Modern WisdomGymshark CEO Explains His Strategy For Global Success - Ben Francis
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,001 words- 0:00 – 0:32
Intro
- BFBen Francis
I remember when I was r- I'd done something wrong and I was really, I'd completely (censored) up and I was so upset. And I was expecting my dad to sort of come and go, "You know, Ben, everything's gonna be all right." And he just sat there and he went, "Well, what are you gonna do about it?" I don't want someone just to sit there and stroke my ego and tell me that everything's gonna be okay, and I'm okay the way I am. Because I think that over a prolonged period of time can definitely lead to entitlement. I think it can lead to softness and weakness, and I don't think it's the right thing in the long term.
- CWChris Williamson
Ben Francis, welcome to the show.
- BFBen Francis
Thank you for having me.
- CWChris Williamson
You
- 0:32 – 5:36
Common Traits of the Highest Performers
- CWChris Williamson
have had the fortune of speaking to some of the best operators on the planet.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
What are the common threads, the most common traits that you've found between all of the high performers that you've spoken to?
- BFBen Francis
I feel like there's the obvious ones, so they're very organized. I feel like there's the basics, right, organized, articulate, intelligent, the things you would expect of anyone who's a, a great operator. I also think that, that they tend to be better people than what you think for the most part. I feel like there's this, there's this view that there's this evil group of people that sit and control the world in a way, and I'm, you know, that might well be true, for all, for all I know. But certainly in the people that have run some of the really successful businesses, they tend to be really, really great people and great individuals, and really, really helpful. And a lot of those people have really helped me, and there's, um... I mean, people will know that Gymshark have, had a great relationship with Shopify for a long, long time. And Tobi, and particularly Harley who run that business, have been endlessly helpful to both me as an individual, I mean, even other people that work in the business, but our business as well. Um, and I think Harley really resonated with me and he continues to resonate with me because he is such a good human being, and the, the fact that he has such a well-balanced work life but also home life I think is, that's really interesting to me and it's been massively inspiring.
- CWChris Williamson
What's an example of Harley's work and home life showing up in a way that you found inspirational?
- BFBen Francis
Well, there was a few. I mean, there's many. But the, first and foremost I think, this is, this is gonna sound so basic and some of these are gonna sound so trivial, but he's always happy to see you. Like, which is, which is really cool, right? And he'll, I think he remembers people's names and there's those sorts of common traits. And he will not remember this by any stretch of the imagination, but we were working in Germany a few years ago, a f- few years ago, this is pre-COVID now. Um, and I think there was something particular he had to do, it was like, say, 9:00 PM or something like that. We'd been working through the day. We did like, the talks and the events and all that, and then everyone went for food after. There was probably a table of 12 or so people. Um, but I knew that he had, had to get off by let's say nine o'clock. And it was actually, it was a really good conversation, it was a really good chat, and I think everyone was really interested in him because it was a lot of Shopify's largest merchants there. And literally like clockwork, at 8:59 he stands up, shakes everyone's hand, he knows everyone's name, and he heads off and he goes to bed and just sort of carries on with his day. And that level of efficiency, albeit to him was just probably just something that was so basic and normal, to me that was, that was really, that was really interesting because it would've been so easy to stay another 30 minutes, another 45 minutes, another hour. And I know the things that he wanted to do, by the way, is he wanted to get off 'cause he wanted to speak to his family and he wanted to prepare for the next day. And I think those little things over a prolonged period of time really add up, and, and being able to watch him and observe him do that I think was interesting. Um, and it, listen, it's, it's similar with other people. There's, um, there's a guy who, who's based in London that runs, I think it might be the world's biggest digital marketing agency, a company called AKQA, a guy called Ajaws, who is just, like, a really, really good human being, and he just, he, he seems to maintain relationships with people over a really, really long period of time. And that doesn't happen on accident. And by the way, bad people, f- in my experience, aren't able to maintain relationships with people for really prolonged periods of time. So having met lots of different people, I would say I've definitely been pleasantly surprised with the fact that they generally tend to be good people rather than bad people.
- CWChris Williamson
We were talking about this before we started. This conversation I had with Hormozi where he said that, uh, "Ego will keep you poor rather than make you rich."
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And I don't know, man. You know, the, a lot of the people that I spend time with, the operators that are slick and that are able to do it over a long enough period of time-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... by design, if you're a prick to everyone-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... you'll get found out.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah. I really believe that. And I think there's, there's, there's this other thing as well, and again, just to put it into context is Shopify is a business that, I don't know, it must be 40 times, 50 times bigger than Gymshark, minimum. I don't know what the numbers are.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you know what its revenues are per year?
- BFBen Francis
I, I don't know what its revenues are, but it's, I know it's, it's just vastly, vastly bigger than Gymshark. And, you know, we might never, ever be at the si- the size or scale that they are. And I'm sure I've got a very limited amount of information that I can give to someone like Harley that he hasn't already heard from people that are far more intelligent and articulate-
- CWChris Williamson
Remembering that-
- BFBen Francis
... and so on than I am.
- CWChris Williamson
... Harley, Harley and Tobi's company is the company that facilitates your company.
