Life after Big Brother – Phil Edgar-Jones OBE on career highs and crushing lows

[00:00:00] Kimberly: The Imposter Club is brought to you by talented people, the specialist executive search and TV production staffing company run by content makers, for content makers. Welcome to The Imposter Club, a podcast for people working in TV to admit that we are all just winging it. I'm Kimberly Godbolt, director turned Talent Company founder and I glean secrets from influential figures in the creative industries every day. Spoiler alert, more successful people than you'd ever realize, still feel like a fraud, but you don't get to hear their stories. That changes right here in this podcast.

[00:00:44] Kimberly: It's my mission to discover how you can carve out an award-winning career in the company of self-doubt by asking respected senior people to share their stories of career fears and failures and what they learned from them.

[00:00:58] Kimberly: Come on in to the Imposter club

[00:01:02] Phil: I'm already having imposter syndrome, thinking I'll be the worst guest you've ever had, and it'll be a massive disappointment.

[00:01:09] Kimberly: Phil Edgar-Jones is one of those infamous names in TV. That even if you're not quite sure why, you know it, you do. For some, he was on that golden era of slightly naughty live TV, like the big breakfast and the word. For others like me. He was our big boss on big brother. And even if you didn't [00:01:30] work on it, his name is likely to have been burned into your brain. From that last page of credits you saw over the course of his 10 year reign. And now he's director of sky arts and entertainment. Commissioning series like portrait artist of the year with his team overseeing series like a league of their own. When I email pitched Phil to be part of the imposter club, I fully expected I'd need to put my negotiation skills to use. But he pinged me back within minutes saying, if you want to talk about imposter syndrome and failure, you've come to the right place. So, let me just say, this is a somewhat surprising and incredibly open conversation with such a senior and experienced industry legend.

[00:02:14] Kimberly: So go grab a coffee and don't miss a minute.

[00:02:18] Kimberly: Phil Edgar Jones, welcome to the Imposter Club.

[00:02:21] Kimberly: How are you feeling this morning?

[00:02:23] Phil: Well, I'm feeling very impostery.

[00:02:24] Phil: I'll probably be the worst guest you've ever had, so it's a good start. So we're, hitting the right tone, I think. But yes, no, I'm, I'm good.

[00:02:32] Kimberly: as, as all good hosts do, I was, reading through what, you've um, , been up to over the course of your career.

[00:02:38] Kimberly: And

[00:02:38] Kimberly: we're gonna talk about some of those moments that have been pivotal in your, in your career and how self-doubt has played a part in that. Um, and, uh, one of the most amusing things I've come across already that's equally has set the tone is on the RTS website.

[00:02:55] Kimberly: Phil, you say even before that, this is all in the third [00:03:00] person because they're writing about your career, two paragraphs of awesome accolades and credits . And then before that…He was a rubbish TV presenter on Movie watch and Games World Live. Thankfully, all tapes of this period have been erased.

[00:03:13] Phil: I think. No, I, I, I think, I hope I wrote that it wasn't just somebody else. Yes, I was a rubbish TV presenter very briefly. And, um, uh, this is not even imposter syndrome.

[00:03:25] Phil: This has actually been rubbish. So I, I did do the first, the very first series of movie watch. It was in the 1990s, uh, with the wonderful Johnny Vaughan actually. Yeah, I did that series and then I kind of just didn't get asked back. It wasn't like I got fired or, or

[00:03:40] Phil: told I was

[00:03:42] Phil: I, yeah, basically ghosted.

[00:03:43] Phil: . Do you know what? There wasn't even email at the time. I think I phoned up and nobody even answered the phone to me. They'd all left. So I just didn't get asked back again. And then I did another presenting job. I managed to blag that, so I presented this show called Games World Live, and I used to have to do the OBs, uh, and it was, this is so long ago, right?

[00:04:00] Phil: It's pathetic, but you, it was kids playing video games from an and through the studio using touch tone telephone technology. So this is on your, on your dial

[00:04:11] Phil: up phone. It was before mobile

[00:04:12] Phil: phone stuff. That’s amazing.

[00:04:13] Phil: Anyway, I also didn't get asked back to the second season of that. So, so

[00:04:18] Kimberly: Well, what can you do? Maybe presenting wasn't your thing then,

[00:04:22] Phil: not, Definitely not,

[00:04:25] Kimberly: congratulations on the OBE.

[00:04:27] Phil: Thank you.

[00:04:28] Kimberly: Uh, I didn't notice that on any of your [00:04:30] emails.

[00:04:30] Phil: You know what I, I, funny enough, I was thinking should I put it on my email signature? And then I thought, no, you just look like a bit of a dick if you do that. I put it on my LinkedIn, cuz that's, that's, that feels like, you know, that's industry and posh stuff.

[00:04:44] Phil: But I got this email from the cabinet office and said, oh, you've been nominated for an obe, fill out this form and tell us if you're gonna accept it. If you don't want to accept it, fill out the form anyway and tell us why you don't want to accept it.

[00:04:57] Phil: And I immediately, of course, thought, yeah, someone's playing a joke on me and, and this is, or they've made a mistake, they've got the wrong Phil Jones or Philip Baker Jones or whatever. So I phoned them up and said, is, is, is this real? Is this a real thing? Yeah, I, no, it's a real thing.

[00:05:12] Kimberly: Why, why do you think you felt like that?

[00:05:14] Phil: Well, I suppose you just think, I just feel like a bit of a chancer, don't you? And, and, um, and you don't know how it's happened or who's nominated you or what the system is that makes it kind of work or, you know, why, why in particular why you've been sort of singled out.

[00:05:30] Phil: And it's a really lovely thing because people take a bit of trouble to do it and it's really heartening and lovely, but obviously you feel so guilty because you think, really…me? Do I deserve that?

[00:05:43] Kimberly: Philip Edgar Jones, OBE. It does have a lovely ring. I, I think you should be bold and stick it on your signature. You've, you know, deserve.

[00:05:51] Phil: Oh, okay. Uh, I'll, I'll do that. My wife. I did say to my wife, shall I do it on my signature? She said, don't be, don't be an idiot. Don't be, don't [00:06:00] be showing off.

[00:06:00] Kimberly: No. Well look, we're gonna get into a lot of that. What I really wanted to do with the Imposter Club is to welcome people along to a safe space. So people who make TV creative content, who can come and listen

[00:06:13] Kimberly: to successful people. don't cringe. You're not allowed to cringe when I say that cuz you are. Talk about those times where they have

[00:06:23] Kimberly: felt like an imposter, where they have doubted their own ability, where they have genuinely failed at something but found a way to navigate their way through it onto other things.

[00:06:36] Kimberly: I feel like everyone else in the TV world think that others have got their shit together and they're the only ones that haven't.

[00:06:46] Phil: That's so true, isn't it?

[00:06:47] Phil: Yeah. And I say a little bit of self doubt is not a bad thing. And I look, I accept I have been really successful and very lucky, and also work really hard. So, uh, and I'm, and I'm think I'm pretty good at what I do, but there's definitely been moments along the way, and I'm a bit older now, so I can reflect on things and look back on things and I feel a bit more comfortable in my own skin,

[00:07:07] Phil: So, you know, those, those moments, don't quite feel as catastrophic as they did at the time.

