How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S7, BONUS EPISODE! How to Fail: Deliciously Ella

Episode Date: March 4, 2020

SURPRISE! Here I am, clogging up your podcast feed again. Yes, I know I said that Frankie Bridge was the last episode in season 7, but I might have slightly not been telling you the whole truth because here I am with a brand, spanking new BONUS EPISODE all fresh and ready to be listened to by your gorgeous ears.This week, I talk to Ella Mills, aka Deliciously Ella, the woman who launched an empire of plant-based foodstuffs, delis, bestselling cookbooks and fitness apps, all designed to make you live a healthier life. The starting point was her own illness: as a student at St Andrews University, she went in and out of hospital for months until she was diagnosed with a condition that effects the autonomic nervous system. The medicines she was prescribed met with limited success, so Ella decided to experiment with diet. The resulting blog became a phenomenon, and now, here we are.She joins me to talk about her fear of failure and how it stopped her being honest about her illness to her best friends, her failures in business, her failure to know when to quit and her failure to breastfeed, which wrongly made her feel like a failure as a mother. Along the way we discuss sexuality, death, the clean-eating backlash and why chickpeas are great. It will not surprise regular listeners of this podcast to learn that I segued into talking about hummus.Thank you so much to the wonderful Ella Mills!(And that really is the final episode for a while. See you again for Season 8).*This special bonus episode is sponsored by one of my favourite jewellery brands, Missoma. Visit uk.missoma.com and use the code ElizabethDay10 at checkout for 10% off your next purchase!*The Sunday Times Top 5 bestselling book of the podcast, How To Fail: Everything I've Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong is out now in paperback and available to buy here.*There is a FLASH SALE on exclusive How To Fail podcast merchandise - sweatshirts, t-shirts, mugs, post-its and notepads - until Thursday morning. The perfect gift for the failure in all of us! View the full range at howtofailshop.com*How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. We love hearing from you! To contact us, email [e-mail]* Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayElla Mills @deliciouslyella           Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned

from failure. Ella Mills is successful, beautiful, a happily married mother of one who has a thriving business and almost 2 million followers on Instagram. You might not think this woman knows much about failure, but in fact, her success is founded on one deeply significant failure, her health. As an undergraduate at St Andrews University, she started experiencing chronic fatigue and heart palpitations. Mills was also struggling with digestive issues and blood pressure, at points her stomach was so inflamed she could only fit into her father's clothes. For much of that time, she was confined to bed. Mills went in and out of hospital for four months and was eventually diagnosed with postural tachycardia syndrome, a condition that affects

the workings of the autonomic nervous system. The cocktail of medication she was prescribed had limited success, and so Mills decided to take matters into her own hands. She researched the impact diet could have on illness, and in 2012 started blogging about how a plant-based, gluten-free diet had made her feel better. As her symptoms subsided, the blog became a hit. Her first book, published in 2015, was the best-selling debut cookbook ever in the UK. Now working in tandem with her husband Matthew, the Deliciously Ella brand comprises of five

cookbooks, a recipe and yoga app, several food products, a deli and a chart topping podcast. The business employs 70 people and their products are stocked in more than 2,500 stores. This is quite a turnaround for a 28-year-old woman who admits she was once a terrible cook and didn't have a clue how to read spreadsheets. You learn so much from every mistake, she says. It's inevitable that you will make mistakes. I think the question is how quickly you can admit them. Ella Mills, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you very much. You know, I'm the number one fan of your podcast. You're so lovely. No, the honour is all mine. Did I get those facts and figures correct? So the only thing is well and

this is actually one of our three failures is we don't now employ 70 people we now employ about 40 people and but that is part of one of our one of our three failures interesting okay we can come back to that and I can pretend that that mistake was deliberate it was it prompts one of the failures um I love that quote that I read out about learning from every mistake. And I wonder, it's quite a big question to start off with, but do you regret your mistakes? Is there anything that you regret? Or do you feel that because each mistake taught you something successful, that now you're happy to have made them, if that makes sense? I think career-wise, 100%. And I think the more we've gone on, the more I've appreciated that it also would have been impossible. I might have made different mistakes and had different failings, but it would have been completely impossible to get to where we are now and do so many different things without and had so many failings and so I don't think you can regret them because it's impossible to live without them basically and and they have taught us so much

more I think we've become significantly better on the back of everything we've got wrong than what we've got right I think you don't really learn that much from when you get something right and does that apply to you personally as well I think I feel a bit different with that. I think there's a mix. I mean, I think, I don't know, for me, the biggest failing, the number one failure was failure to kind of embrace vulnerability. And in that sort of sense, and that's going back to my illness, I would say no, that is somewhere where I have a lot of regret, actually. And I think I've learned a lot, which I think makes me a happier person now.

But it's one of the things I've got most wrong in my life. I don't know I think my life would be much much better even in a really dark time without having not made such a big mistake I started off the introduction saying that you are successful and beautiful and I know that that will probably embarrass you but I do think it's worth addressing because there will be people listening to this who think, oh, well, she has it all. And I'm very keen on this podcast to show that everyone has private battles beyond the public facade. And I just wonder what you would say to someone who would think that you don't have anything to contribute on that level. Yeah, I completely agree. I think we can all be guilty of that. You look at other people and you

think, oh, they've got it all right. You know, I'm doing it all wrong. And I don't think that you'll ever meet anyone like that. And it's interesting doing Delicious Yellow because I've opened up a lot about things that I've struggled with, especially my health. And then, for example, when Matt's mum was very ill, we were really open about that and him kind of dealing with his grief and things and I think because we've had an openness of sort of failings and challenges and struggles often when I meet people even if it's a kind of personally it's a friend of a friend or it's a book signing or an event or something people are very honest with me about especially health struggles kind of mental or physical and so I think I've come to realize that all these people who on the surface look so bubbly and so happy and they're so pretty

or whatever it is actually are really really really really struggling like I'll never forget I went to one of my best friend's weddings and there was this girl there and she was dating the best man and she was so gorgeous and so bubbly and she came up to me in the loo and sort of basically started crying and was like I'm so ill she was like I'm having to do all these different things to kind of keep up with people no one really knows I'm struggling so much I've kind of never felt this bad in my life she was like I'm worried everyone's gonna think I'm boring do people think you're boring do you worry about this and kind of literally spills her whole guts and it's like the person at the wedding that you'd kind of think oh my gosh I wish I was that girl you know she's so outgoing and actually

she was probably struggling more than anyone there. And it's been a really good lesson in the fact that I'm yet to meet anyone who actually has that sense of perfection that we're chasing that doesn't exist. So I came on your podcast a few months ago and loved it. And you present the podcast with Matt, your husband. And there was one of the most moving exchanges

I've ever had on any podcast, my own or anyone else's, when Matt talked about his mother dying. For people who aren't familiar with what happened, could you tell us? Yeah, so Matt's mum was diagnosed with a very aggressive cancerous brain tumour completely out of nowhere almost two years ago. and it just kind of knocked everything for six his family is so so so close and he his mum was his kind of complete sort of guiding light in everything that he did and he spent the next year kind of watching her go from you know the most kind of vivacious like energy-filled incredibly successful brilliant woman to you know someone who was really really sick and she was incredible throughout like her optimism her resilience she really she was a incredibly successful, brilliant woman to, you know, someone who was really, really sick.

