Ella Mills: Deliciously Ella - Blogging Saved My Life
Guests: Ella Mills
Full transcript · Read the full conversation in order, with its original context.
Contents1 chapter
§01Transcript — part 1§01Transcript — part 1
The thing I think about most, especially when I'm on the go but also when I'm sat here in the Diary of a CEO studio, is the Wi-Fi and internet that we have to work with. In fact, anytime I'm filming away from the studio, one of the first things I do is when I arrive, I open up an app and do a speed test to see how strong the signal is.
The number of screenshots I've sent to my team about Wi-Fi signals at different locations is actually pretty crazy. It matters that much to me because it's such a competitive advantage to have fast Wi-Fi. Because on any given day, if I'm recording, let's say, hours and hours of footage with a podcast guest, I then often have to have my team send that across to our London team, who then do the edit.
So, fast Wi-Fi and internet is not a nice-to-have; it is absolutely business mission-critical. So, when it came to finding the best provider who could supply internet and Wi-Fi to our new LA studio, which I'm sat in right now, we looked at every single option.
And of all the providers, the one that came back with the steadiest connection, as well as being the cheapest, was today's sponsor, Spectrum Business. Spectrum Business keeps businesses of all sizes connected with fast, reliable internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, and mobile services. Millions of business owners already rely on Spectrum to keep their operations connected. So if you want to join them, head to spectrum.com/business to learn more. That's spectrum.com/business. Restrictions apply. Service not available in all areas.
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 Ella Mills.
Thank you so much for joining me. My team are all tremendously big fans of yours. We've got a big food community, so the girls and guys in the office have been insistent that I sit down with you for some time now. So, super, super pumped. And I know how busy you are because you've got a book coming out soon? You're writing a book?
Yes, I’m finishing a book at the moment, but yeah, we’ve got about a hundred projects going on at the moment, so it is a bit manic, but it’s good.
What I want to do, because I always want to avoid asking the same sort of interview questions you're probably used to—and your story is out there, and it’s a tremendous story—how you’ve managed to build this tremendously big brand around yourself, but that’s become much more than yourself. I want to give you a little bit of a challenge, and this is a challenge that I give virtually all of the guests that I speak to.
I’m a bit nervous.
I want to give you 30 seconds to try and explain your life story. 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. Okay, so you up for it?
Oh, yeah.
Okay, cool. Got my timer here. So, three, two, one, go.
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, and 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 had no idea what I was going to do. 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. I started writing a blog, and I’m also a really introverted person in my core, and so I started talking to people online and communicating. From that, I started Deliciously Ella as a complete accident, and it’s 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 real core of my life and when things started happening.
How’d I do on my time?
You smashed it. 29.8 seconds.
Okay, I feel like I’ve left some things to fit in, but that’s good. I’m happy about that.
So much to talk about there. One of the things that I picked up from learning more about your journey was your own perception that much of it was luck and timing. This is something that I’ve heard a lot from speaking to successful people, and it often breeds a bit of imposter syndrome almost because they look back and think, "Well, if I wasn't there at the right time doing that thing, then I wouldn't be here now." Do you have imposter syndrome?
Yes, 100%. And it’s been interesting. I feel like there have been a few kind of key moments where it’s been really, really strong. 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.
How many copies did you sell?
In the UK, we’ve sold, I think, over 400,000 now. It was the best-selling debut cookbook ever. We’ve done over a million worldwide, so 22 languages. I mean, it’s absolute nuts. It spent eight weeks at number one on Amazon. I was really young, had no idea what I was doing, and suddenly I was kind of catapulted into this world. 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.
It wasn't something that I was looking for in my life either. Actually, my parents had been in the papers quite a lot as a kid and I hated it. So I wanted the polar opposite for my life, so it was quite a sort of weird experience. That was my first real feeling of imposter syndrome, of being like, "Why am I there? Why am I on the front of this? Why are people talking to me?" 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 when Matthew, who’s my husband and business partner, joined. He was much more experienced than I was, and he said, "You know, we’ve got to be the dumbest people in the room. We need to go out and hire people who have brilliant expertise in things that we don't have," which is 100% the right approach. 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 suddenly—so one of the first people we hired, and God knows why he took the job, was the head of innovation from Innocent Drinks.
