Podcast appearances and mentions of anna well

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Text Posts from the Kids Group: 2021, published by jefftk on November 10, 2023 on LessWrong. Another round of liberating kid posts from Facebook. For reference, in 2021 Lily turned 7, Anna turned 5, and Nora was born. (Some of these were from me; some were from Julia. Ones saying "me" could mean either of us.) Anna: Hello, I'm Mr. Hamburger. Me: It's time to brush teeth, Mr. Hamburger. Anna: I can't brush my teeth, I'm a hamburger. Me: It's still time to brush teeth. Anna: Hamburgers don't have teeth. "Anna, try bonking your head into the faucet! I tried it, and the new squishy cover works!" Last week Lily said she wanted bangs. I told her there is a three-week waiting period for any major haircut, and set a calendar reminder for us to talk about it again in three weeks. She agreed. Two days later, she asked, "If I have bangs, will all my hair be short?" I asked, "...Do you know what bangs are?" "No." We've been reading "The Boxcar Children", and the kids are excited about playing at roughing it in the woods. Lily came downstairs with a pillowcase full of stuff. "Mom, we're pretending we are some poor people and we found just enough money to buy two couches, two pillows, a cooking pot, some stuffies, and this necklace. And I had just enough money to buy this pirate ship and two dolls." "Dad, why are sponges squishy? Like mice?" Jeff: Goodnight, Anna. Anna: Oy-yoy-yoy-yoy-yoy! That's baby for "You're the best dad in the world." Woke up to Lily reading to Anna Hypothetical from Lily: "Mom, if you lived in a peanut shell and the only food you had was cheez-its this big" [holds up fingers to pea size] "and you slept in a shoe made of stone, and ten hundred children lived there, would you find somewhere else to live?" From Lily at dinner: "There is something that makes me sad. [begins singing] Fairies aren't real Magic isn't real Unicorns aren't real Santa Claus isn't real The aTooth Fairy isn't real." Lily, explaining the difference between even and odd numbers: "If they could all line up for a contra dance and they'd all have a partner, that's even." Lily: "Anna, why did you hit me with the whistle?" Anna, not wearing glasses or anything: "I'm sorry, my sight had gotten fogged up" One of Lily's favorite conversations with Anna is the "gotcha." Lily: I was talking to Dad about if we could get a pony. Do you really really want a pony too? Anna: Yeah. Lily: Well we barely know anything about ponies, and we don't have enough room! ...Anna, do you think it would be cool to be a cowgirl? Anna: Yeah. Lily: Well you would have to accept very little pay, you would have to work long hours, and you would barely even get a hut to sleep in! Lily: "I'm super mad that the Fifth Amendment is still there! Somebody definitely needs to remove that thing" ... Yesterday I explained plea bargaining, and she also thinks that's no good. Anna, immediately after we sat down to dinner: "Here are some facts about teeth. Teeth are hard white blades that grow out of these things [indicates gums]. They can cut and grind." Lily, settling down for the night with her teddy bear: "Mom, do you know what I like about Little Bear? First, he's soft to cuddle with. Second, he's an apex predator, so if monsters are real I feel like he'll protect me." Anna: "Mom, can you sing the song where there's a big fight during the night and when the sun rises he's happy because he sees the flag?" Anna: "why aren't you making my breakfast?" Me: "you haven't told me what you wanted to eat yet?" Anna: "I did tell you!" Me: "I don't remember that?" Anna: "Well, I already told you!" Me: "Could you tell me again? Anna: "I don't repeat myself" Me: "Sorry, what?" Anna: "I DON'T REPEAT MYSELF!" Anna's statements of "fact" get less factual when she's mad. I helped her order a toy this morning with her allowance, and she asked when...

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Text Posts from the Kids Group: 2021, published by jefftk on November 10, 2023 on LessWrong. Another round of liberating kid posts from Facebook. For reference, in 2021 Lily turned 7, Anna turned 5, and Nora was born. (Some of these were from me; some were from Julia. Ones saying "me" could mean either of us.) Anna: Hello, I'm Mr. Hamburger. Me: It's time to brush teeth, Mr. Hamburger. Anna: I can't brush my teeth, I'm a hamburger. Me: It's still time to brush teeth. Anna: Hamburgers don't have teeth. "Anna, try bonking your head into the faucet! I tried it, and the new squishy cover works!" Last week Lily said she wanted bangs. I told her there is a three-week waiting period for any major haircut, and set a calendar reminder for us to talk about it again in three weeks. She agreed. Two days later, she asked, "If I have bangs, will all my hair be short?" I asked, "...Do you know what bangs are?" "No." We've been reading "The Boxcar Children", and the kids are excited about playing at roughing it in the woods. Lily came downstairs with a pillowcase full of stuff. "Mom, we're pretending we are some poor people and we found just enough money to buy two couches, two pillows, a cooking pot, some stuffies, and this necklace. And I had just enough money to buy this pirate ship and two dolls." "Dad, why are sponges squishy? Like mice?" Jeff: Goodnight, Anna. Anna: Oy-yoy-yoy-yoy-yoy! That's baby for "You're the best dad in the world." Woke up to Lily reading to Anna Hypothetical from Lily: "Mom, if you lived in a peanut shell and the only food you had was cheez-its this big" [holds up fingers to pea size] "and you slept in a shoe made of stone, and ten hundred children lived there, would you find somewhere else to live?" From Lily at dinner: "There is something that makes me sad. [begins singing] Fairies aren't real Magic isn't real Unicorns aren't real Santa Claus isn't real The aTooth Fairy isn't real." Lily, explaining the difference between even and odd numbers: "If they could all line up for a contra dance and they'd all have a partner, that's even." Lily: "Anna, why did you hit me with the whistle?" Anna, not wearing glasses or anything: "I'm sorry, my sight had gotten fogged up" One of Lily's favorite conversations with Anna is the "gotcha." Lily: I was talking to Dad about if we could get a pony. Do you really really want a pony too? Anna: Yeah. Lily: Well we barely know anything about ponies, and we don't have enough room! ...Anna, do you think it would be cool to be a cowgirl? Anna: Yeah. Lily: Well you would have to accept very little pay, you would have to work long hours, and you would barely even get a hut to sleep in! Lily: "I'm super mad that the Fifth Amendment is still there! Somebody definitely needs to remove that thing" ... Yesterday I explained plea bargaining, and she also thinks that's no good. Anna, immediately after we sat down to dinner: "Here are some facts about teeth. Teeth are hard white blades that grow out of these things [indicates gums]. They can cut and grind." Lily, settling down for the night with her teddy bear: "Mom, do you know what I like about Little Bear? First, he's soft to cuddle with. Second, he's an apex predator, so if monsters are real I feel like he'll protect me." Anna: "Mom, can you sing the song where there's a big fight during the night and when the sun rises he's happy because he sees the flag?" Anna: "why aren't you making my breakfast?" Me: "you haven't told me what you wanted to eat yet?" Anna: "I did tell you!" Me: "I don't remember that?" Anna: "Well, I already told you!" Me: "Could you tell me again? Anna: "I don't repeat myself" Me: "Sorry, what?" Anna: "I DON'T REPEAT MYSELF!" Anna's statements of "fact" get less factual when she's mad. I helped her order a toy this morning with her allowance, and she asked when...

Welcome to March 1st, 2023 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate transformational music and food that's dadgum good. Music is a universal language. Some would say it's a tool for transformation. Bill Protzmann of San Diego, California has an impressive musical background. In high school he mastered the piano by performing ragtime, classical and big band styles. Bill found that music has a way of stirring the soul, whether it's the sound of “charge” at a baseball game or the soothing sound of your own voice at a sing along. These days he takes that effect to heart with his own organization, musimorphic. Since 2010, Bill has volunteered with at risk individuals experiencing post traumatic stress, homelessness and even substance abuse. Check out musimorphic.com to see how some people celebrate World Music Therapy Day every day. And if you happen to be in Balboa Park, join Bill and his artist wife Rebecca for a sing along. Anna: Walk like an Egyptian... Marlo: What are you doing there Anna? Anna: I'm cooking like an Egyptian. Have you ever had Egyptian food, Marlo? Marlo: Can't say that I have! Anna: Well today is National Dadgum That's Good Day and I'm whipping up a tasty meal of Kafta which is a beef kabob with garlic and parsley and onion; Kashari has spices with rice, lentils and pasta with a spicy tomato sauce and dukkah; a mixture of pistachios, hazelnuts, cumin, coriander ... here, have a taste! Marlo: Oh, that is Dadgum Good! You know what else is Dadgum Good? Peanut butter! Anna: I'm not eating that. Marlo: You don't like PB&J?! Anna: Nope, you can celebrate National Peanut Butter Lover's Day all by yourself. I'm Anna Devere and I'm Marlo Anderson. Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to January 9th, 2023 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate clearing space and reaching great heights.  Anna: Marlo, I know you don't make New Year's resolutions but I have a challenge for you right now, can you see the top of your desk? Marlo: Kind of. Anna: Well, you know I've heard this new thing about feng shui that if you're living in a messy world you're just going to feel more messy. I actually took that to heart and switched things up. John: Okay you're officially a weirdo. Anna: Okay but hear this out; if you look at your quadrants in your house my office is in the wealth corner and it was an absolute mess like a year ago and I'm cleaning that up and things are happening. I'm just saying. Marlo: You have quadrants in your house? Anna: Yeah, Yeah I could come over and read your office, Marlo... John: They don't have Visas though, Marlo. Marlo: That's good to know. Anna: On National Clean Off Your Desk Day find out how much more productive you are with a little less clutter. The first manned balloon flight in America took place on January 9, 1793. Jean Pierre Blanchard, ascended to a height of nearly 6,000 feet in a hydrogen filled balloon and then made a successful landing in New Jersey. Almost 200 years later, another aeronaut made a spectacular, but less famous flight in California. Larry Walters attached 42 weather balloons to an aluminum lawn chair, pumped them full of helium and sailed off into the air. Unfortunately, he had not planned his flight very carefully and soon found himself 16,000 feet above the ground. Walters stayed there for nearly 2 hours before he got cold and descended by popping balloons with a pellet gun. On National Balloon Ascension Day, celebrate by taking a balloon ride but please leave the piloting to the professionals. I'm Anna Devere and I'm Marlo Anderson. Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to December 27, 2022 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate starting something new and being nutty as a fruitcake.  Anna: You probably didn't notice this Marlo, but December is Learn a Foreign Language Month. Marlo: You know, I didn't notice it obviously. I can't even say "Mario" correctly. Anna: You were too busy giving out calendars and hanging out with Santa Claus. John, didn't you learn Spanish or Portuguese? John: Si, si; uh, espagnol y un petit peu de français. Anna: Wow, I'm impressed. It's because you took a trip. John: Yes, and I learned no Croatian or Greek while I was there. Anna: Well, you know it's not too late. I mean, I know we have like four days, but you can start learning a new language today and it wouldn't be a bad call. What language would you pick Marlo? Marlo: I would probably pick Italian. Anna/John: "Eh, it's a me, it's a Mario." Anna: During Learn A Foreign Language Month don't be afraid to start something new. Your tree may be losing its needles, but one holiday item is still holding onto its cheer, the fruitcake. That's because they are built to last. In the early 1700s these dense cakes were baked during harvest time and loaded with nuts and fruits. They were then saved until the following year to ensure the next season's bounty. Perhaps your fruitcake has become a holiday joke that gets tossed or re-gifted. Don't forget that National Fruitcake Toss Day is just around the corner. On this day fruitcakes are launched in creative ways and last year's cake becomes this year's ammunition. On National Fruitcake Day, celebrate your own favorite tradition, even if you're labeled nutty as a fruitcake.   I'm Anna Devere and I'm Marlo Anderson. Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to October 24, 2022 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate the first name in lunch meat and a secret super power. Some foods owe their success to immigration. They leave behind the identity of the city or place they came from to take on a new role here in America. One of these is bologna. Beginning its life as mortadella, the beloved sausage meat came from the city of Bologna in Italy, where it was even protected in 1661 by the papacy. They created an official definition of the recipe to ensure it would be made with the right amount of lean pork, speckled with lumps of lard. Here in the United States bologna gained popularity as a cheaper food that took off during the Great Depression with the war era practice of rationing. But perhaps its greatest break came from a jingle in the 1970s. On National Bologna Day we celebrate a sandwich favorite that slipped its more serious past.  Marlo: That was the BEST national day we have ever done on the show. Anna: Are you serious? Marlo: No. I'm not.  Anna: Well, what was I supposed to read? Marlo: You read the right thing. Bologna is amazing. It's my favorite food. Anna: Really? I would have never guessed that about you. Marlo: Anna. None of that is true. I'm being completely sarcastic. It's National Sarcastic Awareness Month. So are you aware now? Anna: No. Can you explain it again? I missed that. Marlo: Okay. So sarcasm is… Anna: I'm not serious, Marlo. You can stop talking now. I'm Anna Devere and I'm Marlo Anderson. Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to October 2, 2022 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate a super smart business and cars with personality.  Anna: Hey Marlo. What's that all over your pants? Marlo: It's my Halloween costume. Do you like it? Anna: Are you a donut with sprinkles? Wait, wait, that's candy! Marlo: You're getting warmer… Anna: Those are rolls of Smarties candy… Marlo: Warmer… Anna: You're a Smarty Pants! Marlo: Ding, ding, ding! Anna: Well, I already knew that. Did you know that the founder of Smarties Candy, Edward Dee was a graduate of Cambridge University in England? Marlo: Yes. Did you know he named the candy Smarties to inspire people to continue their education? Anna: Yes! Did you know that his company started in 1949 is now run by his three granddaughters: Sarah, Jessica and Liz Dee? Now that's super smart! Marlo: Did you know that we celebrate National Smarties Day on October 2nd because today is Eddie Dee's birthday? Anna: I didn't know that but I feel like we show team up for a trivia contest. If you've ever named your car then you are not alone. Movies and TV shows give top billing to everything from Herbie the Love Bug to Kit from Knight Rider and Smokey in Smokey and the Bandit. But perhaps the most loved car in today's world is Lightning McQueen from the movie Cars. This animated feature film banks on our natural affinity to consider our car as something more human than machine. Maybe it's been awhile since you played with matchbox cars or thought of your set of wheels as a trusty companion. But chances are good that giving your car a name will inspire you to give it some extra TLC. On National Name Your Car Day celebrate man's other best friend and keep your engine purring. I'm Anna Devere and I'm Marlo Anderson. Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anna Spearman is the Founder of Techie Staffing, which connects high-quality technology talent with high-caliber clients. Chad talks with Anna about founding and growing the company, immediately after graduating college, during a pandemic, reputation building, and facing skepticism around her lack of track record in recruiting, and finding and providing talent for clients as a white-glove service. Techie Staffing (https://techiestaffing.com/) Follow Techie Staffing on Twitter (https://twitter.com/StaffingTechie), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/techiestaffing), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/techiestaffing/) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/techie-staffing/). Follow Anna on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaspearman/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is Anna Spearman, the Founder of Techie Staffing, which connects high-quality technology talent with high-caliber clients. Anna, thanks so much for joining me. ANNA: Thank you so much for inviting me, Chad. CHAD: In theory, at the surface level, Techie Staffing is probably fairly straightforward in terms of what you do. But I'm curious how you got started. ANNA: Yes, of course. So I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's been two years. Two years ago, I was, during that time, attending the University of Virginia, where I was majoring in computer science with a minor in entrepreneurship. And in the spring of 2020, I was planning on coming back home to...I was born and raised in Los Angeles, and I was planning to come back home for spring break. And I was finishing out my second semester of senior year. So I was planning my [chuckles] victory lap of going back home, taking a little bit of a rest time, and then coming back to UVA to finish my degree, graduate, and move on to a new job in Los Angeles. But unfortunately, as my plane was landing in Los Angeles, we kept hearing about COVID. And so the pandemic hit in the middle of my spring break. And during that time, I had to finish my second semester of senior year remote. It was very stressful, but when I finished the degree, I was so fulfilled. But unfortunately, there was a rapid dwindling of entry-level tech and product roles. I initially either wanted to be a software engineer or a product manager or be a software engineer that transitioned into a technical product manager. But unfortunately, once the pandemic hit, companies weren't willing to ramp up entry-level talent. Companies didn't really know what was going to happen in the future, and everybody was remote. So it was just a really confusing time. But while I was searching through different job boards trying to find new opportunities, especially entry-level opportunities, I found just a wealth of senior tech jobs, specifically with companies that were thriving due to the pandemic. During that time, companies like Peloton, Discord, Zoom, they were all soaring due to the pandemic. So I had heard about contingent recruiting in the past. My biggest dream for a new opportunity for myself graduating out of college was just to learn something new every day because I've always had a very much an interdisciplinary background. I've never been able to stay in one area. I've always loved to try different things. So with a little bit of a background recruiting at a past summer internship as well as wanting to utilize my entrepreneurship minor...I'm actually a fourth-generation woman entrepreneur. So definitely, growing up, creating my own business was my dream. So really, that was my main goal. I thought I was going to transition from a current role into entrepreneurship, but I had my back against the wall. So I just thought, why not start now? So I created Techie Staffing, a technology staffing agency specializing in direct hire placements nationwide. I basically had my virtual graduation; then I took a week. And then, I got started creating the website, establishing the business paperwork, as well as developing strategic partnerships with senior technical recruiters that had full candidate pipelines to fill incoming job requisitions. And I basically started off with nothing. I had no contacts, no network, just nothing at all. And I was really starting just fresh. So I really had to really spend a lot of time networking and developing relationships as well as just learning and mastering full lifecycle recruiting, especially with engineering since there's such a supply and demand issue for software engineers. So you're just consistently following up and contacting people that could potentially be interested in your companies. But it really blew up. As I was establishing everything in 2020 from summer to the end of 2020, it was 2021 when it really blew up where I contacted this founder during the time they had raised a Series B 50 million, which was amazing, and they were going through a hiring sprint. So we got connected fairly quickly. And with just great team synergy, we were actually able to place five people in one month, and it was frontend, backend, and full-stack developers. So that really jump-started Techie Staffing. And then after that, we worked with...we're now working with Fortune 500 companies as well as high-growth startups and really building a diversified portfolio, and we're also a certified woman-owned business which I'm so proud of because there aren't really a lot of women or even just women of color that are founders. So I was really happy to get that certification, really proud of that as well. I always say all the time to everybody it's super stressful, but it's so rewarding at the same time. And I do believe that it's honestly, you know, I know the pandemic has been super hard on people. And it's been such a change and such a shift. But there is still a part of me that is so grateful for making that pivot because I really found something that I feel like I really enjoy doing every day. CHAD: That's great. I really commend you on everything you've done so far. And I'm excited about what you're going to do in the future. You now have grown where you're multiple people on your team. ANNA: Yeah, so we actually hired two new people fairly recently. I did have one direct hire recruiter working with me. So now it's officially a team of four. I did develop the strategic part. I do still have some strategic partnerships as well because on that part, at first, I was partnering with recruiters that were independent, so who were a little bit more entrepreneurial so that we could split the placement fee. But it's still better to just have full-time employees. I'm so excited to have two new additional hires, and it's still new for me. So I'm really looking forward to growing together in terms of growing Techie Staffing and growing into being a full life cycle recruiter because it wasn't that long ago when I was in that same exact spot. And it's so amazing. It still blows my mind to this day how two years ago, thinking about interviewing candidates or selling to clients, and now what I've evolved in. It's been absolutely amazing. So I'm so happy to see their journey and seeing them transition into being technical recruiters and also making a pivot in their career as well, which that's still blowing my mind a little bit. I'm sure you know founding thoughtbot and really building that from the ground up. So it's just amazing seeing that infrastructure. It just really brings a brighter future as well. CHAD: So what kind of people do you look for when you're looking to add to your team? Are you bringing on people who have experience with recruiting? Or are you bringing on people who are transitioning into it? ANNA: I would say for Q1 and Q2 of 2022 and even a little bit beforehand, since there was a surge in demand for everything and tech companies were just scaling like crazy, there was very much a competitive market for recruiters, specifically technical recruiters. Because that's what companies were really looking for to scale their engineering and product teams. So it was very, very competitive to recruit for a technical recruiter. So now you see agencies now who are hiring people who can have the DNA for a technical recruiter but not necessarily have direct experience, which I think can be really, really cool. Because like I said, like two years ago, I knew absolutely nothing, and now I feel very much confident in the full life cycle. So I think that's really cool to have people be able to pivot into a really cool industry where you're really learning something new every day, and you're speaking to really interesting people. We specialize in senior up until C-suite, so yeah, learning from people who are senior all the way up to Director, VP. So it's really interesting. So when I was approaching hiring, I really wanted to find someone who had that DNA that can potentially transition to being a technical recruiter. And that DNA would be, you know, it doesn't have to be personality but just really interacting with engineers, just maybe being a self-starter. I would say great communication, and lastly, I would say just really hungry. Yes, I would say hungry. Because if you're really hungry and you're really willing to learn and be open, so openness as well, then you can really understand the rules or just the lifecycle and the process of being a recruiter, and then you can change people's lives. I actually had one...It was about a year ago, I was working with a Fortune 500 company, and I recruited this guy, and I led him through the process. And it was about maybe a month later when he told me I had basically changed his life. Him and his family were now moving to Atlanta, and it was a new role, and it was just a fresh start. And he was just telling me how appreciative he was of me, and so that really hit home. So I think for those two new hires, I'm so excited to have them get super engaged and be able to change other people's lives as well under the Techie Staffing name, of course. CHAD: You mentioned early on that you're contingent recruiting. So correct me if I'm wrong, but that means that you get paid when you place somebody, when someone gets hired from the company that hires them. ANNA: Yes. CHAD: But then you also mentioned that these people who you're bringing onto your team are full-time. So how does the compensation structure typically work for them? ANNA: Oh, compensation, we have them on salary, but they do have commission. So we wanted to really give; like I said, I want us to grow together. So I do provide commission for each placement they'll place just to really provide incentive. Like I said, it's so early. I want us to think of each other just as teammates and a team because we're all building towards the same goal. So just really wanted to provide incentives where they're really feeling like they're almost owning it full life cycle as well. Because like I said, it's early on, and these can be really strong pillars in the future. So there is salary, but there's also that commission as well to just really provide that incentive. And I know for me personally, incentive can be awesome, so definitely trying to provide that motivation and having them really feel like they're an integral part. CHAD: What's the harder part of your business? Or are they equally hard, finding new clients versus finding people who want to work with you on the candidate side? ANNA: On the business development side, I would say it was harder perhaps in the beginning because I just so was starting with nothing, really. I had just graduated from college. And a lot of agency owners they previously have maybe worked at a really cool tech startup, or maybe they've been working on their agencies for the past 5 or 10 years. They have previous years of experience, but I didn't have that. So I had to convey another method of just really networking, really meeting people, and just really knowing my stuff and having a handle on it. I know maybe a lot of people say, like, just fake it until you make it because then once you make it, and then you get that experience, then you can transfer that experience to new experiences as well. So at first, it was really just building myself up and building the Techie Staffing brand so that we could acquire those clients. In terms of the candidate side, I would say Techie Staffing, and one of the things and part of our brand that we love to portray is that we are the agency that has the companies with the best employer branding. Because like I said, with the supply and demand issue for the software engineers, it is so competitive to attract them to new opportunities. There are just so many companies that are contacting them multiple times a day. So there has to be at least a little bit of a shine or a little bit of a differentiator for companies that you're recruiting for. So we actually specialize in companies that are Series B and above that do have that established employer branding where engineers are really interested in joining that company, so that's just the thing. It's like really having companies that have strong employer branding and being able to follow up. Follow-ups are really, really important when it comes to engaging engineers because, like I said, it's just a super competitive market and just trying to provide them a great white-glove experience. There are some agencies that fall a little bit too close to the client-side where the client is always right. And there are some that fall too much to the candidate side where the candidate is right, but we really want to be a balanced middleman where we're just trying to find the compromise and find the best solution for everybody. So that's the real important part of it of just really providing them with a great experience and showing them that we care and that we're rooting for them. Because it sometimes does surprise me when candidates can be a little...maybe this is a part of me being new. But that's kind of an advantage, too, because I'm still paying attention to detail. That's where my computer science major comes in. It's like constantly trying to stay in tune with candidates and what they need, so just trying to provide a great experience in general. And I'm sure you feel that way with your clients. You're a consultancy as well where you're trying to be B2B and contact these different companies. So how do you conduct business development and really differentiate yourself? CHAD: We focused a lot on reputation building, so blogging, creating open source so that we don't need, fortunately, to cold contact people. And when we do, we're fortunate enough that they might already know about us. And so it's an easier conversation to have because they may already be reading our blog, or they may already be using some of our open source in their product. And so it becomes an easier conversation to have. But the majority of our clients actually come to us when they have a need because we're fortunate enough to have worked to be at the top of the list. ANNA: Definitely, yeah. And I'm still doing that, just reputation building. With one of our Fortune 500, we're doing incredibly well with them to the point where we're filling their