And she was incredible throughout, like her optimism, her resilience. She really, she was a politician and she campaigned a lot around cancer care and cancer treatment, especially brain cancer, where there's not been a huge amount of development in the last few decades. But she did pass away within the year and it was for him and, you know, the whole family and his sister, it was just the most sort of unexpected challenge that, you know, and the hardest thing I think they could have been through. But, you know, I think as he talked about with you, like he did learn so, so, so much from it that, you know, more than anything, just kind of appreciating everything. Because I think nothing, at least I've never seen anything that highlights just how quickly life can change you know it changed in a 24-hour period that teaches you a lot of kind of appreciation and gratitude that we can sometimes forget I'm so sorry no so Matt's mother was as you mentioned a phenomenal politician Tessa Jowell and you're the daughter of a politician

yeah we have an arranged marriage yeah I was about to ask yeah how did it happen yeah no honestly I'm not joking it's like basically it's an arranged marriage my dad and his mum used to work together and so they've known each other for ages and ages and here's another failure Matt wanted to be a golfer and that was his whole life from when he was like three years old and then he got to about 26 and realized he was playing professionally but wasn't going to be in the top 50 and so decided to quit was really lost worked in finance for a few years hated it started a business with some friends and they were actually started a farming business in sierra leone quite random anyway they were doing so well

they raised one of the biggest private equity rounds ever for west africa and it was going brilliantly and then three weeks after they signed the deal Ebola hit and all the money was pulled and so they had no idea what to do and they were kind of had all this land all these people and were looking at kind of different options and they were thinking you know well why don't we start growing different crops there maybe we can make some interesting products that we can then sell in the UK using the whatever we can produce on that land and then he was reading the Sunday Times and it was just after my first book came out and he was reading an article about me and was like, oh, she sounds like she could be interesting for this

project. And then realized that he knew my dad. And so he got my dad's email address from his mom, emailed my dad and was like, oh, she, Ella sounds really interesting. Can you introduce me? And I, I'd just broken up my boyfriend at four years and obviously was in that moment of like, I'm going to be on my own forever. He obviously dumped me. And so I was having, yeah. Not obvious at all, but okay. What a loser.

What a loser. No, all's well that ends well. Anyway, but yeah, you're having those moments of thinking, oh, I'm so alone. And then I got, anyway, my dad emails me and he's like, this is the best person you'll ever meet in your life. He's the most handsome, charming, blah, blah, blah. And like sent me a photo of him. I mean, it was so creepy. Really was like extraordinarily creepy. And anyway, and so then, so I met Matt and we met

a couple of times and then we went out and a week later, week after our first date, we moved in together. Yeah. We're engaged and had a dog and decided to work together within four months and we were married within a year but then two days after we got engaged my parents told us that they were getting divorced and that my dad was gay and had had been having a long-term relationship with someone else so you know it just is the best example you see people would have thought oh my gosh she's so lucky you know there she is she's met someone and actually two days later you realize that like the foundation of your life has completely fallen apart we're meeting in the week after philip scofield has said that he's gay did that bring up stuff for you i

mean how did you manage that yeah i mean it was it was a lot to kind of not not I mean we might were very open minded as a family I had not literally couldn't have minded less about that but it's just a lot it was a lot to process especially when you're on such a high and then obviously your family's in such a low of kind of breaking up but you know it's again like we're four years on now five years on now and everyone is so much happier than they've been in like 15 years and so again I think it's the best example of like I was just on holiday with my mum and her new boyfriend and you just think I'm in the same place that we found out about everything else and you just think like give it a few years and like life just changes all the time

and I don't think anyone would have expected my dad's about to get married my mum's got a nice new boyfriend and you realize like god all this complete crap has turned really good but at the time it was complete hell of course this is why age 28 you're such a wise old soul you've been through some stuff yeah and that's exactly so we you know everyone's like oh my gosh they're having the best relationship ever and it's like well within three years of being together we dealt with that with my family and then as soon as that kind of came into the clear and everyone was kind of calming down and things felt better matt's mum got sick and so it was like gosh you know your kind of life's such a roller coaster we've spoken about your dad your mum her maiden name is or was Sainsbury yeah and she's from the Sainsbury's family yeah how does it feel it's deliciously Ella in Sainsbury's I'm assuming

it is it is but they were the last people that took us classic but how does it feel now walking in and seeing your own product there it must be incredible yeah it's amazing and I mean my my mom so it makes her really really happy and yeah now that we're in there also she's like the most loyal Sainsbury shopper ever so I was like well get our stuff on a cardo like go to Tesco she's like no I can't do that so luckily now she's really happy let's move on to your failures yeah your first failure is your failure to embrace vulnerability so explain a bit more about that because I think it relates to a period in your life when you were ill yeah exactly I mean

I think it's probably forever but it was at that point that I think happened the most and for me I think the fundamental problem and failing there was that I so struggled to like I guess be honest with myself and accept the fact that I was really really sick and that I was quite different to everyone else and I think it was a challenging I mean it happened when I was turning 21 and so I was in the second year of uni and like everyone's going out and they're having so much fun and obviously everyone's priorities that point are like who drunk what and with who and what happened with who you know it's not it's like that's what matters at that point in your life most of the time and I couldn't do any of that and I really

struggled to open up to people I felt so embarrassed about being different and so embarrassed about the kind of failing of my health and the fact that I yeah just felt so kind of small and insignificant and kind of just useless next to everyone else. And I'd so struggled to process that. And I think because I got sick pretty quickly, like at the change in which that happened, and I just didn't want to admit it. And I didn't want to kind of really accept it where I was. I really struggled to open up about it and be vulnerable. And I do think that vulnerability is what attracts people to each other and it lets people in and instead I just close myself off completely like for example I was moving in that year with three

girls and they'd been really good friends of mine for the last two years and they're lovely girls and instead of kind of calling them up and being like this is why I've been completely off the grid for the last three months like this is what's going on I sent a Facebook message as a group to the three of them and was like hi here's a link kind of thing to what I've got that's why I've been quiet you know like I'm not feeling very well basically I mean I'm not I don't have the message and I probably could find it but it was effectively that I mean it was rubbish like it didn't tell them anything and so obviously like they didn't reply with much either and it stuck with me forever because I then thought okay well they don't care no one cares yeah they all

just do think I'm weird it kind of confirmed everything that I'd thought of myself and as a result I didn't really talk to anyone else about it and instead of saying to people like oh I can't come out at the moment but like do you want to come and watch a movie you know one night where you don't want to go out you know I never did that I never invited anyone in and my loneliness was just off the scale I had one friend who was one of my best friends still and she had been very ill about six months before and so I confided in her because I felt like she understood but other than her and like my mum I didn't want to talk about it with anyone so I basically just didn't really see anyone for a few years and that was just like the most isolating experience ever and it created this kind of