Innocent Drinks, yeah.
He’s brilliant. And suddenly he’s so experienced and, you know, he’d helped scale up that company and he’s absolutely amazing at what he does. Suddenly you’re sitting in the room with him and they’re saying all these words and these things, and you're like, "What the hell is that?" and you’re like, "Just keep quiet and just hope they don't notice me."
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. You kind of feel like quite an idiot, and you sort of think, "Well, what’s my place in this now?" It’s taken me quite a long time to sort of separate what’s imposter syndrome and what is genuinely timing and luck.
Because I do believe in lots of success, timing and luck is a big part of it. I think for us, it’s just that when I started writing Deliciously Ella, 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 around the time of the horsemeat scandal and people kind of thinking, "What’s in my food? 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 and people were looking for this and it wasn't really that readily available. I went on Instagram and started sharing it there, and again, that was the beginning of 2013 when Instagram wasn't so big. So people looking for that kind of stuff found me much easier than they probably would now where there’s so much choice.
2013?
Yeah, beginning of 2013 was when I started on social media. So separating timing out in that sense, because 100% that played a part. But also you taking advantage of that and building on that and creating on that and engaging on that and being so focused, that’s not luck.
And do you still feel a little bit of that imposter syndrome sometimes?
Sometimes, definitely. But I think it’s getting better. 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." In 18 months, we’ve gone into five and a half thousand stores with 11 products. I feel like I can be really proud of that and feel like we as a collective, led by me and my husband, we have done that.
It sounds like the moments where you had imposter syndrome the most were actually moments where you were just taking yourself a little bit out of your comfort zone.
Completely, massively, exactly. I just couldn't quite figure out how I felt about things and where I sat. I think it’s quite common for founders 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. What do I bring to the table?" It’s going—keeping out of your comfort zone, but also kind of going back to the core of what is it that you bring to stuff that is helpful.
I’m in the exact same position, so it's like music to my ears. I remember feeling, especially when we started, feeling so intimidated to bring in smart people because I thought I might be exposed and they’re going to say, "He’s an idiot." But how much better do they make you look in hindsight?
Great teams make you look unbelievable. And great teams are everything. Like I really, truly believe that. I always say to people, I know our company’s called Deliciously Ella, 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.
Empowering that team to do what they do really well is everything. No one is really good at everything. No one is brilliant at operations, idea generation, supply chain management, marketing, sales—no one has the capacity to do all of that as well. So I think recognizing that and trying to be comfortable with it is super important as well.
So what is it that you have then? Of all those components, what is the bit that you think, "You know what, that’s the bit that I bring to the table"?
Well, I think what I came back to is the fact that it’s—I guess it’s the vision really, to be honest. It’s none of the practical stuff. I’d never had a job before Deliciously Ella. I mean, when I started it, it was the end of my second year at university and it’s what I did full-time once I left. I remember when things really took off, I was like, "God, I need to get some help. Like I need to hire someone."
I put out on an Instagram page, "Please, someone come and work with me." And I just remember sitting down with these girls, they were so lovely, and I didn't know what to ask them! I was like, "Are you nice? Will you help me? Like I don't know, what can you do?" I just had no idea.
But I think it has, it’s always been that kind of vision. So I do all our new product development and I’ll be in the kitchen coming up with ideas. I do all our social media and 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 sides, brand ambassadors and things like that, but I don't manage that on a day-to-day basis.
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?
Yeah, it’s an interesting question and, touch wood, so far I think we’ve done a good job of it. But I think that’s also I’m totally obsessive, and so I still respond to every single person on our social media. I do all our social media myself. I reply to like 300 people on Instagram every day.
Wow.
