Money, Business, Family & Ambition | with George Heaton & Michael Heaton | Ep 61

0:00Mike and George Heaton, welcome to the podcast. Thank you.

0:04George Heaton: It's good to be back again. I know, how have you managed to get Mike Heaton onto two podcasts when he's never accepted a podcast in 15 years? Oh, mate, he loves it. It's just you two love a chat, don't you? Yeah, yeah. As long as we can talk about aliens, he's on. Let's talk about this first. Look at the size of that. Mike's just delivered us a gallon of cold brew. how much caffeine's in that? Too much enough for a two hour chat strap in that's American sizes for you so we're here in the LA store how's it how is it over in LA? it's beautiful I know you cameras can't see but it's blue sky the sun is shining it's probably about 32 degrees we've just been to the track absolutely boiling can't beat it since last time you came onto the podcast, George.

1:00What was it? It was January now. He was on with Eli last time. Mike, a little bit later, I think it was kind of like March time. Yep. He was on. George, what's happened in your life since then? Ooh, whole lot of nothing.

1:17George Heaton: Now we got the sub three marathon that we were talking about on that pod, finally. 258, 40 seconds, I think. Something like that. um got that in march and then if we're talking training i switched my training up stopped running for a little bit started enjoying more of a bodybuilding split and now i've started implementing more high rocks and back on the track and a little bit more running enjoying a bit of everything maybe do ethics later when it comes to la in november but apart from that life is good moved house the la store team everyone out here is growing the u.s sales is finally doing what i've always wanted it to do which hopefully means that that guy can move out over here soon and the business is growing exponentially right now launches are doing great we've been waiting for this moment in time for the past what like 18 months yeah full new design team on mainline and on 247 which were implemented nearly two years ago so their product is just coming through we had an amazing launch last week we've got an amazing launch coming up today fingers crossed and then and we're into fall winter, so I cannot complain.

2:23George Heaton: Nothing terrible has happened in my life since then. Fingers crossed it isn't going for the foreseeable. And you, Mike? Yeah, just been firing on all cylinders. Been consistently training with you in the mornings. Yeah, we've been back home, haven't we, in Bolton. Obviously, we touched on it last time, but you've got your dream house. Yeah. Back in, well, your dream house for Horwich and Bolton, maybe. Might get another one out here, maybe. Yeah, it's perfect for where we work. It's like five minutes away. Yeah, it's been pumping out collections. It's been non-stop, hasn't it? Yeah, it has been non-stop.

3:01I find it so fascinating how the brand has just come to another level this year. I think, one, the collabs, but two, just the quality of the gear. We've just had four winter drop for 247. and obviously that's the stuff that i get my hands on and we've been testing and stuff like that and it's just levels above everything else and it's shown through on like the sell through as well because how many people have bought the product 500 growth on last year's fall winter

3:35George Heaton: which is unbelievable um and like i said earlier now i don't want to talk about product and brand too much but the team that we implemented a couple years ago that's their work that's finally coming through like real designers from addy and ike and people that have really been in the game for many years not just me trying to draw a pair of shorts and put that into a performance line like real performance designers that are creating product that stands the test of time and looks fucking incredible as well yeah i think you've got the perfect mix like you've got you two doing the design work like mike doing the graphics george you're doing more of like just like how it fits and how it looks, I feel like, with the 247.

4:16And then you've got the likes of Thom and Matt who have come in. Thom or Tom? We need to clear that up.

4:22George Heaton: Tom, but there's a H in it for some reason. I want to ask him why that's happening. T-H-O-M is his name. So we either call him Thom or Tom. I don't think it's Thom. It's definitely Tom, but it's just got that spelling. Maybe it's like Welsh. But anyway, he's got a superb talent for making stuff functional, which I think is something that in 247 has been missing for a bit is the stuff and the gear looks incredible. It looks better than anything else on the market, but does it function for what it's actually needed? Does it have the exact things that, like, for example, if you're running a marathon, does it have the right amount of gel pockets?

5:00How does it sit when you actually run? Does the short come up? does it ride up or does it stay where it's meant to stay yeah and i think you've nailed that this

5:12George Heaton: time yeah there's a level of detail that's required to to combine aesthetics and functionality now we're very good at aesthetics because we've grown up doing design work for so long but when you bring in performance functionality into that realm that can ruin the aesthetics and the aesthetics can ruin the performance functionality so you've got to have a push and pull system that in the middle of it has someone who can understand both aspects what we want as designers what performance athletes want for racing putting them together and bringing them worlds to life is what tom is best at yeah i think you saw that on the walkthrough video you did with him it's just unbelievable i was actually so we did a walkthrough video and it's up on youtube if you want to go see it but basically you explained both of you explained like the whole product line and I think that's so valuable for the customer to see but even just getting in the athletes and showing them like how much time and effort goes into every single thing it opens up your eyes and makes you realize that starting a clothing brand or starting a fitness line like it's not look people think that you just get a design and go print it on a t-shirt and that's fucking it but it's not at all you know what there's a guy called jens greed who owns skims and a lot of other brands absolute titan in the industry and i was listening to him on a podcast and he said um hardest thing to make in the world is a fucking white t-shirt for a man and it's so true yeah because every single guy likes a different fit like for us we've studied necklines and arm lengths and body lengths and widths and fabrication and like just all them little details that all change throughout life cycles and what the person wants and what climate they live in and how they react to wearing a hoodie over the t-shirt and how how much that t-shirt should come under the hoodie and where it should sit on the neck for the best look and how how far does it fall down the back of the neck compared to the front of the neck where should it sit on your shoulder line there's all them different elements to it that can put someone off if one of them is just not what they want so there's so there's so much detail in something that's literally four pieces of fabric stitched together.

7:25Yeah. And you see so many people like look at you guys and think, oh, you guys have been successful. I might try and start that. And people ask me, oh, would you never like start something of your own, like a clothing brand? I'm like, no, I've seen it. I've seen it firsthand, how hard it is. There's not a chance I could do that. And you guys obviously have managed that, but you've not managed it on your own. You've got a full team of people, like you've got 150 people now working for the brand. And I know it didn't start out like that, but like it's just evolved into that and you need every single person to be all working towards the same goal um what's it like one of you living in LA and one of you living in the UK like has that been quite tough on just like the relationship between you two

8:12George Heaton: I think Mike's probably better to answer because he's not moved over here but for me like I'm I've got the discipline to do whatever it takes so if I need to be on 4am calls to to be able to sort something out that's becoming an issue. I'll do that. So it doesn't really make a difference. Now, not being present in the building when things are being brought up in meetings that I'd love to have an answer on, that's what I miss. And that's why I come back so often to be able to do that. However, if I stayed there and did that for the rest of my life, I wouldn't see much of the world and I wouldn't be able to go and live where I wanna live and do what I wanna do and expand the brand in different territories because I was so in on every single decision that gets made from that building whereas now i can give the authority to other people to make that decision and we have our great leader spenny who hopefully orchestrates it to that level where i don't need to be making those decisions um mike it's a bit different because obviously he's all in on graphics he doesn't have to make other business decisions um although he does get involved with a lot of like the board meetings and strategic plays with partners or collaborations all that kind of stuff he's more 90 focused on one aspect of the business aren't you yeah which is the biggest part of our sales yeah so i have a team there that obviously work very closely with um so i think it would it would definitely have an effect on that team if you wasn't there if i wasn't there yeah i think it's been a great um start hasn't it with you going and me staying yeah i think if we both would have left at the same time then i think it would have just been a bit more uh i still think it would have worked but it would have just been a bit more like harder for people to get their head around yeah what about on like a personal level for you to like do you do you miss each other do you kind of miss the times where like you know you can just lock in and work together on something and work in person together i know you can still do that but you're on different sides of the world or are you kind of enjoying the peace from each other I think because we spent every moment together, didn't we?

10:18We lived together for a long time. But it's nice that we've kind of have our own separate lives. But I think with anything, as soon as we get together, we just, it always ends up like producing better stuff.

