The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - E20: Deliciously Ella - Blogging Saved My Life

Episode Date: June 18, 2018

What a chapter this is, I meet food writer and entrepreneur Ella Mills, more famously known under the brand Deliciously Ella. Ella tells her fascinating story, about how she fell very ill during university, battling with both her physical and mental health and describes how the blog she founded in 2012 not only launched her career, but saved her life.

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly, to Amazon Music, who when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And

thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. Ella tells her fascinating story about how a debilitating illness during university and a subsequent mental health battle led to her creating a blog in 2012 that not only launched her career, but potentially saved her life. Since then, she's launched some record-breaking books, products into supermarkets and shops across the UK. She's built an amazing personal brand and opened up several delis across London. I can't wait to share her story with you. She gives some incredible advice, which has honestly changed my perspective forever.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Deliciously Ella. Thank you so much for joining me. My pleasure. My team are all tremendously big fans of yours. We run a big food community, so the girls and guys in the office have been insisting that I sit down with you for some time now. Well, thank you for having me. And I know how busy you are, because you've got a book coming out soon. You're writing a book? Yeah, I'm finishing a book at the moment,

but yeah, we've got about 100 projects going on at the moment, so it is a bit manic, but it's good. It's craziness. What I want to do, because I always want to avoid asking the same sort of interview questions you're probably used to, and your story is out there, and it's a tremendous story at that, how you've managed to build this tremendously big brand around yourself, but that's become much more than yourself. I want to give you a little bit of a

challenge, and this is a challenge that I give virtually all of the guests that I speak to. I'm a bit nervous. I want to give you 30 seconds to try and explain your life story. And this is something that someone once did to me, and I found it really, really hard. But it was useful in hindsight because it helped me just hit the key milestones and things that are, in my mind, in retrospect, really important. OK. So are you up for it?

Yeah. OK, I've got my timer here. OK. So three, two, one, go. OK, I think the backstory is not super interesting one of four kids and I was always the unambitious one the one that no one ever really saw doing many things I always really played up to that and then I got very very unwell when I was at university my university time was brilliant it was all about having fun and I was never kind of pushing myself

I know people say what were you going to do I no idea. I don't know if anyone would have even employed me. And I got very unwell and I spent a while in hospital and I hit a real rock bottom about a year later. I really struggled with my mental health as well as my physical health. And I became interested in diet and nutrition and I started writing a blog. And I'm also a really introverted person as a kind of in my core. And so I started talking to people online and communicating. And from that, I started Delicious Ella. It's a complete accident and it's to kind of completely change my life. Through that I met my husband, we got married, we got dogs, started a business together all within 12 months and that's been the kind of real core of my life and when things started happening. Perfect, How am I doing my timing? You smashed it. 29.9 seconds.

Okay, I feel like there's a hundred things I can envision, but that's good. I'm happy about that. That was so good. So much to talk about there. One of the things that I picked up from learning more about your journey was your own perception that much of it was,

the word I think you used was luck and timing. And this is something that I've heard a lot from speaking to successful people. And it often breeds a bit of like imposter syndrome almost, because they look back and think, well, if I wasn't there at the right time doing that thing, then I wouldn't be here now. Do you have imposter syndrome? Yes, 100%. And it's been been interesting i feel like there have been a few kind of key moments where it's been really really strong you know to begin with not at all i was just sharing what i was doing people were tapping into it and it felt very small community led and then when my first book came out that was when things really exploded and so many copies

did you sell we've sold in the uk we've sold we've sold, I think, over 400,000 now. That's ridiculous. It was the best-selling debut cover. We've done over a million worldwide, 22 languages. I mean, it's absolutely nuts. I spent eight weeks, number one on Amazon. And I was really young, had no idea what I was doing, and suddenly I was kind of catapulted into this world,

and you were on the front page of the newspaper and in magazines and everyone started talking about you rather than to you which is a very strange thing to get used to and it wasn't something that I was looking for in my life either and you know I'd actually my my parents had been in the papers quite a lot as a kid and I hated it and so I wanted the polar opposite from my life so it was quite sort of a weird experience and that was my first kind of real feeling of imposter syndrome of being like well why why am I there why am I to the polar opposite from my life so it was quite sort of a weird experience and that was my first kind of real feeling of imposter syndrome of being like well why why am I there why am I on the front of this why are people talking to me why you I didn't really feel like I'd done anything to kind of earn my place to do that especially being so young and then as we started scaling up the