And I think things like that really help. I guess when you say what can you bring, that is it, isn't it? Right? Like you can still be at the heart of the community because I’m going to be better at being Ella than someone else is going to be. Likewise, someone who’s worked in operations for 10 years is going to be better at operations than me, who’s never worked in it.
Say I’m a second-year student and it’s 2018 and my name is Ella. And I don't have the millions of followers. Starting today, if you were me, what would you do to build a big personal brand around a point of interest, whatever that might be?
I mean, I do think social media is phenomenal for it. I mean, I think our generation is so lucky. I mean, up until a month ago, we had no one on our marketing team. We had 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.
I see us as a community, not a brand, and that has been a completely free way of doing something. We see our sales in shops and we’re outselling people who are spending millions on their marketing. I do think that real deep engagement with people is really, really interesting.
How do you do that?
Well, it’s an interesting question. I think the most—honestly, I think the most important thing is being personal, but in that, you have to decide how much you’re willing to share. Because I think that’s important as well because people want to see so much now. You know, they want to see everything that happens in your life. And for me, that’s not something I’m comfortable with. I have to have a boundary between being Deliciously Ella and being Ella.
And whilst the two aren't any different—like I don't want to show you every part of my house and every part of my friend group and all the rest of it. But you can real 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.
In anything in the world, that’s what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to be comfortable to be yourself, not to take ideas from other people but to bring your ideas to the table and really engage with people in a personal way. Because I think people are inspired by people.
If you’re able to do that, I think that’s key. And I do think content is unbelievably important. My first pictures I found through one of those archiving websites, the first blog posts, and they were absolute hideous. Everything was yellow and neon and kind of reflective light of my student house and it couldn't look any less delicious if it tried.
As it got better, the engagement definitely does go up and you’ve got to make stuff useful for people, right? The time that people seem to connect to us best, if you’re like, "Right, here is an easy lunch recipe. I’ve written it out for you, it’s going to take you 15 minutes," and you just post that, that’s what gets engagement. That’s what gets 8,000 people just saving that post on Instagram because they want to come back to it.
I’m trying to figure out how long you put in effort before there was any sign of result.
Quite a long time. My mom was my only reader for a long time. She still is a devoted reader, but she 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 slow. But I wasn't intending anyone to read it at that point either. I had about 100,000 hits on the site in that first six months. And then in the second six months, I had 900,000 and that’s when I was like, "Okay." And there was like a little map on the WordPress, back in the back end of the WordPress site I was using, and it lit up the different places in the world where people were engaging with it.
To begin with, it was just the UK and then my sister was living in America, so you’d have stuff in America, and then my boyfriend was German, so Germany was lighting up. But it was very close to home. And then in that second six months, it was suddenly like little islands in the Pacific and in Asia and South America. I don't know anyone that lives there, and so it had obviously traveled further away than my kind of immediate friends and family.
And then people suddenly emailing in being like, "I made this for dinner, I made this for my kids," or something. That’s the kind of the most bizarre experience and I think it’s still something I kind of find very weird to get used to, the fact that people are kind of taking what’s—especially at that point, I was still doing everything in my parents’ kitchen at home. It was really funny to think like, "Yeah, what you’re creating in such a small personal environment, someone 5,000 miles away is making for their children tonight." It’s a crazy, crazy thing to think that you somehow transported across the world onto someone’s table. That was a kind of really amazing, amazing moment.
One of the things I find really interesting is you said that you started the blog but not for anybody to read almost.
No, for myself.
And that seems to be one of the key ingredients in a lot of people’s success. They weren't doing it for money or to make a career out of it. Because they were so focused and 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.
That authenticity is really important. I remember 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 it’s not really in line with what I do so I’m not interested." Often, it can be really big companies offering you a lot of money.
But because it was a personal thing and I was doing it for myself at this point and it was a hobby, I was like, "Well, why would I do that? I don't want to dilute what I’m doing. I want it to be as I set out it to be." I think keeping those guidelines is really important because it means that you really you are bringing something useful to people because it really is authentic. It really it does exist for a reason.
