E20: Deliciously Ella - Blogging Saved My Life

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Steven Bartlett?

  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.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  My pleasure.

• 0:40Steven Bartlett?

  My team are all tremendously big fans of you. We're in 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. So, super, super pumped.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  Well, thank you for having me.

• 0:51Steven Bartlett?

  And I know how busy you are because you've got a book coming out soon. You're writing a book?

• 0:55Speaker 01

  Yes, 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.

• 1:01Steven Bartlett?

  This craziness. What I want to do, because I always want to avoid asking the same sort of interview questions you're probably used to.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:08Steven Bartlett?

  And your story is out there.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10Steven Bartlett?

  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.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm a bit nervous.

• 1:23Steven Bartlett?

  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 the things that are in my mind in retrospect really important.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:38Steven Bartlett?

  So, are you up for it?

• 1:39Speaker 01

  Oh yeah.

• 1:40Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, good. I've got my timer here.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:43Steven Bartlett?

  So, 3, 2, 1, go.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Okay, 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 said, "What were you going to do?" I had 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

• 2:27Speaker 01

  I started Delicious Yellow. It's a complete accident and it's to kind of completely changed 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. How am I doing my timing?

• 2:43Steven Bartlett?

  You smashed it. Twenty nine point nine seconds.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  Okay, I feel like there's a hundred things I could have missed then, but that's good. I'm happy about that.

• 2:51Steven Bartlett?

  That was so good. So much to talk about that. One of the things that I 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 I've heard a lot from speaking to successful people and it often breeds a bit of like imposter syndrome almost. Because because they 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?

• 3:22Speaker 01

  Yes, a hundred percent. And it's 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

• 3:42Steven Bartlett?

  How many copies did you sell?

• 3:43Speaker 01

  We've sold, in the UK, we've sold, I think, over 400,000 now. It's the best selling debut of a book. We've done over a million worldwide, 22 languages. I mean, it's absolutely nuts. It 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

• 4:24Speaker 01

  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 hundred 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,

• 5:06Speaker 01

  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'd help 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. So much smarter and you know, they're saying all these words and these things. 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.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  So to 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 Ceciella, 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, it was around time like the horse meat scandal and people kind of eating what's in my food. 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.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  And so people looking for that kind of stuff found me much easier than they probably would now where there's so much choice.

• 6:38Steven Bartlett?

  2013?

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:39Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Beginning of 2013 was when I started on social media.

• 6:42Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  So separating timing out in that sense, because a hundred percent 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.

• 6:55Steven Bartlett?

  And do you still feel a little bit of that imposter syndrome sometimes?

• 6:59Speaker 01

  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, okay, 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.

• 7:22Steven Bartlett?

  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.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Completely massively, exactly. And I was just couldn't quite figure out how I felt about things and where I sat. And like, I think for a lot, and 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. 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?

• 7:57Steven Bartlett?

  I'm in the exact same position, so it's like music to my ears. And I remember feeling, especially when we started, feeling so intimidated to bring in smart people because I thought I might be exposed.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Exactly, and they're gonna say he is an idiot.

• 8:09Steven Bartlett?

  But how much, how much better do they make you look?

• 8:12Speaker 01

  I know.

• 8:12Steven Bartlett?

  So it's like, good teams, like great teams make you look unbelievable, right?

• 8:16Speaker 01

  And 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's called Delicious Yella, it has my name in it. It's 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.

• 8:54Steven Bartlett?

  So what is it that you have then? Of all those components?

• 8:57Speaker 01

  That's the biggest question, isn't it?

• 8:59Steven Bartlett?

  What is it, what is the bit that you think, do you know what, that's the bit that I bring to the table?

• 9:03Speaker 01

  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 Yella. I mean, when I, so, 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 remember sitting down with these guys and they're 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.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  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.

• 10:01Steven Bartlett?

  And do 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?

• 10:10Speaker 01

  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 three hundred 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 gonna be better at being Ella than someone else is gonna be. Likewise, someone who's worked in operations for ten years is gonna be better operations than me, who's never worked in it.