almost sense of like thinking that everyone else was bad real sense of victimization and yeah this kind of loneliness which was self-perpetuating and just it made what was already a really difficult situation infinitely worse because you know obviously if your physical health is really bad it often impacts on your mental health but then add in that sense of kind of isolation and loneliness and it made it a hundred times worse than it needed to be and that is I think one of the things that I've got most wrong in my life and actually I think it's taken longer to repair my self-esteem from feeling so kind of rejected even though I'd almost caused the rejection I still had this kind of deep sense

of rejection of everyone around me and I think it's taken so much longer to heal from that than it has to get the symptoms under control and I'm still not 100% convinced that I'm like completely healed from that I think I still have this little bit at the back of me that's convinced that like you I will be rejected by people do you worry that people don't like you oh my gosh that's literally my number one worry I still have this kind of burning paranoia of people thinking I'm so boring. But I think it was doing life differently to other people that made me feel like I was boring because I was different. And that must be what everyone else thought. And it's so, yeah, it's just really stuck with me. Has motherhood helped with that? Because your baby presumably doesn't reject you.

Yeah. Was that healing? presumably doesn't reject you yeah just it was that healing yeah I think so I do and I think it has probably given me a bit more of a sense of perspective and I think I mind less what other people think because I feel like it doesn't matter compared to what she thinks which I think has probably really really really helped and it's it's you know it's got better a little bit by little bit by little bit but I still kind of of find I have to push myself to make new friends and reach out to people and say, oh, do you want to do this? And because I still think people are going to turn around and be like, no, I don't want to spend time with you.

Is going to a party where you don't know anyone on your own your idea of hell? Genuine hell. Like nothing petrifies me more. Where do you think the shame came from with your illness? Was there a particular way that it manifested that made you feel like you couldn't be honest about it? I think it was two things. I think the fact that it was quite weird, you know, it's not something that people have heard of or know anything about. And also it's mostly invisible. And so it's quite hard to explain to people like, oh, I can't control my heart rate. You know, when I stand up, it's 190, that makes me really dizzy. That can make you blackout. Like I find it quite hard to explain to people like oh I can't control my heart rate you know when I stand up it's 190 that makes me really dizzy that can make you black out like I find it really hard

to walk to the end of the street I think it's quite hard to relate to that and people have never ever ever heard of it and it's like is that real is that not real especially if you can't see anything at all so I think that was one part of it but then the other part was that my stomach was so bad like I've got a picture of my stomach when I was pregnant at like six and a half months compared to when I was sick and it wasn't until six and a half months pregnant that they were the same which is you know quite something and again when that would happen I would just be so embarrassed because you don't want to be defined by it but it's quite hard to like feel you know particularly attractive when your stomach is that swollen it's different when you're pregnant because you can embrace it it's like this kind of

you know it's a growing being it's different it's kind of there's a magic in it whereas like there's no magic in your stomach just being that swollen because it's that angry at you did that affect romantic relationships as well oh my gosh completely because like you're you know pretty self-conscious because it it did look a bit weird for sure so did you have any relationships during that time yes I had I had with the boyfriend that done me just before I met Matt and he was absolutely amazing like really really incredible like the most supportive person anyone could possibly be which did again really help like I think if he had rejected me I don't know what would have happened then kind of everyone would have rejected me luckily I think for me that he didn't okay fine I'm sorry

that I called him a loser I'm sure he was very nice but he did still dump me um and what then was the trigger point what was the point you got to where you thought no this isn't working the medicine isn't working and I need to do something about it and this is the route I'm going to go I'm going to research diet it was actually I tried to do a trip with him so I hadn't done anything for like the best part of a year and he wanted to kind of go away for a few days and I was like no I'm going to do this like I can do it you know trying to kind of like be really strong and and kind of again try and like be normal whatever that means and so we booked a few days in retrospect probably wasn't the best location but we went to Marrakesh and I got a kind of vague you know as

lots of people do like a bit of an upset stomach and it just snowballed and I lost a stone in under a week um because I got so sick he had to bring me home like in a wheelchair it was really bad and I got back from that trip and I was like that's the first time that I've tried to kind of be normal and actually do something that's not just watch like the Kardashians and Grey's Anatomy and I I really failed like that was the worst trip ever and yes I said I had to be brought home early push me home in a wheelchair and so I've and you know obviously that doesn't make you feel particularly sexy either and that that was the moment I think that it dawned on me the reality also because if you don't try to some extent you're not failing

and I hadn't tried I'd sat in bed and watched the Kardashians I couldn't do stuff but I knew that in some extent so I didn't even bother and it was when I bothered to try and do something that it really dawned on me that I couldn't do it and it kind of slapped me in the face and I was like I can't I can't live like this anymore and yeah I think it was just probably the first time I'd been like vaguely honest with myself and are you a bit of a geek? Because I imagine the research that you did took quite a bit of time. Yeah, a total geek. Once I find something I'm like, can geek out on, I'm all about it. Yeah. And it was interesting. And I started learning, but I then met with my godmother. And my godmother had had ME when she was a similar age. And she said the thing that

really saved her was a hobby. I think she had it for like the best part of 10 years for her it had been photography because obviously photography is something you can kind of do anywhere you can you can practice from your sofa so obviously the hobby had to be kind of reasonable given the circumstances and so I thought well it's really interesting like you know kind of starting it with all the reading but I need to learn to cook so is that the hobby and then a friend of mine said well why don't you do it as a blog and that was completely the plan but I never planned to share myself or why I was doing it and the girlfriend who suggested the blog said but it doesn't make any sense why you're doing what you're doing especially at that point this is beginning 2012 like vegan food was really weird you know it was like the word vegan kind of made people shudder and like stand back

from you so you're kind of yeah this like strange hippie and you know you're gonna get dreadlocks and like wear long flowing clothes and just eat lentils forever and so people kind of a bit funny about it and so she said you've got to share why you're doing what you're doing and so I wrote the about and I kind of said okay well this is what's been happening for the last year like this is what I'm gonna try and this is I'm going to try it again like I was so embarrassed I didn't share it with anyone I didn't want anyone to see it and after about three months the same friend was like come on like we've got to be able to see it and my family wanted to see it and so I did I showed them and you know some friends shared it with some friends and suddenly all these people who I hadn't seen for like two years because I completely shut myself away were like oh that's why you've been completely missing

and was so people were really nice about it and really kind about it and it it was a good lesson again in like realizing that I had only hindered myself further by not sharing and not being open no one was like oh my god you, you total freak. You know, you're so strange. Like how could you possibly have let this happen? Everyone was like, I'm really sorry to hear that. And did it have an immediate impact? Yeah, it did. Well, I think also I felt empowered by just doing something. I think being honest with yourself and like taking the first step always feels good. Obviously nothing changed overnight, but something changed in my head and I think that did a lot.