I think when it goes wrong and you see a lot is when people are like, "Okay, I see this person’s done really well from this, I’m going to make money from this too," and they basically try and kind of completely copycat something else and it just doesn't have that soul. It doesn't have that reason for being.
The other day I couldn't sleep and I was talking to Matt, my husband, in bed and I was talking about our energy balls and, you know, yeah, they’re in five and a half thousand stores, we’ve sold millions of them in the last 18 months, it’s really exciting. And I was telling him their story. When I first got ill and I was trying to change my diet, I really—I have a real sweet tooth and I was really missing sweet stuff.
Haribo?
Yeah, Haribo. And a girlfriend of mine was like, "Well, you should try dates, they’re really sweet." I was like, "Oh, they look so brown and blobby and very unappetizing compared to Haribo, let’s be honest." She got me trying them and I was like, "Oh, these are actually really nice. You put them in the fridge and they get that bit gooeier." Dunked them in peanut butter—really yummy. Then I started dipping them in chocolate powder, like cacao powder. I was like, "This is 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, my pick-me-ups. Then I started making them for my friends and family. They were the first thing that went on our app when we did our first app. They went in the book. That’s what the community were making literally first before anything. 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.
It’s like now you see it on the shelf in Tesco, but it’s not just on the shelf in Tesco; it has this whole backstory which exists for a reason. It comes from a place. It wasn't like, "Let’s make money, let’s sell this." It was like, "I love this. Obviously, our community are loving it too because they’re making it all the time, they’re really engaged with it. Let’s share this with more people." I do think that element is really important because people connect to it.
It’s almost quite invisible, the force there of authenticity behind a story that has come from a real genuine place. People—what I’ve noticed from speaking to yourself and thinking about Ben who made Gymshark and even Ranken, everybody that I’ve spoken to, they all started by really, really caring about what they were doing and the reason behind it.
And as a result, you don't compromise on stuff because, as you said, you really care. And it’s so deeply embedded in you that, when we first started looking at making our products, people said, "Oh, well, 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." Now I feel responsible to—as you said, you’re not going to cut corners because you feel it so deeply.
You got ill during university. How was that experience for you? You made reference that you had struggles and battles with mental health issues through that period. That’s obviously something that is very sort of prevalent in our society at the moment, especially within young people. Can you share some of your experiences with that?
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 punched you or something. I wouldn't believe you for a million years and I would have been really outraged that you would 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." Anytime you get real criticism or negativity, I’m like, "No, I’m stronger than that, I can do this." So in weirdly, I’m really grateful for it, but it was a really, really tough couple of years.
I was 19 and I was at the end of my second year at uni and I’d had the best time. Growing up was quite an interesting time; my parents had a very challenging relationship and I was really happy to be kind of away from that. I was up in Scotland and I was really feeling 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. I was kind of fine with it to start with because I was—I was like, "Well, they’ll figure out what it is, they’ll give me drugs, I’ll take them, I’ll be fine."
And so I was kind of, yeah, the whole hospital process, everything that was kind of okay. And then I was put on all these drugs and I just really believed they would work and they just didn't really work. Kind of three months or so after starting different things, I was still not really able to do anything. I was still kind of spending most of my time in bed on my own. I watched all the Kardashians, all Grey’s Anatomy, all kinds of trashy TV.
And I just didn't—I was really losing myself very, very quickly. 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 with which is weird considering what I do, but I was nervous to tell people what was happening. I didn't really understand the illness in itself and it’s completely invisible; you can't see it, no kind of massive obvious symptoms of it in that sense.
I told a couple of friends and, you know, the response wasn't great. In retrospect, probably wasn't delivered great by me, but I just felt this real sense of isolation from everyone around me and a real lack of connection. You know, everyone else was really, really worried about who’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." 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.
I think that was one of the biggest problems of it and, as a result, again probably not the right decision, but I just didn't really know what else to do. I just completely cut myself off from everyone basically because I didn't really know how to communicate with everyone.
