E207 - Emily Maitlis: How I Approached THAT Prince Andrew Interview

0:00Hi there. You're listening to High Performance, the award-winning podcast that unlocks the minds of some of the most fascinating people on the planet. I'm Jay Comfrey, and alongside Professor Damien Hughes, we learn from the stories, successes and struggles of our guests, allowing us all to explore, be challenged and to grow. Here's what's in store today. I was living off vodka and caffeine, and it sounds crazy, but the one was to wake you up when you were too tired to think, and the one was to send you to sleep when you were too wired to sleep. And I remember asking this dreadful question, which every journalist recognizes and no human being ever wants to ask, which is how many?

0:45If I'm doing an interview that leaves people confused, I've failed. And if I'm doing an interview which has interrupted or cut somebody short or not got to the bottom of something, I've failed. I was the one person in the world at that point who could ask the questions that the women wanted answering. Right. That was all. So today we welcome Emily Maitlis to High Performance. We actually recorded this in a live setting in front of about a thousand people at a recent event that Damien and I hosted for PwC. and this leadership series is in association with pwc because they believe that we can build trust and we can solve problems by putting human beings at the heart of our decision making and that plays so nicely into what we believe here at high performance because you're about to hear from a woman who was at the center of the biggest royal interview in our lifetimes but this isn't a conversation just about that interview this is a conversation about the struggles of covering trauma, the challenges of not actually knowing what tomorrow might bring, but also how the interview that she did with Prince Andrew really raised her levels of doubt and fear.

2:03And how did she combat it? Well, she will talk to us about the power of preparation, the importance of self-belief. It's a great conversation. It's also the final episode in our PwC Leadership Series. So let's get to it and welcome Emily Maitlis.

2:23Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, Emily Maitlis.

2:42Hi. How are you? Well, I'm very well. How would you describe high performance? I think it's about getting yourself to a place where you are happy with who you are. And it sounds very obvious, but actually, whether it's about what you look like, what you feel like, what you sound like, whether you're getting up each day to do a job that you like, love, rather than something that sort of terrifies you or defeats you or frustrates you. I think it's about finding your inner place where you can say, I've actually got to somewhere where you're going to have bad days. You're going to have really bad days.

3:26But broadly, you sort of think you like who you are. You like what you're doing. You like what's around you. And I suppose that for me is quite important. It's a mental place rather than a sort of a grades place. Yeah. I think that some people think high performance isn't about that. they think it's about success right but what value does success carry if you're not happy if you don't have that inner peace that you've just spoken about so would you mind sharing with us how you got to that point what the journey looked like and perhaps some skills that you employ that other people listen to this could I think it's about working out for yourself what's going to result in you feeling like the day's gone well and it sounds really sort of silly but you know I did a job that I absolutely loved right I worked at news night BBC news night for 20 years and I loved it and it was very satisfying like you know mentally challenging intellectually but it really took its toll on me and it took me a long time to admit that.

4:32There were times I was living off vodka and caffeine. And it sounds crazy, but the one was to wake you up when you were too tired to think, and the one was to send you to sleep when you were too wired to sleep. And I just look back to that. There was a sort of crazy period, I'd say around 2014 to maybe 2018, I was traveling a lot. I was covering really traumatic events. I remember getting off a plane, having been on a sort of circuit campaign following Donald Trump, you know, around sort of America in 2015. This was, you know, before he'd been elected, before we even thought it was, you know, sort of a proper sort of chance.

5:17And I'd done two weeks, literally, where you change beds every single night, you know, and you're flying internally every single, you know, and you spend all your time in sort of airplane air that you can't breathe, eating rubbish food, all the rest of it. And I came back and I remember my phone had broken. And so you can't operate as a journalist without a phone, right? It's just sort of rule number one. And I remember thinking, it was Friday and I was like, oh, should I just leave it for the weekend? I'll just be completely switched off. Yeah, it doesn't matter, it'll be fine. And then I just had this niggle and I was like no I've landed I'm going to go straight into BBC I'm going to get somebody to check it out they gave me a sort of you know replacement I got something got the sim card I was like okay well fine I've done that but I'm not bloody switching that on and then the Bataclan attacks in Paris kicked off it was the 13th of November remember that really well because it was Friday the 13th.

6:12And I remember hearing my phone at two in the morning and just thinking, I can't deal with this. I've literally, I haven't, I don't even know what country I'm in, what bed I'm in, what city I'm in, what time it is. I was, my time zones were completely shot. And I literally sort of reached out. I think I'd taken a sleeping pill as well. And just like shoved the phone under the heaviest book I could find. It was about like war strategy. you know, a thousand page two. I was just like, I'm just going to sink whatever's happening there and not deal with it. And I just turned it off. You know, I was just like, I couldn't deal with it.