- BFBen Francis
Correct. Yeah, exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BFBen Francis
I would think they might-
- CWChris Williamson
You're like the, the grandchild of-
- BFBen Francis
Of, of the Shopify business. And I-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- BFBen Francis
They might. I don't, I don't know that... If they're not, then they're one of the biggest employers in Canada. But I feel like every time that we're talking, he is trying to learn something from me and I'm trying to learn something from you. There's not this whole thing of, "Oh, here he is, he's a small fry. I know everything." It, it's that mentality of always being open to learning, I thought, and I, it always surprises me. And it's the same with Ajaws as well. It's always like, "What are you seeing? What are you interested in? What excites you? What mistakes have you made?" And then I'll obviously talk them through that, and they'll sort of help me out and give me feedback. But this consistent way of being open-minded as well, I think that's really fascinating.
- 5:36 – 11:30
Can You Be Outspoken as a Public Figure?
- BFBen Francis
- CWChris Williamson
Talk to me about the problems that you have of being a person with opinions-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... who has a private life, who has a missus, who now has a pair of twins, congratulations.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, and, and you have insights and views around the world.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And yet, as a young guy, you also have to play the role of being a very sanitized, very...... public-facing, acceptable, don't-rock-the-boat CEO.
- BFBen Francis
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Do you ever find conflict between those two things?
- BFBen Francis
Yeah, absolutely. And I try to manage it in, in the right way, 'cause you're right, I've got very specific opinions on things. And for example, my opinion on the Lord Hill review, I don't feel the need to run off on YouTube and scream about it. We write a very logical, very formulated letter to the government, and to be fair to them, they respond, right? And we have a, we have an ongoing dialogue. I'm not gonna move the needle, I'm not gonna change anything. They probably don't care what I've got to say, but at least I've done my bit, right? So, I, I'll put my opinion forward in, in the right way and the right place, and there are certain things that I would like to talk about publicly because of, you know, whether it's the content I consume, the things that I read, and, and the, I guess my viewpoints on th- uncertain things. But then again, I also see other people, um, again without naming names, that come from a completely different industry and then started talking about politics, and I think just stay in your lane, like you don't know what you're talking about. So I want to make sure that if I ever do talk about certain things, I want to make sure that it's a really well thought out opinion, I'm compe- completely bulletproof, I completely believe in it and back, you know, back what I'm talking about. Um, but you're right, being a CEO of a, of a consumer-focused business, you know, we wanna, we want our product to be available to everyone and we want lots of different types of people to buy our products, and I don't want to alienate anyone because of my personal views, and rightly or wrongly I am intrinsically linked to the company I founded when I was a teenager, and I think that's just... I think I don't see how that would ever change, and I would love to talk more publicly about certain things, um, but as I'm sure you're aware of, the more you speak, the higher the level of risk and ultimately the, the higher likelihood you have of alienating certain people at some point. I guess for me it just de- at what point do I make that decision?
- CWChris Williamson
Well, do you... Are you bothered? You know, could you go the rest of your life having private opinions that are kept private, or do you feel, uh, a bit of discomfort about the fact that you don't get to maybe proselytize about stuff that you do personally, genuinely care about, but may be, uh, the sort of thing that... And we're not, you know, we're not talking about like-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
You're not gonna go full Kanye here.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like the point is just that you have viewpoints-
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... personally, and the world has, uh, lost the ability to take someone's viewpoint in good faith a lot of the time-
- BFBen Francis
Right. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and would read into it. Uh, it's for instance, right? So, um, the Rogan n-word compilation video from a, a year ago or a couple of years ago, what the world attempted to do there was say, "See, here is the tip of the iceberg-"
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"... that proves that Joe is the unspeakable, bigoted, racist, misogynistic heathen that we've always said he was."
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
The way that this usually works is that there are vacuums in terms of what you know about a person.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
There is a small incident that occurs that the press and people that don't like them take as being representative of the entirety of their being.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
They say, "This is the tip of the iceberg, below it is this sort of murky cesspool of, of terrible things that they believe."
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
The reason that Joe particularly was protected was that most people had seen the entire iceberg.
- 11:30 – 18:03
The Hidden Challenges of Being a CEO
- CWChris Williamson
personally, what is it that founders don't know about the challenges of being a CEO? Because this is-
- BFBen Francis
Oh, wow, where do I begin?
- CWChris Williamson
... a journey that I know-
- BFBen Francis
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... that you've been on, you've flip-flopped in and out of.
- BFBen Francis
So the thing, so the thing is with being a founder is... I- i- the job, which I've never known in any other job, the job literally flips on its head dependent on the scale of the business and the time. So it's almost like there's peace time, there's war time, and then there's scale. And the, your approach has to be completely different, and to get a business from 0 to 10 million-... you essentially have to be very, very dictatorial. You tell people what you want. People will tell you this isn't going to work. You ignore comments, you ignore feedback, and you do what the hell you want, and you force your business into success. This is my experience, right? I'm sure there are other people that have had different experiences, but that was my personal experience.
- CWChris Williamson
Why? Why do you need to be dictatorial?
- BFBen Francis
You have no time. You take high level of risk. There is no, there is no time for discussion. Generally, what you're trying to do hasn't been done before. There is no data to back up what you're thinking. You need to grow quick.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- BFBen Francis
And like, listen, we i- in that period, there were several times that we risked everything we had to get to that next level, and oftentimes the risks make no sense. Because again, in the, in the... and granted the numbers are, the numbers are smaller, right? But it's a case of we're doing 250,000 in revenue. Our ambition one day is to do four million in revenue. You need to risk the entire house on hopefully getting to one million.
- CWChris Williamson
What was some of those inflection points?