• 10:48Steven Bartlett?

  So I'm a second year student.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:50Steven Bartlett?

  And it's two thousand and eighteen and my name is Ella.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 10:54Steven Bartlett?

  I I don't have millions of followers.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:58Steven Bartlett?

  Starting today, if you were me.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:01Steven Bartlett?

  What would you do to to to build a big personal brand around a point of interest, whatever that might be?

• 11:09Speaker 01

  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 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 outselling people who are spending millions on their marketing. And I do think that. That real deep engagement with people is really, really interesting.

• 11:47Steven Bartlett?

  How do you do that?

• 11:49Speaker 01

  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 wanna see so much now. You know, they wanna 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. I don't wanna 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.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  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.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  I've written it out for you. It's going to take you fifteen minutes and you just post that. That's what gets engagement. That's what gets, you know, eight thousand people just saving that post on Instagram because they want to come back to it.

• 13:24Steven Bartlett?

  I'm trying to figure out how long you put in effort before there was any sign of result.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  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 being 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 a hundred thousand hits on the site in that first six months. And then in the second six months, I had nine hundred thousand. And that's when I was like, okay. And there was like a little map on the WordPress, back, 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.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  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 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 I don't know anyone that lives there and so it had obviously travelled. Further away than my kind of immediate friends and family and then people started emailing in being like I made this for dinner, I made this for 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.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  It was really funny to think like, yeah, what you're creating in such a small personal environment, someone. Five thousand 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.

• 15:14Steven Bartlett?

  One of the things I find really interesting is you said that you started the blog.

• 15:19Steven Bartlett?

  But not for anybody to read almost.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  No, for myself.

• 15:22Steven Bartlett?

  And that seems to be one of the like key ingredients in a lot of people's successes. 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 or for themselves. It became a passion, therefore it sustains the test of time and when you weren't getting paid to do it.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  That authenticity is really important and I remember like as I started growing, you know, 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 like it's not really in line with what I do, so like I'm not interested and often like 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, why would I do that? I don't wanna 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, it does exist for a reason. And I think when it goes wrong and you see it a lot, it's when people are like,

• 16:24Speaker 01

  okay, I see this person's done really well from this, I'm gonna 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 sold millions of them in the last eighteen months, it's really exciting. And I was telling him like their story, you know, and I, 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. And. Harry Bo. Yeah, Harry Bo. 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, and appetizing compared to Harry Bo.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  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 gooey. Dunk them in peanut butter, really yummy. And then I started dipping them in chocolate powder, like a cow powder. So 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, somebody pick me up. And then I started making them with my friends and family. And then with the first thing, they 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.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  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. Sure. 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 let's share this with more people. And I do think that element is really important because people connect to it.

• 18:11Steven Bartlett?

  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 Ben who made Jim Shark.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:23Steven Bartlett?

  And even Rankin, everybody that I've spoke to, they all started. But that story of really, really caring about what they were doing and the reason behind it.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  And as a result, you don't compromise on stuff because as you said, you really care.

• 18:35Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  And you're it's so deeply embedded in you that, you know, 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.

• 18:56Steven Bartlett?

  You got ill during university. How was that experience for you? And you you you referenced that you you had struggles and battles with mental health issues through that period. That's obviously something that has is very sort of 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 around that topic.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, I mean, that I guess it's really weird because if you 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 punched you or something. You know, I wouldn't believe you for a million years and 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. 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 nineteen 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.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  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, 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 because I was like, well, they'll figure out what it is. They'll take give me drugs, I'll take them, I'll be fine. And so I 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.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  And I and I just didn't, I 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 and 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, no kind of massive obvious symptoms of it in that sense. And I 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.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  And a real lack of connection, you know, everyone else was really, really worried about who's knocked 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, I didn't really know what else to do.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  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, he 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.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  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 conscious people think I'm boring. And like, the other day, my husband was making fun of me, something and, and said boring. And I had this like 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.

