Gary Neville: From Football Legend To Building A Business Empire | E170

that's making me a little bit upset fantastic incredible man it's the owners of that business it's really simple joke i don't think anyone can believe it one of the things that people don't know about you is just the scale of your business portfolio it's quite honestly mental the only thing you can ever do in life is work as hard as you possibly can and never give in what is the cost i basically collapsed the floor another fit i went to hospitality checks and then found that i needed to slow down a little bit and i'd stop doing the things that kept me well and i just run myself into the ground so i knew that that point then i needed to see something manchester united are failing i do feel sorry for the current players and that won't go down well with a lot of manchester united fans these players go out onto the pitch now they feel alone but that's where i am a little bit critical of cristiano you're the star now's not time for throwing your arms around now's the time to make sure you lead those people resilience and robustness and hard work can be taught and learnt i don't think it's something you're born with the minute i joined at 11 to the minute i left at 36 manchester united got everything out of me everything of all the people i always talk about having the influence on my life i never mentioned my mum and her mum and dad they're far better people than i am that's making a little bit upset [Music] so without further ado i'm stephen butler and this is the diary of a ceo i hope nobody's listening but if you are then please keep this yourself [Music] we are a normal working-class family there are no famous sporting ancestors in our in our family yet somehow we want to combine 218 caps for our country at football and netball between us tracy neville mbu my sister went twice to the commonwealth games and world championships representing england 74 times and coached the national team how and why is that possible that three siblings in a family reach sport sporting greatness when there isn't a long lineage of you know the granddad was at manchester united this person was at this club and they opened doors for me i don't know really i mean i'll start at the end because i was having a conversation yesterday about um it was actually how long should you take off after you've had a baby as a couple whether it be the the man or the woman and i was thinking about my sister and she took like two or three weeks off and then she was back at it and also my father passed away seven years ago and on the morning of his funeral i went and presented our projects at michael's at a council meeting and then went and got ready at home and went to his funeral straight after it and someone said to me it's not normal that and my sister my dad passed away in australia whilst he was while he was watching my sister play for the commonwealth games and me and my brother flew straight over there my sister was still coaching the team she never broke stride and he was on a ventilator keeping him alive even though he'd actually to be fair passed away and they were just waiting for us to get over the day after we got there my sister said i've got a game tomorrow we can't pronounce that he's actually dead until after i finish the game i come back to the hospital and when i think of that that's the end i suppose in terms of that sort of that feeling of just that drive that commitment to what we do people say it's not normal someone said to me it's not normal that that we would continue our lives irrespective of and that probably came from my dad and from a mum but i think of it is in different layers for me personally i don't know what it was like for my sister or my brother but for me personally i think of it as being the first layer was my mum and dad their love for sport that commitment to get there early to do things my dads used to say get up early get there early get your job done and then when i got to united i'm hit by nobby styles brian kidd you know manchester united's european cup winners in 1968 and then eric harrison a northern tough yorkshire man who every single day drilled us about what it was to be a manchester united player and then you're exposed to sir alex ferguson and roy keane and peter schmeichel and mark hughes so these different layers of you know monstrous mentalities of people who are just massive leaders we've been exposed to them i was exposed to them and that's why i always say that resilience and robustness and hard work can be taught and learnt i don't think it's something you're born with and i think when you say like how do we achieve that i just think we're very fortunate with our parents and the exposure that we had to brilliant leaders throughout our career and examples and the standard bearers that were next to us learning through words those words that your dad would say to you about getting up and getting at it every morning is a great way to learn but actions i think in hindsight seem to be the best way to to really learn those lessons vicariously from observing our parents and how they're behaving in their lives i know i'll never forget the day that i saw my mum my mom stopped coming home and then i asked my dad where she was and she said oh she sleeps in the back of the shop now this corner shop she was running and then going there and seeing this bag of rice that she was sleeping on that had all these rat holes in it from where the mice and rats had been eating it that visual of that she was working that hard even though she didn't have to to support our family so that she was sleeping in the back room every night and not coming home was was a lesson that i learned without her saying a word yeah what are the lessons that you learned from your because you cited your dad there as being pretty um a pretty go-get-em person how was he functioning and professionally that taught you these lessons he was a lorry driver and he basically worked for constellation luggage which was just luggage you know suitcases and he had to do three drops a week at daventry which is south of birmingham and he each had to get them there basically by the end of monday wednesday and friday but we had we lived in a two-two-down terraced house and every time my dad got up you can hear your dad get up when you're young you just you just hear it because it's obviously that you know the lights come on and you hear the sort of noise the floorboards are creaking and we always get up early as a family anyway but before five o'clock you'd hear my dad we lived in the back we were in the back bedroom and he's he's lorry his wagon was parked at the back when he was doing to do a drop the next day and he'd leave at four or five o'clock in the morning on the monday wednesday and friday he'd take the suitcases he'd wait for the depot to open at seven eight o'clock drop them off and he'd be back and have his job done by eleven o'clock and then he'd start to go and do his what would be his commercial work the fundraising for testimonials the thing that he loved for say for instance lancashire county curricular players that was his passion that's how he got into berry football club as a commercial director and into because he had he had a sales mentality my dad but in the he get his his main job done by 11 o'clock every single morning he'd be daventry and back in a lorry and then after school he'd take us to football and he'd take us to qriket so the amount he fit into a day was unbelievable you know he almost do two jobs he'd do his job which was his main job which was earning him his money which was a lorry driver he'd then come and do the job which would be potentially could he do some sort of like side job selling for like lancashire country club or the green mountain cricket club he did he organized dinners and events and things like that and then his family would come after school where he'd put them into sport would go to united in the evening i would go um we were at united from 11 11 monday and thursday night so this constant drive of trying to fit as much as you possibly can in the day and that's where i sort of the attack the day was from my dad get up get there early let's make sure we're there even at united we get there early on saturday there would never be any risk with time of being late i feel sometimes that that is a good thing it's put that into us but sometimes to live by that now particularly at the age i'm at sometimes you sort of think it's hard to keep yeah it's hard to keep on doing it and you wonder now particularly what we know now whether it's the right i think my dad had heart problems at a very early age at the age of 42. you know he's a lorry driver you know he liked to go for a beer he liked a night out he did too much he got stressed all the things that i did so he thinks there's a lot i can see him without of me but i don't think i can change it really what is the cost because for everyone's i sat here with tim grover who actually coaches a lot of the young united players now yeah coach michael jordan and um kobe bryant for a span of 15 years he was the best soul coach and he said for everyone's greatness the thing that causes their greatness in your case you know that drive and that ruthlessness and that dedication caused you to become a manchester united legend and all these other things but what is the cost on the other side that people don't don't see from he he referred to it as we have our light side and we have our dark side the dark side is a consequence an unavoidable consequence of the light side yeah what was that dark side for you and your dad um health i think and i've seen that in the last couple years with myself i think um physical health no i've had i i i i've said this to be fair on something that i've done myself in last week on the overlap um i actually to be fair um raheem sterling scored the goal in the uh european championships against germany a year and a half ago and i basically collapsed the floor and had a fit and after that i went to hospital i had checks and then found that you know i need to slow down a little bit basically and it's similar things to what my dad was told in his 40s that you know ultimately i do too much i think too much i need to relax more you know to be fair my wife says it quite often you're here but you're not present do you get that oh my god so and justin who's interested i'll do an interview the uh other day with jeff shreve jeff known me 15 20 years and he said the problem is when asking you a question you've got my question inside the first two seconds let's say it's a ten second question you've got my question inside the first two seconds the next eight seconds you're thinking about what you're doing after i can see it in your eyes already and he's right so even during this interview i'm speaking and sometimes i lose my way in an interview and i actually forget what the question was and quite often i'll say what was the question if i'm on stage doing like a q a what did you actually ask me because i've actually drifted off whilst i'm answering the question into something that i need to do later and it's i'm never present so the consequence is that maybe i remember sir alex saying to me mrs children growing up i am missing my children growing up that's a consequence of my life i've been in london for four days you know but what can i do i've got i come down to brentford manchester united i then stay down sunday because i can't get trained back trains there's a train strike and then i'm down doing monday night football and i'll go back today last week i was down for another four days but it's what i do i love what i do i wouldn't change it but this afternoon i'll get back to manchester i've got meetings till six and then tomorrow i'm full all day thursday i'm in glasgow doing a dinner with sir alex ferguson so it is a constant sort of every single day that i feel like i'm filling days with things that i love and want to do but then you say to yourself you do have those odd moments more now why am i doing all this why are you doing this now you love doing it maybe you know it's what you enjoy but you sometimes have those moments don't you wait i have more of those moments i think why am i doing those why have i got two hotels why have i got a football club why have i got a university why have i built an overlap shell i'm already on sky why am i doing these things but it's it's that idea of i suppose cramming as much into your life as possible thinking you've just only got this sort of short period of time and brian kids used to say to us get your pace early you can't make it up at the end and we used to sprint and sprint in our runs and sprint and that mean if you collapsed at the end and you didn't quite finish it or whatever it's better than managing yourself and thinking i'll save a little bit we i have to say the players that i played with at manchester united we never saved anything it was all left out there on the pitch and i think that's how our lives are since as well we just leave everything out there on the pitch there's nothing saved so we just stand up i suppose saturating every single second of every single day i used to think that i was driven i used to think that you know and that sounds like a very good framing i'm driven i'm motivated i thought that's what was because you said why am i doing this after i do this podcast there's maybe you know 10 other companies that i'm running i have zero time in the day and then i try and cram in my girlfriend and my family and do a very bad job of that i used to think it's because i'm driven and i'm just whatever and then i asked myself a question which when i met eddie hannah i saw the same thing i mean his book is called relentless yeah are we really driven or are we being voluntarily driven as in we're making the choice to drive towards something or are we being involuntarily dragged by some kind of insecurity or some kind of discomfort with the prospect of not being busy because for me i'm convinced these days that i'm probably being dragged by an insecurity maybe but i developed a very young age yeah maybe i'm not sure i don't know i don't could you stop i don't feel uh not sure because this idea that you know if you stop it'll kill you and all that sort of stuff slow down i do feel like i need to slow down i read a book i think i can't but it was a few a couple years ago where it talks about you can never really retire if you love work and you are relentless but what you can have is many retirements during the year and that's what i've tried to do i don't do it very well so for instance this weekend i'm going to spain friday till monday morning i caught that's like a mini retirement so that's a weekend it's a weekend it's a mini retirement it's where i basically can say for three days i'm there and um i'm basically taking a you know i don't think about work now i will but and sometimes one of my best my best ideas come when i'm on those types of trips but then in six weeks i'll have another mini retirement for five days or four