Moment 14 - Grace Beverley On What It Takes To Build A Business

00:04um you've got you know two businesses two key businesses and um when you run a business when you're young irrespective of age you you undergo a couple of things real like unexpected chaos at any given moment then also a tremendous amount of sacrifice i actually wanted to start on the sacrifice piece because i don't think people as you said earlier get to fully see the full picture of sacrifice and cost um both personal and professional whatever so talk to me about some of the sacrifice that even you didn't expect before you got into business and before your business grew um i think that at the same time as i kind of benefited hugely from the you know having money at university for example i also went to university expecting one thing and then actually spent it essentially getting up at x hour working on university stuff because i never ever ever wanted to give them an excuse to think that I wasn't concentrating fully on my university and then working all the way essentially way into the night to get the other stuff done and I also you know that comes with being high profile that comes with all of these things so I guess one of those things was very much like there was the time and the life experience and all of that that

01:19because things took off quickly at one stage even if it wasn't like it wasn't that the businesses took off you know the businesses have done much more over the past year and a half or whatever when I haven't been at uni but at that point you know the the high profileness all of that that came with I guess different to what I was expecting um and um or not what I was expecting I wasn't expecting it at all and therefore there was kind of I guess you know something that I really did want for myself I didn't get but I also got um you know a lot more in another way way I guess well I just wanted the university experience really and I think that I was so once this took off I'm a very determined person and I get I get a vision and I'll work for it day and night and I think that I actually got to I think in that instance you it's kind of like a fork in the road and you decide okay well I'm taking this one and I'm going to concentrate on this I'm going to grow the businesses I'm going to all of that and then I think as well I saw the deadline for that as my end of university because if I had to if it wasn't as big as I wanted it to be by that time or if it wasn't you know whatever it might be I was gonna choose I was gonna go into

02:32a normal career um and I think that um so I was so dedicated to making that happen rather than you know I wanted to grow up too quickly essentially I'm 23 like I you know I'm and I think that a lot of that has been I guess in terms of people's whether when it's people who meet you their kind of perception of you or whatever it might be and so I think that was something where it was a choice I'd make again and again but it was I guess a sacrifice that I wasn't expecting to make and I guess that comes with everything that comes with you know relationships with friends with time in general with you know time to yourself time to whatever I think having a business in a way and I'm sure some people will disagree but I'm having a business in a way is like having a baby and you can't just you can't just like up and do whatever you can't you can't say no when a crisis comes in at 1am you can't like that is what it is you get all the other benefits with those conditions and so I think that you know that's kind of a constant one like you can't you can't say I'm gonna quit this and go and do this for two years because especially when you've got x amount of people working for you you've got all of their salaries you've got all

03:45of their pensions you've got you know like it's it's a huge responsibility the buck stops with you right yeah and and and that's you know it's it's it's an important one do you sometimes i reflect on uh the business journey and just how like obsessive it is and all consuming it is and i think it's a bit of a disease i'm like why did i choose this to like it's almost like masochistic yeah like obviously it's got the most amazing benefits but it is also like i remember what I remember my friend I can't remember I think I really we'd agreed to just just lockdown things we'd agreed to watch a movie on a Sunday night and then the thing came up and I was just like you know what I'm gonna like I'm gonna do this I'm just gonna work harder so it's just gonna be easier for this week and it was like tiny sacrifice and my housemate turned around for me and she was like what is the point of were you working this hard for this many years if you can't watch a movie on a sunday night and i was like yeah like as in like you're not wrong like i'm still gonna do it but like you know you're not wrong like it's what is the answer to that question though so say because i've muddled over this as well if i'm working obsessively every day at what

04:53point is is enough yeah well i think that it all comes with what you want and i think that you know i've listened to you before and i've listened to you kind of saying that you know there came a point that you realized that it wasn't about money so like what was it about and i think for me there's the kind of aspect of it's it's for the businesses and I have these really clear dreams for the businesses that result in dreams for me as well sure but I think that that is I think I'll come to a you know if I decide to sell a business or whatever I'll come to that road there where I'm like okay what is it for now and I think that knowing myself anyway I know pre-business post business I'm sure I am like that so whether it's this or whether it's something else or you know and I hope I can channel that into something else at some point that doesn't require every inch of your being um I know I'm like that so it's kind of like yeah sure it might be for nothing but it's I'm gonna do it anyway like there doesn't need to be reasoning behind the fact that this is how I am I have always been I've always yeah I've always been like this I've always been kind of like I'm gonna make this happen like whether that's kind of through like coordinating all

