Peter Stringfellow: my greatest mistake

My original mistake changed my life for the better. It was 1960 and I was 20 years old, just married and recently promoted to door-to-door sales manager for a Sheffield company. I was flash. I bought a suit and even tried to grow a moustache.

I had to go to warehouses to sign out stock for us to sell. At the time, we were selling carpets for £10, but at the end of one week I saw that I had 10 carpets left over, which I hadn't signed out. Any normal law-fearing person would've returned them, but I thought "What can I make out of this?". I sold them on for £5 each.

I started using my charm and was able to get out 30 carpets a time – only signing for 15. One day I got caught by two undercover police and was arrested along with three other managers. In the dock, one of the managers cried and the judge said he seemed remorseful and fined him £100.

When it came to me, I pretended to cry into a handkerchief but the judge saw right through me and said: "You, Mr Stringfellow, are a different kettle of fish. You think you're quite flash for your age. You're glib. You need to be taught a sharp lesson." I was sentenced to three months.

The judge was right. I needed a sharp lesson. Prison wasn't Butlin's – it made me never want to go back. Now, I pay my taxes, have no offshore accounts and everything I do is 100% legal.

LA was my second mistake, which also turned out be a life-changer. I'd started Stringfellows in America but just around the time of the 1990's recession, I decided to open a club in Beverly Hills and put $4m into it. All my other clubs were a success and, from the outside, Number 4 Rodeo Drive looked like a success, too. It was busy but there was only one problem: it never made me a dollar.

It was packed with Hollywood stars but they didn't spend a penny. In the New York club people would buy expensive bottles of wine, in LA they'd buy water or, occasionally, go mad and get an orange juice. After a year we had to close. What all my many mistakes have told me is that if, by 21, anyone hasn't had any failure, they will never know how good success is.