Life Uncut - Building the biz from the basement up! Uncut with Brittney Saunders

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

Hey Lifers!First up today, Britt's face is falling off! Here is your reminder to go and get your skin checked. Hit pause and go and do it now! Laura has had to have a conversation with 3 year old Marlie Mae a bit earlier than she expected! Marlie has been left baffled and confused. There's been some argy bargy between pornhub and the government in Utah! There's a sentence I didn't think I'd be writing in 2023. We're interested to know what you think about needing to prove that you are over 18 to view porn. Do you think it's acceptable for people under the age of 18 to be watching porn? Let us know on Instagram where you sit! Then we are joined by the wonderful Brittney Saunders! Brittney was one of the OG influencers who leveraged her platform to create multiple extremely successful businesses! In this chat we talk about fat phobia in the fashion industry and whether being size inclusive is an ethical decision or merely a smart business decision based on consumer preferences.Brittney is such a story of building an empire from the ground up! She also shares her tips and tricks for anyone starting/operating a small business. If you'd like to join the facebook group, tap here We're tiktoking over here You know the drill, tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because we love love! xxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never ceded. We pay our respects to their elders past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. This episode was recorded on Darug Wollongong land. Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. I'm Brittany. And we have a bloody cracking episode for you today. If you are somebody who has ever thought of starting your own business, if you've been

curious about anything to do with entrepreneurial life or like how to grow your business, I feel like this is the episode that you're going to get so much out of. We are speaking to Brittany Lee Saunders and I have wanted to interview Britt for so long. She is the absolute powerhouse behind Fate Label, Stable Swimwear, Form Activewear, and she has such an incredible way in which she has used social media to create brand personality and leverage her brands. On top of that, we also speak about fat phobia in the fashion industry and whether or not being size inclusive is an ethical decision or merely a smart business choice based on consumer preferences. We're also going to discuss Pornhub's decision to completely

pull the availability and accessibility of Pornhub from Utah. It's a very interesting chat. And I had to have a very very awkward conversation with Marlee May about where babies came from how they come out specifically I have been in the walls this week not only do I still have a bit of the cold I've had it for a week I still sound funny in my head but started the skin thing it's six days in this is day seven where I'm doing the treatment for like pre-skin cancer I am talking about it on my Instagram so if you want to have a look I'm going to post photos but my face is melting off but I'm I'm so sore and one thing that I can't do and you might look Laura I might look like I'm doing something a bit weird but it's like you've poured super glue all over my face

that's how you know when you have super glue on your hands and it gets really tight and wrinkly that's what my face feels like so I can't really smile or laugh or do anything with my face it's like I've imagined having like Botox on your whole entire face I'm frozen in time because when I try and laugh too hard it pulls the skin too tight and I feel like it's going to rip open so I have to do like this really small mouth thing where when I laugh my mouth stays really small like this it also looking at someone who's trying not to laugh because they can't laugh it's also really yeah because I have to like constrict my face when I go to laugh because it hurts so bad I can't open my mouth stop it oh okay for anyone who doesn't know what Brit's

talking about because maybe you didn't hear last week's episode or you haven't been following along on Brit's socials Brit is doing a current treatment for it's like a preventative for skin cancer because when she went in to have her skin checked recently there were some like scary things that popped up and they're called pre-cancer yeah yeah they're basically parts of your face minor called solar keratosis but there's a bunch of different things that they classify as pre-cancer because if left it is what will turn into a skin cancer and brit is doing possibly the most hectic heal at the moment where every day she has to reapply this cream and then it is attracted to the parts of the cancer but we spoke about it on last week's episode but brit is

going to be going through this for the next couple of weeks so the poor thing but also once again it's your reminder if you haven't booked in for your skin check the thing that i think is the wildest about Britt's story is the fact that as someone who sees her face every single day I never would have looked at Britt's face and thought oh my god you need to go and get that spot checked out these are like little areas of skin which were basically like the pigmentation had changed there and I have that sort of like pigmentation mottled all over my face so I would never have thought oh that could be something that's scary so I think like this is your reminder go and get your skin checked because just because you think that everything is fine it could be something like

where it's not as obvious as like a changed mole or something that's more significant my dms have been flooded with so many crazy stories some people have had just melanomas removed and i'm talking just in their 20s other people were writing to me about the fact that they've just lost a friend literally early 20s late 20s early 30s really young people that have been passing away and i guess we just don't really hear about it it's not something that floods our feeds it's not something that we see on the news a lot but it's so important and people also like you laura are saying that they hadn't had their skin checked in literally five, 10 years. But already I've had over 5,000 people say they booked a skin appointment in the last

12 hours since I put a story up, which is incredible. So I'm so glad you guys are doing it. If you're listening now and you haven't booked it, this is your second reminder. It takes you two seconds to book into a skin clinic online. Go and get checked because it literally could save your life. Well, also, I mean, Britt, one thing you just said that I think for so many of us, even though we know that skin cancer is so prevalent within Australia, like we know that. We've all seen the marketing campaigns.

Nobody, I think, has managed to get through life to the age that we all are and not know that that is a very common thing within Australia. But I think we all think it's going to happen to us when we're older. And we all think, oh, we've seen our parents get things burnt off or cut off, but that the age demographic, we're not there yet. You know, like, I'm like, ah, I'll need to start worrying about it when I'm in my 40s. But it's just a reminder. There was, and I'm sure so many people heard about Natalie, but Natalie Fenazia, she was

only 28 years old. She was an influencer. she had spoken really publicly about her battle with melanoma and she passed away in January and I think like if that's not a reminder for how absolutely horrific skin cancer can be and how it can affect anyone at any age then I don't know what would be a better example of that so like I know and I know that we're going to be drilling this message home over the next couple of weeks but genuinely I know that this is going to be a crazy couple of weeks for you Brit especially but I think it is such an important reminder that you're living through firsthand yeah absolutely

how was your weekend oh well I mean I've had look I've had a good weekend but I did have a very interesting conversation with Marley I feel like all conversations with a three-year-old are interesting are they no they're usually about Duplo or like Marley's obsession with doing concerts for me now in my head I swear to god you just said Diplo and I thought Marley was talking to about Diplo like she's banging out and I was like oh my god kids are so advanced these days She's super into concerts and Diplo. It's Diplo 3 and a half. Oh, my God.

I can't laugh. Your poor face. I have never seen anyone be so sore. Yeah, it's okay. Keep going. Okay, and now you're crying. No, it's just when I laugh my cheeks want to spread. Not my butt cheeks.

Oh, the laugh. Okay, so Marley came to me on – I don't even know where the question came from, but I was laying in bed with her. It came from Diplo. no yeah she was listening to diplo then she had some life questions i had a conversation with marley the other night so we were laying in bed and i don't even know where it came from but she rolls over to me and she goes mommy i was like yes darling yeah 3am no no it was like it was like 7 p.m it was like a bedtime you know having cute little wind down reading about a

unicorn and she goes how do babies get out of the tummy oh no i was like i'm not we're not here yet I'm not ready to be here. She wanted a biology lesson. I froze because I was like, fuck, do I give it to a straight? Like what do I say? Do I lie? Do I just say like it's magical you pop out? I can't remember what my mum told me at that age

and I also don't know what's age appropriate for a three-and-a-half-year-old. Well, most – I mean I imagine most kids, their question isn't how do they get out. The question is like how were they made. So usually it's the sex conversation you have to have, but she wanted like a physiology. no I'm so glad we're not at the how did you get in there we're just at the how did you get out what was the exit strategy not what was the entrance strategy we're not there so I had like a moment where I was like oh my god how do I answer this and then I thought maybe the only

way to answer it is to be honest I was like we're not I'm not gonna do the whole like oh frou-frou it's magical you pop out the sunroof which which not everyone pops out which at the time I kind of forgot that like a whole lot of people have cesareans and I probably could have just said that, but I was like, well, they come out the belly. I was like, darling, you came out of my vagina and the absolute look of fucking horror on my child's face. How would they comprehend that? I don't know. And that's why I'm trying to give it to her in the most age appropriate way. But at the same time, her trying to fathom that a watermelon was pushed out of like a tiny hole. And she was like, okay, anyway, she freaked out. She was like, were you scared?

did it hurt and you're like oh god how much truth do i give you and then i decided that it was a conversation i really wanted to remember so i recorded it this is how the rest of it went standard thank god you did okay where babies come out of vaginas that's crazy that's disgusting what did you say that's disgusting it's not disgusting that's where you came from No. What? Where did you come from? The body.