6:49And it kept ringing. And at 6am, I was like, okay, there was something telling me to get up. And it was my editor saying, get on the next train, you know, to Paris. And I remember asking this dreadful question, which every journalist recognizes and no human being ever wants to ask, which is how many yeah and I I was literally there sort of going am I making this choice depending on how how big the tragedy is like I don't want to start thinking like that that's an appalling way to think but that I think reflects what I was sort of going through physically and mentally I just couldn't deal I couldn't I hadn't had a proper night's sleep I hadn't had my phone working I hadn't you know I'd been sort of I drug myself to sleep and pulled myself awake and they just said, you know, we think it's more than 100.

7:40Get on the first train. And you haven't really got time to think, right? So you just, I always have a grab bag ready. The trouble was my grab bag had already been used because I'd been grabbing to go to America. So I had to sort of start all over again, you know, where are your clean underwear? Where's the, you know, where's the bits and pieces? And I remember getting on the Eurostar and an email came through and it was an advisory and it was meant to be a really helpful advisory from the BBC and it said um anyone traveling to Paris beware of an unmarked black Renault um which is packed full of explosives and I was like Jesus like it's unmarked like it's a black Renault like how what am I you know and I remember thinking that's not helpful because you know what how can I be aware of an unmarked black Renault, you know, that might be full of explosives?

8:37And so all it does is sort of fuel your paranoia more and more and more because you're going towards this place that was still alive, that was still full of terrorists that hadn't been tracked down, that had 130, I think it was, dead by that stage. And you've still got to do a professional job, you know. And so I think just having, recognising just the toll that that is taking mentally on your head and on your body. And I remember, you know, sort of turning up sometimes at vigils in the US, a lot of awful school shootings and, you know, gun crime events. And I would turn up there and I'd go, right, is the vigil six or seven?

9:21And I thought, no one should know the pattern of a US school shooting vigil that well, that they know it's either going to be six or seven. Like I shouldn't, I don't want to know the drill. That's not a drill I ever feel comfortable, you know, being able to kind of plan around. That's not the person or the journalist I want to start off being. And so I realized I was getting into this slight, you know, mindset where I was just covering trauma, almost like a really normal thing. Okay, come on, I think the visual will be at six. It might be at seven, but if it's at seven, then we'll just get, you know, Starbucks first.

9:57You know, you don't actually want that to be your mentality or your head. And of course, you know, the adrenaline of it and the sense of a story well covered or an interview well done or a sense of being in the place and hearing the voices of people and the tragedy that they were feeling. people telling you their stories is very flattering you know it's very emotional and it's a sort of trusting sense and so it's it's great in the sense that you think yes I've delivered something back to base I've done this but I'd be lying if I if I said it didn't actually take its toll in a sort of human way yeah so what strategies have you learned that Emily that anybody here or listening to this would be able to adopt an employee to be able to keep that demarcation between a demanding job professionally and demanding challenges outside of work.

10:52I've learned that you try and keep your promises to your kids. And I learned that the hard way because I, funnily enough, I was just remembering back because it's my son's birthday next week. And when he was two, you know, baby, I got off of this shift. I just thought I couldn't turn down. and I'd just started presenting and it was an amazing news night shift. And I sort of threw him at my best friend and said, oh, you know, because they had birthdays, you know, kids very similar, birthdays. I was like, can you take him? You know, he'll be fine. He's only two. He won't remember. And then I went on air.

11:27Well, it's sort of true, you know, but you do. That's the trouble. And I went on air and I did possibly like the worst interview or the worst collection of interviews I'd ever done. My head wasn't in the right place. I was really stressing about so many things. I felt I kind of undervalued his day and all the rest of it. And actually, in the clear light of day and the logic, you know, he's a darling boy and we get on really well and he never comes around going, oh, you weren't there for my second birthday. But there's something about you trying to get your roles right that I think is really, really key to that whole period.

12:08And sometimes it's not for the kids. It's for you. It's exactly what you say to me. It's that sense of demarcation. And a few years later, I mean, well, many years later, I think it was 2014. And I remember my editor called me up. And it was another one of these, like, can you get that? You know, sometimes it's really funny. Sometimes at the BBC, you get an emailed plane ticket before anyone's had a conversation with you. So I'm not kidding. You're just kind of scrolling through. You're like, oh, gosh, I'm booked on a plane to Glasgow. I wonder when anyone was going to say anything. Or I was like, oh, look, oh, Hungary, Budapest.

12:45Anyway, this time it was about the refugee crisis. And they said, you know, there's a big full sort of steam of a story gathering. A lot of refugees are arriving from Syrian, Syrian war in Hungary. and Hungary's closed its railway station and it doesn't want to take them and they're all building up on the concourse and they're trying to get to Germany. And it was a really extraordinary and actually pretty emotional story of people who had kind of left a war zone and were trying to get to what they thought was the new, you know, the new Jerusalem, the sort of new promised land. And my deputy editor said to me, oh, can you, you know, can you go and cover this story?

