to judge. It's for history to judge. It's for my record to judge.

1:01:55You know, I took the team to those championship positions that Williams hadn't enjoyed for nearly a decade. and I sold the team as a going concern with the lights all still left on and with every employee in post and I'm proud of that. And you see the irony as well of fearing the fact that if you say, oh, I had a harder ride than everyone else, everyone will criticise me for being a woman but the reason why you had a harder ride was because you're a woman and the reason why it's easier to criticise you is because you're a woman. Yeah, I think all I would say to the critics is that I don't care.

1:02:29Have your opinion because surely that will just tick them right off because I don't care because I know my truth. And I think that's really important for anyone is everyone can have an opinion. You can't control it. Let them, in the words of Mel Robbins, right? There you go. Let them. Let them think what they want, judge how they want, but I know my truth. I reckon five years ago, you would have struggled to say that and believe it. But I think you say that now and you probably do believe it. Yeah, I'm getting there. I am getting there. But I don't want any, I'm not arrogant. I don't want anyone to listen and go, wow, she's arrogant, because I'm not.

1:03:03It takes an awful lot for me to even sit here and hear you talk about the 15 podiums. I don't sit here and go, yeah, I smashed it. I'm actually, I'm quite embarrassed. I would sit here and go, well, you can say that. I would never. When I go and do my public speaking now, I do actually make mention of that. But I'm actually, I get embarrassed that I make mention of it. I don't like shouting about it, which is wrong, isn't it? I'm really happy to sit there and talk about all my failings and my mistakes and how bad the last few years were and all of that, which is weird, weird mindset, isn't it?

1:03:38It's easier sometimes to talk about your failures as a human, I think, as then sometimes your successes, because we're just not programmed to boast about what we do well. And maybe we should. But do you know what the worst thing is? Towards the end of 2015, you know, sometimes the podiums, this is going to sound awful, but I'll be honest about it. Sometimes the podiums are quite a long walk from your garage. You know, and you'd go down there and you'd be, everyone would stop you and then you'd have to go down and it would be a scrum and I'm quite small, I'm quite short. You know, I'd get down there, I could never see the blinking podium anyway.

1:04:11So towards the end, I'd be like, oh crap, have I got to go down there again? Because you can't be seen not to go down there. and then I feel like and then when the podium stopped coming I was like more fool you you idiot Williams you should never have bemoaned but I actually genuinely thought coming off the back of the 2015 season we were going to be fighting for race wins in 2016 I thought we would just be going on and we were going on an upward trajectory not a downward one how has that helped you now that you didn't necessarily appreciate what you had it's taught me the biggest lesson is like so many things in Formula One has have taught me so many invaluable lessons that I carry forward to this day but that one in particular for a number of reasons so appreciate the success when you have it appreciate a good thing when you know you've got it I did take for granted that Williams would always be there I genuinely thought that Williams would, you know, I would hand it over to my son or to my niece or whoever.

1:05:13I was guarding it for the next generation. I thought it would stay in our family for as long as we wanted it to, if that was what we chose. And then, you know, in the blink of an eye, it's gone. So learning that lesson of appreciating and valuing what you have, not that I ever took it for granted, but enjoying every moment, I suppose, is a lesson I've learned. Yeah. And also learning to not to mourn stuff that never was in the first place. you know it's easy to mourn the fact that you aren't able to leave that Formula 1 team to your child would he have wanted it? do you know what I mean? There's a whole million other things going on there when he came home from Brooklands he looked quite sheepish and I was talking to him about what he saw is there one of grandpa's cars there?

1:05:56I mean he doesn't know what grandpa's old cars looks like quite yet but he was like I did like the cars and I said well did you see the planes? and he said yeah I saw the planes little eyes lit up and I said what's wrong why are you looking so like sad and he said I don't want to tell you mommy I said why tell me and um he said well it might make you cross or it might make you really sad and I don't want to upset you he's seven I said just tell me you can tell me anything and he said I much preferred the planes and the cars and I thought that would upset you and it's like Nate you can love what you want and you know what your grandpa and your great-grandpa his great-grandpa fought in the war and was one of the few guys that came home in the Wellington Bombers that are at Brooklyn now I said you saw what your great-grandpa did but you saw what your grandpa did you choose your own path in life Before we finish I've got some quickfire questions for you Oh I love a quickfire, go on I think good ones, do you like carrot cake or chocolate cake?