days rather than thinking you're gonna stop for six months and sort of have a sabbatical that's not probably gonna happen with people like you or i because we just basically don't work that way so to have lots of mini retirements during the year is what i've tried to do in the last few years i'm not sure i'm doing it very successfully i'm not sure what's wrong with us if that's what you're asking is there something wrong with it i don't feel insecure or vulnerable i don't feel insecure or vulnerable at all i feel i feel i feel so confident and i feel not confident i feel like i've got coping mechanisms to be able to deal with things so there isn't any criticism there's very very little criticism that i receive now that even touches the sides of me and i get criticized heavily on social media through my football punditry my opinions whatever it may be because what i went through at united losing that confidence at the age of 24 paul's treble going through that difficult patch where i didn't want the ball seeing the psychiatrist on my own all the doctor knew not talking about it till i was 35 but what that psychiatrist gave me was coping mechanisms and perspective and i just asked you know if i go through a difficult moment now i asked myself the question will i come out of it to the side did i expect every day to be a good day no i don't expect every day to be a good day so when the bad day comes and it's a really bad experience or you ever make a bad business decision did you think you'd make every decision would be a good decision in business no it wouldn't be good you're not going to make the right decision every single day you're going to have bad decisions bad choices bad days so when they come now i can put them into perspective and move on really comfortably so i feel like i'm i don't feel vulnerable or insecure and i'm not quite sure sometimes you know people say i've got a strategy i've got a plan i'm not quite sure any of us have really because the relative is we don't know what door's going to open next you don't know six years ago five years ago that dragon's den is going to come a knock on your door you don't know that you haven't got a clue or 10 years ago certainly you don't know that's going to happen in your life but when the knock on the door comes you think i fancy walking through that door and probably the same with me when things have happened in my life where i thought i didn't expect that to come yeah i'll take that so we are probably being dragged it's a little bit like jumping off you go skiing you have to sort of go off the sort of black slope using there's no way out but you're going down you can't stop and it's a little bit like you know i feel like to be fair my life's a little bit like a black skull a black sloping skiing i've gone over the edge i've started what can i do now slow down say to my businesses say to the teams that i work with sorry i don't fancy this anymore well thanks for that but you've we're here still what what's that i've got no choice i've got no choice you've got no choice we're in do you know why um i read this book called the body holds the score and i was actually speaking to one of my best friends yesterday who was a extreme workaholic and then he started having panic attacks he ends up in hospital and he said to me he said i felt fine but the body goes gives out first the body will you know when the mind is telling you no you can cope with this you're doing fine the body will show you in a pretty um yeah drastic fashion that you're not okay and that you need to listen to it to yourself ever since you you collapsed on that day have you made changes honestly because i'm gonna ask i'm gonna ask you i'm gonna ask emma i did i did i have i think but then it's the actual state it's sustaining the changes and not dipping back into your old habits that's the problem that's what do i do i train four or five times a week i wasn't always training pre that um i try i've got a sleep ring and it focuses me more on the time i need to sleep at night and but then i don't always wear it now you know it's a couple of years later it's in my bag it's here i didn't wear it last night and i'm annoyed with myself because i didn't wear it last night i forgot to put it on when i got back so habits really that sort of do you drift back into your old habits um i try not to pick my phone up when i first wake up but i'm failing miserably at that i'm fairly miserable but i have to take an email off my phone i've taken whatsapp off my phone because they're things that i think work emails if i think if you wake up to an email at four in the morning that's an email that's not a great email let's say it's something that you think i've got to deal with that you aren't getting back to sleep so i've taken email off my phone it's only on my ipad it helps whatsapp i mean what's up announced last week that they were going to sort of this idea that you couldn't um you couldn't be joined in groups and people didn't know when you were online i just felt like it was an intrusion whatsapp i felt like people were attacking me a constant attack of added to groups and they see that i'm online and things like that oh no get off get away from me so i just do imessage now um and i say to people ring me so there have been changes that i've made that are helpful because i do feel email is i love speaking to people so i lived in a dressing room where the camaraderie when you email each other at manchester united charlotte's ferguson didn't email me we had a brilliant team spirit in the club we were there every single day we spoke to each other we socialized with each other we'd help each other we knew each other and that's how you build a team spirit and i felt sometimes email can be i know it needs to happen in businesses i know that you need to see attachments i know you need to communicate with each other i do believe that they can be quite damaging to culture sometimes particularly if the wrong tony on the i think you can be misunderstood on email i think it can come across harsh and they can put pressure on people and i realize that the first five years out of football i was emailing people five six o'clock in the morning but you imagine you know you emailing people at five six o'clock in the morning the impact that's going to have on them when they wake up i've got to deal with that i've got to email them back it's like that's not fair it's not right so i have made quite a few changes but probably not enough yeah i i completely agree i don't i'll be on people this will surprise people i look at my emails once a week so my assistant looks at my inbox and then if there's she puts them on my list and then i go to my list when i'm ready yeah and also with all my whatsapps and all that stuff all notifications off and it's just for me trying to take back control of my time so i choose when i go to it it doesn't notify me that it needs me now and i used to have email dread yeah you know early mornings especially you're running a big company you've got 600 employees or more yeah there's always going to be something wrong there is yeah and it doesn't care what time or occasion it's going to interrupt you there's always going to be and i don't want that anxiety in my life but also if there is a problem and something's gone wrong then just ring they can call you yeah ring me just ring me yeah anyone can ring me and just say look i've got a problem and then we drop everything don't we i always feel like it's the biggest responsibility i have is to the people that i work with and if they ring me and they're in trouble they've got a problem we have to deal with that that's the absolute immediate you always going back to your early years in football and as you came through the ranks you you always and i've seen this in multiple interviews kind of a little bit self-disparaging about your own ability yeah i just played with brilliant players didn't i mean if you think about it just go through the players who i played with yap stam you know dennis irwin peter schmeichel roy k david beckham cristiano ronaldo dwight york eric cantona every single one of them had more talent and ability than i did you know just they just did it it was just obvious around me when i got to united juice about insecurity the only time that i ever felt insecure was when i got to united i got to get at 11 and i joined at 11 and the center of excellence group and we got retained every single year but at four teens where it gets really serious and they start they sign the scot the school boys and the outer town lads come in so all of a sudden you were exposed to them to beckham to scholes joined at 14 all these brilliant players and you think how am i going to survive here i could just i'm aware i know my own abilities um and i had to i had to just do things differently i was a midfield player then i was a centre-back then they need to put right back you know there is an element of truth in what carrick has said no one wants to grow up to be a gary neville meaning no one's gonna grow up to be a fullback everyone when they're a kid scores goals or sets up goals and then you find out that you're not good enough to do that and you get pushed back the team that's what happened with me i was one position away that was the last my last hope right back you know i mean i was out the team if i couldn't play right back i'd gone from center midfielders 11 12 year old at united then sent it back from 14 to 18 and then told i wouldn't i wasn't good enough by my reserve team coach to be a center back at united because steve bruce and gary palace were there and then i go to right back so you are aware that you're being pushed out of your positions by better players and that that's your only route to success is hard work and playing it right back and trying to adapt to that and then it was good enough for me in the end but you know it's not disparaging i i knew the game i could organize i knew the game well i read the game well and um on the pitch i would never ever i would never give in so that around me this idea of being able to organize the team i could see the game in front of me so i had an impact i believe had an impact on the other players that i played with beyond my talent through my understanding of the game and making sure that i never stopped going and we never stopped going we keep going we just keep pushing forward so if we're fighting for a goal you know i always think what's that i never go into this little level of granules i've probably never said this before when people say to me it's the greatest moment in my life i say it's the final in 99 in new camp when we won the treble but that i i made a run from right back i got the corner for the first goal because i went oh i sprinted over to the left wing and took the long throw to put into the box it came back out to me and we got the corner it's not an assist by any stretch of the imagination typifies my career of seven goals and very few assists i am no trent alexander arnold or nor even the dennis erwin but that that that you have to find a way to win you have to just do everything you possibly can you cannot leave anything on the pitch you just sprint everywhere you just do everything and that to me typified what probably i was that i could see something in that you know in terms of how to impact a game whether it be through impacting someone else by getting them going and giving them the ball and get and keeping them at it um and that's why i think he kept me there till i was 36 because it wasn't through ability at the end he kept me there those 36 just through my influence and my impact i had in the dressing room i'm pretty certain of that because it wasn't through anything that was doing on the pitch so i'm always humble around my own ability because of the talent i had around me and that's why i get caught on twitter quite often people will say to me if i haven't been if you haven't been at manchester united you've been a job in right back somewhere like full of my bum i thought maybe i've never heard anyone in a higher managerial position disagree with the phrase that hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard yeah i mean that's one thing i could never ever i could never ever be accused of anything other than from the minute i joined at 11 to the minute i left at 36 manchester united got everything out of me everything and to prefer the club gave me everything so we we didn't owe each other anything and that's something i'm proud of longevity is actually probably one of one of the things that consistency and longevity being able to consistently work hard every single day at a good level of performance and turn up every single day and be there is underrated actually and that that's the thing that to me for surviving at 25 years under alex ferguson in that environment of excellence and demands that he placed on people was you know it was a great achievement but i did that with a lot less talent than the players in the club when was the first time you realized that sir alex ferguson was you re you felt his influence you felt his mindset joe something in the early days it was the old school that head teacher not he's not a head teacher by any stretch of the imagination but you've got a little bit of fear that you may be having your father as well if your father sort of gets a bit angry with you you know that little bit of that dominating male of the 70s 80s 90s probably going back beyond that was was apparent in sir alex ferguson that you know you knew when he walked into the room the room went quiet that was that presence that aura hit the boss's ear and so you felt it straight away when people say to me sort of how did you keep coming back every single year and continue to keep winning what was the secret of that it was by his actions and what what he did i i always remember when i was third when did we lose the champions league final 2009 so i'd have been 34 right near the end of my career i was doing my um we played the champions league final on wednesday we lost we got back on the friday from rome or thursday or friday on the saturday i had to go and pick up my boots at carrington the training ground so it was a sunday morning i had to pick up my boots at current in the training ground to go to saint george's park because i was doing my a licensed coaching badge and it was my final assessment and i went in at seven o'clock in the morning i'd organised to meet with the caretaker who was basically there on site all the time to let me in and i parked on the back and the his office lights on and he's there in his chair i thought oh no i don't want to see him we just lost the european cup final four four days ago so i drove back around the front and went and got my boots and moved out but he was there sunday morning half six seven o'clock the only person in the building with his light on four days after we'd won the european cup final and he'd been in his mid 60s i thought no one could live with that that that's the reason he's winning that's the reason he's because no other manager