13:21And I said to him, no, sadly, I've just booked a llama tour for my son's birthday and I've got the cousins coming. And he was really kind of delicate with me. He's like, yeah, do you think maybe the story is quite important and, you know, we could find a way around it? And I was like, well, I have paid the deposit. And I don't know what I was doing. I have paid the deposit and it's in Peterborough. So obviously I've got to go up to, you know, Northampton. It's going to be quite complicated. And I now recognize that actually what happens is there's a slight sort of vacuum hole in your brain, which takes you from the present, which is like, oh, I've just booked a nice llama tour with my kids and their cousins, to, oh, my God, the biggest story in the world is kicking off on the border of Hungary.

14:17and you have this space where that side of your brain hasn't quite computed that side of the brain. And so you end up kind of sounding like complete Wally and go, no, can't cover that because I've paid the deposit on the llamas. And then I remember my deputy editor Neil just went, I'll just leave that with you a few moments. I'll come back in 15. And of course, I can't remember what, you know, normally for me, it's a run. It's something physical, just shakes it all out, kind of, you know. And I suddenly went, yeah, I'm not about to give up that story. But I am going to get back in time for the Lama Farm.

14:55And I did, I did, I did, I did hungry in sort of 48 hours. And then got to bed at two o 'clock that morning, woke up at 4.30 to catch a 6am flight home, you know. and you could not see me on that flight because I just took a blanket and put it over my whole head and just went, can't talk, can't think, can't breathe. But it was really important to me, you know, on some level to get back to that. And I'm not at all trying to set up, and I think this is really important, I'm not trying to set up impossible standards because, again, it actually wouldn't have mattered if I'd missed the story. There are plenty of other brilliant journalists that could have done it.

15:38And it wouldn't really have mattered if I'd missed the llamas because there are plenty of other ways you can celebrate a birthday and all the rest of it. But I'm just sort of taking you through my mindset, which was that at that point, it felt really important that I didn't lose track of the kind of things that were keeping me sane, the continuity side of things. I actually think it's a really valuable thing to share because, you know we talk often on this podcast about empathy over opinion and this breeds empathy for the life that you've lived in the career that you've had and actually the the opinion for most people would probably be look at emily mateless powerful glamorous well-read bright hard-working in control person do go on jake i mean i don't want to i don't want to interrupt i just think We can fill a lot of air time with this.

16:29That's only my opinion.

16:34Where was I? But actually, the truth is that, you know, we're all struggling. We're all searching. We're all trying to find a way through. And I think this conversation about, you know, doubt and imposter syndrome and fear and not knowing is a far more powerful conversation than actually just going, oh, yeah, well, I find life easy, which none of us do. That's the truth. so I'd like to to fast forward to the moment you got the call about your interview with Prince Andrew what's the first thing you think about when you know that you're the person being charged with arguably the most important royal interview in our lifetimes it's four letters yeah you know you can choose what it starts with but that's the first thing that goes through your head so um just as i'm talking to you now i can feel i can feel my solar plexus and i can feel you remember that feeling yeah yeah yeah i mean it's not a one-off it's every time somebody comes to you with you know an interview where were you then when you found out about this one well it wasn't funny enough it wasn't that i was told in that way because we had been part of the bidding process.

17:50So right from the very beginning, we had a brilliant sort of team at Newsnight, and we had gone for two, possibly three visits to the palace. And the first time we'd met his advisor, his sort of assistant, and we kind of came out and we were like, I think that went well. You know, when you can't quite tell, you're like, did that go well? I think it went well. Was it all right? Does she like it? And you replay each other's words like, oh, she liked it when you said that. Oh, no, but she liked the bit where you said, oh, I think, are we okay? Anyway, and then you're just playing a waiting game. And to be honest, there are so many interviews that don't come off, right?

18:28We're always bidding, you know, bid for everyone. You bid for presidents and popes and God, and you know, you just keep bidding basically. And so it's never a surprise when something doesn't come off because by then you've just had to realign and move on to the next thing. And so we kind of did it. And then there was a little pause and then we got invited back and at the point where we were invited back I was like okay this is quite serious so can I just jump in there and ask what's going on in your head you know you said that four letter word is your immediate gut response yeah what are you telling yourself um I'm fighting two things so sometimes you deceive your own head right and I do it quite often if I'm scared of something I go oh no I don't I don't think it'd be very good oh no I don't think I don't think it's that important oh oh I don't know I don't think it'll really work you know so instead of saying how amazing you try and push it away and you go oh I know I don't think it's what we do I don't think I'd be very good at it I don't think that's for us, you know, you find ways of sort of excusing the not doing it or the it not being a success.

