Enrique Tomás: "Emotional intelligence is the lifelong shopkeeper"

--- What would you be doing on a Friday at this time if you hadn't made plans to have a drink with me?

--- I would be with my son Éric. I always pick him up at half past four and I'm always two hours in the park with him.

--- How old is Éric?

--- Eight.

--- And do you already have time to be a father?

--- People like me have to be very careful, because when we have a gap in our schedule, we put in professional matters, and we should do it the other way around. First always what is personal, and then what is professional. But today, to come see you, my wife went, and then we will meet in Montjuic, because I want to walk to see Estopa.

--- We are in Gracia. Will you walk to see Estopa?

--- I need to walk!

--- How many Estopa concerts have you been to?

--- Maybe two hundred. But I will go to five hundred if necessary.

--- Do they ask you to go?

--- In this case, yes, because we are sponsors of this 25th anniversary tour and I haven't been able to go yet. On the day of the magic concert at the Estadi Olímpic, I was opening four stores in China, and I felt very bad not going. I love them.

--- You arrived distributing Estopa tickets by phone. You seem like their manager.

--- I always say I'm the third Muñoz brother. I've loved them since day one, their parents and their fans. I feel very Estopa, that's why it makes so much sense for Enrique Tomás to sponsor this birthday tour.

--- Where did you meet them?

--- At Radio Teletaxi.

--- There you sold hams on Justo Molinero's show.

--- I met so many people there! Jennifer López, Chayanne, Luis Fonsi, Alejandro Sanz. And my idol, Manolo García.

--- Is he your idol?

--- You will only see me at three concerts: Estopa, Manolo García and David Bisbal. Oh, and Mojinos Escozíos!

--- I can't imagine you at a Mojinos concert.

--- Well, look, this Saturday I'm flying to Orihuela (Alicante) and coming back by bus with the Mojinos. Full Rock and roll! We'll leave at four in the morning to arrive on time because at ten I'm getting on a boat with Albiol (mayor of Badalona) to go see the regattas.

--- How do you keep going?

--- Because I've learned to eat consciously.

--- ...

--- I want to try to spread it worldwide. Conscious eating talks about several pillars: food, sports, psychology and psychiatry, self-care. And then there's the pillar where I'm a master! Now they call it emotional intelligence! But, what the hell! This is the lifelong shopkeeper!

--- I don't know if I quite understand you.

--- Well, that emotional intelligence thing is a lie! It's the shopkeeper! The bad shopkeeper is one who only sells you what interests him, because he thinks he'll earn more. The good shopkeeper is one who tells you: "Don't eat more than you should, because it will harm you."

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--- Would this be conscious eating?

--- "But you sell ham!", you'll tell me. Yes. But I sell it to people I want to be healthy and trust me. And now the lifelong trusted shopkeeper is called emotional intelligence. Get a load of that, Pedrín!

--- Do you also work on weekends?

--- When you are an entrepreneur, there is not a single moment when you stop thinking about your business. In life there are moments to work and moments to enjoy. Do you think I'm working now talking to you?

--- In this conversation, you mean?

--- I came here and now I want to focus on your questions, on this bar and enjoy and relax.

"I love doing business, it's the only talent I have"

--- Walking. And you don't know how well it goes! I call it meditation in motion. Every day I have many meetings at seven in the morning walking along the coast of Badalona. I go to Alella and come back. It's wonderful and I recommend it. It's like the Malecón in Havana and it turns out we have it in Maresme! When I walk, I always want to see the sun rise.

--- Every morning?

--- Every morning! I check the sunrise time on my phone and then calculate.

--- You must get up early.

--- I get up every day at five in the morning. I do my things, train from six to seven at home with Adolfo, my personal trainer, and then I go for a walk.

--- Is it when you walk that ideas come to you?

--- No. Ideas come at all hours. I have many notebooks with ideas written down and I review them every day. If days pass and the idea is still there and I believe in it, I push it forward. My business card doesn't say I'm a ham maker, but "business maker." I love making businesses. It's the only talent I have.

--- You don't have any more?

--- I was frustrated. I told myself: "I don't know how to play soccer, I don't know how to sing, I don't see myself acting." All men want to be the singer of the band, because he's the one who gets the most dates. But if you can't be the singer, you have to think about what talent you have. And one day I realized that my talent consists of taking a thought and turning it into something physical. Into a project.

--- But only with ham?

--- Excuse me? I have messes everywhere, with things that have nothing to do with ham.

"I recommend that if you have secrets, don't tell anyone, because they are the only thing that is truly yours"

--- Always. This is very important. Always, always, wherever I go, all this (he takes out some stones, a key, and a rosary from his pocket) goes with me. And if I forget them, I go back home to look for them.

