 Bwm, mae'r awr a'n mynd i'n bwysig sy'n bwysig sy'n ôl i'r gwen, y Cymru sy'n gwynllu i'r iawn i gwasanaeth y fulwag yn canithaidd. Felly mae'r dweud o'n gwaith yn gweithio'r gweithio'r gwaith, mae'r gwaith yn gweithio'r gwaith yn cael ei gwasanaeth i'r yn gallu'r ffawr yn y gwasanaeth. Felly yw'r gwaith yma'n fwy o'r oedd gweithio'r oed i'r projec iawn, o'n gallu'r gwaith yn gweithio'r gwasanaeth, This is a place to look. Ever dreamed of owning your own Volkswagen campervan? Well now's your chance, as you can save £500 by using the code James500. All you have to do is speak to one of your friendly sales team and say that James English sent you there. Now let's get into the episode. You can now follow me on all my social media platforms to find out who my latest guest will be and don't forget to click the subscribe button a'r ddafodol i'r ddyn nhw, fel mae'n ddiwedd i fynd ymdau'n gwybod ar y cerdd nid o'r lef. Rydym yn ni'n ddyn nhw'n ymddi. Joe Foster, yw'r gydig? Rhaid i'n credu, ddweud. Grifbwy'r ffordd. Rhaid i'n ddweud, James. Fawr i'n rhoi i'n cyfnodd hynny. Rydw i'n mynd i'n ffraeg. Rhyw i'r ddweud i'r ddweud i'r ddweudio. Rwyf yn gefnodd y prif. Gwyddech chi, yr wych yn fwy, yn ymlaen. Yr unwyr yn fwy o'r blaenau ysgrifennu ymlaenau, ystod y storio phanomigau. Gwyddech chi'n gweld. Yn ystod hynny, ein oedd y ffasdaf, y busnes a'r bwysnys. Rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny, unrhyw i'r amser. Rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny yw'r amser, o'r Gwyddech chi'n gwneud hynny, ond gallwch chi'n gweithio fel yn ymlaen o'r ffasdaf. Mae gŵr yn ddweud o ddweud i gael i'r bobl yn cael ei hyffordi iawn, fel yw'r hyffordi yn ymddych, mae'r cwper, ac yn mynd i ddefnyddio'r byw, i gael i'r hoffordio iawn, i mewn gwirio. Rwy'n eitio'n mynd i gael. Rwy'n eitio'n mynd i'n ei wneud o'r mae'r cyfnodau. Rwy'n eitio'n mynd i gael i'r hoffordi, ac rwy'n eitio'n mynd i gael i'r hoffordi. ac yn ymwneud, mae'n gweithio'n gweithio, gweithio'n gweithio. A'n gweithio Tomi, dyma. Yn ymgyrchu'r cyfrifysgol, ar y cwrdd, yna i'n ei bod yn ymryd, yn elu'r cymdeithas, a'r ymddiad di wrthwng. Mae'n gweithio'n gwirionedd ac yn ymddiad. Mae'n amser ymddir ymwneud ym Mhreithl ddylau, ac mae'r gweithio'n gweithio. Mae'n ddweithio? Mae'n ddweithio. Cyngor i chi'n gwybod ar gyfer y gwaith i'r gwaith yma? Rwy'n gwybod i'r Bolton. Rwy'n gwybod i'r 35 oed, 4 yr ysgol yw World War II. Rwy'n gwybod i'r 4 oed ar gyfer y maen nhw, mae'r rhaid yn ei wneud yn ddau. Mae'r ddweud o'r ddaf, wrth gwrs, ac mae'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud. Rwy'nodorebl, ma' byddai six iefigurad â su États가iddion gôn. Mum, mae'n go. Rwy'nemitism ddweudio Merthyr. Rwy'n fel y gall Mhwyl? Not like some maybe that was a big advantage for us because we hope we could enjoy it double summertime. So it was like to lend the clock at night not that we were out to lend the clock at night. I mean I'd but so you grew up with it. What were you like at school? I was like a school. I enjoyed school to a great extent. But like I was saying the biggest problem was that I was 10 when the war ended a dywedd yn ymwneud yn ysgol yn ystod yn ystod, am ychydig yn 9 o 10, yn ydych chi'n fawr i'r fawr o'r eu fawr yn ddweud o'r Eurup. A'r edrych yn ymddi'r fawr. A fe wnaeth i'n gweithio yma, fe wnaeth i'n gweithio arall. Mae rydyn ni'n gweithio ar y llyfr o'r llyfr o'r llyfr o'r llyfr o'r llyfr o'r llyfr o'r llyfr o'r llyfr o'r llyfr. Something you'd pick up as you'll develop. We had to pick it up late. Really I spoke, my education was secondary education. I did go to college until I was 17, then I joined the family business. I think you'd say Dunlop was a brand that you considered a sports brand. They made clipsles or gym shoes... Ie. Salu di oedd, neid, ble dwi'n ddwy i'w ysguwch yn ymlog, Ie ddwy i'w ddwy i'w ysguwch. Dwi'n ddiwedd o'r dometh. Dwi'n ddwy o ddwy o'r sguwch yn ymlog. Mae ddwy yn fawr. Mae'n ddwy o'r ansgrwng, efallai yn yw ymweld i'w rheswedd. Dwi yw'r amddorol yn cyffredinol ffostaf am ddefnyddio atletu y OSG. Yn ochr dwy deteresio'n ddwy ei ffordd o ffocl o'r ddwy. Ninety-six football clubs in the premiership. My grandfather supplied them with training shoes and boots. So, but somewhere around here his sons just didn't continue that business. I don't know why. I suppose really our construction methods were much different from what we recognised or what we used to recognise in those days as football boots with a strap across the instep and really heavy stuff. So, the family three goes way back as entrepreneurs as well. Was it 1985? Was it Jeff and Joe? Is that your grandparents? When it really goes back is to 1895. My grandfather. My grandfather invented the spike running shoe. And yeah, we talk about influences today, but in 1904 my grandfather had given his shoes to a guy called Alf Shrubb. And Alf Shrubb, he broke four world records at Ibrox Park. Glasgow? Yeah, Glasgow, three world records in a one-hour race. So, you know, from that day and then in 1908 London Olympics he got gold medals. Really, if he was in today's market the guy would be the number one shoe brand, I'm quite sure. At 1920s that was his really bellapok. And we have a let head from the 1920s and down each side this is where the 96 football teams go. There's only one that I can't see on that, Tottenham Hospa. But, you know, Glasgow, Celtic, all the Scottish team, all the English team, Man United, Man City, Arsenal, Everton, Chelsea, they were all on this list. And also at the bottom of the list was he supplied every athlete in the 1920s Olympic Games in Antwerp. I'm sure he was saying all the English rather, but he just said all the athletes. And in those days, you know, the Olympics was just a track and field. Wasn't all, but it is now. It's massive now, but in those days track and field. How was that then being in that family organisation for the great grandparents who were succeeding, who were successful to then taking that running shoe? Was he the first to ever have speaks on the trainers? Where did he get that idea from? Well, he got his idea from his grandfather, would he believe. His father was a confectioner, but he didn't want to be a confectioner. So he used to go to his grandfather's down in Nottingham and his grandfather was a cobbler. He used to repair street shoes, but he also used to repair cricket boots. And cricket boots had spikes at the bottom. And I'm pretty sure that my grandfather had said to him, why they got spikes at the bottom of these grandad? And I'm sure the answer was, it gives them grip. You know, when they're running about the bowling, the field and the batting, they need that grip. And my grandfather was part of his local athletic club, Bowman, Primrose areas. He was about halfway down the field, but he enjoyed it. And so he obviously thought, if I put some spikes in the bottom of my shoes, maybe it'll improve life. And he did. You know, from being halfway down the field usually, he became a very unlikely second. And from that moment on, I'm not too sure that his fellow athletes were looking at him as like you're a cheat, or maybe you should make those shoes for us. And he did. And that was the beginning of his business. So he made shoes for all his local friends, pals, athletes. And yeah, they started to win a lot of races at that point. So that's how it worked back then. Obviously, you've got your inflows now on social media and posting a photo with a shoe, wearing a track. So it's like back then, it was a much TV coverage, but it wasn't... No TV? No TV, it wasn't even... Where were the TV in the 1940s? Well, before TV got to sport, I would say, it'd be after World War II really, you know, late 40s, early 50s. So you're talking newspapers, magazines then? Magazines, magazines and just events. You get a souvenir magazine, if you go to an event, you'll be advertising in the event magazine. He also used to advertise in the local sort of sports magazine, which I think was called... I think it was the sportsman, and I think this was produced in Manchester, because the north of England was really the hotbed of, we'll say, entertainment by sport. Football started off in the north of England, really because of all the mills and workers. They'd all go do the day's shift, and then they'd go and kick a ball about. This is where the football league all started there in the north west of England. So this paper was out there, and they used to advertise in that. There's some incredible habits in that. I can remember one that was, if you don't think that Foster's run issues are the best run issues you've ever had, will give you £100. Can you imagine in the early start of 20th century, the first decade of 100 to 1910, £100 in those days? I mean, that's how much would it be today? £100. A lot of money today. And he used to do this. He would also say, all these athletes, their war of Foster's run issues to break the world record, 800 metres, 180 yards. In those days, we only had yards, we didn't have metres. So he would say, who was in it? And not all these athletes. We didn't know. Jeff and I, we left the family business events, but Jeff and I, we didn't know that much about grandfather. We knew we'd done a bit of this, but luckily, Reebok became pretty big. And we were able to send a guy, go and dig into these papers, and he would go to the library day in, day out, and just find little adverts like this at the bottom of paper pages, which would say, Foster's were doing this, Foster's were