pipelines, and we have majority of our candidates in their pipeline. So that's what we're really working on right now is just consistently...and I know like with any business, you have to just constantly build that reputation. So I especially just try to provide a great experience for candidates because they can also be hiring managers as well, so just really providing that white-glove experience. And also, a cool differentiator we always like to showcase is like, I'm a computer science major. And actually, the two people that I just hired have a tech background. So it's not like tech is entirely foreign to us. We've engaged with programming languages. We've coded projects. So we do have some form of understanding when it comes to certain technologies or certain projects that certain engineers are working on. And that's what really gets me excited to speak with engineers because it's so cool and interesting hearing about them working on their projects and working on projects that directly affect me and the products that I'm interacting with. So it's so cool to hear about their...I can understand a bit. And so that's another thing we have with Techie Staffing is really finding people who have a bit of a tech background so at least they have a little bit of knowledge or an understanding of what projects and can be able to really share and convey that to clients that are looking for this talent. CHAD: You mentioned it's a really competitive market now. And as a company who probably has multiple clients, how do you minimize or how do you deal with the potential competition for the limited supply among your own clients? ANNA: Among my own clients, I will say that right now we don't have...for the roles that we're working on for each client, they're not very similar or too, too similar, which is a good thing. We would like it in the future where we could have the same role, but we can understand how that can be a little tricky as well. CHAD: And how do they differ then? Are they differing by the technology experience that they're looking for or the sort of level of the role? How are they different? ANNA: It could be technology, difference of the role. So, for example, for a Fortune 500 company that we're working with, we'll work more with UX, data science, data science roles, as well as...so UX, data science. And then for high-growth startups, mostly with them, they're really looking for back-end engineers, but overall just engineering so frontend, backend, DevOps. We are working potentially to do engineering or more engineering-heavy for our Fortune 500 companies. We have recently been working on a VP of engineering. So for Fortune 500 for now, we've been working more with leadership roles especially, and for high-growth, it's been more engineering IC. But we would like to transition that in the future to have it kind of...or have roles that maybe some candidates could go to this company, and some candidates can go to that startup. And then another differentiator could be or what makes our clientele different from each other is for high-growth startups, especially for engineering ICs, they're really looking for candidates that come from high-growth startups who just understand the current company where they are, and how they're scaling during that period of time around that series B and series C. That's the time to really scale. And Fortune 500 companies they can be open to startups, but for the most part, especially sometimes for leaders who need to have a certain amount of direct reports, they're more looking for people from larger companies. So that would be one way to kind of separate it and so we're not having candidates almost be where they have to compete with candidates within our own company. Because with the difference in the leveling of companies, there's just a difference in what kind of candidates that they're looking for. Mid-Roll Ad: Are your engineers spending too much time on DevOps and maintenance issues when you need them on new features? We know maintaining your own servers can be costly and that it's easy for spending creep to sneak in when your team isn't looking. By delegating server management, maintenance, and security to thoughtbot and our network of service partners, you can get 24x7 support from our team of experts, all for less than the cost of one in-house engineer. Save time and money with our DevOps and Maintenance service. Find out more at: url tbot.io/devops CHAD: When I was first starting thoughtbot, I really felt like I needed to take every client that we could get because we were just starting out. We needed to make money. We needed to build a reputation. And so, I felt like we needed to say yes to every client. Over the years, I learned that that was actually watering us down, and it made us less successful. And the more we were clear about who we were, and what we did, and what clients we were best for, the more successful we were. Have you gotten to the point where you needed to turn down clients? ANNA: Because I do such targeted biz dev, we will contact companies that we personally want to work with. But I will say in the beginning, there were some companies that were a lot smaller that, just like you said, you just felt the need to want to rack up a client list. And you just are ready to go and wanting to work with someone. It really motivated me to really take a look and really go deep into the type of clients that we want. So, for example, really, really early-stage companies can have a really, really hard time hiring because, like I said, employer branding is so, so important. And so usually what they'll have is maybe like mission, but they won't really have salary. Or they won't really have the employer branding of the company of candidates either knowing about the company or being able to search the company really quickly and seeing the platform that the company is building and seeing how strong it is. So it's really, really hard to recruit for those stages. I mean, it is possible, but it's just really hard. And then at the same time for these early-stage companies, they really want to, which I totally understand, you know, when you're having your probably 8th, 9th, or 10th engineer and being on the founding team, you really want a strong engineer because that's your platform, that's your baby. You don't want anybody that, you know, it could potentially maybe cause problems, or they really want somebody there they can trust. And so it's hard, you know like I said -- CHAD: But they might not be able to afford that. [laughs] ANNA: Yes, they might either not be able to afford it, or they also cannot interview fast enough in order to just get the offer in their hands. Because I understand they really want to have them speak to the entire team and have them have an in-depth process because it's very much an important role. But these candidates and startups are moving so fast right now where I will speak to a candidate one day, and he or she or they'll probably say, "Oh, you know, I'm passively looking. I'm not really actively looking." And maybe a week and a half to two weeks later, they're like, "Oh, I actually have two offers in hand." So it goes really, really fast versus earlier stage; it can just go a little bit slower because they're just really taking the time to go more in-depth and see if this prospective candidate is the right fit, which is totally understandable. But it was just really hard for us as contingent trying to find that candidate, that perfect candidate for them as well as trying to keep candidates warm and keep them interested when some companies just have like mission. So now, in the future, I've just really, like I said, Techie Staffing, we specialize from Series B and above. And I really just make sure during business development exploratory chats that I'm really going in-depth and making sure I understand the roles that they're prioritizing their time to hire. So if they have a long, long interview process and a really, really low salary in terms of the competitive market, then I may not be as interested in that startup as opposed to another startup whose interview process timeline could be about a week and a half to two weeks. And it doesn't have to be absolutely amazingly competitive base salary but just a fairly competitive salary with a great timeline for time to hire. So that's been my way of just condensing or just being a little bit more pickier in terms of clients in the future. Were there any certain clients for you where you started working with them, and you were like, "Oh, maybe I shouldn't have," that's now caused you to be a little bit more pickier for clients in the future? CHAD: Part of it was the kind of work. So we really wanted to be writing software. But just starting out, I also had a background in sort of IT support. And so, when I was reaching out, particularly to past clients, they might say, "You built our website. Now can you help us with purchasing a computer or setting up a computer network in our office?" I felt compelled to say, "Yes," because I felt like we needed all the work we could get. But by doing that work that wasn't really what we wanted to be doing, we were not only less happy in our work, but it was taking time and attention away from the work that we really wanted to be doing. The other was values and practices, which took a little bit longer to form a real understanding of what our values were and the practices that we believe in. But now there's a pretty clear list of the kinds of companies that...what we say at thoughtbot is that we want to work on things that deserve to exist in the world. And so there's a whole bunch of industries that they might not even be actively doing harm in the world, but they are the ones that we wouldn't work in. But even if it's just not a positive contribution to the world, it's probably not going to be something that we're excited to work on. ANNA: That's been an exciting trend, actually, to speak with engineers about. I've started seeing that trend where engineers are saying, "I don't want to create anything evil," or "I just want to do good." And that's been a really awesome selling point for some teams. It definitely is a cherry on top where engineers are really looking for social impact. And the cool part is they have so many opportunities that are coming towards them that they can really pick and choose which one. So to find people who are really looking for social good and just really mission-driven products is amazing to see. And I'm really happy with the work...I'm actually working with a data science team for AI ethics. And that's been really interesting hearing some people talk about their projects and hearing about how data can really not only just strengthen bias but also can just really produce results that can harm certain groups of people, which is so interesting. And it can be something so, so small that I haven't even noticed at all, but that can lead to a big difference. CHAD: Yeah, we've had several episodes about that. ANNA: And it's amazing. And it really is just a huge difference with something so small. And as a woman of color, I'm always aware of what's going on in terms of just ethical practices or just fairness and seeing bias. But in terms of data, seeing something so so small can affect just a whole group of underrepresented people is just amazing to see. But it's also amazing that people or data scientists are now aware of it, and now they're changing it so that it no longer...at least they'll be able to alleviate that bias. CHAD: I want to ask a little bit more about that, and then I want to talk about some market trends. But if you're comfortable, I'm curious; you already mentioned you were just out of college when you were getting started. So there was skepticism around your lack of track record in recruiting. And you've mentioned that you are a woman of color. And so I think as engineers, as people in the market, we probably have this image in our head of what a typical recruiter looks like in terms of attitude, and values, and demographics. And you don't fit that mold in almost any way, basically. Is this actually a positive for you now, or is it actually still hard? Are there companies that are actively seeking out to work with you because they want that different approach? Or are you still facing that skepticism? ANNA: I'm still facing that skepticism. I actually created Techie Staffing around the time of summer 2020, where Black Lives Matter, where George Floyd happened. And it was really interesting because I was entering the corporate workplace. I went to a really wealthy private school in Los Angeles. And I went to the University of Virginia. So I survived two PWIs which means predominantly White institutions. So I thought I had not seen it all, but I thought I had maybe experienced those experiences of bias and understood it a little bit more. But when I went to the corporate workplace and the diversity inclusion campaigns were happening, it was just really confusing because it's hard specifically for engineering and product specifically because it's so new that there is a really, really hard time to find diverse talent. That's why I honestly believe that it's just really trying to educate underrepresented communities to understanding all of the different diverse types of roles and opportunities that you can encounter in the tech industry so, for example, like UX, UX design, UX research, data science, machine learning, all of that. So I think I was more contacted or maybe was engaged in business development companies who were looking for me to do diversity which I think it kind of...and I am such a huge proponent for diversity. But it also kind of had my heart drop a little bit because I just felt like people were contacting me because of who I am instead of just thinking like if it was just any other agency, would I be contacted specifically for that? It was more just for exclusive searches, which can be very, very hard for products and engineering. I think in diversity and inclusion, we really need to focus on different departments and the different problems that underrepresented communities encounter with different departments. So it was just really hard, but in terms of companies contacting me because I am a woman of color owning an agency, no, that didn't really...and it's never really helped. I do wear it as a badge of honor because, like I said, I started out with nothing. So to start out with nothing and have to fight through everything to sit at the table and create something is amazing. My background didn't really help me. It was really just me, just constantly contacting people. And I was prepared for this because, in my entrepreneurship minor, they said, "You're going to encounter a lot of nos," and so I did. I encountered so many nos, but eventually, I was able to turn those nos into yeses. So now that I turned some of those nos into yeses...and I'm still encountering nos, but I still keep going and still building and building. And now I do feel a sense of pride now two years later where it is like, wow, I really did have to fight through to make it, and that's where I hold just a huge sense of pride. But no, it was not my background that really...the only thing that my background was maybe appealing was thinking like, oh, okay, I think you can do diversity and inclusion, which I don't want to be profiled in that way. I just want to be a founder who happens to be a Black woman instead of a Black woman founder. And so, I don't want to be contacted to feel like my race is a part of it. And that was interesting in the corporate workplace, especially when I was trying to navigate different, you know, how to speak, how to build rapport, or how to navigate corporate workplace conversations. And that's very hard to do with diversity and inclusion