You came out of a body. Yeah, but what part? The tummy. Oh, you came straight out of a tummy, did you? Okay. Because I was a little baby. Yeah. Like this.

Well, you actually came out of somewhere else, darling. Oh, yuck. Now I get to do that. It's actually so cute. I want to say that it's cute. Her, like, bewilderment and shock. the end result of this conversation is that she does not believe me that it comes out of a vagina you know why she's seeing the size of a sister's head she's like how does that thing get out of my

vagina she honestly was like did it hurt were you scared i was like no honey it was the best day of my life i wasn't scared at all it didn't hurt lies lies lies didn't rip me from front to back it was magical i didn't have 400 stitches and like literally have a hole that went from my vagina to my butt and your daddy didn't nearly pass out everything was so perfect I gave it to her in the most beautiful magical way and still she's decided that that's not true and she just popped out of her belly button I gave her the truth and she wants to deny it I love that though because she's just decided no no way that is not happening it raises some questions right because parenting is obviously very individual to you your child your family your circumstances how much you

want them to know but i guess there is i'll say a side effect of that there's some whiplash for that like a domino effect of then what that child knows and he's taught at home it still goes to school preschool primary school whatever age they are and he's going to relay that information to other kids at school and then that kid goes home and says mom marley may told me i came out of a vagina and that mom might not be ready to have that conversation yet so it's this crazy thing where you've done what's right for you but then what's she going to go to school and say what conversations is that going to kick off I think I mean the way that I'm trying to approach things in terms of parenting which I have no idea whether it's the right or wrong way like I am winging it

like literally every other parent out there is I want to at least try and give her the answers that are anatomically correct right I want to give her like the correct because I feel like when we were kids we got a bit of free food like our parents didn't necessarily want to attack those conversations or you know you didn't have the tools in your toolkit for the best way to kind of have those conversations with your kids. Now, I guess my biggest issue is that I didn't realize that we were at that point. I think you always think you're two steps behind the point that you're actually at. You're two steps behind the point of curiosity that your kids have already gotten to. And so you're not prepared. You're almost playing catch up. But yeah, I think, you know, you then

do run the risk of your kids going to school and then having that conversation with their friends and then their parents having to deal with that. But that goes for everything that goes for conversations around christmas and i do that with bunny ears conversations around any of the sort of big life milestones conversations around sex which i know is gonna come eventually or like when your teeth fall out we're using coats here guys yeah just in case there's other people in the lines just in case there are little ears in the car or wherever you are yeah yeah no lots of kids listen i have seen kids rocking out to our theme music and yes look we don't recommend it we probably should have some sort of age warning at the start of our podcast. It's not three. But we recognize

that, you know, if you're listening to this, you might have kids around. So we're trying to be respectful. Yeah. Look, I think it is one of those situations where you can't control the way someone else's parents. And if your kid is going to go to daycare and talk about how she came out of a vagina, then you just have to hope that you have the skills to then, or then explain it to your child. But that's why I think like going with what is anatomically correct, at least the information isn't wrong. Like if Molly came home and was like, mommy, Sally told me that I was born out of an ear I'd be like oh that's annoying because that's not right now I have to tell you the right way I think you absolutely do the right thing and I think you haven't made it gruesome and

you didn't go into detail and then you didn't say yes I was in so much pain and how it happened but I was like here honey have a look at the birth video never have children I remember when my mom so I never had the question or the conversation about how they come out I don't remember that it was just known you know all of a sudden I was a teenager and I knew but I remember having the conversation about how babies are made and it's burned into my retina my mom I just remember her doing these hand signals and she had like one hand was like in a egg in like an egg yeah and the other hand with five fingers she was spraying like this like she had five fingers flashing like a flashing light she's like the sperm shoots out and she was doing this with a hand and I'm traumatized ever

since that's the only sex conversation I remember did she tell you at the time like the physicality of like how it happened the penis goes into the vagina yeah a lot of parents messaged me after I posted on Instagram and they were like I told my daughter that there was a seed and that daddy has a watering can, but didn't go into where the seed is or where the watering can comes from. The watering can. I've never heard that before. I know. I know. Age appropriate, right? Three. Anyway, let's get into more important things. Oh yeah. Look, I don't envy any of you having those conversations right now. Okay. Well, getting into more important things, and this is a weird segue, but I'm just going with it guys. This is something I read on the

weekend and it sparked a really interesting conversation with us. And I would love to know you as listeners, how you feel about this, what you think of this, but basically to give you the summary so something happened over the weekend with Pornhub what it went down for an hour there's a blackout and you didn't know what to do with yourself I was desperate you know I had to go and clean the house instead because how else do you pass the time how else do you get turned on what is that laugh I can't open my face mouth my face mouth I can't stretch my lips oh my god the laugh is even more chaotic than normal because you can't open your mouth and let it out it has to come out of a really narrow tunnel where else does it come out of I love that I said I can't

stretch my lips lucky i'm in long distance relationship oh god poor ben all right anyway okay look to tell you about what happened with porn hub so basically to give you the runaround so in utah they've brought out these new legislations around accessing porn online and that in order to access porn you need to verify your age so they're wanting to bring in restriction they have brought in restrictions that if you're going to view porn you need to prove that you're 18 years or older by providing a license by providing details i don't know all of the verification process or sort of how advanced it is but it has been brought in in utah which is a largely mormon population so that people who are under 18 can no longer access porn porn hub

which is owned by a company called mind geek had a very severe and swift reaction to the new legislation that was passed so when it came into effect on monday last week porn hub instead of creating age verification processes they cut access to all porn in utah so you can no longer access any Pornhub sites any you know freely accessible porn if you live in the state of Utah yeah and that's at any age at any age so you can't even like you know put in your license and access it if you're a 35 year old man there is no accessible porn so essentially Utah have been like all right we want to make sure that you're 18 or over to access porn and Pornhub have had a little tantrum like a three-year-old and said well none of you can get it then if you

can't get it we're under 18 and you can't have great verification processes then none of you can get the porn. Totally. And the response to this originally was that Pornhub has basically said that it's too limiting. It's basically too restrictive to make people have to prove their age is too restrict into the process. Now, the reason why I thought this was so interesting is because there's quite a few ways that you can look at this. My very first reaction was why has Pornhub had such a visceral and severe and almost like final reaction. It's tantrum. Yeah. Had a tantrum about Utah wanting to limit access to minors because I would think that overall it's pretty common sense that like nobody wants underage kids to be accessing porn especially when there is so

much variety of porn out there some of it is consenting but we know so much of it is violent and non-consenting I mean at the end of the day all they've done is put the age restriction to the same age as consenting sexual age restriction is in Utah which is 18 years old is it 18 in Utah because I mean obviously here it's 16 no it's 18 in Utah 21 to drink 18 for consensual sex anything under 18 is considered a child in Utah so that's what they've done all the government has done is say hey let's link up watching porn without consenting age limits which I think there is nothing wrong with that I wouldn't want my child to be watching porn under 18 years old and the reason I say that is before anyone jumps down my neck I'm not saying there's anything wrong with