I remember as I started to get a little bit better, my boyfriend at the time, who was unbelievable throughout the whole process, he lived with four guys who’d been good friends before they were amazing, and he was like, "No, 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, "Oh, she’s so weird, what’s wrong with her?"
They were watching a movie and I just remember leaving the room just crying because I just felt so uncomfortable in my skin with people. 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.
I did managed to get that quite stable after two years, and then it took a kind of further two years to get into 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 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.
I know it’s something that sticks with me today. I’m always conscious people think I’m boring. The other day, my husband was making fun of me for something and said "boring" and I had this complete panic. I was like, "Oh my God, he thinks I’m boring, everyone thinks I’m boring." It’s amazing how those kind of insecurities do really, really stick in you.
Do you think that social media is contributing negatively to that? Specifically things like Instagram where you just see the highlight?
100%. Well, so Instagram I wasn't on at this point. This was end of 2011 to beginning of 2012 and most of my friends weren't really on it at that point. So it was Facebook. But I remember times where 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 going to wear? What are you going to 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. I would then refresh Facebook, seeing pictures of them all looking really gorgeous and glamorous, 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.
I was like, "God, you know, they look so amazing, they look so happy, 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 asked them the next day, "Like actually how was it?" they’re like, "Oh, well this person did this and this person’s so annoyed with this person about this." But you see this image which is of such perfection and you just compare yourself to it, and you compare yourself really badly to it.
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 a 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 a minute insight into 24 hours. It’s a kind of one second out of thousands.
Because I made breakfast this morning and then I went on your Instagram and I just felt...
And also, no, but seriously, like when I make breakfast for Instagram, it looks different from when I make it at home which is just into a bowl. But the what you were saying about the Kardashians, about watching that didn't help, is 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 savior, was that I massively lacked any sense of purpose in my life. And that was, I think, one of the biggest contributors to feeling really low because I just felt so lost. My kind of sense of identity and who I was had changed overnight, and I just was so confused about my being.
It was really interesting because when I started the blog, in the grand spectrum of things, you know, trying a recipe, taking a picture, putting it online, it’s not a whole lot, but I felt like I was doing something. I felt like I could tick something off a list, I achieved it, I created something.
Suddenly when I was then seeing people’s pictures on Facebook, I felt much less bad about it because I could be like, "Oh, well I’ll spend this time thinking about my next recipes and I could do this with this and I could do that with that," and being excited about that and feeling like it’s okay because I’m not there because I can do this and I want to do this. And when it was when I felt like I had nothing else to do and there was no sense of purpose, that was when I felt my most low.
I come back to that a lot and I think what you were saying earlier 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.
What would you say to yourself in that moment if you could go back and have one minute with yourself? What would you say?
Do you know what—and I’d hate myself for it—but I think it is, and I think I’ve learned it more and more, is that there are choices in life. I wasn't making it any better. You know, like it was a crap situation. Like there’s no getting around it—I was 20, I suddenly, yeah, like my heart rate was 190 whenever I stood up, I was so dizzy, I felt like I was going to faint, I looked like I was nine months pregnant, I couldn't eat anything, my digestive system was so bad.
I spent two and a half years on antibiotics, including antibiotic drips for chronic infections, like I had really bad chronic fatigue, like I had loads of pain, I couldn't do anything. Like that’s crap. There’s no—I’m not trying to say it’s not.
But sitting in bed on your own, refusing to communicate with people, watching TV on repeat and eating Pick ‘n’ Mix isn't making it any better. And I think that’s what I realized when I started trying to cook. And even though it took a while for it all 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 is like just try and see if you can change it just a little bit. Even like pick up the phone to someone, be honest with them, see if they’ll come watch the movie with you. That would have made it a lot better.
Corporate credit cards, cash flow management, centralizing spend, help with catching fraud—a powerful corporate card program needs to do a lot. So, it should be designed to help work with your business. That's why with the American Express Corporate Program, you can customize key elements to match your company's needs. Explore and apply for a variety of card types based on employee roles, select liability and billing options that fit your needs, add spending controls to support compliance, and decide whether earning rewards or cashback in the form of a statement credit delivers more value for your business. Learn more and start customizing your corporate program at americanexpress.com/corporate. Terms apply.