business the second time I really felt it deeply was that, you know, Matthew's my husband and my business partner. He was much more experienced than I was. And he said, you know, we've got to be the dumbest people in the room. Like we need to go out and hire people who have brilliant expertise and things that we don't have, which is 100 percent the right approach. And I think it's been a really big part of being able to get to where we are today but it was quite a strange thing as well because you know suddenly so that one of the first people we hired and god knows why he took the job was the head of innovation from innocent drinks so he's brilliant and suddenly he's so experienced and you know he helps scale up that company and you know he's absolutely amazing what he does and

suddenly you're sitting in the room with him and he you know he feels smarter than you and you know they're saying all these words and these things and i'm like what the hell is that and you're sitting in the room with him and he you know he feels smarter than you and you know they're saying all these words and these things and i'm like what the hell is that and you're like just keep quiet yeah completely and it's gone from being your company that you lead to suddenly you're googling under the table things to try and understand what on earth they're talking about and you kind of feel like quite an idiot and you sort of think, well, what's my place in this now? And it's taken me quite a long time to kind of separate what's imposter syndrome and what is genuinely timing and luck. Because I do believe in lots of success. Timing and luck is a big part of it.

I think for us, it's just that when I started writing to Shishiela, I did it because I was looking for the resource to change the way I ate and I couldn't find it. And as a result, other people were looking for it too. It was, you know, there's a round time like the horse meat scandal and people kind of what's in my food. And, you know, can I do something that's not a diet that's actually delicious that I really want to enjoy? And people, you know, kind of vegetarianism, veganism, plant-based eating was on the rise. So people were looking for this and it wasn't really that readily available and you know i went on instagram and started sharing it there and again that was the beginning of 2013 when instagram wasn't so big and so people looking for that kind of stuff found me much easier than they probably would now where there's so much choice 2013 yeah okay beginning of 2013 was that when i started on social media. So separating timing out in that sense, because 100% that played a part,

but also you taking advantage of that and building on that and creating on that and engaging on it and being so focused, that's not luck. And do you still feel a little bit of that imposter syndrome sometimes? Sometimes, definitely, definitely. But I think it's getting better, and I think the more that we've done, the more comfortable I feel with it, because I do now feel like, OK, well, we have done this and we have created that. And, you know, we've gone in 18 months, we've gone into five and a half thousand stores with 11 products. Like, I feel like I can be really proud of that and feel like I we as a collective and kind of led by me and my husband, like, we have done that. It sounds like the moments where you had, like, imposter syndrome the most

were actually moments where you were just taking yourself a little bit out of your comfort zone. Completely, massively, exactly. And I just couldn't quite figure out how I felt about things and where I sat. And, like, I think it's quite common for founders of things to kind of, as you get more and more people in, suddenly think, oh, my God, they're so much better at this and that, and they know all those systems.

And what do I bring to the table? And it's kind of going, keeping out of your comfort zone, but also kind of going back to the core of what is it that you bring to stuff that is helpful. I'm in the exact same position, so it's like music to my ears. And I remember feeling, especially when we we started feeling so intimidated to bring in smart people because I thought I might be exposed exactly and they're gonna say he's an idiot how much how much better do they make you look I know so it's like good teams like great teams make you look great teams are everything like I'm you know I really truly believe that and like you know I

always say to people like I know you know our company know, our company is called Delicio Della. It has my name in it. It is my face that appears far too often for people. But behind that, the reason that we're a success is the team and empowering that team to do what they do really well is everything. And no one is really good at everything. Like no one is brilliant at operations you know idea generation supply chain management marketing sales and no one has the capacity to do all of that as well and so I think recognizing that and trying to be comfortable with that is super important as well so what is it that you have then of all those components that's the biggest question isn't it what is it what is the bit that you think you know that's the bit that I bring to the table well I think what I came back to is the

fact that it's I guess it's the vision really to be honest it's it's none of the practical stuff I'd never had a job before delicious yellow I mean when I saw because I started it in the end of my second year at university and it's what I did full-time once I left and so I remember like when things really took off I was like god I need to get some help like I need to hire someone and I put out on our Instagram page you know please someone come and work with me and I just So I remember like when things really took off, I was like, God, I need to get some help. Like I need to hire someone. And I put out on my Instagram page, you know, please someone come and work with me. And I just remember sitting down with these girls and they were so lovely. And I didn't know what to ask them.