10:33George Heaton: Yeah, them aha moments always happen together. Whether that's sat in the hot tub every night over here or we're in the sauna at home or whatever it is back in the UK. the moments always happen when we are together you can't do that over a phone call or a zoom or whatever that may be and a lot of the time when you have them thoughts on your own you don't communicate it to the other person because you're not sat in the same room as them and you're not both excited so i feel like that disparity between us there is a bit of a blockage but you know you would it's 11 hour flight it's not that bad you can if there's something that's concerning or something you really want to get over the table you just do the flight and mike's over here so often it's a day isn't it especially a day when you're here yeah and with the time zone coming from the uk to here it's the same day you set off i think it's like 12 and you get here for yeah 6 p.m at night yeah it's crazy i came here at 6 a.m last the other week and i got i got to my house at 1 p.m yeah i had a full day in the office as well yeah so good it's i think it's fine traveling from the uk to here if you're on the uk time zone it's a bit harder the other way yeah you end up waking up early every day and you feel really good um so it's really easy to adjust it's just when you're here for a while and you adapt to this time zone coming back to the uk is tough isn't it i always see you going through it every time oh my yeah i don't i don't know how you do it so often that's the one biggest block in my training that's the problem um obviously I'm not an athlete like you so it doesn't matter that's the the bottom line is it doesn't matter so you've just got to do it but that is one problem that I have whenever I'm trying to train for something and I go back home it completely ruins it yeah yeah no I completely agree with that I think travel's the hardest part of managing any kind of like health and fitness have you have you guys obviously you're well travelled now have you got any advice for people that do a lot of travelling but they still want to train

12:35i think for me always helps drinking loads of water and electrolytes on the flight because i think i think i heard one crew or like staff member in a flight i was on say it's the driest place on earth even though it's not actually on land but with the ac and that sort of like environment in there i think they've got to dry everything out just to uh just to keep it hygienic as well yeah you wouldn't want mold on a plane would you and i think you know if you can if you can land and then just go and you know if the time's right you can just go and work out for me that's always like the quickest way to get over it or like just jump in the sauna and sweat it out

13:13George Heaton: and yeah for me for me i've learned a lot i used to go land up from a flight and go and do the hardest session of my life and just ruin my body and then wake up the next day and think what is going on but i think as long as you keep the days easy around the travel and sauna is number one for me i think that even when i'm not traveling like making sure you're getting that sauna most days makes a big difference but easy days when you land don't hit it too hard and recover to a point where you get to a good place where you want to train hard don't eat too many carbs on the flight yeah i actually try not to eat plain food i feel like it really wrecks my stomach when i get off flights like i feel like my stomach's hard for a day i don't like that so i try and just bring my own food on flights do you know you go to the extent of wearing like compression socks or anything like that no i never swelled up no it's not really a thing just just stomach pains from actual flight food yeah all right going back to the business growing up what were the biggest struggles and what were the biggest kind of pros for being like starting a brand with your brother

14:25and like keeping struggles struggles or like keeping it in the family like you know obviously you're very family orientated both of you like you've got amazing families but does that create stresses on the business when you're starting out a brand relying on each other so much

14:44George Heaton: um early on in the days i would i would i'm very competitive me um speaking for myself very competitive and i would like my energy to be matched by people who work with me now back in the day when it was starting off and like there was no belief in the brand i wouldn't feel that from mike at 100 of my level because all i would do is wake up work till i go to sleep and go and then go to sleep and do it again now once the business started seeing a little bit more success and mike found his feet in graphics and what he liked to do in the business that was matched and then we got to a point where actually you're not doing it for yourself you're doing it for them anyway so you have to be putting on that self-pressure of mike relies on me i rely on me little sister relies on us and then you gotta you want your mom and dad to be proud so you've got all these people around you from the family that are kind of relying on you to be successful so So that gives you another level of pressure that then also adds to the competitiveness and the work rate that you put into it where you feel like you've got to do it regardless of whatever circumstances you're going through within the business, if it's hard, if it's good, whatever that is.

15:50George Heaton: So I think it's a good pressure to have. I've never thought, I wish I'd done it on my own. Not one moment of my life now. What about you, Mike? Yeah, I still think back. I actually was in the garage the other day and I found the original final major project that you did on it. Oh, I still in there. Yeah, on the brand. But I think for me, when I think back, there's like a clouded moment there of obviously the different times we were in. Because we're two years apart in sort of like education. So, you know, I was like finishing university. George still had another two years. and it was really just that decision like do we just do we just go all into it weren't it but it was it was kind of weird for me because he was still at um at university but I think by the time we both finished it was you know you you always say don't you went to the accountants and the accountants said yeah you've got something here so that was like was that the first person that kind of said like stick with it and kind of like from an outside part of you yeah your accountant yeah dude my dad didn't know what the internet was my mom didn't have a clue what we were doing she was just excited that we were selling things on to people and like her friends kids were buying it and that was so exciting to her um so the parents parents didn't really know what i was doing um and you know my dad was successful he he has his garage in wigan and he sells minibuses and he makes like good money from it like way more than what we would have got as a graphic designer working in an agency in London.

17:26George Heaton: So he couldn't understand why we wanted to make art and do that when you could actually just sell vehicles for a profit from an auction. Like that was the route that he took and that my granddad took and that he probably thought we was going to take. But it took us three years to even make a little bit of money to be able to say, look, this is what we want to do. Yeah. I think we obviously went to work with him a few times and saw what he was doing, saw his day-to-day, or how he was making the money. But we just, it just wasn't, there was no part of it that we were into. No, so we kind of had to make it successful.

18:01George Heaton: It had to be, or else that's what we would have to lean back on. Yeah. We didn't want to do that. But we did see, and this is like why he's one of our biggest inspirations. We did see consistency every day, weren't it? You know, even Saturdays. Oh, mate, you're still at night every single day. Yeah, still can't sit still. how old is he your dad 67 now 67 and he's still grafting yeah guy still wakes up earlier than me yeah every day he's watching the gym like he's got uh he actually stole your from your old house he stole all your equipment and made a little home gym in his house but uh he's still at it like saw him the other week catching up and you know he's still training every morning but then going to work yeah grafting alright so you spoke a little bit about the brand there what's one of the funniest stories that you remember throughout the full journey that you've taken are there any funny stories in there ooh thinking back we've had some fucking great times you know them times where like your throat swells up because you can't stop laughing probably a lot of things we shouldn't talk about on a live podcast yes kind of thinking of the ones that we can talk about.