1:06:54Yeah that's exactly the level we're at That's not the podcast to be honest

1:07:01first of all the three non-negotiable behaviors that you think are most important in life oh kindness courtesy manners what's the biggest leadership lesson you learned in your time in formula one that you'd love to pass on to people don't ask anyone to do anything you wouldn't be prepared to do yourself the three best drivers you worked with in your time in f1 Oh, that I worked with, not that I had the privilege of. George Russell. Yeah, why? He's just a dream, George. He's almost a bit like Nigel Mansell, not quite your typical racing driver if you met him on the street. So charming, so English gent.

1:07:47I don't know, he's just lovely. I love George. George Valtteri Bottas. I mean, I don't know what's going on with his mullet. I mean, and some of the videos, it was bonkers. That's not the Valtteri that I knew. But I look at the Valtteri that I did know and I go, wow, was that dude hiding in the dude that I knew? Because I can't compute the two. I think it's brilliant. Valtteri's whole thing now is just mega. I love it. But when he worked for me, he was a very different, very buttoned up, very regimented Finn, I suppose. I loved him. And Felipe Massa, he was wonderful. I was so, like, I brought him in.

1:08:31He was my driver pick. We had Boutry, who I, when I took over the team, and I thought he was great. Then I got kind of my pick. It was my first driver choice. And it was like, Felipe was running alongside Michael Schumacher at that point, almost winning championships. And I got to bring him to Williams and negotiate, you know, crazy driver deal. And it was just a joy. And he was, he was lovely. Yeah. Your biggest strength and your greatest weakness? My biggest weakness was probably I wasn't, I don't know if bolshie is the right word, but I wish I was a bit more like, I think my biggest strength was also my biggest weakness, actually.

1:09:08So my biggest strength was probably the emotional intelligence that I had, the way that I looked after and treated my team from every respect. But I think that sometimes was also my biggest weakness, because maybe I was sometimes too close. I was sometimes too conscious of what we were asking them to do and worried. And when sometimes I just needed to say, like, get the job done, you know? The biggest mistake that you made that you wish you could not make again? I wonder whether there would have been any way to... I saw Gunter Steiner the other day. This isn't a quick fire, but I saw Gunter the other day and he said, you idiot, why do you just hold on?

1:09:51Because obviously look at the sport now. If I'd have just managed... And I look at this, I think about this every day. If I was just able to cling on for a little bit longer, we would have survived because obviously look what the sport has turned into. And Gunther said, you know, what an idiot. And I said, but Gunther, we didn't have any road left. We were at the end. But I do look and I just think, could I have gone and, even if I had gone and got some private equity at a ridiculous rate, you know, if there was even a private equity to keep us going and giving away 40%. It would have seen us through.

1:10:2760%, we would have lost the majority in controlling shareholding, but we've still been in Formula One and enjoying the sport and still only 40 % of a team, you know, that is much bigger than now. Hindsight's an exact science. There you go. And what did you say at the beginning? We agreed, the best you can. Sorry, I've not done well in my therapy. The best you can, where you are with what you've got. Yes, exactly. The best you could do was save the team. Yeah. Where you were was a team with no road. What you had was no understanding of the fact that Formula One was about to explode, right? No, exactly.

1:11:01I mean, it could have gone completely the other way, right? If, you know, Drive to Survive hadn't taken off or... Let's imagine that you don't know that Formula One's done what it's done. And I take you back to that day when you decide to sell the team. Yeah. Would you sell the team or would you go down the private equity route and risk the entire future of everyone there not knowing anything you know now? That's what I did because there was no way. And we had those conversations as well. And it just wasn't a feasible option for us. So maybe try being a bit kinder to yourself. Okay. I will write that down and I will try this week to be a bit kinder to myself.

1:11:35I'll write it on my post-it now on the mirror. I think in many ways, that's where we finish with that. Because I think that your story is remarkable. It is absolutely, without question, unique. You went through the most difficult personal traumas, the most difficult business traumas, and added onto all of that, you had the responsibility of the fact this was a family business and you had this kind of dream in your head that you carry it on, you grow it, expand it and hand it on to the next generation. You've had to cope with all of that, which is why you forget that you were a female team principal, that you had 15 podiums, that you made incredibly brilliant decisions, that you hired wonderful drivers, that the Williams name is still in Formula One and without the decisions you made, there's a very strong chance that it wouldn't be.

1:12:22so go and be proud of what you did and all of those lessons the good and the bad go and share them with the world but don't forget about the good there's a lot of them okay thank you all right I feel I've been told off please don't it's been so nice to see you oh it's been so nice to see you too can I ask you one last question go on how would you like to leave people thinking about high performance your golden rule if you like for our audience to live a high performance life focus focus you know focus you've got to be 100 if you want to achieve something amazing you've got to you've got to make sacrifices you've got to focus on it 100 and you've got to work hard if success only comes from brutal struggle but it's so worth it when you get there and that's it for today's show claire thank you so much for joining us on high performance and sharing so much with us.