[00:07:13] Kimberly: Yeah. Okay, great. First off, tell us a bit about how did you get into the industry, Phil? Did you, go through school and uni and, and straight into, work?

[00:07:21] Phil: So, I, I didn't do very well at school. Truthfully. I was quite, uh, uh, destructive people. I, I've [00:07:30] diagnosed with ADHD later on in life, but, kind of, wasn't a thing at the time, I guess.

[00:07:34] Phil: Um, so all my report cards obviously used say, easily distracted. So looking back, that's kind of quite obviously what was, what was going on. I didn't succeed at school and I, I was gonna go to Stirling University to study English, and I kind of got a place and then pretty much didn't do well enough in the exams to get, to get the place. So I went to a college, I did a kind of media studies type degree and stuff, uh, and I was always quite interested in getting into media. Grew up in a place called West Kilbride in Scotland, then moved to Edinburgh.

[00:08:02] Phil: Um, and there weren't really that many opportunities up there. There weren't really opportunities in media down here. It's be honest, unless you'd been to Oxford or Cambridge, uh, in the, in the late eighties, early nineties. So I came down to London and I got a job in a publishing company as a Subeditor. So that was, uh, you sort of correcting spelling and grammar.

[00:08:22] Kimberly: When you came to London, did you know anyone there? Like, did you have places to stay? You know, how did you manage?

[00:08:28] Phil: No, no, but I got a job by this little publishing company before I'd moved down. So I moved down and lived in a, a bedsit in Turnpike Lane for a while.

[00:08:36] Phil: It was really lucky, the publishing company I worked with everyone was in their kind of twenties, you know, it was. An extension of college. It was brilliant. It was good fun. That's where I met my wife and, and we, we had a sort of great time, really. I used to go around all the magazines doing all the spelling and grammar. Uh, so women's own, new women, um, hello Magazine. I used to do that. It was, it was that kind of thing. And then I started to write a, [00:09:00] do reviews of films and music and got to start to interview bands.

[00:09:04] Phil: So the first interview I did ever was with Suede, uh, and I'm still quite sort of friendly with them years later. But, uh, but um, I remember interviewing them on a pavement outside a recording studio in East London.

[00:09:16] Phil: And the first, the first actual thing I ever did in TV was I, I did some, uh, running on the title sequence of, for the word, the first series of the word. And I did it for free as I was still working just to get my nose in the door. And, um, if you ever watch the title sequence of the word, I think I, you can see there's somebody playing guitar.

[00:09:35] Phil: That's me. So that was very exciting.

[00:09:38] Kimberly: That is an amazing fact. That I'm gonna retain. The word was brilliant. It was, uh, so edgy and cool. It was one of those things that you had to be like, it was a bit naughty to watch it as well. Well, at, at my age, it was like, God, did you see. Like the other night? You know, what they

[00:09:51] Kimberly: did

[00:09:51] Phil: was, but then I got a job on the big breakfast. It was at the birth of the independent production company as well, so there weren't many opportunities.

[00:09:58] Phil: There was Planet 24, there was, I think, talkback and Hatrick. There was just very few companies. You could work with. And hat Trick and Planet 24 was the super glamorous one where all the young people went and they had the big breakfast, they had the word, and I got a job as an AP on the, on the big breakfast, which was, I think was the, was the, was kind of the start of everything for me.

[00:10:19] Phil: But those other jobs, even though I failed at them, , even though they weren't for me, I suppose it's that they allowed me to get in that universe.

[00:10:29] Kimberly: [00:10:30] so the big breakfast then, this is a good place to start actually. So this was kind of the birth of your real, the core of your career, and that I remember that era. It was, it was such an exciting time in a, as a viewer as well as I know from working

[00:10:46] Kimberly: in telly at that point, because everything was quite dynamic, wasn't it?

[00:10:49] Phil: Do you know what? It was great. It was great fun. It was kind of the wild west of television and it was, that was my generation I suppose.

[00:10:55] Phil: And we were suddenly given, given telly to do. And, uh, it was a bit dangerous and edgy and like you could have a mad idea and whack it on the telly the next day, you know, and you were inventing game shows. Like my, one of my proudest moments was inventing a game called Get Your Novelly Nuts Out, which was, uh, Chris Evans was blindfolding you over the phone a bit like the Golden Shot, if you remember that.

[00:11:18] Phil: And you had to direct him to big, uh, it was a big bowl of milk. I'm sorry, I'm even saying this, a big massive bowl of milk with some cereals in it. And he had to pick the cereals out and they had a lovely theme tune.

[00:11:30] Kimberly: Amazing. And that sort of insinuation at like seven in the morning.

[00:11:34] Phil: . It was all very carry on really. but it was great. It was really hard work. It was incredibly long hours. But actually it was, it was okay. Sometimes you, things didn't work and that didn't matter cuz you really learned from it.

[00:11:46] Phil: You got your kind of flying hours. I

[00:11:47] Kimberly: It was kind of a training ground, but like live

[00:11:49] Kimberly: on. a training ground, but like live

[00:11:50] Kimberly: A big

[00:11:50] Phil: training grade. But it was pretty, it could be pretty brutal as well. It wasn't, it wasn't a very forgiving kind of place in many respects as well. And this is where I got my first,[00:12:00] imposter moment I suppose,

[00:12:03] Kimberly: We've got a website. Head to the imposter club.com. Where you can contact the show and sign up to receive our emails. As we build a warm community of creative imposters for world domination. Don't get FOMO and head to the imposter club.com after this ep.

[00:12:22] Kimberly: why did you feel like an imposter in that situation?

[00:12:26] Phil: so there was a moment where, and this is like, there's, there's two, I think there's two ways of getting imposter syndrome that I've been thinking about this, actually doing this podcast, the, this self-imposed imposter syndrome, which is about your own kind of self-doubt and your own, uh, you, you know, your own, you know, propensity to catastrophize everything that's got out of your life.

[00:12:46] Phil: And I think there's also an imposter syndrome that is imposed upon you by other people. Cause the other thing sometimes, in any industry, but telly can be a bit like this, is that, other people, insinuating or thinking that you're not good enough, right? There's a terrible thing that happens in tv.

[00:13:00] Phil: People are very gleeful about other people's failure. I always find really unedifying, you know, oh, your ratings were awful. It's like that there's a ha ha-ness that happens around

[00:13:10] Phil: that.

[00:13:10] Kimberly: not a nice trait.

[00:13:11] Phil: it's not a nice trait. And there was a moment in my career and this.

[00:13:15] Phil: I think this happens to a lot of people and it's a hard moment to navigate, I think, is when you are promoted within an organization and suddenly you're managing your peers. And so this happened to me at Big Breakfast.

[00:13:27] Phil: There was a, a series producer role going, [00:13:30] pretty much in charge of all the VT elements. Anyway, so I got the job and it was between me and someone else and they.