because you're fighting with, like, that's racism and misogyny. That's something really deep-rooted, and that has been here for years and years. So it's a really heavy, heavy topic. And that's not some really, really heavy topic that you really want to bring or a lot of people don't really want to bring into the workplace. So that was just hard to encounter. But overall, I so, so support diversity and inclusion. And the cool part is because I have this awareness and I know that diverse teams are better teams, whenever I'm sourcing, or one of my recruiters is sourcing, I'm just making sure that they have that in the front of their mind, and they're just trying to diversify their candidate pipeline as much as possible. CHAD: Well, taking it from the candidate side of things, I, unfortunately, I'm of the belief that the hiring process is really ripe for extreme, subtle unconscious biases or conscious ones even to have an impact on the hiring process. So, how have you navigated that on the candidate side? I'm sure you don't want to say anything negative about any of your clients. It's not about, oh, this company is racist. But I think do you agree with the premise that the hiring process at a lot of companies is ripe for some bias to creep in? ANNA: Of course. I mean, all of the time. And the part that's so, I would say, scary about it is that bias is something that you feel. It's not really tangible. You can't really grab it. I mean, it can be in writing, and [laughs] there has been stuff in writing. But it's very much kind of yeah; it's non-tangible. So it's hard to really call it out specifically of like, hmm, this candidate I don't know why all of a sudden nice to haves become must-haves. Why is there a shift? Like I said, there are different problems with different departments, but there are also different problems in terms of leveling systems, so leadership roles versus individual contributor roles. There can be a little bit more, you know, maybe there's a little bit more openness on the IC side, but with leadership, it can get a little interesting sometimes. But the hard part is it's not really tangible. So I really have to give it to diversity like DEI specialists because to have to navigate those conversations and really articulate a non-tangible thing is so, so complicated. So there are tangible things you can do, like having a diverse panel. But what happens if the company doesn't even have the numbers for diversity to have that diverse panel in the first place? So it can get really complicated in terms of trying to navigate the bias within the interview process, and we do try to do our best there, just trying to provide on our side because that's all we can do. It's really up to the companies in terms of their interview processes and how they are going to change it or maintain some stages. But for us, we're just trying to just submit diverse talent and really just try to provide that white-glove service for them and hope that that bias doesn't seep in. But like I said, it's such a heavy topic. And like I said, with corporate workplace politics, it can be so fragile and really interesting. So it's just hard to really take that and understand where it comes from or being able to even verbalize it. So that's where it gets really interesting. And so, I do hope that in the future, interview processes are changed where there is able to be a diverse panel, or there is a way to really be able to understand that bias. Because like I said, it's very complicated. And we don't want to claim that any company is specifically racist, but it's just understanding bias and maybe why there's a difference for one candidate versus another candidate, which can be really interesting. CHAD: I think the first part is recognizing that everybody has biases, and it could be anything. It could be, well, what happens when you come across a resume of someone that went to the same school that you did? What happens to that resume, then? And does that subtly influence how you review that resume? It has nothing to do with their race or the color of their skin or anything. So those biases can creep in, and you need to decide as a company is this something that actually matters to success at the company? Is this something that we want to be using when we make hiring decisions about who gets that first interview or who continues on in the interview process? For us, we've decided it's not, so we have a completely anonymous screening process where we don't even show the names of schools. We don't show the names of the companies that you worked at previously. We only show the positions that you held at those companies because we've decided that whether you have a degree or not doesn't matter, and the companies that you worked at previously don't matter. It's what you were actually able to do with that experience. ANNA: Oh yeah. I think that's actually amazing. That's a really great way of doing it. I always just try to tell hiring managers also to just open that candidate pipeline as much as possible because the number one way to really understand someone isn't really through just a piece of paper. Yes, we want to make sure that the resume is at least a bit aligned. And they have, if it's an engineering role, for example, the right tech stack or maybe the right technologies or the right kind of projects that they've worked on. But other than that, you'll be so amazed what can happen when people just hop on a call with each other. You can really find just that hidden genius in people. So usually, when it comes to just diversity, it's like just hopping on a quick call with someone, anybody. Like you said, there are so many biases, but just being able to talk to them and see them as a human being can really just surprise you and surprise everybody. So really just, I always say just find that hidden genius through engaging with someone. CHAD: Yeah. So you've mentioned time to hire is a really important thing moving quickly in today's market when candidates have a lot of opportunity. What are some other ways, either trends or things that are happening in the market or things that you see changing? ANNA: Well, honey, I'm sure, as you know, there's been a huge amount of layoffs that have happened. Like, recently, about 17,000 workers were laid off from more than 70 tech startups globally in May, and that's been about a 350% jump from April. So I will say it's just due to inflation as well as just the slowing of demand. Startups right now are just really trying to just cut corners and just really trying to just hone in on their runway and their burn rate. CHAD: Are the candidates that are being laid off finding new work quickly? ANNA: I'm not sure because it depends on the departments. We're working with engineering mostly in product. So it's really funny because as we are tracking the layoffs, we will contact candidates to see if they're interested in another opportunity. Because fortunately, for our client list, we haven't had anyone have a massive amount of layoffs which has been...we're so happy about that, fortunately. But we've actually contacted engineers. And it's amazing how strong the engineering department is. It does not seem like they really are...that's not a department where there's like significant layoffs because they just have to uphold that platform. So yeah, so it still is in terms of engineering surprising with all these layoffs. It still is just very much competitive because even the people who have or the companies that have encountered a large amount of layoffs those engineers are still wanting to stay or don't...there are some that may feel the need to depart at a certain point. But for the most part, they are staying. But in terms of how quickly, I'm not entirely sure in terms of for people that are laid off how quickly they are being hired because this is also within early-stage startups or not early-stage; they also have Fortune 500s too. But yeah, I'm not sure about that part. But in terms of engineering specifically, the jobs are still just growing. The projected growth rate for software engineers is like 22%, and data scientists is 22%, as well as web developers is 13%. So fortunately for us, as an agency who primarily specializes in engineering, there hasn't been a huge difference. But like I said, specifically with engineering, that time to hire is still super important because these candidates are still encountering offers quickly. And it's just a way to be competitive because if you're just the first offer, you're the first offer in their face instead of, let's say, they have two offers from another company and you're like at the last offer. It's such a big difference there. CHAD: Are you seeing a lot of remote positions versus in-person positions? ANNA: Yes, remote is still going strong. I have seen that now there is a little bit of a trend of some startups or companies where you know because I research companies every day...I'll go on Crunchbase, Morning Brew, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Built-In. I'll go on all of the websites, and I'm seeing who got a fresh new round of funding or who's highly growing, or any new products that companies are offering. CHAD: You're seeing some companies say that they're hiring hybrid or in person. ANNA: I am seeing that on startups and companies' career pages, once they've acquired a new round of funding or they're scaling, that on the job boards, you'll start seeing only the headquarters, so just San Francisco or just maybe Boston instead of remote. So it's been a little bit more of a quiet transition because I remember when bigger companies were announcing it like, oh, we're going to transition in the office in February of 2022 or December of 2021, then there would all of a sudden be a mass exodus of people who were seeking remote opportunities. But I do still feel that remote is still going strong, especially for high-growth startups, you know, yeah, still going strong. There is the option of hybrid. With these engineers that do have these choices, 100% remote is really becoming a great selling point. I mean, I don't even know if it's really a selling point but just standard now. CHAD: So that's what you're hearing from candidates. Candidates want that. ANNA: Definitely, candidates want. There's been plenty of candidates that we've interviewed where they've said in terms of their...because we'll ask them what would be their motivation for considering other opportunities and potentially leaving, and then they'll say, "X company is anticipating us to transition into the office, and I just don't want to do that." Their commute may be an hour, and that can be two even maybe three hours out of your day where you're spending your morning driving and then spending your evening driving. So people just prefer to be remote. Or people are located now in the Midwest. They're going back to their hometowns where they're able to instead of like these big metropolitan cities where now it's really hard to afford a house, so they're going back home and being able to enjoy their family there. So definitely it is a standard and people are really interested in it. And for companies that are having employees transition back into the office, we've consistently heard that there's just a mass exodus of people leaving. CHAD: What have you seen compensation do over the last year-plus? ANNA: I would say for compensation, I mean, in my personal opinion, when it was super competitive, it was definitely increasing. Now I feel like we're working with a Fortune 500 company, so compensation hasn't really been too, too much of a problem. So yeah, it hasn't been as competitive. But I do remember when it was maybe around Q1 and Q2 2021 where there was almost this great rehire. And everybody was scaling, and demand was soaring where the salaries were just like, it just increased or were just consistently increasing. We were just so shocked at what some software engineers were making. But now, it seems to have potentially tamed a little bit. It's not as high as it probably used to be because we were working with that series B Company and their salaries were pretty good, pretty competitive. But all of a sudden, with the demand soaring and these engineers, it started getting even more competitive. Then that's when all of a sudden, you know, the first few placements were fine. And then, all of a sudden, each candidate, like I said, they would say they were passively looking and then the next week... And this startup their time to hire was actually really great. But even with this competitive market, it was still hard because, like I said, a week later, they would already have an offer. And their salary would probably increase like 20,000-30,000 from their initial target base that they were seeking to now what they were being hired from other companies. So it would definitely increase. But I haven't seen that recently as much. CHAD: Yeah. I think also the trend to remote changed compensation, too, because it leveled it out. There were people who if you were trying to find a job in Kansas and you were going in an office, that market is very different than the U.S.-wide hiring market. But now, candidates are on the U.S.-wide hiring market. And I think that that brought up the lower end of salaries. ANNA: Oh yes. Because at first, it was like okay, we can look for...it was 100% remote, which was great, and so they were like, we can look for people in the Midwest. But during that time, companies were paying San Francisco and New York salaries, and they were offering those salaries to people who were located in Kansas and Iowa. So you would have engineers who were deep, deep in the Midwest who were asking for in terms of target for those metropolitan city salary budgets. And they would get it, which I think is great as well, just they are doing the same work as someone who is located in San Francisco or in New York but maybe with less overhead, of course. But it definitely was a little bit more of a challenge. And you can no longer assume that somebody located in the Midwest that may have lower salary bands aren't at those metropolitan city salary budgets now. CHAD: Anna, thanks much for stopping by and sharing with us. I really I'm impressed by what you've accomplished so far. And I'm excited about what you're going to be able to do in the future. ANNA: Thank you. Thank you so much, again, for inviting me. I had a great time speaking with you, and it was so interesting hearing about your time being a consultancy. Because I know being an external vendor, it's really interesting interacting with clients when you're not internal. So that was really interesting hearing about the difference of clients that you're encountering at first versus now. CHAD: Yeah. If folks want to get in touch with Techie Staffing or get in touch with you, where are the best places for them to do that? ANNA: So in terms of contacting me, I'll say the best way would be either our website so www.techiestaffing.com. Or you can contact me on LinkedIn; my name is Anna Spearman, A-N-N-A S-P-E-A-R-M-A-N. I'm always active on LinkedIn. So if you're seeking a new opportunity either on the candidate side or either meeting, help and engaging Techie Staffing as a scaling company to fill your engineering, design, UX, and product roles, you can contact me on LinkedIn as well as filling out the forms on the Techie Staffing website. And we also are on Twitter @StaffingTechie. So definitely contact us, and we'd be happy to hear from you. CHAD: Wonderful. You can subscribe to the show and find notes and a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. You can find me on Twitter at @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks so much for listening, and see you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success. Special Guest: Anna Spearman.

