The Food Medic - S9 E6: The productivity method with Grace Beverley

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

On this episode, Dr Hazel is joined by Grace Beverley, founder and CEO of sustainably-made activewear brand TALA and fitness tech brand Shreddy. Grace's debut book 'Working Hard, Hardly Working' was an instant Sunday Times Bestseller and she also hosts her own podcast of the same name. -Grace's journey from influencer to the CEO of two incredibly successful companies.-The moment it all changed for Grace-Her inspiration behind ‘Working Hard, Hardly Working' -The productivity method-Prioritising with quick ticks, tasks and projects If you loved it you know what to do - leave us a review, a rating (hopefully 5 stars) and share it with someone you know will love it too. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Goal tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, as always, Dr. Hazel. Today, I'm really excited to speak to Grace Beverly, founder and CEO of sustainably made activewear brand Tala and fitness tech brand Shreddy. Many of you will know and follow her already, as I've had tons of requests to get her on the podcast from you. But in case you don't, Grace is a very successful female entrepreneur with a global reach of over 2 million. She's been named first in Forbes 30 under 30s retail and e-commerce list at the age of 23 and was ranked 26th most

influential online creator by the Sunday Times. Grace's business success speaks for itself. In the first year Tala amassed a following of over 200,000 and total sales of 6.2 million, with the brand raising 4.2 million in their first funding round. Grace's debut book, Working Hard, Hardly Working, was an instant Sunday Times bestseller. And she also hosts her own podcast of the same name. So let's dive in and hear more from Grace. This episode is brought to you by Whoop. We're a few weeks into the new year and I want to know how you're getting on with your New Year's goals and resolutions.

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So if you've not had a chance to get started, but you're looking to up your game in 2023, go to join.whoop.com slash thefoodmedic to get started you'll get your first month on me for free well grace thank you for coming on the food medic podcast thank you so much for having me it's so nice to see you after so long and we've just been talking about your story and your journey and how you've progressed and all the things you've achieved and i'd love to just go back to the beginning of that journey the grace fit story when you were a student to now grace ceo shall I give a little like freestyle summary of all of it okay I'll try and keep it concise which is my least big talent um so yeah started social media in around 2015 when I was still at school actually or like college

sixth form um and was a few months before leaving and started social media to essentially get into fitness so I just could never stick to it I would just start and then completely I mean it was probably the mindset I had towards fitness that was the uh the wrong thing rather than you know discipline and stuff but I started then and then that kind of gained a little bit of traction at the beginning I like didn't show my face it was anonymous it was um you know I didn't start I guess putting effort into it until I realized that it could actually be something and so then started to kind of pivot towards being a bit more strategic about it then became really strategic about it spent the next few years um first the first year of it I was working in corporate in a year-long internship before university and then I went to university and sold my first product in 2015 so weirdly I think because of the influencer industry now

it's so much more normal for a influencer to work with I guess brands before they sell their own products yeah but it wasn't really monetizable in the same way back then because brands they would kind of be like as in why would we pay you we've got a billboard like we're paying for tv advertising all of this and so I needed ways to monetize it essentially for it to be maintainable as a I guess more than a hobby or something I was spending hours and hours and hours on so sold my first products in 2015 those were recipe ebooks that I sold for like five pounds sold my next product which was when it things really started taking off in 2016 end of 2016 and they were workout plans and those completely took off went crazy I mean a solid percentage of

my following I guess bought them more than were liking my foot I didn't have amazing engagement at the time it's not like I was like people loved me I'm not sure they did like I didn't have like you know particularly great engagement and then it was actually in line with starting these that I started to get more traction I guess in that way because you know I would be doing the workout plan with the um with the people who bought it all of that then released our first physical product almost a year after that again so probably quite easy to look at it now and assume it was like a full-blown business from the beginning but all of this was like very gradual very slow burn um very much about like what the industry what we thought the kind of women's fitness industry needed so that's turned into

shreddy which was my first business and that's now a fitness tech company we also do supplements but essentially it's based around the idea of creating workouts people love rather than doing workouts you hate to get results you love so it's all based around that concept um and we're just trying to make women's fitness friendlier um and that's kind of what we've done from the beginning it's been amazing i think we've got you know we've had overall like a community of like 500 000 um which is amazing um and then I started my second business Tala where we create sustainable activewear at a price point that's competitive to non-sustainable activewear started that in May 2019 and the goal there was that you know I'd been working with activewear

brands for years at that point I really knew what sold I really knew what people wanted to wear and I'd constantly kind of like try and get my feedback heard I'd be like no this seam should be here or like this colorway just doesn't make sense in this type of texture it looks like you're naked or like whatever it might be obviously they were like sell things yeah um which is so fair like that I guess kind of wasn't as much my role um but I really felt like I knew the activewear industry and then I started to move away from buying fast fashion in my every day and realized about six months later that yeah sure I'd cut all my contracts with fast fashion companies which I cut all at once just because you know selfish reasons it didn't feel good anymore like I couldn't do it I didn't really want to be taking the money from that it didn't make sense to me and then seeing the amount of