19:42Oh, well, I don't think anyone was really expecting that, you know, so you, you, you're trying to put a little bit of insulation between you and failure, aren't you? Because the alternative is that you say, I'm going to do that and I might screw it up. Right. So instead of admitting that to yourself, which is too big a thought in one go, you go, Oh, I don't think anyone would, uh, No, I don't think we'd really miss that. And the truth is, if we hadn't got it, no one would know. So you've always got that to hide behind. No one knows, right, until you actually do it. But you're palpitating because you are thinking, this could be the biggest thing I ever do, professionally, journalistically.

20:26This could be the biggest thing I ever do. And if it goes wrong, it will be the worst thing I ever do. and you never think this will be the best thing I ever do because that's not I don't that's not how I'm wired right I think this has all the potential to be a car crash which it was but not not necessarily in the way yeah I was sort of thinking and so yes I think you try and protect yourself from the fear by saying, oh, you know, lots of things going on. So that's the sort of neurological feeling, which is, I'm really nervous. I'm really scared of this. And that's when you need a brilliant team around you.

21:13Because your team is the person who says, of course, you're going to knock it out the park. Of course, it's going to be brilliant. And we're going to get to that place. Right? And it's never you on your own. It's brilliant camera people. It's brilliant lighting. It's brilliant sound. It's the person who is role-playing with you across the table, right? Who is being the prince, who is putting you through your paces. And I can honestly tell you that my editor, Esme Wren, played that role and she was way tougher. I mean, I was terrified of her by the end of our hour because she would push back at me in a really sort of hurtful, incisive way that left me sort of stuttering and actually that's the next thing isn't it it's it's preparation you want to be so clear and just learn it in a funny way it's a weird word but you know what i mean you want to know how did you know what to learn though like what was the focus of your i went through every bit of research i could find so i treated it like a school project right type in the name read everything that has been written watch every documentary go and follow all the different splits on the trees who's that person who's stephanopoulos who's that who was at the party what were they doing who's virginia dufray how does what's her connection to him what's their connection to them what's the date why does it matter that that was florida not new york what's the difference between the jurisdiction in the in a florida court versus you know a little St.

22:45James Island, you are trying to, again, insulate yourself from mistakes, right? I wanted to be word perfect. I couldn't tell you those dates now, but if you'd asked me that, I would have done it like a mastermind candidate, you know, contestant. I would have said, no, that was 2017, not 2008, you know, or that was the 18th birthday, not the 21st birthday. That was the time he went there sorry no no I'm interested because I love the depth of research you do but before you start that do you have an objective for that interview if you had to define what success would be for you it's a really simple objective actually which is that you want to get the most out of your interview and out of your interviewee right it's as simple as that so if I'm doing an interview that leaves people confused, I failed.

23:41Right. And if I'm doing an interview, which has interrupted or cut somebody short or not got to the bottom of something, I failed. And so the way we prepared for it was, I sort of think, you know, in Lego, like when you're just freestyling Lego, you build your blocks. If I'm making a house, you get your foundations in place. You don't just build one tower up, right? Oh, I'm just going to follow this one thing I've learned until it topples over. You go, first question, second question, third question, fourth. Where's the bridge between that one? How am I building on that? And so there's a series.

24:22If you go back and look at the interview, I was just trying to get things confirmed. So did you go there? Did you go to the Manhattan house? Yes, I did. Did you go to the island? Yes, I did. Were you on the jet? Yes, I did. because if at any point the answer's no, then 10 questions you've got don't work. So if he'd suddenly said to me, I was never in the house in Manhattan, I was never in the Epstein house, suddenly I'm thinking, oh, blimey, I've got to rethink that. And you've got to recalibrate really quickly. So part of an interview is you explaining to the audience what you're doing. I'm just checking that I've got my facts right on that.

25:04I'm checking I've got my facts right on that. then you did that is that right yes then i think it was 2018 you did you know whatever it is and you're building you're you're building the structure of the narrative that everyone understands so all that is not difficult stuff but it is it's slow yeah and if somebody had said at that point oh my god you've only got five minutes the whole thing would have been over because i couldn't have ever got to a place where I was asking the bigger questions, you know, the fundamental questions, the allegations that I was putting to him only worked once you had the whole structure sort of solidly in place.

25:45The value for people is really great here because it doesn't matter whether you're interviewing a member of the royal family or you're focusing on a job or something in your life that's important, you know, the attention to detail, finding tools and ways of calming yourself, which is what you did, really important as well. so you do all these things you tell yourself it doesn't matter if you don't get it but you still do get it and you do the deep deep work which we should all be doing for things that we really care about um i'm sure you had some fear which is a great indicator that this thing actually matters to you so you sit down with your producer and you work and work till between you you've nailed it right so there's very little i'm sure you could have done extra when you walked through the doors of the palace even so with all of that prep please tell us how it felt to walk into that building Dreadful, dreadful, actually.