INTRODUCTION: Anna, pronouns anything respectful, is a Chicago-born social entrepreneur who builds streaming platforms which center & celebrate BIPOC & QTPOC creatives. Media has always been her passion and in 2009 she turned that passion into a reality when she founded E3 Radio, an online radio station playing Queer music & reporting on Queer news with an intersectional lens. Most recently, she founded The Qube, a curated app of music & podcasts by BIPOC & QTPOC creatives. Anna is determined to ride media into its next era by utilizing digital media streams to tell the stories and play the music that deserves to be heard.  Learn more about her work here. In no particular order I'm also a daughter, wife, sister, and friend who loves cooking and running. Favorite Quote: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” –Gandhi Did you know? Anna has been in love with Robin Roberts all her life. Interviewing her would be the ultimate experience. Media Coverage ABC 7 Pride Coveragehttps://abc7.ws/3BGSAZz  Choose Your Struggle https://open.spotify.com/episode/5VaUCZRfUCxUNzdfmAibuV?si=Wqu7M0knQmWZYyJ_Ahmleg&nd=1 191: Learn How To Do Queer Radio Right with Anna DeShawn, Founder of E3 Radiohttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/191-learn-how-to-do-queer-radio-right-anna-deshawn/id1189319336?i=1000521261587  Trindi Media Podcasthttps://podcasts.bcast.fm/e/mn4wvyq8 Park Careers Podcasthttps://anchor.fm/icparkcareerspodcast/episodes/Episode-9--Anna-DeShawn-IC07-e10l4bp/a-a5haqne   INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to): ·      Exposure To The Qube App·      Celebration Of BIPOC & QTPOC Creatives·      Why It's Good To Be Complete BEFORE You Enter A Relationship·      Why Mental Health Therapy Is SOOO Damn Good For You·      The Variety Of Mental Health Options Available To You·       A Warning Against Being Addicted To Church·      A Warning About Biblical Interpretation·      Politics & Religion = YUCK!·      Why Being Non – Straight Is Not A Damn Choice! CONNECT WITH ANNA: Website & Radio: https://www.AnnaDeShawn.comTikTok: https://tiktok.com/@annadeshawn Facebook: https://facebook.com/annadeshawnInstagram: https://instagram.com/annadeshawn  Twitter: https://twitter.com/annadeshawn  E3 Radio: https://e3radio.fmThe Qube: https://theqube.app   ANNA'S RECOMMENDATIONS: ·      EyeWear: https://thekayakollection.com·      VDOM: https://thevdom.com/the-vdom/ CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonEmail: DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com  DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS: ·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs ·      Upwork: https://www.upwork.com·      FreeUp: https://freeup.net·      Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org·      American Legion: https://www.legion.org  INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?: ·      PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon  TRANSCRIPT: [00:00:00]You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your life.There is nothing off the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.De'Vannon: What's up. What's up. What's up everyone. I'm so happy to have you with me again. One more week. I hope everyone is fucking fantastic. Happy Cinco de Mayo. Today we have a spotlight on black indigenous people of color and queer trans people of color as well. Anna de Shawn has created the cube app, which is a safe space for creative people of color of various ideas.We dish on religion, sex [00:01:00] self-acceptance mental health and so much more. And I throw some shade at Lakewood church over in Houston, Texas, because of the way they dehumanize people behind the scenes. Take a listen to my people.Anna. Good girl, girl. How the fuck is you doing the day? That's what I need to know. Anna: I'm amazing that I'm here with you period. De'Vannon: Looking at you, trying to gain me up, see energy. Like that is the reason why sometimes contemplate letting a lesbian fuck me in the ass because y'all have got that. Yeah. The game was on point.The words on point y'all is I am a survivor. I'm like, oh, almost y'all I'm just like Emile come in there. And I'm like a good low to come in my ass. Okay. Anna: We don't get that. We don't got that. We got a lot of other things, but we got a lot of other. De'Vannon: Although they [00:02:00] have those buildings. Now you can put something like different juices or whatever in them, and then it'll squirt it into whatever hole you want.So Anna: mommy, my homemade is actually creating this really amazing strap. It's her, her business is called V Dom. Y'all should check it out. V D O M she was on television recently for a pitch competition. Like it's like mechanical, so it's not hard all the time. So you hit a button, it gets hard on the, on the whim.It's like from an app. So you don't gotta go. And like, yo it's legit stuff. It's good De'Vannon: stuff. So it's a Dick, a plastic Dick that get, that can give, go from levels of softness to hard, Anna: but the press of a button. De'Vannon: I ain't seen that before. Hmm. Next level I found real. It, it okay. Also Anna de Shawn is a bad bitch.She. It's the [00:03:00] greater of an app called the cube. She hosts the radio station and everything like that. And she considered herself to also be a social entrepreneur as an initial. We're going to be talking about what the cube is, how this benefits the LGBTQ plus community, the alphabet mafia, as I like to call us, because we will fuck a bitch up if we have to, we don't want to, but sometimes y'all just make us pull the will Smith on a bitch and just Anna: necessary.Okay. Sometimes it's necessary.De'Vannon: I don't think he should have done it, but I'm not here to judge him. I feel suck his Dick right now and buy tickets to his movie. But I, we, we, we will not be slapping everybody on Smith. Anna: I don't know what he was thinking. I think actually, I think he thought it was recorded. I think he forgot. It was like. I mean, there's so De'Vannon: many of them things, it's just like he's sitting at his [00:04:00] kitchen table.Anna: I think he forgot it was left. I think he thought they were going to be able to enter that up. De'Vannon: So we'll be talking about what the cube is. It's a new thing specific for our community and people of color and things like that to help help us with podcasts and getting our creative arts and media out there.And then we're going to talk about Anna's history. She has a lot of history with the church and church Bo shit, and there's so much bullshit and the church is unreal. And so what do you got to say about your own history? Tell us about you got the run Anna: down to the quick rundown, quick rundown south side of Chicago, born and raised.I consider myself a social entrepreneur who. Platforms digital platforms that celebrate and center black, brown and queer folks of color. I, I love my [00:05:00] people and I love the power that media has to actually create some change, some meaningful change to humanize people's stories and experiences. And I think that we have the power to shift that, you know, if we tap into it and since 2009, I've been interviewing black queer folks to raise awareness around our stories out of Chicago.And I've always been into media. Let's be clear, Robin Roberts is everything to me. Okay. I want it to grow up and be just like her on ESPN or doing some play by play announcing. But it became very clear that people don't look like me on television. They're not masculine the center. Prokes a report in the 10 o'clock news.Okay. But radio allowed for me to speak to folks without folks having to see me. And that is a very powerful thing. And I realized I really loved it. So I got into radio. Which of course leads you into podcasting. And then I just saw the same things that were happening in traditional media. What's happening in podcasts.I'm like, where are my black people at? Where am I brown people at? Where am I queer [00:06:00]folks of color at? Like, why is it that when I go to apple and Spotify and all these places, like I can't find my people and I wanted to change that. De'Vannon: Well, it is a noteworthy thing you're doing. And I can tell you have sense enough to understand that this is something that's takes time.You know, this is, this is a long-term dedicated process. Does it? Don't take, you know, a long, long time to, to see, come to fruition. Hopefully you see it in your generation, but you know, you know, these things take time. So I appreciate that. You're laying this foundation here, you know, for generations to come, you know, I can see it in a, in a hundred years, you know, you know, when you did that and gone somebody is going to have a very successful.Show you know, public broadcast and everything like that. You gonna be like, we want to thank him to Sean for the work that we did back in 2009 to make this day [00:07:00] possible for me in 3050 or whatever the Anna: case. That's unbelievable. Let me tell you. But I do say this, that I do see the radio station and what we're building with the cube as being far bigger than myself, I feel like, and I think we connect can connect on this on a spiritual level.Like we're here because we're called to do something. And when I think when you tap into your call, it is bigger than you because you're just a vessel for the work and you've been given some gifts and you, and you've been called to use them. And so I feel like I'm called to use these gifts in this way.Everything about me says I'm about systematic changes about changes that can affect masses amount of people. That's what I'm called to do. Some folks is called to be in the streets activating, you know, some folks has called to do one-on-one work and change people's lives one by one by one. And I feel like I've been called to change folks' lives through media and a massive amount of [00:08:00] ways.And so I'm excited about what the cube is going to be to the world of podcasting. I'm excited what it's going to be for discoverability. Today 43% of people listening to podcasts actually identify as people of color and there's no place that is serving those folks. And the discoverability of those folks.There's so many people like you creating amazing content, raw content, authentic content, quality content, and more people need to know, you know what I'm saying about sex drugs and Jesus. Come on. De'Vannon: Okay. We don't want to go down that rabbit hole is a tight, deep hole and trust me may have gotten stuck in it.Anna: I love you. De'Vannon: So I love you too, baby. So one of my favorite things about you. So we're going to talk about Anna for a little bit and get into her personal story, which tells us a lot about why she's doing what she's doing. And then we're going to get very granular and talk very specifically about what the cube [00:09:00] is, where you can find it.Who's who was this for a podcast. As people want to go on shows what sort of content you can find there and all of that. So when I was reading through your bio and everything like that, and researching you as I do, I found that your pronouns, you don't have like, he, she, they. You know, whatever you said, anything respectful.And I admire the open-mindedness of that and the flexibility of that, it reminds me a lot of myself because when people ask me who I am, sometimes I like to refer them to the Torah, you know, to the, to the oh, Hebrew scripture when when Moses was first called by God. And he had his slippers off on the side of the mountain and God was in the burning Bush.And Moses was like, God, who is you? Who are you? He was trying to put God in a box and figure out how shall I, what can, what can, how can I associate you with what I already know? Okay. And God told him, bitch, I am that I am. [00:10:00] And that's all there is to it. Anna: Yes. Is that a quote description? That is, I am what I am and that's really it.Right. Because the point of even. The initiatives around using someone's proper pronouns is about respect. It is about honoring someone's identity, right? And for me, depending on what space I'm in child, ain't no telling what the pronouns is going to be. If I, with my boys, it's just, it is whatever. Right.And then I'm in society and people see me a certain way. And then that's that all I'm saying is with respect to who I am. So anything respectful is what resonates most with me, De'Vannon: right? Because it's in the tone of voice in the spirit behind the words. So you can be like, what a bitch and mean it would love.And you can be like, oh, Hey girl, Amina, what all the painting is and violent as that you could contrive. And when you hate that bitch, and you're like, Hey girl, you [00:11:00] know, that was not really in the word, but isn't the heart behind it. More than anything.Anna: Absolutely cause the shade is real. You can notice the shade.Okay. De'Vannon: At all. Oops. Plaque.Anna: You don't have it, but I see it. Okay. Y'all got it. But I see it. De'Vannon: I keep one in my glove compartment, just in my car, just in case I needed somewhere. And I got several in the house. Anna: So does my wife, Lord, all the De'Vannon: things, speaking of that. Yeah. And your bio, it says you are a daughter, a wife, a sister, and a friend who loves cooking and running.What I wanted to know from you about the wife. How did it feel? I want to know how did it feel to be married? Did you have any struggles and things like that? I don't meet a whole lot of married women. I don't. So talk to me about that whole process. Anna: Yeah, we just celebrated our five-year wedding [00:12:00] anniversary.We've been together for nine years. Just like when I met her, my momma loved there. Okay. And I don't like the ideas of, or the statements around, like someone completes me. I was done and completed, but she just adds so much to my life. She's just such a sweet and kind person. And she just fit right in with my family.It was like she had always been there. Everybody embraced her and, and I love her. So she's my best friend. She is the ultimate diva. Okay. She is the most high film woman I have ever dated in my life. But she balances me out and I just love her to pieces. De'Vannon: Yeah. Opposites attract like that. I learned that when I was in my hitting the therapy class, I was training to be a licensed hypnotist, which I am, you know, there's all kinds of signs [00:13:00]behind why quiet, conservative people attract more outgoing people, you know, and vice versa.If you too much alike, you tend to repel each other, you know, to put it simply my boyfriend's the same way. He's quiet. Fucking there. Okay in there, I'm the ones linking from the poles and the chandelier's and hitting the splits. And even now with all of that, you know, showing up, you know, shutting the shit down and everything, and he couldn't even talk.He would, he's not necessarily the most comfortable talking to people in public. You know, when I walk in the bitch, I own the room. Oh, his y'all's belongs to me until I leave this bitch. Anna: Okay. And let me tell you, so I turn it on when a microphone is in front of me, but other than that, I don't have to say a word to anybody.Okay. Yes, my wife is the same way. She walked into a room, she's a stylist. She just takes up space. Okay. Take some space. You came misled. And she also sells, I wear