people that would convert on those sales, I was like, it's not just you buying fast fashion, it's you creating a real issue here. So I'd kind of moved away from that completely and then just realised that the big gaping hole in me moving away from it was activewear. And the companies that I was still working with and wearing with activewear were essentially fast fashion and probably even more harmful because of the amount of elastane and all of those types of elastane and all of the those types of content in the materials and realized that the activewear industry kind of was given a free pass

to be unsustainable because people weren't demanding it in the same way as they were from fast fashion and it doesn't really look like fast fashion when you know you need activewear to work out like you can't work out in your jeans whereas like buying fast fashion always feels like surplus it always feels like you don't need it whereas active wear kind of does feel like you need it and so I essentially tried to originally try to find brands to work with that were sustainable or making things I think sustainable as a term is really tough in the fashion industry because it's an oxymoron but more sustainable and with sustainability in mind and, you know, better fabrics that save water, CO2, know the people who make your clothes and do it, you know, pay them fairly, etc. And started looking for those options within activewear to actually work with originally

and the ones that there were who had been doing amazing things, we were by no means the first people to do sustainable activewear, were insanely expensive expensive like you were paying 2.5 times the price compared to the other brands I was working with my audience was largely university based um so a lot of students and it didn't feel fair I guess for me to be sitting there doing a haul and being like buy these leggings you should be more sustainable you need to be more responsible and then also be like but you're going to have to spend a hundred pounds on them, that didn't seem fair. So spent about a year talking to factories and suppliers to create what we saw as like the perfect legging from like originally. Found it really hard to get to the price down obviously a huge breakthrough I was originally resistant to it

because then I was like but we're still creating new material then that eight percent is new material that someone might be buying not as a replacement to other activewear but they might just be buying a surplus but then kind of realize that if there's no option to do better then you can't actually change people's habits you can't ask people to be more sustainable and then only provide options that are 2.5 times the price and so went down that road with the aim of just always being better seeing what people are loving within the activewear industry and trying to make better solutions to it with better fabrics and more transparency never perfect but actually just you know really being clear on what we are doing and what we aren't doing uh and letting the customer decide whether that's sustainable enough for them i guess so yeah started that in 2019 first launch

was an absolute shocker basically broke every part of the website and fulfillment and uh ended up having to like post on the university facebook group being like does anyone want to do customer service for 15 pounds an hour because we need people and were you still in uni yeah it was a month before my finals which was a terrible idea people were always like how did you do that that's so inspiring i'm like that's not inspiring that's stupid you should not trust a person who starts a business a month before their finals i think i remember you yeah you know youtube video around this time and I was like how is this girl on crack like literally I look back and I'm like what were you like how it's insane um I think I had unlimited energy I think maybe I used like the next 40 years

of my energy at that point because I'm now lacking but I yeah 60 years 60 um but so yeah I basically had to fix that during finals which was a shambles managed to somehow make it through university and get a good grade really did not think that was going to be happening at one point um and then went full-time into it and since then have been really concentrating on building the businesses into standalone successful businesses that are completely independent of myself as an influencer and are far more about their you know individual customers and what you know data made decisions and um you know acquiring 50 new customers every month like all of these things that um has been quite a journey but I essentially decided after university that

although I'd had such a great time as an influencer, it actually just wasn't my happy place. I'm a people pleaser and therefore you can't people please that many people at once. And it just wasn't good for my mental health. So my solution to this and where I was really happy was building these businesses. So I essentially kind of pivoted into putting everything into making these businesses work, you know, bought out previous partners, made them these amazing standalone companies with incredible teams. And then about just over a year ago now, we finished our seed investment round where we raised five point seven million dollars in order to take our industry disruption to the next level. We've doubled our headcount as a team, hired incredible global talent, done our US expansion, which is, I did not think that would be that hard. And, you know, created some amazing new products that we really think can

essentially give people no excuse to be shopping things that aren't recycled and upcycled and more transparent. And that's where are now in need of an app what a story what a story what a journey like how much you have grown as a person and your empire has grown and I very much agree with you in that Shreddy and Tala do are very much independent to you now even though like you are known as as founder and ceo they're independent and doing incredibly well in their own right and seem to have their own communities as well yeah thank you i think that's been one of the like toughest behind the scenes journeys because a business a business reliant on yourself isn't a business it's like a merch company and although the so the first ever

Tala launch and the first ever Shreddy launch actually the concepts were so strong that they had far more people buying than were as I said liking my photos so like we could tell that it was the concept rather than just me being like look buy a sweater with my name on it like it wasn't that um and I've done merch before as well but like that that wasn't it the concept was stronger but to be I think what people look at as influencer businesses is guaranteed demand which is true we definitely started with a guaranteed amount of demand in the same way as when you know a celebrity would start a business they're on a platform they'll get a certain amount of press etc etc but for that to be able to develop into a standalone business, first of all, you have to be able to launch at a capacity that can provide for that many 10s of 1000s of people without having test run it. So as I said, first launch was an absolute shambles, you have to be at a stage that

