Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 120: Michelle Kennedy

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

Michelle Kennedy is a tech entrepreneur and businesswoman. She is CEO of Peanut App, and mum to two young children, Finlay and Nuala.Michelle started her working life as a corporate lawyer and became interested in tech when she worked for Badoo and then Bumble. She set up Peanut after she gave birth to her first child and felt lonely and isolated. Peanut is an online community for women, as Michelle says, at 'seismic stages' of their life including fertility, pregnancy, motherhood and menopause. It's a place where women can come and speak honestly with other women going through the same stage of life as them, and she feels it acts as a social barometer of which issues are important to women.I certainly wish it had been around when I had my first baby. And I look forward to watching Michelle's plans unfold for creating a space for young girls to talk about their challenges in their teen years... Little me could have done with that too!Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Own each step with Peloton. From their pop runs to walk and talks, you define what it means to be a runner. Whatever your level, embrace it. Journey starts when you say so. If you've got five minutes or 50, Peloton Tread has workouts you can work in. Or bring your classes with you for outdoor runs, walks, and hikes, led by expert instructors on the Peloton app. Call yourself a runner.

Peloton all-access membership separate. Learn more at onepeloton.ca slash running. Hello, I'm Sophia Lispector and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer Hello, how are you doing? ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Hello, how are you doing? You're joining me as I walk home from a children's party. I am walking home without my children. I left them there. I'm going home to get my bits and bobs together because Richard and I are off out DJing tonight and yeah this week has actually been all right it's been busy lots of bits and bobs going on but I'm feeling

feeling pretty steady I have had quite a lot of stuff come in the diary for some exciting trips and it was making me feel a bit conflicted so on the one hand I was like how nice to have all these lovely places to sing and on the other hand like uh will my children still recognize me at the end of it so I made the decision to actually just bring them with me and for different bits and bobs obviously they're all at school so I have to be a bit clever about it but yeah it's made me feel so much better I think sometimes when you're doing things it's very easy to sort of compartmentalize the fact the point where you've actually forgotten that if you kind of involve people in different elements of what you're up to you can actually achieve quite a lot and feel a bit better and

actually it's more fun as well so I've got a trip in a couple of weeks where I'm going to Australia it's a really short trip but it's a long way to go so you know you're spending I don't know two or three days just in transit when you had it all together I thought right I'm gonna bring my eight-year-old Jesse he'll love that so that's turned that into a fun trip too oh go golly, Rich is going to hate me recording this where it's windy. Why has it suddenly got windy? It was fine. It's a funny old day actually. It looks a little bit like it's about to pour with rain. I think that's quite a high percentage chance actually. Anyway, so how are we doing with the podcast? Well, we have a couple

more left in store for this series and then I'm going to do my very very very best i've got a horrible feeling i might be a little bit late with the next one so in an ideal world i will start the next series of which number i'm actually not even entirely sure which number is in series 12 or 13 one of them anyway uh I'm on tour in March in Europe so that's what I'm hoping to start publishing them but you might have to bear with me because I don't know if I've got enough time to record enough to give me space to get them all done and then you know make it all smooth and the attempt at professionalism but But I think worst case scenario is I start in April, so not too far. And I've already got some lovely, lovely people. I've started recording it, so I'm feeling good.

Anyway, I digress. Today's guest is a lady called Michelle Kennedy. Michelle's got two young children, a son and a daughter. And her company actually approached me about speaking to her and I was immediately intrigued. Firstly, she sounded like an interesting woman. Secondly, her business. Now, those that know me know I'm always excited to talk to business women. I just find people that end up being CEOs and driving a force behind a company quite exciting because they've basically seen something, an opportunity,

and then built it all up. And they've often had to put so many hours in, there's so much risk, really push themselves. So I tend to speak to them when they're sitting in the bit where, you know, they've had the highs and lows and the twists and the, you know, turns in their journey, but they're at the bit where it's all working and life is good and the business is functioning. But I like hearing about how it's been to get to that point, you know, the graft, the sacrifice, that kind of stuff. So Michelle's company is called Peanut. Now, Peanut is an online community. Mill millions and millions of women use it it is intended for women it's a women's space for discussing sort of big milestones in your

life so there's lots about fertility there's lots about new parenthood there's lots of space there for menopause different parts of your life different chapters and each place you could go to find out more and discuss and get access to experts and all that just sort of ring fenced so for example if you're going through fertility questions you will not accidentally stumble into a group of new parents because obviously that could be quite upsetting so it's thoughtfully done it's got loads of information on there and yeah just sounds like a really solid sensible space to go and get some good information wisdom advice and it's clearly working there was a need for it. So Michelle's company is Peanut. That's what we spoke about today.

And you will hear that the name Peanut came from the time when she was pregnant with her first baby, and that was how it was referred to. So I like the idea of, like, you know, something that starts off all small, and then it's grown into something big. Anyway, this is obviously really, really windy. Sorry, Richard, for the noise. I'll see you on the other side when I should be pretty much at my door, so hopefully away from all the windiness.

All right, speak to you in a bit. Bye. Well, firstly, it's really lovely to meet you. And thanks for having me over. Why don't we start by talking about Peanuts? I know all about it, but I'd love to hear from you. You describe what Peanut is to people who might not be aware of it yet. Yeah, so Peanut is a social network which connects women across different life stages. So if you're going through fertility, if you're having IVF or you're considering surrogacy or adoption,

you have a special part of the app that's just for you. If you're going through pregnancy and you're kind of in that roller coaster different part for you and then if you're going through any stage of motherhood so that might be the newborn stage toddlers beyond um and more recently women who are going through perimenopause and menopause so the way the product works is it's all walled gardens so if you're in one life stage you won't see um content related to the other life stage we know that that can be triggering but ultimately it's really about women finding each other so you find other women who are going through the same thing as you and you can make friendships you can join groups ask questions is it normal is the most asked question on peanut

and the answer is always yes by the way um and and so uh women can find those connections um and find their village which in a way i'm quite surprised you and i haven't crossed paths before because it feels like for both of us um becoming mothers ourselves introduced us to the complete importance of connection and community and conversation being a really good way to help you navigate all that comes with it yeah so how intrinsic to peanut is the fact that you yourself had your baby fin yeah it was it was such a funny thing because we were just talking about it but so much of who I was as a person and my identity was tied to who I was at work and my career and my drive was everything like that was the focus and so I was very focused on delivering as a result and I can't explain it any better than that it was just I was very