[00:13:40] Phil: They were quite vocal about complaining that I'd got the job and to the boss and stuff, and also not just to the boss, but to everybody else in the team that I then had to sort of manage, including him. So that was a, that was a sort of tricky moment. and, and There were moments where I would, I would make notes and I would say like, don't do that item, do this item.

[00:14:01] Phil: And I, I would kind of get ignored and I had to be quite, start to get quite assertive about it all, which I didn't really want to do. And then I started to feel like, oh, maybe I don't deserve this. Maybe, maybe the right, maybe I'm, this is the wrong time for me. Maybe this is the wrong place for me.

[00:14:16] Phil: And it, and it wasn't actually, I was, capable, I was able to do it. But, there, there was a…No, you’re an imposter thing happening, I think then. So that was a tricky time. And I think for anyone navigating that, it's quite, quite a difficult thing to manage and, and in telly

[00:14:28] Phil: we don't get sent on management courses, do we, we, we just get thrown into it

[00:14:35] Kimberly: Were there any specific moments on that, show that you remember thinking, oh my God, I don't, I don't fit in here and I don't like it.

[00:14:47] Phil: It was really long hours. I mean, I do remember sitting in my car one day on the way home , I'd done a show. I'd been up since three. I was going home at about six, seven in the evening, and I was sitting at a traffic license, and I was, was thinking if I just [00:15:00] drive at 20 miles an hour into that wall, I'll, I'll probably hurt myself.

[00:15:04] Phil: I might be in a neck brace, I might be hospitalized, but it'll give me six weeks off, so I'm so tired.

[00:15:10] Kimberly: That's pretty extreme.

[00:15:12] Phil: Yeah, it's pretty extreme. But then, I suppose there was another moment, which I really remember clearly, which is sort of funny, but not funny in a way.

[00:15:19] Phil: I'd done an item on the show about kidney stones and

[00:15:22] Phil: As

[00:15:22] Kimberly: you do on a breakfast show,

[00:15:24] Kimberly: But it was

[00:15:24] Phil: called the stuff. Right. And you had to do your stuff in it.

[00:15:26] Phil: It was, you'd wanted to try and create something on the show that all the kids would talk about when they went into school that day. Right. So I had three kidney stones, a little one, a medium one, and the biggest kidney stone in the world ever you'd ever seen in your entire life.

[00:15:39] Phil: Right.

[00:15:40] Kimberly: you did.

[00:15:42] Kimberly: It

[00:15:42] Phil: was Chris and Gabby, I think, they had all the kidney stones under cloths. Right. So you'd reveal is this the biggest kidney stone in the world?

[00:15:48] Phil: No, we, is this to get an older crew? Of course. Getting involved. Um, anyway, I thought. Great. Fantastic. Get back to the office later that day. Get called in, everyone gets called into a room. And the boss at the time goes, right. I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you how Phil fucked up the show this morning. Everybody, the whole team there. I'm getting humiliated in front of everybody. Really embarrassed and a, the whole thing so simple.

[00:16:13] Phil: It's like instead of cloths, it should have been cloches, you know,

[00:16:18] Phil: Oh,

[00:16:18] Kimberly: the big bell things.

[00:16:20] Kimberly: the big thing

[00:16:21] Phil: you get in the Savoy hotel, if you ever go there, whatever, and they, they put your flambe under it, whatever. And truthfully. Absolutely right. Would it been [00:16:30] tiny detail in a way, but would it been visually much more arresting and.

[00:16:33] Phil: Better, but I didn't think it quite deserved public humiliation. But again, these are things that you kind of think that's, that's slightly undermining me with the people I'm supposed to manage. Not helpful. Also, the real lesson to me was like always public praise. Private criticism is the only way to treat people because that's, that was fair enough feedback and you have to give feedback and it, it's not always comfortable feedback, but don't do it in front of the whole gang.

[00:17:05] Kimberly: do you, remember what happened after that?

[00:17:09] Kimberly: I

[00:17:09] Phil: think I sort of slunk back to the office and just thought, I'm not really very motivated to do the next show. No.

[00:17:17] Kimberly: I know that people listening will have experienced that when people haven't been trained in management style, right? Very few people have management and leadership training. So that happening is unfortunately still going on now.

[00:17:32] Kimberly: And look, however many years later, that has stuck with you. But what I'm gathering from that is you've learnt, from that one moment as a, young series producer, how not to manage other people

[00:17:45] Kimberly: to manage other people in your yeah.

[00:17:47] Phil: Well also I think you've got your own natural way of

[00:17:50] Phil: doing things as well. You know, I wouldn't be shouting and screaming at people.

[00:17:53] Phil: It's not, it's not the way I do things. And if I try to be. Like that, my voice would go all squeaky and it wouldn't be authentic.[00:18:00]

[00:18:00] Phil: They'd be like, Phil, why are you

[00:18:02] Phil: playing a

[00:18:02] Phil: character

[00:18:04] Phil: Yeah. What's, what's happened to you? Um, so I just do a disappointed face. I think that works better.

[00:18:10] Kimberly: like disappointed a

[00:18:13] Phil: Disappointed parent.

[00:18:14] Phil: That's the thing, isn't it?  no, but these things, you know, it chips away your confidence. And I think, people thrive on different things, don't they? And I, and I know I thrive when people say, that was great. Well done. Still to this day. and I know for myself when I've managed teams over the years, very important in tele to give people credit for their ideas and not just nick the credit for stuff. That happens a lot, doesn't it? In tv. It's a bit of a bug bear of mine, you know, but if someone's had the idea, give them credit for the idea and actually saying thank you and well done, you can see it. It's worth more than a pay rise sometimes. You know, you see people just stand a little bit taller,

[00:18:50] Kimberly: completely agree and

[00:18:51] Kimberly: that's free. That's free.

[00:18:52] Phil: It is free. And all of us are, you know, we want people to think we're valued, and that we've done something well. that helps motivate people to do stuff better,

[00:19:02] Phil: not just not shouting at them in front of loads of other people.

[00:19:06] Kimberly: I dunno a time when that's worked. I've certainly been on the wrong end of being shouted at, and it has absolutely done the opposite

[00:19:14] Kimberly: doesn’t

[00:19:14] Kimberly: Motivate.

[00:19:16] Phil: Yeah, no, you retreat, don't you, you retreat and you, I, what I do is when that happens, I sort of give up, what what's the point?

[00:19:22] Kimberly: Right, and you don't wanna work for people who are mean, why would you want to make them happy? The only reason I'd do it is out of fear.

[00:19:29] Kimberly: And [00:19:30] that's not a safe

[00:19:31] Phil: fear. It's not good. Safe. Not not good, there was a kind of culture, I think around TV that was a bit like that. Also, you know, life isn't always easy.