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that inspires the locations, the characters and the storylines of Assassin's Creed. Listen and follow Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. So how do you manage your condition today is it all diet based yeah it's all lifestyle based so it took me about two years to come off all the different medicines but I've been off them since I about 18 months ago went on one new one for about two months or so after some things flared up but like basically touch wood like on a day-to-day basis yeah it's pretty good I mean I still have to live in a certain way which I've come to appreciate and again can flare up that oh you're boring

because you can't drink loads and stay out really late but I think again motherhood has helped me with that probably more than anything because I now have a reason not to want to do those things anyway and also getting up at 5am with her with a hangover is not fun. And so you kind of have appreciation of that now. So it kind of feels like it doesn't even matter anyway. I'm really interested in drilling down into this, to this level of detail, because I know that there was a backlash against quote unquote clean eating,

which is not a term that you have ever used. And to your immense credit, you're one of the only people who's taken that argument head on and responded. And I just wanted to put it to you really, because as you said, when you started doing it in 2012, veganism was seen as a bit weird. Now it's really mainstream. But there is this sense that people who advocate a certain kind of restrictive diet are also triggering disordered eating yeah and I just wanted to put that to you for your response it's a really interesting one so I obviously started everything that I was doing for my health and it never had anything to do with aesthetics like

weight loss was the last thing that I cared about and still do like and it was one of the only times I thought I'm just gonna close this yellow down like I don't want to do this because it felt as though whatever you said whatever you did people weren't listening they wanted to put you in a certain box and interestingly all the criticism came at women which is something I find absolutely fascinating because there are men in this space too and they're brilliant like I don't mean it I don't have judgment of any person in the space for what they're doing but i did find it really interesting there are men whose entire careers are based on kind of before and after photos and weight loss and yet their names were not mentioned once so true and they were only heralded as like brilliant brilliant brilliant brilliant no backlash whatsoever

women saying nothing to do with weight loss and eating better were heralded as like witches and i i think it's impossible to have the conversation without acknowledging that and it's a really challenging conversation because by no means do i want to shed a bad light or be like oh no it's actually all their fault but it didn't really feel like a fair conversation in any shape or form and i think the second part for me with the biggest challenge was is that obviously everyone's got to find their right balance but as a country as a nation our balance is so off it's so so so off we're like sort of between one in four five and one in four of us even managing to get our five a day you know the vast majority of us don't

eat enough fiber fiber is so important for your gut health which is linked to your brain health which is linked to everything and you know these things really matter and we're not doing them and there's an irony in like opening a newspaper and there's a massive headline about you know the rise of diabetes and the rise of this and the rise of that and the you know the nhs falling apart and then the next page saying these people who are advocating healthy eating of the devil and you're like but this doesn't make any sense now there has to be a balance between the two and i think for me that's the biggest challenge is i've always felt like i don't need to advocate eating pizza or chips everyone eats

pizza and chips they don't need any help like they don't need any pr but no one thinks lentils are cool you know if you went onto the street now and you talked to a 12 year old and you said like a chip's cool, you know, they'd say yes. And you'd be like, oh, a chickpea's cool. No, obviously not. Who are you?

And it's not that you want one to be good and one to be bad, but we do desperately need like chickpeas and broccoli and carrots to be as cool as, so we eat them as often as, if not more than these other foods and that to me is the biggest challenge and that to me is why I feel like it's a really important conversation to have like I think that advocating healthy eating is really really important but that's not to say

you should only eat broccoli like putting out recipes with broccoli doesn't mean that you can never eat a burger ever again and I think that's my challenge so often with these conversations is they feel so reductive and it feels like people are so keen to find a hole in anyone you know we really do that I think in the UK so much and it's such a shame it's like whenever someone seems to be doing something you know and they get somewhere with it it's like nope they can't be doing that and we cut them down straight away and you see it all the time all the time all the time but particularly with women it's really sad when was the last time you ate a burger i mean it was a vegan burger let's be honest you're allowed yeah exactly but i mean i think they're delicious but my point is you can't live off of a burger every single day we need to have to like

dolls and the chickpea chilies and things in there as well that's my challenge basically it's like how do you change people's mindset to embrace everything my cat has literally just jumped up onto the table and is nudging the microphones Huxley no he's got a lot to say there we go he was just like how can I be vegan tell me okay he's now on lap. When I was reading up about you for this episode, it struck me in so many ways that categorizing food as good or bad is the same as categorizing failure and success as good or bad. And I know that you don't do that with food. You don't say something is one thing is good and one thing is bad, because it is all about balance. But it just really struck me that actually, there is no such thing as good or bad there is simply the experience you take from it in both

arenas a hundred percent I completely agree you can't have one without the other and that that's the point you can't only eat broccoli you've got to have other things in there too and you can't only succeed like it's not it's not possible and I think I completely agree like life is the mix of everything that's what makes it interesting and that's what makes you succeed in the end, I think. So what would you say to someone who's sort of struggling because they think that they need to do everything all at once? Like what's a small change that someone can make in their lifestyle? You've got to enjoy it. Like that to me is the ultimate thing. I think, you know, with the way you eat with everything, but I think when it comes to healthy living,

there's this assumption exactly of like, there's a kind of sense of deprivation in it and a sense of kind of piousness and that to me is everything that's wrong with it like that's what doesn't work like you've got to have a life that works 365 days a year for the next few decades and that means the kind of relaxed balance approach but that also gives you lots of energy and you know helps you sleep well and all the rest of it so it's finding that sense of balance and that sense of balance I think comes from enjoying something because it's just not sustainable to do something you don't enjoy it will last a week it will last two weeks but it won't last two years two years works when you're kind to yourself and you eat in a way that makes you feel good physically and mentally

I love chickpeas by the way I love chickpeas they're feel good physically and mentally. I love chickpeas, by the way. I love chickpeas. They're just so great and versatile. And I love hummus. I love hummus. Hummus is like my lifeblood. And the saddest thing in the world is that Matt hates hummus. What? How could you have married him? I honestly, sometimes I wonder. And he like hates it. Like the smell of it is the worst thing on earth to him. It's the one thing that is always in my fridge. Me too. And it's my number one snack. So if I'm like in the car or something, that would be like my ultimate snack. And he's like, open all the windows.

This is foul. Can I just go back to the bit there where we were talking about the backlash? Yeah. How difficult was that for you to cope with? Because essentially it's like being trolled on a national scale. Yeah, I found it really hard.

There was one article where I was compared to Donald Trump. Yeah Trump yeah it was a whole piece by a very well-known journalist another woman obviously she hates me this journalist I've never met her she thinks I'm the evil devil and she wrote another article where she was pregnant about pregnancy and about how like people like me make pregnancy look awful because I like keep doing yoga throughout pregnancy and things like that and I'm like god I'm just doing what it takes for me to not have cankles because they really hurt like my feet were getting so swollen I was just and that I think for me was what I found really challenging because I was like you know you cannot like me that is great like I'm all about that that's no problem we all have people we connect to and who resonate with us

and people who don't but you've never met me you've never bothered to have a conversation with me you evidently have not read anything I've ever said it's like if you come to my Instagram page you will see pasta after peanut butter toast after porridge you will never see like a little salad I don't eat like that that's my worst nightmare I hate lettuce there's an irony in that but like I hate green salad it's like one of my worst foods ever and so lettuce. There's an irony in that. But like, I hate green salad. It's like one of my worst foods ever. And so it's like you're painting this picture of me, which is just really incorrect.