doing that. So that was his method of advertising, but also in the athletics event magazine sort of thing, he would do that. And he'd go round to all the events. He was very well known out and about in Lancashire. So what were you doing once you left school in your later years, in your teens, in your twenties? Was that a vision to then maybe start your own brand or work in the family business, or were you going to do your own thing in life? Well, in your late teens, you were a teenager, aren't you? You don't have anything else to do but enjoy life. Girls were coming into your life, and this was that. But at 18, 18, well, Jeff was older than me, I was 18, he was 20. We both went to do national service at the same time. That takes away from what you were doing, local dancing, local whatever it is, that we were both in the scouts. I think that helps us really in a way because that gave us a bit of independence. So at 18, we went away in two years of national service. Mothers no longer making a bed, doing the washing, making your food, and you've got to look after yourself. You begin to learn a little bit of independence and, you know, okay, like I'm okay, Jack, you know, and get on with life. So when we came back, my grandfather died in 1933. I wasn't born until 35, so I never knew it, but I was born on his birthday. Because I was born on his birthday, my grandma, she insisted I brought my name with me. He was called Joseph William, so I'm called Joseph William, or in short, we're both Joe. And his sons had taken over the business. He died at 33, so my father and uncle were five years between them. They took over the business and they just didn't get on. Well, you know, 50% of a business is out of, what are you doing? You've got to work together in order for that business to thrive. And I think this is probably the big reason why they never really took advantage of the fact that there were, in those days, probably the number one athletics footwear company being football, whatever, rugby. He had a big business, but you've got to remember in those days, athletics shoes were performance. Now we're all fashion companies. Now we're street. And this is where the volume comes from going street. But in those days, it was just performance. And you had to have a fair bit of money to be an athlete in those days, even through the Twenties. If you weren't rich, you couldn't go to the Olympics. You had to pay your own way. You had no funding back then? No funding back then. So, you know, life was different then. But when Geoff and I came back out of the forces and we came back, we sort of learned a bit more about life. And we looked at it and we saw a failing company. JDW Foster and Sons were just failing badly. They had no sales representatives. They did no marketing. They just did advertising in the magazines they'd always advertised in, which was a football magazine, rugby world, things like that. And of course, the retail, you know, High Street, was beginning to get more important than people reading the magazine and they were going buying their products through local sports shops. And by the time Geoff and I actually, in 1958, decided we'd leave the parent company and we set up on ourselves, by that time Adidas was in the UK and Adidas owned football. They'd taken it and we'd known money. So we had no chance. To try and get into football would have been impossible because of the amount of money we didn't have it. So we sort of stayed with athletics. And we became known as probably the athletics shoe company in the UK. How was that then to do your own thing? Was there any family politics that you left the kingdom of family name or to do your own thing? Were they proud of you and happy for you to do your own thing? None at the start. When we left, it was a bit of a... My father was a bit sort of... I wouldn't say upset. He was sort of, what are you doing this for? I remember that day going into the office and saying, look, that Geoff and I are leaving. We're going to set up on our own. Why? I mean, we've gone through the argument many times that this business is failing and all my father could say is, look, when your uncle's gone and I'm gone, this is yours. I'm saying, but dad, we don't want you to go. It's not the plan. But this business will be gone long before you are, so there will be no business for us. So we've gone through that argument and said, why don't we set up something on our own between us? But he wouldn't. He was sort of, that was it. I don't know whether going through two world wars, he'd been through the first world war and the second world war. Whether that takes the fight out of you, I don't know. To me, it was the fact that somewhere along here he didn't get on with his brother. All that we're interested in is this is a job. We make some money. We can go to the pub at night. We can enjoy ourselves. We're a bit better off than the neighbours. That was it. It wasn't a matter of this sort of business and we've got a business going to take us. The accepted, basically. The accepted is place in life and that was it. I don't know why initially Jeff and I thought we could do something big. I think it was probably because we could talk to each other as we did. We were only two years between us. We never fell out. We didn't live in each other's pocket. We weren't going out with each other. We were each and our own friends. As far as working together, it was great. I guess probably I was the more pushy one. I was the one that had to go and tell my dad, my father, we're leaving. He just got up and picked up a letter open so I was coming towards the letter open and he gave it to me. He said, stab me now. Dad, this is not like that. It's like we have to do something because Fosters is dying and we've got a life to live. We have to leave. Exchange is always hard and I think a lot of people just accept that as well. If they're getting a wage and just accepting somewhere but they're not happy in, that's what I think a lot of people struggle because they just accept the shitty jobs they're in or the shitty lives they're in because they think there's nothing else out there but to actually step back and go, wait a minute. In your dad's mind you probably broke his heart but in your mind you knew that you wanted something different. Your own platform, your own life to do and take things to another level like you say you've gone through two world wars. As the fire go where he's been through and seen so much pain that he's just accepted and happy to live the life that he had but you've obviously young and want more and want to take things that. How much has that plays a part to kick on that you have not prove your dad wrong but to show him that it was a right decision to make that? It took a while for him to accept the fact that yes we'd started a company that was going for a future. This is not just earning a living in fact in those early days it was difficult to earn a living I mean my wife on a number of occasions in those days used to sort of say why don't you go and get a proper job? You know and I'm saying well I don't know what I want to do and I think that half the thing is if you want to do it and you're enthusiastic about it you're enjoying it. Yeah maybe the family weren't enjoying it because maybe I was in those early days that's tough and people say how do you sort of measure a business and life that you do in when you're working as against the family life and it was tough in those early days you know really tough okay I started off maybe two years I'm working with my brother we're working ourselves in making shoes then somebody had to get out and do things and so I'm saying we're going to do this and Jeff said look I'll look after the factory and he loved the factory he just loved making shoes you do everything else okay what's everything else so that's you know trying to build a business so I get in the car and go out and try and sell the product and I learnt a lot with that I go into a sports shop and say you know thank you I'm from Reebok you know the first way it was Reebok well we're a small company and we're making athletic shoes running shoes and whatever showing the product and then you say look I've got Adidas I've got Dunlop why do I need Reebok that to me was a question why do I need Reebok I didn't try and tell him why I need Reebok I'm thinking he doesn't need me he's got Adidas he's got Dunlop he doesn't need Reebok that was a question well we had to go back so I stopped being a rep in those days get out of the car end of story we used to go to athletic meetings cross country events and all this and we'd sell it to the back of the car and I'm there one day I'm looking and thinking just doing it these are the guys these are my customers the retailer he's not my customer these are my customers and we're very lucky I don't know if it's still a price today but the 3A is the amateur athletic association produced a magazine a book and then this book must have been 4 maybe 500 athletic clubs throughout the country the name and address of all the secretaries were in this book no brainer out goes a letter to every one of the secretaries to give you 15% off if you'll introduce our product and if somebody in the club wants to be our agent they can have the 15% okay I got 100 agents from that first letter well that was brilliant all of a sudden in every 100 athletic clubs a second letter went out and I think I got another 50 I ended up with about 250 agents I had probably 4-500 