porn there is not like people don't want to watch porn it's amazing have I watched porn yes do I watch it all the time no the reason I think that this is a great idea is because I think at under 18 years old you don't really have the a life experience even if you have had sex right because a lot of under 18 year olds are having sex but you still don't have the life experience or the emotional capacity to deal with a lot of things that they're seeing on the web there is a lot of pornography out there that is nice normal consensual there's also a lot of pornography that is hardcore porn and does not parallel real life sex and is that setting an expectation of these young kids being like oh this is how we do it this is what the man does to the woman

whatever it is this is normal because a lot of it is not normal and that's not me saying that this is professionals saying this so that would be my worry letting an under 18 year old into that world where you don't know how deep they can go and i absolutely agree with that i think that it's unbelievable how accessible it is like when you think anything else in the world that is for an over 18 restriction whether it be alcohol whether it be cigarettes there are so many more restrictions in terms of accessing it so like even if you want to buy alcohol online you've got to submit your license and then when you receive it you've got to show your license again but porn seems to be this one caveat that's kind of just like gotten through without as many restrictions imagine

imagine if they brought in these sorts of rules across statewide say all across the states say all across Australia that for us to be able to access porn, we had to prove our age, which also means proving our identity. How many people would then want to access and use porn? Because I know for myself, like the times that I've used it, they've been in times of spontaneity. I certainly haven't been like, Ooh, I'm horny. Let me go and register and sign up to Pornhub.com. You know, here's my photo waving verification process. Here's my license details. And then I'm going to sit and take another photo of myself to prove that I'm here at that time. Like, like who's going to do that and so I understand from a business perspective as to why Pornhub's reaction has been

so severe because it would cripple them as a business if everybody had to verify themselves as age appropriate because it would create this huge sort of like barrier for entry for people actually accessing it now is that a bad thing I don't think so I don't think it's a bad thing but I do think it would mean that people would think so considerably before they start using it but I also think that that's what we should be doing all over I think why is that such a bad idea for you to verify who you are so that what you're searching can be traced if you're searching for something i'm not gonna you guys are gonna know what i'm talking about without me mentioning it if you are searching for things you shouldn't be that are illegal and inappropriate damn straight

you should have a verification process damn straight you should be able to track that back so that you can go to prison that's an extreme example but i don't think it's a bad thing to say hey if you're going to be looking this stuff up just so you know we know who you are okay but what if it's not so much that you're looking up things that are illegal but it's things that people might think are shameful for example or people might see as being embarrassing say you're searching like a real crazy kink but no one's going to use that against you but they might I mean there's been so many times where people's data have been hacked and that's been used against them for extortion for loads of different reasons what if that's something that somebody finds super

shameful and it's a secret that they carry I understand why people want anonymity when it comes to looking up porn. I understand why people want secrecy because there is so much of sex and sex culture that we feel is shameful. But I also do think that we live in a society where porn has become so, so fucking freely accessed. And that is normal to us. It is totally normal that we can get it at our fingertips at any time. And we've all kind of just grown up to accept it. But think about when we were young. And I know we talked about this the other day, when we were talking about this immediacy culture and i mentioned it on that episode but if you wanted porn back in the day you had to go to video easy you had to show your license to like the prepubescent kid that

was behind the counter the poor 14 and nine month old kid that was behind the counter and then you had to get your video and check it out that way so i think or you had to go buy the magazine oh my god i know do you know my mom how wild is this my mom used to have do you remember the people magazine yeah she used to just have it sitting next to the toilet she used to like doing the crosswords oh yeah no standard you said it was standard back then to have like a whole stack of magazines like the toilet people used to escape their kids they said i have to go to toilet but my dad did anyway four hours later i was like dad you're not still pooping you're just the four screaming kids out here you're a version your poor mom yeah okay this is just it right like it's only

been in the last sort of 15 years that it has become as readily accessible as what it is now and we've all just kind of accepted that that is the way of the world i wonder if having some type of restrictions coming in is the way forward in terms of protecting people who are under 18 but I do think that the way that society has shifted is that we now expect and we have almost just accepted that it is something that is so accessible that is so at our fingertips and I mean going back to what you said Britt like it does make you question what impact does that have on people who are not had the sexual experience or the sexual education to be able to differentiate between what is healthy and non-healthy in terms of their the way that sex plays out what did make

me think as well i was like porn hub why are you so upset that under 18 year olds can't access porn and then i thought how many people are watching porn under 18 and i did some googling this is a little survey done in the uk over school students attitudes towards pornography and it revealed that there were a very large number of people between the ages of 14 and 18 that watch porn frequently so 14 to 18 with some of them becoming addicted to sexually explicit content it found that 22% of these students viewed porn on multiple occasions and of those one in five students said they had a porn habit and one in 10 said they felt addicted so that is between 14 and 18 at school that's a pretty large number that's more than I thought would be and younger than I thought

I didn't think 14 year olds yeah that's fucking scary isn't it isn't it scary because at 14 I'm gonna say a lot of people haven't had sex yet or I don't even know if they've hit second base I know there are people that are but if you haven't had sex yet and you're 14 and that's where you're learning what to do that to me is pretty scary but it's also a massive wake-up call to parents right like I spoke about the time that we were on that boat and these kids were airdropping us yeah pornography and the parents sort of were like oh well teenagers will be teenagers but I think the reason why people are almost defeated in the fact that oh well kids that are going to be able to access this stuff is because it is so readily available so why is it

that everything else for over 18s has such severe restrictions around it but when it comes to something that should be for adult only content viewing it's almost as though there are no restrictions around it it's like an opt-in you've got to say are you over 18 you click a button and that's not even on all sites some sites it's just literally you go on and it's there yeah promise me you're 18 yeah don't tell any kids weirdly i have such a different perspective to you guys in this why i love that you're just sitting there in the corner and you're like you're wrong i love that you have a different perspective on this i think i just don't have a moral issue with like a 17 year old watching porn i think that that is such a normal part of

sexual expression i thought you're gonna say i just don't have a moral compass depends on the day of the week i think the the thing is there is that i mean it's a very fine line between saying a 17 year old and 18 year old i don't have an issue with an s 17 year old choosing to go and watch some things but do I have an issue with a 14 year old and that being their first exposure to a sexual experience is watching hardcore porn on Pornhub I think hardcore porn is a different thing I think the hardcore porn is like such a different caveat though but the issue is is that all of it is as accessible as the other so like lovely soft consenting porn is equally as accessible as hardcore totally violent porn totally agree and that's why I

think there's such a gray area here and that's why I think it's actually hard to be like here is the line in the sand because it's not like there's going to be a category on Pornhub that's like this is okay for teenagers like we have pre-approved that this is nice sex that they can watch but I think it's so ridiculous to think that like teenagers is our missionary category I'll be watching that that it's just like you know 16 year old teenagers whether it be boys or girls you know they start masturbating they start experiencing different things about their own bodies at that time and I don't think that porn is necessarily a bad way for them to do it Particularly if they're not, you know, socially confident

and they're not going to go and have sex with people in real life. There are so many other ways, though, for a teenager to watch something that turns them on. You can watch many, many movies that are literally available with sex scenes. Just pausing that scene of Margot Robbie in Wolf of Wall Street. Absolutely. But there's proper Hollywood films where you can watch pretty hot,

steamy, sexy, you know, a friend told me. But there's plenty of things that a teenager can go and watch to jack off to. I get that you're like, they're horny, they want to masturbate totally, but do you have to have access to this deep, dark, hardcore porn? I don't think so. It is right, Keisha. It's grey area.