goals oriented because you're kind of always thinking about okay deliver that and that's the next and deliver that and that's the next and so I almost assumed that motherhood might be the same and that sounds absolutely ridiculous when I say it now but I think it does sound that ridiculous actually you mean in terms of like there being goals and things you have to achieve that there were to me I just felt like okay I've got the stuff I've read a book in a bit I kind of know how this is going to go I understand you know they're gonna feed and then they're gonna crawl and I felt like it was very much about deliverables and what I had not factored into any of that is how I would feel yeah or that Finn would be his own little person

so I had no there was no allowance in my mind for that um and so when he came along it was really this moment of like oh right so who am I now because I was very comfortable with Michelle at work but Michelle the mom was struggling I didn't really know what I was doing everyone around me looked like they knew exactly what they were doing which was freaking me out but my girlfriends weren't having babies either so it was really that compounding feeling of feeling very isolated um that felt embarrassing you shouldn't feel like that also you're the luckiest woman in the world you've got this amazing baby and he was beautiful and I was terrified of him and um everything felt like every day felt like an exam I was sweating like why why is he crying I used to freak out if we

went into Starbucks and he was crying you know things now that I I wouldn't even flinch but at that time it just really felt I wasn't meeting my goals, being goals-oriented. Very weird place. I completely understand that, though. And I actually think that there's a lot about not so much motherhood now, but I think, because Finn is nine, so we're going back sort of a decade ago to what parenting looked like then. And I had my first baby now nearly 20 years ago. It sounds so long. So long.

Wow. But I think there was more of a, it was more sort of hidden in books. Yeah. It was conversations you weren't having with just everybody. Right. And I totally understand that feeling of like,

right, so I'm going to have this baby and then the goal is to achieve them sleeping at this point, feeding on these hours. This is probably what it's supposed to look like. And then everything that fell outside of that felt like complete failure. And that was from the type of birth you had. I had to have a C-section in the end. And I was very, very clear I'm going to have a vaginal birth because that's how it's done. And that's what I'm going to do.

To feeding. And I really had been told at the time, this is absolutely the truth, that when you have the baby, you do the skin-to-skin, and the baby will crawl up to your boob. It's a newborn baby. Of course the baby won't crawl up to your boob. What? That sounds quite a scary moment. But at the I was like sure okay and there I was looking at this tiny baby on my skin waiting for him to crawl to the boob didn't happen unsurprisingly and feeding was really hard and that again felt like moments of failure so there were all these kind of little booby traps that I'd set for myself um and then you'd meet

some I had one one friend um whose child was older than Finn who said to me no one stands around in the playground by the way talking about whether they were breastfed or formula fed yeah and that moment of oh yeah good point because I was having a sob was you know a moment of relief but no one had really said that to me at all and you're right it was a different time and we speak about things much more freely now but no one had ever said that to me no and also I think you have this feeling that you've had a baby which is a sort of it's not even like it's just a small version of an individual. It's like it's a sort of creature you're presented with that has this different, like it's an equation you've got to solve.

And if I enter the information into this baby at the right times in terms of feeding, sleep, temperature, all this stuff, it's going to equal a certain result. But you wouldn't expect that of anybody you meet as an adult. You are aware of all the nuances that adulthood and individualism presents. But when you have a baby, for some reason, your brain is stuck in this fog of like, okay, it's not a person. It's a sort of thing I've got to work out, like a little riddle. That's it.

And this will happen like this. And when it doesn't, you're like, what does it mean? And even when I had my daughter um she's totally different to my son in every way and um she very very difficult to get her to feed she was tiny when she was born um and it's it's been a constant battle actually to get her to eat even today but that felt like it's all consuming? When you have anyone who has a child who doesn't eat, it completely, like, obsesses your brain. And, again, moments of failure.

Even though I knew I'd changed some of the narrative in my own mind, it still sat there with me. Yeah, and I think you've had one baby, so you think, oh, I should know what I'm doing by now. And my second as well was born early and wouldn't really eat and you you suddenly realize why um our parents and people who care about us all constantly love it you know when you eat something but I think when you see your child eat it's like it releases something your brain of like that's a relief they're eating so true you're like great okay or you find one thing that they're willing to eat and then that's it. I mean, over index on that all day.

That's what I did. Anyway, so it was a different world and I definitely felt a lot of pressure that was somewhat my own pressure to really be this mummy that I thought people wanted me to be or I should be or it looked like on Instagram or whatever it was and I felt very guilty at not feeling exactly how I thought I would I went back to work when Finn was four four months and my mum came to help us with Finn and probably only a couple of months after that did I start to even understand what I wanted to feel like and how I wanted to be and how I thought this would be yeah and Finn and I got into our own little groove and things became much easier and much better but that was um and I'm not by no means suggesting that that was a good thing to go back so early. It was part necessity and it was part I didn't know what to do with myself.

I can't explain it better than that either. There's no judgment about any of it. I meet people that work straight away. People who take years. I felt a bit floating. I felt a bit floating and I needed to get back to who I was and understand that a bit more. And then from there starts to develop. And, you know, amazing things happened subsequently.

And I was back in my day job and there were terrible things that happened. And, you know, I was acting like I didn't have a kid at work and didn't sleep at night because I'd be watching him all night. You know, it's crazy stuff. And then we started building a new dating app within the business I was working in. That was exciting and it was glamorous and it was really energizing. And Finn just became very portable.

I just used to take him everywhere. We were going away on a work trip, Finn was coming like he just became part of life and that was amazing but actually I still had no friends who had babies I still was not you know they still weren't at that point um and the older he got the more it felt like I just need to check in with someone else like how do they know what they're doing or um and it was at that moment he was about two and a half and I was like I just I'm going to build something that I want to use for a generation of women who have been told they can have it all but actually we're all just pretending and we don't know and we don't talk about things and I need to talk about it um and I love my mum but I need to talk about it not with my mum, who had a very different experience of motherhood, you know, in a different time.

And she's a strong Irish woman with very strong views on a lot of things. And I just wanted to do it in a different way. And so that was Peanut. Well, I mean, I wish it had been around when I had my first baby. But what a brilliant thing. And you're right about that thing about being modern women, where they're at now and the conversations that are happening now. And it's interesting you talk about having it all

because I suppose we've got kind of like quite an old-fashioned version of what that is, but probably at its root is about finding satisfaction and contentment within whatever that looks like for you. That's probably what having it all is really about. It's exactly right. It's actually about, like, happiness, ultimately. And somewhere along the line, we forgot that

because we were told that having it all actually was about have the career, have the perfect fam, make those handmade invitations for your kids' party. Like, that was having it all. It was run the house, perfect fam. Make those handmade invitations for your kids' party. Like, that was having it all. It was run the house, perfect fam, perfect job. What? And look great. Yeah.