altogether well that was keeping us busy then I would have gotten calls from the sports stores in the middle of town I believe you're selling direct to our athletic club yes of course well look if you stop doing that we'll stock your shoes well now he needed me now he needed me because I'm taking his custom and I thought no no I'm not going to stop selling direct but I only give them 15% you can give athletes 15% I'm sure you do for a club give a club 15% and you'll get wholesale price which is 150% off but I won't stop selling direct because to me that's my way of marketing the shoes I think 90% of these retailers accepted that 10% just said I'm not going to bother but 90% accepted it so then we got into the stores so that's how our business started to build and because we were now in the retail stores and I had friends and one of them came along and said why don't you let us do your distribution so at that point I thought wow that's great because then the factory then can just sort of make shoes and all our product is sold because we have now a distributor and I can just concentrate on doing marketing so that's how we got a distributor but that proved to be a bad choice in the end why? well it's not that the choice was wrong it's just that the company I went with it was a family company and the man I warned it he was getting on in life I think he was about 70 years old then and 18 months into the contract he decided to retire and allow his son-in-law to come in my friend was head of marketing the sales he was the salesman so the owner's son-in-law came into run the company my friend they just did not get on at all so my friend left I went to John Barter set up the sports division of Barter and the son-in-law of course he was an engineer he had no idea about footwear no idea about marketing and of course when my friend left to go to Barter he took the sales force with him they all went with him so this company had no sales he made a couple of really stupid decisions and within 12 months we were out of business the gun it's in my book if you read it it's one of those things when you make a decision can you legislate that's going to happen within 12 months probably not but the decision was okay maybe all your eggs in one basket 80% of our production was going through rebock name and that channel 20% I had with making a few shoes for other people and climbing boots so that almost put us out of business because they couldn't pay us I had to go and collect 2000 pairs of shoes that they had from our production they hadn't paid for them so I brought them back down there with a van bring them back to the factory I had to lay off about 60% of all our employees that was hard some of those guys said we'll work for nothing we'll help can we come back when things are good again of course you can come back but we can't let people come here and we'll not pay you but we'll get yourself another job we'll let you know three months later we had them all back that's because all the friends I knew the guy who had gone to barter to set up the sports division said look we need 200 pairs of shoes a week a particular shoe that we made that was really a successful shoe can you make us 200 pairs and then we had two or three other companies Stylo you probably won't know they're not part of the British shoe corporation they're in Leeds but they had high street shops they also wanted a sports shoe our factory became busy again and the 200 2000 pairs of shoes we decided that what we would do would go around to all the schools within a 50 mile radius get all the PE teachers and make them an agent you sell our shoes and we actually sold those shoes at a better price than we had through the distributor so we got a better price it took us a bit of time to do it but we were getting cash we didn't have to wait so we survived that How is that Joe when you feel as if your business is losing was there ever a time where you thought I'm not going to carry on anymore because you've lost so many staff you were losing money, you were getting products and back that others had just decided I need to work harder to get all the staff back and take it to another level how hard does that for business a lot of people quite faster instead of pushing through the obstacles and jumping over them to kick on how hard does that to push on when you think ok maybe we'll feel it here there's a couple of days when you wonder what the hell happened how could that have happened and then you think no no we've come through a name change because we started off our business we were a business sports football and that is a story but we've gone from that we had four years into our business we had a letter from Adidas lawyers saying that our silhouette was two stripes and a t-bar and they thought they told us that that infringed the three stripe mark and again five minutes we were looking at this letter and thinking oh my god what do we do now and then it dawned on us just a minute Adidas no we're here Adidas think it necessary to tell us that we shouldn't be doing what we're doing great fantastic we're here so what do we do we change our silhouette and we put on what is now the vector which is a side in fact we got the idea from the tail fin of the British Airways they called it speedbird which was sort of an arrow shape and they had that now they have the union jack on the back was called speedbird and we thought well we just adapt that a bit and put that on great that's better so we've been used to challenges and I think that was sort of almost an upbringing for me I think that was the education maybe I'd missed when I was between four and ten years old and I got an education these challenges you're doing something wrong nobody would challenge it if you were doing something very right really right there's something you need to change okay so change it and I think those experiences and it's the same with the distributor so I put a distributor on okay there was something wrong in that because you've lost control of something and that's the selling you've lost control of that so you change and I think it was the same when they did go on we had to down by 60% it was like okay we've got more and more control in the future and so you learn so many things and I think it's that challenge that doesn't say oh my god why is this happening to us no there's a reason you're meant to be challenged and if you're going to succeed you find a way and for us it was always can we turn this problem into an advantage and for the most part all we did was to turn it into an advantage you know make people like you it's like you're selling your name you're selling Reebok and it was all about selling Reebok as a name which over that period of time we did do it everybody looked as far as athletics were concerned we were the number one athletic company in the country they looked at us as the experts I think that's the key to success then through the challenges I think well I mean there must be numerous ways of doing that but this is one I think pushing through the challenges makes you stronger because it's surprising how many people come onto your side enjoy the fact that you've done this and say wow great they're with you and I think it's also selling that enthusiasm you're not going to go around and people are saying oh I don't want to do I distribute those gum bustum weaker gum bust with it that was never the attitude it was wow what do we do how can we get around this and I think that sort of challenge that's the entrepreneur take the risks face the challenges if you don't take a risk I don't think you actually can use the word entrepreneur it's what makes it do you remember selling your first trainer your first shoe not really I mean it's I guess when you start off in business you're just glad you're selling anything and Jeff was more of an athlete than I was I was a badminton player so I'm sort of a sprinter quick mover Jeff was sort of a plodder he could run for 20, 30 miles and still come back and he also likes his cycling and he used to race cycling as well so he used to have a lot of connections probably our early days were just all his friends who were in the athletics and cycling I was more badminton we couldn't make badminton shoes that was a done lot process in those days so you had to change your name you came up with the name Rebok and the name Rebok is that a gazelle it's a gazelle I googled it a couple of days ago because I wanted to know it's not as if I'm knowledgeable I just remember it stuck so what was the name behind Rebok why was it that one that you chose that is now global name the funny thing is that we were in Korea 18 months into our business and our accountant is looking at the books and saying look guys, you're doing pretty well this is okay, you better register your name 23, 24 Jeff 20 in those days we were quite naive and we couldn't be fosters because it was already a fosters company and we said oh why and he said well he said you were doing pretty nicely and people will look at this and say we'll make some mercury shoes as well and if they do you can't stop them because you've not registered the name and that way you'll have a lot of costs going to court or doing whatever to stop them doing it so register your name okay, how do I do that so I said well you're going to see a patent agent they look after all that sort of stuff and get it registered so Wilson Cuninalis in Manchester went to see Mr Ellis and said need to register mercury he checked