no other leader that i know four days after that defeat in his off time in the summer he's in his office on a sunday morning at half past six and he didn't know he didn't know i was coming in obviously and he didn't see me either i just thought you could just see him in the distance it was i couldn't believe it and he just all those sort of examples of that work ethic they hit you every single day and he knew how to tap into here he knew how to get you no matter who you were in the dressing room he always used to get me i would say this but i mentioned in my gra you could he used to mention my grandparents what about your grandparents getting up every single day putting their tie on the work that they put in how they never complained about anything you know what they must have lived through obviously in the second world war and he would say things like that in his team talks and it would always tap into me because i used to sit with my mum's dad and look at his medals that he had he got during the second world war he'd had three or four wounds he had shrapnel wounds in his shoulders that he could still show me and bits of metal still in his body and he'd talk to me about the medals and where he'd got them from and how he'd been in holland and how he sort of had to come back and then he went back over how he married my nan on one of his returns back so that used to get me every single time so when i used to play for united when you think about what motivates you what gets you going and you used to mention say for instance grandparents and there's that difficult moment on a pitch where you think we're struggling here a little bit and now i think of my youngest daughter when i'm training what keeps me going to the end of that training session i think of silly things if i don't keep going here someone's going to get my youngest daughter and i'll there's nothing going to get her so i've got to keep going and there is mo it was my it was my granddad my mum's dad i used to think he wouldn't he wouldn't stop going he came back having been wounded twice and trapped the wounds twice and went back out to fight again and he had those medals and he would speak to me about it and i used to think how can i stop but he would he would find that in me sir alex would push you'd push those buttons and press those buttons for someone else it would become something completely different i'm sure it might be talking about the father it might be talking about him going on strike in the government shipyards it might be talking about another experience that he's had but he would tap into everybody in the dressing room in some way that would mean they'd find something to mean they would never give in and that's what he's you know his film's called never give in he never give in but also the influence he had on others never to give in through finding something in them was was incredible rio talked to me a lot about culture and the culture that sir alex ferguson said everest said the same thing having left football now and working in the world of business you might must be looking back on the culture he created yeah and in some ways drawing a lot from that in your own businesses right what what what have you learned about the importance of culture because there was a comment made to me on the podcast that i've never forgotten which is about sir alex ferguson's like lack of presence at the training ground rio said he only came into the training training room dressing ground a couple of times because he didn't need to the culture was in there yeah and then rio talked about how then when ria went and moved on to another club in that same dressing room players are talking about how much money they're making and all of these other things which would never have happened at united now how does how does one create that culture i suppose being grounded he was grounded and he believed in the sort of the work that work ethic was everything to him being proud being proud to work hard being proud of the people around you who work hard uh being proud of your teammates i used to say look around the change room look around i'm proud of every single one of you but look at each other look at what you each do for each other on the pitch and now you can't achieve what you're going to achieve without each other so we made us respect each other not everybody got on in our changing room but most of us did um but he tapped into those things all the time it was it was it was non-stop and being grounded um looking after people little things like wendy used to get the charity balls signed um and roy keane was like this as well so when every thursday we'd have 30 to 40 charity balls that we would sign and then they would go to the children's charities or the different charities in greater manchester or in the country and sometimes you're in a rush aren't you you're a football player you're young oh wendy i'll sign him after i'm in a madras i've got going do my stretching i've got my massage i've got to have treatment whatever it might be that you say on the way in some poor excuse that you'd give or maybe you just generally did and there was one day where he basically i think roy had walked past wendy she was a little bit upset and only five players out the 23 and the squad had signed the balls and roy went upstairs and said to sir alex it's an absolute disgrace this has happened a couple of weeks now he killed us he absolutely killed us the lack of respect to to walk past wendy who was there to get the charity ball signed and not sign them for her for him was a dereliction of duty it was a lack of respect it's not what you do we're equal in this football club we treat each other equally we look after one another we make sure that we're sort of compassionate and the idea of not doing things like that little things like that um i think just little things like that stand out in my mind so now sometimes i walk into the businesses and you know what we're like we sometimes walk in on our phone and we don't say hello to people because with that immersed in our own blinkered sort of space but then i'll walk past sometimes and i'll realize i've not said hello to someone i'll go back and say i'm really sorry and i'll i'll you know i'll say are you okay and i do feel like even when in the office there is no i sit next to people in the office i don't sort of have my own gloss tower yeah i don't i don't i make sure i go and sit in cafe football in the hotel or i'll go and sit in the main restaurant at stocks or at salford i'd just go and sit in the main office because the idea that basically we don't he would he did have his own office and he did his own space and he did to be fair delegate and he would keep his but i i don't think i'm i'm like sir alex in the way in which i now look at my business i do believe it's very different now um but he was very the staff loved him everybody loved him at the club because he protected them he knew everybody's name he asked about the families he knew the family's names he was really really attentive he was far better at that than i am far better in that than i am but i probably to be fair mix with my teams more than he maybe would so but the work ethic is the thing honestly the only thing you can ever do in life is work as hard as you possibly can and never give in and he said you've got that choice every single day really simple that's it the talent you've got you just work as hard as you can every single day and never give in and then you come back the day after and do it again and that's it that's the secret to what he believed because he said the talent is his problem forget talent i've chosen you to be here so i'm telling you you've got the talent don't you worry about that bit what i need back in return is that other bit which is the the focus the commitment the dedication to make sure every single day you get up and you're here and you give your all and you don't give in and that's why i think i stayed where i was because i believed him i trusted in him and now it's the same if someone comes into our business and they've been selected to come in that's because i believe they've got the talent or someone in our senior management team believe they've got the talent all they have to do in return now is go for it and give their all and be enthusiastic and not give in and then come back after and do it again i keep it try and keep it as simple as that i know there's a lot more to it than that but it is it was that simple for us i know then there's the tactics then there's decision making then there's the sort of concerns all the things that go with it but that was the sort of heart i think of every all the messaging that we got from him they almost seem like old-fashioned values what you're saying they are it almost sounds and i'm gonna be honest it almost sounds like what the modern day professional culture might consider to be a little bit toxic yeah you know what i mean yeah this this drive for hard work but i have to say i've never sat here with anybody that's reached the peak of their powers in their career that hasn't said the same but now if i'm in my businesses so i don't things like i i don't have i'd never work the first week in january i think it's the most depressing week of the year after christmas you've had a high and then you go back it's dark it's miserable that first week so i always take it off but i always give the rest of our team in the office that i'm working off as well so i don't make people do what i'm not going to do i'm going away i think in three weeks for five days i said to everybody in the office don't worry about the fact you've got 28 days in your contract those five days you're off have the last five days off of the summer then we'll go for it to christmas also people are flexible working they can come in monday they don't have to come in tuesday they can come in wednesday i trust them to do what they want so there is an element of yeah i want heart i do expect hard work but i also want people to have a brilliant time and sharing the success that we have but also make sure that if i'm off i would expect that they have those times off as well i wouldn't expect them to come in i i don't hate the idea of a work package that's got like you've got 25 days holiday you have to book it in i hate that i hate the idea of restriction i hate it i feel like it's bullying you must sit there in the office i hate it it's not right it is not right don't tell people where to sit how to work you know obviously there is a direction and there is a leadership that's needed but i just feel it's really not acceptable but now this was precovered our office is like to be fair this this this room that we're in here now so someone could be sat there someone could be sat there someone could be sat on the floor over there with a with a you know on a laptop that's how it should be in an office it should always be like that i think i don't think it needed i don't think it ever i don't think you needed colvid to make modern business act properly with the teams that they work with so i i do feel it's very different than how we were at united which is old-fashioned value there's still some old-fashioned values you have to work hard we have to get the job done we know that but why do you have to say that to people i think people know they have to work out and get the job done so why'd you have to say that to them you're looking to tap into them make something unique in your business that makes them want to stay really that's what you saw you may want to make it enjoyable and that can still be enjoyable through hard work i think i think it's quite enjoyable working i know people that work for you yeah because you know we've got a got a colleague that used to work for me that works for you now and they're all very very complimentary so that's supported by that's supported by the evidence that i have um but you're right i've always found that the contradiction there is trust you're saying to your team members to trust you but you're not trusting them and trust i feel like has to go both ways and so and there's and the other what ends up happening when you have those in my experience those very rigid rules is you'll get compliance but you won't get like motivation and as you've described it you want people to be internally driven yeah not compliant because of punishment yeah and that gets the best out of people right it's interesting because um valencia taught me a lot but around that time i was with england coaching with roy hudson um and i'd lived at united where we were we were fined you know nunez got sent off last night for head button at anderson that's two weeks wages at manchester united i got fined two weeks wedges regularly four or five times it happens football it wouldn't happen in a normal workplace but we know sir alex bergson's rules if you violent conduct or um chatting back to a referee you get fined in fact he won't accept it people think alex ferguson was like get after the referees but if we actually got booked for having to go a referee we would get fined so very much quite a rigid thing and then roy hudson said something to me when i was with england and i felt those standards were slipping a little bit one time i can't remember exactly what it was about and i said we need some rules because i had we had a code of conduct at united i was the player's rep i knew what the sort of standards were and he said to me we don't set rules he said be very careful with rules uh he said because it's always the people that you don't want to break them that break them i thought it's quite clever that and ever since there are no rules there are no rules in our business in terms of you must be here you must do this you must wear that you must you know i don't expect formality in in dress i expect people to be comfortable so i don't say you should wear this or you should be here at that time or we should we've got to do that in any part of my bed i don't create rules anymore because once you create rules for start it's rigid i don't believe it's right and the rules are there they're unwritten actually the rules of sort of working hard and turning up and doing your job all the things that the rules are there just they just don't have to be written down um and you know you see what happens if you star player walks in that's breaking because the other ones that you know we were talking about that was set in the low standards it happens if one of the star player walks in and we need to work with the players to make sure that they understand what we expect of them and the standards we don't need to set rules because if you set rules and consequence and punishment then it'll be the one that you don't want to break them and then you're in a big you know you're in big trouble so it was it was a good lesson for him and in football it's very much a different place than a normal workplace anyway it doesn't live by hr rules a football dressing room it doesn't it doesn't you know players are still getting fined players still get told where to be when