I was like, are you nice? Will you help me? Like, I don't know, what can you do? And I just, you know, I had no idea. But I think it has, it's always been that kind of vision. So I do all our new product development and I'll be in the kitchen coming up with ideas I try and you know I do all our social media on our community engagement events talks trying to get what we do across I oversee everything on the brand side of things so all the visuals the marketing side brand ambassadors and things like that but I don't manage that on a day-to-day basis and you worry then that as you get bigger and bigger and bigger

that specialness that got you here will be diluted because there are other people that are touching the brand yeah it's an interesting question that and sort of touch wood so far I think we've done a good job of it but I think that's also I'm like totally obsessive and so I still respond to every single person on our social media I do all our social media myself I reply to like 300 people or so on Instagram every day and I think things like that really help and I guess when you say like what can you bring that is it isn't it right like you can still be at the heart of the community because I'm going to be better at being Ella than someone else is going to be likewise someone who's worked in operations for 10 years is going to be. Whereas someone who's worked in operations for 10 years is going to be better at operations than me,

who's never worked in it. Say I'm a second-year student, and it's 2018, and my name is Ella. Okay. And I don't have the millions of followers. Yeah. Starting today, if you were me, what would you do to build a big personal brand around a point of interest, whatever that might be?

I mean, I do think social media is phenomenal for it. I mean, I think our generation is so lucky. I mean, up until a month ago, we had no one on our marketing team. But no social media, anything. I still did all of that. We hired a head of marketing a month month ago which was a brilliant thing now but up until that point all of our marketing all our communication was direct to our audience and it's like fully you know I see us as a community not a brand and that has been a completely free way of doing something and you know we see our sales and shops and we're out

selling people who are spending millions on their marketing and I do think that that real deep engagement with people is really really interesting. How do you do that? Well it's an interesting question I think the most honestly I think the most important thing is is being personal but in that you have to decide how much you're willing to share because I think that's important as well because people want to see so much now you know they want to see everything that happens in your life and for me that's not something I'm comfortable with. Like, I have to have a boundary between kind of being delicious yellow and being Ella. And whilst the two aren't any different,

like, I don't want to show you every part of my house and every part of my friend group and all the rest of it. But you can really deeply engage with people through this. And I think that's the most important thing. There are so many people out there doing everything. But there's always space for someone to do it in a more authentic better way I think in anything in the world and that's what you've got to do you've got to be comfortable to be yourself not to kind of take ideas from other people back to bring your ideas to the table and really engage with people in a personal way because I think people are

inspired by people and if you're able to do that, I think that's key. And I do think content is unbelievably important. Like, you know, my first pictures I found through like, you know, in this kind of archiving website, the first blog post, and they were absolutely hideous. Everything was yellow and neon and kind of reflective light of my student house. And like, it couldn't look any less delicious if it tried. You know, as it got better, like the engagement definitely does go up and you've got to make stuff useful for people, right? Like, you know, the time that people seem to connect to us best, if you're like, right, here is an easy lunch recipe.

I've written it out for you. It's going to take you 15 minutes and you just post that. That's what gets engagement. That's what gets, you know, 8,000 people just saving that post on Instagram because they want to come back to it. I'm trying to figure out how long you put in effort before there was any sign of result quite a long time my mum was my only reader for a long time she still is a devoted reader but she like reads all the instagram comments and will come back to me like you've missed this here

you've missed that there this person wants to know this I'm like okay I have got some other things going on but thank you it was the first six months was really so but I wasn't intending anyone to read it at that point either and I had about 100,000 hits on the site in that first six months and then in the second six months I had 900,000 and that's when I was like okay and there was like a little map on the wordpress back in the back end of the wordpress site I was using and it lit up the different places in the world where people were engaging with it. And, you know, to begin with, it was just the UK. And then my sister was living in America. So you'd have stuff in America. And then my boyfriend was German. So, you know, Germany was lighting up, but it was very close to home. And then in that second six months, it was suddenly like little islands in the pacific and you know in asia and south america and like i don't know anyone that lives there and so it had