[00:19:39] Phil: People aren't always easy. You know, you got, you gotta be able to deal with difficult characters as you go through life as well. So I needed to grow a thicker skin and be a bit more robust frankly, as well. So, which I think in a way, whilst that wasn't pleasant, it was also, it really helped me, toughen up and,

[00:19:57] Phil: it was not necessarily a bad thing. I wouldn't advocate shouting and screaming at people. But yeah, We can be a bit, um, oversensitive now to any kind of criticism

[00:20:04] Kimberly: I hear you, and actually we're in a really complicated time for that. Because, you know,

[00:20:08] Kimberly: the new generation of content makers are coming through, very in touch with their, emotions and, have high expectations of their employers as

[00:20:18] Kimberly: they should.

[00:20:19] Kimberly: However,

[00:20:21] Kimberly: like you say, it is a pretty brutal industry.

[00:20:24] Kimberly: I do believe it's getting much better, but some of these things, uh, you just have to experience to, to get on and to find yourself and find your voice

[00:20:34] Kimberly: too

[00:20:35] Phil: I mean, difficult characters are difficult characters and everybody's got something going on in their head and we've got to be sympathetic to it. But we should always call out bullying and bad behaviour. Always, always, always. It's, um, it's not on, never has been on. It's definitely not.

[00:20:48] Kimberly: And people are doing it more and that's good.

[00:20:51] Kimberly: they are. Yeah. And there's more roots and more support too, which is

[00:20:54] Phil: great.

[00:20:55] Kimberly:

[00:20:56] Kimberly: , Okay, so Big Breakfast era, through that you've

[00:21:00] made it to series producer. Feeling a bit bruised, what did you go onto next? You know, how did you find the next thing? That's always quite a difficult

[00:21:08] Kimberly: career

[00:21:08] Kimberly: choice

[00:21:11] Phil: I did a chat show on Channel five called the Jack Doherty Show where Graham Norton got his first gig and. I did lose my confidence when I was at Big Breakfast and I was a series editor and I got offered a job as a producer. So it was a step back. But I kind of happily took that step back because I thought maybe I wasn't ready.

[00:21:30] Phil: Maybe this wasn't the right time for me.

[00:21:32] Kimberly: Okay. That's a really interesting take actually. So you took a demotion if

[00:21:36] Kimberly: you like, to find your bruised

[00:21:37] Kimberly:

[00:21:37] Phil: a little bit, yeah. I'd lost a bit of confidence and I didn't feel like my face fitted anymore, and I wasn't quite part of that gang.

[00:21:47] Phil: I went to this company called Absolutely. And that really was amazing. And that for me felt like a rebirth, right? They're a comedy company, Scottish people. Uh, so I could, I could, we could understand each other.

[00:22:00] Phil: Um, and they did this amazing sketch. I really loved what they did. So I happily took a step back to be a producer.

[00:22:06] Phil: Really enjoyed that actually. Uh, and then the series editor left quite soon into the show, actually only about three or four months. And then I got promoted into that job. And it was just great fun and I that I just find my confidence. Doing that. Right. And then I went to the Ginger to do the Priory with Will McDonald and stuff, and he was brilliant and a great support and we got [00:22:30] on really well.

[00:22:30] Phil: And that, that I think is, is so key. You know, telly is all about relationships. You know, it's a cliche and we all say it, but it absolutely is. It's about, it's about those collaborations you can make with people. It's about trusting people. It's about, um, sharing values and a sense of sensibility and, and sort of all being in the trenches together as it were.

[00:22:49] Phil: Right. And I had a great team on the Priory. I was at that stage then. I was an established series editor. So even though inside I'm thinking, I had the right to be there in other people's eyes. Right.

[00:23:02] Kimberly: Yeah, you had healthy nerves.

[00:23:04] Phil: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's a great way of putting it. Healthy nerves and. I'm quite proud of the Priory. It's not, it's a slightly forgotten show, but it was really, there had lots of great stuff happening in it.

[00:23:16] Phil: I was that stage working with, quite inspiring people so that was helpful to be in that kind of atmosphere. Yeah. So that, that whole environment felt like it was bringing you back up from, having a bad experience, perhaps in your perhaps in your

[00:23:30] Kimberly: sort of role.

[00:23:31] Phil: exactly. So that was a kind of rebirth.

[00:23:34] Kimberly: Yes. Phil - Phoenix out of the flames

[00:23:35] Phil: Yes. Phil - Phoenix out of the flames. Exactly.

[00:23:38] Kimberly: This is The Imposter Club Coming up,

[00:23:43] Phil: there was definitely a moment where I thought, I'm done. I'm finished. I'm bleak. I've, I've messed it up.

[00:23:46] Kimberly: I've got a favor to ask. Pretty please hit follow or subscribe to the imposter club podcast for two reasons. One. So you don't miss an episode, but two, because I'm told it'll help other people find us more [00:24:00] easily. After all the more people like us, they're safe inside the imposter club. The fewer there are outside on their own.

[00:24:07] Kimberly: Welcome back to the imposter club. We're Phil Edgar- Jones is about to helm the world's most talked about TV series after a major career wobble.

[00:24:18] Kimberly: So you are feeling better, you've kind of built yourself up with these chat shows and your confidence. How did you get the Big Brother role?

[00:24:25] Phil: I got phoned to do the first series and I couldn't do it cuz I was doing the Priory and I didn't want to, uh, break my contract. . And so I got asked to do the live shows on second series of Big Brother.

[00:24:39] Phil: And we also invented, uh, we didn't, it was someone else’s idea, but, uh, we made the spinoff show with Dermot O'Leary - Little Brother. So it was the first, I think the first of its kind. And then they had sort of live streaming on E4, which came from an idea by Andrew Newman, who was the head of entertainment at that point at the channel and cuz he'd spotted in the first series that everyone was sitting around watching the live feed in the channel.

[00:25:05] Phil: So he thought, well, why don't we let the whole country watch it?

[00:25:08] Phil: So there were lots of arguments about whether that was a good or a good or a bad idea, but it was a good idea.

[00:25:12] Kimberly: Good times, but challenging times. I mean, you'd watched the first series go

[00:25:16] Kimberly: out, obviously while you're making the Priory and then you are saying yes to series

[00:25:20] Phil: you're saying yes

[00:25:20] Kimberly: How did you feel

[00:25:22] Kimberly:

[00:25:23] Kimberly:

[00:25:23] Phil: Oh, fine, I was really touched to be asked,

[00:25:25] Phil: Do you know what is, it was really good fun and we were trying out something new. So, and the, you [00:25:30] know, we didn't have the massive pressure and I, I love working with Davina and Dermot. They were great fun. And I had a, just, again, a sort of great team.

[00:25:37] Phil: And then I got asked to do the third series, uh, of Big Brother as the exec. So that's when I sort of took it over really. that was the Jade Goody  and Kate Lawler and all that. Alison Hammond also, for her first TV

[00:25:51] Phil: appearance.

[00:25:51] Kimberly: And were you feeling quite

[00:25:52] Kimberly: comfortable in your own skin?

[00:25:54] Phil: Yeah, totally. There was no, I didn't, I I didn't have any doubt that I was king of the world. No, that's, I don't

[00:26:03] Kimberly: He's, He's,

[00:26:04] Kimberly: already retracting that I, can see on the camera. He's like, no, no, no.