And work out and, you know, do, look fabulous. It was bonkers. And actually, really, what it really means is find peace and be happy and being being okay with yourself exactly you know appreciating all the things you are doing exactly how hard you're working on it all um and i suppose whilst the way we can you know find community has changed and i think by and large massively improved some of the emotions that new mums are experiencing goes back to what you and I both are talking about so Peanut's just done a survey about I suppose what it means to become a mother and how it changes your the way you feel about yourself

and about the invisibility that can come with that term yeah and some of the findings well I would say none of the findings surprised me, but they still made me feel sad anyway. I think the one that was the most startling to me is that 93% of the women you spoke to said that becoming a mother made them feel minimised to just that one word, mother. That's a pretty big deal, and that's nearly 100% of people feeling like that when they become a parent, which is startling, isn't it?

It's kind of goosebumps, right? How many times do you meet another woman, and she's actually an incredible woman, but she goes in your phone as, you know, so-and-so's mom, Seb's mom, or whatever it might be. And I still have brilliant women who are in my life who are in my phone as so-and-so's mom. And at the time that you do it you know you're in that mode and that's just what you're doing but actually um that same brilliant woman is also multifaceted and there's so much more about her and um it is minimizing that you do just then become this kind of woman who has a little person on their hip and a rucksack on your back and that all of a sudden everything else that you are and you contribute is completely gone and

I think that is for me when you know we always knew that there were conversations like this happening on peanut and we can see it but um there was a lot around that feeling of being invisible. And, you know, that might be, as I was saying to you, like, have it all. I think it's 94% of women were saying that they feel this pressure to have it all. But as we just said, what do you mean have it all? So there is just this notwithstanding that we're having conversations about womanhood in a very, very different way to we were when I launched Peanut seven years ago things have dramatically changed and there's been so much progress the fact that some of the findings I kind of saw the the results of the survey and I was like actually we haven't changed at all yeah we might be legitimizing some of the conversations but

ultimately the feelings that women have haven't really changed because we haven't changed like infrastructures and societally we expect so much of women now right we are expected to contribute to the economy in a way we never have been before it's never been factored in our um fiscal um investment in the economy has never been factored in before but it is now but that's on top of the fact that we're in a country where we don't have adequate child care so we're now saying contribute to the economy but sorry you need child care or you have to figure that out the cost of child care is astronomical it's prohibitive for most women and most families we don't have any structure in place so we have the expectation we don't have any structure in place so we have

the expectation we don't have the societal structure for it and that's just about motherhood by the way that can equally apply to anyone who is going through fertility challenges and their own fertility journey no support there no you know structural support around them but by the way go and have you know multiple rounds of IVF oh sorry you can't fund it sorry about that you know it's it's so broken that we expect so much of women and we have no um infrastructure that has developed at the same pace um it's no wonder that women feel unseen I think and mothers feel unseen I agree and I was wondering for you so now how many people use peanut what's the three and a half million a month so that's a huge amount of people women using the that community so when you start off and you're just building it and your

first thing is about connection getting as you say these walled gardens where women can find a safe way to speak very transparently about everything they're going through but then you start doing things like building information about where we're at where women are at and you do things like the survey on invisibility and you think right how can I make that better so I think there's some brilliant things that peanut doing about advising a change in conversation starters with women how you might speak to new mothers how we would change subtleties and the questions that are being asked just to make it so that you actually draw out the answers that matter rather than just a sort of blanket I'm fine thanks

reframing how we approach women and the conversations that we have with them so that it's not about um challenge or failure so much of the language that we've always had around us is cloaked in this language of failure and you're kind you don't even almost notice it um and we were talking about it earlier you just kind of you feel the knock someone says something to you you feel it you feel a bit resentful, but you move on. It happens again and it happens again. And all that that does is reinforce this message that you're not so important, mum. Or mum, you know, this is what we expect of you.

And it just reinforces those messages. So by just changing how we speak to mothers and women at large will have a huge impact on the response that you get. It's like that really old Harvard Business School review where women and men go for investment and men are asked open questions. What's your vision? And women are asked closed questions. The size of the market is X. How much of that market will you own? Closed question. What's your vision?

Open question. And so women can never really talk about the true potential of their business and men obviously can. So it's that, but in a different context around my life and asking these questions that make me feel small when actually the answer could be so big um so it it's an unconscious bias that exists and you know you don't know about it

until you're living it but it's there and it's such a small subtle change i do it too by the way because you're so like ensconced in it. Yeah, completely. We all do it. All the time. And you catch yourself and you're like, oh, did I just say that? Yeah. Or my brain making judgments or, you know, responding to filling in gaps with the stereotype of what I think people, how I think people live, what I think they've achieved, how well I think they're coping with stuff. Absolutely. I definitely do it. Absolutely. And that actually is a really good one.

Oh, well, she looks great. She looks great. Baby looks great. Everything must be fine. Versus, you know, the woman who inside is absolutely having a meltdown and can't even talk about it because failure. Yeah. Because, again, she wouldn't have hit the standard that she's meant to have reached.

So we are all guilty of it because we've just been surrounded by nothing else. And it's such a small change that we'll change it. Own each step with Peloton. From their pop runs to walk and talks, you define what it means to be a runner. Whatever your level, embrace it. Journey starts when you say so. If you've got five minutes or 50,

Peloton Tread has workouts you can work in. Or bring your classes with you for outdoor runs, walks and hikes led by expert instructors on the Peloton app. Call yourself a runner. Peloton all access membership separate. Learn more at onepeloton.ca slash running. But with that, I would imagine that sometimes with something like Peanut, you start it because you've just got this passion. I feel like this is something that I need. This is about my transition to seeing myself as a mother, but also wanting to do my work. And how can I make these

things come together in something that actually has got a fuel to it yeah but then when you get to the point where you've got so many millions of voices that are part of this community does it make you start seeing like oh hang on a minute there's all these other places I could take this like I am so like honestly honestly, it's such a weird, peanut has been the most beautiful, amazing thing that's ever happened to me. And it's been the hardest thing I've ever done and the most amazing thing. And honestly, I feel like it's my life's work. And that sounds corny, but it's the greatest honor of my life

to build something that makes women's lives just a tiny bit better. And so what started, honestly, is something where I just thought it would be great to find some friends. I can use the algorithms we use for dating. I won't have to use a Facebook group. We can build something a bit better and more intelligent than that. And I really hadn't thought beyond that. From a brand perspective, I felt like I do want the brand to be ballsy and I want us to say things that other brands don't say.