Where do you draw the line in the sand? It makes complete sense for the line in the sand to coincide with the consensual age of sex in my eyes. Also, there has been a bunch of research done that states that Gen Z are having much less sex than any of the generations before them. so I think it's one of these interesting things where it's like oh my god the younger generation they've got so much access to porn they've got so much access to all of this stuff this is such a problem and it's like well is it we had a really interesting conversation about this and I think

one of the things that we haven't mentioned though is that yes there is such free access to all kinds of pornography but there is also so much unbelievable access now around sexual education which didn't exist when we were younger there's access around conversations around consent there are famous sexologists like Chantal Otten who we've spoken to on the podcast there is so many conversations around sexual pleasure which didn't exist like what constitutes pleasure how to ask for what gives you pleasure how to say no to things that don't give you pleasure I think that because those two things coexist together now and they kind of like one almost negates the other it's empowered younger people to be able to say what they do and don't want because we didn't

have that when we were young no we had like this is how you get pregnant and these are what STIs are and this is how you avoid them that was pretty much the extent of sex education for us yeah they use multiple fruits now for condoms not just the bananas but i wonder if and i'm thinking out loud here as we go but i wonder if the generation's having less sex now because there is so much accessibility to porn they don't have to use the effort to go out and be like oh i'm horny i want to go meet someone but is that a bad thing like is that a bad thing because you think about pornography in your own home as a safe environment you're very in control of your body and in control of yourself I actually think that if I was a parent and I mean this is very hypothetical like

would I prefer for my kid to be going out like we did sneaking out to parties and hooking up with boys don't you group me into that like would I prefer them to be at home exploring their own body watching a video in the comfort of their own bed I know that they say like do you know what is the better option here I don't know if there is a clear-cut answer to this question I do think what's happening in Utah is very very interesting but I think and it's interesting that you said at quiche like i do think that there are some things that should be more accessible than others and the fact that everything is at the same level at the moment the fact that everything is as acceptable and as accessible as each other is probably where the issue lies for me 100 there's

no issue with porn like to be clear i have zero issue with porn it's just it's a blanket rule right you either go deep dark or you get nothing it's all or nothing is it going to end up like You know when you go to the movies and it's got P-G-M-M-A-R? Is that the next step? Yes. Of like, can you just, I just imagine PG porn, like your parental guidance. Your mum's sitting there while you're watching it.

Please never have that. It probably wouldn't be the worst, like it sounds funny, it probably wouldn't be the worst thing to have it categorised. I mean, are we visionaries? Who knows? No. New business model, life on cut porn. Copyright.

i am so excited for today's interview and that is because i have followed you britney for such a long time on social media now britney saunders has 606 000 followers on instagram but that is probably one of her more insignificant achievements she is a absolute boss ceo she's an entrepreneur she is the woman behind fate the label she's also the woman behind staple swimwear form activewear and then has an amazing studio space, could Outdo Collective and also the coffee brand Outdo Espresso. Could one person possibly have more labels, more brands, more businesses than you at the age of only 30? Brittany, welcome to Life Uncut. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here.

Oh, Laura, you also left out Flamingo Coffee Company that also services the coffee shop. Yeah, but when I was going, I was rattling off all Brittany's successes and she was like, yeah, but that one's only a small one. So don't worry about that. it's also like that's enough like we can't say everything you do will be here all day you literally make me feel like i need to do more one of the reasons why i so much wanted to speak to you is because i think from a business perspective and from seeing someone who has created their label from the ground up i love what you have done with fate the label and i have so many questions in terms of for other people who are wanting to start their businesses how they can implement

some of the strategies that you have used yourself especially across social media and brand personality, I think is probably the best way of putting it. But before we get into all those questions, Brittany, do you have an accidentally unfiltered story for us? I was trying to think last night and I can't think of like one significant embarrassing story that comes to mind. I don't think I get that embarrassed either, but I wish I had a really good story to tell. The only thing that I could think of, which isn't really embarrassing, but it's funny and I'm sure I'm not the only one in this situation, but it took me about five years to fart in front of my partner. And that was only like last year. And it was this massive thing where I didn't fart for

so long. And I feel like it was one of those things where I left it too long. So it became really bad. So how long have you been with your partner for? Let's set this up because Laura and I have these fart in front of the partner conversations probably more often than we should. Doesn't everyone though? So how long have you been together? So we've been together for like coming up to six years and it was really only last year that I finally let it rip and did you let it rip intentionally were you like I can't hold this in anymore or was it like an accidental no it was I'd had enough because I was that girl like laying in bed at night with the worst stomach pains and then I would have to get up and go to the other bathroom at the other end of the house

to let it out and I was like I'm sick of doing this like five years is too long so did you warn him were you like babe it's coming brace yourself I think I just did it I can't even remember but ever since I've been farting like a hundred times a day in front of him is he just like why did you open the floodgates please close them again well you want to know also why I think I had this insecurity around it is because he doesn't fart in front of me oh bravo no give the man a pat on the back I'm all about a man that does not fart in front of the woman my husband farted on my leg in bed last night because he was too cold to move so that's like that's where we're at no i didn't even know i mean i cared i'm never gonna enjoy it it's not like we have a fart kink but like

at the same time i just don't care anymore it's like exposure therapy the more it happens the less you care i don't know why for me it's just something that i never ever ever want to get to in a relationship and it's not a comfort thing i just don't think you should be letting them rip in front of each other i think some things are sacred and better left unsaid and bottom talking is something that should be left unsaid you are a no fart oh my god no if i farted in front of my partner it would be i'm either very very unwell or it's an accident where it like it slipped out accidentally and i'd be mortified i'd giggle but i'd be like i'm so sorry that's an accident but i will never walk around dropping bombs and if my boyfriend did the same i'd be off it because

it's not a turn on for me i'm like i don't need to turn up for me either i'm not like I was like I'm gonna be mortified but then I feel like as soon as you let that first one go then it's like all that is out the door and it doesn't matter anymore it's liberating that's what it is so maybe you need to try it also it's in terms of like length of relationship I reckon once you get to the six month mark it's all bets are off bro I was in a relationship at the six year mark I was in a relationship for eight years did not fart in front of him and he didn't fart in front of me look as much as I've loved talking about this there are definitely other reasons why we got you on the pod, Britt. It's not to know your bowel habits. Or could we just talk about

farts the whole time? A hundred percent. You go back to your office and you're like, that was a weird chat. Britt, you grew up in Newcastle. You are a local Newie girl. Keisha's over there saying represent. Can you tell us a little bit about what your childhood was like? But also I think what most people would be interested in is you're also one of the OG influencers from YouTube times. Tell us what that was like. Yeah, so grew up in Newcastle. I've lived all around but I've always made my way back home and that's where I am now and I've been here for like seven years since moving back. Had a pretty normal childhood, went to primary school, went to high school in public school. So a little bit about me, went to school. Went to school, didn't really like it and then

when I was in high school, that's when YouTube first came out and I discovered it and this was before there was such thing as like a YouTuber let alone an influencer like it just wasn't a thing I remember discovering it and I'd always had an interest in videoing myself you remember back in the day when we would have the old little round webcam that sat on top of our computers at home like I would open like Windows Movie Maker and like make videos of me talking on there before we even had internet pretty much just for yourself yeah so in high school I started just making funny videos at home on my laptop at the time posting them to my little YouTube channel that I'd made and they were just for myself but I guess all the kids in school started like catching on to it and

my videos might get like 300 views 400 views 500 views that kind of thing and it caused a bit of a stir at school because I was this weird kid making these weird videos and in everyone else's defense the videos were weird like they weren't cool what kind of content when you say it caused a stir do Do you mean as in like people thought it was weird and you were being bullied for it? A little bit, yeah, and like some of the teachers got involved and there was this one time where the principal was saying I'm going to have to take down the channel because it was causing bullying,

but I was like no, and mum was going off at me saying you need to delete these videos and I went nothing bad. It was like me singing along to a Kesha song, like making a music video in my driveway, like just having fun. It was TikTok. You were the OG TikToker. It was TikTok. Yeah.