19:16George Heaton: Yeah. Well, you used to come to LA quite a bit. Obviously, that's what inspired you to come over here in the first place. You and the lads, when first starting out, you talk about stories where you just come over here, hire an Airbnb, and then, I don't know, probably act like you're a rock star. No, what we did is we were clever with it. We did a business trip and we opened a pop-up shop whilst we were here. so technically we were working because i didn't want to feel like we were just leaving the business to rot at home yeah so we brought everyone out you know shut the shutters let's fucking get to la for a few weeks we'd all come out here we'd open a little pop-up shop we'd go down to it probably what three days of the month that it was meant to be open and then just get all cash yeah from the sales and uh we'd we'd go back to our airbnb and then just go out every night and have a good time um and it was all because of entourage wasn't it mike watched entourage and was like we gotta go and try this it's just crazy how the business stopped whilst we were doing that how old were you guys when you did this and how long into the business 20 i reckon 24 i was probably 23 24 you were 26 yeah and i assume the business had a bit of success yeah definitely over here 2015 i think we started coming over here uh and what was the first product that like blew up well if you take it right back we started with printed t-shirts and then i wanted to make this pair of jeans because i had a i had this problem where skinny jeans were too wide over the foot and i wanted them to be super tight on the ankles i would never wear that now but that's how i wanted it and our gran was a seamstress so she made it really tight on the ankle sent it to a supplier got it back and i was like this is the best pair of jeans i've ever worn ordered 100 of them sold out on the first day ordered 500 of them sold out on the first day and they just we got we ordered thousands and thousands of this black skinny jean and every day we'd sell 100 pairs like bread and butter so that gave us the ability to do whatever we wanted we were trying footwear well there was a time after that when it was like that fit of jean but then the biker panel and there was like three people doing it weren't there there was mike who we met uh the other day yeah um there was ball main ball main started it yeah we came up with our version of of where it like kind of comes up the leg um and i think well do you i still remember that day when we got that first sample in yeah and so i remember the drawings of us like running outside like yeah i'm screaming like yeah we're on summit here um and it did it just kind of that took off for us relative to that period in which we were in but the see what happened there there was a little bit of a problem we started getting known as a denim brand people only knew us for our jeans in america it blew up and i say blew up in relative scale of where we were we were probably doing like five million in revenue but 90 of that was the usa and 100 of them sales was the black jean so we'd come over here we'd do all these things and everyone be like oh represent yeah the jeans brand the denim brand and i'd go home and we'd be like what do you mean the jeans brand we're doing t-shirts and hoodies and jackets and pants and headwear and sunglasses and footwear we're like we don't i don't want to get put in that bucket of being a brand because as soon as that trends over we're gonna die so we went to italy and we started making chelsea boots because to wear the jean it looked cool with a chelsea boot on a night out and back then 15 years ago you couldn't go into a bar in manchester without having a pair of shoes on you want to load in with sneakers so we were like how do we make the best pair of shoes that goes with this skinny jean that doesn't look odd on the body so we made this pair of chelsea boots and then that thing took off and then that became the new jeans and then people knew us as this chelsea boot brand that used to sell jeans yeah so we've been through all these different eras over all these different years and we've been in the game now 16 years so we've managed to kind of come out of the cycle of most brands they have like a seven year lifetime right yeah they start very small they grow they get known for one thing that thing then drops off a trend and the brand drops off a cliff now to would you say similar to like owners club within represent like that probably had the seven year cycle i think not even that every product does every product every product has a time and a space we have obviously spenny our ceo from puma he's he's done it at adi and nike and puma and he knows that there's timelines on every single thing you know a puma suede comes into trend it has two two years at its height and then it has a few years of falling off yeah it's about being able to actually design the trend pick the trend and then really go at it and get get what is worth out of it i think we've hit trends before in the past and not capitalized on it because we just didn't know that that was the right thing to do at the right time and probably sometimes we're ahead of the trend or delayed to the trend but it's all ups and downs and there's levers to pull and i think in the place that we're at now it's about diversifying our portfolio of product so that when something dials up something dials down and when something falls off a trend you've got other things that'll get in the way of that when you mentioned owners club there you know we had two two three years really great of massive growth of that franchise owners club but then what what's going to happen when that oversaturates in the market and falls off a cliff you've got to have something ready um so that's swim lanes isn't it right it's Benny always Benny taught us um to keep the swim lanes open just narrow them down but never shut them off because obviously that trend's going to come back in again you know and i think you've done an incredible job i've seen over the last couple of years to to replace not that owners club obviously we've redesigned owners club that's been a huge part of um but at one once upon a time you saw everyone in the original like owners club buddy and you still see it obviously yeah it's still the biggest part of our business still still the biggest part um but the fact that you've kind of obviously dropped off a little bit in terms of sales but then you've replaced it with other things yeah it's replacing it's finding new outlets and it's also new geographies you know yeah over here in the states owners club is tiny so you put that into Nordstrom, Sax, Neiman Marcus like we did Flannels, Selfridges and Harvey Nichols and that becomes a beast so it's all about turning on different leave us pulling and pushing yeah what has been the biggest part or biggest growth in the business over the last year say uh 247 247's on a massive trajectory um i think we're only just coming into getting it to a point where we're extremely happy with the product and it's got its own dna to a point where like no one else in the market is doing that that's what's exciting isn't it that's what germans benny and everyone so like like focused on because running is a bit it's a big trend at the moment right i think more so now than ever more people are signing up to marathons more people are doing high rocks like everyone's out and getting fit everyone knows that wellness is the massive thing alcohol sales are down hydration sales are up all that kind of stuff right so then the market is switching from purely fashion to fitness or a type of fitness active wear that you can wear all day every day now what we did five years ago with introducing 247 is we we were kind of a little bit ahead of that curve we were training we loved crossfit we started getting into high rocks we started building product for that now it's taken so many years to get that product to this point of where it's great but also it has its own look and represent gives it that own look whereas you can go to aloe yoga lululemon viore if you're in the states even down to brands like nike and addy and puma and if you pull the little logo off you don't know what brand you get into you but when you focus on the fit and the fabrication and the graphic and the way that it looks in terms of its overall aesthetic you can tell any of that is 247 if i pulled all the logos off it yeah i actually one of my favorite pieces is just the unbranded 247 black tea and it is my favorite tea yeah but i could i'd be able to spot that on any single person how cool is that without the graphic on it just because the way it fits the way it hangs off your body like it's it's the best and for me you don't have to iron it either I've only just been ironing all our two shirts and steaming but yeah it's incredible it's incredible to see and I'm buzzing because obviously that's one of my focuses as well helping you guys out with the 247 stuff well you're the godfather of 247 that's what Spenny says the godfather of 247, thank you Spenny first 247 athlete first guy to actually come into the business and say hold on a minute here we could actually do something with 247 and bring it into the business not just i'd love to get up like our old messages because i used to message you know we're like it's kind of like this this secret kind of rivalry between represent mainline and 247 yeah you kind of want the day and we always like take that's on when 247 is going to take over represent it's the undag isn't it yeah but the thing is with with activewear you can activate so well and so often and so easily you know like when we put on a run the community's crazy isn't it it's not so positive as well i remember you guys talking about fashion weeks and not to kind of like shit on fashion week or anything like that but you said sometimes it can be very clicky everyone like keeps themselves to themselves yeah and the fitness scene seems so different like everyone's everyone's so like-minded everyone just wants to help each other that's that was the main takeaway for me when i first started getting into fitness that it felt so different and so inviting compared to what fashion was and that's why i loved it and that's why i thought like we can bring that the brand over into that it's so much better there's no there's no activation that you dread doing as well like everyone's there to get better aren't they yeah it's genuinely the best thing whether it's in here in la whether it's cape town whether it's sydney whether it's manchester like it's just so good like meeting people hearing the stories and then everyone's just buzzing like yeah i think we've also learned a lot from it because pre pre 247 we were doing um we've done countless pop-ups haven't we and in-store events and there's like there's a level of awkwardness there when there's nothing else other than to buy the product it's like people who come to that event who like to drink or whatever or you know that no one really wants to like try their clothes on in that environment.

30:25So that you just get like a very awkward, stale, people just stood around acting cool. Whereas like, I remember the first time we did like a run, it was like, everyone was just talking to each other, weren't they? Yeah. And like drinking coffee, croissants, just such a good vibe. Who inspires you guys? Where'd you get your inspiration from? i think just going back to that first question for me my dad's with the consistency um but current inspiration now um mine's just very very like eclectic in that in that um in that regard where it's like it's from anything so it could be from a painting or it could be from

31:10George Heaton: a music lyric or yeah i don't think gallery don't i don't like to just look at other designers and think that like there's one path to the blueprint and that's how we should do it and that's who we should follow and if they're doing it something this way we've got to do something that way i think for us it's actually like where what do we enjoy doing and who can we look at there you know like one of my favorite bands is avenge sevenfold the music that i listened to then inspires quotes that we put on graphics and then made us do a collab through 247 because we were listening to it in the gym so it's about bringing the world of what we were brought up doing into our brand rather than just looking at other brands i think that's how you get the best authentic result isn't it yeah i also think your guys brain just was different especially mike's i feel like i feel like you see something and it'll give you an idea instantly of like what to design or what to do like and i always go back to like icu like designing for like 12 hours a day back home in that office yeah and i'm like how much potentially even better could you get a designer if you just saw more things and experienced more things you didn't spend as much time like in the office designing yeah and out like seeing stuff like even just being over here in la like how many good ideas have you had yeah like you know just by going to malibu like you know messing around in the sea or like going on a night we were actually in the gym weren't we um yesterday and we saw some guy in a pair of pants like i imagine if you took that pocket and put it on this this pant that we've got yes it's non-stop over here there's so many different people isn't there yeah so many different styles where did we go the other day rainbow bar yeah just like the inspiration that you get from that obviously isn't it you guys love uh your rock collections and stuff like that and your collabs but the amount of inspiration you can get it's insane do you have any role models apart from your dad like you mentioned i i think it's it's very difficult to choose role models within our industry of fashion um i like to look look at athletes and how they live and the disciplines they do and like the hard work they put in to be able to put that into what we do so kind of use that as a framework to be a designer and a creative director and an artist and whatever that takes up, being able to channel that style of life into what we do, I think that's the key for me.

33:45What about yourself, Mike? Yeah, just being totally honest, not because you're here, but just being around you, seeing you work out as much as you are doing and eat as much as you are doing.