- BFBen Francis
So for me, it was the first events that we did. So we did one event, it did well, and what you'd normally do in a large business is you do an event, it does well, you sit there, you analyze the data, you understand what the ROI would be if you were to do five more. It's like, no. Like, in the early days, in that one to ten, that purely entrepreneurial phase, that gut instinct phase, is you do have, you have no time to do any of those. So we did our first event, it went well. We then signed up to loads of events, and then we went from just doing Birmingham to Birmingham, Germany, Australia, uh, two in the US.
- CWChris Williamson
Was this when you exited Body Power?
- BFBen Francis
Yes. No, this wasn't, this wasn't, this wasn't when we exited Body Power. We did Body Power and it went really well, so we re-signed up for-
- CWChris Williamson
Rolled it out.
- BFBen Francis
... Body Power and then we kept going. And-
- CWChris Williamson
Got you.
- BFBen Francis
And there, there was a point, I think it was about two years after that, where we'd managed, we'd basically managed to get about a million pounds in the bank. Am I... You know, being in the West Midlands and having a company with a million pound in the banks, that... Y- you've never heard of anything like it. It was the most insane thing ever (stutters) in our early 20s. And at that point, you've sort of got something to lose. I'm like, "Oh well," like, you know, if we, if we just gave up now and we just split the money-
- CWChris Williamson
It's a million pounds.
- BFBen Francis
You know, Mom and Dad's mortgage is paid, I could live happily-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah.
- BFBen Francis
Maybe not now, but it feels like you could live happily ever after. And then we bet the entire house on going again, on stock, on events, and you do that again, and again, and again. And then s- and this is what I mean, so from naught to ten, you essentially do what the hell you want. Ten to 50 is that bit where you have an understanding of the fact that you've actually got something to lose. Because for, for me, between one and ten there was nothing to lose. Ten to 50 in revenue, there was certainly something to lose, but you're filled with this adrenaline, this excitement, and this, and this momentum that you just do it and you just go. And at that point, you're really starting to hire people. So the, the whole thing of ignoring what everyone says, it just starts to go away, because if you're doing 50 million in revenue, you're doing a million a week, the likelihood is you probably have a handful of staff that are helping you manage that. If you just ignore what they say and do what you want anyway, then going back to what we said earlier, that has a, that only has a certain period of time that that can work for. And then what you find is the larger the business gets, the more that you rely on other people, the more, or the less that you're in the detail, and then the more that going off and doing becomes either more explaining and inspiring as the business grows. So it's, I don't... I mean, very occasionally, but I don't really... I would never sit in front of a sewing machine anymore. But... and I don't sit down and sketch out products and try and work out exactly what I want, but I need to work out... And this is, this is my big challenge now, right? Trying to scale Gymshark into a truly iconic British brand and a global brand, is how do I inspire people to create product that fits in with our overarching strategy that I'm really proud of and pleased about, that also excites the customer, and is of a high quality? And it's all of these things, and trying to get the right people in the right roles, and there's always so many emotions involved and conversations, 'cause other people have differing views, and what I can't do, again, is just go, "It's my way or the highway," 'cause that only has a, a certain lifespan to it. So the development of being a small entrepreneurial business, which is a lot of telling, to a large-scale business that works with people from all around the world, deals with tens and tens of millions of units of stock, has relatively large financial risk compared to where we were previously, um, and is trying to become an iconic brand that is now competing with some of the biggest brands in the world that have bank balances that are 10, 100 times larger than ours, that's where it becomes a fascinating thing, because it's more about... It becomes significantly more of an intellectual and social challenge than it does this just sort of adrenaline-filled thing.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Do you miss that?
- BFBen Francis
Not really. There's times I do, but when I actually sit down and think about it logically, I get to sit in an air conditioned office and travel the world now, whereas before, when you're screenprinting and it's November and it's minus three and the hose pipe's frozen over and you're trying to clean off the screen, it's easy to say, "Oh," and romanticize those times and say, "Oh, I love those times. They were so exciting," which they were. Like, my first time going o- out to Ohio, I've never been to Ohio in my life and didn't bring any coats or warm weather and I land in December and it is freezing and I've never seen snow like it. And those are cool, romantic memories of the growth, and whilst I do enjoy it, it's easy to forget about how hard those times were, and forget about the fact that there was once a point when I stood in LA just about to get on a flight home and I thought that when I landed home, there wouldn't be a business to go to, and I was trying to work out, do I go back to uni, do I go and get another job, do I go and try to start again? All of these different things. So, it's easy to romanticize the early days, and it's easy to think, "Oh, my job now is hard and it's cumbersome and it's slower than what it used to be." Um, but I'm an eternal optimist, so I would say I would like to think that it's the best now it's ever been.
- CWChris Williamson
There will be a lot of people listening that
- 18:03 – 24:33
How to Delegate Effectively
- CWChris Williamson
are side hustling, building a business from that naught to 10 million stage.
- BFBen Francis
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
During that time...... for businesses that are maybe, uh, less consumer focused than yours-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... but for many, they'll need to relinquish control.
- BFBen Francis
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
They will start being the person that does everything.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And even if you're at one mil or two mil, like-
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... you, you can't be the person that does everything. You can be a hard charging, telling everyone to do it-
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What is your advice to people that struggle to delegate, that struggle to relinquish control-
- BFBen Francis
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... that struggle to bring people in underneath them and, and have the faith that they're going to do it?