But anyway, I stayed persistent with it. And then I dropped out of school in year 11 because I didn't have any interest in going to uni or anything like that. And I was just working as a waitress. I just wanted to earn money. That was my thing. I wanted to earn more and more money and work more. I was that kid that was working five nights a week alongside going to school. Continued creating those videos when I dropped out of high school. Just again, it was a hobby, but it slowly started to pick up. And then I went into full-time work. I found my way working into the admin life, Monday to Friday, working in offices around here in Newcastle. And I had probably over 20 jobs from the age of 14 up until 21, because I was just on a search

of trying to find what it was that I wanted to do in life. I worked in retail, hospitality, in offices. I worked absolutely everywhere. I worked at a school camp teaching sports. I worked at David Jones Meyer and the whole time I was still doing these videos and the very last job that I had was here in Newcastle working in like HR and admin and it was at this point that my YouTube channel I'd gotten up to around 80,000 subscribers and back then that was a lot and this was when brands started to realize that they could pay people like me to promote their products but it wasn't really the small brands back then it was the big brands that were jumping onto it like the huge companies so one of the first companies that I ever got paid to promote was Colgate for

their optic white toothpaste when it first came out that red toothpaste I still use it to this day so they've got a customer for life with me doing that yeah shout out to Colgate you're like thanks for giving me my first leg up yeah and so I was earning a little bit of money off these YouTube videos from all the ads and then I started doing little brand deals here and there but keep in mind it wasn't a whole lot of money and I was living out of home like living in a share house and I was 21 and I thought I feel like I'm at the point now where with all this random money that I'm making online I think if I quit my job I can make it work I was paying like a hundred bucks a week rent at the time in a share house with like three other people I just had like my phone

to pay and then petrol and I was like okay I can work all this out so when I was 21 I quit my job because I absolutely hated it I hated every job that I'd ever had and ever since then I haven't looked back so I've been self-employed since I was 21 so making that scary decision at the time was the best thing that I've ever done even though it was like the biggest thing to do I just thought at the end of the day what's the worst that's going to happen I'm just gonna have to go and get yet another job which I was just in such a pattern of doing anyway and so yeah I really just started taking YouTube seriously and the YouTube channel went from those 80,000 subscribers to a hundred thousand, 200,000, 300,000. And this was in the time when we really saw the rise of

Australian influences back in the day. It was like me, Lauren Curtis, Chloe Morello. I don't know if you, like the OGs, that's when we saw like the rise of those very first influences, but we weren't called influencers. We were called YouTubers and we were smashing out like four YouTube videos a week. And then that's when we saw Instagram come out. So then we all built our followings from YouTube onto Instagram. Snapchat was super popular back then as well. And it's all really been just a snowball effect. When was it that you had the idea for creating your own fashion label? Well, fate isn't the first business that I ever dabbled in. I feel like ever since I was really young, I always had that fire in me to want to do something of my own. I just didn't know it

when I was super young. When I was in high school as well, I kind of learned to be kind of okay at makeup so I started doing people's makeup that I knew in Newcastle and I would post a status on my Facebook saying hey girls $50 makeovers doing people's makeup I then started a little spray tanning business I might have been about 19 or 20 and I was living in a rental that had like this dungeon under the house like a brick dungeon so I thought I'm going to start a spray tanning business went and bought a whole kit and the machine and everything set it up made it look as nice as i could and then again was using my facebook to say gals of newcastle $15 spray tan did you train to be a spray tanner or are we blaming you for all the people walking around

with streaky orange bodies i just practiced on like my friends and stuff and it's not it's not hard well for me it wasn't and so i yeah completely was ripping myself off by charging 15 bucks and then i think i was even doing $20 and i'll come to your house oh my god someone's house like 20 minutes away and then I tried all these things I had a little skincare brand at one stage making coffee scrubs like I always was trying new things so when it came to doing fate at the time I didn't realize what fate would turn into and I didn't think it would be where it is today because I was young I was in my early 20s and I tried all these other little things like I was online I'd done the skincare business I'd done spray tan so at the time it was really just another idea that

seemed fun at the time and I'm a pretty random and sporadic person so I was like yeah I'm gonna give this a go I didn't think six months into the future from then I didn't even think about the fact that I'd maybe hire someone one day like it was just me and I guess it came off the back of working with a lot of other brands because by this time you know this is when we were doing the proper try on hauls and everything like that on YouTube so I guess it was off the back of that from working with so many brands and having people continuously book me to promote their brand in my mind I'm like this is working for those brands so instead of just working with other brands why don't I do something of my own. I was in my early 20s I was in my YouTube fame days like

if I could do that now I'd do it so differently. I didn't realize at the time but it was at that time that I started Faith that I'd found my calling and I knew that I was meant to own businesses and be a boss and run a workplace. I think it's really interesting when you say you know you felt really naive to it at the time because I also think it's a real blessing like when you start a business but you don't have the full understanding of how challenging it might be you go into it with like okay well we're going to work through this hurdle and then when the next hurdle comes up you work through that but I think if you had had the business plan if you'd had the foresight if you had all of the training then potentially you wouldn't have achieved the

organic growth that you have. No and I think that's like the beauty of business it's always interesting to look at businesses we are on social media now and we see all of these brands and you just see them for what they are now they are fully developed they're massive but what you don't see is where the brand started and I think that's one of the great things about starting a business is it's never going to be what you see on Instagram because there's so much that happened before now but yeah it really was just me in my shed like not in my shed in my like garage I had a double garage underneath my townhouse at the time. And this was when I'd started dating AJ as well, my partner. And he is an electrician, but he works for us now. Now he's our CFO. So he's

had a full career change. I didn't think that at the time, I didn't think that me and him would ever work together. And I would be down in my garage, packing orders, replying to our customer emails, receiving returns. And I had like 10 plastic tubs from Bunnings that we went to buy for me to put my stock in i even had my car in the garage a packing table a photo shoot backdrop and every single thing that i learned back then i just looked up online how to learn it and even to this day i'm googling how to do stuff for my business like people always say like how did you learn to do all this i'm like i just started googling like how do i ship products in australia who do i sign up with for australia post like everything that i've learned has just been from

trial and error and being so naive at the start and learning from all of my mistakes on the way. No, I remember we did the same thing. We Googled how to start a podcast, literally how to start a podcast. And then we had to Google the more specific things. But I mean, that's great advice for anyone is that anyone can do anything they want. Yeah. If they put the time and the effort in it, I think it's being realistic that nothing comes easy. And one thing I think is important that you commented on is that you did try other businesses and you did do other things that didn't work for whatever reason. Now this business has worked. What are some of the things or the speed bumps or the hiccups or the failures that you had creating this business? In a way with my business

journey, I had a head start because I had an audience before I had the business. Whereas a lot of people these days are trying to do it the other way around. They're creating a business and then trying to create the audience to go with it. So I guess I was already one step ahead by having built an audience and I think one of the biggest hurdles for me at the start was having people take me seriously because I did come from being that influencer that was doing hashtag ad and sponsored this and buy this use my code britney tan for a discount to wanting to run an actual business and I feel like that in itself took me three years I feel for people to realize this is not just some quick cash grab I always call myself a cash grabber and all of my followers

know that. With business, you're always changing the way that you do everything. You think you've got your systems in place and then you absolutely don't. And then six months later, you're doing them completely differently. So it's just been a journey of bettering everything that we do from the way we pack our orders, receive our returns, receiving stock. One of the biggest mistakes that I ever made was obviously when you're getting stuff made overseas, whether it's your clothes or your packaging or stickers or whatever it may be, and you're importing it into Australia. I didn't know anything about anything but we were importing some of our swimwear from Bali and then when you bring it in through customs obviously the Australian government is going to be like well

how much is all this worth because they want to charge tax on it and so I had no idea this was the first time I was ever dealing with something like this and they said fill out this form and put how much all this is worth so I put on there how much it's worth if I sold it all import taxes because I just I didn't even know I was like yep it's worth this much like I worked out if we sold it all this is how much we'd make so I put that on there and then the bill came back it was seven thousand dollars and back then I was like that's half my bank account basically but I didn't question it I just thought this must be right when I'd actually put the wrong number you're supposed to put in there like what you paid for the stock not what it would be worth