34:00George Heaton: Yeah, yeah, well, you know what they say, don't you? The five people you're around the most is what influences your life. And if those people are doing hard things and they are disciplined to specific routines and how they live and what time they get up and how they work and when they're doing their socials and all that kind of stuff, if they're able to accumulate all those things and do it into their life, then that pushes you to do it as well. Who are them five people then? Mike, you, John, Ash, mum and dad. that's that's already seven there that i'm around as well spenny's a massive one like even though his lifestyle is completely different to mine and yours the work rate that that guy has is beyond me the passion that that guy has is beyond me how that guy is able to talk is beyond me so i'm inspired by the way he he's able to do that all day every day and work hard play hard right work hard play hard but also like the passion that he has for it like you know there's there's times where you think you know is everyone bought into it is everyone really loving it as much as you do it's benny will get a fucking flight here and stay up all day and all night telling you exactly what he wants the brand to become and it's that type of energy that is sometimes you wonder how he's still alive yeah we always say it we think it's because he never stops yeah so he's never got off the ferris wheel it is interesting because when you speak to him whenever he goes on holiday he'll say he'll get sick and he gets ill so whenever he kind of like lets off and like chills out he'll get sick but it's because he's literally non-stop yeah uh that's a huge sign within kind of like athletes and stuff like you know you're over training when when you do take a bit of time to rest you you get ill and you get run down yeah um but uh yeah it's crazy what about you mike is there is there anyone else yeah there's there's obviously people in my team like will um he like his mind is crazy how he's he's got like the i kind of see like a lot of myself in him um but he's just even better than me now what he does in terms of like graphics and coming up with ideas and um because i still i still look at that environment like what you said before it's very challenging the workload's very demanding and you don't really get out of that environment to get inspired but he's his mind is crazy it's similar to uh jim's i know jim's relatively new in the business but yeah um just sitting down having conversations with jim as well is like you know it's just mind-blowing to me i personally find like obviously we've all got this in our lives but like like our girlfriends like they kind of just keep you grounded a little bit like because i know for a fact you two if you didn't of girlfriends you'd be workaholics like to the point where it would probably be negative on the business negative because you get no downtime but as i've seen i think we've been through that haven't we oh 100 definitely been through that years of that yeah whereas like especially obviously it's been almost three years with ashley ashley now but like you've since knowing you with ashley like you're so much of a happier person like your bubbles a little bit well it's because you're not just always stuck in the same hole thinking of the same thing what i think mike needs more of and what designers creatives need more of is that time away from the computer and away from the conversations in the business where it's holding meetings and design reviews and decks and all that kind of stuff because mike knows it i know it when we sit in a hot tub and just talk for two hours something always comes of that which creates a massive thing within the business like the next big idea yeah it happened with the 247 pant it happened with the owners club logo it happened with coming to america like all these different things happen when you're you actually get yourself away from the day to day because it's a it's a cycle isn't it it's it's like a you're like a hamster on a wheel so you need to remove yourself from that to be able to have the bigger bigger moment pictures benny calls it like helicopter moments because you lift yourself up and you look down at what you're already doing and you realize oh we forgot about that part or we can do better at this part yeah it's very easy to think you're staying consistent and disciplined but when you're in that like what george just said you just you've just got like tunnel vision in that um so it's so important to just remove yourself even though at the time it's not what you want to do is it you never feel like oh you know i want to up sticks and jump on a 11 an hour flight or whatever because you're always too busy you almost feel lazy don't you because yeah i found like just just in my and it's nothing comparable to you but just in my little like world like again i get my best ideas when i do have two days downtime when we might go to greece for a couple of days or something like that you just have time thinking away from training and away from everything else i think especially with training it's very mentally fatiguing and it just saps that creativity out of you so like having time where you're taking complete rest it gives you time to kind of like and i suppose it's the same with work with design work whatever like that's taking all your creative kind of freedom and energy yeah so you can't actually think about stuff it's just it's very hard to do isn't it when you're in it it's so hard to do yeah and i know it's the same with you with training i see it even on your days that are it be easy you just can't you're still going just addictive work sometimes it's probably to you sacrifice like it's probably not doing you good but you can't help it it's um i think he's wearing a t-shirt that says busy doing nothing this is on the website by the way it goes busy doing nothing i think that's why i got this t-shirt because you're never doing nothing yeah i was gonna say i think for me like it does it does feel like um if you have a few days off there's that fear of you might lose the rhythm that you're in as well that's a big one for me um i know people people in my team feel like that as well yeah even if they have a weekend off without touching a design you kind of get back on monday and you're like shit you know have i have i lost it i lost that golden moment that i was in because nothing going right um do you feel like that yeah yeah oh 100 feel like you couldn't like even though you've spent the last 10 years doing it yeah you feel like sometimes two days off yeah i've lost it and i suppose i don't know how that compares in your world as well but for me it's like you're only as good as your last design and if your last design is not that good that can send you confidence right down whereas assume i don't know if that's like the same for you when you do a race yeah i think it's a big part to be able to separate yourself from your results yeah and actually have your own person as well and not just evaluate your happiness on your results like if you do a design like at the end of the day like it's personal opinion so if it could be an incredible design but people might not like it but you can't be unhappy because of that like you can't be depressed because of that you can't let it dictate your mood yeah yeah you've got to remove the emotion out of it even though there's so much pulled into the design work and the amount of effort that goes into it you can't let the emotion be in the result of how it does yeah because that everything can have an effect on that that you can't control.

41:45With that, has there ever been a time within the business where you put so much time and effort and money into something and then you've realized it's not actually going somewhere? Has there been times where you've been stubborn and you've kept on with it and it's still not worked? Because I assume that sometimes you've just got to let go of an idea.

42:06George Heaton: Yeah. I think ego plays a massive part, doesn't it? And we all have an ego and we all think that sometimes it is great what we're doing and it doesn't translate to the consumer a lot of the time yeah you do want to just rip it up and start again if the result isn't great but one thing we've learned having spenny on board is that like you've got to give things time and you've got to let the market adapt to it and then eventually it starts picking up and then you can change and and adjust based on what the customer wants so listen to the feedback and go again rather than just spitting your dummy out and starting all over again yeah i think it helps as well like what george was just saying then if you've got great people around you like i always look at you as like the my ego buster like if i think everyone's ego buster yeah if you want an honest opinion fucking send it george's way yeah the amount of stuff that i've just what do you think of this and he just replies saying that's shit mate but not not even sugar coating it or anything not even like a yeah you don't even do that you just go mate that's that's shite yeah i feel like wasting people's time that's what you need because it just it just cuts straight to the chase um i was listening to a podcast that louis theroux did with that marco pierre white that chef and they were saying like do you reckon you could train another uh chef to become you know like a michelin star and he was he was like i don't know in today's day and age you can't be as cutthroat as you could back then.

43:36So they don't know if he could train someone to get, is it three stars or whatever it is. But yeah. No, it's good. You need people like that in your life. Just people that are going to be honest and not fucking hiding behind bullshit. Not bigging you up when you don't need to be bigged up. Like if something's not good enough, George will be the first person to say it's not good enough. But it is difficult in today's world and obviously the size of company that we've got. You know, I can't really speak to another member of staff like that because it probably would upset them. But I just feel so lucky that I had George back in the day who would just say how it is because there's no more.

44:24You don't get hurt over it. You just fucking screw it up, start again. and you know as well when you're pushing and you're pushing and it's not quite right you know it's like your ego that's like trying to force it along um so it's kind of like just yeah it's like a lesson when someone says right that's shit start again yeah it's like looking in the mirror and fucking realizing yeah like i'll just send it to him and if there's no response sometimes there's no response and it's like yeah that's all i need i've noticed that with you like if you if you're not on board with it or if i say do you think it's a good idea it's either no it's not a good idea or it just ignores it yeah i have selective responsiveness yeah and if it's a good idea you'll get a response yeah yeah that's sick a lot of the times you know if

45:08George Heaton: you've got to do it to people that are emotional over it or you don't feel like they're going to give get good take the feedback well you've just got to give them advice along with the decline of what give them a solution yeah so if i look at one of mike's graphics sometimes and look this is once in a blue moon i'll look at it and i'll go that just needs to be over there and get rid of that and he'll do it and we'll all go all right it's fucking sick sometimes you just need another opinion it's gold that though like you don't realize how important that is to to keep keep things moving like most people can't do that yeah i was really good at that jim yeah fucking amazing yeah how important is it to be proactive this isn't for you guys just just everyone in life like you know just getting up getting after it without being told to do it do you think it's important with that well what what do you define proactive as proactive just someone doing something without you telling them to do something i think it's that that's what life should be you don't want to be micromanaged do you you don't want to have to get told what to do to be able to do it i think everyone should be getting like you know you we're all especially as men you're very like you you're wired to be competitive and you're wired to win and like you are driven by status wealth beautiful girls and whatever it is that you find as shiny objects right so if you are doing things that will hopefully gain you any one of those or all of those things then you should be proactively doing those things whether that's the work that you're doing the way that you're presenting yourself the way that you show your body whether it's through aesthetics or performance or whatever that is you're bettering yourself to be able to acquire things that you weren't able to get when you didn't have those things so i think that pretty much sums up how you should react to the world yeah i see i see you guys still doing that though and still going out like at the moment like you're you're actually designing something for George like I know it's a bit of a surprise but you're designing an art piece for him yeah doing a painting for his house um I think yeah just going going back to that question that's that's something that I often see a similarity and like for me um and George like already being like established as business people there's a there's like a vulnerability to like just start throwing yourself in at the deep end with say for me it was like just ordering a canvas that was bigger than me something that you can't just screw up and start again for George I assume it's like doing a marathon or doing a high rocks with Hunter it's like there's I think there's obviously two types of people one the the types of people who kind of sit there and feel like they need someone to tell them like, are you ready for this?