it out and said somebody else's name we'll see but they're not using it and it was Lotus and Delta part of British shoe corporation and they came back and said no we're not using it but we'll sell it to you for a thousand pounds and I said we don't got a thousand pounds what can we do and he said well you can always take it in the court because they're not using it you can have it how much will that cost us he said about a thousand pounds oh right I said well we can't do that he said well if you can't do that you're going to have to find a new name okay, new name and he said but don't bring me one name bring me ten, twelve and I said well this is our business ten to twelve names he said well if you bring me one at a time it's through the register it's going to take about two months on each one to find if you can or you can't and if you bring me five names and we can't do it it's going to be almost a year you can't do that, you've got to bring me enough and I can push them all through right well I mean I don't know if you've sat down and thought what shall we call our business you know and then we sit him down at the table and you get some stupid ideas as you do you know we were young so we got some silly names coming up we got names like Falcon that's pretty good Cougar I'm going to take you back now to 1943 1943 during the middle of World War II I'm eight years old and Lonnick with Covid people couldn't go anywhere during the war nothing was going on so there was all these stay at home things and we had a stay at home athletics meeting and I entered into a 60 yard race and I'm eight and I won the race I had a bit of an advantage though I'm wearing foster spikes nobody else could afford spikes in those days if they haven't even heard about it I win, fantastic and so I go up to the, collect my prize I'm running for prize there what do I get? A dictionary you know I haven't said I'm eight years old where's the football? A dictionary and at the time I didn't didn't know it but it was a Webster's dictionary and a Webster's dictionary is an American dictionary and if you can there are many words which are different from an English Oxford dictionary at the time I didn't know but anyway disgustedly I take my prize but now we're sitting round the table in 1960 and we're thinking of names and I have my dictionary here luckily and I like letter R ah, yeah I open my dictionary on letter R and I'm thumbing through R very soon I come across RWBOK I don't know what's that it's a small South African gazelle wow, we're a running company gazelle, that's it fantastic, top of the list I went back to Mr Alice with our ten names and I said look we've got to be in love with this this is our business we're living this we want that one and of course being the sort of solicitor type as well let's see it's up to you and all these other names anyway it took him about two weeks to come back and when he did he said look the only one that really comes clear of everything is RWBOK wow, just one caveat the registrar says if somebody comes along making shoes out of RWBOK skin you can't stop them well, I mean I ask you who would do that no, nobody would make shoes out of RWBOK skin that's stupid so we'll become RWBOK though that says we don't change your name we'll become RWBOK ten years after the registrar said because of the fact that somebody can make a RWBOK skin we're going to put you in the B section of the register again, we had no idea what the B section this was against any other section but ten years later he came back and said we moved you to the A section because everybody now knows that RWBOK is a sports shoe and the animal is sort of incidental so that's how we became RWBOK that's a mad story though so they thought potentially you could have been skinning the RWBOKs and putting them through a shoe so that people would have crocodiles and get letters and stuff a weird sports shoe though if you had fun from it so seeing you start moving through the ranks and start making a name and RWBOK then becomes a global brand does it work if it becomes more or does it become less how did you manage to keep pushing because with success comes true sacrifice like how did you manage to keep the workload of the balance and enjoy because when we were speaking coming up on the lift and we were talking about balance because I'm trying to work to create and it's non-stop but it's not as if I'm not enjoying a journey but you don't really seem to take notes of it because you're so caught up and trying to make something of your life so seeing when you're doing that how much sacrifice goes towards creating something so special I don't think you recognise the sacrifice certainly we didn't in those early days okay as I said my wife used to say why don't you go and get a proper job and I'm thinking well there must be something wrong with this one but it's still moving forward we're still doing it there's still questions being asked and there's still places to go running athletics in the UK in those days wasn't very big it was only a small we more or less owned it but we could see that Nike and people like that were coming in and they would take a good bite of it so we needed something else and I don't always thought about America because in America every college, every university has a coach and coach is God in these places and you can go on the sports scholarship so athletics athletics in America was big, fantastic I've got to get to America even Foster's had managed to get a deal with Yale University they were making 200 pairs of shoes a month and the guys at Yale a guy called Frank Ryan and the other one Bob Jean Jack they were head coaches and they were selling those around the USA to other universities and whatever so I wanted to go there and there were protests you can't afford to go to America and start to dig around we don't have that sort of money however, I'm reading a magazine I think it's called Eurosport and the magazine is an advertisement here from the government we want you to export we'll pay a few a stand at the NSGA show that's the national sporting goods of America we'll pay for that stand and we'll also pay a return offer 50% of your hotel bill and expenses whilst you're there wow it's cheaper going to America isn't it for a few days and whatever no more resistance to me going to America with a friend I signed up for this and we went to America and the government were going to pay for the airfare return but we decided we'd take a discounted airfare and we got to stay there for two weeks I don't know why we did that they used to do it in those days if you stayed for two weeks it was cheaper than just going in an outward and a return sort of ticket it's only why we did that but we did and we went to New York first of all and my friend Bob Brigham they have outdoor shops all the way through UK these days he was looking at the outdoor stores in New York I looked at the sport stores that was great and we had a few days and then we went on to Chicago and Chicago February first week in February and three foot of snow it was freezing, absolutely freezing I've never been in weather like that before but anyway the exhibition is on for four days and people are coming up and saying like your shoes would we get them and I'm saying England and I'm saying is that New England? No, no, no, no, not New England England across the water, you know it's a oh, not near London? near London I did realise that I needed a distributor back to the problem I got to get a distributor in the USA this is 1968 when did I get into the USA? 1979 I got my well, the distributor that worked why? I had six different distributors during that time and in the book Shu Lang is a guy from Philadelphia and he tried hard for two or three years but somehow we couldn't get in there and however luck was on our side during the 70s running in America became a big category running, training, starting 10k events so from when we started in 1968 running was just really track and field like it was in the UK but running starts being on the road and people got training and this is growing growing massively and the magazine started off with a single page A4 called Runners World by 1975 that was a 50 to 100 pages of glossy coloured magazine with all the information you could want if you were up there running were the next 10k races were who won the last 10k races so it was all the information anybody out there running would get the magazine and you think we've got 350 million Americans 10% are out there running 35 million wow, a lot of people to buy the magazine and Bob Anderson who produced the magazine decided because he was doing so well he could tell everybody which was the number one Shu to buy he did Nike Phil Knight I'm sure he's a nice guy I've not met him yet but one of these days I hoped Phil Knight, number one Shu where's he getting his shoes from it's getting his shoes from Japan and all of a sudden we'll say 10% of the 35 million want that Shu because the Americans do so 3.5 million people probably wanted to buy Nike's Shu how can he get them to turn up the wick and to get those products he couldn't by the time he was getting enough shoes into satisfied demand Bob Anderson said another number one Shu and I think it was New Balance however, same story they couldn't produce enough so Bob Anderson somebody helped him change his mind because the retail business they were absolutely heading hands saying what's going on here so everybody wanted and when