has enough customer service, enough team members, enough people to post on socials, enough people to do photo shoots, all of these things. And actually building that into a business that's not related to yourself and I'm under no illusion that it's completely separate in terms of the relation I'm the founder I'm clear about the fact I'm a founder and when I you know talk about the products I talk about the products but regardless of whether I if I disappeared off social media tomorrow the you know we know the data crossovers we know where the audiences are from mine but essentially where I do stuff for the business that's the same as the business having paid for influencer marketing I guess and the businesses have their own identity completely outside of

mine which was a tough journey it you know involved having to um you know when you start a business with that premise if you're partnering with people they're with you under that premise of you being you know giving that much promotion or all of this and I was kind of very clear about the fact that like nope I'm stopping YouTube I'm moving away from social media you might get a shitty selfie from me every so often but like this is not my happy place and this is not going to be my job and I don't care how much hard work it takes and I don't care um you know what position we need to get the business into but we're going to get into that position because Tala and Shreddy deserve to be so much bigger than me and I think that Tala has especially like so much capacity to disrupt this huge activewear market I think a few years ago it was like seven billion dollar market like it's an enormous market and

if you look at the people who are most interested in activewear it's usually like gen z millennial crossover audience people who are most interested in sustainability usually gen z millennial crossover audience where's their price point half the amount that you know the current sustainable activewear industry is offering so it's a real proposition and by keeping it under just you know grace beverly it it does it such a disservice. And actually, same way about products. Like just because I wouldn't wear a halter neck, that doesn't mean that, you know, tens of thousands other people wouldn't, aren't, you know, currently shopping from non-sustainable brands because they can't find that from a sustainable brand. All of these types of things. So that's been a real, real journey. And the teams, you know,

I hope it's really clear now that the businesses are run by incredible teams who are far better at their jobs than I am. And therefore we're able to, I guess, get them to the world in the way they deserve. Yeah, no, it's very clear. And I think that's a process, like removing yourself from something that essentially you like gave birth to. Yeah, you came up with this idea and you brought it to life. What was the or was there a point where you realised that this side hustle or thing you were doing alongside your university studies was so much bigger and had momentum I think I always knew that Tala had the capacity to be big to me it was so insane that no one had done it already and I spoke to a lot of people in the sustainable fashion space who were kind of understood that there was an opportunity there but were kind of like but people will pay double the price and therefore consumer customer sets the price like you should

be look at the margin you could get from selling it for a hundred pounds and I was like yeah but that's not the point what we're doing is getting people not to have to compromise between choosing sustainability and choosing price and then all the other things as well like fit fabric all of these things and so I think I always knew that would be really big yeah and I think I always I mean it's such a I guess a unprofound thing to have a passion for but like as someone who wore leggings every day for what like five years and worked out incredibly intensely and like you know would really care about the way my sports bras fit and the way things make me look because I'd need to film in them all of these different things I couldn't think of a better candidate for actually just

being absolutely brutal on every piece of activewear and then also having that passion for creating more accessible sustainable options to me that was, I was like, I'm not going to be the best person at building the business. I'm not going to be the best person at creating the creative. I'm not going to be the best model for it. I'm not going to be the best person to do the cash flow, any of these things. But I can tell you, you know, what I am the best at. And it will be, you know, bringing that exact vision to life. And, you know, that's what a founder is. And so I think I knew that from the beginning. I think what was tough was deciding to move away from social media where

social media was so lucrative. And that's not to say that I don't, you know, I'm incredibly fortunate. And I, you know, transparently, I do make a lot of money. And like, I, you know, I'm vocal about it. I think it's really important that women especially you know we're more liked if we sit there and say like oh no I don't you know it's like no I'm in a really great position and I'm not saying that I'm not but moving away from something where you essentially are taking a 75% pay cut for about half the work maybe not even half the work a quarter of the work um I mean we were talking before we started recording about the fact that I used to well I used to without fail do three videos a week and then I used to do on top of that so there would be Monday Wednesday Friday at 5 p.m I do all of those videos they could be vlogs they could be sit-down videos

any of these things it was just my routine and I made so much more money like I cannot physically tell you um the difference between the amount I earned and I guess it's not I mean it's not a selfless decision at all it was kind of me sitting there and I guess being like this is not the career for me I guess no one would really expect everyone I mean you'll probably know from being a doctor but we're expected to make these career decisions at like 16 17 18 and I was literally publicly stuck in that career from 18 and just to get to a point where I was like actually do you know what I don't need to be like all I need to do is be like I'm fine with not being as greedy and earning earning less and just like stepping away and actually being happy every day

and using my brain and all of these things and don't take that the wrong way that's not to say influencers don't use their brains at all it's a very strategic and very very tough job and you need a real talent for it but I will say that like the way I use my brain like to use my brain is different um it as I do in the kind of brand building exercises but I think that for me it was just a continued experience of over a bit of time just realising the bigger you get on social media, the more exposed you are to opinions of people that probably don't want to follow you and you're continuously being thrust in their face. Like at the moment, I'm not relevant enough that if you don't want to see me, you'll see me.