48:06Or there's the people that just fucking jump straight in at the deep end. But yeah, there's a real sense of like vulnerability to that because it opens you up to all the criticism from obviously like athletes that have been doing it for a while and the comment section. Do you guys ever get imposter syndrome? Do you ever feel it?

48:34George Heaton: Yeah, when we first started doing interviews and podcasts a long time ago, probably, yeah. Yeah, I think that's what it is, yeah. But when you are truly creating stuff that is fucking authentic to you and you've kind of got proof of it, I don't think you get imposter syndrome then. you obviously get nervous and you get bewildered and like things things are huge that you go and do that you never thought you would have like be able to do or get to do but i think when when you have genuinely got something that like you've spent all your life doing and you enjoy doing it and you love what it's doing and it's it's working then everything's just a blessing isn't it i don't i don't feel like imposter syndrome comes in at that point um the first few times you do anything obviously you're going to feel like that.

49:22George Heaton: I'm sure you felt like that. I'm sure the first time you went on that High Rocks Elite 15 start line, you probably felt like that. Yeah, I think you probably only feel imposter syndrome if you've got the success without what you thought it would take to get there. Because I know I had that within High Rocks. I was naturally good at High Rocks and I didn't realize I would be good at High Rocks. So I got imposter syndrome because I probably didn't do the amount of years training that I thought I should have. Now, later down the line, when I'm actually doing all the training and I'm seeing how hard it is day to day, I'll get on that start line now and I'm like, no, I should be here.

50:05George Heaton: Yeah, you deserve it because you've got proof that you've been doing it for so long and you've put in so much work that you deserve to be there. And I don't think that's an ego thing either. I think it's just a like a work rate thing and a work load. Well, you've got the data, whether it's you guys, you know, with number of sales or how many revisions you've done on a piece of clothing. With me, it'll be how many hours training I've done or like certain times I've got within my training. Yeah. That allows me then to get on that style and feel confident. But yeah. Yeah, but you've earned it though, haven't you?

50:42But if you go back to when the first time you was on that high rock stage, do you feel like because you threw yourself in at the deep end there or with any of the challenges or workouts that you've done, it's almost like the pill of failing is too big to swallow, isn't it? So you just have to push through and somehow make it work. I feel like that's the same with me. with like just fucking painting a massive canvas you can't just screw it up and fucking throw it away you've got to make it work and i think there's definitely like a metaphor for life in that somewhere yeah no it's been funny watching you this week like stress about oh what you think people are gonna think yeah bro you're like one of the best fucking designers and artists that there is you're already doing an artist but because you're doing it on a canvas instead of a t-shirt you're like oh everyone's gonna judge me or everyone's gonna all them feelings come flooding back again i mean and even even with me like you know if you look at i know it's obviously graphics is different to painting but if you look at graphics and artwork that we've sold on t-shirts it's in the hundreds of millions so you think like why you are an artist all right yeah why would you why would you not um be humbled walking up to a painting but it's just like anything else as soon as you start you realize you know nothing about it and sometimes you need that um feeling of just becoming a beginner again what does success look like to you guys

52:18George Heaton: i don't know because it changes doesn't it there's levels to every single thing okay what would it have been one year into starting represent what would success have looked like then compared to know i don't know probably the word millionaire something like that yeah yeah i think it changes the more the more you grow as a person the more your business grows as an entity the more the people around you grow and push you success changes success for me three years ago was running a high rocks doubles with you success for me two years ago was getting a sub three marathon and I was fixated on that. And that was like a big thing in my success story, more than how much money we make or how much the brand does.

53:01George Heaton: But then as soon as that's over, what's next? And that's life, isn't it? So I don't think there's any like, there's any like top level to success, whether that's with family or fitness or business or whatever it is. I think that there's just always new things you can attribute yourself to and target. and that's what life is about isn't it what about for you mate yeah same thing go the goalposts move um but back in the day even just coming here would would be being able to afford one of these houses here that was like yeah yeah if we did that you've made it we used to send each other we still do send each other houses that we would love to buy one day for years and years remembering covid all we would do yeah look at houses going to sale here what do you do you spend most of your time on youtube watch not most of your time sorry a little bit of free time every day yeah 100 but that's because that's because i've done it so much that i've actually got interested in it to a point where and look it's design isn't it we're designers we love the shapes of walls and the aesthetics of interiors and fabrics that are used on sofas and how a material looks against a marble fireplace and how much a tv should sit above a fireplace like all those little things yeah the amount of light coming through what time the sun hits this area of the pool all that shit is design you're designing clothes you're designing hoodies but then you've also been basically an architect when it comes to that's all it is designing the stores right because you guys design furniture you've you've designed furniture designing the stores like look at the place in here like it's insane yeah even just like the artwork on the wall you know the surfboard over there like it's just even the layout of it like dimensions and stuff like you've had an impact on it all which is if i was to answer that for you which a couple of things i've picked up along the line is to represent to be a legacy brand i'd probably say because you've you've you've built it up now to what you you probably once have dreamed of well i think the goal rather than saying a legacy brand because i think that's a thing that's used by everyone now it's like we want the brand to to be bigger than us.

55:11George Heaton: So it's like, if we disappear, if we die, we want the brand to carry on and grow and it not just be dictated by what George and Mike's vision is at that time or was in the past time. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. If he was to die, how would you want to go? Just on a side note. I know what you said, Mike. I think you'd want it pretty fast, wouldn't you? You don't have to think about it. Swimming with sharks. Shark attack. Great one. We could make that happen if you want, lad. Should we just touch on Mike's obsession with sharks? Yeah, we can do. This started way before you knew him. Back in, I'd say, year one of school.

55:55George Heaton: So I was probably six, seven years old. So you remember this, yeah. All he would draw was sharks. They liked dinosaurs and all that kind of stuff, but sharks was everything. Shark teeth. How many shark jaws did you have in the house? every cupboard had a fucking spiky shark fish tooth on it whatever from necklaces no like he'd buy it from anywhere yeah we used to go like on holiday to like spain and stuff and wrap them up in tinfoil and fucking bring them home crazy you used to walk around with a necklace with a yeah a great white you know like you can see you can see that has rubbed off in the brand like there's been various shark related designs and jewelry so yeah and then when we went to hawaii last year we got to swim with a few sharks and mike didn't get out of the cage all day i think you said it was the best day of your life yeah it could have been yeah he didn't get out yeah which was mad yeah once we went to cape town um and we did a shark we did a great white diving trip and mike had the shit so he didn't make it and it was probably the worst i thought what is it that you get over there that can be Ebola no I don't know I think it is yeah it was either that or something from like a mosquito or something because we didn't have any of the jabs did we hepatitis B or whatever it is yeah I don't know I can't remember what it was but he couldn't come on the great white trip luckily we saw no great whites so he didn't miss out but yeah he's a shark enthusiast I'm a Rolls Royce enthusiast Mike's a shark enthusiast okay so obviously you've both earned a decent amount of money within your time what's the stupidest thing you've spent your money on I feel like this is a boring question because you two are so boring with your money.

57:44You're not very extravagant.

57:45George Heaton: Mike's the richest poor person in the world or the poorest rich person, something like that. He said that on the podcast with him. Yeah. And people in the comments were going crazy. We were like, we want to be Mike Heaton. Mike Heaton is the guy that you want to be, like be the richest poor person ever. Because basically it just means that you're like a humble, successful guy. I don't think there's anything that we've been stupid enough to blow money on. I mean, we used to go out to the clubs and compete with football players in there to get the most girls to the table. So that would probably be the number one thing where we'd actually blow money that you don't get back.