When your cat is acting weirder, or your dog is being louder, your turtle moves slower, your cat seems thirstier, or your puppy is acting clumsier... day or night, if you don't know what's wrong, know where to go. Veg ER for Pets, this is Kate. Veg, the better, kinder ER for pets.
Amazing. There’s so many—I feel like we’re in a generation at the moment that—it almost feels like mental health issues are more prevalent now than they ever have been before. I’m not sure whether it’s awareness has gone up surrounding these issues like anxiety and depression, or whether it’s because social media is causing it. So I’m not sure if social media has increased awareness or social media has increased...
I feel like it’s a combination of the two, to be honest. I think the thing with social media is I just think—I do, I genuinely think it’s amazing in terms of inspiration, ideas. You can watch things like this, you can connect with friends really easily. My siblings all used to live in different places in the world and I could see what my sister was doing in America, my brother in Switzerland—and that was really cool and I love that.
But at the same time, 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. But like if you’re sitting next to someone, you can compare yourself to them but you know them. So you know that no human being is totally perfect, and so they’re brilliant at that but they’re not as good at 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 and 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 is not going to make you feel better. So I think we just have to—it’s like conscious consumerism, isn't it? It’s just conscious kind of viewing and being aware of what’s good for us and what’s not.
So you’ve done so much now. When I was reading through your bio, I was like, how in such a short space of time has this all happened? I know, I’m such a psycho. What—I’m going to ask you two questions and they’re both kind of polar opposite. What do you worry about and what are you most excited about when you think about the future? And this doesn't necessarily need to be within business, it can be...
I feel like my whole life is business at the moment. 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, is 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 60 people and, you know, scale it that quickly and have the most active social life. 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 canceled five trips in 18 months because work happens and you’ve got to be there.
You’ve taken that responsibility on; we’re responsible for making sure these people are able to be paid at the end of every month and that they can look after their families and they can progress with their careers. 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 is 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. We’re creating the right things at the right time, it’s what people are looking for, more and more people are interested in it.
It’s just phenomenally exciting and I think, especially for someone that never had massive hopes for themselves and like in terms of what I could achieve, then suddenly seeing what you can achieve in front of you and working towards that is about the most exciting ever. Our team’s phenomenal and getting to work with them and learn from them is just—it’s unbelievable.
You say "we" there. That’s yourself and your husband. As you know, I’ve got some questions for you about that. 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. I at one point worked very, very closely with my girlfriend and it didn't work out for various reasons.
I think the reasons why it didn't work out is because I am very—I’m a really bad at compromise. I’m a little bit too obsessed with working to the point that balance is really ugly for me. Saturdays and Sundays I’m in the office and I want to be. And I often found it hard to relate to them in the context of a working environment where there’s pressure and there’s a lot of things to do. I would often forget the fact that there was that romantic element as well. How has it been for you and how have you made it work so well?
Completely relate to all of that. I think dividing like, as you say, kind of like a romantic time and work is I think nigh-on impossible. But I think the reason why it has worked is because we’re so different. We have very similar goals and ambitions, which I think is really important. But what we do and where our strengths lie, there’s almost no overlap at all.
Like he is 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 on the career trajectory they want to be on, that they’re listened to, they’re supported. He knows how to deal with everyone individually, that’s so—and he loves doing that.
I hate people management. I’m not that good at it. I’m like want to do this and this and this and I’m running around and and so I’m not that calm in that sense and much more energetic. He’s absolutely amazing with that. He’s got the most steady, clear head, 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. That’s my worst nightmare, and he’s really good at it. That was his experience before Deliciously Ella; he’d worked in finance and in business development.
So he really enjoys that. I really enjoy being creative, and I love that I can now be fully and solely creative and trust him, along with our head of finance, head of operations, 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...
How do you work with your partner and not just want to sometimes rip their head off?