That for me was what I found the most frustrating and what made me want to quit was I was like, what's the point? I feel like I'm pushing against a wall. And yeah, as I said, there was a kind of week where there was just so many articles painting me as literally the devil and being like, comparing me to Donald Trump. And I'm like, okay, you might not like me like me but like that is and I'm sorry to offend anyone who who

does like Donald Trump but that felt a little bit extreme and yeah and I really really struggled and as someone who was kind of struggling to some extent with their self-esteem when that all piles in it's really challenging but the biggest challenge of all is I'm just like why can't you just talk to me like I'm such an open person and happy to talk about absolutely anything and if you come and chat with me and we spend an hour talking and I can tell you a bit about what we do and why we do it and what we do and what we don't do and then you think everything and you want to write it up please go ahead because that seems fair but just destroying someone almost for the sake of it and just jumping on a bandwagon just felt really bitter and a little bit misplaced so how do you deal with it that someone you've never met never had a conversation with is saying really mean things

about you how do you keep your sense of self I just don't read anything I literally don't read anything good or bad I don't read anything I literally don't read anything good or bad I don't read it I don't want to know like if I do an interview with someone I'll never ever ever read what they write up you can't do it and you're such a can of worms once you read one thing you read the next yeah it's too dangerous yeah I think that's very very good advice and for similar reasons although it's nowhere near your scale but I I never read my Amazon reviews anymore because they're horrible they're horrible and there are some lovely ones but I just realized that actually if I were reading the lovely ones and I was taking in stuff from that it meant that

I had to do the same with the bad ones I also had to take that in and I just prefer not to do it now because and that's the point is you if you feel you've done your best job there's only so much you can do and criticism for really important but constructive criticism is really important and it's the same like i never forget the first daily mail article about me and what we were doing i read the comments yeah i'll never do it again cardinal error and i was just literally and i mean i've never read anything like it and you're just in floods of tears and but the irony is that is the article that really kick-started delicious yellow and sent our book to number one and that was why

it became such a successful book so it's like everything's such a kind of so you know swings and roundabouts with everything and so the thing that made my career take off that's given me the life I have is also something that came with like the most horrible things I could ever read about me it's so interesting because I it's not just Daily Mail commenters because I used to write for The Observer which is part of the Guardian media group and I worked there for eight years and one of my biggest realizations from that time was that whatever I wrote on whatever subject taking whatever position week after week I would be battered by the online comments so actually it taught me that there was nothing I could do.

Like I couldn't please every single person. Yeah, it's impossible. It's completely impossible. And I think I realised I was trying to do that in my real life as well. And that's impossible because you're basically outsourcing your sense of self to people you've never met. But also then you stand for nothing. And that's what I realised after the whole clean eating kind of debacle

and all the criticism. I then didn't want to say anything I was like okay like I'm mute now I'm just going to give you a pasta recipe and that's it I'll have no point and I'll have no stance and actually it didn't work like it really didn't work because then no one knows what do you stand for what do you care about like what do you advocate for what is your passion like as long as it's something that you feel is genuine and you can stand by time and time again and are happy to defend and talk about, then it's okay if people don't like you.

Whereas there's no point being nothing. And that's what I've realized is I'm happy to embrace the people who don't like what we do because I feel like I'm happy and I believe in what we stand for and why we do what we do. And I think that's important whereas kind of otherwise you can get so stuck in nothingness in the middle it's very interesting that we're

talking about gender in this context because you're so right if you had not carried on doing what you do you would have been a woman silenced yeah and all the bad criticism I've had is from women it sort of brings us us onto your second failure, which is your failure to breastfeed, which cannot help but be gendered. And as someone who doesn't have children, has never experienced it herself, but I do know from very good friends of mine

how unbelievably inflammatory some of the dialogue around breastfeeding is. Oh my gosh, it's insane. I've never, ever, ever seen anything like it like I was actually really scared to put that as one of my failures because I was so scared to open up the conversation about it because it's something that women are so passionate about but the reason I think it's a failure and to some extent is that I in some ways I feel like in my head I was slightly one of those women that had this vision of myself as a

mother and a bit of a kind of earth mother and like I'd have sky attached to me the whole time and I'd be breastfeeding her till she was two and people are like whoa it's so old like and I'd be like no breast milk so important it's so good for them and then life happens and you start to actually experience it rather than it being in your head and I wasn't that mother it didn't work it didn't work for either of us and I think that was what was so interesting and I never at no I don't think there was a single day where breastfeeding was easy for us and it's just not what I expected and in some ways that was a failure was the standard was so high and I'd set myself this kind of image of this sort of goddess mother that I just wasn't living up to because it was impossible and because it just didn't work like that I mean there was so many kind of boring things she was

had a tongue tie and so she couldn't really move her tongue and I had too much milk and so she hated it because it was just like being waterboarded basically and she couldn't move her tongue to deal with it so it didn't create a good association for her and then I went back to work really early because I was committed to doing our next book and our next season of the podcast because we got pregnant really quickly so you know good things and bad things and I wasn't there enough and I was like I'd be in a meeting and I'd be watching my phone and watching my watch and like would sprint back but then I was so stressed and I just wasn't there to feed enough so the milk started drying up and then she was really frustrated anyway and after about four and a half months Matt sat me down and was like you I'm so sorry to say it but he was like you are

miserable right now he was like it's not fun to live with you the last four weeks have not been fun he's like you're bringing everything down he's like you're so one-track minded that like nothing else exists anymore. And I don't think it's serving anyone in this family. Oh my goodness. And he did it in a really nice way. And actually it was the best thing he could have said because for about a month, it's literally the only thing I could do. I was like, no, I can't come out. No, I can't do this. I must pump. And I was doing something called power pumping where you pump like every 15 minutes for like two hours. I mean, what it's just, there's life and there's, you know, like martyrdom. And I was completely poking myself in the latter and it was just hell.

It wasn't fun. Skye didn't like breastfeeding. She didn't want to go on the boob and she never found comfort in it. She's such a little independent woman from day one. Like she wants to see what's going on and she was just never interested. And I was also back at work within a month of her being born. And so not sleeping at all for like a year was also not an option.

Like I was committed to what we were doing and it was just so interesting. So it took him again saying that for me to kind of be honest with myself and being like, this isn't working. I'm kind of forcing this on both of us. And the milk's just not there anymore. And after a few weeks, I kind of said, you know what, like, actually, I'm going to let this phase out.

She was so happy. She'd never had any interest in going back on it. She didn't even notice. And our relationship so much better. Life just became so much better and so easy. And I put up, but then I put up a picture on Instagram where she was having a bottle. And I just said nothing about what was in the bottle.