58:19George Heaton: Because you walk out the club at 2am and you go, you look at the receipt and you think, what the fuck have I done that for? But it's all relative, isn't it? It's not huge amounts of money. It's not like you'd go and buy a Lamborghini and drive it off and crash it without insurance. Mike have you had you've had a supercar before yeah I bought a Lamborghini and then sold it for more than I paid for it so that wasn't I can't really class that yeah I can't class that as a stupid buy yeah nah I couldn't see you in a do you want another one yeah supercar yeah I want a what would your dream car be I think I just want a Ferrari like a SF90 or something if I when I move here I think I'm going to go straight to Beverly Hills Ferrari dealership and yourself you're like you say you're into Rolls Royces but I feel like that just aligns with the business aligns with the brand it's it's classic it's it fits with everything obviously you've got a great relationship with them as well so like I feel like it it's not a stupid thing is it it's like an investment it's part of my my world isn't it if it wasn't then it wouldn't feel right to do anyway and we've been in this game long enough that we've bought things that don't feel right and it doesn't make sense but like look how much you've got through that rolls royce um that car and connection yeah i'm gonna say for you both i'm gonna say how much you shop at air one that's the biggest waste of money that you've it's not even waste really because it's nice it's good food but it's expensive right for what it is it is yeah but you know if you go out for one meal a week that's very expensive and i don't go out for that one meal a week and i go to where one every single day it's only it's only relative so it doesn't actually matter yeah yeah like you said it's you being an athlete it's like putting is it 91 90 fuel in your car oh yeah you know rather than um some cheap shit that's gonna make you feel like crap one thing i will say about that is and people might kick off in the comments but food is relatively cheap in comparison to everything else in the world so you might as well eat stuff that you enjoy that tastes good and it's good for your body yeah that's i feel like no expense should be spared when it comes to food that's what i feel about especially if you've grinded all your life to make amount of money where you can't afford anything to eat then why wouldn't you enjoy good food well this is a on the same one how much money is enough money do you think what in in your bank account in your yeah just just for life like if you was to put like a figure on it maybe um earning per month or whatever like or enough to do something i'd say personally enough to not stress about a food bill when you you're going out with your friends that's okay but what about a hospital bill if a hospital bill is 50 times the food bill for the year then then it's not enough is it Yeah, so over in the States, it'd be a hospital bill.

1:01:25In the UK, obviously, we've got luxury of NHS.

1:01:28George Heaton: I think enough money to be able to take care of everyone around you, regardless of their situation. For example, if you've got siblings that live a very terrible life and you want to upgrade their lifestyle, if you can do that without it hurting you, how fucking good is that? Yeah. It's hard to put a figure on it, isn't it, if everyone's different. Yeah. You know, like, you wouldn't be happy living in a different location or size of house, would you? So I think it's relative to everyone, but just having enough in the bank to cover. Because there's a stat, isn't there? Like, most people can't pay for an unexpected bill.

1:02:10So I guess if you can do that, eat whatever you want, have enough to go away, to get yourself out of. normality of what we talked about before what keeps you both humble is there something you every day or you know every couple of weeks or once a month or something that you do that keeps you kind of humble because like say you guys are you know you i'd say you're you're very successful you know you you have amazing lives is there something that you do that like like shit this this makes me grateful for everything else in my life um grateful and humble two

1:02:49George Heaton: different things i'd say i'd say the things that keep us humble is i think the humble makes you grateful yeah i think the fear of it not working or everything collapsing or you becoming washed too old or you lose like you know we've seen it happen to designers and brands and whatever yeah the fear of that happening keeps you very much uh humbled and also gives you the motivation to not let that happen. That for me is what keeps me humble. Gratefulness, I think that's, you've got to look at everything that you've managed to get around you and everyone that's around you and really just, even if you take two minutes a day to just remember all that stuff and think about it and see where you are in the world.

1:03:34But it's just so easy to take what you guys have for granted every day. Like what? I don't think it is. No, I think it's just, it's tough to ask me and George that because it's just fucking deep-rooted in our nature. I think when it's earned and it's not given, then... I think, yeah, I think you mentioned something the other day because I asked you the same question when it was just me and you the other day. And you said sitting in that office from nine to five, nine to six, whatever it is, for Mike, it's 12 hour days and a tiny little, well, not tiny, but a little office in Bolton. like doing that or you doing it in LA like you literally sitting doors in LA there's sun shining outdoors but you're inside designing working calls or whatever I reckon that probably keeps you guys I think it's the years of feeling like fuck you know I need to we need to design something that's going to get us to the next level yeah

1:04:35George Heaton: yeah and then you do it daily practice innit that's exactly what that is daily practice 12 hours a day whatever it is that you're going to be in that office doing the work that no one really sees yeah kind of keep you grounded or just um just download the zillow app and and see look at the house prices around here look at keep you humble how much have i got through in an hour that'll keep you humble that'll give you anxiety yeah yeah just just have so much caffeine that you just feel constant anxiety throughout your day right next one this is a bit rogue it's a bit different what What is the biggest scam that society just accepts?

1:05:18Psychics. Oh, no, don't start on that. Psychics. How many psychic shops are there around here? There are a lot, but you've only brought this up because I want to go get a reading. Yeah. And I'm going to go for a reading. Listen, there might be something in it, but I'm just saying there's a bit too many of them around these streets for it not to be a bit sus. I just think going and seeing a psychic, like, what's the worst that can happen? Like, really? Like, you get a cool story out of it.

1:05:51George Heaton: Yeah, just as long as you don't fixate your life on something that they've told you that's not going to happen, but then it might happen because you are bleeding it into existence. Can I just say, if there are any psychics listening, please don't cast a spell on me. I'm going to go for a quick pee. And if there are psychics listening, then please reach out and give me a reading. Yeah. You could come on the podcast actually. Any psychics come on the podcast. Yeah. That could be good. Like a live palm reading. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are you searching for in this visit to a psychic? You know what?

1:06:24So I've had one reading before and I think if you go and see a good psychic, they shouldn't say the bad things. They get told to just tell you the good things, which if someone else says something and I'm like, how the fuck would they know that or do that or it suddenly becomes true or whatever, then it just gives me this next level of confidence and this next level of motivation to try and achieve that. So if they say something's going to happen, or say for example, I go see a psychic and they say, keep going with the podcast. And I'm like, what the fuck? How do you know that I have a podcast?

1:07:09Like, you don't know anything about me. You only know my name. Like you've not researched me or anything like this. And you've said that. Then I'd double down or triple down on that thing. On that sort of, yeah, that swim lane. Yeah. Even when just friends have said it. If George says, oh, you've, or like when your accountant said to you guys, like you've got something here. Just that probably give you so much motivation to keep on pushing.

1:07:38George Heaton: That is a major thing. And that, I think, is what a psychic can give you. Yeah. I think I've given you that a long time ago with your athletic abilities. And I think you gave me that a long time ago with 247 because no one believed in it. And the first launch we ever did after the pan failed. And the second launch failed and the third launch failed. But you were always like, come on, we're onto something. This can be it. No one else care. No one else said anything. I couldn't even put a team on it In the business, in a business of 100 people. There was no team on it for three years because no one believed in it.

1:08:12Which, you know, when you look at what you're doing, you are covering a lot of, you've got a lot of different buckets going on. They all actually are successful.

1:08:21George Heaton: Just depends which one you put your energy into more. Is that, do you think that's what you're trying to find? Yeah, just trying to find, like I said, that extra little bit of motivation. Like sometimes you can, I feel like everyone can go through this where you're just going through a routine, you know going through the motions and getting that little bit of advice from someone else outside your circle or whatever uh can just boost you yeah it's kind of something that i lean on dude i literally go home to get that i'll get on an 11 hour flight just to get that for a moment from you and spenny and i'll just be like oh change my complete mindset on everything yeah yeah like you say like there's just some people around you so yeah so that's one thing anything that you think is just a huge scam that society accepts?

1:09:08George Heaton: Did no one say tax yet? Come on. Especially in this city, you get taxed on everything. What, is it 50 %? Yeah, it depends on brackets, but it's all just, I don't know, man. I feel like if a place in the world can thrive with zero tax, how can some of the greatest establishments in the world tax you half of what you earn and fail? I don't know. I'm not the one to judge, but... Yeah. Well, the sun's out today, so worth paying your tax. Well, Jim, our president, says California tax is actually called sunshine tax. If the sun's out, you pay it. The sun's always out. You've got to always pay it. Bad play.

1:09:55I'd probably say the casino. They're always winning. Well, the machines...

1:10:01George Heaton: How can people go on online gambling and think that the machines aren't rigged to win. Surely that's... Oh, hello. Oh, hello. Ring, ring. Yeah, the house is always going to have an advantage, so definitely plays in their favor with casinos, but people still love it. And then the insurance firms. You never see them go broke. No. You never see them go under. I got some dog insurance. Yeah, what about people that sell courses online? Get out. Poor kids spend all their parents' money on a course from someone who's got no business, no success, no warehouse, no stock, no customers, nothing but an online following, which they've probably purchased.