1:13:16And if you like conversations with team bosses in Formula One, check out the likes of Toto Wolff, Christian Horner and James Vowles, who've all been on the show. And so many Formula One drivers have joined us as well, not to mention Otmar Safnauer. And of course, the man made famous in Drive to Survive, Gunter Steiner. All of them can be found on High Performance. Now don't go anywhere because over the next few weeks, High Performance is proudly sponsored by the UK Government's Department for Business and Trade.

1:13:49Now, as you may have heard over the last few weeks, our podcast is in partnership with the UK Government's Department for Business and Trade and their free training programme, the UK Export Academy. As someone who's been involved in growing a business overseas, I promise you this is an invaluable resource if you're looking to take your business global and maybe to find new customers. Last week, I spoke to Mark Burkett, who's a UK Export Academy trade advisor. And we spoke about some of the key challenges that people might face when they decide to trade overseas. Well, today I'm joined by someone who has their own business, Lindsay Mitchison, who owns the business NeoWalk.

1:14:25Lindsay, first of all, welcome to High Performance. Hello, Jake. Lovely to meet you. So for me and for everyone else listening to this, tell us a bit about NeoWalk. NeoWalk essentially is a global business that makes handmade acrylic walking sticks. We work from York. We're based in North Yorkshire. I started the company 13 years ago, largely because I needed a nice walking stick. We operate from my house. I have a workshop built. So it's grown fast and we absolutely love what we do. Brilliant. What I love about almost every self-starter, founder business is that they come from a place of necessity or from a place of passion.

1:15:06and it sounds like passion and necessity were two things at the centre of why you started Neo Walk. When did Neo Walk go global? We were global straight away, ironically. We had sales because we sell from our website. We had sales from all over the world straight away. But I wasn't marketing and getting the best opportunities because I didn't know how. and we were just reacting to international sales coming in. We didn't have the experience to go out and look for them, but we were worldwide pretty straight away. Why is more international trade the most exciting step on a business journey? It brings new customers.

1:15:49It brings new cultures that you've got to understand. And you've got to remember one of the exciting parts of this for me is that I'm still learning every day. This is like my university out here. I'm learning so many things every day and that's my passion. That's what drives me. So I'm learning about new marketing ways because you can market to different countries in different ways. You know, you're learning things all the time. For me, that's what drives me. What has been the biggest challenge you've faced when trading abroad? We've gone through so many shipping companies. If they don't treat our customers right and they don't treat us right as customers, we're gone.

1:16:26And I'm very blunt with them, even if your prices are good. So constantly finding better shipping. For example, we're opening a 3PL in the US later this year. What's 3PL? Third-party logistics. So it's a fulfillment center, essentially. So our US customers, because it's a big, big market for us, and we know that we've barely sort of tickled it, really. So our US customers can have faster shipping from within the US. That's our main focus for this year. It's identifying your markets, where your big markets are, and trying to accommodate them in a way that meets their expectations and gives them quality service.

1:17:08And the final question, your one piece of advice you'd give to someone starting overseas trading from scratch? Start small. It can be overwhelming. So pick a country, learn the regulations, learn your HS codes. Otherwise, you can fall foul of those if you're not sending stuff correctly with the right paperwork. You'll get it sent straight back to you. And also what I would say, don't neglect your home sales. We connect with our UK market in a different kind of way that we connect with our US market. US customers expect something a bit different. They want fast responses. They want, you know, 24-7 service.

1:17:48They want cheap shipping. They want it quick, quick, quick. The UK customers are a little bit more price sensitive. They're a bit more community-based. You've just got to look at each of them as customers. You're going to give them the best experience that you can. That may differ from country to country. So it's all these small things that you only learn by connecting with your customers on a much smaller level. we actually connect very locally with our customers and we get to know exactly what they want. And that's actually why I like something like the UK Export Academy because you also need someone to sit there and go, well, it might not work for this reason, but it might be successful for that reason.

1:18:27And actually, I think sometimes third-party advice is so helpful, don't you think? It's crucial. And I think you need someone to temper your expectations. If you take advice from the UK Export Academy, they will give you pros they'll give you cons they'll give you best case scenario worst case scenario there's no guarantee it's going to work it'll only work if you continue to put in the the hard work that you know you've been putting in Lindsay thank you so much thanks Jake and if you listen to this are keen to get a head start and maybe follow some of Lindsay's advice or follow her amazing route with a passion driven business then you can get some help and some advice by checking out the free training and resources available at the UK Export Academy.

1:19:11Just go to great.gov.uk forward slash global or click the link in the description to this show.

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