to turn up what to wear we like it as well i still like it now actually i i like actually being told what to do i actually like it at sky when people say to me gary we're doing this you know i like being told what i respond to it really well because i've had it to be fair but i've been instructed from eric harrison nobby styles brian kidd sir alex ferguson i've been instructed through the 70s and 80s you could not live through the 70s and 80s as a child early 90s without being instructed because that was the form of leadership so we still respond to it a little bit in our own lives but then when i think about my children i don't instruct them i like independent thinking i like them so when people talk about social media or when people talk about you know i was sat with someone yesterday who said i'm fearing my my children were on social media i i always say to them your children should get good at social media really quickly because they have to they have to they have to be good at it so my children are 13 years of age now they bought they're all obsessed with social media with the apps they're on it all the time and you know sometimes we'll say you know that's enough tonight and you know let's come off it but i want them to get good at it i want them to use it and find out what information they can trust and what they can't trust i use twitter now all the time for my well one two debate but also so actually my news my major source of news is twitter it's my major source of news in my life it's really helpful i don't think as a sports journalist broadcaster i could live without twitter you're really important to me so when people say that twitter's a suspect get off it there are elements of it that are but that's a really important thing for me in my life because i find all the sort of articles all the sort of opinions you know all the breaking news is there how can i live without that it's what i rely upon to be able to do my job so when i come off the pitch last saturday sunday doing manchester united totally doing western man city and as he managed to united bid for arnautovic i used to have to wait till the morning after for the newspaper 15 years ago our children aren't like that anymore they want things instantly they see things quickly and they don't like to be instructed we have to collaborate with them there's an inevitability you're completely right to social media and the internet and digital that will actually i believe as well will serve as a disadvantage to them if they if they don't keep up because you can't think of a profession these days that doesn't involve social media or the internet so you're you know in in an effort to try and protect children sometimes we actually cause them a pretty substantial career disadvantage it should be taught at schools it should be on the curriculum social media how to use it when what to use it for how to get good at it the dangers the dangers of it it should be something that's taught it's got to be more useful to them than some of the subjects that they're currently being taught in 2022 yeah you know when you this is i mean this is not a nice topic to talk about because we're both manchester united fans but through all you've been through in the era you grew up in and all of those famous influences you had that instilled those values in you um and even the early initiations you had in that dressing room from the senior players and you know i read about all of that stuff as well when you look at what's going on at the club today even though you're not you're not in the dressing room you must have a pretty pretty strong hypothesis as to why manchester united in 2022 are failing based on what you experienced yeah i think it comes down to a lack of leadership and direction from the top and vision and um a deterioration of the sort of beliefs over a long period of time i said last night actually that um a school that's underperforming over a long period of time and getting poor results gets put in special measures by ofsted and by government and they're not blaming the kids it means that the governors it means that the sort of the head teachers the people at the top of the organisation at the school have not basically set the standards for those children and they've let the school basically rot and the results become poor i think that's what's happened at united it was a high performing school the head teacher has left the board of the governor's left david gill and what's happened since is that they've been replaced with people who haven't got it and poor standards have just meant that ultimately over a period of time there's become an embedded rot and that's what's happened and all the kids the players look now like they haven't got a clue anymore and they're getting poor results i don't believe all those manchester united players that are on that pitch are poor players when they came to the club some of those players i was really excited by their arrivals and i've seen players that weren't as good as them go to other clubs in excel so the environment the culture the yeah the enthusiasm that you need to go into work every single day i don't believe has been created by the hierarchy at the club and then there's been a sort of a a lack of investment into the facilities into the stadium into the training ground so now tottenham liverpool liverpool now live people i used to laugh when i used to go to anfield when i used to compare it to old trafford i used to think they can never catch up they're too far behind they're just building that second stand now behind that left and goal where the away fans sit and we saw it last night towering up the main stand now is towering up and it holds i don't know it holds 20 000. anfield will be a more modern ground than manchester united and old trafford in 12 months that is unforgivable from to think we're not all taking us on the pitch but actually they've overtaken us off the pitch manchester city are light years ahead on and off the pitch tottenham have invested 1.3 billion in stadium you've been to a tottenham stadium oh yeah it's out of this world it's it's uh the best in the world it's a museum it's the best in the world i can't believe what i'm walking through when i see it and yet if you go to their training ground which i've been to it's an amazing brilliant facility that is far better than carrington where we moved to in 2001. we moved to carrington so in 2000 we moved to carrington we left the cliff training ground in salford so it's 22 years it's a bit of investment but in 20 years manchester united have not invested in the stadium they've not invested in the trading ground that much and then they've lost the two main people and before you know it you've got a club that's really struggling and i've said that in the last couple of years the only thing that i really do think can change it now is that is is the ownership and i say that on here more calmly than i say on sky sports but it's it's not an emotive subject anymore it's a very serious issue there is an embedded rot at the club you know that they're walking past wendy's balls now don't you do you know what i mean no is in like signing wendy's balls oh sorry yes personified for me yeah caring about values in every single touch point even the small stuff yeah and so i i was thinking then i can almost imagine now those small expressions of our values as you said they come from the top down yeah are probably now being missed it's funny because as fans we look at the thing we got he's not running fast enough or blame this player or fred or does this play or whatever but when you've when you've worked for me when i've worked in an organization i realized that the values the culture everything starts from the top and if you bring in great and as we've seen at manchester united you can bring in the best stars into a bad culture they'll become bad performers yeah and um i always always said in a business context as well if the culture's strong enough new people become the culture if the culture's weak the culture becomes the new people it's why i was kept at the age of thirty three to thirty six in the yeah because you're a disciple of the course because because raphael de silva from brazil comes in i'm the right back that's the senior right back and who does he look to he looks to me he looks to paul scholes he looks to rio ferdinand and he sees people that are at the very top of the game their experience their end of the careers that's why i looked at steve bruce and brian robson eric cantona i had nowhere to go as a young player i knew i had to do what they had to do else because they were all doing it every single day they've been doing it 15 years i do feel sorry for the current players and that won't go down well with a lot of manchester united fans because a lot of manchester united fans will say they're overpaid and they're chanting it and bluffing it they're not they're not i know some of those lads they're good lads if they were sat here now with me and you you'd be thinking there's an element of vulnerability there there is a lack of confidence they're crying out for help i wish they had sir alex i wish they had roy keane in the changing room with nemanja vidic and rio ferdinand at centre-back and peter schmeichel in goal because if they did they would grow they would thrive they would deliver if the manchester united team today was david dahir in goal patrice everett left back harry maguire at centre-back with varane it was me at right-back in midfield there was roy keane and michael carrick on the left was marcus rashford on the right was jaden sancho up front was martial with rooney or hughes those same five or six players that we're currently saying can no no not not good enough to play for manchester united they would be outstanding if sir alex ferguson was the manager if the culture was still there it's i don't honestly i i that might be i don't even know what i've just said to be fair i've not said it before i'm trying to say if you surround yourself by those people who've got those standards who've got that experience who can cradle you through the difficult moments like we were when we were young players when when people said we won the league with kids we didn't we wouldn't have won the league without the experienced players in that dress room around us and the guidance of alex ferguson they've not got that guidance off the pitch and they've not got that guidance and comfort on the pitch i used to walk out in the tunnel with peter schmeichel in front of me roy keane in front of him behind me obviously david beckham always went behind me but dennis hearing in front of me i felt safe i was 21 22 23 years of age i felt safe i felt comfortable because i knew i was being looked after by experienced people i knew that i was wasn't alone these players go out onto the pitch now they feel alone they don't feel like they've got anybody that's where i am a little bit critical of cristiano you're the man you're the star you're the you're the best player in the world come on now's not time to be throwing your arms around now's not a time to be walking off the pitch now's the time to make sure you lead those people but he wants to leave he wants to go and play somewhere else and that might happen and you could blame him he wants to finish his career at a club that's achieving great things but i do think he is the only player in that dressing room that could lead them because he's the only one that's got the inbuilt resilience and mental strength to get through a moment like it won't be touching him this other than a personal frustration level the fact that he's playing a team isn't giving him the chances the goals the success he wants but on a point of view of criticism he won't be touching him he's he's he's played at real madrid he's played at manchester united he's won five six champions league he's one ballon d'or he's not you can't touch him with the criticism or words it's impossible so he can withstand all his pressure and protect those players on the pitch that's what i think roy keane did with us what peter schmeichel did what cantona did what robson did they protected us if i took prime cristiano ronaldo when he came in from portugal and i put him in today's team he'd struggle each struggle i think he really would struggle without sir alex's guidance without the patience of sir alex and carlos kiros who had that patience with him at the time do you think his career would look entirely it would look different yo you speak to paul gascoigne and asked paul gasco when he chose tottenham over manchester united and he says that if you come to manchester and work with sir alex he feels as though his career and his life would have gone down a different path and that's why i said at the very start of this interview why am i like i am i was very fortunate that i wasn't in the centre of london at 22 being led by experienced players who wanted to go to nightclubs or to bars i was in manchester with dennis irwin and sir alex ferguson and roy keane and mark hughes and brian robson who don't get me wrong they liked a night out but they knew also that that had to come at the right time and they would be responsible and make sure you delivered on the pitch so i i feel blessed and privileged by the influences that i had in my life we talk about influencers now in a different way don't we but actually we're heavily influenced by the people that we come into contact with and that's where your luck comes in in life because i can't choose who i come into contact with in life you know you walk into a business to take a job you don't know that there are 150 people in the business there could be some really good people in there that influence you well and make it really comfortable for you there could be some bad eggs that mean that you have to have a bad experience and influence you in a different way i just got really lucky throughout my career that i arrived at united when they started within the premier league i then obviously had a brilliant manager i had brilliant senior players i had good parents everything was right in my life to influence me to be what i am today without that i'm not the person i am i wasn't gary neville resilient tough mentally strong could handle anything better work ethic than anybody else when i was 10. i wasn't i was a kid just to be fair going to school like everyone else but i had exceptional people around me i believe that helped me i don't believe these lads now in that dressing room have got that around well they haven't got that around them i had a thought crossed my mind for the first time ever this week and as a manchester united we're going to go down well i grew up my birth year was 1992. so i've only ever known great times at manchester united pretty much yeah and it was the first time that i played out the scenario in my head that it's not guaranteed that we return to being champions it's all i've ever known yeah and it was the first time that i started doing the equation of like how do great clubs fall and this is one of the years