- BFBen Francis
Well, I think the first thing I would say is I think you need to really understand yourself. Because for me, I, I, I was fortunate in the sense that I managed to work out what I'm good at fairly quickly. And then, literally, it's quite simple, these are the things I'm good at, these are the things I'm bad at, draw a line between the two, outsource the things that you're bad at. And I also think that you don't want... Don't be precious about those things. Those things could be simple, they could be complex, but go off and find people that can do it, and get the best people that you can afford. I think in the early days, I think that's really, really important. So when... In the very early days of Gymshark, I was well aware that I didn't really understand operations, logistics, finance, and quite frankly, people, anywhere near as well as I needed to. So brought in a great CEO, and he was chief exec for, I think, five or six years. I think six years, Steve was. And he managed all of those things for me.
- CWChris Williamson
So your, your incompetence was a competitive advantage in that regard-
- BFBen Francis
Correct.
- CWChris Williamson
... because you felt like you, you didn't have any ownership, you already knew where your weaknesses lay.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
They were staring you in the face.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
So there was no problem with relinquishing that control to someone that was evidently much better than you at it.
- BFBen Francis
Which is easy to do if your ambitions for the business are larger than your, than your ambitions for yourself. Because the risk-
- CWChris Williamson
What do you mean?
- BFBen Francis
If your ambitions for your business are larger than your personal ambitions, then you will put yourself into any role necessary for the business to succeed. If your ambitions are larger for yourself than your business, then you will ensure that you're at the top of the business at all costs because your personal ambition is to be top dog. The thing... The reason that having Steve come in as CEO was particularly helpful for me was, it almost had a bit of a flywheel effect because Steve came in and covered my weaknesses instantly. So from a business perspective, you get a huge tick because Ben's now not doing things he's not very good at. Ben's only doing things that he's good at, and we've got someone who's very good, Steve, at doing the things that Ben's not very good at. So almost like in the list of things to do, you can almost tick everything then. The next thing that that had is it meant I could not only double down on my strengths, so I would move deeper into the business, and I actually ended up doing a chief of brand job, a marketing job, a tech job, and a product job. So I got C-suite experience across four different parts of the business. And I have sat in factories, I've, you know, sat across the table from people like Google and Facebook and Shopify, worked with athletes, been to pretty much every event that we ever ran. I got to do all of these things, which are... very, very few people get the experience and, and the, you know, the opportunity to do. Then I could also sit with our CFO and our CEO and learn about finance and ops and go to distribution centers and warehouses and things like that. And I could sit with our CFO and I could say stupid things that made completely no sense, I could ask stupid questions knowing that if anything went wrong, there was essentially this safety net beneath me of both the CFO and the CEO.
- CWChris Williamson
Someone who's less incompetent.
- BFBen Francis
Which is perfect, right? Because the... what you want, if you want, if you want to improve rapidly, it's a bit like if someone gave you a test, if you were doing your A levels now, and you can do the test once, you'd probably do relatively well. You give the test a go, you get a C. But then you get the test again, and you get a C+, and then they'll give you the same test again, and you get a B. And then slowly but surely, you get better and better, and then we'll try another test. And that's what it felt like to me. I had five years of failure withou- without consequence. And that is, if you could... if you had a magic wand and you could draw the perfect environment for learning, it would be failure without consequence because you can literally just throw yourself at anything that you want at any given moment. And that-
- CWChris Williamson
How could... Uh, have you got any advice for... That sounds fantastic, failure without consequences is amazing for a learning and iterating process. Is there any advice that you would have for how somebody could integrate this either into personal, professional, business life so that they could do this more and iterate on that learning process?
- BFBen Francis
As an owner or-
- 24:33 – 27:55
The Biggest Risks Ben Has Taken
- BFBen Francis
- CWChris Williamson
What's the biggest risk that you've taken with Gymshark over its entire lifespan, do you think?
- BFBen Francis
Um, I think it, I think it all varies, doesn't it? So the, the first events that we ever did, because we risked everything on the event to being successful, and if the event weren't successful, then we would have run out of money. So that, that's without a doubt one. I mean, personally leaving, like I was the first person in my family to ever go to university. I didn't finish university, but that whole thing of call, calling up my mom and dad and going, "You know, this thing I've worked really, really hard for, I'm now gonna leave it." That, that was a personal risk, albeit not a financial risk. Um, so and we've done, we've had plenty of financial risks. Ten- they tended to be earlier on in the process. Um, those would be the main ones. A- again, this is gonna sound really bad, but the financial risks never really frightened me too much, and the reason for that is, is when I was, when I was a young kid, I did, um, the first ever, I guess, experience of work for me was working on work experience for my grandad. My grandad lines furnaces in the Midlands, so brick, ceramic, fiber, laboring job. I basically just did labor, labor for him. And he would tell me, and he's a one-man band. It's, it's not, by no means, a, a huge business, um, but he love, he loves what he does, right? And he would tell me about how he risked everything he had on a job where he was basically building a furnace that was due to be sent out to Germany, and for whatever reason, there was this point in the process where it could have gone horrifically wrong, and he would tell me from the age of, I don't know, 12, 13, 14, very young anyway, about he would sit there and think, "Am I gonna have a roof to put over the, my mum, her sister, my nan's head?" And when you've been, when that's been drilled into you from a young child that my family have taken those risks and that level of risk, and I spent a lot of time with my grandparents growing up because my mum worked nights in the NHS and my dad would often work away and things like that, the r- the, the risks that I then take aren't, aren't that big. So the take a million quid at 22 years old on events when worst case I can go back to university and get another job at Pizza Hut. It, it never felt frightening in a way. It was more exciting.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think that that's because of your optimistic mindset?