obviously traveled further away than my kind of immediate friends and family and then people started emailing and being like i made this for dinner i made this my kids or something and i just that's kind of the most bizarre experience and I think it's still something I kind of find very weird to get used to the fact that people are kind of taking what's especially at that point I was still doing everything in my parents kitchen at home it was really funny to think like yeah what you're creating in such a small personal environment someone 5,000 miles away is making for their children tonight it's a crazy crazy thing to think that like you somehow transported across the world yeah onto someone's table and that was a kind of really

amazing amazing moment one of the things i find really interesting is you said that you started the blog but not for anybody to read almost no for myself and that seems to be one of the like key ingredients in a lot of people's success is they weren't doing it for money or to make a career out of it because they were so focused and on doing it because they loved it all for themselves it became a passion therefore it sustains the test of time and when you weren't getting paid to do it that authenticity is really important and I remember like as I started growing, I'd get offers to do this sponsored thing and promote this. And I'd just look at it and be like, well, I wouldn't eat that or I wouldn't use that. And it's not really in line with what I do, so I'm not interested.

And often it can be really big companies offering you a lot of money. But because it was a personal thing and I was doing it for myself at this point and it was a hobby, I was like, well, why would I do that? I don't want to dilute what I'm doing I want it to be as I set out it to be and I think keeping those guidelines is really important because it means that you're really you are bringing something useful to people because it it really is authentic it really it does exist for a reason and I think when it goes wrong and you see a lot it's when people are like okay I see this person's done really well from this. I'm going to make money from this too. And they basically try and kind of completely copycat something else. And it just doesn't

have that soul. It doesn't have that reason for being. And like the other day I couldn't sleep and I was talking to Matt, my husband in bed, and I was talking about energy balls and you know, yeah, they're in five and a half thousand stores. We saw millions of them in the last 18 months. It's really exciting. And I was telling him, like, their story, you know. And they were, when I first got ill and I was trying to change my diet, I really, I have a real sweet tooth and I was really missing sweet stuff. Haribo.

Yeah, Haribo. And a girlfriend of mine was like, well, you should try dates. They're really sweet. And I was like, oh, they look so brown and blobby and like very unappetizing compared to haribo um and let's be honest and um so she got me trying them and I was like well these are actually really nice you put them in the fridge and they go that bit gooier dunk them in peanut butter really yummy and then I started dipping them in chocolate powder like cacao powder I say it's amazing we should blend this all together I bought my first food processor.

I did that. And then I started making them every week as my little snacks and my pick-me-ups. And then I started making them with my friends and family. And then the first thing that went on our app was the first thing we did. They went in the book. That's what the community were making literally first before anything. And, you know, that was then we put it in the deli when we opened our first deli. It was our most popular thing. And it's kind of come on this journey with us. And it's like now you see it on the shelf in Tesco. But it's not just on the shelf in Tesco. Like it has this whole backstory which exists for a reason. Like it comes from a place.

It wasn't like let's make money, let's sell this. It was like I love this. Obviously our community are loving it too because they're making it all the time. They're really engaging with it. Let's share this with more people and i do think that element is really important because people connect to it it's almost it's like almost quite invisible the force there of authenticity behind the story that has come from a real genuine place like people it's what i've noticed from like speaking to yourself and thinking about um ben who made gymshark yeah and even rank and everybody that I've spoke to,

they all started that story of really, really caring about what they were doing and the reason behind it. And as a result, you don't compromise on stuff because as you said, you really care and it's so deeply embedded in you that when we first started looking at making our products, people say, oh, you know you can actually do this and you don't have to write those ingredients

on the back of the pack because it's the handling process or something and i was like well we're not going to do that because that's not honest to our audience and i feel responsible to them you said you're not going to cut corners because you feel it so deeply you got ill yeah university how was that experience for you and you you referenced that you you had struggles and battles with mental health issues through that period that's obviously something that that is very prevalent in our society at the moment, especially within young people. Can you share some of your experiences with that? And then I've got a few follow-up questions to ask you on that topic. Okay, yeah.