all right. [00:14:00] So the Kia collection.com. So she sells customer. I wear. And so every time she walked into a room, somebody taken something off her face off her risk, won't something.And she is, she's the life of a party.Oh, yeah. The K a collection.com. K a K a Y a K O L L E C T I O N. So the K a collection.com. De'Vannon: Okay. So then I'm like, Hey, yo, collection.com. All right. I'll drop that shit in the show notes, but show ya. I also heard what you said about how you were complete before you met her. This is something I concur with.None of this. This person completes me. I'm lost without you. I can't. Oh that you better know who you are before you get into a relationship with somebody. And a lot of that has to do with just theory, spirituality and shit like that. I think so many relationships in between. People lose [00:15:00] sight of their own individual identity in the whole process.And if you're not in tune with who you are, you're not going to be able to truly cater to that other person. You know, you gotta be whole firstAnna: a hundred percent and let's also be clear. We all been broken, right? So I ain't coming up here. Like I walked, I woke up like this therapy saved my life. Right.Therapy saved my life. We've all had tough and challenging relationships that have taken you all types of places that you never thought you would go. Then at some point you have to like, do some self reflection. Like, is it me? Maybe it's me. And you got to own that. You have to own that. Otherwise you'll continue to date the same person over and over again in a different body with a different sign and all types of stuff.And that was my reality. I had realized that I was dating the same person over and over again. I'm like, what is wrong? And so quickly checked myself into therapy and it saved my life. And so when my wife came into my [00:16:00] life, I didn't need completing. At that point, I was very clear about who I was and who I am.And she was just like the perfect fit into, into my life. So now we have our life with our puppy and grateful. De'Vannon: So when you say you checked yourself into therapy, are you being general in that saying you started seeing a therapist, did you check into a residential. Anna: I'll say it in general. Like I went to start, I started seeing a therapist and I've seen a few over my life and actually it's just about to start seeing a new one.And I think there'll be, is one of these things where you can choose to be in it for a really long time with the same person, but sometimes you even grow out of your therapist. And so sometimes you have to shift and sometimes you don't need it anymore and sometimes you gotta restart it because life would be doing a lot of living.And we just went through what, two years of an airborne panic. And if you listen into this, that means you survived it too. And [00:17:00] so none of us are the same as we were in 2019. There's no way you're the same person. So I think that there's there's seasons. And so I'm in a season where I got a lot going on.So I'm about to go see another therapist and it's just, if you've never done it, it's just a refreshing opportunity to talk to someone who is not fully engaged in your life, but can offer an outside an outside viewpoint that is often not, it's not critical, it's not judging. Right. You find somebody that works with you that you can vibe with, and you'll find yourself lighter after leaving.They're clearer, maybe about something you're struggling with. And for me, it was, it saved my life. De'Vannon: What kind of therapist? A licensed clinical social worker, a Anna: licensed clinical social worker and a black woman. De'Vannon: I find the LCSW to be [00:18:00] more like down to earth, then send like a psychologist, cause an LCSW is not prescribing medication.So they're actually the only way they can help you is through the words and the talking and the exercises and the practices. They, they, they give you to take home. I see an LCSW. I see a licensed marriage and family therapist together with my boyfriend together for, I don't know, 2, 3, 4 years, some shit I don't keep up with the damn time.You have to ask him I'm bad with birthdays and just general time, because I, I view things more eternal. You know, I don't believe in time constraints. It always has existed and always will in a way. And so And then I see my hypnotherapists individually and I love hypnotherapy because of how focused it is and how it gets into the subconscious and how you rip out what you don't want.You speak back to your open, vulnerable mind, which you do want. And so I particularly use that to help me stay off of [00:19:00] drugs. And so all. So that is our plug for mental health, because we know that it's something that's lacking in both the color community and in the gay community. It is not a straight a strike to your pride.If you want to go talk to somebody about getting help, there's many different types of therapists. That's why I asked her that if you go to one therapist and they're a fucking piece of shit, then fuck that hell you go to somebody else. Maybe you need a different type of therapy. There's all sorts of new age, metaphysical shit out there, getting the therapy Stella constellations all kinds of mind, body, soul meditation, shit.If you don't want to do traditional therapist, you can therapy. You can do the shit off his own. Now there's all kinds of shit. So whatever it is you think mental health is if you have a bad taste in your mouth about it I asked you to revisit it and take a second look at it. Because again, I said, we all had been fucked.You know, and so you need help to get unfucked up and to get an objective perspective. So you [00:20:00] don't keep getting fucked up relationships and sabotaging yourself. So just humble yourself down and go get some help, baby. And look, no one has to know, these therapists are bound by confidentiality, so it's not like they can go put it on social media that you were in treatment, or they would get their license taken and probably go to jail.So it's a secret, nobody. Nobody nobody has to Anna: know that's right. And may is mental health awareness month. So there is so much information out here right now in promoting and making awareness, you know, mental health awareness, I think this month. So you just one Google search. De'Vannon: Just one Google search away.So a quote that you had it says is your favorite pro. You said at first they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you, then you win. And that was by Gandhi. Tell me what this quote means to you.[00:21:00]Anna: And that you can't be waiting for people to validate who you are or validate your idea or validate what you call to do. It is not about that. You know, people gonna go along for the ride, you have to be clear about what you want to do. And I think that along the way, you're going to encounter different people.You know, I'm building a business. I don't come from a whole lot. I come from a whole lot of love. And so, but we got a lot of things and a lot of people, I talked to a lot of asks and the requests, I take a lot of leaps of faith. I have to keep practicing my faith muscle and building up my face muscle and what it means to take risks.And along the way, I'm going to run into people that don't agree with me, who don't believe what I'm in, what I'm doing, who don't see a market for it, who don't see a need for it. And honestly, like when we make it, that's when everybody want to be down. So for me, that quote by Gandhi just resonates a lot with what it means to be on the journey.And not, and for me, it's [00:22:00] not caring so much about the destination because to your point, like, I feel like things just will continue to be, but it's about enjoying the journey. And that quote reminds me that it's a journey that is not just going to be one thing or another thing. It's all of things, De'Vannon: all of them each and every last one of them.I love the friction that comes along. When w when people would try to repel us, though, I believe it helps to meet tourists. And it helps to refine us like when a moth or a butterfly. It's trying to crawl a lot of that Chrysalis after they'd been a caterpillar, you know, that struggle helps to release the, you know, the blood flow in whatever juices are in their little furry bodies to expand their wings.You know, that that struggle is needed. They can not become what they are to be without the problems. And, you know, and so I'm thankful for all the Karens for all the church, people who told us we had to get out, you know, and, and everything like that. For [00:23:00] the people who told us since we were black, we can't, we can't stay there.And stuff like that. When I read that, I thought about how I got kicked out of Lakewood church in Houston, Texas for not being straight, you know, but eventually I'm going to get the victory over them. Cause you know, I've been there when they kicked me out. This was like 2008, 2009. And I just finished my book and I went into great detail about how I felt about all of that.It took me over 10 years, but I finally clapped. I finally clapped the back. And so I will win. Yes, Anna: you are winning. You are winning. You've already won. The victory is yours. You're already, De'Vannon: they may in an amen. Okay. So then I'm just curious about, what do you think some of the top issues are facing just the lesbian community today?Hmm. [00:24:00] And why are you thinking about that? I noticed some of your top lives being moments when I was researching you. I would agree with queen Latifa from set it off. Anna: Yes, honey. That is number one of all time. You know what? I would argue anybody down and say that ain't the number one black lesbian moment in film, because.She was studied out in and go, okay, let dances. It was everything. Okay. It's a freaking classic acquaint. Lindsey foot is number one and she ain't even have to be out she out now, but she ain't going to have to be out. She is out to us anyway. So that was actually a really fun video to do. And I'll probably do another one because so many people rode in some of their favorite black lesbian moments that I had not even thought about again, or that people didn't tell me about because I asked my friends.So for example Lena commented, Lena [00:25:00] wave comments. And then she was like, what about when Tasha was on, came out on the L word? And I was like, dang, that was a pivotal moment because L where had been so white up until that point and it Tasha show up and just wreck the crew. And I was just like, Hey you.Right. So I'll probably do another video. But I think, I think for lesbians, some of the major challenges is still representation. And I think there is a lot of invisibility happening with lesbians. So there's a, there's a podcast called cruising, which on this podcast and but there's a podcast called cruising and they have like three lesbians going across the country and they are going to all of the last lesbian bars.And so there's 60,000 bars across the country and there's only 25 lesbian bars, 25 lesbian owned bars across the whole country. And so they did a whole podcast traveling around the country and visiting these bars. [00:26:00] So I think that there is a great need for visibility of lesbians. Not only in media, but just in life in general, you know?And I think lesbians often can kind of get lost in the south. So similar to how people feel like there's some invincibility with, by bisexuals in the community right now, I think, you know, a lot of trans folks get a lot of press because there is a political onslaught happening from right wing conservatives politically.And it doesn't mention, you know, gay folks or lesbian folks or bisexual folks it's specifically mentioned trans folks, you know, and I think that there's some, there's a definitely a sector of lesbians who feel like they have been left behind often also because we use the word queer these days and no one really uses the word lesbian.So I know that there's some lesbians out there that just feel like they've been left [00:27:00]somewhere in the eighties and. I think it's a, I think it's a challenge for them in that respect with all that being said, if one of our alphabet mafia is as you put it, okay, it's being attacked. Then we all being attacked.If we all don't have freedom, then none of us have freedom. So I think that some of what I hear as lesbian concerns, you know, aren't really concerns at all. I think it is fear. And I think that when our trans fam is experiencing right now, what they are experiencing right now affects every single last one of us.De'Vannon: So when you say someone says there's a lesbian concern and it's not really a concern, it sounds like you're speaking about hate and ignorance. Anna: Well, it might be a problem for them. It's not a problem for me. I think [00:28:00] that. I think it's just people being who they are.And I think that there, I think that people evolve and I think that terms evolve. And so I think there are people who are lesbians, who identify with a very strict definition of what it means to be a lesbian. I think there's people who identify with the very strict definition of what it means to be, get men who love men and women who love women.Like these are various particular definitions like that is it. And that is all right. That we're coming upon a time. I felt like we were living in a time where there is sexual fluidity and so forth, and I can speak for myself and I statements are so helpful in these moments. It's like I came out as a lesbian, but at the end of the day today, I identify as queer because child, I love a lot of things.Okay. And it's not just, it's not just women or assists women. Okay. It's just not. And so I needed an expansive word. I needed an expansive definition outside of [00:29:00] lesbian to identify with. So I think that I think oftentimes people get. And what they always known or anything like or stuff like that.But at the end of the day, things evolve, people evolve terms, evolve, communities evolve. And I also think that if there is one major issue affecting lesbians today, it is just continues to be a lack of representation and visibility, especially for masculine scent and lesbians. I mean, fam lesbians, they, their level of Ms.Visibility is a whole nother story, right? I've I've had films. Tell me, like, I intentionally date, you know, masculine of center women. So people know that I am a lesbian. I don't want you to think I'm straight, you know? And for masculine of center women, there is a, there is an appearance that out you, when you walk out the house.So you know, [00:30:00] visibility on a grander scale is still not there, even though there's a different level of acceptance. I believe four lesbians than there are even for gay men. I think gay men have a whole other struggle that around masculinity, especially in this country, that it's just really different than the lesbian experience.I've talked about. A friend I grew up with a gay guy who was very flamboyant, right? We was cool. He had to come to school with a knife right in his shoe. He never left home without a knife. And underneath the sole of his shoe, that was not my story. I never felt unsafe. He always felt unsafe. And I think at the core of it, I mean, there's so much to be said around the differences between a male identified experience and a woman identified experience within the LGBTQ community.De'Vannon: Let's talk about these experiences in the church. So in researching you, there is some Lutheran Baptist. History [00:31:00] here. Talk to us about how you grew up in cherish. Anna: Ah, man, my mama and my daddy met at church. So my dad has been a teacher for 40 years and he was teaching at teaching at a private Lutheran school where my mom had enrolled my sister.So my sister is 17 years older than me. And so my mom rolled my sister there and then they started a love affair in which they had to keep on, on the low, because the teachers weren't supposed to be thanking the parents, the parents were supposed to be dating the teacher's child, but in a way,and let me tell you, 40 years later, they still at the same church. Okay. So. They landed at a black Lutheran church on the south side of Chicago. And so that's where I grew up, but my dad's side of the family started a missionary Baptist church also on the south side of Chicago. So I would often have two Easter speeches.Okay. I, we would often end up going to two different churches on Sundays. Cause my family was at that church, [00:32:00] my uncles, my aunts, my grandma. I mean, everybody was that Christian Love missionary Baptist church. Right. And so we would, you know, time's always different to, with black church. So Lutherans start at a bright and early 10:00 AM.Okay. And we was done in 60 minutes, strong, maybe 75 on communion. Sunday Baptist church was just getting started about 11 and praise and worship. 