they could Bob Anderson had changed to another Shu so somebody it changed, changed to become a star rating and Bob Anderson said top Shu will be a five star rated now you could get four or five of those which meant there was a spread that was much better and I knew at that time I knew we could make a five star Shu that was our business, we were in there we knew what was required a number one Shu was a bit of a lottery we had a question of who did most advertising in Ron's World and who was local Nike were always local to Ron's World Ron's World Los Altos quite near San Francisco so anyway, we knew we could do a five star Shu which I designed a five star Shu and by 1978 we tested this out in Edmonton at the Commonwealth Games and actually tested out the gold range which was our trainer which would be five stars and that was a training Shu we had a racing Shu called Midas and a spike Shu called Inca and we got a shed load of medals gold and all sorts of at the Commonwealth so by February back in Shargo I've got my Aztec would be five star Shu and they're on display and I get Kmart Ronning was becoming so big at Kmart wanted to get into the scene and they came along and said look, we want 25,000% right about six months work out for our factory oh, okay, fine but we want a better price well, the six months work my friend who's gone to Bartha he said because I said look if we get a five star Shu we cannot corporate our factory we'll help so Bartha would help make that and they said we want a better price for South Korea okay, so we'll get a better price in South Korea again, I had connected with an agent for a South Korean factory so I thought that's fair enough right and I'm thinking yeah, that's good Kmart, okay but along came Paul Feynman he was running Boston Camping small outdoor outfits in Boston of course and they were doing tents fishing rods and whatever and they got on well with Paul Kmart is something so big Paul was just a small company and so we got on well and he said look Joe, you get a five star Shu and I'll be your distributor okay, I said look at our stack he said yeah, I know he said it's a great Shu but it's not got five stars yet has it no, not yet, okay and the Shu magazine comes out in August but I say it comes out last week in July, usually the August edition so in between February and August I go across and I meet up with Kmart reception was saying I'm asking for Mr Biasate he had seen us in in Chicago and he said go across to the network and he's run number whatever it is roll whatever it is, number seven and I went to this person there must be 100, 150 buyers all at their desk so I figure out where my man is and go and sit with him and I'm looking around and thinking this is a big organisation this might be my first order for 25,000 pairs of Shu but it also might be my last order for 25,000 so I think okay and I left there and Paul picked me up at the airport went to his small outfit he was running that with his brother Steve and his brother-in-law they were running this company but they've been doing it for 10 years and you're going around the same thing for 10 years, not going anywhere Paul obviously wanted to move on get something going so I thought, well yeah, it's great Paul, fantastic, you know I'm going to go with Paul and hopefully they can sort of bolt this on and re-bock, get into America however, we started to have a 5 star Shu so it's the last week in July and I pick up the phone to Paul I said Paul, can you go down to the local kiosk I'm sure runners will be out now and see how we did an hour later Paul came back Joe you got 5 stars as they 5 stars, brilliant that was it also he said, you made us an Inca the spike in the race at you they also got 5 stars so we entered the market with 3 5 star Shu's that was re-bock made it, would correct the market what's that feeling like then Joe for over 10 years trying to crack a market to then take you to a global scale that do you celebrate or is it straight back into the office to keep pushing to be a success I would do both do you think that's where you've got to find the balance because sometimes you've been caught up and worked so much that you actually forget to live even though you are living to create something special but you know what I mean because life's about enjoying, laughing that fucking hell that I love to laugh and joke but over the last 3 years I'm only creating a podcast but I feel as if I've kind of lost myself because I'm constantly working and I've kind of forgot the old me whoever really if I'm honest gave a fuck and just used to live life to the extreme but as kind of went it becomes an obsession in my mind that did you have that also that were you obsessed to create something special or was it just enjoyment that you've then planted a seed that was blossomed into something amazing I think you have to be obsessed to be successful to penetrate through those barriers those problems or things that are there to be able to your glasses are always half full it's never half you've got to have that optimism you've got to be that way in life you can't worry about what you're missing because you know body are missing you really are obsessed by saying now we've got it now's our chance let's push it hard and so you you enjoy all the successes and okay up until that point there are challenges with your family you know it's I'm traveling I'm jumping on the airplane I'm going places like you you spend four days a week down here and the family's back up there in Scotland and you're thinking what am I missing well one of these days they'll come with you and they'll enjoy four days here and you'll enjoy it there'll be different things it will change you'll still be obsessed you'll still be making a success out of something because you can't accept anything less you know you don't want to be second best definitely not no you don't want to be there in fact there's no position there you don't see that no I'm the best you're not looking at the other people doing whatever you're doing you're looking at what you're doing you're the one that's doing this you're going places that's what we were we weren't bothered about Nike we were big I did this everybody's doing the thing how can we challenge these we weren't challenging people we were challenging ourselves the challenge was the market and first it was how do we take Reebok to another step and you know these strokes of luck things happen we were doing nicely as a running company and that was okay but we had a guy down in LA Arnold Martinis he was a tech rep they used to go into the stores and talk to the sales people they weren't trying to sell the shoes they were talking to the sales people saying these are the good things about the shoe it does this it does this so that when they're selling the shoe people come in and say which are the best shoes hopefully they call it spiffin as well spiffin is where if you're a salesman and you sell a pair of Reebok we'll give you a dollar nothing to do with the company we'll give you a dollar because you sold a pair of Reebok I never heard of that before fantastic you sort of light up the sales people so yeah we're going to sell Reebok great stuff Arnold's wife Frankie she's going to a roadway classes Arnold's saying what's that a roadway classes because she's loving it she's come in and said what are you doing and she said well why aren't you exercising the music and we'd love it her and her friends were going he said can I come down and have a look what's going on next one of these classes going on he went down there and the instructors up there doing whatever and she's in a pair of sneakers half the class are wearing the same sneaker that she's wearing the other half they're not wearing any sneakers that was it this was a light bulb moment for our Arnold he thought why don't we make a shoe specifically for these girls doing what they do on a woman's last just in women's sizes he's in LA and of course the company is up in Boston so we take the red eye up to flight up to Boston Seapore fireman and he's in the park he's full of this look these girls it's going to be fantastic really it's called aerobics even while saying aerobics what the hell is that don't know that it's going to be big Paul is saying slow down we're a running company and we're doing it very nicely why do we want to make dancing shoes we're a running company Arnold is saying this is going to be keep your eye on it and if it does anything we'll see what we can do Arnold wasn't satisfied he went to the back door and he saw a guy called Steve Ligert my assistant that will tell me when I forget my external memory Steve Ligert and he persuaded Steve he said Steve we want a shoe tell him all about it made out of glove leather nice and cushioned and narrow the fitel everybody's like the unisex last adjusting women's sizes right okay so he got 200% of these shoes Steve actually made them got them made and that's it takes them down given to the instructors and some of the leading girls and they love them absolutely love them and then when Jane Fonda actually went out and bought a pair to use in our exercise videos that was it it just took off because the girls weren't just wearing them for their aerobics they were wearing them out and about they went to work in them put the heels in a bag and changed when they got to wherever they just loved the shoes absolutely loved them and it started to grow one big problem they were making them out of glove leather glove