especially because Australian taxes like I feel like as an Australian citizen all we do is pay tax on something there's always a bill so when you get another bill like that you often you don't question it you're like oh that's just living here that's just paying taxes but there's also something so endearing about the not knowing in terms of like I think that that's one of the things I like I've loved about your business journey and one of the things about the way that you present yourself across your social media is it's incredibly relatable and even though fate is now a behemoth there's something really endearing about the fact that you have your family working there, that you are showing the behind the scenes of the business, showing the

parts of the business that are not super pretty, but also make it very real. One thing I just wanted to ask, cause you called yourself a cash grabber. What do you mean by that? One time a few years ago, I think it was cause we'd launched Fate and then we launched Staple Swim. The way that Staple and Form Active happened was our customers were just asking for it. Like we nailed making clothes and people like let's do swim and then why don't you do tights so then it was when we launched form and just came out with our black active wear like just a basic collection someone dm'd me this woman and was like having a go at me for launching another kind of sub brand and she called me you're such a cash grabber in like an insulting way this was years

ago so at the start of my business journey I was getting a lot more like hate messages and whatever because I guess I was coming out of that influencer space. And so I put it on my story and was just laughing. So ever since then, I call myself a cash grabber and everyone calls me a cash grabber. Can you give us a bit of an idea of like what the size is of Fate? Like where in terms of like we've understood where you've come from, but like where the brand is at now? It's really interesting, but I think Fate is way bigger than anyone ever could imagine, even myself included, because we are kind of what feels like a niche brand but then if you go out and about and ask people do you know fate like you'll be surprised at how many people go yeah like I know fate even

though it feels niche and I think another reason why it feels like this small niche kind of brand is because of the mentality that we all have being based in Newcastle we don't get out much we are very much in this Newcastle little bubble we're not in the big cities where all the influencers are like we're doing our first big influencer event this week in Brisbane and it's just crazy that our brand is so big but we've never done something like that it's very much this small brand mentality and we're a small team I think right now we have including our stores we have like 20 something employees and then we're about to open another store in Brisbane so we'll add another almost 10 there but in terms of our office and our warehouse staff like it's quite a

small team and we all really work together but the brand itself it's like we're a huge brand financially making massive amounts of money but we're still like a very small team which is kind of nice it's really nice it still feels like very personal and you know I've got my partner working here my mom works full-time in our warehouse so it's really nice one of the things I think and I would be so interested to know whether it was based off a business decision or whether it was based off where you saw the need but fate is known as a very size inclusive range every single style is size inclusive which I think is very remarkable in terms of a shopping experience for people why was it so important to you to have that breadth of size range I mean now in 2023 it just

makes sense and I think now we're seeing so many brands being called out I don't know if you keep up with the comments on some brands like TikToks and stuff but now more than ever like consumers are saying to brands like you need to extend your sizing I'm curbing myself in saying that I'm fortunate enough that I can still walk into any store and purchase their sizing even if they only go to a 12 or a 14 I know that like the average size woman in Australia is like a 14 to 16 and it saddens me that so many people just simply can't shop with brands even if they really love them like it just makes no sense for me like I know we've already come a long way like back in a day really every store basically went to a size 12 or 14 and now we're seeing more and more brands

jump onto it but I just think it's 2023 people should be able to shop where they want to shop it shouldn't be a matter of creating a divide and that's what our brand is all about and same for our stores like we want to create an opportunity for anyone to be able to walk in and buy the same pair of jeans it doesn't matter if they're a size 6 or a size 18 or a size 20 and I myself could never own a store and just have that cut off in the sizes because you're literally telling people sorry you can't come in here because of your size one of my first jobs I was well I guess I was 16 I used to work at a fish and chip shop but I also worked at a clothing store I was like you I worked every day after school yeah but I worked at a clothing store and I actually can't I don't know

if this exists anymore and I can't believe it existed then I guess it was a different time I worked at a shop called 16 to 26 and it was just sizes 16 to 26 it was so othering it was so exclusive and I was a 16 year old size 8 that worked in this store too and I think back now and I'm like how how was that a store where like if you only went up to a 14 you could only shop in this store and if you were 16 plus don't even bother walking into that store it makes no sense and even now there are stores that have like their extended sizes but it's just a little section in their shop like shoved in the corner kind of thing and that in itself just doesn't seem right to me or there's some brands that only stock their straight normal sizes in store and then if you

want the other sizes you've got to go online like what is that saying and the interesting thing about owning our retail stores is we've copped negative backlash from people who I guess have deeply ridden fat phobia so you walk into our store like down in Westfield Miranda it's beautiful and we've got all of our sizes on the rack and I remember working down there when we first opened and we had people come in it's usually older people like 40 and 50 and above we had older women come in and say like oh this is a shop for fat people because we've got some mannequins in our Westfield Miranda store that are a size 14 with like big boobs we even had our general manager of fate working down in the store once and she's like a size 8 and a lady said to her like why are

you working in here when this is a store for fat people so I feel like no matter what even if you are doing the most you're always gonna cop backlash from both ends like it's really been a really interesting experience to be opening physical stores and seeing people's response and I know some brands say oh the demand isn't there but like we are living proof that the demand very much is there when you say that a lot of people say like the demand isn't there I find this a really interesting question also from like a business perspective, because a lot of brands will say, well, the demand's not there, but they'll also say, but the cost of making the products is more because there's more fabric. There's more of everything in terms of when you get into higher

sizes. Does that have a cost implication to you or is the reward of catering to a more broader size inclusive range kind of like the cost versus benefit of this? It's definitely worth it. One reason why brands would say the demand isn't there is because those brands have only ever marketed towards the smaller size you know and I think we will see a lot of brands extending their size but then they don't really promote it and they don't show it on curvier women in their modeling and campaigns and then they'll go oh the demand isn't there but they haven't targeted it to the right people but in my experience like we've been doing this for years it's absolutely worth it for small businesses just starting out i can totally understand them not having the funds to

you know add the extra sizes and if it's going to cost a little bit more totally understand i don't think it's applicable to them but for the big brands that say like oh it's just really costly and stuff it's like i fund this whole company myself so if i can do it companies that have been around for a way longer time that are way bigger than us definitely can afford it and to me them saying there's no demand and it's too expensive it's just a complete cop out i mean And you can't say the demand's not there anyway, when we know that the average is a 12 to 14. I know, go and walk around Westfield and have a look at everyone. Like the average size person is not your size six Instagram model. Well, speaking of Instagram, something that I think

that you have done, which is really quite phenomenal in terms of the way in which you use Instagram to promote your businesses. For a lot of people who are starting businesses, I'm thinking of people who are listening to this, who have had an idea, who are wanting to create a business. A lot of people lean towards the aesthetic into creating these perfectly aesthetic, beautiful looking Instagram pages that showcase their products or showcase their business. And then they wonder why the engagement is so low. Something that you have done and that you kind of lean really heavily into as much as you have the beautiful images, there's so much personality that's injected into your brand, just as much personality as you inject into your own

personal Instagram. I mean, some of your packing videos or your videos around customer experiences. Can you talk us through a little bit around like how you use your social media strategy to leverage your sales aspect of your brand? Well, I think this all goes way back to my YouTube days. I've definitely learned so much from growing that YouTube channel to over a million subscribers that I'm now to this day still implementing into my business. And I, again, never thought back then when I was doing YouTube that I'd one day still be using that same kind of method to promote my business and I guess that's one of the reasons why I have had the success that I've had is because no matter what I've been doing I guess I've just been having fun with it and I know it's lame to