• 23:27Steven Bartlett?

  And do you, do you think, 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?

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh, a hundred percent.

• 23:41Steven Bartlett?

  You don't know what I'm gonna say.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  I know exactly what you're gonna say.

• 23:44Steven Bartlett?

  I was gonna say, do you think that social media has, is contributing negatively to that, specifically things like Instagram?

• 23:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, so Instagram wasn't on at this point. This was now, yeah, two thousand, end of two thousand and eleven, beginning of two thousand and twelve, and most of my friends weren't really on it at that point. So it was Facebook.

• 23:58Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  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 what 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.

• 24:14Steven Bartlett?

  Kardashians doesn't help either, right?

• 24:15Speaker 01

  No, I don't think it does 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. The reality is if I ask them 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. And then, 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.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  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 like it's fully real, it's not real. It's just a minute new insight into 24 hours. It's a kind of one second out of thousands.

• 25:16Steven Bartlett?

  Cause I made breakfast this morning and then I went on your Instagram and I just felt.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:21Steven Bartlett?

  Superior.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  And also like, no, maybe in seriously, when I make breakfast for Instagram, it looks different for when I make it at home, which is just like into a bowl.

• 25:28Steven Bartlett?

  It's like a piece of art.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Totally, but what you're saying about the Kardashians I watched and I didn't have was also an interesting point. And it's not necessarily about the Kardashians as such, but it was what was actually the most hard part. And where the blog, starting the blog was actually my complete saviour. Was that I massively lacked any sense of purpose in my life.

• 25:46Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  And that was, I think, one of the biggest contributors to feeling really low. Because I, I just was so lost, my kind of sense of identity and who I was had changed overnight. And I, I just was so confused about my being. And it was really interesting because when, when I started the blog, in the grand spectrum of things like, you know, trying a recipe, taking a picture, putting it online. It's, 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. Cause 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.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  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, I come back to that a lot. And I think when we 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.

• 27:02Steven Bartlett?

  And 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?

• 27:09Speaker 01

  Do you know what? And I'd, 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. Like, there's no getting around it. Like, I was twenty, I suddenly, yeah, like my heart rate was a hundred and ninety whenever I stood up. I was so dizzy, I was felt like I was gonna 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, 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,

• 27:53Speaker 01

  refusing to communicate with people, watching TV on repeat and eating pick-a-mix, isn't making it any better.

• 28:00Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  And I think that's what I realised when I started trying to cook. And just, even though it took a while to, or for 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. It's 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, they'll come watch the movie with you, you know? And that would have made it a lot better.

• 28:35Steven Bartlett?

  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.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:46Steven Bartlett?

  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, is causing it. So I'm not sure if social media has increased awareness or social media has increased.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  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 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, my brother in Switzerland, and like 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 like if you are feeling down on yourself, don't go look at Victoria's Secret models or things like that. You know, like 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 we all, I think it's human nature to compare yourself.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  But like 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. 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, it's not going to make you feel better. So I think we just have to, it's like conscious consumerism, isn't it?

• 30:25Speaker 01

  It's just conscious kind of viewing and being aware of what, what's good for us and what's not.

• 30:30Steven Bartlett?

  So you've done, 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?

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Such a psycho.

• 30:38Steven Bartlett?

  What, I'm going to ask you two questions and they're, 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.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  I feel like my whole life is business. I guess, I think worry about in terms of business, and that's probably my biggest insecurity sometimes is 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 don't, it's not about making sacrifices, but it is about making choices. And you can't run a business with sixty 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 cancelled five trips in eighteen months because like,

• 31:37Speaker 01

  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 the 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's become 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 times, what people are looking for, more and more people are interested in it and

• 32:17Speaker 01

  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. And suddenly seeing what you can achieve in front of you and like, working towards that is, it's about the most exciting thing ever. And like, our team's phenomenal, getting to work with them and learn from them is just, it's unbelievable.

• 32:36Steven Bartlett?

  And you say we there, that's you, yourself and your husband?

• 32:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:39Steven Bartlett?