where i've seen one of the real catalysts is okay so the brand starts to deteriorate they lose commercial deals then great players like harland and nunes yeah don't choose the club then we can't get great talent we then don't have the money to get the great talent at an inflated price which we could have paid in in the first couple years after the downfall and then i'm thinking okay so this could we could there's there's a chance and i hate to say it because i'm an internal optimist it's embarrassing but every year when we do a little school predictions in my football chat i'm like we're going to win the league every year for the last three years i'm deluded but this was the first time i entertained the thought that we might it's not guaranteed that we return to the club we were um i i put us in the top four every i did it last week you know my predictions but you know something i know full well we're not gonna finish in the top four but i have to just because it's the manchester united inbuilt thing that you say we're gonna finish in the top four but that's how our expectations have dipped as well because we used to say we're gonna finish top no i'm convinced manchester united will return absolutely absolutely convinced why it's not arrogance this and it's not because i'm biased and it's not because i've gone to watch the club since the age of five i've traveled around the world with the club for the last 30 40 years i've seen the extent of the fan base the emotion that exists within the fan base the scale of the club and it's two the foundations are too deep but those foundations were created because of like generational success yeah but we had it we had obviously we had the busby babes periods about busby then we had 30 years 25 years before sir alex brought home a league title so we've had 25 years before that we've gone through without success manchester united um is not going away it's not going it's too big it's too big it's too magical it's too good that is not that is not emotion that that is just if i i feel very very strongly about that that is there is an element of cycle here that you know we get in sort of our down period but we shouldn't accept that because i'm happy to lose football matches i'm happy to be fourth in the league third in league sixth in the league if we're doing the right things so have we got a work manchester united should always have a world-class stadium it hasn't it shows our best in class training facility it's always our best in class fun experience he should always buy the best beam for the best players in the premier league he should always have young talent coming through and you should always buy should always buy young emerging talent from overseas it's veered away from all five or six of its key principles and objectives that it's always ever had any business does that then it's in trouble you've got owners that to be fair and now taking dividends out of the club they're taking big large payments in debt out of the club or interest payments on the debt out of the club all the money that the club generates to be fair is not going back into the club and it's now come home to roost they only own 69 70 of the club and they need a billion quid to be able to fulfill those infrastructure projects that are needed their walls are closing in on them and they do need to do something big through partnership or through an investor or through a sale in the next i think six to 12 months this cannot go on that was a watershed moment at brentford on saturday what we were all experiencing in that stadium and i didn't obviously know you were in the stadium at that time but now i know you were and you said you were just compelled to stay because you couldn't leave everybody that i've spoken to was like i've not seen too many things like that in 30 years of premier league and actually i never want manchester united to lose but actually it could have been an important moment and a big moment where you actually start to think like you're thinking could we you know people have said could we be relegated i said last night on television if we bring poor players in this next couple of weeks or don't bring players in and cristiano does leave which i think he may we could finish in the bottom half of the table with a 1.25 billion pound transfer spend in the last eight to 10 years i'm finishing the bottom half of the table and so we are starting to think that way but i've no doubts it's going to return it's it's it's too big it's too good it's fan base is too great it's it's enormous it's it's i go i've been a i've been abroad and watched 15 50 000 people watch us train in thailand and malaysia and in singapore and i've seen manchester the passion still for the club is huge and so it it's still full now yeah it's just i just get concerned that if you know there's another generation that are growing up without the the experience i had and who are they going to choose in terms of you know we'll lose something yeah we'll lose some we have to lose some on the way there was some collateral damage depends how long we go through this if this is two decades then that's a whole generation that never saw what we saw growing up also city city have done brilliant things pep guardiola is a genius the football is mesmerizing the operation is slick um but i say this because it will bring you know criticism from probably some football fans and certainly for manchester city fans it will never ever be manchester united and that's not arrogance it just cannot be what manchester city it can never replace manchester united in terms of scale and size it can win trophies it can win more trophies but it can never be bigger in scale and size it's impossible it does not have the roots the history that it just does not have it manchester united is two sets we'll see i'm i'm not i'm not worried about the long term i'm very worried about the short term um what one of the things that people don't know about you i believe because i was i'm you know i'm fairly well read on on what you do but i didn't realize this is just the scale of your kind of business portfolio it's it's quite honestly mental i don't do all of the meat the the media stuff that you do i'm not you know on on tv all the time presenting football i'm not in that arena and when i look at your business portfolio in mind i'm going this guy does as much as i do from a business perspective but you're not you're not known to the world first and foremost as an entrepreneur maybe that's the second thing people know you as a football legend second second thing will be entrepreneur and the second thing is you don't even like the word entrepreneur not really no i don't i suppose it's like broadcast i don't like the word broadcaster maybe it's like maybe that is an insecurity actually or a vulnerability people say to me you're a broadcaster but i don't feel like a broadcaster i don't feel like i've earned yeah i feel like martin tyler or um you know dez lineum they're broadcasters they're journalists they've they're experienced they do it i don't feel like a broadcaster because i feel still feel young but i'm not young anymore that really in terms of i've been doing it now for 11 12 years and same with entrepreneur if you always feel there's something a little bit can i swear it feels a little bit wanker-ish a little bit but i think to be fair probably i should start calling myself that because i do have there what there is one constant they're all in greater manchester um apart from a media career which can sometimes obviously be in london but they're all in greater manchester in salford trafford manchester city center and i feel very focused around my investments in that and some people would say that's naive you should expand beyond greater manchester no i'm passionate about where i come from where i live and i want to invest back in to that part of the country so the two hotels the football club they develop the big developments that we're doing the university um the project management consultancy all of them in greater manchester and i want to continue to do things i don't think i'll do many more startups although the overlap is a startup but just startups are hard do you think startups are hard oh that's so painful they're rewarding but the pain i mean all of mine have been startups right apart from salford which to face a bit of a startup it was like eighth tier the 170 fans they're all startups so not one of them has been sort of a business that i've bought into which i'm not sure that that's that's the way i like it because we can influence them and we can make them our you know our culture can come into the sort of businesses um but yeah i wanted to do a lot in business but in greater manchester build teams it's the teams part of it that gives me great satisfaction and then yeah i love the sectors that i'm in and it's crazy because when i look at your businesses when i've looked closely at them you run really good businesses as it relates to attention to detail your hotel in manchester the stock exchange hotel i have to say is by far my favorite hotel it's not even close when i filmed dragon's den the first year um all the dragons stay at the lowry even though it was my first year i was like please let's take the stock exchange hotel and i stayed there it's by far in a way there's nothing close to it in manchester in my view no and i have to say some of my so the university i think is more of a social project to trying to be more inclusive and sort of remove the barrier to higher education the football club started off as a sort of a more of a social project in terms of bringing young players through and believing in young talent in football like we've been believed in but then i also have this other side of me which is i want to raise standards we wanted hospitality to be the highest level in manchester and the stock exchange was my ambition to create the number one hotel premium hotel in manchester luxury hotel the same with the development set michael's which we hope to be the new number one hotel in manchester when it's built a new five-star hotel manchester only has one five-star hotel in the city center those lowry's insult but there's like one five-star hotel so then some people will throw at me you know how does that sit with your sort of social conscience that you've got these sort of expensive apartments you've got these expensive hotel rooms you charge 40 pounds for a steak and i'm like i think it's okay to be offended by manchester not having enough affordable housing and also not having high-class luxury accommodation and luxury products i'm offended by both why does manchester all have to be sort of pigeon-holed into this three-four-star market so this idea that in manchester is that you know and i get called champagne socialists sometimes and sometimes get criticized for the fact that they have a university that is trying to improve you know inclusion and and and and access to higher education but then oh neville he's just basically selling developments you know he's he's selling apartments for five six hundred thousand pounds he's he's you know his rooms are 250 300 pounds at hotel football or stock exchange but i'm offended by the fact that we can't raise the standards at sort of the highest level and the fact that we can't look after people and make sure that everyone's got this sort of a house to be able to live in that's of a comfortable size and in the area they want to live so i feel that i'm um a little bit torn between my projects in what i feel but i want high standards in our city i want manchester i'm offended that manchester does not have five-star international standard hotels it offends me that london always has to have these things or that paris you know why do people from manchester have to go to paris or london to experience five-star hospitality and service we should be able to get it in our city so i want to drive investment into our city um and raised the standards that was that was what the stock exchange was about raising standards of hospitality and we got to number one which was really i mean it's but you're right because if there isn't that supply there for the high end then the economy is going to suffer because you're right it won't attract business it won't attract um investment into the city if you know if and that's you know i love coming to manchester because i you didn't pay me to say this but i love going staying at the stock exchange hotel it's better than my house and at the standards there are you know unbelievable politics you've become quite um political specifically on twitter in terms of social issues and using your voice to shed lights on shadow light on things that you feel like are going wrong in politics what is the thinking there joe something i think it's coming look the thinking is that i don't think it's not acceptable to be quiet anymore if you're in a position of influence and if you're seeing something that's wrong it's like your stance on the glazes yeah i think it's got to the point where i was i was quiet when i played at the club and to be fair we were winning so you think well okay winning to be fair covers everything and then when you leave you think well i'm gonna second you know let's let them have time after alex ferguson but it's got to the point now whereby i can't keep my mouth shut on it it's wrong it is just wrong same with uh with johnson eventually his own party got to the same position that i was at and many others it's wrong we cannot have someone like that leading our country i'm passionate about our country are you ever gonna do politics no i won't do politics and the reason i say that is that you know sometimes you have this idea in your head don't you that you think could you go in but the reality is it means that i wouldn't be able to be as honest as i am on television i wouldn't be able to do the sky sports i wouldn't be able to do the media i wouldn't be able to do my projects in manchester because i feel conflicted with different things and i don't think i think i'm more i think i can have a greater influence in greater manchester and with my voice in the media than i would do being an mp for berry south i genuinely believe that i think i get caught up and stuck in the tree called in the mud like everybody else that's what people say about politics just go in there you just get stuck and i don't want to be stuck i want to be able to try and influence things in the private sector away from public sector and we'll get called a champagne socialist for it and will get attacked heavily in the last 12 months by people from the right side of the country in terms of you know i regularly every single day will get attacked for being a champagne socialist when i talk about safer into the stock exchange or i talk about um you know the st michael's development and then they say well how can you be arguing against boris johnson and how can you be arguing how can you be in the labour party there's this idea that you can't be in the labour party and be entrepreneurial and be successful and