say but just like being myself and remaining true to myself and we're definitely seeing a massive shift in the way that brands are marketing themselves especially in 2023 I feel like a few years back it was very much all about having an aesthetically pleasing feed I remember I used to say to our social girls like got to make sure the feed all goes together and everything flows and if something didn't flow right on our page we'd archive it and delete it because it's ruining the feed whereas now you go onto our TikTok account our Instagram it looks like an absolute mess but then if you actually like scroll through it's all really fun stuff and then mixed in there are like our pretty campaign videos and photos but yeah you weren't out of place by doing that

because that's just moving with the times that's what it was social media was at that time everyone wanted to use the same filter if you were if you decided to be someone that did a border remember when instagram had white borders if you did the white borders everything had a white border like it had to be uniform and then we all transitioned into this chaos where it's like let's just make relatable content and not care as much about what it looks like that's the thing now as well like there's so many brands out there for people to shop from like we're spoiled for choice as consumers and now more than ever people aren't just buying the brand and the product because they love it like there's this extra element to brands now where there's a feeling that comes from that brand

and I think that's a really good thing for people to focus on is sure you can have like the best fitting jeans in the world in the most amazing size range but like what's another reason that's going to make someone want to buy those jeans when they think they could go anywhere else and buy them. And so I think that's where a lot of our success comes from is people feel a personal connection with our brand. They'll jump onto our page and see all of our fun videos or us just being idiots. And then they have this personal connection with the brand rather than just a pretty photo or aesthetically pleasing video. I feel like we're even seeing huge brands now on TikTok being rogue with their content and I love it. As someone who you know I want to say

you've been online since the very beginning but you weren't just online you were the creator you were the OG creator you're still your whole life revolves around social media how has that affected your confidence and self-image and the idea of self-worth from the beginning until now was there ever a point where it was really hard for you to be involved in that world? oh I wouldn't ever say there was any point where it was really hard because I think having the career that I've had has been super privileged one of my good friends will always say yeah but you earned it and you worked hard for that following like one of my girlfriends always says I'm like yeah but at the same time not many people get to experience you know what I have

experienced living this life for the last 10 years I would say the internet has come a long way it's is in ways really supportive and inclusive now compared to what it used to be. But at the same time, it's also so dangerous at the same time, like the internet is just weird. But back in my day, back in my day when I was 20, people were really savage. And one thing that got scrutinized a lot was my body. I've gone up and down in weight my whole life, and I'm sure I will continue to do so and one thing that I've really had to learn to accept is that's going to happen to most of us and that's fine I remember going to influencer events and being the curvier one in the group out of all the others I think in those times I would struggle because I know that we would be getting maybe a

group photo together and then what people would say you know comparing us which is just stupid i feel like as women we're always going to be on a journey you know trying to love ourselves for the way we are we're always going to be comparing ourselves to other people online but i think starting fate and being where i am in business now has definitely given me a completely different outlook on myself my body who i am and what's really important in life i'm grateful for that in a way because i can't imagine if i was still just a full-time influencer if i'd be in a different mental space to what I am now. And we get to work with so many amazing models when we're doing our campaign shoots and just people of all different sizes. And it really is inspiring. And

it just makes you realize like how much your body shape doesn't matter. I also think one of the things that people who follow you adore in you is that there is this true authenticity. And I think when there's a mismatch between what someone's putting out online versus who they actually are or what they think they want to be because it's what they think their audience will like or what will get the most likes that gap in authenticity people can smell that now like people can sniff out bullshit so switched on now like us as consumers and followers online we're more switched on than ever I remember back in my day I keep saying that when sponsored posts and all that kind of stuff first come out you could be so shady with it and people wouldn't have even

have known if you were doing a sponsored post or whatever it is whereas now I love how smart everyone has become at like spotting something that is fake or it's an ad that isn't being disclosed or whatever but I guess yeah like my thing is I've always been myself online no matter what I've definitely been a lot of different versions of myself that's for sure and I've come a long way since I first started I've gone through really immature phases online annoying phases I can't even look at my old YouTube videos because it makes me cringe. But now is like the happiest I've ever been in my online career because I'm just working, having fun and making content that I actually love making.

You made the conscious decision to stop promoting and doing sponsored brand posts for other brands. And I guess in a sense, working as an influencer, what was the reason for that conscious shift? I'd been doing it for so long that it got to a point where I started making YouTube videos for the fun right like that's why I started and then it turned into something that I could monetize and make money out of and then it got to a point where I wasn't loving it anymore especially YouTube I gave that up years ago I obviously still continued my Instagram and doing sponsored posts but I just

felt like a walking advertisement no matter how genuine I was being about the products that I was promoting and I got super selective towards the end and was only working with products that I loved and you know doing sponsored posts for brands that I loved but no matter what I still felt like a fraud in a way but I think it was honestly because I felt like I was flogging a dead horse like how many more times can I keep promoting this one product like no matter how much I love it I just felt like I was serving no purpose and I felt like there was so much more that I could be doing with my life and also online and so it was about a year ago that I tied up just the few brands that I was still working with and it was also good for me in my

career because I had this empire that I was building but I still was like answering to my social media manager at the time and I had so much control in my fate and business part of my life but then I still felt like I had a boss on the other side being like where is your caption for approval I need it now and I'd be like fuck off I'm fucking busy I'm running five businesses but I think that's something to be important to note too is that like you did have the privilege and I'm not saying privilege that anything was handed to you but you had somewhere else to go for an income. And I'm not saying that influencers can't go and get an income elsewhere. That's not what I'm saying. But I imagine it's a lot easier for you to say, I'm dusting my hands of this now

because you did, in your words, have an empire to go and run. Yeah. And the whole time that I was an influencer and even a YouTuber, I remember back in the day, I keep freaking saying that. I love it. I would make YouTube videos doing the Q&As and people would say like, you know, what's your plans for the future? You can't be an influencer forever. I was always super mindful of that. And I always knew deep down that I wanted to do more than what I was just doing at the time. In saying that, I haven't done a sponsored post for like a good year. The last one I did was KFC, which was so fun. I love it. You're like, I only work with the brand. So I'm

passionate about KFC chicken nuggets. And they let me have fun. Like I made this really stupid video. Like anyway, I'm still open to things like that. Like if something comes along and it's something that I can have fun with I'll do it but I couldn't do the I guess stock standard sponsored post anymore but yes it was extremely amazing that I could stop doing that and focus on this other thing that I've been doing because you can't really just give up being an influencer if you don't have something else to go totally I think it's interesting what you say Britt like in terms of this idea of privilege because I do think that one of the reasons why influencers in general are kind of like a bit of a dirty word and people view it as not a legitimate job even

though we all know that majority of people who work as influencers are women and they have created their own businesses and it is a revenue stream for them it's also a uni degree in like the netherlands or something yeah which is legitimized yeah yeah well they teach you how to run businesses and stuff it actually makes sense to be honest in this day and age but i think one of the reasons why people view it so negatively is because if somebody's sole income is being an influencer then it makes it really hard for them to pick and choose the brand deals that they want to do because if every single paycheck comes in is dependent on them promoting a product then they're going to be less likely to say oh I've never used that product before I actually don't care about it

but you know what I'll trial it for three weeks and then I'll promote it. So that's why I guess I have always come from the perspective in terms of the influencer world that the people who have a secondary revenue stream or a first revenue stream who are then promoting a product it's because they love it it's not because they need to and so they're the people that I'd much prefer to believe over the ones who only do that and that's their sole income as like a referral from a friend but I think like as well you get to a point in your own business and we've seen it with Zoe Foster Blake where your time is so much better spent on the things that you can grow on the businesses that can infinitely grow at capacity, which is fate and all the other projects that you

put your time and energy towards versus growing somebody else's income revenue stream. Oh yeah. And it was something that I sat on for a very long time. I think I thought about giving up my brand deals for about a year before I made the decision to do so. And I even went and had a few meetings with my accountant who looks after everything that we do. And I kept saying him I think I want to give up this company Brittany Lee Saunders and he's like are you sure because he was just seeing the numbers going like this is a big amount of money that you're just wanting to give up I'm like yeah but I just can't do it anymore so that in itself was an interesting experience because every friend that I asked they're like just keep doing it like you're making