06:08the babysitting jobs that you got in one night and allocating them out to your friends and stuff or you know like taking essentially like any job ever that like that I could then you know that's all that's what I'm like so I kind of know that where did that come from though I I think probably a few things. I know that everyone in my family is a very hard worker and that is very, it's kind of almost like an anxiety to do well, even though like my parents were not pushy at all. I think people assume, you know, especially if you go to Oxford or like whatever, but the least pushy people ever, I think that actually it all, I kind of was discussing this with my sister the other day I was like where does it come from it doesn't come from our parents like it comes from them clearly because they had it in themselves but you know like they both my parents had careers when I was growing up I lived with my mum just me my mum and we had a tenant who lived in my mum's house and my mum was working pretty much all the time incredibly like I respect her so much for it because I also never grew up thinking like oh it's weird for a woman to have a career and have four children and like whatever she just you know she worked all the time and um

07:32and she loved it she loved it and she gave her like everything to it and so I think I spent a lot of I spent a lot of time kind of in that situation knowing that I also wanted to love what I do and I think there is this misled like perception that you know like if you love what you do you'll never work a day in your life blah blah blah blah blah um but I also think that there is this like it's a flow state isn't it like you have something that matches your challenge and your skill level and you get more fulfillment than you get from anything and I think I was so I used to say I remember saying like I think it was like when I was like 15 16 and I would take like work experience from anyone every single holiday and every single school holiday and I remember my teacher saying like you should probably choose one of the avenues and then you can do like more within that or something and I remember just saying to them like I'm so terrified that I'll be stuck in something that I hate and it was like a constant like and I don't think it's necessarily good I don't think it was necessarily healthy I was constantly so terrified that you know the same was for university the same was for whatever like I didn't get into Oxford the first time I applied

08:42I went again like I literally that same day I went online and I found out what I could do for a year that would earn myself some money to be able to not be I guess studying that year and went to and applied for the IBM future scheme which is the one they do for gap year students that that literal same day and then applied again the next year and like as in I was I'm very like that it's very set on kind of one thing and if that thing then doesn't work I either want to do it again like it's really clear to me I either want to do it again or I'm like that wasn't right and then I move on but I know that I'm very straight out and very like I will not stop until I get it right what's the uh going back to your the business and the chaos and the sacrifice is there one day in your business career over the last couple of years which was your worst day um I mean or your toughest challenge I think my toughest challenge in general was there was this stupid stupid time that I'm constantly praised for that was the worst decision I've ever made in my life which was that I was coming up to my university finals I was launching a business to I think it was a month before my university finals yeah I was launching a business beginning of May

10:03the 7th of May if I'm right um and I start I finished my finals on the 6th of June now that meant that 40,000 words were due and five three-hour exams within the space of two weeks and I also wanted to launch my business and I also wanted to do well at university I'd been working with that for three years um but I persuaded people as well I'd persuaded people to spend money on this launch I'd persuaded people to you know so I was going to do it right people were like you're amazing like this is so great like how can you do this and i'm like you were like it's not wise it's not smart like it's not like this isn't a competition for how many boxes you can tick within a small space of time that is like a fast track towards burnout and either something going incredibly wrong or whatever and i think that that you know like as i've said work was always a coping mechanism for me so it's always kind of like well if when if we have to do it now or we like run out of money before launch and we're doing it now and I don't care. Like I can work X, Y, and Z. And I actually have like a whole chapter in a book where I'm essentially talking about like, that was the time that I felt most validated in being a

11:09hard worker. And I felt like, cause I was, I was in the library at 3am and I was also on the phone with the suppliers at, you know, 7am the next morning and all of X, Y, and Z and people could see it. And I was living it. I was like hustling the hustle. And that was when I was like, wow, like this is it like I am the hard worker like with capital H and W and like this is me and I think that that is like that kind of like sums it all up in the way that that was a huge challenge also an incredibly unwise challenge at the time and yet why did that feel like the time I was doing it right so that's actually that's a lot of what spurred on essentially why I was writing the book because it was kind of like how can that be the epitome of hard work when that is also the epitome of not being productive like that's like completely unproductive um and not useful for anyone you're not going to be nice with the people you deal with at the time you have a higher chance of actually like messing things up and all of that and yet why was that the one time that i felt like truly validated for what i was doing and you were broadcasting that and i was broadcasting that and there'll be people i'm sure who see me now who are like but she you know did this and that and

12:20like yeah sure I work really hard I really do but there are some things that it's kind of like I address that and what like as I said to you while I was writing the book there were so many things that I noticed I was like I'm the problem here as well I perpetuate this how can I criticize a culture of the hustle culture that I benefit from at the same time how can I do that and I think that I think that that's what made me you know that's why I say that this book was such like a soul searching process for me because I was like you know what is that why is that like is that because I need the validation is that because we all need the validation now because hard work has become so unobtainable because it has to be doing this job that job like everything in between also being amazing at self-care also doing like x y and z and I think that that's when I was kind of like okay this is a challenge but it's not only a challenge it was a silly thing to do so it's not even like a you know there are things you have to do there are crises you have to deal with and all of that that will be a challenge and will also be incredibly rewarding and all of that and most of them are but I think there are other things that you look at and you're like yep this was

13:24a challenge and it also didn't have to happen let's not do that again