And I was a bit bored. There was a rhetoric at the time of either you were, you know, pristine Pinterest, Instagram vibes mum, or you were slummy, tracksuit, hair scraper. And it was like almost like a caricature and I don't feel like any of those I just felt like wasn't even sure who I was and so I really wanted the brand to be irreverent and um talk about women we were all talking about the baby a lot what about the woman and so I was clear on those things but further than that I hadn't really anticipated anything else and I suppose what we saw well of course these amazing beautiful moments

where women meet and they find each other and they get that support and that is incredible but we also saw these women who were in very dark moments or their lowest ebbs um and but for peanut where did they go and that became everything because as soon as you see that but for us they were alone or like i'm gonna get emotional um but they they were having those moments as soon as you feel that all you can think about is well this isn't a us issue or a uk issue this is a global issue goes beyond doesn't this is so much more than and this isn't just women who are new mums or pregnant this is women who have these seismic life moments and we do not we kind of just leave them don't talk about it it's embarrassing or you know that's one of those things we don't talk about. Leave the mystery, classic.

That's my mum. You know, things like that, that actually we needed more and we deserved more. Even around, like, the topic of menopause, I know nothing about it or I knew nothing about it until we launched it for Peanut. And yet it's a biological certainty. If you menstruate, you are going to go through menopause well as soon as you know that and that you get no education on it no one ever nothing i remember it being like a cliff i was going to fall off about 15 years ago i was like why doesn't anybody talk about that next bit now i feel obviously there's loads of conversation right but that's recent

that's so that's like in the past what year yeah yeah no one was talking about it and I was like this is so weird because women on peanut were and they were having these like hushed conversations around I can't remember things or I've got night sweats or whatever it might be and I was like this is crazy it's like a repressive element to society that we we told women don't talk about that bit no one wants to know well you see that's where you start getting into things like i mean we have the worst gender health gap in the uk out of all of europe in terms of funding that goes into women's health issues and men's so you get these cultural reasons why a woman might go to visit her gp and talk about the

the symptoms but it's just kind of a sorry this is just where you're at you can go home now yep that's the menopause bye and I think even that even happened to my own mother where she had to suddenly get to the door turn around and go actually no actually that's not it I'm not just settling that that's this is what's happened to me now but you know not everybody's going to turn around when they get to the door and walk back in again. And that is the problem for menopause. It's the problem for postpartum depression. It's the problem for depression related to fertility or fertile health. Like, these are issues that transcend womanhood.

And so to answer your question, did I think that it would become bigger or did I know? I had no expectation, but now there's just so much more. So what does that make you want to do? Like where do you... I mean, world domination? I'm sure you've thought about it. It's like, it is an obsession. I am obsessed with it.

I think about things all the time. I think about things that I see in popular culture and I think about what we can do I have friends now who are going through separations and divorce and where do they go and how do they find support there are women who are going through kind of critical health issues breast cancers or female cancers where do they go there's so much around kind of a specific, unique journey of womanhood. And some of it is to be celebrated. It's not bleak.

It's amazing being a woman. I love being a woman. It's about helping women feel supported and be educated and able to find resource and connection. And for me, that's a global issue. So the bigger vision for Peanut is, of course, that this should be's a global issue so the bigger vision for peanut is of course that this should be on a global reach because i want every woman to feel that she can connect with another um life is so much better how much better do you feel when you have one conversation

with another woman and she tells you something else or distracts you or confirms that it's going to pass or even just listens that's huge it's my therapy i think it's it's going to pass, or even just listens. Oh, it's huge. It's my therapy, I think. It's therapy. And so that, on a global stage, is what we all need. And I feel really strongly about that. Well, I think it's, obviously we're speaking now from the standing point of peanut being so successful, but you've also said it was one of the hardest things.

So when you first become a mum when you were saying you didn't feel like you fit into any of the stereotypes you had to sort of find your way I would imagine there's a similar journey when you're CEO of something because there's a sort of version in your head of what that might look like and then there's you doing it and how that works for you yeah but what are your memories of I suppose the lonely bit at the beginning when you had this fire in your belly but you've got to keep everybody passionate about what you're building yeah it's it's really funny because I'm going to say this and then I'll sound like I'm the loneliest girl in the world and

that's not true but um starting the business was also lonely because you go from um I was running someone else's company and it was huge and successful and you walk into an office and there's 150 people and ultimately there's resource they'll help you uh there were people to do things and all of a sudden I was the people to do everything and it's super like on a honest level humbling like I want to like get the word out about peanut I was dragging my kid in a peanut sweatshirt to a baby rave in Camden with foam fingers like getting people to download peanut and there were no people I was the people um so from that perspective you know you just do everything because also you have to show your team your tiny team at the time that you believe so

much you're willing to do whatever it takes yeah you can't ask them to do things if you wouldn't be if I wasn't gonna do it so I have to be there and I have to be the one doing it um and that just demands like huge sacrifice and making difficult decisions and being the friend who isn't at the birthday dinner for you know someone or cancelling the weekend away because you actually can't afford it now because you're trying to build a business and you have to fund it or whatever it might be so um huge sacrifice very humbling um but again isn't it a good job it's something that I just cared about so much and I really also at the time I just really felt like if I don't do it who else is going to do it and if they someone else does it they I just really felt like, if I don't do it, who else is going to do it? And if someone else does it, they're not going to do it like I want to do it,

like I have to do this. That journey has evolved, having to go in and fundraise for the business from people who just didn't recognise the issues I was talking about. You know, we didn't even have a conversation around women founders or female founders at that time, let alone a business that was only for women. Well, I was going to ask you about that. I mean, how was that landscape? Oh, I mean, just every single room that you walked into was pale male and stale. And, you know, you just walk in and you're like,

hi, so I've got this concept and I'm going to build it and it's just for women. And, you know, there was a shutdown or it was a let me ask my daughter, assistant, whatever. And ultimately, really all it took were some of the gems and they are out there. But you just need to talk about the fact that this is we're 50 percent of the population. Actually, we're responsible of the population actually we're responsible for the majority of decisions on household spend that's worth trillions of dollars a year and you're going to minimize this and say that oh yeah but you can use that forum that was created in you know 2007 no there's more and and shame on you for missing this business opportunity

because this is a big business so um that had to perfect over time it still hasn't got any easier quite frankly that conversation still goes on I think I read an article today which said that even in femtech which didn't exist when I was doing peanut but femtech um you have more success as a male founder building a femtech business than as a female founder imagine how depressing that is we still believe that men can solve women's issues better than women can and we're prepared to put money behind that so I feel so many battles I would like to fight I'll start with the peanut battles but um fundraising and having more visibility of women who are building brilliant