26:34And here's a life secret, right? I'm the most efficient packer I've ever met, right? I love neat packing. This is a detour, but I'm just going to give you an example of this. I always travel with a little coffee pot, you know, like a stovetop coffee pot. And I was with my boys once in a little sort of beach place, very sort of low key, really sweet. and I put the coffee on the stove. You know, the morning, we got there late, put the coffee on the stove to start the morning after and the lid starts popping up and down, popping up and down. And I'm like, oh, that's a bit weird. What's going on here?

27:09And I see, because it's pressure from the thing, I see this little red child's sock start to push the lid open. And my boys are like, mum, what have you done? And I was like, sorry, I saw a cavity in the coffee pot. And I just thought I'd put all your socks in the top so that I wouldn't waste any room in the luggage. Right. They were literally the socks were packed in the coffee pot and I forgot. And then the coffee started boiling the socks. Not a great start to holiday, either my coffee or their socks. But I'm just saying when I go on holiday, I'm very, very tight and tidy with my packing. The morning I went to Buckingham Palace, I had a bag so big of what?

27:54extra jackets, extra shoes, extra trousers. It was, it was a slight, you know, reflection, I think of the state of my mind that I, I couldn't quite decide. I was like, what if I've got the wrong thing? Or what if I, what if I have to go outside? Or what if I'm, you know, it was almost too prepared instead of going in and saying, I'm very happy. I'm very happy with what I've got on. And that's fine. I was like, I might spill coffee. I might spill tea. I might be sick. What did you do to come out of this red brain? I hid in the loo. Did you? Yeah. And I'm not really joking about that because the one thing I would say is that a good interview is made in the five minute silence that you spend on your own before it.

28:42And I think that is golden time. For me, it's golden time. And what do I mean by that? that as soon as you're shown into a room, particularly an overroaring room, like a Buckingham Palace ballroom, which was where we were, everything starts. You know, there's people kind of checking makeup. There's lights. There's somebody micing you up. There's people coming to shake hands. There's somebody who introduces themselves. There's like, do you want to teach? They're all lovely. It's all helpful. But you lose your silence, right? And actually, at that point, you've got your game face on. And you go, oh, hello, lovely to me.

29:16Oh, no. Oh, that's kind of you oh no I would no sugar you know you're starting to be somebody that is that is sort of playing the social game right and I suddenly realized that I just wasn't ready I just wanted five minutes on my own so I excused myself and I just I said you know is there a ladies I mean it's not you know a lady it's a buckingham palace loo I mean it's sort of amazing and I just locked the door. And I remember just sort of sitting in the corner going, right, where's my head? How do I find clarity? How do I just let everything go silent? I don't want to be saying hello. Don't want to be shaking hands.

29:58Don't want to be fiddling around. Don't want to be checking buttons. I just want to know where my head is before I go in and do this interview. What did you find? you wait for a single note that's what you do and sometimes you just you have this blinding clarity i can't explain it any other way but you you've got this fug of questions in your head or on your sheets or your notes you've got you had like 30 questions and then you think just like you've said what's the question that you're asking what's the purpose right and we always say that in news with headlines if you can't write a headline in five if you can't tell a story in sort of five words it's probably not the right story it's probably not the right headline once you've got the clarity and that single note sound which is like what am I going in I'm just going in to find out and that was the moment when I realized that the only role I had you know, it wasn't to trip up.

31:04It wasn't to, wasn't to confuse. It wasn't to, I was the one person in the world at that point who could ask the questions that the women wanted answering, right? That was all. And so actually I found a place of relaxation because suddenly you're just the conduit and you, you take your own mind out. It's not, it's not my ego. It's not my questions. It's not, I'm just trying to get to a place where the questions that everyone has been asking, that have been, you know, ricocheting around the press and why did he do that? And what was that about? And how did he go back? And why was he still friends?

31:41And should he have known about the thing? That's all I had to do. I just had to be the cable that asked the questions. And that was what I was there to do. So when the interview goes on then, and it gets to where you've established the facts, you've built the foundations then you have to ask those searing questions what was going on there was it still the process of just asking the question or did you have a pause for thoughts or maybe check yourself and go do I dare to go in with this you're listening so hard because the trouble with questions is if you're not careful you're sticking to them right and And as you both know, sometimes that's the worst thing you can do because you miss what they've just said, right?

32:33So the most essential bit of that whole process is your ear. Like, has he just told me that? That takes bravery though, doesn't it? I think the whole thing takes a different mindset, which is, do I know what I'm trying to ask here? and it's not that you're not asking the questions that you sort of want answered, but you are listening. And there were certain points in the interview where I thought, oh, that's interesting. Oh, gosh, I wasn't expecting that. You know, just little phrases that were used, which told a whole story in themselves. Like what, for example? Like when he said he'd been too honorable.