[00:26:08] Phil: I was pretty confident that that time I, I'd sort of, I think. Do, you know, I think you have to sort of prove yourself a little bit.

[00:26:15] Phil: You always have to prove yourself, don't you? And, and there's different points in a career where you maybe go back a bit or you try something else and you have to sort of make people believe or make yourself believe you can do it. So by that stage, you know, I'd, I'd run some bigger teams. I'd, I'd run some bigger programs.

[00:26:29] Phil: I'd obviously embedded myself in the big culture. So, um, I was able to, I had two fantastic series producers. I think as you get more experienced as a manager, you, you kind of work out what you need around you, what your, where your blind spots are in your gaps are, I mean, I'm truthfully quite chaotic and, a bit scattergun. Which can, I think, be a bit difficult for people actually. So I know that I have to have people that can organize an army, and people that will call me out and [00:27:00] make things work, really on a practical

[00:27:02] Phil: Yeah,

[00:27:03] Kimberly: but you've probably discovered more about yourself with your ADHD diagnosis, right?

[00:27:08] Kimberly: a little bit.

[00:27:09] Phil: I can, I, when it finally happened, I could understand, I can understand and manage a bit of those behaviours a bit better actually.

[00:27:15] Phil: It's funny, after it happened, I came into work and I said, oh, look, this happened. And I showed the thing, and they said…We knew this all along. What were you talking about?

[00:27:24] Kimberly: Do you think you knew somewhere,

[00:27:26] Kimberly: in your mind all along that perhaps you had adhd?

[00:27:30] Kimberly:

[00:27:30] Phil: Yeah, yeah.

[00:27:31] Phil: Yeah. I mean, look, it's again, you know, it's a funny thing, even that diagnosis, I think I feel like a bit of a mental health imposter because,

[00:27:41] Kimberly: Why?

[00:27:42] Phil: Everyone's, everyone's got ADHD though, but it's, we're all on some kind of spectrum. This is what you start to think isn't, it's like, why do I deserve to have this? But, but it

[00:27:51] Phil: does explain a lot it that?

[00:27:53] Kimberly: How does it manifest itself for you?

[00:27:56] Phil: Well, I can either hyper focus on something if I'm interested in it or I'm very easily distracted or, at home I'll often be thinking about something else when someone's talking to me and I'll interrupt them and I'll do things that are challenging for other people, you know?

[00:28:11] Kimberly: Do you think it's made you better at anything else?

[00:28:14] Kimberly: anything

[00:28:14] Phil: Well, well it's funny cuz the person that diagnosed me in the end, he said you're alright though, aren't you? You found the right job for yourself. It kind of works, doesn't it? You've been quite successful, haven't you? I went, oh yeah.

[00:28:27] Phil: So, so somehow this way of the [00:28:30] head working suits the job? It has probably helped. Cause I wasn't a,  I was a bit of a failure at school,  but recognizing instinctively, I think, what you need to build a team that works around, it has different skills and different skill sets and that, and how to be so sympathetic to all those so that it's not just your chaotic approach that is, uh, informing everything is really helpful.

[00:28:57] Phil: And that's true of now and my team at sky as well.

[00:29:00] Kimberly: Yeah. I mean you must in a way find it helpful to have, I know we talk about labels a lot

[00:29:06] Kimberly: and sometimes they're not helpful at all, but to actually have something which is like, okay, that explains how my mind works and what I need around me.

[00:29:17] Phil: Yeah. It's easier to, if you know about it then I got some help with managing it, and that's been more recent actually, and I sort of don't always successfully do it, but I,

[00:29:27] Phil: have

[00:29:27] Phil: some strategies.

[00:29:29] Kimberly: I wonder what it would've been like if you had had been diagnosed

[00:29:32] Kimberly: at school.

[00:29:35] Phil: Well, I, you know, I think I would've been medicated and it wouldn't have been a good thing. So I'm, I'm kind of happy. I think for me our job as humans is to accept other humans and to try and understand them.

[00:29:48] Phil: I think,

[00:29:50] Kimberly: That's great. That's a, it's a nice way of thinking about it. Okay. Anyway, back to Big Brother. So, was going really well. you

[00:29:57] Kimberly: were loving it. right? Did you have a great time?

[00:29:58] Phil: I had a [00:30:00] great time. I had, we, you know, met some friends for life, , I remember vividly a moment, uh, at the end of Big Brother, three, two things.

[00:30:08] Phil: I think it was just before the final, and there was Jade, there was Kate, there was Johnny. I was getting the tube home. I got the train from Elstree and the Tube home. Everybody on the tube was reading something somewhere about Big Brother, whether it was Heat Magazine, the Sun, the Star, whatever, right?

[00:30:24] Phil: and then I got, I went into the local Marks and Spencer's to buy some. Something. And there were people stacking the shelves that were talking about Kate and Jade, everywhere I went, that was, it was

[00:30:35] Phil: Big brother. Everybody was talking about it and those moments. So that's, you're very lucky in a career if you can have a moment like that where you're doing something, which is almost, feels like it's the most important thing in the country, even though

[00:30:47] Phil: this is a TV show about people in a house.

[00:30:50] Phil: I know. Exactly. But it was, it was sort of brilliant. You know? You were kind of like, yeah, wow, this is amazing. You know, and, and, and the team that worked in it, oh, everybody loved it because you felt like you had access to some secret knowledge and people would ask you about it.

[00:31:05] Phil: And even though they hated it, they were sort of really fascinated by it as well. All the newspapers loved it. And

[00:31:11] Kimberly: It's quite a big ego moment, I suppose, isn't it? In a healthy

[00:31:14] Phil: totally. A healthy way. It could be, it could be healthy or it could be massively unhealthy.

[00:31:19] Phil: Don't believe the good publicity and don't believe the bad publicity. Just, just get on with it.

[00:31:24] Kimberly: So Big Brother for, for years.

[00:31:27] Phil: years.

[00:31:27] Phil: and years and years

[00:31:28] Kimberly: That ended on

[00:31:29] Kimberly: Channel four,

[00:31:29] Phil: it

[00:31:29] Phil: [00:31:30] I saw it all the way through to Channel four and stupidly, rather than hanging about to get redundancy, I, I decided to leave.

[00:31:38] Phil: And, uh, I didn't want to do it anymore. It was, you come to the, you get, I think also until you gotta be careful about knowing, doing a proper Ricky Jervais, and knowing when you're done, you know, when you've run out of ideas. Is that what it's called? Well, well, you know, he did. The Office was just, he just did that.

[00:31:56] Phil: Right. You know?

[00:31:58] Phil: Uh,

[00:31:58] Phil: and I, I couldn't have done, I couldn't have done Big Brother anymore. Even the smell of the Big Brother house. Uh, funny I was, even the music now I find triggering.