Yeah, that happens 100%. Like every now and again. We always said like if we have big decisions to make, we have to make them together. And that’s challenging. It’s an inevitable thing though, right? Totally. And also because the way you are at home, like you have a really honest dialogue. And suddenly you’re in the office and you’re like, "You’re an idiot!" and then you’re like, "You can't say that."
Do you ever have those arguments in front of people?
No, no. So we made a complete pact: we’ll be completely united. You know, we’ll have debates and discussions. You know, he’ll 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 talk about it on our own and then bring a united front to a meeting. Because I’m always conscious for people it must be weird in some capacity working with a husband and wife team. And so I wouldn't want to make anybody else feel uncomfortable by us bringing it into the meeting room.
Okay, good. Cool. That answered a few of my questions. So my last question for you then. Dinner party. I ask everybody this question. There’s six seats at the table. I’ve been invited because it’s my game. You’re there as well, so there’s four other seats. You can invite anybody, dead or alive. I would like to know who you would invite and what they’re going to eat. They’ll have one main meal, so don't need to worry about starters and desserts and things, but cool.
Such a hard one, isn't it? Because you’re so torn between different things. Like one part of me is like I want to invite the Spice Girls, although I’ve only got four seats, so I don't know who doesn't get the invite. Don't invite your husband just yet. I know, he’s outside. Your husband’s outside, you’re like, "We’ve got the Spice Girls in there." Exactly.
And then 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 or like a Dolly Parton or someone like that who just thinks brilliant. Or do you want like it to be quite interesting and get like Trump in the room? Like who doesn't want to ask him questions?
You’re going to create a dynamic as well amongst the guests?
Exactly. Like 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 bring them all to the table.
So you’re going to go for Donald Trump and Enrique Iglesias?
Why not? I think it’d be an interesting dynamic, and I’d love to meet them both.
So we’re going to go for Scary Spice, Donald Trump, 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 seat 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.
What are they eating then?
Indian. So again, I don't know how well that goes, but it’s my favorite. I love Indian food; they do amazing vegetarian food. And I love that you get little bits of different things. So I’d have like loads of different curries and chana masala and aloo gobi, loads of garlicy naan. And I think it’d be very interesting; we’d have to film it, obviously.
I’m so excited, I can't wait. Thank you so much for coming in today. I know how busy you are. You’re an incredibly inspiring person and you’re like a ray of sunshine to be around as well. So thank you so much, and I can't wait to watch your journey unfold as it continues. Thank you so much.
Oh, my pleasure. Nice to meet you and thank you for everything. So much fun.
(Outro music)
The thing I think about most, especially when I'm on the go but also when I'm sat here in the Diary of a CEO studio, is the Wi-Fi and internet that we have to work with. In fact, anytime I'm filming away from the studio, one of the first things I do is when I arrive, I open up an app and do a speed test to see how strong the signal is.
The number of screenshots I've sent to my team about Wi-Fi signals at different locations is actually pretty crazy. It matters that much to me because it's such a competitive advantage to have fast Wi-Fi. Fast Wi-Fi and internet is not a nice-to-have; it is absolutely business mission-critical.
So, when it came to finding the best provider who could supply internet and Wi-Fi to our new LA studio, we looked at every single option. And of all the providers, the one that came back with the steadiest connection, as well as being the cheapest, was today's sponsor, Spectrum Business. Spectrum Business keeps businesses of all sizes connected with fast, reliable internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, and mobile services. Millions of business owners already rely on Spectrum to keep their operations connected. So if you want to join them, head to spectrum.com/business to learn more. That's spectrum.com/business. Restrictions apply. Service not available in all areas.
No two companies are alike. That's why the American Express Corporate Program can help you customize rewards, reporting, and billing options, all designed for your business. Build your program with American Express at americanexpress.com/corporate. Terms apply.
When your cat is acting weirder, or your dog is being louder, your turtle moves slower, your cat seems thirstier, or your puppy is acting clumsier... day or night, if you don't know what's wrong, know where to go. Veg ER for Pets, this is Kate. Veg, the better, kinder ER for pets.