I mean, I guess it's really weird because if you'd told me at that point that this would all lead to the best thing that ever happened in my life, I probably would have, like like punched you or something you know I wouldn't believe you for a million years I would have been really outraged that you'd even begin to think that but it really did and the challenge of that empowered me to be like no look you are strong like you can do this and anytime you get like real criticism and activity I'm like no I'm stronger than that I can do that so in weirdly I'm really grateful for it but it was a really really tough couple of years so I was 19 and I was at the end of my second year at uni and I'd had the best time my growing up was quite an interesting time my parents had a very challenging relationship and I

was really happy to be kind of away from that I was up in Scotland and I was like really feel like I was making my life for myself I was having so much fun and then suddenly then suddenly, kind of out of nowhere, in the summer of my second year, I got very unwell with something that affected my autonomic nervous system. And I was kind of fine with it to start with. I was like, well, they'll figure out what it is. They'll give me drugs. I'll take them. I'll be fine. And so I was kind of, yeah, the whole hospital process, everything, that was kind of okay. And then I was put on all these drugs and I just kind of

really believed they would work and they just didn't really work and kind of three months or so after starting different things I was still not really able to do anything and I was still kind of spending most of my time in bed on my own watched all the Kardashians all Grey's Anatomy all kinds of trashy tv and I and I just didn't, I was really losing myself very, very quickly. And what I noticed was I, as I said, I'm quite an introverted person normally, and I'm quite, I can be quite embarrassed about stuff. I'm quite kind of shy, weird, which is weird considering what I do. But I was, I was nervous to tell people what was happening. And I didn't really understand the illness in itself. And it's completely invisible, you can't see it. No kind of massive obvious symptoms of it in that sense.

And I told a couple of friends and, you know, the response wasn't great. In retrospect, it probably wasn't delivered great by me, but I just felt this real sense of isolation from everyone around me and a real lack of connection. You know, everyone else was really, really worried about who snogged who last night, who did this with who, you know, how drunk they were, all the lack of connection. You know, everyone else was really, really worried about who snogged who last night, who did this with who, you know, how drunk they were, all the rest of it.

Normal student concerns and thought patterns. And then I was there being like, I don't know if my body's strong enough today to walk down the street and back. And I don't know, because these drugs aren't working, how I would ever be able to be confident to do that. And that just created this kind of real crisis of confidence in me. And I just didn't know how to be with other people, basically.

And I think that was one of the biggest problems of it. And as a result, again, probably not the right decision, but I just didn't really know what else to do. I just completely cut myself off from everyone, basically, because I didn't really know how to communicate with everyone and I remember like as I started to get a little bit better my boyfriend at the time who was unbelievable throughout the whole process he lived with four guys who'd been good friends before they were amazing and he was like let's go sit with them in the living room and I was kind of just petrified

at the thought of going to sit in a room with other people because I thought they'd all look at me like, she's so weird, what's wrong with her? And, you know, they were watching a movie. I just remember leaving the room just crying because I just felt so uncomfortable in my skin with people. And it, you know, actually the physical health to get that back on track,

it took kind of two to three years. And I worked closely with my doctors and nutritionists and you know all the rest of it and I you know did touch wood managed to get that quite stable after two years and then it took a kind of further two years to get into kind of what I would feel like is a good place it took my mental health so much longer because I was already quite an insecure person and then suddenly to feel like you're such an alien and that like everyone else is doing something and they're normal and you're not normal because you can't do that was a really, really challenging, challenging thing. And I know it's something that sticks with me today.

And I always consciously people think I'm boring. And the other day my husband was making fun of me something and said boring. And I had this complete panic. I was like, oh, my God, he thinks I'm boring. Everyone thinks I'm boring. And it's amazing how those kind of insecurities do really, really stick in you. And do you think that, you know,

you talked about that idea of like the perception that everybody else was, they were doing all these other things and they were being normal per se. Do you think that social media... Oh my gosh, 100%. You don't know what I'm going to say. I know exactly what you're going to say.