earn money that the labour party have got to change that perception they've got to change that perception how is it that you cannot be someone who owns a business makes profit hands that profit back to its shareholders and to the teams that you work with create a great environment for them to work pay them well and that you believe everybody should have an equal opportunity how can you not be labor and have those principles because we've been basically conditioned to think that it's only the tory party that is good for business and the labour party has created that it's so true it's one of the things that's really made me feel quite disenfranchised i grew up with in a labour family that i mean i've never voted here in my life but in recent years as i've become more successful in my career i almost feel a little bit sometimes by some people not everybody on the left but some people on the left that i'm inherently evil because of my success like i'm inherently a bad person because i'm an entrepreneur or ceo and that that pushes you out it almost pushes you into this middle i'm not going over to the right but and i want to belong somewhere so you're completely right and i don't think that's talked about enough i was sorry i saw an interview on social yesterday actually in the middle of monday night football and it was an interview it was only released yesterday it was with keir starmer and the gentleman asking him said you know what do you earn and he said hey 130 000 pounds a year and he was about to start a line of questioning around cair's position on um energy and the fact that you can afford the three thousand pounds four thousand pound energy bills this year i was offended by that line of questioning the leader of the opposition in this country politicians in my opinion should be the highest quality of business people and entrepreneurs to be able to deliver the plan that we all want i think that we need to encourage people to go into politics and the idea that the leader of the opposition was being attacked because he was 140 000 pounds because he's a labor politician it's almost like you're a labor politician you shouldn't take the mp salary you should almost donate that to charity and work for like nothing i mean that's just ridiculous so the perception of labor and what people think about labour is that if you're in labour party you have to be on minimum wage you have to be a socialist you have to think like that no you can think in a capitalist way but with some compassion and feel like you can be equal with other people and and spread your wealth and that actually you can want people to be able to afford their energy bills and you can fight for them even if you're in a sort of wealthy position yourself why can't i or you fight for people who can't afford their energy bills this winter just because we have a bank account that's more than people would like it to be i i don't get that i don't get that i don't understand it yeah it's a weird thing i i don't get it we have to change that i think to perception and that's why i joined the labour party to think that actually i can be successful i'm a northern north for a northern family that have done well i've earned good money and continue to earn good money but my principles where i am now even though i'm an entrepreneurial individual who to be fair as profit making companies i can be uh i can be labour i can think with with a social conscience i i don't think that's a problem to me that has to be the future of the labour party yeah you have to say because then you're the leader of it either no no no no no i no no this is enough i like my life i don't know i get criticized as it is but um no i i also have felt really disenfranchised by the left that i grew up um feeling part of for that very reason and i i would love if anything to to see the next leader of the party really speak to that and that would make me feel um energized again about politics you talked about being attacked you've talked about this unbelievable relentless work ethic you have that when i say attacked you get attacked every day on social media but because you've got a big voice you have it's unavoidable you've talked about this relentless work ethic you have and you've talked about how you had that moment where you collapsed one day over the last 10 years our understanding of mental health and male mental health has risen tremendously when i was growing up to have a mental health issue meant that you were crazy that's what i thought that was the stigma we've come so far thankfully from that perception what has your experience been with understanding your own mental health over the last couple of decades and have you ever had a moment where you've gone i need to put my mental health first now because you know other than that collapse moment where you've experienced anxiety or depression or these kinds of ailments yeah i think that obviously losing my confidence as a football player being criticized stopping having to stop reading the newspapers of the day at the age of 24 didn't read a national news didn't read a tabloid newspaper from the age of 24 through to the end of my career why because they were damaging damaging hell um if you read something really critical of yourself in the national newspaper and the thought then millions of people are also reading that particularly when you're young and you're vulnerable it impacts you and you lose confidence and i did lose confidence i lost form got criticized heavily by newspapers would read the newspapers and it would have a direct impact on me physical impact no no direct impact on me in terms of how i felt it would drain me of confidence and then you get you almost then lose more confidence about six months this went on for i also at the time had lost um i had come out of a relationship um with someone i'd been engaged to and been with for seven years so i had two things going on at once once i'd lost my form and i'd come out of a longer-term relationship and at that point i did feel really low didn't tell anybody as you would you wouldn't do back in sort of well what that win 1990 it was 2 000 2000 1990 1999 2024 25 years of age um made two big mistakes against vasco de gama played a poor tournament for england in euro 2000 and it went on for six months but went to see a psychiatrist and i got coping mechanisms i got coping mechanisms things that basically he talked to me about about how to put things into perspective and that dealt with my mental health issues at the time and it also helps me to deal with things that come forward now of a critical nature when you say you were feeling low what were the symptoms of feeling low for those six months not wanting to play not wanting to take the ball on the pitch and confident to take the ball and pass it hiding a little bit fearing games coming forward anxious about games coming thinking about my relationship breakup during matches which is unthinkable for me i remember playing a european game away i think it was either in anderlecht or somewhere like that and actually thinking in the middle of the pitch about my ex-girlfriend and thinking i'm playing for manchester united this is not what's going on and it impacted me in thinking that but then that happens i'm sure to every single football player so i knew that at that point then i needed to see somebody because i wasn't playing well um he sucked me against real madrid in the quarterfinal of the european cup um and had a nightmare absolute nightmare um and i thought i remember we won the league that year at southampton away i remember jumping up there's a picture of me jumping up on the pitch with the rest of the players and me feeling empty and not even feeling like celebrating it i always remember that and it was the worst league that we ever won for me but for others it might have been a great league but for me i just hated that league i didn't enjoy it at all i feel like i just needed to stop and you know i felt like i was spinning on a roundabout and i couldn't get off it i remember saying that to the psychiatrist at the time and they started to put these little coping mechanisms in place so if i get nervous before a game think about what you're going to be doing later on that you're going to enjoy if you have a really bad day think about something simple like did you ask yourself a simple question like i said before did you always think you're going to have a good day every day such a good question i love that question yeah yeah i thought i think i've got some pretty bad days going forward it's like self-compassion almost yeah that's how i do that's how i dealt with my dad did i think that my there was a good chance in my life that my dad would die before me yeah i i i was prepared for it and that's not right but that's how i dealt with it really simply there was always going to come a point where my parents and grandparents were likely to die before me and i would have to deal with that what we can never ever comprehend is obviously losing someone that's younger than you in your family we can't comprehend that that's the unthinkable that's the one thing if you said to me that sort of breaks me um that you know i think i think would break me completely but then on the other side we know that you know my grandparents literally were in their eighties my dad literally was 65 i thought i'd like i'd loved him to have lived another 10 15 years of of course but he didn't but i was able to deal with it through the idea that he lived his life to the full he didn't make those changes that i'm probably not making now he carried on going out with my sister and the mates till 3 4 in the morning having a drink traveling to australia watching her play and you know living life watching united every single weekend doing the things that he loved and you know his life was taken away at the age of 65. so i could almost explain that to myself and deal with it in a pragmatic way some people say you know some people close me i've still not dealt with it five six seven years on because i've not probably shown the proper emotion and grief that i should have done through it but i feel like i have dealt with it i feel like i have dealt with it um just through being able to put those coping mechanisms in place so i always feel we all need those simple coping mechanisms for others it might not be the same as me one of the big things i think of me is definitely training so i blew up at sky one boxing day where i just wrote i always got the sprint to christmas where everyone tries to get everything before christmas and then you just collapse when you stop boxing day one year the only time i've ever missed a sky game uh everton the hull boxing day i was going to hull i woke up in the morning i couldn't get out of bed and i just run myself into the ground i stopped training i was eating too much i put weight on you'll see in the first few years after sky and i'd stop doing the things that kept me well so training now if i don't train for a week i feel terrible not just physically i feel it up here i've got one of those bodies because i've been a football player i know when i've put i feel every chip so i can feel it here i can pinch myself we're all the same as football we had our body fat you know once a week we're weighing ourselves every day because we know that's a big part of our performance hydration nutrition weight is a big part of our performance and so i know it i've lived it for 15 20 years but then i stopped doing that for the first five six years out of football and then you blow up and then you feel awful you look awful and you've got people on twitter sending you you know jesus you're carrying a bit you know what i mean stop eating the chips choose the salad all those things get sent to you and you look at yourself in the mirror and you think they're right aren't they and then you start to think oh i've got to change so you eat a little bit better you eat a lot better and then you train and training for here is it just frees me i i no one likes it i do it first thing in the morning but once i've finished it i feel like i can go and i wasn't doing that so that's the important part of my mental health strategy now is just to feel better buy and the one thing i need to deal with is alcohol cause i like a glass of wine you know like i drink one or two glasses of wine but colvid i drink one or two glasses one every night and then now even now i'm not just oh i'm at home tonight so for the play at home so i can't wait it's one of the greatest moments in my life now tonight you will get nothing out of me between 7 45 and 10 o'clock so for the plane away in newport i'm not going but i'm going to put the feed on on my telly but i'll have a glass of wine and it's a magical moment but i don't need it so i've got to stop doing that we'll find out tonight liverpool are playing 2015 um your dad passes away when i was reading that in your story upstairs and the age he passed away it struck a little bit closer to home because um i feel like in my life my dad has had a tremendous influence on me and i feel like my relationship is not as close as it could be with him and he has outlived all of his siblings but in my view had a much more stressful life and he's 65 and i guess the question i had for you is like what advice would you give for me and is there anything that you wish you had said or done whilst you all behaved differently whilst that person was here that you now know in hindsight um he's the only i don't ring people i don't speak to don't i don't read my brother every day i don't text my sister every day i don't remember every day around my dad every day three four times a day the only constant in my life every single day my dad um advice looking after things what you up to he loved picking the kids up so i made i put his office next to our house as well so that he has basically looked after my stuff as well so for me he was the constant in my life every single day and that constant's gone now and i always say this i've still got him at the top of my favorites and my speed dials and i never move him and it freaks me out sometimes you know when you're clunky with your fingers and you press the button just by mistake because my mum's underneath him you want to remember and some the odd time once a year maybe or whatever you press you know dadmob and it freaks me out a little bit because i think and it makes me get well up a little bit because i think i used to ring him every single day three four times a day just went overnight i couldn't ring him anymore so that's the constant has gone so in terms of advice obviously i don't know your relationship with my my dad's relationship with me was so influential but it would be to i say that i think this sometimes with my mum what excuse have i got not to ring my mum every single day i've got no excuse not to ring my mum every single day for two or three minutes and ask how she is but i don't my brother does my sister does but i don't have that relationship with my mum i had it with my dad i had it with my dad so for me