George Heaton (Represent Founder): From My Garden Shed To $100m Business Empire! "Work Life Balance Is B******t!", "That Letter Was The End Of Represent!"

Steven Bartlett (0:00)

You know when people talk about work-life balance, what's your honest opinion of that?

George Heaton (0:04)

Kobe Bryant wasn't doing three throws at 3AM for no reason.

Steven Bartlett (0:08)

But there's a cost to that, right?

SPEAKER_3 (0:10)

George Heaton, the founder of Global Fashion Brand, represent, worn by The Weeknd, Post Malone, Justin Bieber. One of the most popular luxury street brands in the world.

George Heaton (0:20)

When I was 18 starting this brand, it was just me and my brother in my dad's shed, figuring out products and where we could take the brand. But then we went from doing 10, 15 sales to like a thousand every day of the week, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000. We were making money at that time more than what we should have in our early 20s. So we were fucking around a lot, alcohol, girls, cars, and we were doing like 35 million revenue and we were like, we're going to do 50 million next year but we don't know what we're doing.

Steven Bartlett (0:48)

Now, the business is doing about $100 million.

George Heaton (0:50)

That's when the realization came that you don't need to be good at business to own a business. There's people that are so much better at things than you. They can lay the foundations for it to become a billion-dollar brand and you can focus on what you're actually good at. That was a catalyst that just changed everything. We're building this. There's no ceiling to what it can be. That was until we got a letter from the... That was the worst day in the business. It was rock bottom. But the best view of heaven is from hell, right? You've got to get to the bottom of that mountain to start reclimbing it. It became this driving force that I thought we cannot stop now.

Steven Bartlett (1:24)

And then what happens? George, what is the mission that you're on?

George Heaton (1:40)

It's just to be the best version of myself, really. Just to show up and do everything at the highest level I can.

Steven Bartlett (1:47)

What influence did your parents have? Because I've heard you talk about your mother and your father a lot, but let's start with your father. What kind of influence did he have on you?

George Heaton (1:54)

I guess when I was growing up, he had a bit more than what everyone else had in my town. So like he had a Range Rover, and he dropped me off to school in that Range Rover, and all the kids thought that was sick.

So automatic, I felt proud of that. So I was like, I want to be like this. Like, what is it that my dad's got that other people don't have? And the way he showed up with my family and how he would, he wouldn't like I've never seen him drunk. Even to this day, I've never seen him drunk. Like he was a role model is like this stoic guy that would just work hard, show up, drop his kids off at school, come to football training every single night. Like he would be there for me. And I think that was just like, even though it was never spoke about in the household, it just like created my own discipline, I guess.

Steven Bartlett (2:41)

Was he an emotional man?

George Heaton (2:43)

No, no, no emotion. I've never seen him cry.

Steven Bartlett (2:46)

Has he ever said, I love you?

George Heaton (2:49)

To me, I don't know. Maybe as a young kid, but not recently, no.

Steven Bartlett (2:54)

What about your mum?

George Heaton (2:56)

Very supportive. She used to sit on the end of my bed every night and be like, George, you got to make it. You got to carry your brilliant sister.

You've got to carry this family on, which was quite a hard thing to take in when I was young. But she just affirmed that every single day. She loved the work I did and the art that I did, and she would try and express that to all her friends and talk about me a lot. It was always something that was kind of, it kind of pushed me a bit, gave me words of affirmation, I guess, confidence.

Steven Bartlett (3:29)

Was that, was her saying that, like a frequent thing? I'm just trying to figure out why she would say that to you versus your siblings, presumably because you're the oldest.

George Heaton (3:38)

No, I was a middle child. But Mike kind of, he was very within himself as a younger kid and didn't come out much and he just did his own thing. Whereas I would express myself a little bit more than him within the family and I think my mum saw that as a way that I could be the carrier of whatever that boat was later down in life.