1:10:49George Heaton: Yeah. And get roped into buying something about building a business, which is a complete scam. And it's like the only reason why they are living that lifestyle that that kid is aspiring to be is from that kid. People like that kid. Yeah. how can you not see that it's like multi-level marketing schemes though that's what i mean that used to be a huge thing what was it herbalife back in the day or whatever well that's not what's happening with like tiktok shop and all these other yeah when it's always going to be there you've just got to navigate your way around it yeah um do you think money changes people uh i think it increases the depth of who you are so if you're a bad person and you get more money you're an even badder person oh that's that's a good way to look at it yeah yeah yeah you know one thing that i've not and i keep referring back to this like you guys have not fucking changed one bit we still haven't got any money still that's why we've not changed yeah yeah yeah like the goalposts moved only and you realize you broke again

1:11:59George Heaton: so we're all just broke yeah money just heightens who you are as a as a person to the core i think if we were stuck on a desert island all of us together who would survive the longest including diego and emily yeah yeah including diego diego them do you think diego would win yeah i think i'd go swimming with the sharks and i'd be first gone yeah you'd be gone no to be fair how many fucking Bear Grylls documentaries have you watched? I think you're out. You can't cook, bro. I've seen you order in every single night. It's not that I can't cook. It's that I choose not to cook. Why would... To go shopping here for food, it takes you an hour and a half.

1:12:37George Heaton: Then to get home and cook it, it takes you another half an hour. And it's just as expensive, to be fair. So that's two hours when I can literally just go on my phone and order the food that I would have cooked anyway and it's a lot cheaper and it doesn't go off in my fridge. But the problem is you've not practiced cooking. Yes, I have. The art of cooking... What did I do every single night when we lived together? You cooked mince meat and steak. For years and years. I just don't need to do it now. Is that what you're going to eat on a desert island? The thing is, bro, I can construct a bow. I can tie a fishing knot.

1:13:08George Heaton: I can do most things. I can light a fire. I don't know what you can do apart from run very fast. And if there's no fast animals that are looking to kill humans on there, then you're useless. That is true, to be fair. Yeah, I wouldn't bet on me either. And the amount that I eat compared to you guys. Like, I'd be fucked. Oh, yeah, as well. We can survive off not eating a lot. Shit, yeah, I didn't know that. Mike can go 12 hours at a desktop with no food and he's fine. Yeah. I'd have to catch you a big shark every day. And Emily, just hopeless? Is she dead first or what? No, I think, like, domestic goddess.

1:13:49Domestic goddess, yeah.

1:13:50George Heaton: Yeah, she could probably build a house on the desert, Emily. She's a great cook. Yeah, but she's got a big bum, so would we not just kill her off and eat her? Because like, probably got a bit of meat on my bum. Jake loves eating ass. I wasn't going to say that. It depends on the location in the world where we are. Right, okay. Where is it? It's just a desert. Madagascar. Okay, so. With King Julian. I think Madagascar's a jungle, isn't it? A desert. It's an island, Madagascar. It's quite a big one, but. It's probably a bit of both, yeah. So we're going to be able to catch things and kill things and swim and fish and all that kind of stuff.

1:14:28George Heaton: We'd do all right. If we stuck together, we'd do all right. I think if we went on different paths, it'd be bad. Oh, yeah. Interesting. Right, okay. I'm going to move on to the Instagram questions. So yesterday, I put out online for people to ask in questions for this, yeah? First one.

1:14:55would George and Mike run a high rocks doubles race shit man I mean that I think that's that's all on me isn't it because obviously George has done it um yeah I think if I if I consistently trained for high rocks race then um I would feel I would feel comfortable doing it yeah man you've been doing a couple of classes you've been doing the the run clubs and stuff like that we've been putting on just it's obviously hard now when we've we've got 247 established brand it's not a good look if I have a DNF on a high rocks this is it DNF you're not DNFing bro you're not DNFing it's slow yeah next one so maybe what supplements are the boys on

1:15:46George Heaton: omega 3 omega 3 vitamin C vitamin D or if you're American vitamin C and D uh iron and zinc they're they're what Alfie told me to take every day do you have creatine no no I've done lots of stints of creatine just not got into a routine with it at the moment yeah I'm currently on nothing no supplements the odd occasional bit of vitamin C um used to take a lot of creatine obviously um You took a lot of creatine when you was trying to get the 125 bench, right? Yeah, yeah. That didn't achieve it. But obviously off creatine, I did achieve it. So that made me not believe in eating wet sand every morning.

1:16:27It is wet sand. It's fucking horrible. It tastes horrible. All right, next one. I don't know whether this is a pro-op. What supplements are you on?

1:16:35George Heaton: What supplements am I on? I did a video on this the other day. Basically the same as you. Omega-3, vitamin D, multivitamin, just to cover all the basics. which is a whole lot of yogurt, protein powder. Gallons of yogurt. Gallons of yogurt, yeah. Not supplements, though. I know that it's not. Not zinc? I don't know why Alfie. I've been taking your zinc whilst I've been here. Yeah, Alfie made me take zinc. Yeah, it's great. So I take zinc when I feel like I'm coming down with something. But the multivitamin has zinc in anyway. I don't know if this is like a pro or con, but why the represent jewelry isn't fully gold or silver?

1:17:18Well, if you look at the price of gold currently, I think it's about - So at the moment it's gold or silver plated, right? Yeah. But if it was solid gold, for example, the spot price of gold now is like 3 ,100 or so an ounce. So if you imagine one of our chains in that gold, I doubt whoever's made that comment is going to buy a chain off our site in solid gold. Well, how much would the chain you've got on be? I'm not too sure. I obviously have to just weigh it and work it out, but it'd be... Well, what's an ounce? An ounce is 24 grams. Yeah. What's that? Like two ounces? What do you think this is?

1:18:00Probably two ounces, yeah. Probably two ounces. So there you're looking at six grand straight away. Six grand, yeah. It's pricey, isn't it? Yeah. And that's without you guys making a profit or anything? I think there'd be a very, very small market for it, but I doubt it'd be worthwhile us actually making it in solid gold right now when the price is what it is. Nah. Good comment, I think. Everyday non-negotiables and everyday avoidances. Ooh, that's a great question.

1:18:37George Heaton: Non-negotiables is obviously train and work. I think when you're feeling like you are over trained then that doesn't come into play but most of the time as long as you train and you work every day whether that's one hour or 10 minutes as long as it gets done then usually I'm happy with the rest of my day. Things that I will avoid within my day is unneeded conflict. I don't get involved with anything that anyone likes to bring up to me that's not going to result in progress within my business all my life so don't don't need to listen to it we'll just ignore it yeah i feel like when you have a business the size that it is now with you know 150 employees and and team members i think there's always going to be moans and groans of someone yeah but if you took in every single thing you know you wouldn't be happy at all no of course that's why you put people in places to be able to deal with that and handle that and people that enjoy doing that kind of stuff i don't enjoy that um so i'll keep myself out of it it ruins my energy for the day and i don't need to listen to it stay away from the energy vampires that's pretty much the same answer right that's it yeah um and for me three meals a day non-negotiable yeah wow yeah who is a better cook john referring to the guy that is with george all the time or will goge uh i've had both cooked meals by both of them guys for big parties i've seen them do everything john hundred percent it's john for me sorry the diversification in John's cooking is unbelievable.

1:20:22George Heaton: Parents were chefs and just, he can make whatever. Yeah, he's like reverse seared a steak and stuff like that. He knows his shit. The guy knows his meat. If you had to start this all again tomorrow, what would you do differently? Woo! Well, dude, that could go on for fucking days and hours. Would you do anything differently? Nothing for me. I wouldn't do anything differently. No. Good. You'd slip back into the exact same thing. uh the thing is you have to start again so it means everything goes down to zero yeah i feel like that question is hard to know because now sorry hard to answer because you know what's like been in trends and what has been in fashion so if you was to start again like you wouldn't you still wouldn't know any of that so like i'll put it this way when we started we had no clue how to structure a fashion company for 10 years no but the mistakes the mistakes make you don't they right who you are one thing that is great starting from zero is that you learn everything more than the people who start from a big load of capital or investment or anything because they don't need to do all the things that you needed to do to get to the point where you can then foresee situations where the weather changes things go bad some things go wrong you need to look into something you need to audit one part of the business if you've been in all them areas in in the past however long you've been doing it you can kind of figure things out you can weather the storm can't you yeah i just don't like how would that work as well you know if if somebody if you went back and you knew all the mistakes that were going to happen and you avoided them what person would that turn you into now probably someone who couldn't deal with a bad day yeah very true never thought about that yeah i would say you guys are probably on the team probably the most resilient people that have come across um like to think so yeah how a perfect day looks for you both oh interesting i think since being here i always tried to figure it out what the perfect day was because at home i loved my routine and it was always wake up no phone train shower eat get to work and then in the evenings do whatever the hell i want whether that's reading books or seeing the family or whatever love that structure of a day can't do that here because it's wake up and it's you're inundated with messages and you're straight in the office for 6 a.m and you're working straight through what kind of what i love now is being able to get that like 1 p.m break where i can go to the yard and do a training session and then that's done for the day um but yeah i don't And as long as it contains a workout, a lot of good work, figuring things out, getting to the bottom of things, having a social schedule ready, and then being able to come home and just like actually relax for at least one hour, then I'm happy with that.