just speaking to him every single day um i i wish you couldn't tell my dad to stop going out with my sister and the mates to stop going out with his mates stop going to the football to stop traveling away to watch united in europe all those things that may have taken years off his life because people people say to me do you miss your dad i say i do but what i miss most is what he's missing with my children and my brother's children and my sister's little boy that gets to me because i know how good he was with him i know i i saw it for six seven years it was unbelievable he adored them and he was starting to slow down because of them he was starting not he was starting to make this used to stay at home to look after him rather than going out but he'd gone out for 15 years and he had a brilliant life did everything you know he did absolutely all those sort of things that you you you read out at the beginning of the 217 caps and the the tournaments were my sister he was every single one of them he was every single one of them he didn't miss a manchester united game i went i walked out onto the pitch 602 times for manchester united and i waved at my dad 602 times there in that spot every single time or in the away ended up to try and find him but that was easy because he was six foot two and he had a massive big wire you know ahead of her and i waved him every single game and if i didn't wave to my dad i could tell i found my dad somebody odd gave me away end you're newcastle away you've seen that the way you sat up in that top bit you're like you're looking for ages and i couldn't settle until i found him i couldn't settle that was one of the things like a superstition whether it's a routine so to miss that from my life i missed that idea of he was just there and i feel comfortable he's there right i'm okay dad anything happened no i know everything's good okay bye bad spot swimming you know anything it's that you know it's that that's so maybe speak to your dad maybe ring him every morning maybe making me first text people say you've you've not grieved that some people close to me do because they're wondering because maybe maybe emma maybe maybe my sister i don't know what phil thinks about it maybe i don't know because i just carried on we all maybe we all carried on maybe we all carried on you know i you know on the day that obviously he died it was only a couple of weeks ago the anniversary of it you know i always text mum you know i miss him so much mum and you know i feel that's the one time where i feel like i connect with my mum and i don't feel like i can even talk to my mum on it because i know sometimes that you know when when you've got parents that you're so close to and then they've been together what you then find is my mum's been unbelievable since you know my dad passed away she's absolutely unbelievable my mum but there are times when we're out for a meal together or i can see it and she'll just disappear and she'll stare into the distance and i know where she is but i can i never say i know where you are mum i know what you're thinking about i don't feel like i ever should say that because it's my mum's space it's my mum's thought and you know it's how we deal with it it's how we deal with it at home we just know because i said to her you're right mum but sometimes maybe they'll say are you all right yeah i'm fine you'd never get anything out of her that's not what you know we don't bring our problems on to each other you don't bring your problems onto each other in our family that's how we do it but that's not right we should talk to each other we should encourage each other but just the way we've dealt with things but in our businesses now in a way we try all the time to encourage people to speak to make sure that they reach out but it's not how we probably act internally there's almost a bit of um i i'm guessing from what you've described him as a lot of that might have come from your father that that or was he a an expressive emotionally experienced but he had emotion to be firm i think my mum's probably less emotional than my dad really yeah i think my dad's quite emotional but again he probably did yeah he wouldn't push his stuff on to others i don't think but you didn't do did you you don't do no i say the 70s and 80s period you don't push your stuff on to others because the parents of my mum and dad grew up coming out of the world war so everything in perspective is that you've not got a problem you've not got a problem we had problems back then so don't you whinge about this but we know in this generation now i think have to adapt and change because there's a consequence to not speaking about these things there is there is they stay stored in the back room and they come out as you know alcoholism or yeah they do addictions and anger we've all seen that in people around us and it shocks and surprises us you know i've got a couple of friends who've had issues in the last four or five years that i would never have imagined would never have even thought and you think have i not spotted that have not seen that how we're not opened up to each other about that it happens it happened that in all walks of our life in all walks of our life so we have to we have to encourage it hopefully that's what we're doing here yeah i hope so when you know i read that you when you look forward at your future you kind of plan in 10-year cycles so the obvious question is what is what is what is the next 10 years about for you because you know i don't i don't feel like i believe that you're you're doing what you're doing because there is some finish line in sight it was like we set up a university i remember the vice chancellor of lancaster said you do realize you're entering into something with no exit yeah i like the idea of that no exit can't sell ua 92 how can we we are you a92 you can't sell your own university you can't in my opinion it's what we are that to me is perfection there is no finish line thing should go on forever that you've created so we don't think short term i don't think short term i never think short term but like i say i think i came out of football thinking the next 15 years were critical to establish myself in business and to try and remove that tag of gary neville ex-manchester united football player that was my target that was my plan so whether that be media would that be in business whatever that might mean so i'm three years away from that i do feel like there are bumps in the road there always are with businesses but i feel like i'm on track i need to continue to keep working hard and focus but i wanted from 50 to 60 to be laser focused and try and work on one particular thing and that would be a result of my previous 30 years in work the football experience the business experience the media experience and bring it together into something that i can go and do that's special i want to do something special in my life um special to me not necessarily especially in sort of you know a greater sense but special to me i had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast my girlfriend came upstairs yesterday when i was having a shower and she said to me that she tried the heel protein shake which lives on my fridge over there and she said it's amazing low calories you get your 20 odd grams of protein you get your 26 vitamins and minerals and it's nutritionally complete in the protein space there's lots of things but it's hard to find something that is nice especially when consumed just with water and that is nutritionally complete and that has about 100 calories in total while also giving you your 20 grams of protein the salted caramel one if you put some ice cubes in it and you put it in a blender and you try it is as good as pretty much any milkshake on the market just mixed with water it's been a game changer for me i wanted to ask you a question that i've asked pretty much i think the last 10 guests as well which is if you were to view your own personal happiness and fulfillment as a recipe of ingredients and these ingredients come in different quantities but together they make you happy when you look at that list of ingredients what do you think is missing from that recipe for you to be completely happy yeah good question or a difficult question it must be good if i can't answer it shut me up on it well i i i this isn't the question but i i've asked the last ten guest that exact question which is you know if you view your happiness as this list of ingredients and it's a recipe do i have that's the problem i remember interviewing tyson fury and he said i said what what what does success look like for you or what does the future last you he said just to be happy i thought how simple is that i never think like that because the goals yeah even with football i never enjoyed it while i was doing it yeah it's crazy though because i just felt so intense so i don't feel like i'm ever assessing what makes me happy or what why i'm doing what yeah i i feel like i'm just like you're just doing it yeah yeah there is an element of that what makes me happy watching salford and winning makes me happy spending time with my children when they're in a when they're in their good space makes me really happy what would make you more happy that's that's what i'm getting at is if what ingredient is potentially missing or out of balance in that recipe i know others would say to be present more what would you say to be on the mountain in ski lodge isolated away from everything it's weird in it i don't know i feel free on top of them i've obviously found skiing after football feels really sort of basic what i've just said you're asking me something really deep no but there's something profound in that that solitude yeah solitude and isolation and not you'll put that helmet on the mask on i'm up on that mountain and i'm free the air's fresh and i feel like wow free from what from this having to talk all the time i think i'm quite no no no no no i think i'm tired i think i'm a little bit tired of hearing my own voice i think that the next thing that i do at the age of 50 has to be something that means that gary neville doesn't speak as much [Music] [Laughter] so the closing question that's been written for you from from our previous guest is what are some words you've not said to somebody why haven't you said them and who should you have said them to i think it would be to my mum that her and her mum and dad of all the people i always talk about having the influence on my life sir alex ferguson i mentioned all the time i mentioned my dad a lot i mentioned eric harrison a lot nobby styles roy keane all the influences i've ever have i never mentioned my mum and without a shadow of a doubt she's the best person that i've ever met in my life and her mum and dad were the best people i ever met in my life that's making me a little bit upset and they were the people who i think keep me grounded every single day because they're just good people who do the right things who look after the family who put their family before everything and i don't do that why does that make you upset because they put the family before everything and would drop anything for anybody in their family their immediate family but i don't and emma is similar emery's similar they're far better people than i am i feel that you know i mean i never tell them because they that traditional you know they do their job they get up they work they look after their family their responsibilities to their family whereas you know i'm floating around so yeah it would be that i think for them to know that that i i don't take it for granted i understand the the importance of of that in my life and in our lives the most i've ever grieved in my life was when my mum's dad died he was the first person that had ever died i was i was looking for my grandparents i was 30 and my mum's dad died and i came home two days after my honeymoon started he died two days into my honeymoon and i came straight home i didn't even break i just got on a plane from the seychelles because i had to because he deserved that he deserved that sacrifice for me to give up the honeymoon and emma was fine with it because he had such an incredible influence on my life gave up all his time for me took me everywhere cooked for me was there three four nights a week i didn't need to do that so there those those three people and there are there are others obviously but i think those three people and you know emma is very similar gary thank you so much thank you um i've watched you for my entire life on tv as a huge united fan growing up um and then obviously even to this to this day on the overlap and what you do across broadcast television and i i think it's amazing and i i've after this conversation i figured out why you've managed to sort of grace so many different industries and reach the top in all of those endeavors um and it's because of that those the set of values that were instilled in you and that that you clearly exude today your relentlessness your focus on hard work and all of these kind of old school values which i think are a little bit lost in our generation thank you for the inspiration thank you you've inspired me so tremendously and your vulnerability and your willingness to be open in that regard i think is going to create a better future in many respects from for young men that are that are driving towards their ambitions and young women but also as it relates to politics and what's going on in our society so you're in a very important person and it's unbelievable that a manchester united um a manchester united right-back has gone on to do all of these things but it's a huge inspiration for me and many many people that are listening i'm sure thank you so thank you huge huge honor i have to say that no one wants to grow up to be gary neville quick one we have a brand new sponsor on this podcast which i'm very excited to tell you about they're a brand called blue jeans by verizon and they are a video conferencing and collaboration tool that has changed the game for our team so i'm so glad to be working with them because as you know one of the most important things for me is when we have a sponsor it is part of my world it is part of my life it is part of my companies as someone who's on calls pretty much 80 of the day building my businesses and speaking to my teams all over the world it's the guaranteed security that differentiates blue jeans from all of the other options that are out there in terms of video conferencing their enterprise grade security means you can protect your organization from malicious attacks and establish real trust with everyone that joins your meeting and that is something there are so many things that make sense and make blue jeans um a better option than the sort of competitors out there and i'll be talking about all of those aspects those features and the reasons why i use blue jeans in the coming episodes if you want to check it out you can head to www.bluejeans.com to learn more [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Diary Of A CEO