Unfollow me and whatever block me or whatever you won't see me I'm not on tv I'm not on billboards I'm not on all of this whereas like the bigger you get the more you're essentially blasted to those people and I guess I kind of just came to the realization at one point I was like I guess bigger doesn't always mean better and I had had conversations with talent management and stuff and they were like do this to grow do this girl I was like I actually I'm at a stage where I don't want to grow like I don't know if you've read like the I can't remember whether it's 100 or 1000 but like like 102 fans thing and it's like I would rather have 100 people who not genuinely like me it's more just there's no point me and my personality I'm not going to

be happy being put in a point where continuously the people I'm pushed towards actively don't like me and the risk of that is not worth x amount more for me I guess it was like instant gratification versus delayed gratification the instant gratification was continuing the slightly lower workload a lot more money which makes a lot of sense but probably a few years down the line, really not being very happy, probably not feeling fulfilled in the same way, just personally, probably a few years on having to put my children in front of a camera just so I can make money,

all of these things, or it was like delayed gratification, quit that now, quit your contract, be really clear with what you're offering, stop growing on social media, which I'm sure would make some people be like, oh, like yeah less relevant whatever I don't care like as in like this is my happy place is like going to the office every day working with incredible teams sometimes

I sit there and I'm like you could be on a beach what are you doing like as in like this makes no sense but like I'm far happier I'm happy about the fact that like I could take the whole year off social media and be fine. Like I'm incredibly fortunate to be in that position. I guess I'm grateful to my younger self for having like. Have made that decision. Made that decision. Yeah. I think that's incredibly powerful.

And you mentioned like you had to publicly come out and announce that you were stepping away from this but you also had to you like huge part of what you shared online especially in your vlogging years and I think you the last time you said you vlogged was maybe a year ago but you vlogged all throughout your law degree and then you you still finished it but then you came out and you said I'm actually not going to use this degree I'm going to move forward and did you find that was you had to tell people that and that that came with a lot of scrutiny or were people super supportive so firstly I never did law that's some poor press yeah that's the daily mail um so I studied music oh my god yeah but everyone thinks i had a law degree which is really great for my ego and like my publicity but also completely false so i get that the whole time

and it's like that's fine i don't mind people thinking i did lord i would not have gotten to oxford for law so i love you know so happy for people to think that honestly inflate my ego give me intelligence i don't have i'll take it all yeah that's some that was some hilarious press um which yeah just completely incorrect but yeah I studied music but same thing I guess applies I mean I wasn't um originally going to be using the music degree in terms of performance I was quite clear on that from the beginning one a weird reason I ended up studying music was that I've always had a huge love of music and already always done it from you know for hours and hours and hours a week throughout school went to the Royal Academy of Music when I was like alongside school so was

spending hours and hours doing that but essentially ended up wanting to study it because I realized that I could study it and still go into corporate which was kind of what I saw as success like my warped little view of success um for me personally I was like that's the only way and I had done like work experience one time and everyone around me had like humanities degrees and I was like you mean to tell me that I don't need to study like something that I don't want to study and I can actually still do this and they were like yeah they want diverse thinking and I was like great off I go like I'll study music so um I was quite clear about that at the time but there was still like nonetheless I guess a sentiment of like I cannot believe you're going to erase this time of your life from like existence but you didn't erase it well I did because I took down

all the YouTube videos did you yes so I only have YouTube videos from the point that I started casually vlogging about a year ago and that was quite a big decision that I guess I didn't feel the need to talk about especially not at the time online but essentially I I've always been really honest and transparent and open and you know kind of a complete oversharer like that's very much my personality like I'll walk into a room and talk about something that I shouldn't be talking about and like that's how I bond with people but it just meant that like as I was and who's to say like I may put them up in the future or whatever um I have nothing against them at all it's not like I was problematic or anything but like I just was in a stage I guess where I felt like I was trying to start this new career and

working really hard at it and had taken myself offline completely um I deleted these videos way before I started you know came back on social media in any way and was really spending this time like in the weeds of the business like there was so much to sort out there was a huge amount of like restructuring and a lot of work that went into putting the businesses into a place that I felt like they could genuinely grow yeah without me as well and that took a lot of time and effort. And I just wanted to, I guess I wanted to be able to have like a blank slate. And I was working so hard to be that founder that I didn't because,

and if I was going to be taking that delayed gratification rather than that instant gratification, it would almost be too hard for me to, I'd made that decision and it had been a tough decision to make. It would almost be too hard for me to, I'd made that decision and it had been a tough decision to make. It would almost be too hard for me to see the amount of, I guess, money, AdSense, views, following, all of those things coming in from that side of actually what I decided wasn't my career. I think it was like putting temptation too close to myself to just be like, this is too hard. I'm going to go back to that. And for me, I was like, no, you're going to commit to this. You're going to do this. It go back to that and for me I was like no you're

gonna commit to this you're gonna do this it's gonna be really hard and those first two years were hard like they were the hardest times of like my life by far and they you know and for the business too it was incredibly incredibly hard pulling out something the business had been relying on and having to build up the business from scratch again like is you know something that I'd hope I never had to go through again but I just didn't want to put myself in a position where I was going to forfeit my mental health because it was the easier way out yeah and so I just decided to pull the plug didn't tell anyone one day just good for you yeah good for you and you're on to a new chapter and speaking of chapters good segue into your book thank you that was good I really enjoyed that you should go to live radio