I was going to say, do you think social media is contributing negatively to that? Specifically things like Instagram. Yeah, well, Instagram I wasn't on at this point. This was now, yeah, end of 2011, beginning of 2012. And most of my friends weren't really on it at that point. So it was Facebook. Right. But I remember like times where there were, you know, there were big parties in the year

that I'd been to the previous two years. And I knew everyone was so excited about it are you gonna wear what are you gonna wear it was a big thing and then I obviously couldn't go and so I was just watching yeah more Kardashians or something in bed. Kardashians doesn't help either right? No I don't think it did and I'll come on to that actually in a minute but I would then refresh Facebook seeing pictures of them all looking really gorgeous and glamorous, like all dressed up, whereas like I hadn't put on makeup in a year and, you know, I hadn't washed my hair and, you know, I was a bit of a mess in that sense. And I was like, God,

you know, they look so amazing. They look so happy. They're having, they're living their life and look at me. I'm on my own. I've got no friends. I've got nothing going on. And the reality is if I ask them the next day, like, actually, how was it? They're like, oh, well, this person did this and this person. I was so annoyed with this person about this. But you see this image, which is of such perfection, and you just compare yourself to it, and you compare yourself really badly to it.

And I've always been kind of quite keen with my social media to be quite honest with it and say that a lot. Like, it's a snapshot. It's curated space. If people make you feel uncomfortable, go away from them. But don't also believe, lot like it's a snapshot it's curated a space if people make you feel uncomfortable go away from them but don't also believe like it's fully real it's not real it's just a my new insight into 24 hours it's a kind of one second out of thousands because i made breakfast this morning and then i went on your instagram and i just felt yeah and also like no no but in serious like when i make breakfast for instagram it looks different from when i make it at home which is just like into a bowl totally but what you're

saying about the kardashians that watching that didn't help is also an interesting point and it's not necessarily about the kardashians and such but it was what was actually the most hard part and where the blog starting the blog was actually my complete, was that I massively lacked any sense of purpose in my life. Right. And that was, I think, one of the biggest contributors to feeling really low. Because I just was so lost. My kind of sense of identity and who I was had changed overnight. And I just was so confused about my being.

And it was really interesting because when I started the blog, in the grand spectrum of things like, you know, trying a recipe, taking a picture, putting it online, you know, for 24 hours in a day, it's not kind of a whole lot. But I felt like I was doing something. I felt like I could tick something off a list. I had achieved it. I created something.

And suddenly when I was then seeing people's pictures on Facebook, I felt much less bad about it because I could be like, oh, well, I'll spend this time thinking about my next recipes and I could do this with this and I could do that with that. And being excited about that and feeling like it's okay because I'm not there because I can do this and I want to do this. And when it was, when I felt like I had nothing else to do and there was no sense of purpose, that was when I felt my most low and I come back to that a lot and I think when you were saying earlier like with the imposter syndrome it's when you're a little bit kind of confused in yourself about where you sit and it's really taught me that

importance of kind of being comfortable in yourself because I think that's where the biggest insecurities and therefore issues often stem from. So what would you say to yourself in that moment if you could just go back and have one minute with yourself? What would you say to...? Do you know what? And I'd hate myself for it, but I think it is, and I think I've learnt it more and more, is that, like, there are choices in life and I wasn't making it any better, you know? Like, it was a crap situation. situation like there's no getting around it

like I was 20 I suddenly yeah like my heart rate was 190 whenever I stood up I was so dizzy I was felt like I was going to faint I looked like I was nine months pregnant I couldn't eat anything my digestive system was so bad I spent two and a half years on antibiotics including antibiotic drips for chronic infections like I had really bad chronic fatigue like i had loads of pain i couldn't do anything like that's crap there's no i'm not trying to say it's not but sitting in bed on your own refusing to communicate with people watching tv on repeat and eating pick a mix isn't making it any better sure and i think that's what i realized when i started trying to cook and just even though it took a while to offer it to help it felt like I was at least trying and I was trying to move in

the right direction rather than kind of sitting there feeling sad about the situation but not doing anything to change it and I think that would be my biggest lesson and my biggest thing that I would say to myself is like just try and see if you can change it just a little bit. Even, like, pick up the phone to someone, be honest with them, see if they'll come watch the movie with you, you know? And that would have made it a lot better. That's amazing. There's so many...

I feel like we're in a generation at the moment that are... It almost feels like mental health issues are more prevalent now than they ever have been before. And I'm not sure whether it's awareness has gone up surrounding these issues like anxiety and depression or whether it's because social media is causing it. So I'm not sure if social media has increased awareness or social media has increased...