33:24right? That was one of the phrases he used. I said, why didn't you tell Epstein after he was convicted of paedophilia that you couldn't maintain a friendship with him? And he said, I went to his house. Maybe that was wrong, but maybe I was too honorable. And I just thought, oh, that's going to strike a really weird note. I'm not sure that's going to sound how he wants it to sound. And so that was one. And then there was another point where he talked about, I said, didn't you hold a party for, you know, Guilherme Maxwell? And he went, no. And I thought, oh my God, I've got this wrong. Because I had my notes and I checked and I'd done all the research.

34:07I was like, no, my research is crumbling. And then he looked up and he went, it was a straightforward shooting weekend. And that was the point where I just thought, we're but i i get it we're on different sort of visions of reality here because he meant like for him a party is 500 people you know it's a it's a ball and the straightforward shooting weekend was kind of 16 people staying in a country house he's not going watching llamas is he Right. It's just, I mean, it's, and I, the trouble is, I'm not, I totally got it. I got the fact that within his context, that was totally different. Right.

34:52But it didn't mean that when I'd said there was a party, I was wrong. It just meant that, you know, for me, a house party with 20 people is quite a big deal. Right. For him, if it's less than 500, fewer than 500, that's not a party. And so it was just sort of recalibrating, kind of understanding that genuinely from his own position, you know, from his own exalted, very different childhood, he came at things very differently. And so there were just those moments where I had to sort of just tweak my brain a bit and understand that he was, he thought he was, you know, he was clarifying and he was, but there were just these odd turns of phrase.

35:33Yeah. so let's talk about um the reaction then to the interview because i think that in the modern era particularly in the social media era the interviewer is as under the microscope as much as the interviewee so the interview comes out and i'd love to know how you react to other people reacting to your work you know how are you with scrutiny and all that sort of stuff it went out on saturday night and i had my friends staying and we always um we always do a run to queue right we do like a long sort of 10 mile run and so next morning sunday morning we got up and did our river run and she said oh god we got to talk about this we've got to talk about this and i was like i no i don't actually i don't want to i was really happy with it it was all fine it had nice feedback, but I didn't, I just didn't want to talk about it.

36:29I was like, no, when I'm panicking about something, then I want to talk, right? My running chats are really important because they help me sort out my head and my brain and, oh, I don't understand this. And am I getting this wrong? Once I've done something, I'm like, yeah, let that go. I was very happy to let it go. And I remember we ran all the way and then we got to our little coffee shop, you know, I stopped for a coffee and just a couple of people said, oh, like the interview. But that was it. And so I actually came away thinking, oh, that's, it was actually quite quiet. It's sort of, it's all been quite quiet.

37:03You know, I hadn't seen any of the, and then obviously the press over the next few days just kind of took off. I think, I think I'd expected it to be a quieter landing in a way. And you are under the microscope. Of course you are, you know. But I think at that point, I was happy with the job we'd done. And I also knew that they had been, we'd been very careful each step of the way that we were including the palace, you know, and his team in what we were doing, what time it was going out, checking after it had gone out, you know, were they happy? and so we felt there hadn't been any ambush you know there hadn't been any moment where it's like oh just slip that one out it had all been done rigorously in accordance with what they knew was happening and so actually I sort of walked away from the noise at that point because I sort of thought yeah you know what I'm going back to the start in my head I'm happy with that it you know I was fair they knew what we were doing no code of honor was broken and so it was sort of it was fine, actually.

38:13And I think, you know, it was sort of, it was good. But I think going back to your question, what we've seen now, and it's really interesting on interviews like Andrew Tate recently on the BBC, or Elon Musk, who also did the BBC, that there is no automatic authority for the journalists. And what do I mean by that? That in the halcyon days, you know, in the olden times, you go with your cameras and your mics and you've got your platform and you are the sort of authoritative, you know, I'm the journalist, I'm the broadcaster and I'm interviewing you. And now, particularly, you know, Elon Musk, right?

38:56He's got his own platform. So as soon as he does an interview, he whacks it out, right? So there is no sense of the journalist dominating the interview. Same with Andrew Tate. He recorded the whole thing. he puts it out to his you know what is it 8 million or 16 million you know so you as a journalist feel seriously scrutinized because you are you are their interviewee just as they are your interviewee and i think that does change the whole dynamic it makes it very tense actually well it levels the playing field it does you know so can we ask you about you as a journalist now as opposed to a BBC journalist because you've made the decision to walk away from the institution that seems like quite a brave move it seems like it would have almost been a bit of a comfort blanket to have been surrounded by that would you tell us a little bit about your decision to do that I think I don't really believe in a job for life actually and I mean great if it It works, you know, great if you're happy.