working hard hardly working what was your like what was your why behind this book so I am a productivity freak and that's like the biggest turnoff that like someone can possibly ever say not for me okay thank you but also it's not I think the misconception with that is that I want to work all the time I do not like my whole thing is that I'm like a lazy workaholic I want to do the least amount of work for the highest amount of reward and therefore I want to be as productive as physically possible so that I can spend as much time as possible doing things I love. Like, if I'm going to be sitting there and getting to work at 8am, the last thing I want to do is be unproductive. Because I want to get it done and I want to go on to things that I actually enjoy.

Like walking my dog or spending time with my family or whatever it might be. And I also have, I get overwhelmed really easily which um is not great for my job like it doesn't it doesn't suit and I also there's something wrong in my brain like I cannot stick on one thing at once I'm very all over the place I always have been gotten a lot of trouble at school for it people kind of just kind of like leave me in the corner and just be like let her do her thing but when it came around to exams and when I had full control over like my schedule and my planning and everything I'd like smash it because I was I had very specific ways of being able to get things done and so there was kind of that element but then there was also the element

of we'd just gone into the pandemic and I'd I'd been I, like I was kind of posting online a little bit. Like I wasn't posting YouTube or anything. It would just be like stories here and there. And I posted some stuff essentially, you know, anytime I post anything being like, oh, here's a productivity tip. People would be like, this is a pandemic, not a productivity contest. And then like every time I post like a rest tip, people would be like, people are working and dying so that you can be at home and I was like okay like there seems to be like

no winning either way here and then like to me I was spending a lot more time reading and like reading you know self-help books and productivity books and business books and I was like there's two completely separate camps here there's like the productivity camp and there's the self care camp and no one interacts between the two there's like this big old battle and actually like realistically they are both parts of the same thing like you cannot have productivity without self-care and you cannot have self-care without productivity like sometimes self-care is actually you know doing your work and getting a deadline so that you can get that promotion or so that you feel more fulfilled or whatever it might be like self-care isn't just all about you know lighting a candle and getting in the bath that's not self-care if you have things to do and you have

to be doing them and most of us don't have the luxury of doing that so to me it felt really weird that there was like this complete divide not just in like publishing but also in like the rest of the world and so I wanted to and I'd originally wanted to I guess get some stuff out there my original method would have been via YouTube videos um but obviously I wasn't doing them anymore I wanted to get something out there about my productivity methods because like they're very good like any any friend but like any friend I'd like talk to about like no do it like this instead yeah they'd like it was like something I could really do and I knew that like people responded well to it but then like I

couldn't really do that at that time but then I was like why are we not just talking about the fact that this is all complex like this is all really complex it's not black and white it's not like super easy to know when to work really hard and when to be taking a step back and how to not burn out and when to be on social media or when it's just like the 24-hour news cycle and your brain can't recover like all of these different things so I essentially wrote the concept for the book and pitched it to some publishers took on a literary agent um and then yeah signed a book deal wrote the book over the course of nine months while being locked inside, then gave birth to it. And weirdly, it's had this like real resurgence, A, since TikTok has like come into play because people do be liking the tips.

Yeah, they do. Which is great. And I see it in the airport all the time. Do you? Yeah. Well, it's so great. I mean, I was in like Australia, you you know a week or so ago and I'd be like going past bookshops there and just like seeing it I was like oh my god that's actually

insane and it's like on the bestsellers thing in like Dubai airport and it's on like a I don't know it's really cool and I like the fact that it wasn't like um it was a it was a number one bestseller which was obviously absolutely amazing and was like you know absolutely loved that um but for it to for me the biggest thing has been that it's continued to grow since then yeah I think the fact that people are recommending it to their friends like I don't post about it really a lot on socials and the fact that people are like recommending it to their friends um is amazing to me and the fact that I'm tagged in TikToks every day on it and all of this so in terms of

like the productivity methods the one that's been really really picked up and circulated I guess like I get like LinkedIn goes like there's a lot on LinkedIn about it which is great that's the you know the right audience I guess and TikTok as well but it's essentially the to-do table method which is so as I said get overwhelmed super easy easily the biggest thing I feel for contributing to overwhelm is lack of visibility or too much visibility so feeling like you have everything in the world to do so the to-do table method which is part of the productivity method which is in the book is essentially the method of splitting your to-do list up into three sections so you have

quick ticks tasks projects quick ticks are under five minutes tasks are five to thirty minutes and projects are thirty minutes plus the logic of this is that if you're looking at a to-do list and it's got 40 things on it and none of them are weighted you've got something that could get you a promotion like finishing a project or writing a proposal that's weighted the same as sending an email or um replying to that person you needed to reply to for ages or clearing out your mailbox or whatever so there's no waiting here so everything it feels like you have 40 things of really high importance when in reality you probably have three things of really high importance 10 things of mid-importance and like you know we've now got i've given the numbers and