- BFBen Francis
Yes, and high l- high level of risk tolerance. I think I get, I get... I really enjoy things like that. Like risks like that really excite me.
- CWChris Williamson
That's something that I'm trying to get better at, um, taking risks. I'm, my disposition is very, very, uh, conservative-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... iterate very slowly. Uh, it's meant that I've basically made zero mistakes ever when it comes to business-
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... but the fact that I've made zero mistakes is probably an indication that I should've m- taken more risk on.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, that's something, again, British culture, I think I would say, very much discourages risk.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Overall, very, very just softly, softly, slowly, slowly, like-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... you know, limit, limit your, uh, potential upside but also massively limit your downside-
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... as much as you can. We've spoken a lot about sort of business, the operations of business, but like fundamentally what you are doing is encouraging fitness-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... in the world, right?
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like it's facilitating people, uh, feeling better
- 27:55 – 32:10
Today’s Need for Fitness Content
- CWChris Williamson
about their bodies, thinking about the way that they train, the way that they show up, not only just the physical but now moving into the mental-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... as well. What is different about what the world needs from fitness content now-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... compared to when you started?
- BFBen Francis
Very good. So I think, and I'm speaking about the content I consumed, right? So I was a kid, I was skinny, and I just wanted to build muscle. That was it. Like I'm not gonna sit here and go on like I had some greater goals around fitness personally. I wanted to be ripped, muscular, pretty much like every other 18-year-old guy that was probably around during that era. I was inspired by Greg Plitt. I was inspired by Zyzz. That, that, that was my, like Rob Riches, people like that, like not necessarily the big bodybuilders but the people that were ripped and shredded, and that, that was my personal ambition. And it felt like that, that was very much, uh, definitely the bodybuilding industry was definitely around that, because even if you think, if we think, if I think back to when I first got into fitness, the big bodybuilders didn't really get into social media. They were almost like, they almost looked down their nose a little bit at that new era of people that were coming up. Um, so when I think back to that era and then you have the Matt Auguses and the Chris Lovatos, this is where Gymshark started to come along a few years later. When I think of that era of people versus now, it's interesting because it feels like the mental element has come a lot more into it, and I, I, when I talk about the mental element, uh, I feel like people talk about mental health all the time, and I do think it's important, but it's, it's so much more about... it's almost like maximizing your potential holistically rather than, you know, having a good mental health and good physical health. I would say it's slight- it feels slightly harder now and more direct than what it was, and it also feels a little bit to me like male mental health seems to be being talked about a hell of a lot more than what it was previously. Um, and I don't know how to put this, in a more masculine way. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
How do you mean?
- BFBen Francis
I think when you think about people like Andrew Huberman and things that he talks about, and the way that it, it feels a bit like people are, men are being encouraged to be more manly, for lack of a better term. And I don't see that as a negative, by the way. I think, I think that's a massive, massive positive. Whereas I'm not saying that there was an opposite before, but I just felt like that thing didn't exist, and I think that it's interesting because over the years-... before it was, "How many bicep curls do I need to do a week to have big arms?" It's almost like everyone knows that now. And if you wanna... If, if you don't know that, if you're a young 16-year-old kid joining the gym, you'll f- work that out within a week on YouTube.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- BFBen Francis
So then people are now going a lot deeper in this, in, in terms of like, "Okay, so how, how do I become a better man in general, rather than just how do I have bigger muscles?"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. "How do I show up in the world?"
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I think that's a really nice way to frame it, that previously, uh, you know, when we were starting training-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... it was, uh, the Misc Forum on bodybuilding.com.
- BFBen Francis
I spent a lot of time there.
- CWChris Williamson
cr-
- BFBen Francis
Got abused on there as well.
- CWChris Williamson
I bet you did.
- BFBen Francis
Ooh.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, like Christian Thibodeaux, T Nation.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like all of this, like, that kind of world. No one knew what macros were.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
E- no one knew if blueberry extract was actually going to be the secret to your muscle gains.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Then-
- BFBen Francis
It was very bro science-y. And it was like, "If you don't have a protein shake within 30 minutes of finishing in the gym, you will lose all of your gains."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BFBen Francis
"And you need to have your creatine every 30 minutes."
- 32:10 – 37:55
How Development Impacts Male Mental Health
- CWChris Williamson
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, and how it's not just about turning up and looking good. It's not just about talking about mental health. And I had a problem for ages. For the people that are listening from the US, there was a campaign in the UK called It's Okay To Talk, right?