--- Can you explain all this that you carry in your pocket?

--- This white stone reminds me that I am very fortunate. The green stone is the most important of all, because it reminds me of health and how important it is to take care of oneself. If you don't take care of yourself, there is no health. And this one here is the family stone.

--- You also carry a key.

--- This key is the secret we all have and that I won't tell you. I haven't told anyone. It's the key to the box.

--- Do you keep your secret in a box?

--- It's figurative. And I will take the secret to my grave. I recommend that if you have secrets, don't tell anyone, because they are the only thing that is truly yours. They should never be explained.

--- I see you are very much into rituals. Is it out of superstition?

--- I am not superstitious at all. Notice that everything I tell you is always positive. Yes, I cross myself three times every day.

--- For any reason?

--- Every time I see a palindromic license plate. Every time I have a bad thought and when I take a plane, whether I'm a passenger on a commercial plane or I'm piloting it myself.

--- Are you an airplane pilot?

--- Yes. For twenty years. I am setting up an airline that, by the way, is called JamonAir. Because it is designed especially for ham manufacturers, as they have great travel problems. People from Huelva, Guijuelo, Extremadura... I could spend the whole day watching planes take off and land.

--- You are a box of surprises! And this rosary?

--- This blessed rosary serves to control the ego. Look, next year I only plan to give ten conferences. And sometimes I set a price that I think they won't pay, and they pay it!

"Ego is necessary, but in the exact measure. If you want to know someone, you have to give them success and money"

--- People believe that I have been successful, and it's true. But what I tell them is that my success is not calculated by the number of stores I have. The first question they always ask me is: "How much do you bill? How many stores do you have? How many hams do you sell?" And won't you really ask me about my success?

--- What is your success?

--- Being here right now enjoying what I'm doing. And this doesn't always happen. I always say that until the day you die, you don't know what your real success is, because maybe it happens on the last day before you die. Therefore, if you ask me what my success is without having died, I will tell you that it is to continue in the game with enthusiasm.

--- We return to the rosary to control the ego. Do you have a lot?

--- I have the ego I've had since I was born, just like you, but if you water it, it can get out of hand. Ego is necessary, but in the exact measure. If you want to know someone, you have to give them success and money. Only then will you know what kind of people they are. Everyone who has neither success nor money seems like good people. (Silence)

--- Are you saying that when they make money, they stop being good people?

--- ...

--- Have you met many like that? --- ...

--- Do you want to tell me about it?

--- Look, I have ten siblings. When you have ten siblings, ugly things happen when one of them achieves success.

--- Is success unforgivable?

--- I'm going to give you a gift, and it will be the greatest gift you'll receive in a long time, so give it to the people you love. (He shows me his phone and makes me read a quote from Confucius): "Do not do good if you do not have the strength to bear ingratitude." Enrique Tomás doesn't say it, eh! Confucius says it. Going back to ego. If everyone is telling you every day that you are handsome, if there are people who would even be capable of saying that I sing well when in school they wouldn't even let me finish Christmas carols... imagine. Therefore, ego always under control.

--- But then you're telling me that many people approach you because you've made money.

--- No, I haven't said that. I've told you that, since everyone spends the day telling me I'm a crack, you can end up believing it. Luckily, I have many people close to me who warn me and say: "Watch out, these are sycophants." I also tell you that the worst are those who say "no, because no."

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--- I see that you have worked a lot on yourself internally.

--- It's just that I am the youngest of eleven siblings and I learned to develop a terrible self-sufficiency to survive. If I didn't get up to go to school, I didn't go, because no one came to wake me up. If I didn't eat, no one told me to. And it's no one's fault.

"If I wanted to get my father's love, I had to sell"

--- Wonderful! Because I was a child and only saw what I was interested in seeing. And I felt rich, because, although there were no luxuries at home, my parents had a store and we never lacked food. My friends always brought foie-gras sandwiches and I brought chorizo ones, even if it wasn't the best part. I always felt rich.

--- Where did you live?

--- In the La Salud neighborhood of Badalona. And I remember seeing all my brothers' pants hanging out and thinking: "Damn! I am rich."

"I am a very shy person, but I have had to eat my shyness with potatoes, dressing up as Enrique Tomás"

--- In my case, selling. If I wanted to get my father's love, I had to sell. It's tough, but it's the harsh reality. Think that I am the only one of the siblings who studied until the age of twelve. The rest did not finish EGB. We all sold, and whoever sold the most, got more smiles and love. But I have nothing to forgive my father for, he didn't know how to do it better. He wasn't a bad person, he was a person of his time.