I mean, it could easily have been just like express milk. And I have never experienced comments like it. Bearing in mind, I didn't even say anything. And then some people were like, we're going to report you to like the ASA. It's illegal to promote formula and you know you didn't try everything you're lying like you know there's that the next thing and it was just it was so fascinating i've never ever ever experienced and then other mothers

emailing me privately saying you know like thanks for being honest i found breastfeeding really hard but i'm too scared to comment on your picture because I know I'll be attacked if I say I didn't breastfeed my child. But why? Why do you think this is? It is true. Like breast milk is better. You know, the science is there and I totally respect and appreciate that. So it is a difficult one. Like I get why we need to say like, if you can do it, please do it. Like it is better for the baby. But there's also what I came to realise and what Matt was kind of saying. It's like, but life is important for Sky. Like But there's also what I came to realize and what Matt was kind of saying. It's like, but life is important for Sky. Like, yes, boob milk is brilliant.

And if you can do that and be like in a good relationship with your partner and be kind of happy and therefore creating a happy relationship for your child, then it's great. But I was thinking that nothing else mattered. And all that mattered for her kind of health and happiness was boob milk. And it didn't matter that I was so stressed and I was crazy and I wasn't available for anything else in my life and didn't take one second to kind of breathe. But anyway, I've never experienced so much judgment in the fact that I was admitting kind of defeat and admitting that I couldn't really do it which is why I was sending myself so crazy because I was refusing to possibly admit that how incredible that you and Matt can communicate that clearly with each other I think that's the foundation of a really brilliant relationship yeah I needed to hear it I really

really did Sky six months now how do you feel about your quote-unquote failure to breastfeed now I feel like in the last month I've really come to terms with it and it was partly she is so much happier she's so happy and so it's like well you know what what more could you possibly want she's literally the happiest baby ever and I'm so happy for it and it was like within a week of admitting it and trying it I was like oh my gosh life is transformed and the thing that's so interesting as well and I was talking to Matt about doing this and my failures last night and he was like I also think it's really interesting that you picked it as a failure because he's like you didn't actually fail he was like you

breastfed her for four and a half months and then I did it kind of 50% for the next month so he was like that's actually also not even a failure to some extent and but I did it kind of 50% for the next month so he was like that's actually also not even a failure to some extent and but I see it's like oh my gosh you failed because you were going to do it for a year and you didn't manage a year so it's terrible it's really black and white way of looking at it well I know that your favorite episode of how to fail is the one with Mo Gowdat which is also one of my favorites of all time because it really changed my life. But Mo says this thing, and he's the man who developed an algorithm for happiness. And essentially his algorithm is,

is that you need to live your life within your expectation of it. So as long as life is less than or equal to your expectation, then you can be happy. And I think that's such a telling story, Ella, of how you had an expectation of yourself as a mother yeah that wasn't grounded on any reality because you can't project a future version of you

because it doesn't exist and therefore the expectation making you unhappy totally and I also wasn't giving myself any credit for anything else like again Matt was really helpful in that because he was like but you're creating a life for her in working and again some mums were so mean about like going back to work and and someone was like we just close it down and I was like I can't just close it down like it doesn't work like that like if we just close it down we are unemployed like we're really in trouble like that's not good for Sky either and I think that's what's fascinating is yeah there was this just kind of complete madness in the level of judgment and there's someone said well you know I didn't work at all for six years and as a result we had to sell our house and do this and I was like but I'm really proud of my

career and I really hope it's inspiring to Sky and I think it's important but again I was feeling like I was a terrible mum because I was back at work and because I was prioritising that alongside her. And it's, yeah, just that kind of tension between trying to give two parts of your life kind of TLC really kind of came to a head. I can't thank you enough for talking about it. It's the first ever breastfeeding failure we've had. And I think it's so important and it will bring so much comfort to so many women out there but I think yeah and I think for me it's not even necessarily about the feeling I think it's that that as you said it's that like being torn between different things and that for me is what I really realized it symbolized and I told you this is my

first kind of official day back at work today and it actually having kind of been through that made me feel so much less guilty about leaving her you know I'm really happy with who she's with I know she's really happy you know and actually like I'm really proud to go and you know create a company and be a female founder company and have you know have her hopefully come and work in it one day and kind of be a part of it and actually try and let go of that guilt because you can't do everything and you can't do everything right before we get on to your third and final failure I wanted to ask you about social media because you do have 1.7 million followers at the moment and you talked there about how you posted a picture and it triggered all of this judgment how do you manage what you post and how aware of you of the impact that social media might have on your mental health?

Yeah, increasingly aware, actually, and increasingly aware that it's not just me. It's whoever's consuming it. And I think I think it's an impossible situation, basically, social media. I don't know if anyone can get it right. It's really interesting because I think if we reduce what we did to like simply just recipes nothing else people wouldn't be as engaged and that's what's so interesting is people engage so much in the human aspect of it but then in the human aspect of it you're polarizing and so how you find the balance I don't know but I for me I used to hold myself to much higher standards than I currently do

and I think Sky's been a really good lesson in there and you know i used to be like every single day i have to reply to every single person and it's madness and it sent me crazy you know i literally wake up in the morning you say you wake up at like 5am you know and you could go back to sleep but i'm like no i must go through my instagram inbox all of the messages all of the messages yeah every single day sometimes it would be like six seven hundred I'd spend like five hours doing it I had no life and it was genuinely insane like total madness because I felt like I was failing people if I didn't and the challenges I still do because in amongst things that like don't really have to apply to because they're just someone sharing a picture of a recipe they made and it's lovely to see it and acknowledge it but

if you don't get around to that like it's okay i don't think they're even expecting you to necessarily see it they're just saying like oh i got this recipe from the delicious yellow book whereas another message will actually be like a really important message either let's say like you know there was a reason they need to tell us something or they can't find our product where so you know we need to reply to them and let them know where to find it or it's someone sharing their story and it's really heartfelt and not replying to that is like a sense of rejection to them but you might not see it and so I still struggle with that and try and go through the whole inbox to pick out important messages as much as I can and you'll reply still personally yeah tapping it out on

your phone yeah no one else uses our social media just me I'm really really amazed by that and impressed because I don't answer all my messages oh I don't anymore okay fine no no no that's that was one of my things after Sky was born I was still trying to do it and then I was like I'm insane I've got this like week old baby I'm never gonna get this time back like get life although I have to say we met over Instagram we DM'd each other so sometimes it really is beneficial it is and I learned so much from it but I think it's removing the pressure to have to do it all you know do as much as you possibly can like on my way home now I'll go through it and I've got like 40 minutes I'll hopefully get through loads but if I get through 60%

that's fab and there's nothing I can do about that other 40%. I'll hopefully get through loads. But if I get through 60%, that's fab. And there's nothing I can do about that other 40%. And I read somewhere that recently you curated the people that you follow. So you ditched sort of 900 people that you follow because they weren't making you happy. Yeah, I did the cull of all culls. And Instagram tried to ban me from it. I think because I followed too many people too quickly that I thought I was like... A bot.

