The Starting Line, hosted by award-winning serial entrepreneur, PR expert, best-selling author and investor Rich Leigh, is the realisation of a decade-long ambition to learn more about the lives and interests of successful individuals, and learn why those people are who they are.
The podcast’s first guest, musician, chef and author Levi Roots, opened up about his time on Dragons’ Den in 2014, where he walked away with £50,000 investment and the support of billionaire Peter Jones, who remains a friend and investor to this day.
Roots also spoke about singing happy birthday to Nelson Mandela. He talked about his time in prison; how his ‘guardian angel’ Theresa helped him shed his birth name Keith Graham Valentine to become Levi Roots, and how at one stage, his Reggae Reggae sauce was outselling Heinz Ketchup.
About being in prison, Levi Roots, who maintains his innocence, agreed that the police planted drugs and a gun, and said,
“I accepted that this was where I was. And it wasn’t until many years later, after Dragons’ Den, when I got famous, that the police officer that arrested me wrote a book. And in the book it literally says how he set me up.
“It was the time of the Yardie gangs, in the 80s. According to his book, they were trying to root out Yardies, and they set me up. I’m far from a Yardie! They set me up, basically. I never knew how or why until this book was written. One of the greatest tragedies is that I was always trying to tell my mum this is not the son that she knew.”
Roots was on the podcast to talk about his new dancehall musical, Soundclash, being performed in Edinburgh until August 28th*.
Leigh’s own violent and tumultuous upbringing set him on a path to breaking the cycle children from his background so often struggle to.
For more than a decade, and inspired by the likes of James Lipton’s Inside the Actors Studio and the incredible Michael Parkinson, Leigh has harboured hopes to find out what makes successful people, from all walks of life, and all manner of starting lines, tick.
The Starting Line is all about drive, ambition and curiosity. The name is inspired by this video, which highlights how various privileges can impact our lives before we’ve even made a single decision for ourselves.
The website for the podcast, www.startinglinepod.com, speaks to Leigh’s background, and points out that the podcast is ‘about not letting your starting line define you and your potential, while keeping a smile on your face, as best as you can, whatever life throws at you’.
Leigh says the podcast and the interviews with guests are ‘all about positivity, success, resilience, perseverance, mistakes and more’.
Rich Leigh, founder of Radioactive PR, who has worked with some of the biggest brands and entrepreneurs, including IKEA, GoCompare, Just-Eat and Conor McGregor’s Forged Irish Stout, and the author of the #1 best-selling book Myths of PR, said,
“Do you want to know the best – and only real – life advice I was ever given? ‘If you get a job, just try to keep it, and Rich – please don’t end up in prison as well.’ At the time, I didn’t realise the impact those words would have on me.
“Domestic violence, drug and alcohol addiction, suicide, welfare, prison, debt collectors, eviction. The police knew all of us by name. The bar to achieve really was as low as the advice I was given above. For many, there is little hope and even less support. I was determined to break the cycle children from my background so often struggle to.”
He continued,
“We’ve recorded the majority of the first series now, with an incredible array of guests, including Levi Roots, The Apprentice winner Marnie Swindells and two-time Olympic gold medal winner James Cracknell. I won’t spoil all of the guests, but I’m so incredibly proud of what we’ve put together – and so grateful, too, for the time the guests have given to this daft kid from Gloucester.”
Episodes from series one of The Starting Line will be released every Monday, from Monday 14th August. At least twelve episodes will be released.