40:05I'm not saying that everyone has to change job, but actually for me, I'd done 20 years and that's a long, it's a big chunk of your life, you know, in one place on one show and particularly a show, you know, as I mentioned, that doesn't get you to bed before one in the morning. You know, I was raising kids, going to bed at one, getting up, you know, getting kids off to school at sort of 6.37, then running, then having to catch up on everything for the day and then start all over again. And it does take its toll, actually, on your body and on your sort of brain. And I think I decided that 20 years was enough or going to be enough.

40:47And then actually what happened was I'm just obsessed by U.S. politics. and we had the best, like most extraordinary election, you know, of 2020 in the US where it was the COVID election, Biden versus Trump. And then Trump wouldn't acknowledge that he'd lost. And then he brought all the lawsuits. And then we had the whole thing with the hair dye and the, you know, garden center and the press conferences. And then it culminated in the January the 6th riots. You know, it was a kind of, it was an attempt to overturn democracy. and actually the idea that I would leave during that whole period was just crazy and so I kept on staying for the next bit and the next bit of the story you know it's like not being able to sort of walk away from the story and so I suppose really it was once we got to the end of what I've felt like the end to me of that whole thing which took us into 2021 that I started thinking okay now it's yeah now it's probably time to you know look for the next thing and I don't linger on goodbyes I've noticed that about myself you know that I'm not somebody who if I say I'm going I sort of you know my friend always says I'm terrible at parties because I have this sort of like quit while you're ahead you know just go enjoy it and then just get out so I don't unlike my mum you know if my mum says goodbye and she's still there an hour later normally with exactly the same person that she's just said goodbye to and there's nothing more frustrating than going mum I think I think we've done I think we're you know I think they're trying to they booked us a cab people who don't say goodbye at parties say five years over the course of their lifetime saying goodbye to people so you're what am I going to do with that look what you've done with it Coffee pot with socks, probably.

42:42I'm not big on nostalgia. So once the decision was made, and it really helped me that I was leaving with mates, right? So we always describe it as a sort of Thelma and Louise moment, you know, I mean, without, hopefully, you know, kind of suicide. But, you know, fingers crossed. But we left in what felt like a fast car with the roof down and our hair blowing in the wind. And there was something quite exhilarating about that, you know, because we weren't leaving out of, you know, anger or umbrage or even, you know, boredom or anything. We were leaving because we were like, I think we've got a plan here, you know.

43:24And yeah, I've got that thing again when I sort of talk. I'm like, oh, my God, this could all have gone, you know, belly up, could have gone really badly wrong. But we thought we had a plan and actually have to be prepared to fail, right? You have to be prepared to fail. And if I had failed at that point with what we want to do next, I like to think I would have gone, I had great successes. I had great stuff. I wrote a book. I did the interview. I, you know, did stuff. Let's see what comes next. But I think it was really helpful for me to know that, yeah, I'm going towards something. I didn't ever feel like I was walking away.

44:01I wanted to walk towards it. Yeah. in many ways signifies a lot of your career like incredible bravery just making sure there's that small comfort blanket of having in this case someone with you but you know doing the preparation all those other things you always looked for something just to give you that little parachute if you needed it but journalism is very team you know it's very team orientated so i suppose that is that's really key to how it's very easy to be brave when you've got you know people that are helping you quietly taking the mickey you know yeah absolutely yeah sadly we're just about out of time but we'd just like to very quickly run through our quickfire questions with you oh no three non-negotiables that you and the people around you need to buy into um i don't like diva behavior no divas okay i hate people telling me to relax okay i hate that because it normally means that they're not doing something that they probably should be doing.

45:00And the third thing is, I hate lateness. I'm very punctual, generally. And I had a boyfriend who reminded me years after we broke up that I had a 15-minute rule. And if he was 15 minutes late, I'd just gone. So rather than get angry or shout or grump or anything, I just go. And again, I've saved a lot of time not waiting for people. There you go. what's the single best piece of advice you've ever received ask for things particularly for women there's this great line i'm going to quote cately moran who says from the bible the meek shall inherit the earth and then she puts in block capitals women this does not apply to you and it's such a good piece because you know a lot of women in their professional lives sort of think that they'll just be recognized you know oh it must be my turn it must be my turn They don't realize that all the blokes in the room are going up and sort of going, can I have that?

45:58Can you send me there? Can I cover that story? And actually be the person that is prepared to ask for things because otherwise they never know that you want them. Right. So I'd say that's been really helpful to me. Brilliant. And does that tie in with the question, what one piece of advice would you give to a young Emily just starting out her career? Well, the thing I'd give to like any teenager, anyone starting out actually is learn a language. Put in the time when you're 14, even if it feels boring and frustrating and embarrassing, you will never regret that. You know, it opens the world to you.