Yeah, messing with things. But yeah, it was the best thing I've done in ages it really was and I actually set up a private account which I use you know and I'll share pictures of like sky and things like that on it but it's I think I've only got 60 people that follow me and it's literally like my family and my best best friends and that's it and now I love because then I follow them and so that takes me three minutes to look through every single day, you know, because it's so small. But it means I do always see anything from, you know, my closest people in my life, which I love because I want to make sure I see it and see what they're up to. And it doesn't get lost in amongst everything.

But on Delicious Cielo, I did the cull of all culls. I just used to follow all these people. And then I was like, why am I following this? I also bound myself from the Daily Mail online because it's so easy to get so consumed in these things but I was like I don't know what this is giving me like I really really don't like let's be honest it's not giving me the news you know I can get that from like BBC news it's just giving me like celebrity gossip and like how much does that really serve me like and it don't mean that in a judgment I've read it for a very very very long time but I just feel like then you start comparing yourself to kim kardashian why are you comparing

yourself to kim kardashian like even if it's subconscious when you're continuously looking at all these other people you are looking at what you think is their life it's not their life like we all know that but it's easy to get consumed in us following like various like victoria's secret models i'm like what am i getting from this? I've done the same thing. And I always say to people, it doesn't matter. You don't need a reason to unfollow. It doesn't make you a bad person. No one's judging you for doing it.

Least of all the person that you've unfollowed who won't realise. And they're not doing anything wrong either. No, exactly. It's nothing to do with them. It's all the stuff that you bring to it. It's your baggage. And if it just makes you feel a bit grubby, then choose not to do it. Well, especially as like, you know, I've got like, you know, when you're a new mum and you're like covered in milk and sick and like, you know, you haven't washed yourself in a few days and you're a bit rank.

Then like following like Gigi Hadid, who's like, you know, getting ready for her Vogue shoot. Like it's just, you know, she's not doing anything wrong. Like she looks amazing and like good luck at Vogue. But like you are the polar opposite in your pajamas still at 3 p.m as i said like covered in all kinds of bodily fluids like you just don't need that level of comparison it doesn't do you good and i hate the one thing i actually love social media and i think sometimes it gets an unnecessarily bad rep but the one thing i hate on instagram is that little magnifying glass that shows you that search thing that shows you

like accounts you might like yeah that for me is like the page of doom because i think you can get lost in a spiral there of things that don't make you happy like you can curate who you follow i follow loads of food pages i like you know there's a few like really inspiring mothering pages i like there are loads of birth things i used to follow which like really freaked people actually be sitting on the bus looking at it and it'd be like really graphic pictures of like babies coming out of vaginas and the person in the bus looking at you like what are you watching but I loved it and I can curate that whereas suddenly it's showing me like you know a mum who's given birth seven days ago who's in a bikini and I'm like I really don't need to see that I'm wearing an adult nappy

you know also that's so funny but also I always wonder who the Instagram algorithm thinks I am I get like Love Island Australia contestants and kind of slipper accounts like who do you why why are these my interests I know it's absolutely fascinating I don't know how they kind of bring it all together but yeah it's that's my one thing that I wish they'd take away your final failure is your failure to accept failure yeah specifically with regards to your business so tell us about that I mean I think that's it's a bit like what you said at the beginning I think I've come now to appreciate that like we will never succeed without failing and so now I'm like so happy to admit within 10 seconds that something's a terrible idea and we've really got it wrong and we've

misjudged it but at the beginning I wonder if it's also at the beginning you're trying to prove yourself a bit more and trying to prove that like yes it is a good idea and like yes we can do it and so there's just so many things we did some big and some small that we should have just after like 10 seconds and what on earth are we doing I think the first example which is a small example but was that we were meant to open the first deli I think in September and by October we were not about to open but we had taken on all the chefs and everything was ready and so we were paying these huge bills and we would had no like no pounds coming in and we were getting into a really really really sticky situation so we didn't know what to do so we thought well we could deliver like we can use the kitchen and we've got the kind of manpower and so there was a delivery app that doesn't exist anymore called quick up and we said okay well like we could do a partnership with them and we could deliver the food and it'd be great because we can get feedback and you know we thought this was like the best

plan ever and it would tie us over financially until we opened and so we announced that we were going to do it I mean it was the dumbest thing anyone could have ever done we were going to deliver from our office which was the second floor I mean it was the smallest room I don't know how many square foot it was but it was like one small room with like a kind of home-sized fridge just like a normal fridge that you'd have in your house and we thought somehow that we could keep all the food in there to deliver it i mean it was like the most mad naive thing anyone's ever thought and it was on the second floor and it's on the street called bloomsbury street which runs just by the british museum there's nowhere you can stop it's the angriest street in london like you've never heard honking anywhere like it

and yeah there's nowhere to pull over but yeah we were like brilliant I know it was also illegal I think to trade out of there because it was an office so and there were loads of other offices in the building to begin with I was like that's a great idea yeah it sounds like a great idea and it's up two flights of stairs anyway so we like did this big announcement on social media it's so exciting guys you can now get our food anywhere in London also they deliver anywhere in London we were like perfect we can deliver anywhere in London also forgetting that it could take like an hour and a half to get to you wherever you are anyway so the app crashed when we launched because there were so many people on there trying to order the food which we didn't realize and I

we just thought no one had ordered it so we were all standing there like so excited and after 10 minutes we're like oh my gosh this is this is really fucked up no one wants it and we've spent all this money and we're going to open this like no one's going to come we then realized we i opened the door to go to the loo and there was like delivery drivers all the way up the stairs of the office and we didn't obviously have enough food or labels already anyway it was we then went out and like ran to argos and bought like five more fridges. The bell just kept on going. And then the drivers had nowhere to park.

So they were living and there was nowhere. We didn't have enough manpower to get the boxes labeled in and out the door. And we were literally just sitting in the office for like 12 hours a day trying to do this. It was a disaster of all disasters. And somehow we tried to keep it up for like 10 whole days. Oh my God, how stressful. Before saying like, what are we thinking? First first of all this is not okay in our lease second of all we don't have the manpower for this third of all this office is so ill-equipped for it is extraordinary and fourth of all we don't even have the fridge base anymore but i don't know

why on the end of day one we couldn't have said like okay this doesn't work like why did we go out and spend all that money on fridges so many fridges there was nowhere to sit in the office anymore no one could do any work in the office because there was nowhere to sit because all there was was like packaging everywhere you were just like a sea of packaging in fridges and yeah anyway and it was just a complete because it was like no we've got to prove we can do this. We've got to do it for three months. Like we said, we would. And it was a failure beyond all failures. Like it was a disaster in every sense. And again, we were trying to have an engagement party that week because our engagement had been slightly kind of clouded by my parents. And so we had all our friends coming over because loads of our best friends live in America. And we were like, no, we can't

see you. We've got to stand by our fridges oh my god for the most failed failure ever so that was kind of one good lesson and then the second was that the delis were meant to be the main part of our business like when we met and we started talking about what we were going to do with delicious yellow in this kind of online community we created that that was really the plan and we opened one and it was doing so so so well but it was tiny it didn't really work well there was only 16 seats in it so as a result you'd end up with like three hour queues out the door which was just a bit of a nightmare and like didn't give people the right experience so we really quickly realized we needed a bigger site and then we got kind of carried away like

right we'll open like eight sites and we took on like a really big kitchen to be able to kind of service all the different sites and the kitchen we needed the eight sites for the kitchen because it was huge and we then opened a third site and it was we just had this realization of like this is this is insanity and at the same time we were also trying to build the products business and go into supermarkets and that had really taken off in a way that we hadn't expected and I think by that point we were then in three and a half thousand stores and trying to manage all of that as well as the original side of delicious yellow with the cookbooks and the app and things like that and I remember we went to a meeting because we were looking at raising some

money with the founders of innocent had an investment group and they were like you're doing too many different things like businesses succeed when they do one thing you know for them it was smoothies and they're like not only are you trying to have three completely different businesses with like kind of media physical spaces and supermarket in the supermarket you're also trying to do loads of different things and then you're having loads of different sites and then you're doing lots of different media and we were like no no no like this is right this is right and it was so interesting in this kind of inability to admit that like we'd taken off way more than we could possibly chew. And like each site was successful.