I feel like it's a combination of the two, to be honest. I think the thing with social media is I just think, I do, I genuinely think it's amazing combination of the two, to be honest. I think the thing with social media is I just think, I do, I genuinely think it's amazing in terms of inspiration, ideas. You can watch things like this. You can connect with friends really easily. You can, you know, like my siblings all used to live in different places in the world. And like I could see what my sister was doing in America and my brother in Switzerland. And that was really cool.

And I love that. But at the same time, like I do think you have to be conscious about the way that you use it. And if you are feeling down on yourself, don't go look at Victoria's Secret models or things like that. It doesn't make you feel better. We do have constant access to things like that. And so we do have constant tools for comparison. And I think it's human nature to compare yourself. But if you're sitting next to someone, you can compare yourself to them. but you do know them so you know that like no human being is totally perfect and so

they're brilliant at that but they're not as good as that and that's okay so we all have our strengths and weaknesses and we can all be in this together but as soon as you start seeing a complete stranger and you see this snapshot on this highlight reel you think oh my god they're perfect i'm so rubbish in comparison i think that's what we just really i feel like we need to be more honest about using it as a tool for ideas you know if you want to redo your bathroom you can find more pictures of bathrooms than you could ever find before and that's really cool you can get ideas about ways you can do it but if you're not feeling good about yourself looking at things that other people are doing or having that you don't have on this it's not going to make you feel better so i think we we just have to, it's like conscious consumerism, isn't it?

It's just conscious kind of viewing and being aware of what's good for us and what's not. So you've done so much now. When I was reading through your bio, I was like, how in such a short space of time has this all happened? Such a psycho. I'm going to ask you two questions and they're both kind of polar opposite. What do you worry about and what are you most excited about when you when you think about the future and this doesn't necessarily need to be within business it can be you know i feel like my whole life is this i guess i think worry about in terms of business and that's probably my biggest insecurity sometimes it's like you know and you'll

know this and lots of people feel the same it's like i think when you start something and you want it to be big and you're ambitious with it the reality is you can't do that and do everything else I met someone recently and it was really interesting and she started talking about how in life you you don't it's not about making sacrifices but is about making choices and you can't run a business with 60 people and you know scale it that quickly and have the most active social life like it just isn't really possible and I think being conscious about that but at the same time I think my worry is like you're putting so much into that are you missing out on doing this and that and the next thing and experiences in

life you know we cancel five trips in 18 months because like work happens and you've got to be there and you've taken that responsibility on we're responsible for making sure these people are able to be paid at every month and that they can look after their families and they can progress with their careers. And I feel that responsibility really deeply. And so I think I worry about that sometimes, that work becomes such a big part of my life that I just want to make sure at some point the tipping point comes back. But that being said, kind of in your second question, it's what I'm most excited about right now. Like so rare in life to have such an exciting opportunity ahead of you and like you see it and there's just so many things we

can do with with creating the right things at the right time it's what people are looking for more and more people are interested in it and it's just phenomenally exciting and i think especially for someone that never had like massive hopes for themselves and like in terms of what i could achieve then suddenly seeing what you can achieve in front of you and, like, working towards that is about the most exciting thing ever. And, like, our team's phenomenal. Getting to work with them and learn from them is just unbelievable. And you say we there, that's yourself and your husband.

Yeah. As you know, I've got some questions for you. So, basically, a lot of people will know that have watched me speak to various guests on the show because I tend to try and figure out this issue within myself. You work with your partner. Yeah. I, at one point, worked very, very closely with my girlfriend

and it didn't work out for various reasons. I think the reasons why it didn't work out is because I am very, I'm really bad at compromise. Yeah. I'm a little bit too obsessed with working. Yeah. So that balance is really ugly for me. Like Saturdays and Sundays, I'm in the office and I want to be. And I often found it hard to relate to them.