30 minutes. And so by the time we get that, we still at the beginning of the service, so it would a lot more shouting to go. So it was definitely two very different religious experiences growing up too, which I think just kinda tells a lot about my life in general.The dichotomies. I'll be one place at one moment and be in total different place in the moment. Another moment, you know, I could be at some highfalutin place one moment, and then I could be in the projects the next moment. All of it [00:33:00] made sense to me for where I was in my life. But church church was a good time.De'Vannon: So you're a preacher's kid. You, you, you say that would explain why you are freaking, you call yourself queer into all things. You have them PKS. I'm pretty freaky deaky. Anna: We get into some things, we get into some things and they'll see it. My dad. So he's a deacon, but at the end of the day, he could preach anywhere and he does preach all the time.And. He just for Lutherans, you got a lot of rules, regulations. And so he never went back to get that final piece, but he has his master's in divinity and all this stuff. So, yeah. Child, Sundays, Wednesdays, Saturdays, and church. De'Vannon: Yeah, that's awesome. That's how I was growing up. Pentecostal Wednesday, you know, Bible ban this night, delivering service this night and the other service [00:34:00] that night when I was at Lakewood, I was there four nights a week, choir practice, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, kids worship leading and teaching Saturday night kids, life choir, Sunday choir.I think, I think we get like addicted to church before we realized we are Anna: Church is a big part, right? If you grew up in the church, it's a big part of your identity. It's your community, it's your family and my home church where my parents still go is home. They have always loved me, always embracing me.I've never been anything that I'm not there, but I have my own thoughts around religion and religious organization. So joining the Missouri Senate is not an option for me because they don't see me as a whole person. So for me, it goes beyond the church. It's about the religious organization, right. [00:35:00] But it defined so much.And that's why when queer folks get rejected from church, It is incredibly impactful and can really damage and cause harm because the first couple of places you learn how to love is at home and at church. And that's often times the two places you spend the most time. And so when one, or both turn their back on you as a human being, you are not the same person you were before.It can, it, it leads you down a path that it, it destroys you period. Point blank. It destroys you, you know, and a lot of my work over the years has been around dismantling that and telling the truth about it. That Jesus never said one thing about gay people, not one, Jesus never said it. Now. I just, these clapper scriptures and everything else, I mean, The Bible is meant to be interpreted.It's meant to be [00:36:00] understood. It's meant to be put into context and the way folks have picked and chosen what they want to and who they want to damn to Hale is, is the most unlocked ungodlike thing they can absolutely ever do. And back in the day, I did this project with this organization called church, was in a church where we did a video 30 day release them to do video every 30 days called my God is not a bully to just emphasize that point that God is not bullying anybody.It's the people in the pulpit that are, and their lack of interpretation of scripture and in context of strip scripture. So The church means a lot to me actually is part of the Q we are releasing our own content as part of the queue and to, and one of our podcasts first podcast is called second Sunday.And I cannot wait for y'all to hear this podcast [00:37:00] because it's talking about the intersections of being black queer and in the church. And we had the opportunity to interview a lot of black queer theologians, lay people musicians for this podcast and the things that they share a child, it's just, it humanizes an experience that gets polarized a lot.And I hope I hope folks can get seen through this work. De'Vannon: Yeah. I was at a graduate at the Houston graduate school of theology and he of course, Euston, Texas, but I was going to get a master's of divinity as well. When you said that it, it popped out my ears, but I, I left that bitch. I broke up, I broke up and that bitch, when the, when the law professor said that, that they like to control people in church.And so that was like, well, I didn't come here to dominate motherfuckers, so I'll be going now. And so let me get more, I want to get more granular [00:38:00] with your per perspective. Cause I watched that video. One of the, one of the God is not a bully and I agree with what you're saying and it's at the epicenter of my message to people.I preach spiritual independence and people getting close to God on their own without a church or with one. But if you're going to have a church, remember that it's second to God. And so You bring up. Okay. So you're talking about like how the people are using the scripture to throw shade at people who are unlike them.It, how. Scriptural interpretation is very subjective and it is, everybody can read the Bible and come out of it with what they want. It's clearly not an easy to understand book because if it was simple to interpret, then you wouldn't need a thousand different translations of it. And so, I mean, And so since people are indoctrinated in such a young age, you know, at churches, you, you understand you go there to learn, but critical thinking about what the preacher is saying is not what's taught to you.And [00:39:00] so you're accepting whatever is being said. And by the time you're old enough to know any difference, you've got all of these issues to sort out, and then you feel conflicted about it because you've been told never to disagree with a preacher or a church, but now you like the shit don't make sense though.And so, so we add an out here to tell you that you will not burn up and go to hell for not being straight and to all the straight people. And I mean that loosely, because you never know what the hell people not doing behind closed doors. I didn't fuck so many straight married men and my day is unreal.And so you know, just, just know that while they're trying to use these scriptures over here to condemn you to hell since they want to be so strict about that. The, the Bible and everything. You know, the Bible speaks against getting divorced for any reason, other than infidelity. It speaks against interracial couples and stuff like that, stuff that we're all totally cool with.Now, them people in church got 50,000 divorces. [00:40:00] It all kinds of reasons and all kinds of mixed, mixed racial shit's going on. And I'm cool with all of it. But my whole point is this. If you're going to be such a hard ass about one part, you need to be a hard ass about the whole fucking thing. I don't want to see you eating nothing that divided the hoof.I don't want you getting down with the pig or nothing like that. If you going to be that much of a, of a bitch about it, then follow the whole fucking thing from end to end and not just a P a few slices of. Anna: And that's what they do, right? Those Christians like them, so-called Christians cause they not Christian some so called Christians.You know, they use, they use it for whatever they feel like they want to use it for. And they cause a lot of freaking harm and they're causing harm right now. And now it's entered the political round, you know? And we need more folks like you, we need more projects. I tell queer folks and LGBTQ young people that you'll still love that God still loves you.That your relationship with God is far more important [00:41:00] than whatever this preacher is saying from a pulpit. I also think critical thought is so incredibly important when you understand that there are books missing from the Bible, right? When you understand that, that what you're reading is not the entire Canon, like what are we doing here?People, what are we doing here? And also think it's easy to make God this very angry damning person and being. That was not what God taught at all. That's not what God taught at all. De'Vannon: He's not, he's a God of mercy and grace forgiveness, long suffering, slow to anger, quick, the mercy, quick, the compassion.That's what the scripture say. He's not like man, you know, quick to judge and clobber you and what you speak of about getting kicked out from churches and how it changes you. It's it's, it's what I call being dehumanized. It makes you feel like you're less than a person. And when a church tells you, you have to go.Not because of [00:42:00] something you've done with church has never supposed to tell anyone to go, no matter what, you know, Jesus accepted murderers and everybody. So for a terrace would be like, you can't go because of who you love, which is what Lakewood church did to me. You know, you can't. There, you know, you, that, that, that, that sent me on a downward spiral that ultimately led me into drugs and to drug dealing and to getting hepatitis B and HIV, my choice to do what I do, do what I did, but they certainly would've sparked the set that shit in motion and fuck them.Fuck you wake with church in on repeat, if we can dub stuff, that shit, then the video you also said. You, you made a comparison about how, okay. Say like procreation, one of the arguments people use against the non straight community is that God hates what you're doing because when you have sex, you can't, and there's no kid that's gonna come of it.[00:43:00]And then you were like, okay, well they're straight couples that God has prevented them from having children's. It was that because he hates them too. You know, it's not a, you can't apply that sort of a rubric evenly. You can't do it. And then you were also saying, you said something very interesting to me.You said that you wouldn't choose another burden and you were like, I'm already blessed. That's hard enough as it is. Do I really want. Add queer to it and all the problems that come along in this life, in that statement, you're rebutting the stupid shit. Like I heard Joyce Meyer and whoever the fuck else say that, where they think it's a choice, you know, like, like we just, oh, well we'll think we'll be gay today, you know, or some or some stupid shit like that as that is the most overly simplistic, dumb ass shit.These supposedly educated people Anna: say 100%. And I think that that's at the core of it. And I was talking to somebody recently whose child just came out to [00:44:00] them a year or so ago. And I was just like, you know, We have to start the conversation at choice with choice, because if you believe what I'm doing is a choice, then we're not going to get very far because at the heart of homophobia, is this idea that you can change.Hence why conversion therapy, right. Has been such a popular way for Christians to change people because you don't think it's a choice because you think it's a choice. But in fact, it's not. In fact, I grew up when my mama put me in bowls and matching ruffle socks. Okay. And doing everything in her power to make, to, to raise a feminine girl.And in fact, I was who I was from the moment I had any say over it. It's just not who I was. And I was very clear about that from a very young age. I was very clear that I was [00:45:00] athletic. Does that make me gay? No, but I was also very clear. I liked wearing my dad's shirts and my dad and I had the same initials and he gets his shirts embroidered with his initials on them.And I wanted to wear his shirts. I was not going to wear my mother's dresses. I didn't want nothing to do with heels. I didn't want to do a pantyhose. It's just, it just wasn't who I was and it's not who I am. And so I think all of these conversations around homophobia and transphobia and hate come around, the idea that who we are is a choice and who we are is not a choice in the same ways who they are, you know innately is not a choice.De'Vannon: That do be facts though, because if there was, they're going to apply that logic, the us, and it has to go in reverse. And I like you when I was two, three years old, I was already playing with Kendall. I was trying to see what was up under his shorts and shit like that. So, but if, but if there's a choice, then when did they kick to be straight?And [00:46:00] then if that's the case, are they confessing that they had homosexual desire at some point, you know, the way they tell it, they'd been straight from the beginning. So if that's the case, you know, it's uneven, but it's like anything else from your favorite food to your favorite color? Life is a thing of discovery.We do not get to put ourselves together like a doll or a made out of Play-Doh. You don't get to go. My favorite color is going to be green. My favorite dish is going to be lobster. My favorite state, I think I'll go with Kentucky. My favorite shoes, I think van sounds nice. You know, you, you get exposed to shit and then you pay attention to what keeps standing out to you.And what keeps drawing you in and then you go, oh, it seems like I'm into the color green or, oh, I think I really, really liked these fucking vans. They represent me. Well, you discover who you are, the beginnings of who you are, is shaped. And when you're in your mother's womb everywhere, she goes, the things she says, the people she talks to, the thing she thinks read, exposes [00:47:00] that child to everything, you cannot separate the two.So you're predisposed to so much before you're even born. So for them fuckers to be like, well, you chose to be gay. I goes