now i have to work out the maths um and so you guys to work out the maths. So you guys can work out the maths. I own this mental arithmetic. I studied music. So yeah, essentially the logic of that is just to kind of get into the habit of breaking it down. I personally believe you should never just have a to-do list. It doesn't make sense. It's really hard to then know what you should start with first. And then on top of that writing three

things below your to-do table that are the three things you must do today because again realistically you might have 40 things to do but if you only did three of those things that are the truly important weighted ones because the table is only weighted by time you also need importance if you have three of those things that are actually the most important if you only did those three things that day I promise you it would have been a productive day you are moving in the right direction and I think having that visibility first of all being able to see it broken down but also being able to know that actually you don't need to do 40 things today you need to do three things well today and you need to do three things well tomorrow and the day after and I promise you that will do

far more than you looking at something of like 40 tasks that you need to do and getting completely overwhelmed so that was one of the I guess really simple things in there that I've been doing since like my GCSEs I've just found it really easy to get very overwhelmed so I've always split up my to-do list and I wrote about that in the book and you know there was some noise about it and it's kind of obviously blown up since then but I basically I've always split my to-do list that way so I have just written it down in a plain notebook and then I was like going online to you know how you can like create your own notebook or create your own planner type thing um because I was like this is ridiculous the fact that I'm drawing the table every day so I just like put it up not really

thinking on my story and I was like right this is the last time I'm doing this like I'm going to make myself a planner that has you know is split in the sections I always do quick ticks tasks projects and then schedule and I fill in my schedule for the day and then at the bottom I have three non-negotiables and loads of people just start to reply and being like make the planner for us and I'd already pitched the idea I guess in terms of creating some something that used the productivity method in an actionable sense but what happens I guess in publishing is people aren't too interested in like having a follow-on book and I was like this isn't a follow-on book I guess it's kind of a workbook like it's a planner it's the thing that you know sure read this book and

get all of these things these are the most important ones and it shows you how to do them every day so I basically decided to self-publish it I did get given a deal for it but I would no it wasn't it wasn't right and because I guess I have links to manufacturing anyway um I just kind of went down the route of getting that designed um and then put it on my story was like hello who's interested in the planner and it just went insane on before the first launch it had like a 30 000 person wait list before the second one it had a 65 000 person wait list i think it's now up to 80 000 and we're going to be doing a launch at the end of this month um because we only do them in pre-order

windows because i it's whatever people say it's not another business I don't have a proper team for it people are you know working hard on it but it's generally kind of people here and there it's no one's main concentration which means that I don't want to you know say if we had a manufacturing issue or a shipment issue or whatever it might be and then all of these people are waiting for their orders and I don't have a team to sort it out then it's going to pull me away from what actually I knew do need to be spending time on and so we only do them in pre-order windows so they are literally 48 hours the only time you can get your hands on these planners which means it's hilarious because now if you go on like online resale sites it's hilarious people are trying to sell the planners for like so ridiculous don't buy those like a way

it will come at the end of this month and then we make them to order to avoid waste as well because i don't want to have an inventory problem with a business that i'm not even running of course quick one i have a new and exciting membership coming out and i want you to be the first to hear about it i started the food medic over 10 years ago and my mission has always been to bring evidence-based health and nutrition information that's easy to follow and practical to implement. And if you're listening to this podcast, I'm going to make an assumption that you're someone who prioritises their health and seeks out high quality information from trusted sources. So that's why I'm inviting you to join our new and exclusive membership, The Food Medic Hub, which allows you to take charge of your health with support from the most trusted experts in their field.

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Whether you're just starting your journey or looking to elevate your health, the Food Medic Hub is your number one support system and resource to achieve your goals in 2023. Head over to www.thefoodmedic.co.uk to join now from 9.99 per month after everything you've just said and you mentioned that productivity and self-care can be part of the same coin like how do you not burn out how do you personally avoid burning out and not getting well you did mention that you don't get overwhelmed because of your productivity method but surely the stress of juggling these things and then just casually adding on like another journal side

hustle because why not it was fun like what do you do to prevent that from happening so I will say that like I think last year I was so bad at it like I wrote a whole book on like how to you know balance all of this especially like with social media all of these you know this new world we're in where we're I guess our minds constantly active in the same way as when the 24-hour news cycle first came in um I then I guess I had such a tough year the year before last that I was kind of in fight or flight um because of having to restructure the whole business like all of these different things that I guess last year I still had a bit of a hangover from that and I was still in a position where it was like take every opportunity just in

case things fall through or just in case it's not working and all of this and so one of of my, I guess, New Year's resolutions this year is just like, nothing's going to go wrong. Like stop taking every opportunity. Stop being so greedy. You don't need to say yes to everything. Like, you know, sure, these planners are a hobby, but also I make money from them. Like as in it is essentially it boils down to me prioritising financial gain, I guess, when I'm going too hard over my own self and actually realistically surely there's a point where actually that doesn't make sense at all so just getting a little bit more honest with myself in terms of like no you don't need to do that sure it might you know you might do well but like come on sit down like you don't need to be doing everything