leather is just like a piece of paper you can rip it just rips and of course these shoes are starting to come apart after about four weeks a month or whatever they've fallen apart had this been in any other part of the world apart from Los Angeles in America I'm sure that Reebok at that point would have got out of business totally because somebody would have said no we're not doing it but the girls loved them they just wanted to buy another pair and that was it it took about a month maybe a couple of months to get to cure that problem and use more garment leather than glove leather which was much stronger and could do the job how is that then if you see a product that it's booming but then you see a lot of faults with it does it just change the faults straight away so you get the better product for next time and hopefully people buy back because if you get a product something goes wrong not necessarily a big percentage you can buy again how do you rectify that do you just change it straight away this is Los Angeles this is America that's probably the only place in the world where they wouldn't say I'm not going to buy those again no I love them, they love them that much they just went out and bought another pair they had the disposable income they were able to do that in other places I didn't know anything about this I'm back in the UK and this is going on in America and the first thing I hear about it is that I've been making shoes out of glove leather I'm a shoemaker my book even says that I'm a shoemaker you don't make shoes out of glove leather I'm saying that and yet we actually made world 10 out of glove leather but we reversed it so we were using the suede side the aerobic shoe that we were using the skin side so they had to take a bit of the skin off to get the adhesive to go in which meant something which was probably about 0.7 of a millimetre when you start you take it down to half a millimetre can you imagine half a millimetre so you can get the adhesive in absolutely you can't do that that's ridiculous, stop whatever you're doing they didn't we're talking about marketing now and the difference they lined it with nylon to give it the strength brilliant why have you lined it with nylon it's breaking apart you know you lined it with nylon and it stopped breathing leather breathes the idea of leather breathing oh why won't it breathe oh well punch holes in it a nice design on the front punching holes in it so that we could get the breathing again and I think that's when I realised that marketing beats manufacturing all the time so seeing the 80s then when you've got the aerobic shoe and then re-bocked then really makes a stand to being the number one sports brand in the world but then after that did you bring out the re-bock pump which took it to another level is this correct to this the most successful re-bock shoe out ever the re-bock pump the re-bock pump and I think it's going to come back in a big big way now we're with the ABG but you know when we went down we started off with aerobics we were in 9 million dollars you we went to 30 million dollars 60 million dollars 300 million dollars and almost 900 million dollars in four years that was the growth and of course during that time the men were looking at this shoe which only made in women's sizes on a woman's last and they were hungry but we couldn't satisfy anything else it took all our time to satisfy the growing aerobic market but when we got to a certain size yes we could take the technology but once technology it was really an idea of using soft leather to make shoes to make sports footwear because normally footwear is made of quite firm leather so that when you make it and stand it it keeps its shape whereas when you use soft leather it tends to just drop a bit and lose its shape but that became quite a feature and so now we moved to tennis and we moved out into basketball and other sports because we're growing and we're becoming the number one sports brand globally we're overtaking Nike overtaking Adidas and then of course it is all a matter of saying about innovation we must innovate so the innovation has come along and as you say, pump that was fantastic when D Brown is sort of dunking from the halfway in this competition from the halfway line and then he bends down his shoes up those sort of images are permanent they just stick in people's minds so like you say, pump becomes famous and and those sort of things you have to continue innovating whatever it is in whatever way and you need the right influences as well so yes pump probably was the biggest by that time where we were a $4 billion company so that man came in with a $1 billion idea about the aerobics and that was going to get put to the side because nobody really seen the vision isn't it mad though that people can have that people have so many creative ideas and visions that probably speak probably speak about all the time but never really put it into existence like how happy were you when you realised that that was turning into a $1 billion product once it starts to grow that way you're so busy everybody's running around everybody's trying to get things happening I put on America because I knew the American market I wouldn't need to do an awful lot of work on the other markets once it started going I'm travelling the world I'm putting on 30 other distributions over 4 or 5 years all around the world so I'm doing the global job of course everybody wants the aerobics shoe it's amazing the challenge then was to satisfy the man and luckily we grew from $300 million to a $900 million in one year you've tripled your business financing wasn't the problem at that time because once you get things rolling the financing works easy enough but how do you get the production just in the same way that when the world has said this is the number one shoe Phil Knight couldn't get the production we had to try and get the production up from $300 million revenue to $900 million revenue and we were very lucky because Nike who really they'd all stood back aerobics not quite performance sport as we know it because Nike had it us they were male, sweaty we had become the woman's company our ladies glowed they didn't sweat a different approach of this nice white shoe with the union jack there fantastic the union jack there's a story behind that because we still have the Starcrest which is on the tongue of everybody's shoe now that we used to put that also on the side of the shoe the Reebok name and this Starcrest a man with Paul Feynman one day Paul is saying Joe can we use the union jack there instead of the Starcrest and I'm saying well could cause us some problems in the UK that just put in there because we're making the shoes in Korea I said but okay yeah we can do that I said but why do you want that he said well nobody knows the Starcrest he said but to me it looks a bit like the union jack he said but everybody in America knows the union jack right everybody and you know at that point we had very few point of sale material things you can stick in a window to advertise and what the retailer started doing because the shoes were the union jack on each side the box lid was the union jack so they're sticking all these boxes in the window up like a pyramid and putting the shoe shoes on so so many of the retailers and I used to go around photographing these and I don't know where the photographs were going but it was all these union jack boxes with these shoes on so it was a great point of sales and these things just helped just helped build the brand all these and they're bits of luck just things come out of thinking nobody thought if we put a union jack on they're going to stack them in the windows we didn't know it was just like we're going to use the union jack because it's recognisable See when you're moving through the ranks when you're becoming a big brand did any of the bigger brands ever try and buy you out offer you a big deal and say they could possibly take over as is a lump sum that kind of just buy them out At that time I don't think anybody was that big that they thought they needed to do that you know at $4 billion we were bigger than I did and bigger than Nike I mean now Nike are in $25 billion I think it is and I did us an approach in $20 billion so now money is different money doesn't seem to be much of a problem these days there's always something with tons of money to do this because it's just generating more and the sports industry we started off in 1958 and all the experience that I've had in the sport we never went through a recession never and there must have been four or five recessions during that period sport has never gone through that because the more sort of life has grown the more people want entertainment and sport is the entertainment they're all going to in whatever way and sport now influences everything fashion everything is now influenced by sport people are more comfortable shoes softer shoes and they're all by sport branded names or product that has been influenced by sport we never went through a recession only Covid was caused a sort of downturn because nobody got through Covid how can people then start off a brand now compete with that the likes of Reebok, Nike, Adidas even the new balance they're still around is there any chance for anybody else do you think to then get to those heights because it's took you over 10-20 years to kind of break into America there is a long craft to push to then be at the cream of the crop but because