- BFBen Francis
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
And this was trying to encourage men to open up about mental health. And I always felt icky about it. I always just... It didn't resonate with me.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
I thought... I, I'm very passionate about mental health, suffered with bouts of depression throughout all of my 20s.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, was the person that needed to be spoken to by this.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And yet it takes, you know, like a Canadian psychologist, or a Stanford professor-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... or like a bald MMA commentator-
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... or a neuroscientist that's into meditation to start talking to me in a way that made me genuinely consider my mental health, what I've reflected on. The reason I didn't like It's Okay To Talk is, well, fucking no surprise. Like, obviously it's okay to talk.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, what's the next step? Like, give me something that I can actually use here. And the other side of it, and this I learned from Adam Lane Smith, great psychotherapist-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... he said that male depression gets treated like female depression.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Men are made to feel loved and accepted when they want to feel capable and powerful.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And the problem that we had there was that you were treating male depression and male mental health like female depression.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah. Uh, it's interesting as well, me and, me and Noel talk about this quite a lot as well, in the sense that if I think of growing up... So I d- I had a great upbringing, right? I remember there was a few years ago, uh, someone stuck a camera in front of me on Gym Shark has come up and said, "Tell me about your terrible upbringing and how difficult it had been," and everyone that said no. And I was like, "I am not doing this," because I had a brilliant upbringing. I've got great parents, great-grandparents. And when I think to the way my mom raised me, in a very caring, loving, thoughtful way, and then I think about the lessons that my dad taught me, there's two things that really stand out. This is gonna sound really basic. Once I rode my bike over my neighbor's lawn and he grabbed me around the scruff of the neck and he said, "You respect other people's property. You never do that again. You go and apologize." And it was very much tough love. And that, that for me was the, the male role model, was be tough, be strong, be respectful. And there was ano- there's another one, and I remember when I was re- I'd done something wrong and I was really... I'd completely fucked up and I was so upset, and my, that my mom wasn't there for whatever reason. And I was expecting my dad to sort of come and go, "Oh, you know, Ben, everything's gonna be all right." And he just sat there and he went, "Well, what are you gonna do about it?" And that feeling of, "Ben, you have to be strong and you have to take control of the situations, and you have to take control..." And he always told me, he said, "You, you know, you have to be mentally strong. You have to be mentally strong." It was something that was drilled into me from a young age. But that thing of, "I don't want to be coddled. I want... I just want the truth and I wanna know what I've got to do." I'll work it out in my own head how I get there, but I just... And that, I think that speaks back to that thing that you've just said of it's, it feels like it's m- things have to be much more tangible. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"What are you gonna do about it?" Rather than, I don't want someone personally... And maybe I'm different to others. I don't want p- someone just to sit there and stroke my ego and tell me that everything's gonna be okay and I'm okay the way I am. Because I think that over a prolonged period of time can definitely lead to entitlement. I think it can lead to softness and weakness, and I don't think it's the right thing in the long term. (laughs)
- BFBen Francis
Certainly not for me.
- CWChris Williamson
It's one of the problems that you have between male and female communication.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
All of the guys that are in relationships will know that sometimes they're having a conversation with their missus-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- 37:55 – 44:36
The Challenges Facing Men in 2023
- BFBen Francis
- CWChris Williamson
A lot of your audi- uh, Gymshark especially is particularly unique in that it's split. It, it kind of came up, um, focused very heavily on male influences.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And now I would guess you probably sell more...
- BFBen Francis
Women's wear.
- CWChris Williamson
... women's wear.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Right? So you have this kind of odd flip. But you have been, uh, on the front lines of observing male identity-
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... masculinity and its challenges.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you think about masculinity in 2023 and the challenges that young men are facing?
- BFBen Francis
God. Um, I, I definitely think that coddle, the coddle culture certainly isn't helping from a male perspective. I think, I think we're s- we're starting to see more good male role models in what feels like the last three or four months. Like recently it feels like there's more great m- male role models that have sort of, that have popped up, whi- which I think is helpful. I think, uh, I think I saw something that you said previously around point to me, point, point me towards a great male role model, whereas now I can p- think of at least three or four, whereas previously I definitely couldn't. I think that's, that's helpful. And if I think to male role models previously, especially for me growing up, other than, other than footballers, as a Brit, I genuinely can't think of any.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- BFBen Francis
Um...
- CWChris Williamson
What does it say that men need those role models though?
- BFBen Francis
I think everyone needs a role model. I think it's important to have role models. And I think you pick different people for different things. I don't think there's one archetypical male that exists somewhere that does everything, that, you know, has great, uh, muscle mass-
- CWChris Williamson
The full package.
- BFBen Francis
... is highly intelligent, yeah, is all these sorts of things. And, and that's what personally I'll do. Like I'll have people that inspire me from a fitness perspective, from an intellectual perspective, and, and so on. So I think having that helps. Um, I think it's tough. I think because personally for me, I'm as inspired by someone's personal life, particularly now, as their professional life. Like, uh, put a bloke in front of me who's a billionaire, it's f- it's cool and everything, but you'd rather have 1% of their wealth with a wonderful family life, and you, you know, have a great time with your family, you love your job, you challenge yourself intellectually. That full package to me is significantly more important than, than just a, uh, a numerical financial figure. But I think that may be... I think men might also skew that way the older they get, and as their life circumstances change in the same way that mine have. Because if you'd said that to 18-year-old Ben...
- CWChris Williamson
Give me the billions.
- BFBen Francis
Oh, yeah. I think I would've taken that every time.
- CWChris Williamson
So many of the, um, trends that we're seeing, I think, at the moment can just be explained by cohorts of guys and girls arriving and then phasing out into new areas of their life.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
So you could say that, uh, uh, so many people w- And, and this is stupid, right, because everybody is born... each day there is someone born.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
But they congeal together into a culture that moves as a group.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And then there is another bubble behind. Can you imagine why-
- BFBen Francis
Well, definitely that, 'cause I think you and I grew up in different parts of the UK and have been on very different journeys. But I think if you, if we were to write down every year since 2006, I'm sure we probably have had similar views and experiences on a lot, on a lot of things.
- CWChris Williamson
Correct. We've tracked a lot of it.
- 44:36 – 49:52
Is the Body Positivity Movement Good or Bad for Women?
- CWChris Williamson
that has happened over the last 10 years particularly has been the body positivity movement.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
When Gymshark first came around, those leggings that had the line under the ass crack-
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, at the bottom that, like, accentuated-
- BFBen Francis
That's right.