And in the context of a working environment where there's, you know, pressures and there's a lot of things to do, I would often forget the fact that there was that romantic element as well. How has it been for you and how have you made it work so well completely relate to all of that I think dividing like as you say kind of like a romantic time and work is I think nigh on impossible but I think the reason why it has worked is because we're so different we have very similar goals and ambitions which I think is really important but what we do and where our strengths lie there's almost no overlap at all like he is he's the best people person I've ever met he has the patience and emotional intelligence like I've never come across before so he's amazing with our team he's really motivating he really looks after them he makes

sure everyone's you know on the career trajectory they want to be on that they're listened to they're supported knows how to deal with everyone individually that's so and he loves doing that I hate people management I'm not that good at it I'm like want to do this and this and this and this and I'm like running around and and so I'm not I'm not that calm in that sense I'm much more energetic and he's absolutely amazing with that. He's got the most steady, clear head. He's brilliant at making difficult decisions and leading people through that.

He loves an Excel spreadsheet. I don't even have Excel on my computer. So he loves getting deep into the numbers and doing the cash flow and the projections and the forecasting and that's my worst nightmare and he's really good at it and that was his experience before he'd worked in finance and in business development and so he he really enjoys that i really enjoy being creative and i love that i can now be fully and solely creative and trust him

along with our head of finance head of operations, et cetera, to do that more practical day-to-day part. Like, I'm not involved to that extent in the day-to-day running of the operations of our business, not at all. And so I get to do what I think I can help with and what I really enjoy, which is, yeah, all the creative side of things. How do you work with your partner

and not just want to sometimes rip their head off? Yeah, that happens 100%. Like, every now and again now and again and we always said like if we have big decisions to make we have to make it together and that's challenging it's an inevitable thing though right totally and also because the way you are at home like you have a really honest dialogue and suddenly you're in the office and you're like you're an idiot and then you're like you can't say that do you ever have those arguments in front of people? No, no. So we made it a complete pact like we'll be completely united. We'll have debates and discussions

you know, say I really like that blue and I'm like I don't know about that blue, I like that blue. But if it's a big decision, we'll talk about it on our own and then bring a united front to a meeting because I think I'm always conscious that for people it must be weird in some

capacity working with a husband and wife team and so I wouldn't want to make anybody else feel uncomfortable by us bringing it into the meeting room okay good cool like that answers a few of my questions so my last question for you then dinner party and ask everybody this question there's six seats at the table I've been invited because it's of course you're there as well so there's four other seats you can invite anybody dead or alive yeah i would like to know who you would invite and what they're going to eat okay they'll have one main meal so don't need to worry about starters and desserts and things but that's helpful cool it's such a hard one isn't it because

you're so torn between different things like one part of me is like i want to invite the spice girls although i've only got four seats so i don't know who doesn't get the invite a husband just yet your husband's outside exactly and then or or do you want like your childhood crush like i used to have the biggest crush on rika inglesias do you want him there you know but then oh like a Dolly Parton or someone like that who just like thinks brilliant

or do you want like it should be quite interesting and get like Trump in the room like who doesn't want to ask him questions and you're trying to create a dynamic as well

amongst the guests exactly would it be weird to have like you know like Scary Spice and Donald Trump and Enrique Iglesers at your table together.

It might be an interesting time. So, yeah, we'll bring them all to the table. So you're going to go for... You're actually going to go for Donald Trump and Wicked Glaziers? Well, I think it'll be an interesting dynamic and I'd like to meet them all. So we're going to go for Scary Spice. Yes.

Why not? And Donald Trump. And Omic English. And as the fourth person, I think I'd love to meet like a Queen Victoria. I do love like all that kind of historical fiction. Yeah, well, you've got the other two seats. I don't know how you bring everyone together,

like what Queen Victoria has in common with Scary Spice. But I think it'd be really interesting. What they eating then indian indian food so again i don't know how well that goes but it's my favorite i love indian food they do amazing vegetarian food so and i love that you get little bits of different things so i'd have like loads of different curries and i think chana masala and aloo gobi loads of garlicky naan. Amazing. And I think it'll be very interesting. We'd have to film it, obviously. Yeah, of course.

I'm so excited. I can't wait. Thank you so much for your time today. My pleasure. Thank you. I know how busy you are. You're an incredibly inspiring person and you're like a ray of sunshine to be around as well.

Oh, thank you. You'll be linked everywhere and you'll be on our Leffy community as well. So thank you so much. No, thank you. Thank you, guys. I can't much to watch your journey unfold as it continues thank you so much