everybody is so far ahead it is difficult for other people to then set those targets you can never say never there won't be anybody I think Under Armour has probably been one of the latest ones in that are now quite successful Gymshark as well by Ben Gymshark is just going to start off into footwear just starting that but Gymshark yes we have a billion dollar brand we were with Tommy Malick yesterday and he's approaching billion dollars not quite there yet but Tommy Malick is fashion, total fashion influenced by sport whereas people like Under Armour or we're looking at Gymshark they're actually involved in performance involved in sport their product is used in that way so it's now got different areas where you can go and how you can get into it we have is it on that Roger Federer now is backing on in this combination we're finding that more top sportsmen they've paid so much money they can ask it forward to get involved now in a brand and so we're seeing that and I think that yes those influences are now coming in the influences themselves Shaquille O'Neal who's part of ABG he has his own brand but he's now a part of ABG which just bought Reebok yes I think we're going to get more opportunities whether they have the enthusiasm to take it on because they'll get to a point where it's we need more there's always a point you need more, something else has to happen for it to really get to the top and stay there the hunger and the drive like you see you're 50, 60 years still at it still hustling, still doing your thing you've got a good life now I see your photos and you're travelling but the hunger to was never a cut-off point for you to say okay I've got a ball you know I can sit back and relax or is it a case of kicking on trying to find that next Reebok pump or trying to find the next aerobic shoe that's going to take it to another level was there ever a stop moment for you? I'm going to relax thank you go ahead no no there was a stop moment for me it's when the challenge stopped because when you get to four billion you're a corporate company and corporate is a totally different company from what I did we started two people and we grew it lots of challenges, lots of things you had to get through and by the time it became corporate it's different lawyers look after everything it's just a matter of it's just a legal it's just a matter of this happens and I remember that we went down to it was in Trafalgar Square the head office of the HMR the customs whatever, revenue and customs and it was a time when we were thinking of taking the Reebok brand to America it's still owned in the UK believe it or not it's still owned here in the UK we're thinking of taking it to America and so they arranged this meeting with with the revenue and customs and I remember going to that meeting and I still have the cards of the guys at the head of the revenue and talking about can we take this brand to America and the guys at the revenue said yeah you can take it to America right, okay because it's a revenue in the UK how much is it going to cost us because revenue would have to allow it to happen and the guys don't know really if you want to do it you do it and also what's it called it's not internal revenue it's an American one they were now raising questions that there's so much sales going on in the USA how is it that these royalties are being paid to the UK and you know we need to sort of get a piece of it the Americans wanted a piece of it the American revenue wanted a piece of it and the guys are saying well if you've got a problem with America you said we don't win many of those arguments with America and they're so big I mean it had got to that big so we were talking about lawyers we were talking about accountants this is nothing to do with making the pump so when I guess to that and we were 4 billion and I'd put on 30 different countries around the world with growing and all I'm doing is I'm traveling now great three times a year I'm going around the world I'm going to the best I'm picked up at the airport by a limousine I'm going to the best hotels we're having dining at the best places and we're talking shoes what's going on the business itself now has moved to that different level the business was we want to know what you're going to do next year and you've got to put everybody's talking in different language time for me to go time for me to retire so since there was no challenge that was it what are you doing just riding the machine and it doesn't at that point no it didn't work we had some great times because we're also doing the pro celebrity in Monte Carlo and this way we've got loads and loads of celebrities from Hollywood they used to come in and a lot of tennis players used to come in the top tennis players and I mean those days were great you know I've got a list of people John Forsyth, Linda Evans, John Collins Frank Sinatra, Conrad John Conrad and much more JC Moore, Chuck Norris, Robert Nino Michael Cain Charlton Heston all these people were there talking to them Dyniro, what's Dyniro like? You know it's like thinking well this is great I mean you remember John Forsyth he was in dinner stand only the second time I met him we were in Monte Carlo he was a real trooper he turned out any time for Reebok this massive dinner and he came up to me and he said I'm looking at John and I'm saying I know your name and I said John we've only met once before can you remember my name because I can't remember anybody in this room and he said well Joey said that's my business that's my job remembering people and remembering their names and I was amazed at that but it was a real good all these people were great to meet but you realise I'm not an aleister I'm a fraud here I make shoes nothing to do with this we're just putting events on but you make some of those events happen that you've worked with some of the biggest names like the UFC, Reebok or Stalkdale at Shackle Neil even some rappers that are here at JZ 50 Cent was that another strategy to then break into another market of like do you come up with those strategies that you know my team is setting up around the table the Americans come up with those strategies because it's in America I left them to get on you get on with whatever you're doing and I'll look after other things so the Americans are good at that they're good at working they're really good at that it's like when people say you did this, you did that probably the best thing I did was build a team get the right people you can get the wrong people dead easy you can get egos and you don't want egos you want people to become part of that team the excitement of being part of Reebok the excitement of winning culture and we had that winning culture so people felt they belonged to it and that's what works when you get egos people looking after themselves they want their name that is against Reebok for me nobody knows who Joe Foster is he just happens to be a guy he was a fan of Reebok it was all about Reebok it was all about you you push one name you don't push two or three did you ever try and go after names you look at Michael Jordan did you ever try and go for him before Nike went in can you imagine him with the Reebok pump do you think potentially then could have been a $25,000 company did you ever think about things like that Joe? you can think about whatever you want to think about these things can be I retired well before you worry about that we've become number one we're overtaking Nike we've become number one at that point you're saying we're number one what do we do wrong? and then you've got to think you need younger people you know it's saying at my age I have a challenge what's my challenge? Shoemaker, the book that's my challenge now well we're going now let's get this to be a best seller number one if we can let's make the influences that we can get out of selling the book Reebok now belongs to everybody Reebok is big and ABG I think they bought it to use the name and Shaq loves because that's what I met her to no, never met him but I don't know if I could have met him and he's seven foot tall he seems like a good man charitable man as well he does a lot of good in life I like his story, I listen to a lot of his conversations he's in a place where he likes to help people and I like that I really do like that he's more admirable for people trying to give back and help that because he has a phenomenal superstar and he seems a really nice guy do you have any decision to make when they offer brands like the UFC and Reebok that is massive guys like Conor McGregor Kebyb that were in the Reebok brand global superstars, do you have the decision as well back then to say that's a good deal do you just let the suits do it I think all this luck came from America and my decision was to say okay we get into America they know what to do they're the guys that can do these deals they talk that language and I think that really this is what you have to do you have to go to a point where you bring other people in it's like I can put whatever I had into the brand and I still have the enthusiasm for the brand but you need people you need people with ideas you need people who can have different thoughts than you can people they ask me what would the young Joe do today and I said well he'd have to be young you know and Joe isn't young anymore but you know and I say ask a young person what you would do today because it's so changed I mean now we have so much technology so many things that I was a