- CWChris Williamson
... bums and so on and so forth. Um, women and their, uh, challenges in terms of roles, I think... I'm terminally online, I spend all of my time thinking about human nature and how it relates to the world around us.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
We're talking a lot about sort of masculinity and men's problems. I flew out to Qatar to have a debate about this only two weeks ago.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
If I was to, like, pick a trend at the moment that I think in five years' time is going to become the new existential crisis, I think-
- BFBen Francis
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... it's girls. I think that we have insane rates... Well, we do, we know that we do, the Pew research just came out about this, unbelievable rates, it's like one in two to, like, 60% of girls in their teens have serious depression or mental health problems.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
One in two, right? It's unbelievable. So I think that that's coming down the pike. I think that it's something that we need to be concerned about.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
But given the fact that you've seen a lot of changes, uh, and one of them has been the body positivity movement, you have wife that was involved heavily in the fitness world and was doing the influencer stuff, have you got a viewpoint on that? Have you got a viewpoint on the challenges that women have faced and, and, uh-
- BFBen Francis
Yeah, the... (sighs) So I think the interesting thing with that is, and to be honest with this, I think there's points where I've had conversations with Noel, I think we pushed it too far at points. And there, this is the thing with, with, with running a company. You're running a company here, there's this thread of trend of conversation and you need to straddle the line between the trend and the conversation and then the consistency of where you want the company to go, and there were definitely points where we strayed, I think, too far towards that body positivity conversation because I think it got hijacked and went too far.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- BFBen Francis
Now the one thing I would say is I was a skinny kid who wanted to build muscle, and we at Gymshark don't believe that a skinny male in the UK that wants to build muscle, we don't believe that his ambition to... and his desire to go to the gym is any better than an American girl that wants to lose weight, right? You're in the gym because you want to improve and everyone wants to develop, whether it is muscle building, you want to run a faster 5K, you want to deadlift 300 kilos, you want to lose, I don't know, 30 pounds of fat, 50 pounds of fat, whatever it is, we don't tier goals. We say that everyone's goal is equal. And again, I think that's become more relevant to me because I wouldn't have said that 10 years ago. It was f- it was six pack, si- six pack abs or bust was the ambition for me. Whereas now it's very, very different. So I think that, th- from that point of view, that, that's what I, where I think the message needs to be. The bit where I start to get concerned is when people start to promote unhealthy physiques. And that's not to say that different physiques shouldn't be shown, but to promote an unhealthy physique and for me to suggest that that unhealthy physique is somewhat right, beneficial for an individual, that's what concerns me slightly.
- CWChris Williamson
And this is on both sides of the fence, right? You can look at the guy-
- BFBen Francis
Male, female, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... that walks around... You can look at the guy that walks around at 5% body fat and say that this is-
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... a, a, a well-balanced weight.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Meanwhile, testosterone's in the toilet, hasn't had an erection in six months, irritable.
- BFBen Francis
Some of the people that I know who have some of the most incredible physiques you've ever seen have the worst relationship with their body, mentally. And you'll know that as well as I do. People don't step on stage in some of these huge competitions and, and some of them are absolutely fine, some of them have deep-rooted mental issues, which is why they're putting their body through such trauma. And I think most of those people that are smart realize that they can only do that a certain amount of times before the risk becomes too high. So you're right, it's, it's not just people that are overweight, it's people that are literally bulking up beyond all doubt and then dieting themselves on the verge of starvation in order to win a competition. And there's... You're right, there's extremes at both ends, but I, I think the, the thing that concerns me is just the fact that I don't think we should be promoting the extremes in a way that suggests that, that they're healthy. I think there are certain elements where you can-... understand, admire, whatever you want to call it, the extremes. So if I- I- I'm massively inspired by, if I see a picture of Dorian Yates, another guy from Birmingham, Phil Heath, I mean, even like, it's like-
- CWChris Williamson
It's just because of the accent. It's not the photo, it's the accent.
- BFBen Francis
But even closer to home, like Ryan Terry.
- 49:52 – 55:36
How Ben Has Adjusted to Having Kids
- BFBen Francis
They are 14 weeks today, I believe.
- CWChris Williamson
Right, right. They're fresh-
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... they're fresh out of the oven.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
I remember listening to a podcast that you did a little while ago where you were reflecting on a conversation that you had with your EA.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, and she said something to the effect of, "You're not gonna be able to do this when you have kids."
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, and you'd said, "Ah, mañana, mañana. I'll deal with it when it's in front of me. D- d- don't need to worry now about that."
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, given that you are now at the coal face, what have been the lessons, introspections, changes that you've noticed over the last 14 weeks?