companies and showcasing women and allowing women to make mistakes I know this for there but I talk about it with one of my friends all the time like women we're never allowed to f up ever yeah ever like it's just not you and if you do it's like oh she yeah she failed like we just don't get that opportunity at all we just don't know how to wear it if it does happen absolutely and and you know actually it's only through failure that you get great success anyway like if I speak to an engineer and I say to him oh I don't want to get something wrong they're like that's how they get to the right answer so um there's so many challenges around kind of getting more women to start business so that we see more women ceos so that we do see that kind of change

and i think it was something like we're 100 years away from gender parity in the workplace 100 years in our lifetime we won't see it depressing but we can make we can make strides well also i guess we get there by the you know the rungs of the ladder that being put in place now right it has to start it has to start exactly journey exactly i mean yeah it's it's not even been that long since we got the vote like it's everything is quite recent history actually you forget yeah you forget how recent this stuff is you know if you think about the fact that a woman couldn't open a bank account uh without her husband saying that she

could and that was only the 40s right so it's actually women going to work and how that was regarded yeah so so things have changed so dramatically um in terms of the conversation I don't even think we realize um But there's so much more to do. And full circle, that's probably why the Invisible Mothers survey, I was surprised but not surprised. Yeah, that's how I felt too. Partly surprised because I'm like, God, but I thought we were doing so well. I thought so much had changed, so much had improved.

But fundamentally, not really, because we haven't got the structure. No, and so much of it it's hard to unpick what bits are cultural which bits are you know um economic like you said it's so much is in the the structure of how what women have been encouraged to expect but now I find myself raising my sons in a world where I feel like actually there's a lot of celebration of femininity and womanhood and I wonder what's it like for my sons to navigate that because they're surrounded by women having these conversations actually I mean they hear it from me like all the time yeah and can I can I say that is I totally get that and I remember when

Finn was maybe four and I walked into the local bookshop and it was all these amazing books about amazing women in history. And I was like, God, I went and bought loads of them for him. Yeah, I did the same thing. Women in science. Exactly.

Here we go, Sonny. Exactly. Come on, this is great. And bless him, he's got them upstairs. And like, you know, that for me was a really important moment and um I kind of just over dinner that night said to one of my girlfriends um do you think we should need to like have some like amazing men in science too and she was like oh Michelle come on that's every textbook and I was like sure but when I walk into the bookshop and unless he sees anyone can do anything,

not just women can do anything, men can do anything, anyone can do anything. I don't know if like that's helping the message. So we had a long debate about it and I, you know, I still don't know. And then actually it's the people who dare to be different. They changed it. So they didn't just have girls or boys who dare to be different. It the people who dare to be different they changed it so they didn't just have girls or boys who dare to be different it was people who dare to be different and for me I was like yeah that's that's the point right because you want to get to a place where it's not even a question yeah I think that's it that's about actually I totally agree with you

and I do think a lot of the it's hard probably for our little sons to understand that the reason where there's so much going on to bring out all these female names from history is because for a long time they were buried correct and actually this is only really settling the score it's not dominating in reality it's exactly all we're trying to do is just get them in exactly get them a seat at the table you know those voice in those names and who's doing what exactly and I think that you're right for for a small person you're like oh right so it's uh you know that's something that only women do for example I remember a conversation with Finn when he was much younger and he had read I don't know which book it was um it was probably the Marie Curie one which was very cute and he was

like oh no but women do that that's it oh that's what girls do and I was like no no that's not the message from that book yeah boys it's fine you can take the rest of the decade off we got this we all do it so you know then I can understand why it is confusing um but you know even the fact that we're obsessed over having the conversation how different yeah so different to how I grew up like so different yeah very but I know it really is and for me too um I mean I'm a little bit older than you did you turn 40 this year yeah okay cool I'm 44 so yeah it's definitely like our childhood would have been a very different landscape. Totally different.

And just for people listening, what's your sort of professional journey into actually getting to the point where you could start something like Peanuts? So I've had a weird one. So I started life as a lawyer. I basically, growing up, I had very hard-working parents who were like you have to get to university university was like the absolute obsession in our house like that was the only thing that you needed to do get to university because you know my dad got up at four every day and went to the building site and it was too you know the last thing you would want

was for your daughter to do. That was the mentality. So it was very much around, like, get a professional job. And I always remember my dad always had this narrative of, like, how amazing would it be to put a suit on every day for work? Like, he used to really, like, think that that was... Like the mark of success. Success.

Imagine putting a suit on every day for work. You know, I kind of love that as I sit in my jeans. that was like the mark of success success imagine putting a suit on every day for work you know I I kind of love that as I sit in my jeans but that was really his um obsession and my mum like very very just driven person she's an amazing woman um so it was very much around get a professional career I became a corporate lawyer M&A um I don't know if I was particularly good lawyer if I'm honest I was very again this is very time stamping but I was very obsessed with Ali McBeal when I was a kid I really thought being a lawyer was going to be like Ali McBeal um which it isn't for anyone who wonders not at all like that no doubt it's

responsible for a lot of people looking into the women, well maybe I'll be a lawyer. I really thought that that's what it was going to be like. So I worked in private practice and then I went to work in-house for a client I was working for and then from there one of the lawyers I used to work for called me and said, look there's this guy and he's got a dating website and he needs a lawyer. Would you like to go and meet him? And at the time, I mean, dating online was not like it is now. Dating online was like people would go on breakfast TV

and be like, and we met online. And, you know, you could see the presenters would be horrified. It was that kind of era. And I met him and this platform was insane it had 54 million users and I'd never heard of it it was called Badoo and I just couldn't believe it and I walked into this environment of 20 young guys with headphones on drinking Red Bull and writing code and I was like what is this I this? I'd never seen anything like it. Facebook also was just really kind of at the start

of getting traction here. They'd just opened an office, I think. And, you know, there I am. I remember so clearly, you walked into the kitchen and they had like free food, free junk food. And I was like, wow, where have I found myself? What is this? This is a bit like cans of Diet Coke

and snacks on this grubby counter in this office in Soho. And I was like, I mean, this is magical. No suits were being worn. Sorry, Dad. And so I kind of just became, I'm nosy, so I just became obsessed with what they were doing. And I joined, and that was really, it changed my life, I think. I became obsessed with tech and what we were building and connecting people.