1:23:27Did you say what, your dog in there?

1:23:29George Heaton: Yeah, that's, yeah, I forgot about it. Pyro is your life. Yeah, love Mr. P, man. Are you fine becoming a dog dad? Obviously, I know that you've grown up with dogs and stuff. It's hard work. You're a proper dog dog now. It's a full-time job, isn't it? I think I didn't expect it to be as time-consuming as it is because I love him so much. I can't let anything pass. And I have to make sure he gets his workout in every day and what he eats and all that kind of stuff. I love him. You are so soft. Every time you come back to the UK, you're just like, oh, I miss my dog. Well, I actually was going to take him to this trainer that I met on a hike.

1:24:03George Heaton: And he was like, you know, the hardest Navy SEAL. He was a Navy SEAL, the guy who was like, the hardest navy seals who in day-to-day life would would snatch you by the neck are the softest with the dogs and it's like that's just how it is unfortunately when you've been a hard person within your day and you have to put out all these fires and do all these hard things and the workout is tough when you come home to that dog you're the absolute opposite and it's true why would i want to be hard on my dog if i've been hard at work all day it's true and that i think that you're exactly like that as well like just you even when it's not with the dog when it's with

1:24:49um just fucking waking up uh going straight in the sea messing around in them waves in malibu seeing a shark maybe yeah seeing a shark how close would Do you want to get to the shark? Touch it. Maybe ride the fin. Swim with it. What about if it tried biting you? It is what it is, isn't it? Right, okay. Would you be okay with losing a hand to a shark? As long as it wasn't the drawing hand, yeah.

1:25:19George Heaton: I don't think you'd be happy with your day if you didn't somehow sign off some sort of graphic. Yeah, if I was going to say, if you want to actually go into it, if I could somehow create another graphic that's going to generate a lot of joy in me and also a lot of revenue for the brand, then that'd be the perfect day for me. So everything else is secondary. No, it's not. Obviously, you know, seeing family, eating well. Yeah, all that stuff. Well, this is a good one. If they swapped roles, who would perform better?

1:26:03Shit.

1:26:06George Heaton: I'd say you. I'm saying swapping lives as well. Mike would lose his mind with the amount of things that happen in my role. He'd lose his mind with it. Also, one thing that Mike is very complicated with is decision making. Yeah. If you've seen him post a dump on Instagram, that dump's taking him a week to construct. Do you know what's funny? every time every time you say oh do you want anything Mike from anywhere whether it's like coffee or anything can't give you a perfect answer he'll just say I'll just have same as you whether it's food whether it's coffee whether it's anything he'll just go same as you I know you're probably trying to make that easy or whatever but like even if you don't like it you'll still get it I'm saving my decisions because you only get so many I think a day and like that's true throughout the years if you look at one design you could do any version of a font or a line or it could go in anywhere there's a million decisions to get to what you think is the finished design per design look how many designs were here in this room around us I think I've just been exhausted of decisions and it's easy for me just to not decide not decide yeah the indecisive man the indecisive shark man that's what we should call him yeah if anything this podcast has revealed it's mike is the indecisive shark man it's true who'd win in a fight we've had a fight we've had a fight as kids haven't we we've had a lot of fights it was a famous fight where um i left george for dead on a trampoline and he was asking for the phone to ring mum so i brought it out for him and dialed it and then walked away caught my arms were broke yeah i think now it'd be a 0.3 seconds the fight would last 0.3 seconds from the bell ringing okay yeah you'd just get chewed up wouldn't you he does do a lot more endurance than me so what would you what would you do what would your move be i think i'd just turn him into a pretzel all right okay yeah i feel like but i am like his sharkness and like bite your hair off you've seen how um flexible i am though yeah on them wall balls and stuff like i feel like i'd just be able to just slip back out you've seen how flexible i'm on wall balls yeah you'd turn him into a pretzel he'd secretly like that and then bite your hair what's a ball ball gonna do when you get smacked in the face no the pretzel I'm just saying I'd be able to slip out of that quite easily this is madness if you wasn't to do the jobs that you do right now, what would you do?

1:29:03George Heaton: CEO. If you had a regular job oh, I'd have Spenny's job Spenny's job, yeah I don't think you could act the party but I'd like to learn it if I wasn't a creative I would be the CEO which I love being involved in a lot of what he does. However, there is another side to it, which I don't like being involved with. But if I could remove the creativity out of the brand, I would go into that role. Okay. What about you, Mike? Marine biologist. No, I'm joking. I would probably be a... Do you not want to go on Jackass Shark Week? No. No? It's terrible, isn't it? We watched it. Well, we watched it the other day, didn't we?

1:29:49probably uh so nothing else in the creative field so like not a painter or anything like that something completely different probably real estate because we spend so much time looking for the perfect house um yeah and you've got a good eye for yeah or building building a house i think would be cool you know if that was your only job yeah um can i ask you a question of Of course, go for it. What would you do if tomorrow High Rocks was taken away from you? I'd try and get good at running marathons. Okay, let me... How are you going to take marathons away from me as well, aren't you? Desert Island.

1:30:35Okay. One erg. One erg? Yeah. Why would you want an erg on a desert island? Because you have to do it. Oh, right, okay. You have to do it. It's the only thing you've got to train with. What erg is it going to be? To keep you fit. You tell me. I'd probably say a rower. I feel like you can keep in great shape with a rower. Because you can do push-ups and rowing. Also, you could practice to leave the island as well on a rowing boat. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you're not going to ski off the island. You're not skiing or assault biking off that island. So, yeah. Rower.

1:31:10George Heaton: Nice. Wow. What a finish. Yeah, there we go. Have you got any other questions? let me see yeah did you used to be a civil engineer I trained I was a shitty one I trained just about finished my education for it and I was I did like an apprenticeship for like six years when you decided to the day that you decided to obviously sack all that off and become a full-time athlete was there um was there a point in that in that sort of first few months or or a year or whatever where as soon as it became a job did it did it sort of like take the um enjoyment out of it uh no no so i how it went was i was civil engineering i then decided to become a full-time PT changed my job to that so I was still training for training sake loving training uh and then it was actually us making the leap to move to the represent gym yeah and taking up George's offer of becoming uh coaches there that allowed me to then like transition into becoming an athlete but I think because it's been that gradual but I've always had a love for training i every single day i'm pinching myself thinking oh this is sick yeah because i actually love training and i love the actual process of getting better yeah whereas i feel like that's probably a bit of a secret power compared to someone who's just naturally gifted at say an endurance event or a skill they normally think that that training's a chore yeah so say for example footballers like training for them normally is a bit of a chore yeah that's what you hear isn't it yeah and they just can't be arsed with it but i'm never like that with training because yeah i would do it anyway so when we're sat in the jacuzzi and you pull over a bike yeah you you still are buzzing to get on that bike yeah don't get me wrong there's some days where i can't be asked but yeah i'd rather just sit in the jacuzzi with you guys but like i know that i'll feel better if i get it done and i take off the boxes and at the end of the day i can still chat to you guys whilst you're sat in the jacuzzi and i'm sat on that bike sweating away so and i'm in the sunshine in la so it's not the worst place to do it in the world he does look happy when he's on it yeah here we go yeah should we wrap it up let's wrap it up yeah we're hungry today guys this is the longest jake's been without food what was that like over an hour hour and a half that t-shirt's not eating crazy t-shirt's looking a bit bigger on him now I know.

1:34:06George Heaton: I was losing it. Yeah, thanks for having us, lad. No, thank you. Thank you. Can't believe you've managed to get Mike on two podcasts. Bearing in mind, every single big podcast in the world has tried to get Mike on, and he's declined. So, well done. We didn't even talk about aliens. No, we didn't need to. It was sharks this time. Sharks this time. Aliens next time. That's right. There's a theme going on here, isn't there? Yeah. Mike and the creatures. We need to do a collection for each one. Yeah, vote in the comments. Aliens or sharks first, and then Mike can get onto it. Aliens versus sharks on a t-shirt.

1:34:35You know what I mean? Boom.

1:34:37George Heaton: We could actually do a 247 Red Bull collab cap, but the bull that are facing each other, one's an alien, one's a shark. Well, then it wouldn't be Red Bull, would it? No, it'd be Red Bull shark. Red alien shark. So it'd need to be a bull shark. Yeah, okay. There we go. And then what? Red Bull alien? No. I think it'd be green alien. Green alien. We need to stop. Turn it off.

1:35:06George Heaton: Green Alien versus Red Bull Shark.