- BFBen Francis
Oh, God. Well, first and foremost, I- I was wrong. So Zoe was right. She was saying that you're not- you can't continue to work, I don't know if it was in this rate or in this way. I think it was more in this way when you have kids. And the, and the reason was, is very obviously my life and gym- and gym shut just blended into one. It was a seven-day-a-week job. I'd sit there and I'd work on a Saturday, on a Sunday. On a Monday it would be fairly loose and free and open. I would just work all the time, cool. And I- and I love my job and I continue to do so, so I- I wasn't sat there thinking, "Oh, God, I'm annoyed that I'm working on a Sunday." I thoroughly enjoyed it. And the fact that I would travel a lot and I'd be away for lots of weekends and things like this. Whereas now all of a sudden having kids, I want to be at home on the weekends. But the work is still there. So it's gotten a lot more intense for me in the sense that, again, we just did a trip out, um, we did it- we did a trip to Colorado a few months ago and what we'd normally do is fly out on the Saturday, look around on the Sunday, maybe go up to Breckenridge or somewhere like that, relax. Work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, fly home Friday, make a leisurely journey back from Heathrow on a Saturday. Whereas now it's fly out Monday, work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, fly home Thursday lunchtime, land home Friday, walk through the front door and have a child thrown at me, sort of thing.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BFBen Francis
So it's- it's very, very different. And like, it, I would say I've become significantly more purposeful in my time. And- and- and that's in every- every facet of my life, right? So if I'm at work, I'm at work, and if I'm at home, I'm at home. And previously I'd be tapping away a lot more on my phone. I've started to, like, turn my phone off on Sunday afternoons. I'm gonna try and do that potentially for a whole day on Sunday just so that I'm present and with them. Um, the travel, more present when I'm at home and at work. And I think things like that, it's certainly made me think. And they're- they're still very young, right? They're newborn at the moment, so they're not necessarily noticing if I'm on my phone, but I'm very aware of the fact that within a few months I don't want my kids to have a dad that was just messing around on his phone all the time. And-
- CWChris Williamson
There's an interesting insight that I learned there, uh, again from Adam Lane-Smith, which is a lot of the time parents are considerate and becoming increasingly more aware of their kids using devices, right?
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you want your child to have to be only distracted by YouTube for kids or whatever?
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
One of the things that a lot of parents don't consider is the fact that if they hear that ding-
- BFBen Francis
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and the ding causes mom or dad to look at the phone-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... the child's relationship to the phone and the relative amount of attention that the parents have with them is something that is very, very quickly forgotten. I think, and you know, again, don't have kids, can't wait to be a dad, but when I do, my, uh, grand idea of how I'm gonna have a relationship with technology may get thrown out of the fucking window.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
However, I think that there is like a really, really good argument to be made that if you're in the room with your kid, the phone shouldn't be in there as well.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That if you want to use a device, step outside of the room, because we just do not know what second order consequences there are of your child playing second or third string-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... to something that's in your hand.
- 55:36 – 1:13:10
Helping Children Learn to Overcome Difficulty
- CWChris Williamson
the opportunity to give your kids-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... materially, opportunities that you didn't have as a kid.
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
The lack of opportunities that you had, the exposure to your uncle or grandad-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... that was making stoves and risking it all on a 100 grand stove or whatever that you're shipping to Germany-
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... has formed you into a person not only that you're proud of-
- BFBen Francis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... but one that has objectively been able to become quite successful.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
How do you consider marrying the difference between giving your kids the opportunity that you have materially whilst putting them through the challenges that you know were formative and important for you to get to where you are now?
- BFBen Francis
Again, I ... That's what I'm thinking about a lot, and so me and Robin have spoken. So they're definitely not going to private school, so that's something that's important to me. I know ... I'm the sort of person that reads into this, right? I read all the papers. There is a dramatically higher likelihood they will be, quote/unquote, "successful" if they go to private school than if they go to, I don't know what you call it, a normal school. They're not gonna go to private school. I mean, if you speak to Robin, she wants to home school them. I'm, I'm not quite on that boat yet. I'm happy just-
- CWChris Williamson
I think that's an American-
- BFBen Francis
I'm happy for them to go to a normal school.
- CWChris Williamson
... an American/Canadian influence, heavily.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It's very rare over here in the UK.
- BFBen Francis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
America, Canada, a little bit less rare.
- BFBen Francis
Although she tells me that that movement is growing rapidly, but I haven't looked into that yet.
- CWChris Williamson
Yup.
- BFBen Francis
Um, for me, I think it's important to go to a normal school. I think ... Listen, they're gonna grow up in a nice house with nice things, and they're gonna be able to have connections to cool people and great people, in a way, but I think, for me, it's about just bringing them up in the right way and the way that my parents did and the way that my grandparents did. It, it was really important to me that they were born and they would have the opportunity to spend time with my grandparents, th- their great-grandparents, which, you know, touch wood, at the moment, they can. That's really important to me, because they have a completely different viewpoint on life.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- BFBen Francis
So similar to pretty much, I guess, every kid in the UK, both of my, or all of my great-grandparents on the male side all fought in the war, right? My grandparents, who I spent a lot of time with growing up, would tell me stories about what it was like growing up when they grew up. My nan would talk to me about how, in her garden, they would grow one vegetable, next door they would grow another, and they would all share at the end of the week because that was the way that it worked when, when they were rationing. My other grandfather, who I worked closely with, tell me about when his dad came back from war and the difficulties in the family, and the family split up because of different issues he came back with, and I felt fortunate to spend so much time with my grandparents growing up 'cause I didn't, I don't think I had a conventional upbringing of someone that was born in 1992. I had this weird mix of someone that was born in 1992 but then also a 1960s-style upbringing 'cause I spent so much time with my grandparents as well, and they-
- CWChris Williamson
That might-
- BFBen Francis
... taught me so much.
- CWChris Williamson
... account for the tradition.
- BFBen Francis
Yes, which I think it does. They taught me so much and ... because of the amount of time that I spent with them. So I think for me to somehow instill those values and beliefs in my kids is really, really important to me. Um, how I do that, I don't know, because some things you just have to learn yourself, and one of the things that I learnt myself that I, that other people couldn't, for whatever reason, teach me, was, I had this feeling of, "I just can't wait to get out of, get out of the UK. I can't wait to get out of England. I wanna go somewhere else."
Episode duration: 1:15:46
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