  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.

• 32:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:51Steven Bartlett?

  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. Didn't work out is because I am very, I'm really bad at compromise.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:03Steven Bartlett?

  I'm a little bit too obsessed with working.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:05Steven Bartlett?

  To the, like, that balance is really ugly for me. Um, like Saturdays and Sundays, I'm in the office and I want to be. And I I've often found it hard to relate to them. And also, uh, 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?

• 33:25Speaker 01

  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 wanna be on,

• 34:08Speaker 01

  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, wanna 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 like 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 can, you know, he loves getting deep into the numbers and doing the cash flow and the projections and the forecasting and like, that's my worst nightmare. And he's really good at it. And that was his experience before Delicious Yellow. He'd worked in finance and in business development.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  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 the head of finance, head of operations, head of sales, etc. 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 and...

• 35:20Steven Bartlett?

  How do you work with your partner and not just want to sometimes rip their head off?

• 35:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, that happens 100%. Like, every 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.

• 35:31Steven Bartlett?

  It's an inevitable thing though, right?

• 35:33Speaker 01

  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!"

• 35:40Steven Bartlett?

  Do you ever have those arguments in front of people?

• 35:43Speaker 01

  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, "Oh, I don't know about that blue. I like that blue." But if it's a big decision, we'll make, we'll talk about it on our own and then bring 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.

• 36:12Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, good. Cool. That answers a few of my questions. So my last question for you then, dinner party, and I ask everybody this question. There's six seats at the table. I've been invited because it's...

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 36:25Steven Bartlett?

  ...for my game. You're there as well, so there's four other seats. You can invite anybody, dead or alive.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:32Steven Bartlett?

  I would like to know who you would invite and what they're gonna eat.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 36:37Steven Bartlett?

  They'll have one main meal, so don't need to worry about starters and desserts and things, but...

• 36:41Speaker 01

  Okay, that's helpful.

• 36:42Steven Bartlett?

  Cool.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  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, I don't know who doesn't get the invite.

• 36:52Steven Bartlett?

  Not invite a husband just yet.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  I know, I just want a Spice Girl.

• 36:56Steven Bartlett?

  Your husband's outside, you're like, you've got a Spice Girl in there.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  Or, or do you want like your childhood crush, like I used to have the biggest crush on Enrique Iglesias. Do you want him there? You know, but then on, or like a Dolly Parton or someone like that, he's just like, things 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 a question?

• 37:15Steven Bartlett?

  Dynamic as well amongst the guests.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Would it be weird to have like, you know, like scary Spice and Donald Trump? And Enrique Iglesias at your table together, it might be an interesting, interesting time. So, yeah, we'll, we'll bring them all to the table.

• 37:33Steven Bartlett?

  So you're gonna, you're gonna go for, you're actually gonna go for Donald Trump and Enrique Iglesias?

• 37:37Speaker 01

  Dynamic, I know, I'd like to meet them all.

• 37:39Steven Bartlett?

  So we're gonna go for scary Spice?

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Yes, um, why not? And Donald Trump and Enrique Iglesias. 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 tuxes. So 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.

• 38:06Steven Bartlett?

  What are they eating then?

• 38:06Speaker 01

  Indian.

• 38:07Steven Bartlett?

  Indian food?

• 38:08Speaker 01

  So again, I don't know how well that goes. But it's my favourite. 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. And I think it'd be very interesting, we'd have to film that, obviously.

• 38:30Steven Bartlett?

  I'm so excited, I can't wait. Thank you so much for your time today.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  My pleasure, thank you.

• 38:35Steven Bartlett?

  You're an incredibly inspiring person and you're like a ray of sunshine to be around as well.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 38:40Steven Bartlett?

  You'll be linked everywhere and you'll be on our lovely community as well. So, thank you so much.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  No, thank you, thank you guys.

• 38:47Steven Bartlett?

  To watch your journey unfold as it continues. Thank you so much.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Oh, my pleasure, nice to meet you and thank you for everything.