[00:32:09] Kimberly: All right, I can, I can hear it and Marcus's voice,

[00:32:13] Phil: it's Marcus' voice,

[00:32:14] Phil: but it was a, like, it was a great, great time,

[00:32:15] Kimberly: yes. so we're capping off Big Brother an incredible time. You didn't wanna do it anymore. As it finished on Channel four, you thought great, a good time to sort of hang up the hat. How do you find something that is fulfilling and

[00:32:30] Kimberly: fulfilling and challenging and

[00:32:32] Kimberly: you've just

[00:32:33] Kimberly: you've just achieved eight years of,

[00:32:36] Phil: so this is right. This is the low point in my career I'm getting to now, right? So this is a step backwards. This is a, this is the wilderness. Years or year, maybe two years.

[00:32:48] Phil: , so I kind of didn't have a plan, right? I just thought, oh, I'll go do something else. And then I should have, in retrospect, I should have taken a bit of time out. But I got asked to do a job in [00:33:00] America, which was a mistake. I just got my head turned a little bit by a lot of people I knew had gone off…worked on Big Brother, worked on strictly, went out to do Dancing with the Stars. Were having the best time in LA.

[00:33:13] Kimberly: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:13] Phil: So I thought, yeah, I, I dunno, there's a bit of me thought I'll give that a go. So I went out to do a show called, It was Skating with the Stars, which was a,

[00:33:24] Phil: It's very different to Dancing with the Stars, it's just on slippery surface.

[00:33:29] Phil: Dancing with the stars. A bit slippery. Exactly. You're dead on. It's just with, with more falling down. Like I was two things. I was spectacularly unsuited to that kind of telly. I don't really like it. That shiny floor s type thing, I was spectacularly unsuited to LA culture just wasn't for me.

[00:33:49] Phil: Uh, I, I came into the project quite late, so the team was already there and established. And, , there's a culture as well in LA of firing people quite a lot. And also this thing about everyone piles in on an email. It's like, just drive me mad. Like an email will go out and you had to almost be the first or best to respond to it within the 0.3 of a second.

[00:34:11] Phil: And I, I'm not, that's not my style. So I wasn't able to, create my own culture for the program.

[00:34:18] Kimberly: Okay.

[00:34:18] Phil: I was the showrunner. It was already established and it was very rigid, and I couldn't, I couldn't shift it. I couldn't, so I wasn't really, I didn't have a purpose there.

[00:34:28] Phil: I didn't have a role in a [00:34:30] way. And so, what I did was when I lose a bit of confidence, I sort of start to retreat from things rather than dive into things. I leaned back from something rather than lean into it, I suppose. And, uh, it just didn't suit me on it. And, and the first show went out and it was, didn't rate and it wasn't very good, if I'm honest.

[00:34:46] Phil: I don't necessarily take the blame for it being not very good. Happy to take the blame and I have done lots of not very good things, but I don't think this is my fault. Um, anyway, I got canned from that. I got sent home.

[00:34:59] Phil: Got fired.

[00:35:00] Kimberly: Wow. How, how did that come about?

[00:35:05] Phil: after the first show, I got taken aside and said that like, I think we're done here. Um, uh, we're gonna get someone else to do your job.

[00:35:12] Phil: to be honest, I was, I was relieved because I didn't, I was miserable and I want, I didn't want to do it anymore.

[00:35:20] Phil: I didn't like the show. I didn't feel I was able to run the show effectively. So I was quite happy and came home

[00:35:31] Phil: and,

[00:35:32] Kimberly: You weren't happy though, surely.

[00:35:34] Phil: no, these things, they, , when you get made redundant like that or fired like that, it just absolutely chips away at your confidence. And then I sort of, I had just had this time I was just making terrible decisions. So I went and got a job sort of running a production company with an agent and it sort of was never gonna work and it didn't work and we kind of fell out a bit.

[00:35:57] Phil: And, , suppose that's thing you, you are kind of like at the [00:36:00] top of the world running the biggest show until he, uh, bit of state as to just not just that all going, going, you know, and that's, those are, that's a difficult moment. So then, then, then I suppose if you're talking about imposter syndrome, you're thinking, oh God, maybe, maybe this is me and, uh, it was everybody else that did that. I had nothing to do with it really. And this is, this is where I need to be cuz I'm, I'm, not good enough.

[00:36:27] Kimberly: Did you think all of that stemmed from not having a plan after Big Brother? Because it sounds like that one decision to go to America was the wrong one, and then that

[00:36:37] Kimberly: and then that

[00:36:38] Kimberly: created a

[00:36:38] Kimberly: domino kind of created a domino effect bad decisions in tough times. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:44] Phil: Exactly. It was one bad decision after the next where it was actually I should have just stopped and I, I could've, I could've survived for at least a year without having to work.

[00:36:52] Phil: I always had this thing, you know, from when I was young. It's like when I was freelance as well if I wasn't in work or didn't know I had work coming up, I'd get really kind of anxious about it.

[00:37:03] Phil: And I totally get that with other people now and I try to say to people like, this is the mistake I made. Right. Don't, do not panic.

[00:37:09] Phil: People don't forget you actually. Because I thought at that point I was doing this. So running this company, we actually got some stuff away. We were doing okay, but it was just, the relationships weren't working. You know, you have to feel confident around the, with the people around you.

[00:37:24] Phil: You have to feel like you're in the right place. You have to feel like you share values, I think, and share a sensibility and [00:37:30] you're all running in the same direction. Was very unhappy and it kind of all came to rather explosive end. , a, not a happy ending. Uh, but then I, I got, I got kind of saved by sky, you know by Stuart Murphy who there was, there's head hunters calling and I thought, oh God, maybe I still am.

[00:37:48] Phil: People haven't forgotten me. And I went for interview with Stuart and I got the job, running the entertainment stuff at Skye. But that year, I'll never forget it. It's like, and in a way I was really glad it happened cuz it taught me quite a lot about myself for a moment.

[00:38:04] Phil: I wasn't very resilient and then I got resilient again. But, I can look after myself a lot better now than I could at that stage. And I don't make the silly decisions anymore.

[00:38:14] Kimberly: You had built such a great reputation and had, had a brilliant experience, felt on kind of on top of the world in running Big

[00:38:22] Kimberly: Brother, yet still walking into a very senior senior job in just the

[00:38:27] Kimberly: wrong environment. Had a huge position. A huge crisis.

[00:38:31] Phil: Yeah. It just wasn't me. And I should have known that, you know, I've had this conversation with some female colleagues. There's a man and a woman thing. Like blokes tend to go out to do that, you know, and I'd be maybe a bit guilty of doing that.

[00:38:43] Phil: Most of the women I work with go, oh, I'm not sure if I can do that. And I'm spending my life trying to persuade them they can, cuz they're much better than me. But I'll just dive into something and I dive, dove into the, I dived into the absolutely wrong thing and I didn't stop to consider it. It was like that impulsive kind [00:39:00] of slightly chaotic, brainy thing of not thinking things through,

[00:39:05] Phil:

[00:39:06] Kimberly: Yeah. Did you seek help at that point or professional help? when you were at your lowest point?

[00:39:10] Kimberly:

[00:39:10] Kimberly: 

[00:39:10] Phil: I was, I did have a bit of, uh, a little bit of depression. So I did medicate my way through that a little bit. So yes, I did.