Very unusually for a social network at the time, social network dating at the time, we were profitable. So there was Facebook. They hadn't even figured out how to monetize and we were profitable so we were growing at this tremendous rate and that is a really exciting it was amazing it was amazing and you know we moved offices and we upscaled and you know to be there for that whole journey of seeing it it was thrilling and And then Tinder came out. And it totally changed everything. Because we had that game of ticking or crossing someone. Yeah.

And they made an entire app out of it. Well, we were still doing the migration from web to mobile. So we weren't even doing like native builds. Right. And people were talking about it. And more than that, my friends were talking about it down the pub on a Friday night. And it had gone from being like, ooh, Michelle works in dating to, oh, yeah, cool. Like, Michelle works in dating too.

You know, and it became like quite a buzzy pride thing, but not for us because we were like, oh, God. They're taking something that we had been doing and they've made it. It looks stunning. I mean, it's hard to imagine now. But when Tinder came out the ui of that product was amazing I'd never seen anything like it the interface of swiping yeah so clever you were using that actually only in your camera roll that's where we were using now we just take it for granted and you just assume that that's part of so many apps right god that's amazing

so it was when we saw it, you were like, oh. You're like, hang on a minute. Yeah, this is what I would use as well. It's so good. Because also just the behavioral psychology of it, which was I don't know that you've passed on me. I only know when you've said yes and I've said yes. So there was the rejection element was kind of dealt with.

Yeah. And their marketing was insane like they were doing great things cool kids in sororities and frat houses in the us were using it so they totally blew things up and we had to up our game um and we tried a couple of things and then i mean the rest is kind of history but the one of the um team there was suing tinder for sex to scrim and we reached out to her and we were like let's build something together and we built what became bumbles so it was and that again that was exciting because now we've got a message behind the app that we're doing now it's not just about

you know find someone hot and hook up this is about and by the way women make the move first and so there was such a empowering moment to that that I suppose it was inevitable that I would feel empowered to then think I'm going to do this for me and a product that I need um but it was really scary and not at all the same because of course like doing a dating app within another dating app you've got the infrastructure there was me and I mean there were four of us for a very long time building peanut and um we we had some incredible moments at the start like insane things happen to us WWDC which is um for anyone who is a geek like me it's the worldwide developer conference so anyone who's really into apple um it's uh an apple conference and they talk about what's coming

out next in terms of innovation from um apple and they had the new app store so again don't know if you remember what the app store used to look like but it was kind of like tiles vaguely and then all of a sudden it was like and if you got app of the day it would look like but it was kind of like tiles vaguely and then all of a sudden it was like and if you got app of the day it would be like a little right a little like star around the thing well all of a sudden they made it full screen and app of the day was like you got the full screen of the app store and peanut was the first app of the day on the new app store huge and we were sitting around my kitchen table like watching everyone in um cuppatino like oh my god it's amazing um so we had some amazing things when we would you know

the reality of who we were were four people but you need those fires don't you just like give you that like okay we're on to something exactly something is happening here and that's the point right the fact that apple even cared about yeah we were still so small even in terms of user base i think we probably had 50,000 users but the fact that apple were excited about what we were doing because they wanted to talk about motherhood and it endorses your product and the credibility that comes with it and all those things that was massive like apple want to talk about motherhood well hang on there must be a conversation shift because this is yeah this is something that feels really exciting so that was the start so with all that you're growing this you've taken this big punt on yourself really yeah i'm gonna do this yeah i'm gonna give it

everything but you've also got finn must have been really small and yeah so how are you how are you sort of dealing with the demands of that business and also giving yourself what you need in terms of i don't know allowing yourself whatever the mothering is going to be within that because that's a big juggle in your head. I hate the word juggle sometimes, but... It was chaos in my head. You've got to give yourself a lot of permission. Yeah, it was chaos in my head, actually, a lot of the time. And the guilt that you feel because I was going to the States once a month.

Peanut was really growing in the US. And so once a month I was leaving Finn with my husband and going off and coming back and that is a real you feel very weird like you're consciously doing it but you feel the guilt uh the face times the you know why do you have to go to New York I've got this video I used to watch it on repeat crying um and so you are constantly feeling torn. But I am majorly fortunate. I have an amazing partner and he's super involved. And I could never have done it without him.

Like never. Because he is so hands on and because it was never a question. It was just like, well, if you're doing this, then I'm going to do the rest. And I had my mum to a certain extent, although less errors at that point. But I have to also just say, because I think that people never say it, and it's really important, I was so fortunate. I could get childcare and I could resource. Where you have no optionality to get resource,

you are so limited in what you can do and I don't think women ever really talk about the fact that yeah I if I can get someone to come in and clean my house that means that I've got an extra hour with Finn or whatever it might be like yes I did do those things and I made those decisions because I was so privileged I could do it. And again, it's back to that myth of you can have it all. You can have whatever you want if you can resource your life, right? That's true. I suppose the reason sometimes the conversation doesn't come up is because sometimes we all do what we can within the options we have. Yes.

And sometimes it can be a distraction away from the bit that actually can bring people together in terms of how they're feeling about things um you know if you're you can't afford child care but you're lucky enough to have um a family member that helps you yes that's a different set of things the person who hasn't got a family member and also can't afford it absolutely or if you can afford the child care but you're you haven't got any support from your family you know it's sometimes it can pull the conversation it's definitely worth having but I think sometimes it can pull the focus

I hear that other things I just think that if you are in a situation where you don't have um the access that you would like there is a rhetoric of but they're doing it I must be yeah a failure a failure yeah and you are not a failure you just like that that's the reality everyone is trying to adequately like support their lives so I could never have done peanut without my husband and his constant involvement and stability whilst I was in the US but he put Finn to bed every night right I could never have done that without him um and um I could make sure that we had someone who could pick Finn up from school when you know Richard is working it's not like he doesn't work but I could have someone who could pick Finn up from school and take him rich is working it's not like he doesn't work but i could have someone who could pick fin up from school and take him home yeah and i think that was really important

because i work away a lot and i think for me that keeping their my kids lives consistent and keeping people in their lives that they can rely on when i have to you know go off and do what i'm doing is massively reassuring on all levels they want that kids want that yeah you want that you want to know that you're not disrupting their life like you're but but ultimately I suppose in my head I always had this thing of um I'm doing it for Finn too and because I want like an amazing opportunity and I believe in the opportunity and I want him to see that I work and I want him to see that if you see something you can be the person who will build something and you will take that risk like Finn is so cute and so proud of Peanut I don't even think he really fully

understands what Peanut is but it's about women and it's Peanut and it's mummy and he's like really because he's grown up with it and he just it's part of him now they'll both have it absolutely around them all the time yeah yeah and funnily it was partly named after him right yeah when i was pregnant and i read that he was like the size of a peanut so everyone in the office at the time called him peanut but it's a nice analogy because he grows and so does Peanut. I love that. So true. And he, you know, the messages that children get from what we do

and how we work, they're little sponges and they're soaking it up and they're seeing it. And also the fact that he saw that Daddy was there every night and put him to bed, that's a big message too. Definitely. saw that daddy was there every night and put him to bed that was that's a big message too definitely the fact that um you know daddy would I don't know make tea and it's not always just mummy that does it like that's big messages too I agree well they learn more by what they see them say anyway so and I think so when I go away for work and I feel like that's a velcro thing of like

