Part Two

Speaker 1:

What are some of the difficulties about with finding things in common between different peoples?

Richard Lewis:

Yeah. Well some people are more alike than others. For instance, Dutch people and Belgian people are rather similar, but Italians and Japanese are very different. And the more you have in common with someone, the better you get on with them. And the more the better you can converse with them. For instance, so for instance, I think a Swedish Company came to me once with the a request that they needed to sell more cars, but to Saudi Arabia. And they were Swedes. Of course it was Volvo. And I said, “How many cars do you sell them?” “They said, 5,000.”  I said, “well, that’s very good”. And they said, “No, it’s not very good. Saudi Arabia buys 25,000 cars a year and they only buy 5,000 from us. How do we increase the sale?” And I said, “Well, you have to get on well with them and they’re friendly with them and then they’ll buy more.”

And they said, “Well, how did we get friendly with them?” And I said, “You have to talk about things that you have in common, so go away and come back in two hours’ time and tell me what you have in common with Saudi Arabia, what Swedes have in common with Saudi Arabia”. So they went out of the room for two hours and came back and I said, “Well, what did you find in common?” And they said, “Nothing.” They said, “We can’t talk about anything with them.” I said, “Well, why not?” They said, “Well, you can’t talk about women.” I said, “No, you can’t talk about women.” They said, “You can’t talk about drinking.” I said, “No, you can’t talk about drinking.” They said, “You can’t talk about religion.” I said, “No, you can’t talk about religion.” They said, “There’s nothing they can talk about.”  Well, the last few years, of course, there was one thing that they could talk about, and that was football. And in that respect, we were able to make progress and sell them all cars.

Speaker 1:

So as you approach your birthday, what are you most proud of when you look back on your life? What are the proudest moments? Well,

Richard Lewis:

One of the things I am proud of, although I have a very humble beginning, I was a miner’s grandson, and I’m able to conduct myself. I consider it satisfactorily, competently, with people like the Emperor of Japan, the Chancellor of Germany. I think one can be proud of these things, I had to learn them during the life, and I get on very well with these people.

Speaker 1:

And what’s the secret to getting on with people?

Richard Lewis:

Well, to understand really that at the bottom of them, they’re probably very similar to yourselves and that they have the same problem that you have. For instance, when they’ve sneezed or hiccupped, it makes you feel closer to them in a sense that they’re human like you are, even though they’re emperor of this or that. It certainly applied to the Emperor of Japan and other politicians, which are French and Italian.

Speaker 1:

And personally, what are you proudest of?

Richard Lewis:

Well, I think that remaining myself, remaining humble, but mixing with people who are extremely intelligent or competent and holding my own with them.

Speaker 1:

Brilliant. And you’ve created a beautiful place here that people love to call home and return to and feel part of your family, and that’s really special for them.

Richard Lewis:

Well, I’ve created it and I created the atmosphere that there is here, but I certainly didn’t create the house, which is 700 years old, which is a beautiful house not too far from London. It’s extremely suitable place for the type of venture I had in mind.