[00:39:19] Phil: But like, again, um, my wife is the most amazing woman in the universe and she kind of, she's probably the most empathetic person you'll ever meet. So she, if it wasn't for her, she was just absolutely talked me down from the ledge as it were, and kept, kept me going through that sort of period. Um, but yeah, look, you know, and also I think the thing is you always gotta be aware.

[00:39:40] Phil: You're gonna make mistakes in your career. You're gonna make mistakes in life. You're gonna make some choices that you maybe shouldn't have made, but you know, I don't regret anything because, it taught me quite a lot about myself and it, and it led to some better things. But there was definitely a moment where I thought, I'm done.

[00:39:56] Phil: I'm finished. I'm bleak. I've, I've messed it up. I've, you know, uh, I've, I'm not gonna earn any money anymore, da da da. Totally catastrophizing everything really stupidly, but yet we are all capable of it, aren't we?

[00:40:09] Kimberly: We are, we are. are. It

[00:40:10] Kimberly: grounds you to have those sort of humble roots I think.

[00:40:13] Phil: Yeah. You know, that's, you know, not, not everything's gonna go our way

[00:40:19] Kimberly: So you got the phone call? Sky wanted to see you.

[00:40:22] Phil: happy stuff. Let's do happy stuff.

[00:40:24] Kimberly: So we yeah, we've

[00:40:26] Kimberly: done your most challenging year.

[00:40:28] Kimberly: Sky saved you, you said. I mean that [00:40:30] is, That's,

[00:40:30] Kimberly: That's, that's pretty, uh,

[00:40:32] Phil: yeah, like it’s over dramatising. But it was brilliant. And Stuart got me into Sky and I started working at Sky and the entertainment stuff.

[00:40:40] Phil: And actually these places aren't easy to work at. You've gotta prove yourself and prove yourself all over again in a different kind of role. I kind of did the entertainment stuff for a couple years. And then I was really passionate about arts content. I was more interested in commissioning into Sky Arts than I was for Sky One at that time.

[00:40:56] Kimberly: Which actually I find really interesting because for me, you are, Mr. Fact ent, not shiny floor, but entertainment

[00:41:04] Kimberly: and arts doesn't seem like the most natural fit, if I'm honest.

[00:41:09] Phil: Well, that's, see, there, there we go. That, that's, that's really interesting, isn't it? So, so you think I'm an imposter in the arts world.

[00:41:15] Kimberly: Well, maybe I did. I don't, now that you've been

[00:41:18] Kimberly: running it for a years.

[00:41:20] Phil: Well, that, but that's interest, it's really interesting that you see, because I’m much more interested in doing the arts stuff. So I did, I got portrait artist of the year away and so, which was kind of fact ent in fairness.

[00:41:31] Phil: But, when I got the job, the job at the Sky Arts came up and I, and Stuart said, why don't you do it? And I went, really? Um, okay. Uh, and then I, I definitely had a job to do. Right? Definitely had a job to do to convince people in the arts and in television that I wasn't an imposter. And I think finally after maybe 10 years I've done that.

[00:41:51] Phil: But, but it's really interesting you said that cuz I remember doing, um, a panel when I first started at Edinburgh TV festival Krishnan Guru Murthy. Yeah. And the [00:42:00] first thing he did, it was fair enough, he was a journalist. It was just, he tried to catch me out right. About what arts I knew about and stuff.

[00:42:07] Phil: That suggested to me there was a sense that maybe I, other people thought I was an imposter in this role and, the arts and the rest of television are completely different. Right? Truthfully, this is television about a subject, isn't it? So, so why can't anyone do that really?

[00:42:23] Phil: If they're interested and passionate about a subject. And in arts broadcasting also, my job isn't necessarily to know everything, right? Is to, find the people that do know stuff that can bring their knowledge to the channel.

[00:42:35] Kimberly: Absolutely.

[00:42:36] Phil: And I refused right. I absolutely refused to feel like an imposter in that situation because I knew other people thought I was.

[00:42:46] Phil: And, um, my thing was like, no, I can do this. I'm going to do it. And I've got an amazing team of people around me. We work with amazing, brilliant producers who, I think now hopefully trust us. I absolutely love it. Every day is a joy. I get to peek into so many different worlds. But, I, I was determined, right? Determined that I was gonna make this work.

[00:43:12] Phil: And I think I have, I know I do not feel like an imposter in this role. I think I've,  me and my team have, changed the perceptions of this channel. And we've got lots of people in the arts and cultural worlds who want to work with us. Really big names want to work with us cause they now sort of trust us.

[00:43:28] Phil: So I'm not having any of the [00:43:30] imposter stuff around this.

[00:43:30] Kimberly: And How satisfying does that

[00:43:32] Kimberly: feel?

[00:43:33] Phil: It feels great. It feels great

[00:43:35] Kimberly: what I wanna pick up on, which I find really interesting,

[00:43:37] Kimberly: is that you refused to feel like an imposter. That, that sounds like a real progression of your inner confidence. You were aware that other people might see you like that, but you were so confident at this

[00:43:52] Kimberly: confident at this point and your skillset set and your passion that you can do it.

[00:43:57] Kimberly: That you kind of put two fingers up

[00:43:59] Kimberly: a little bit.

[00:44:00] Phil: It's almost quite good to have something to fight against, isn't it? You, you Give yourself a kind of thing to say like, do you know what I'm stubbornly gonna show you

[00:44:11] Phil: Yeah. gonna, I'm gonna do this. yeah.

[00:44:15] Kimberly:

[00:44:15] Kimberly: Like a

[00:44:15] Kimberly: target, a challenge you've set yourself, you know? I mean, what not to fight me then

[00:44:21] Kimberly: Oh, who said it was easy?

[00:44:21] Phil: Who said it was easy?

[00:44:23] Kimberly: No one ever. but no, I haven't found the handbook yet. I've, I mean, I've checked down the back of the sofa. I've asked everyone to know.

[00:44:31] Kimberly: It's just not there.

[00:44:32] Phil: it's gotta be fun as well, man. It's gotta be fun. This, it's really got to be fun.

[00:44:36] Phil: We can't take ourselves too seriously.

[00:44:39] Kimberly: is there

[00:44:40] Phil: instead.

[00:44:40] Kimberly: you

[00:44:40] Kimberly: wish is there anything you wish you could tell the more junior Phil?

[00:44:45] Phil: my big bit of advice I always give to people, there's two bits of advice, right? Uh, turn up on time and don't be a dick. I think that's really important.

[00:44:54] Phil: Strong.

[00:44:55] Phil: strong. Uh, the second bit of advice is take it seriously, but wear it lightly.[00:45:00]

[00:45:00] Phil: And I think if you do that, you're gonna be okay. We take our job seriously. We do them as well as we possibly can, but we shouldn't take ourselves too seriously. And we should, we should have a sense of humour about stuff really,

[00:45:12] Phil:

[00:45:13] Kimberly: I just sort of, the little cogs turned in my head there. They're quite slow and there,

[00:45:16] Kimberly: I, just chewed just chewed I love that. I’ll borrow that.