I'm sorry kids I have to go away again I call it heavy boots I feel like that sort of Velcro thing of like, I'm sorry kids, I have to go away again. I call it heavy boots. I feel like I'm wearing almost like heavy boots to the airport. I have to kind of like try and shrug it off a little bit. But when you're going because it's something that has got momentum and you're caring about it and it's all going somewhere, it's a lot easier because you believe in what you're doing. But what's the story you tell yourself at the beginning bit

where it's still the real, like, hard, hard graft? I mean, even now, like, firstly, the pressure on each trip is so huge because in my head I'm positioning it as I have to make it worth it. It has to be worth leaving my kids. Yeah, I hear that too. And that's a horrible feeling because if the trip doesn't bring everything you wanted it to bring, I kind of have this irrational wasn't worth it I left my kids and I wasn't there for a whole week and it wasn't even worth it well you know that's never

the case and something good always you know can come or something will come. But in those early days, I mean, it was really awful. I used to cry so much. With Nuala, we were in lockdown, right? So she was, I forget how old she was in lockdown, but maybe only six months. Yeah, well, she's a bit younger than Mickey, but they're born, so she's born 2019, is that right? Yeah.

Yeah, so when lockdown started for him he was like 14 months i guess she would have been yeah about sort of eight months eight months exactly right yeah and so we she was so little and all of a sudden you're grounded you can't go and do those trips anymore so you know she actually her perception of life is that mummy sits behind a desk and is always here and mummy sits behind a desk and is always here and daddy sits behind a desk and is always here like that's her life and Finley sits behind the desk and is always here so her little world was very much around kind of that experience that first trip that I did post lockdown leaving her was very hard because she was then probably harder for me actually

she's very independent so she just it's not it's not as emotional as I am um so it was probably harder for me than it was for her but that was a tricky one for sure yeah no I think um I think what you said about the childcare thing is actually really important because I think we you're right about that the support you have around you and the options you have and I think having a supportive partner is huge because someone who just goes yeah you go off and do the thing you need to do and believe in you because there's so many times when being your own cheerleader gets um can make you really weary it's so like whatever you do and whatever choice that you've made or are able to make or have the freedom to make in terms of you and your wishes and your career, it's virtually

impossible to do that. It's virtually impossible because there are so many moments of challenge, there are so many moments of self-doubt and uh where you don't get the answer that you want imagine doing that without someone who is either dealing with other stuff mental load or um telling you that you've got this or whatever it might be and actually again it's like in the in the survey and the women who were talking about that mental load where you know you're in a meeting but you're also thinking did I put the washing machine on and um oh I think I forgot to defrost something for tea and oh hang on also I forgot to say that he needed a sports kit whatever it is that mental load is enormous like and the and the guilt that comes with it if you forget something

is you know I think that might be the next thing to try and dismantle isn't it and the guilt that comes with it if you forget something is you know I think that might be the next thing to try and dismantle isn't it making the fact that that onus of all of that falls so often to mothers it it is it is something that we have you know it has to be shared and we have to be um happy to share it but we also have to be very conscious of the fact that um my husband's reaction to not doing something like that and my reaction are two totally different things I will think about that all day yeah me too and I almost guarantee that rich won't think about it again that's so yeah the same same dynamic in my house because Because of the guilt, because of the... Right back to the start of our conversation,

because of the objective and the goal that we didn't hit, because we're very focused on delivering objectives and hitting our goals and we didn't hit the goal. Yeah, it's a problem, isn't it? So impossible to do it. But actually the reaction that your rich and my richard would have turns out to be just as valid because uh the worrying and obsessing and beating myself up didn't yeah doesn't change and also the world still turns if it was a rainy day and you

sent them to school without you know it doesn't or gloves or something it doesn't change like then it's going to be okay the next day is going to be fine and you know it's it or gloves or something it doesn't change like then it's going to be okay the next day is going to be fine and you know it's it's not going to change the the result of it it's just fine um but it's very hard to be like that where we have these incredibly high standards for ourselves yes yes but i think conversation and transparency and letting people in on all the twists and turns, the successes, the vulnerabilities, the worries, the failures, all of it, it can only help, can't it? I think honest and authentic conversation is so important. I did a talk a few weeks ago and someone said to me, thanks so much for being so honest. And she almost said it like I felt like she was surprised

by the honesty I is how I took the comment um but if I can't be honest about it who the hell is going to be honest about it if I don't stand there and say do you know what it absolutely sucked that we didn't raise investment from that particular investor at that point. And two years later, they invested in a guy doing something similar, but for erectile dysfunction, for example, right? So I have to be honest about these things because I can use a platform to do so. And because I want every other woman to stop feeling like it's her. It's not her. Like, we're all, like like it happens to all of us even

if we're not talking about it um and I suppose that is the beauty of peanut where women go on I mean it's warts and all you know everyone's talking about everything there's nothing too gross there's nothing too graphic there's nothing too honest on peanut because it's just us do you think with something like peanut it works the same as a career and something risky like uh for example music where it basically you have to have sort of no plan b you have to have right this is a really interesting one because actually there's this there's a founder that i know um and she very infamously said this there is no plan b you have to have plan a but when i started peanut i had to have plan a b c d e f because i had a mortgage and a little person and

responsibilities and i i just had to have backup plans i couldn't and I don't know whether that again the lawyer in me where you just don't have um you're just thinking about the risk and so I definitely had to have I had to stay on the board of a couple of the companies to pay for my bills I'd saved up a lot of my bonuses were a thing at the time well um I taped up bonuses um in order to kind of fund the first six months of payroll like all of those things are like I had so many different plans because um not because I didn't want peanut to be the plan a but because plan a had to be keep finn alive with a roof over his head and fed and so I think I I think it's different but you did music before children I did and also I think um I haven't got any