46:34So I'd say, yeah, learn a language. It's the thing I'm weirdly most proud of for myself that I've, that I can open my mouth and blurt things out and not feel embarrassed about that. I like that. And the final question, Emily, is what's your one golden rule to live a high-performance life? Get enough sleep. Yeah, don't shortchange yourself on sleep. For me, it's sleep and exercise. And the other thing I'd say is on your days off, I stay in my gym kit because I get so much more done. So if I don't have to put my work clothes on, I run around in trainers, I run around in, you know, swimming kit, gym kit, I get more done.

47:19Brilliant, I love that. You never get invited anywhere, but that's fine. No problem. You leave early anyway, so it doesn't matter. Look, honestly, thank you so much for that. We could have spoken for hours. I think for people who, like the whole world does, from the outside, have an opinion of you and your job and the life you've lived, to hear actually the strains and the stresses, to hear the detail that you go to, to hear what it's like in the public eye when an interview like that comes out, but then also to understand a bit about a really brave decision to walk away from the BBC, which let's all be honest, 20 years ago, nobody did.

47:55Maybe even five years ago, nobody did it. So a really, really interesting insight and we can't thank you enough for sharing that with the high performance audience. Thank you so much. Emily Maitlis, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you very much.

48:12Damien. Jake. Well, I loved that conversation. I think the thousand people sitting in the room watching us have that conversation did as well. And I really hope that the audience that have listened to it here on High Performance take some real value from that. I thought it was so rich. I wish it could have gone on for another hour longer, Jake. I really enjoyed hearing those insights from, you know, holding people to account in power that she described. talking around the sort of frenetic pace of responding to changing world events and how she was having to balance being a mother at the same time as being a leading journalist.

48:48I think it was an insight that we often don't get to see when you just see the headlines on the news channels. I liked her honesty. You know when she spoke about how covering traumatic events altered her perception of traumatic events, I think many people in her position would be too nervous to say, I got to the point where I went to a school shooting and I sort of blasély went is it six or seven let's go and get a Starbucks I think society these days is so judgmental that most people wouldn't even say that that's actually how they're how they were thinking at a time but I think it's really great that she comes and says that stuff because the truth is that we are affected by the things around us we do alter the way we operate and live and act dependent upon our job or our circumstances or the people in our lives our colleagues our partners and it's a really good reminder that if it can happen to her and that's a very extreme example you know maybe everyone should just look at their life and say am i still acting in a way that is right for me and that aligns to my values as a human being and if i'm not why am i not and what should i change to make sure i am that's a brilliant point there's a famous social psychologist called kurt lewin that has a simple formula for this that he says our function or our behavior is a products of both our personality and the environment that we're surrounded by so you might be saying well my personality is somebody that's kind and empathetic and understanding but the environment of going to these funerals for school shootings one after the other that as emily described then starts to alter my behavior that i become less caring or sharing and instead become more functional and i think when we sometimes appreciate that our environment is shaping us all the time we sometimes have to take charge of that environment and make sure that we're giving ourselves moments and the one that stood out for me was her golden time discussion before she did that famous interview with Prince Andrew at the palace where the environment she was in was frenetic there was lots of people making demands and she decided to remove herself from that environment to take a deep breath to give herself a pause and to clear her head and make sure that she could do the best job she was capable of i also really sort of resonated with the idea of preparation and i think that if she hadn't fully prepared for that interview with prince andrew like the minutest of details or running it through with her producer again and again going over in her head again and again then she wouldn't know it well enough to be able to deviate and to probe and to press and to explore with him because she knows she can always come back to the facts and i just think there's a good lesson for anyone listening to this it's like you might really want to explore you might really want to be brave at home or at work or in some part of your life well the best way to do that is actually to rigidly prepare so you're then able to do that like des linem right and the the younger people listen to this won't know who he is but a lot of people will like the sort of doyen of sports broadcasting when i was growing up like a legendary sports broadcaster he would go off script and enjoy the process of being on the television and I think it really brought the viewer in to what he was doing.

51:47And having been lucky enough to chat to him on a few occasions, the reason he was able to do that was because he was fastidiously prepared. So he knew what he was doing. Everything was planned and prepared so then he could be brave and he could explore. And I would just encourage people, prepare so that you can explore. I love that. I think that's a really powerful message that Des taught you and that Emily's taught me and hopefully our listeners today. Thanks a lot, Damo. Thanks, mate. Well, as always, thank you so much for coming to these Leadership Conversations in association with PwC. This is the last in the series, so I'd just like to finish this episode by, of course, thanking all of the guests who've joined us for these conversations.

52:27Steve Hare, the CEO of Sage. Tessa Clark, who runs the Olio sharing app. Entrepreneur, Timothy Armu. And finally, TV and podcast host, Emily Maitlis. I just hope that you have realized that there's so much more to these people than perhaps meets the eye and that actually that is so indicative of life. PwC, thanks for the partnership. Thanks for the continued belief in high performance. Thank you for all you're doing to build a high performance team yourselves. And of course, we'll see you very soon for another episode of the High Performance Podcast.

53:08Thank you.