But as a group, we'd have to open four more sites. And how on earth are we going to open four more sites, be it every meeting for Tesco's and Sainsbury's or the production for everything, publish the books, write the books. I mean, it was completely and utterly impossible. We would have had to raise so much money to open all the sites.

We would have ended up owning such a small percentage of our business. And it just took us, actually me longer than Matt, but it took us both so long to admit we're doing way too much. Like what's succeeding, what's really working, let's focus on that. Let's not just raise loads more money

to open loads more sites. Was part of the reason it was difficult to admit because it was so public? Yeah, was difficult to admit because it was so public yeah so public and then it was so interesting because then we did say okay actually we're done we're not doing this we're going to keep one site which was our biggest site and then we'll do everything else and then again like all the papers were like delicious the ellis failed delicious the ellis failing see here's one more example of kind of an idiot girl basically and i was like okay wait this is so unfair at that point we're in about four and a half five thousand

supermarkets with like 12 different products which is really really succeeding and we've got a number one app and we've got the books and it's not to be like oh my gosh we're so brilliant we're not we get lots of things wrong but i was like we haven't failed and I had the CEO of one of the supermarkets call me and ask if we were going out of business our commercial team had to explain to all the buyers like it was okay we weren't going under like the the papers put us in a really really difficult position it was so awkward because I was like we're not going out of business we're not going under like financially the company is in a really good spot each of the sites are making money but running a site business just requires more money to open more sites but it was just absolutely fascinating it's so interesting because it's almost like they

wanted you to fail because they perceived you as too young too smug too everything too has it on a plate like it feels like you can't win and actually one of my best friends said to me which it stuck with me forever she was like lots of her friends who i don't really know were like thrilled and they were like oh my god is it true is delicious yellow going under which is so interesting like the pleasure in someone's failure and also and you know you said the beginning about 70 people we had to let 40 people go which was the hardest thing anyone's ever had to like it was so horrible like this is so human like 40 people lost their jobs because it didn't work for us to operate

three sites that made sense to operate one how does that feel when you have to tell people that they it's horrendous It's absolutely horrendous. Like, especially, you know, there were two people who'd worked with us right from the beginning. Like, we knew them so, so, so well. You know, when you're starting a company, you're working together literally, like, 14 hours a day, seven days a week. These people are, like, truly your family. You spend no time with your actual friends and family. And you know everything about them and their life. And you have to say to them, like, I'm so sorry.

Like, there's nothing left and at some point there's nothing you can do you have to say it but it's horrendous absolutely horrendous like it's the most horrible thing to have to do to someone and yeah it was just so interesting it was like how can you take pleasure in this it's it's a horrible thing for for these people silicon valley has been an early adopter of the idea of failure there's the idea that you fail fast and you learn your lessons quickly yeah do you subscribe to that now what totally yeah yeah i think and i think it's such an important thing you have to accept when something's not working and it happens all the time things don't work so for example like the first product we ever launched was our energy balls and at the time they're really innovative

there was nothing like it but then there started to be more things like it more things like it and we needed to say well we need to be more innovative we need to do something different we need to be better and so we did something that has like cashew butter in the middle and they don't exist and so it's like you have to admit okay we've got to do more we've got to do better you can't just rely on what you've already done and I think it's so true like you will fail you can't start a career you certainly can't start a business and not fail I'm sure you've experienced the same thing like you'll get so much wrong but the quicker you can say like this isn't right the easier it is to change everything and the more wedded into your like the murkiness of failure you get the harder it is

to unpick what's it like working with your husband do you know what it gets easier and easier it was quite intense at the start actually because you know obviously when you get started you don't really have a team there was like three or four of us and everyone's doing everything like there aren't job roles because there's not enough people you know you might be hired as the finance whatever but ultimately you'll also end up doing seven other things and so there was no separation in our roles because everything needed everyone all the time like it was just manpower basically and now as we've grown we now have like a marketing director and a finance director and a supply chain director and all the rest of it. And so we have kind of actual departments and teams of people

and we have things that therefore we each look after. And as a result, the kind of whole picture is shared, which is really nice because actually running a business, I think can be incredibly lonely. And again, it looks really glam, but actually like it can be really, really lonely and tough and intense. And it's you who's got to kind of take on the burden of that. And so to have someone to share that with is amazing. And like, I think we're both really, really grateful for it. But it's nice now that like actually our day to day is very, very separate.

So you have something to talk about because I've always got something to talk about. Oh, Ella, it has been such a pleasure talking to you it really has I'm so grateful that you came on and were so open and vulnerable when it doesn't necessarily come naturally because of everything that you've been through and I just know that this will help so many people that's my biggest biggest pleasure thank you as I said at the beginning how to fail is number one fan so I love you fan so i'll pay you later um i'm deliciously ella's cashew butter energy balls number one fan btw but i wanted to ask you one final question which is whether you still watch the kardashians oh my gosh i love the kardashians so do i yeah and do you know what was so interesting matt judged

me so much for it and then when his mum was really sick so every single they lived in warwickshire so a couple of hours outside london and we'd go up every friday afternoon and spend the weekend there and you know it was emotionally heavy obviously of course because you're dealing with something really challenging and so sometimes like i've just go and watch the kardashians it's like the ultimate light relief and matt used to really be judgmental and i was like just try it and i was like it's honestly amazing because your brain just kind of turns off for a second you can just like not think about anything and it doesn't require any brain power and he got so hooked probably kill me for admitting that so publicly but he got so hooked for that exact reason and I think we were talking about earlier like Love Island these kinds of shows like sometimes we're a bit mean to each other for

watching them but like there's something brilliant about the kind of banality almost of them when life's so intense and there's so much going on the kind of ability just to sort of let your brain just wander and switch off is amazing that light relief is much needed I think I totally agree as the saying goes the couple that runs a business together and watches the Kardashians together stays together yeah that famous famous famous saying Ellas thank you so much for coming on how to fail my pleasure thank you if you enjoyed this episode of how to fail with elizabeth day i would so appreciate it if you could rate review and subscribe apparently it helps other people know that we exist