all at once yeah yeah so full transparency wasn't good at that last year I have been good at it before though and I really pride myself in it because I do you know I do I guess there are various different ventures that I um have and in order to be able to do them well I need to be in good on good form um so what I essentially do I think one of the most important things is just boundaries like having really clear boundaries and like mothering yourself with those boundaries so I know in my heart of hearts that if I spend out of the four week nights if more than two of them have something on I will die like I'll burst into flames like I'm not going to be good at my job I'm not gonna you know I'm not going to be able to have good ideas I'm not going to be able to make good decisions or as good decisions as I

would otherwise and so don't do it like sure those other two nights might look free but they're not free that too is your maximum so like getting really clear on like where those boundaries are I think is incredibly important I have been clear on them before I've been really bad on them last year because I think I was having a less tough year and therefore I was like I can take everything and I'm still going to be able to survive um and so I think that's one of the really important things getting to know your body really well I think is really important like I don't think it's great to be you know concentrated on say like fitness watches and all of this but I do think there's a real um argument for you know wearing one for one month

and working out your sleep and like working out like I you know last night mine told me like because I had dinner at like 10 because I got back from work super super late and then I essentially ate dinner late and then it was like oh your heart rate was really high until like 6am like make sure you don't eat that late and I'm like haha you know me so well like you're so clever um and I like just like it doesn't need to be as high-tech solution but just like really paying attention to how you feel like when you eat late when you are late going to bed rather than early and early riser whether you like and it will be different for everyone so like that's why I'm really cautious about being like do this

do this but I think you really do know yourself and I think when you spend some time even if you literally need to have like a double page spread in your notebook and you add to it for two weeks being like this makes me feel good this makes me feel bad and you just curb that like scrolling through TikTok makes me feel great at certain points because I actually need a full escape and that's like a lab rat situation like I get my dopamine hit and move on to the next one but also there'll be some points where I'm really mentally exhausted and I think that scrolling through it is going to take my mind off it actually it's going to activate it too much and so then what I do

instead is you know I'll read a book or whatever it might be I think it's also really really important to say I have huge teams like each of these things have huge teams it's not you know yeah sure it's me talking to suppliers for like the planner or something but on top of that I know the suppliers I've got the designer I've got like all of these different things like I'm not sitting here doing everything and I think that's what's so important when looking at social media it's like you know you don't have the same amount of time as people you don't have the same bandwidth as people it's taken years to grow the teams and there's still things that I would love to do now that I can't do because I don't have the right team in place um so I think knowing bandwidth as well has been really important um and being able to I guess say no to more things one of I think

the most effective um the most effective pieces of advice in business is do less better and I think that we can have a real tendency to throw loads of shit at the wall and see what sticks and actually realistically try two things see what works like test and learn replicate what works chuck what doesn't and then go on from there you do not need to be doing everything all at once um and it is not going to be the most effective thing you think more is more but it's it's really not when it comes to business and that's one of my biggest flaws is that I am so hyperactive I guess that I want to I believe I have the bandwidth to try everything at once realistically I don't because if I have the bandwidth and I spend every weekend literally acting like a vegetable and I can't have a normal conversation with my boyfriend because I can't like

I don't know I can't maintain it in that way or like whatever whatever it might be that's not you being able to cope that's you living to work and that's one of my big concentrations this year is remove your identity ties from your work to yourself stop work at an appropriate time because what happened last year is I got into a point where I was so comfortable with work being everything because I could do it whereas actually just because I could do it, that doesn't mean that I should be doing it. And it actually meant that, you know, that when things go well, that's fine. When things go badly or when you're working really hard and nothing's changing and you're which is often the case with building teams because you can't control things. You can't control everyone else's work um and my teams are amazing but there's always you know there's always time when you build the team the wrong way and you've

given the roles and the responsibilities or whatever the org chart is just off and then you're working so hard to fix it and things are going down like it's one thing to work hard and things be getting better when you're working hard and things are going down then it's like one of the and so I think removing the chance of that ruining your week because your whole identity is not tied to your work I think is incredibly important yeah I hear you something I definitely need to work on for 2023 I've got like three quick fire questions for you to wrap up what's one thing you've changed your mind about I think a big one having come from the fitness industry is I and I think that fitness and fitness influencers are amazing they're far

better doing what they do than I ever was um and all of that but I do think that from early morning workouts that need a boost to late night drives that need vibes a good playlist that. With this card, you never miss out on getting the most points on everyday purchases. The PC Insider's World's Elite MasterCard. The card for living unlimited. Conditions apply to all benefits. Visit pcfinancial.ca for details. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill.

