David Gandy: Highest Paid Male Model Opens Up About Insecurities & Imposter Syndrome | E102

The Diary of a CEO Live, my live show, my live reincarnation of this podcast is coming on tour. And it's coming to a city near you. There's a link in the description below, put your email address in and I will email you when tickets go on sale. Can't wait to see you. (upbeat music)

Everything that people say, "Oh, you're lucky to work with Dolce & Gabbana." And I can say that wasn't luck, it was strategy.

Cut. What's that impostor voice saying is gonna be found out?

It's a good question, I suppose.

Do you have insecurities?

Yeah, of course I do.

Has that ever had a impact on you?

I never believed my own hype. It's very easy once you see yourself in articles and winning awards and everyone's telling you how amazing you are, but I- I suppose I never really did. (dramatic music) I didn't fit in particularly well, and I've seen the extremities of mental health. Me, myself, going to dark periods when nothing would, nothing would suffice, nothing would cheer you up. If you haven't got a thick skin, you shouldn't be in this game. (upbeat music)

David Gandy. At one point he was one of the highest paid male models in the entire world. A beautiful, beautiful man. And so hearing that and seeing how beautiful he is, would understandably make you assume a lot of things about him. But what you're gonna hear today is that those things are wrong and that you should never judge a book by its cover. How is it possible that someone that looks like David Gandy can describe themselves as having impostor syndrome, being low in confidence, and waiting to be found out? He's now become an entrepreneur. He's focused on launching his brand new brand David Gandy Wellwear, and he's taking on a completely different industry. It's crazy, 'cause when you open people's diaries you never know what you'll find, and what I found in David's today was truly fascinating, unexpected, vulnerable, and extremely surprisingly relatable. So without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. (upbeat music) There's a lot of very beautiful people in the world, right? Um, but they don't manage to achieve what you've achieved across multiple disciplines. Whether it's within your modeling career, which is an incredibly competitive-

Mm-hmm.

... space to play and one with, shrouded with huge amounts of uncertainty, or whether it's now in business with what you're doing with your brands there and your investments. So my, my question is, what is it about you in your sort of self-diagnosis that has made you rise to the top in those pursuits?

That's a, a good question to start off with.

And also where did it come from?

The easiest one to say is, is probably the modeling one to, to start off with. And that was, um, I questioned why men weren't in the same position as the female supermodels. And you had the equivalent of the, the male supermodels at the time, and you always have that, but they were never to the l- you know, to that level, um, of fame, of, you know, sort of financial rewards of, uh, as, as the female supermodels. And I questioned it. That, that was all. And thought, "Is there a possibility? Is there almost, I suppose, a gap in the market?" The first five years, no one actually realizes that I, I really didn't do that much for the first five or six years. It was, you know, I... Of course we didn't struggle and it was a lot of, um, k- you know, sort of, uh, catalog work. Earning really good money, but it wasn't what I wanted to do. But I got to work with the likes of Chrissy Teigen and Naomi Campbell and those people. And I literally just observed them and asked them questions.