[00:45:21] Phil: Take it, it, do it.

[00:45:24] Phil: I will.

[00:45:25] Phil: What's

[00:45:25] Phil: the advice you'd give your younger self? Well, yeah, I always like hearing other people's advice.

[00:45:31] Phil:

[00:45:35] Kimberly: I think I would tell myself that I would tell myself that it's fine to change your mind about stuff.

[00:45:42] Phil: Yeah. Good

[00:45:43] Kimberly: because I'm quite a. Um, I'm sort of an all-in kind of person and I'm quite a proud person and if I decide

[00:45:50] Kimberly: to do something, I wanna do it well and I wanna commit to it.

[00:45:53] Kimberly: And I, whilst I still stand by, there have been times in my own career and life where I think I've stuck at something just out of stubbornness and because I think I should and that other

[00:46:03] Kimberly: people might be let down

[00:46:04] Kimberly: if I change my mind. So, for example, when I, I was directing and i, I had a real big kind of career moment where I became a mum and I ended up being the statistic that I now, you know, struggle with in the staffing world, trying to find brilliant female shooting

[00:46:22] Kimberly: directors. And I, I left, I, I couldn't, I couldn't do it anymore, but, but I also didn't wanna do it in a [00:46:30] half-assed way.

[00:46:30] Kimberly: I didn't wanna come back and then not be able to film that cause I need to go back to my son's bedtime. Um, so I agonized for ages because I didn't wanna do a half good job.

[00:46:40] Kimberly:

[00:46:40] Kimberly: And I was being a, I felt like I was being a, not a very good mum, but also not doing my directing job as well as I could have if I didn't have children.

[00:46:47] Kimberly: So I ended up leaving and going into talent management

[00:46:50] Kimberly:

[00:46:50] Kimberly: which was a brilliant decision, but I really tortured myself about it.

[00:46:54] Kimberly: And I, I would think I would tell myself that it's okay.

[00:46:57] Phil: Yeah, you should. And it's also a failing of the industry, not of you. It's a failing of the industry to accommodate mums just still not the case.

[00:47:06] Kimberly: Yeah. it is. And it is why we struggle to find such good female leaders,

[00:47:12] Kimberly: one last thing I wonder about, is this whole imposter

[00:47:14] Kimberly: syndrome this whole

[00:47:15] Kimberly: imposter syndrome discussion

[00:47:16] Kimberly: with

[00:47:16] Kimberly: finding to do with finding happiness and peace with your creative self?

[00:47:22] Phil: God. Wow, that's a big question. Uh, I think, look, I think a bit of self-doubt is super healthy. Cuz if you don't, I think when most of the people that I've thought are pretty good in my career have been quite happy to say when they are not confident at something, I think some of the times the people that appear super confident are just, inside they are crying and dying.

[00:47:46] Phil: We're all making this up as we go along, we've all gotta remember that, haven't we? And we've all got to remember that nobody really knows the answer to everything. No, nobody does. You know, people are very unequivocal about stuff, but actually this is great a job we're doing, and we pour [00:48:00] over television, right? We pour over television, we theorize about it, your notes should be cut the first 10 minutes out of a show. Cuz like an audience that is looking at it is going, don't like this.

[00:48:08] Phil: And they switch over. We've spent hours going, you know, feeling our self-doubt, being overconfident, saying how brilliant it is. The audience goes, no this is shit. Turns it over.

[00:48:19] Kimberly: so should I take the podcast and chop off the first 10 minutes?

[00:48:25] Phil: Well, you, that might be your, that might be the note.

[00:48:27] Phil: That might be the note. It usually is, honestly, I work with English National Opera as well. I'm on the board of the English National Opera. That's another imposter thing. But I go to most operas and go, guys, you can cut an hour off this one. Most theatre you can cut 20 minutes out of, most telly at least 10 minutes, most opera about an hour.

[00:48:45] Phil: That's the way the arts work.

[00:48:46] Kimberly: did they receive that feedback?

[00:48:49] Phil: Um, actually though we have a laugh about it.

[00:48:51] Kimberly: I love that. I think that's almost what you're talking about is a perception of what you should be doing and actually, if you just act like yourself and assume that other people will be happy with that, because you are being authentic

[00:49:02] Kimberly: it's quite liberating.

[00:49:06] Phil: Sometimes people will turn up to work as their work self and uh, it's not who they really are. And you know, we do have to differentiate between home and work. Otherwise, I'd be at home trying to manage my wife's creative thinking, which be unhelpful. Uh, we’d have a row, but if you can, you can feel like you are your true authentic self at work.

[00:49:27] Phil: , I think people respond to that really.

[00:49:29] Phil: [00:49:30] And, um, and allows people to be comfortable in your presence.

[00:49:33] Phil: yeah. it's important.

[00:49:35] Phil: Yeah.

[00:49:36] Kimberly: Well Phil, thank you so much for spending, time with me to talk about your career. I've loved it.

[00:49:41] Phil: Yeah. See, you're good at, you're good at the podcast thing. So there we go. Tell you that you got me to say things I probably wouldn't, I shouldn't say.

[00:49:49] Kimberly: I want to know how you feel now about putting OBE somewhere

[00:49:52] Kimberly: you know, letterheads.

[00:49:55] Phil: Uh, we'll see,

[00:49:56] Phil: I'll, I'll have a wee think about that. I'm not sure I'm ready. It's an amazing achievement

[00:50:01] Kimberly: all jokes aside, is an amazing achievement. And I think what you have accomplished at Sky and throughout your career, is just incredible. and I've respected you from afar and also from, you know, the Big Brother set somewhere, although I was a lowly runner, um, for a long time.

[00:50:16] Kimberly: So I've, I really do, appreciate your time to get to know you a bit and for you as well to share your, inner self with everyone

[00:50:25] Kimberly: listening.

[00:50:25] Kimberly: I think that is

[00:50:27] Kimberly: quite a feat

[00:50:28] Kimberly: and you’ve just done it brilliantly and I thank you for your honesty.

[00:50:30] Phil: Oh, bless you. Well, Thanks for having me. I hope it's not the shittest one of your podcasts.

[00:50:37] Kimberly: There it is right there, imposter syndrome.

[00:50:39] Phil:

[00:50:40] Kimberly: Thank you, Phil. Really

[00:50:41] Kimberly: appreciate it.

[00:50:42] Phil:

[00:50:42] Kimberly: Right. Come on imposters, let's get everyone talking about this stuff more. Open up your WhatsApp groups and tell your production pals. They need to listen to the imposter club. Everyone loves a podcast recommend, and this is so relevant for them. So that  [00:51:00] kudos you'll get back is a free gift from me.

[00:51:02] Kimberly: See you next time.

[00:51:05] Kimberly: The imposter club is brought to you by talented people. The specialist TV, executive search and production staffing company. Run by content makers for content makers. Every day, the team match-make influence and place premium senior talent in behind the screens roles with integrity and a human approach.

[00:51:28] Kimberly: Produced and hosted by me, Kimberly Godbolt, Executive producer, Rosie Turner.