so much money to just do this one post you know but something inside me was telling me to like give up that part of my life and move on and I've never been happier since doing it I also just feel like I'd done enough. You know, I'd done nearly a decade of the sponsored posts. It's like I was due for long service. I needed to give it up. For anybody who's starting a business or is in those early years of growing a business, what is your best advice? Like what are the tips and tricks that you've learned along the way that you think this is the real knowledge that needs to be imparted on people? It's a massive question. Yeah. Put it all down in one sentence. How do we all be as successful as you oh gosh okay save more money than you think you need like you can't

start a business without money and obviously it depends what kind of business you're doing if you're hand sewing scrunchies at home that's obviously going to be way cheaper than opening up a restaurant you know be realistic about how much money you need to start your business be willing to never stop learning I'm still learning every single day how to do something new and never think that you've learned it all and you're at your peak business is just a continuous journey and you'll never stop growing realize that it's not what you see on social media like even I might make it look super fun and easy but owning a business it's the hardest you'll ever work in your whole life you'll work 24 7 you'll never switch off but if you are doing your business

for the right reasons you'll love it and also feel like you're never working a day in your life which is exactly how I feel be willing to do whatever that day throws at you for the rest of your life I feel like a lot of people always ask me how do you plan out your day and like how do you manage to do all this I'm like I don't I just get into the office and whatever's thrown at me at that moment is what's gonna happen and you have to be open-minded being a business owner to just have stuff thrown at you all the time and there's always a problem that you need to fix and also don't be hard on yourself and don't compare yourself to others and their journey because we're all on different business journeys and we all started at a different place and don't forget

to stop and smell the roses because business is never ending you honestly never feel like you're achieving anything but that's just because you can always keep going beyond that and one thing that I'm trying to do more is be more mindful and grateful for just how far I've come rather than worrying about what we still need to do or what I'm yet to achieve yeah my advice would be just enjoy the whole process even if you've got a seven thousand dollar bill from the Australian in government and your new product isn't selling that well like just know that you know it's not going to be easy but you've just got to enjoy it for what it is what about in terms of being ready because I feel like for a lot of people that I've spoken to about starting businesses people often

put things into the procrastination wheel because they're like it's not ready it's not perfect I can't start this yet I can't launch this product I can't do this business because it's not a hundred percent. And I feel like for somebody who has done so many businesses, you kind of become aware that you're actually never ready. How do you kind of get that across in terms of how ready does something need to be before you can launch it to the market? Like, I feel like you can tick off all the very basic boxes. Like if you're launching a product, like make sure you've got the product here, make sure you've got your shipping bags, like, you know, all those little things, but nothing is ever going to be perfect and things are going to stuff up along the way, no matter

how perfect something seems to you like you can launch something and something can be wrong we've launched things before and realized the price was zero dollars on our website like nothing nothing is ever going to be perfect and I think if you've already got that idea in you if you've got that inkling feeling in your body if you can't stop thinking about something like that's enough for you to be ready to do it it's just a matter of pushing yourself and doing it I feel like life truly begins as lame as it is, like when you just step outside that little box that you're sitting in because you're so scared. And I definitely think the more and more that you do, as scary as it is and as risky as

it is, the more you build this confidence, you know, and even to this day, I still get fears, you know, when we open a store, I'm like, oh my God, how many people are going to come on the opening day? Like, what if it's a flop? But you do these things and you have these fears, no matter how big your business gets, It's just a matter of literally just diving in the deep end and doing it. You're an absolute legend. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Brittany.

Thanks for having me. It's been so fun. Well, you know, we never finish an episode without our suck and our sweet and our highlight and our low light, Laura. What is the suck of the week? The suck of the week. What happened that was that bad? Nothing particularly except for the fact that it was raining on Sunday and we all had to

stay inside. And my house looks like somebody has, like literally someone could have died in there and you wouldn't know. It's so out of control because, like, after you've had the kids inside for the weekend, it's been raining. The duplo's fucking everywhere. I mean, I wish I could say that the dishes aren't everywhere, but, like, my life is chaos.

And so, unfortunately, the cleaning is the last thing that's been done. And the rain doesn't help the dirt and all the shit through your hair. Just the shit. The kids pull out something from every single room. Anyway, it's certainly not Instagrammable at this point in time, but it's very parent relatable. And I know that there are some parents out there who have no issue, seem to not have any problems with keeping a tight and tidy ship,

and I am certainly not that person. No, I can confirm you are not. Yeah, it's a mess. One of my neighbours actually came over the other day and they were like, he walked into the house because he came to get his son who'd come over for a play and they are so lovely, our neighbours. He couldn't find his son?

He was like, where's my son? I think it's the dead body that's somewhere in this house. He's over there. See that moving washing basket? No, he came in and it was so nice. You know when you walk into someone's messy house and you either ignore it or you want to make them feel better about their space?

He was like, oh, yeah, the mess gets on top of us too. they have the cleanest house that you've ever seen but it was the first thing he said he was like oh yeah you know on these rainy days stuff comes out and then doesn't really get put away and i was like yeah kind of every day it also shocks me more than it should when you talk about like having other friends like how dare who came over what you what i mean it was just my neighbor they just popped in to get their kid yeah spit still so so weird i'm so sorry that i'm cheating on you okay and my sweet for the week is that it was my girlfriend's birthday on sunday night and We went to Iceberg's RSL Club and had fish and chips

and it was a bloody good time. But I don't know whether I'm allowed to say it now. Probably not. But I'm going to do it anyway. Guys, you all know how I've been training for Ninja Warrior. I have a very exciting announcement coming this Thursday. You're announcing officially Ninja Warrior? I'm officially announcing Ninja Warrior on Thursday.

But I'm doing it on radio on the pickup so we can talk about it next Tuesday's episode. Well, I cannot wait to hear that even though I know, but I can't wait to hear it. You can't wait. Okay, even though you know, you're going to no-no and then everyone's going to know. I'm going to officially know and we can talk about it.

We don't have to breadcrumb it anymore. Okay, my suck this week is very obviously my face is falling off. Besides my face falling off, my – You look great. I do not, but thank you. My sister, Sherry, has been staying with me for the last two weeks. Oh, two and a half weeks, her and her husband, Jay. We love Sherry.

We love Sherry, but she's moving overseas officially. They're doing the Nomad thing for a couple of years because they both work online but they left today so this morning I said goodbye and I actually haven't been upset I feel like I'd be upset right now because she's like my best friend and I haven't thought about it she's crying because I haven't thought about it really till now I've been so psyching her up and I'm like my sister's moving overseas I'm so excited but now I'm like oh my god I'm not gonna see her maybe for a few years which is wild to me because we are best friends and inseparable you will see her you're gonna go over to Scotland and see Ben and she'll fly in

and see you she's only in europe it's a small flight from wherever she'll be to scotland yeah i'm just super i'm super proud of her for like chasing her dreams and doing her thing and um it was yeah it was sad to see it go and that's going to be my sweet as well which i know i'm breaking the rules but my sweet is seeing her go and do her thing she's been with me for two weeks so i just i'm really proud of her and then my other sweet is because i feel like he'll kill me if i don't say it ben my beautiful lovely boyfriend ben celtic his football team overnight might won the whole like premiership championship thing. I don't even know what it's called.

We don't even know what that means. So shout out to Celtic and Ben and I'm very proud of him as well. So I'm a really proud sister and girlfriend this week. Well, guys, that is it from us today. If you have loved the episode, jump on to Apple Podcasts, leave a review, go subscribe, hit the follow button and you can also join us at Life Uncut Discussion Group on the Facebook. You can also join us at Life Uncut Podcast on Instagram

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