very simple technology whatever we had now you just look at everything that's moving in various places they all start talking about NFTs the metaverse this is where life is going into the technology and I don't understand the metaverse because I know about it I hear about it I can take in what they're saying could I live in the metaverse well you'll live forever in the metaverse and the people are saying well you create your other self in the metaverse and he doesn't need to sleep he can do whatever so it's going in there are different levels of understanding as there were whatever I understood Julie for me she's our technician I pick up my telephone and how do we do this how do we do that now kids I remember when it brought out these video recorders they were so complicated and the only people that could use them were kids the ones that could learn how to fiddle with all these things it's the same now the kids can go through this they can do whatever creating new ideas NFTs young guy who made millions because he created an NFT so the world is now as always I don't know if it's evolving or devolving because I think human beings are becoming more disconnected I think not too many people are sociable anymore back in the day when I grew up everybody was out playing football they were getting dirty they were just being kids now I don't see much of that in the streets it's a good thing or a bad thing I don't know if human beings are becoming technologies should be connecting the world but it seems to be disconnecting it if it's used in the right way it could be a powerful tool in your own opinion do you think you would have succeeded faster in today's age or would you be happy back 50-60 years ago doing what you were doing hustling and travelling I went through that experience so I'm happy to have gone through that experience I think today is and you could probably lose it quicker too but I think you can make it quicker today I think you need to have the right personality because I think personality is rather than rather than the name of brands I think the personality comes out it's like Tommy Mallard he's a great personality whatever he's doing is dependent upon his personality but to really grow a brand and if the brand is going to be something other people have to come in and help you get from your level because whoever you are you've only got a certain level sometimes if your level is just making money that's fine but Tommy's making a brand he's got to think of product he's not just a man who works we were in Dubai and this young guy he was the son of a famous dentist over there and he said what do you do and he said oh I trade crypto currencies that's how he makes his living trading crypto currencies right okay how do you do that we know a bit about it we're learning, Julie's learning more and I'm learning but we're learning these changes and this is what's happening brands are becoming something else and quite a few names are now brands so it is different but that's right, this is the world but like you I do think a lot of people are almost scared to answer the door they spend so much time looking at the screens and playing with it in order to do it to trade crypto currencies you've got to be watching looking at your screens and working on that your book The Shoemaker Joe which we'll touch on, I'll leave the link in the description for people to get it but how was that experience then putting your story into a book for people to eventually Joe Foster, the man behind Reebok well now I'm selling Joe Foster now instead of Reebok as well but Joe Foster the reason for that is that after I retired which was way way back in 1990 just the end of 1999 and I thought okay it's corporate now I'll go to Tenerey from where we'll spend some time now relax in, spend some time but of course by this time we now get in computers and other things and I'm looking at Wikipedia and Google and Wikipedia is telling me how Reebok started well you know it used to be a company called JW Foster and they changed the name to Reebok, no it didn't happen, that's not the story and there were all sorts of stories even a photograph this is Joseph William Foster, founder of Reebok no, never seen him who was that so I thought a number of people said why don't you write your story Joe I said now I know disinterest in my story I said I'll be surprised so okay I thought I better get this straight let's write it down and then people are not speculating and inventing how Reebok started so I started writing the book and and that was interesting because what is interesting is trying to get the chronology in order because you remember things and they're all over the place and so I had to work on this, I had to do a bit of sort of research to find out when did I do this when did this happen and also I had to get some advice because I'm a shoemaker and I'm writing a book and I'm writing all these things and the guy said no no those are anecdotes you don't put anecdotes in because that's not the story because you drift off into I remember when I was in Hollywood and I went to Ginger Rogers house and did this just mentioning he went there but not all the stuff that goes with it and and so what I didn't expect is that everybody a lot of people reading it said God there's so many lessons in here what you've done it's amazing even Tommy Mallett when I read your book wow I should try to do this I should stop doing that and and I think what has become now because we've done London business school we've done University College London UCL and it's all the MBA students they're in there and they're telling them what to do mainly they're telling them what's your exit plan and they ask me what was your exit plan they didn't have one we don't teach that didn't have an exit plan we had a mission a mission wasn't an exit plan now it's all to do with how you create money how you create a business and how you get out of that business and so I think what was interesting for these students is that they're learning you don't need an exit plan you need to enjoy life because if all you're doing is to wait for that day when you're going to get out are you going to get there and enjoy it ok a lot of people just go through that business and earn the money but for me it was more of a vocation this is what you do we're enjoying Reebok for any entrepreneurs watching what's the main advice you would give for them maybe just starting off or going through the journey to try and succeed what's the best advice you have for them there's only one piece of advice have fun that's the best advice for all life just to try and enjoy it but sometimes obsession kicks in a bit of greediness as well that is crazy also before we finish up the Reebok Stadium Bolton is that because of your connection with Bolton what's the story behind that it was yes it was because Bolton ones were moving from a downtown site to a new one and since we were Bolton base and whatever we did get involved and we took the naming rights so that was ok the thing is it's really called Middlebrook which is a retail site a big retail mall and everything and the Reebok Stadium was part of it and although Reebok have moved on now it's now the University of Bolton Stadium my mouth full but that's what it is but everybody you talk to anybody they'll see it at the Reebok and they'll actually go into the Middlebrook place so I'll see it at the Reebok but it's just so easy it is an easy word one of the things when we, Mercury we like the name Mercury but you've got three syllables where it's Reebok too and it's immediate dead easy so that was a good name last question brother see when your dad passed did he get to see you spread your wings and achieve everything that you set out to do he didn't get to see everything but he did see us succeeding and spreading our wings the most saddest thing was my brother because I just managed to get into America we just got the company and got Paul Feynman got our five star shoe and unfortunately he died he got cancer and he died he pushed himself he wasn't a brilliant athlete if you're running with about 500, 600 other runners there's ten who are usually about the same level that you are and you've got to beat all of them and he was physically sick at the end of every race because he pushed himself too hard whether he was cycling, whether he was running and he got stomach cancer I'm sure it was because of that and he died in 1980 just as we got into America so he didn't see the success and I guess what it did it's probably spurred me on to make sure that we're going to do it we're actually going to succeed here we're going to be we're going to get I don't think you dream you're going to be number one I think that's something that happens but I think you want to be a success but you're clearly agile and everything you achieve you're clearly a fighter you never quit you created one of the biggest sports brand on the planet it's an unbelievable story for people watching they'll get tools and techniques to understand that quitting is not an option exit plans aren't an option if you want to succeed it's only you it can fail for coming on today Joe I've thoroughly enjoyed your story your book as well it leaves a link in the description but again you're an amazing man and people get a lot of inspiration from your story and God bless you for the future and keep enjoying life and keep smiling and same to you Jeb, enjoy life because that's what it's all about thank you, God bless