Views: 2,626,177

Keywords: The Diary Of A CEO, gary neville podcast, gary neville, gary neville manchester united, gary neville ronaldo, gary neville ronaldo leaving, gary neville ronaldo transfer, ronaldo leaving manchester united, ronaldo leaving early, ronaldo leaving manchester united 2022, ronaldo leaving old trafford, alex ferguson, alex ferguson gary neville, roy keane gary neville alex ferguson, gary neville business

Id: cMCucLELzd0

Length: 99min 38sec (5978 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 17 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/hollow114]

Manchester United is like an F1 car. It's zooming around the race track, it has expensive parts, a great driver, but because the owners refuse to pay for pit stops and a good pit crew. Eventually the car is going to catch fire and explode.

[u/massiveerricson]

I'm glad Gary is bringing so much light onto the ownership. We need more people like him to highlight the real problem.

[u/Gbuchanan1]

Good listen all round although it's obvs GNev centric, not united

[u/SeeMyChodeAndWeep]

Fuck the Glazers

[u/magnifique_7]

Loved the entire podcast. What a fucking legend, Gary is! Sure, his opinions sometimes do my head in. But the fact that he's so self-aware, humble and grounded for someone who's so fucking accomplished in life is fascinating, at least to me.

Also, he talked about his recent health issues due to his workaholic nature, his mental health struggle as a player, and his pain after losing his father. Hopefully looks after his own health and keeps doing what he loves.