qualifications really so I think I'd left myself um not so many options of obvious things I would do but obviously in reality if music isn't paying your bills then you find other things to do I have had that experience where I was like no I haven't got a record deal what am I going to do so there is there is contingencies really because you have to yeah you have to move on to the next thing you have I think it's more like an emotional feeling really yeah that's always going to be the thing that you feel you're trying to get back into that all the time yeah that is default like where you want to be but I mean I think had I not have done my very like rational and if if not that then this and if not that then this I think I

would never have taken the leap yeah well that's actually I think that's a really good thing to hear because I think you feel there's a lot of conversation at the moment around successful people with people almost trying to work out what what you have to have in order to to make that work for you but actually um however it looks for you could be the path that's right for you and works I honestly there is very little point in trying to emulate the route that someone else has because you'll never have the same driver that they had or you'll never have had that one pivotal moment that they themselves probably don't even realize was the thing that made them do it like it's so not a recipe for things I heard something the other

day which was like the thing that's different between successful people and not is how they manage their time. And, you know, it's all just not the case, right? We're all just trying to work out how to get there and what to do. Exactly. And most of the time, no one feels successful. Yeah. Yeah. So true.

And even if it's a bit Jacob's Lad's ladder there's always the next bit the next bit the next literally and you have that one moment where you're like wow and then you don't feel like then you feel like crap again the next day and you know that level of like insecurity and self-doubt is probably the thing that keeps you going yeah honestly in that very weird way i know it's funny that isn't it yeah but that is probably true but then again I guess like you've from the conversations happening on peanut you've probably taken a lot of personal reassurance out of the things you hear and people what people share there it's so honestly I I'm gonna be the most obscure user of peanut, right? Because no one uses as much as I do.

No one's in there as much as me. Kind of checking in on what the conversation is and what women are talking about. And there's stuff that is, it could be any day of the week, any time of the day, and it will still be there, that type of conversation.

And then there's new stuff that you start to see and you're like, I haven't seen anyone talking about this before. And so it is that kind of social barometer of issues that are important to women and you see it you know I very clearly I can see um what women are talking about and I think that that is um well I suppose it's just the driver because then it's my job to like make sure that everyone knows what they're talking about to see if we can make things a bit better well I think that's a the biggest incentive you could possibly have is about making lives that bit better than and leaving leaving things a little bit better than you found it and it all kind of goes what keeps going around in my head is about that you know

the adage about it takes a village it feels like all of these things are about that community around you community around big life changes mother new motherhood starting a business has its own village and then obviously what you've created in peanut is this huge village it's all about a village right because we don't also like think about how we grew up or how our parents grew up we that's not how we live anymore like we don't live where we grew up necessarily and you know you don't live next door to your sister around the corner from your mum like we move for so many different reasons and when you move you're all of a sudden you're in a very small tight insular kind of environment as it goes my

environment growing up was very small like my my where I grew up is not where my mum and dad were from and so it was just the three of us and it was very insular in that way but that is not the way we used to raise kids it's not the way we actually used to build family life at all um on the street one kid was everyone's kid that's how we grew up and that has really changed and so the way in which we can use tech or or any other method actually but for for me tech to recreate that I think it's important yeah really important and it's a final question I wonder do you ever think about what Nuala might be how peanut might look when she's old enough to be using it oh yeah I mean that I have so many things

that I wish for I want to have a part of peanut where young women can go on there and talk about body issues their first periods um a little bit older than that women young girls who are thinking about you know relationships and those first like moments and the agony of it the agony of that god that would be such a big change it would be such a huge change because think about what they're greeted with at the moment think about young girls on tiktok and instagram and what they're presented with it's so damaging i'm so terrified of that also all the stuff you don't share with your girlfriends when you're young because you don't want them to know what you're really worried about or scared about exactly but you could put it there you can

share it and you can be in a safe environment so I would I would love that and I think about that as a teenager right that would have been so. Even just bullying and self-esteem and those moments of, you know, not fitting in or not being the cool girl or whatever it is. You know. Academic pressure. There's so many things. So many. So that's, I hope we've got that by the time noon.

I think that's enough in itself. Well, I wish you all the best with that. Thank you so much. I think it's super exciting. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Hey. So, yes, Michelle and her brilliant online community, Peanuts,

and I love the idea of it expanding into space for teenage girls because, oh, my goodness, wouldn't that have been such a good resource? I would have loved that. I mean, is there ever a time that you feel more discombobulated and potentially more I don't know alone in your worries about if what you're feeling is normal than being a flipping teenager no there is not so yes I think that's much needed. I'm still walking home. I'm sorry it's still a bit windy. I'm walking past a big dog park. I think my legs aren't moving very fast today. What's on my mind? I've got a few things on my mind actually. I'm thinking about all the guests I've got. I've been speaking to four women simultaneously today about when to record podcasts with them. So I've got to make sure I've got good times in the diary and I get it all fitted in and it's all peachy. And then also thinking about what do I wear for the BAFTAs.

I'm performing, sorry, crossing the road. I'm performing Murder on the Dance Floor at the BAFTAs, and I need to work out what I'm going to wear. And the nice thing about that is that... Sorry, I'm overtaking a scooter. The nice thing about that is I can basically take it as far as I like. So I'm like, oh, let's have opulence. I've got loads of dancers.

Yeah, I just want to wear something fabulous. Did I speak to you about that last week? If I did, sorry for repeating myself. It's just, I'm still choosing basically. It's kind of lovely though. It's like being in like, it's like being in a really fancy patisserie where they suddenly show you all the really lovely cakes. You're like, oh, I wanted a sweet treat and I've got access to all these lovely cakes that's me with looking at frogs for baftas all these lovely creations and i've got a few more bits of travel coming up this week uh but all good though and you know god it's boring isn't it people talk about being busy everybody's busy and i've got less sun i don't feel less busy actually i think i think you just kind of i've

got the brain space that deals with like stuff i need to deal with and it just fits to capacity wherever i need to pop in there so that's it basically I always feel the same level of in control and completely overwhelmed. Anyway, thanks for joining me again. Sorry for the rambly chat. I think it's because you're walking me home. But that's quite nice, actually. Thanks for keeping me company. And have a lovely, lovely week.

And next week, I have the final guest of the series uh Trini Woodall will be my guest on spinning plates next week we had a brilliant chat for another another CEO as it happens another businesswoman but oh just such an interesting woman anyway more on that later uh thanks to Michelle for talking to me for this week thank Thank you to producer Claire for all her amazing production. Thanks to Richard for editing, to Ella May for the beautiful artwork. And of course, mainly to you for lending me your ears. All right. Have a good week.

Speak to you soon. Much love. Bye-bye. you