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And I'm sure there's been times in my past where I've been like, you do this and you do this. And it's like, to be fair, I never did it full time because I was either at university or I was, you know, whatever. But I do think that there's this real tendency to and this goes down I guess to any type of influencer like even someone's outfits being so great all the time or like whatever it or like they're looking so blow-dried or like whatever I do think that we've got it slightly wrong in slightly skewed yeah slightly skewed in terms of um that just because it's really tough not to compare yourself to a situation where it's like I guess when I get up in the morning and I have five minutes to pick my outfit and then I'm like I've lost all my fashion sense

and it's like yeah but you're following people every day who like literally like that is their job and like all of this um and so I think one thing I'm like slightly and that's not no shade to the people at all it is their job and that's what they're doing the reason they're doing it is because they're amazing at it and that's their specialty but I think that especially with the working out one if you're following someone in order to get their body or whatever it might be, and that's their job is to look like that, then you can understand why when you're, you know, picking up your kids, like, after work and then not being able to find time to work out

and then being like, you can find time, it's only 20 minutes in the morning. And it's like, yeah, sure it is, but you have two hours at the gym. Yeah, that's it. And so, like, I do think that there's probably some times in my past that I've been like, no excuses, do this. And it's like lots of excuses. Here they are. And like, sure, it's, you know, make it a priority. And there's still very much ways to fit it in and all of that.

But I think it probably wasn't very helpful me with like no dependence and some free time. And like, sure, I was doing university, but I had time, like all of those things. But what great hindsight to have as well. Yeah. And I think one of the things with that I think is really interesting about the influencer industry sorry you said quickfire I can't do quickfire um one of the things that's really interesting about the influencer industry is we put people on pedestals as they're growing at the same time like if you look back at the fitness industry when we both started there were some really toxic things out there but all of the

people promoting those toxic things were actually also the people who were I guess in that moment like that's what they were doing they weren't I mean some people would have been lying about it but they weren't lying that they were you know actually learning yeah as they went along so I do think that that's kind of important too it's like giving that grace yeah yeah I completely agree with you okay quick fire second. What's non-negotiable in your day? I use reading for headspace a lot. And I say this loosely. I mean, literally, like sometimes my brain will be fried

from a few back-to-back meetings or whatever it will be. And I'll go sit in the toilet at work and read like 10 minutes on my Kindle. Just something like that. Just, and it will be different for everyone. But for me, some people will be going on a walk. I go on a walk I can still use my phone I can still listen to a podcast about work I can still just be frazzled I need to completely distract my brain completely get my brain into a different type of thinking so I think that's quite a big non-negotiable for me and then also I don't know if this is true but I was told that the reason

you fall asleep so quickly when you start reading is because your eyes mimic like the movement of, I guess, like REM sleep. I don't know if that's true. Well. But I can't say it's not true either. Well. TBC. TBC. I like to believe it because it makes sense to me as a music student.

But like when I'm in bed and I'm reading and like literally like last night i wasn't even exhausted and i read two sentences and i was like yeah i know i it definitely helps me sleep and i know that i can help you sleep so there's so causation we need to just find out a bit more a bit more detail about that people are here to listen to like science facts and I'm here being like guys did you know I'm an R.E.M. slab love that just everyone wait for the sleep expert

to come on next week to confirm okay is there a sleep expert coming on next week or no no but we can you please ask one

for one I've made you actually have to create you're so welcome or if anyone can just like phone in, even though we don't have a phone number, but message in.

We'll take a DM. We'll take a DM. We'll take a DM. Okay, last question. We are a food podcast. What would be your death row meal? Okay, so my toxic trait is that even if I want something else in a restaurant,

if there is a good pasta or a good vegan burger, it's curtains for the rest of it. Even if I walked in there being like, oh, I could kill, I don't know what it would be. Like anything else. Literally anything else. If I go in and I'm like, I want a shepherd's pie. Or I go in and I'm like, I want, I don't know, like a roast artichoke. If I see a vegan burger on the menu, I menu i have like it's like a default in my brain

someone has programmed me wrong and i have to have it and then i'm eating it and i'm like this isn't even what i wanted today but i do think it's what i want most of the time so it would either be like a really good like really like actual italian pasta or it would be a vegan burger with like all the trimmings or are you very basic you just want bun and ketchup i want like no i want like a juicy i want an impossible burger because my thing i've never had a problem with me i used to love me it was more for sustainability reasons that i moved away but the impossible burger in the u.s because it genuinely tastes like meat like two of my sisters won't eat anything that's meaty because they originally started being vegan or veggie because they didn't like me whereas like i would walk

into a restaurant and be like it's breakfast but i will have a steak thank you yeah so i'd say that and i really like a chocolate fondant cake oh nice yeah thank you with some ice cream just on the town maybe like a little bit of ice cream i wouldn't want the ice cream on the same plate i'd want to be able to transfer spoonfuls of the ice cream onto the plate to have the perfect amount of it because not every mouthful i want to have the ice cream on okay well it is your final meal so you know you do you could you do you thank you so much well thank you for coming on the podcast it's been so lovely to like hear your story your energy everything i've picked up some productivity habits oh thank you it's been so great to hear your story, your energy, everything. I've picked up some productivity habits.

Oh, thank you. It's been so great to be on here. I was late, I would like to say, for everyone, so my productivity acts cannot be that good. But no, thank you so much for having me. What an inspiring woman and inspiring story. If you found this inspiring and you love this episode, you know what to do.

Please leave a review and a rating, hopefully five stars, and share it with someone you know will love it too. That's all from me. See you again next time.