--- It must have been hard…

--- I am a very shy person, but I've had to swallow my shyness whole, dressing up as Enrique Tomás. The day you meet Enrique, it will be harder for him to utter a word, but I am now playing Enrique Tomás.

--- And is your character very different from the real person?

--- All the good things that Enrique Tomás has, Enrique has, but Enrique, thank God, doesn't need the attention that Enrique Tomás needs, because if Enrique Tomás doesn't sell, the company dies.

--- In that fifty-square-meter apartment in the Salud neighborhood, was t'estimo said often?

--- T'estimo, which is a beautiful word, was never said and Te quiero ---if you allow me to make the joke---, I heard it very few times.

--- And are you one to say te quiero?

--- Continuously, every day. But come on... You ask me such things! What is loving?

--- Loving is loving.

--- Most people believe that loving is: "I love you if you love me." And this is not loving, this is a business. When you love someone, you only think about what you can give to that person, without expecting anything in return. I love many people and I don't consider whether those people love me back.

--- That's a good life philosophy.

--- Whenever something occurs to me, I see that Marcus Aurelius had already said it.

--- Marcus Aurelius?

--- He is my idol. Anything you can think of, he had already said 2,000 years ago. He was the most powerful man in the world. He was a mix of the Pope and Obama together. He says: "The only wealth you will take with you is that which you have given and shared."

--- But do you read Marcus Aurelius?

--- Continuously. And Jesus even more. I know everything about Jesus. You can ask David from Estopa.

--- Ask him if it's true that you know things about Jesus?

--- We spend entire nights without sleeping talking about Jesus. We are both passionate about his life.

"Meeting the Pope has been one of the greatest experiences of my life"

--- My goodness! The life of Jesus gives us hours and hours to talk about. Think that if I have an appointment with you and Ben-Hur is on TV, I will call you and say: "I'm sorry, but I'm not coming." And I have it on video, and I can watch it on a platform, but if they show it, I'll stay to watch it.

--- What do you say to the Pope when you have him in front of you?

--- I think it has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. I have been in front of two popes. John Paul II, who was like another Jesus to me because he exuded light. It was in 2002 and I gave him a ham. He gave me his blessing. I have also met Pope Francis, for whom I have enormous admiration. I chatted with him for an hour and ten minutes. I gave him a book on conscious eating. I would say we are... like friends.

--- Are you friends with Pope Francis?

--- Always through Sister Lucia Caram, who are intimate friends. Pope Francis has Lucia Caram to know what is really happening in the world.

--- Do you have the phone numbers of many politicians?

--- I have many. Politicians are very necessary.

--- And have they ever come looking for you to campaign?

--- Many, many times. But I don't campaign because I want to sell to those from Barça and those from Madrid. You understand me, right? The only flag is the ham flag.

--- For a while, Gerard Piqué was your son-in-law. Did you have a good relationship?

--- And I still do! He's a great guy. He has always been there when I needed him, and he will have me when he needs me. They booed him for saying what he thought, and on top of that, he got involved with Shakira. He's paying for being handsome. I think of my daughter, who now has two problems: being the daughter of and the ex of, when she is really a lioness who hunts.

--- Are you a fan of television series?

--- I have watched all 14 seasons of 24 episodes of The Big Bang Theory eight times. It is the most wonderful series of all time. I know the episodes by heart, but they still surprise me. If we can listen to a song we like a thousand times, why can't we do it with a series or a movie? Every year I watch The Godfather, Love Actually, Jerry Maguire and Rocky at least twice.

--- And do you watch them all the way through?

--- Yes, because it's a kind of self-control. Before, I used to start things and never finish them, and now if I start a book, no matter how bad it is, I have to finish it. I impose it on myself.

--- Is everything from the pig used?

--- Absolutely! Have you noticed that the way a pig walks is very sexy? If you look at a pig from behind, you'll see that its butt is heart-shaped.

--- You bet everything on the ham card, which is an expensive product. Not everyone can afford it.

--- I don't agree that ham is expensive. A plate of ham in a restaurant is much cheaper than a sea bass. And now if you want, we can discuss it.

--- We would need another interview. What are you like when you get angry?

--- I am excessive in everything. But since I am reflective, it lasts less and less. My wife is helping me a lot with this. I am neither tiresome nor intense. I am persevering. I am not conventional in anything.

--- We haven't talked about ham!

--- I need to sell ham, not talk about it (laughs).

--- Who would you have a Bitter Kas with?

--- With someone who reminds me of my family, because for me Bitter Kas is the memory of a family, intimate, and good moment. A whim. The prelude to something good happening.