again, signs and all logic. And they're just stupid as hell. Anna: Pretty much, pretty much. And what's really unfortunate is, is that I, I see that there can be a differentiation. So let me give you an example.Like you can believe that being queer is wrong, right? You can believe. But that should not equate to me not having the rights as a citizen, within a country that I pay taxes in, if that makes sense. So for me, politics shapes society. So you can think being gay is wrong, but that doesn't mean you have the right to limit my rights, [00:48:00] to control who I love control.If I can get married control, if I can get medical care control with books, I read you not have that type of control in my life. Just because you don't agree with who I am. I don't agree with you being a white, racist, homophobic transphobic person. Right. Right. But I ain't trying to write legislation to kill off your human existence.Right. Because that is exactly the fact of the matter is that what's happening across the country right now is killing. Trans youth, the numbers the suicide hotlines, like the Trevor project, they are outrageous right now, right? People are trying to leave states where they have had homes and families and a legacy because their children can't get the medical care they need.Because now politicians are saying that parents don't know what's best for their own children. How dare you? Just because you don't believe in who I am. [00:49:00] And I think it's just so incredibly contradictory because they don't want anyone telling them who they are or what they should be doing. You know,De'Vannon: if it's any consolation, these people are the hypocrites of our day. You had them in Jesus's time. I agree with what you said earlier, how the Bible is not complete. Some people will say everything you need to know about life it's in the Bible. That's bullshit. It's a general. It's a general guide to help get you close enough to God.So you can talk to him for yourself and then he can fix you and instruct you the rest of the way. But everything is not in there, but these, these Republicans and evangelicals and everything, these are today's hypocrites. Every generation has to have them. There's not going to come a time in this earth until probably the millennial kingdom when Jesus Christ reigns here again, but even, well, I'm not going to say that because even then there's going to be people who don't believe in him in the earth.And so there's always going to be those people who are contradictory, these people [00:50:00] are like how solid the apostle is before you became Paul. The thing is if God doesn't open somebody's eyes to their hypocrisy, then they won't see if you don't up in their ears to hear truth. They won't hear, they won't believe and be converted.Every generation has to have the people who are going to be citizens of hell bound to go to hell. Because if they have humility and love in their heart, they would go to heaven and they would be rugged. You people not going to accidentally end up in hell, you have to be like Pharaoh or somebody and just hardheaded ignoring the signs, not hearing what the people under you are trying to say, not hearing the voice of the people.That's how far was he just would not hear logic and reason because he was so set in his ways and what he wanted to want other people to do. Now, Paul Saul took his ass to the Sanhedrin saying Hedron was a religious council of the day. I think it's like 70 something. My fathers who control shit. It's no [00:51:00] different than legislation.The day, a whole group of motherfuckers who control. You say, I look this Jesus person and come here with his bullshit and these people trying to act like him and we can't be having none of this. So give me some power, some letters and shit. So then go arrest. They asses and beat them and fuck with them and shit beat this Jesus out of the acids.Cause this ain't right. It's on rip up our moral fabric. And this is going to tear our society down because of how they believe. And the Sanhedrin was like, go on, play a gong. Now his way to Damascus Jesus intercepted his bitch ass. And it was like, ah, ah, ah, ah, what you doing? You need to stop this shit because I did not send you scripturally speaking.He said, Saul saw, why, why are you persecuting me? It's hard for you to kick against the pricks. And so what do we have here? Somebody who said those people over there, I don't like what they doing. So let me in and enact laws to change them. And the Lord said, I don't want [00:52:00] you to do that. That, that is the what the whole beginning of that, that part of the book of acts is about Jesus Christ.Being against using the law to co Eris people to behave differently. It was right there yet. When those people, the people of our day, the hypocrites, the Republicans, evangelicals, if they even read they dusty ass Bibles, I don't see how they can. And when they read the Bible, they, they read it to find not what's wrong with other people.They are right there. But when they killed Steve and I'm going to say this and shut the hell up, but this is a hot button for both of us when they killed even the one who said to me, the first martyr, he read the religious people for Phil, and he told them, you motherfuckers are the same people who kill the prophets and everything like that.While you sitting up here trying to judge me that he, it was a whole long chapter in acts. And then they stoned him to death and everything like that. So these things must be so, Anna: and I think so, [00:53:00] Chad, you just said so much, there's so much to say. I think, I think at the heart of it also is that the theology, like your own spiritual connection to God is, can be so expansive.So the, to your point, right, the Bible is one thing. But then, right. Christians will tell you that all these, you shouldn't even explore these other religions. They can't give you nothing. Like, no, you can't get nothing out of nothing out of these, none of these other spaces. And I think to myself, like I thought God created everything.I thought God created everything. And if God created everything and God is in everything. And and I find myself having a very expansive worldview about God and my beliefs, like, so. Growing up. You're taught that if someone commits suicide, they go into hell. [00:54:00] And then now I was thinking, and then as I grew up, I was like, why would God send anybody to hell for committing suicide?And where does it say that in the Bible? And it doesn't right. We're just fed these. We fed these things out of fear to control you to not commit suicide, but who in the world told you that? When I think about the, the, the, the preachers and spiritual teachings that like folks around the world, anyone who doesn't call Jesus by name as their Lord and savior is going to go to hell, how is that possible?When there's people in the other countries, in the world who don't even know who Jesus is. So you're telling me that this God of love is going to send somebody who had an opportunity to get to know who, who Jesus was. That doesn't make any sense to me. And I think that. When for me, because of my sexual identity, it caused me to have to question a whole hell of a lot of stuff.Definitions of [00:55:00] what heaven heaven is, definitions of what hail is, definitions of who's going, and who's not, you begin to question all of it. And for me, when it boils down, I love it. When my mom says this to people about me. When she would tell me this all the time, she'd be like, have you read your 10 commandments recently?I don't see nothing in there about God, about gay people, you know? But I see a whole lot of other stuff that applies to you. Hello. So my mom, you know, she got to the point where she was empowered enough to, you know, stand up and say something and speak out about that. And I think that we need more people to do just that.Cause they ain't gonna say it to me. They gonna say it to their friend who they think agreed with them, you know? So. I just think we have a long way to go to the, understand what it means to, to embody and to embody a godlike existence, because it has so much [00:56:00] more to do with love and choice than anything else.De'Vannon: I was like you a very well said girl. I was like you very confused and conflicted about myself because of what the church said. They only gave me peace with learning, how to read the scripture for myself. I went back to the original Greek Hebrew and Aramaic the original, the Bible and discovered it for myself, what I want people to do, because any translation you read king James, a message or whatever, the living Bible, those are all other people's translations.That's not the actual original language. Instead, if you want the true truth, then you got to go back to the source. You got to go back to the original languages of the net and you get. Somebody else's version Anna: that end. You have to I think you gotta find your own practice. So you have to find what that practice looks like for you.Especially when you feel disconnected from church, because church was a practice Sunday, Saturday, Wednesday, however many times a [00:57:00] week, that was a practice. So as if you feel yourself pulling away from that, that you have to figure out what your practice look like. And so today, like my practice looks like me being in my prayer corner in the mornings, but my affirmation books with my journals, with my candle, with my music, with pictures of my family, like for me growing up, like it is being grounded in quiet and close to God in those moments.And that's my, that's my practice today. And I feel closer to God than I ever have. I see signs all the time. I think numerology is real. Like if something profound happens, I'm like, what time is it? I think, I think there's so many ways to connect with God. And when you choose to close yourself off to all the possibilities and all the possibilities of who God is, you will miss her.You going to miss, you're going to miss her. You gonna miss her. That's it.[00:58:00]De'Vannon: Let me see here. So we wanted to talk about the cube. As we begin to wrap it up, I'm going to read your favorite quote by Shirley Chisholm believes you better than she was the first black woman to put in a bid to be a presidential nominated back in the seventies and her eyeglass, a tiny her frame game was on point yes and date match for the gods date.And she said, if they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. You go on to say in your it says in your, in your, in your website, you know, we bought our folding chairs and there hasn't been any equity to be found at those tables. It's time for us to build our own tables and our own chairs to this space and model the change we want to see in the world of podcasting.Anna: Yes. All of that. So I love Shirley chill. I love [00:59:00] everything. She's still fought. She she's made a lot of things possible and she had to bring her folding chair. Okay. She had to, they weren't inviting her to no tables. She had to bring a folding chair, but because of the work that she did and in fact that we can stand on the shoulders of so many other incredible, incredible people of history from Ella baker to Angela Davis, to Coretta Scott King, Utah, I mean, Elaine brown, I can go on and on.We can build our own tables. We don't have to wait on anyone to do anything for us. Should apple be more inclusive? Yes. Should Spotify be more inclusive? Yes, they should. But it is not about what they should do because capitalism rules this country. So if it's not, if it doesn't make money, it doesn't make sense in so many ways in that world, but we have an opportunity to do something different.[01:00:00]And I think we have an opportunity to shape, especially the podcasting space, because I feel like it's still very much so a new medium, I believe it's coming into its own after 20 years. And that's why I like new it's like, so it's such a funny thing to say because it's been 20 years, but for so many people, they are just really getting into what it could mean to listen to a podcast.And we can shape what we want this world to see. And I wanted to see more diverse. I want to see more people like me and I wasn't finding them. And so the cube will be that there'll be the one and only curated destination of music and podcasts by BiPAP and QT POC folks. And the music is powered by our radio station.Ethan. Which plays queer music and reports on queer news and high rotation specifically at the intersections of race and sexuality. So there's so many queer artists out here doing their thing, and you don't hear about them. [01:01:00] There's so many of them making good music. I got one of my favorite inspirational artists is a black queer woman who was on Sunday.Best Maya be you know, her, you know, like they deserve a space to be. And then there's like, dope podcasts is like, you whole deserve to be seen who to serve more visibility, more amplification of your work. And I think we can do it. And matter of fact, I know we can do it. We are doing it. And I think we can do it really, really well.So it's going to be an app or in development. My goal. My hope is that we are dropping beta in July and totally out to the public. By September of this year, we've accepted 94 podcasts into the app. We've got a team of folks listening to every single piece of podcast content, because we want the best pod-casters inside of our app.I want the best because there's a lot of poor Lee produced podcasts in the market. People who [01:02:00] sound like they got the iPhone on top of the roof on a fourth bottle of wine. Okay. And you know, that's okay. That's okay. You can do that. You got something to say and you better go say it. Okay. But they don't have to be what's in my ears.It doesn't have to be what's inside this app. I want it to have to be where the best reside and that's what resonates with me. And that's what we're building. De'Vannon: Yeah. I was listening to somebody, his podcasts earlier, who's trying to come on my show and be a guest. And I was like, God, I can't hear what you're saying.You sound muffled. Yes. Out there. So I thank you for your compliments. Just all the sex, drugs and jingles podcast has been accepted into the cube. So our clients, our quality is on point enough for these standards. And so. I'm going to read it a little bit further. So it says the cube is majority owned by a black queer woman and co-founded by three black LGBTQ persons.The cube will be a centralized [01:03:00] destination for discovery of BiPAP and QT pop music and podcasts. Tell us what the BiPAP and QT pox Anna: fans. Absolutely BiPAP is black indigenous people of color. And I choose to say BiPAP because I leave with my blackness. And so I choose to say black indigenous people of color.And then I choose to identify queer trans people of color specifically, even though we inside the BiPAP, we in there. But I think it's important for queer folks to know that I'm talking about that, that this platform is also for them, that I want to be able to center and amplify their work as well. And so that's why I, I include QT POC into the narrative now is my marketing team happy about that?No. Okay. It's a lot of words. It's a lot of acronyms people don't know what the heck I'm talking about, but the people, the people who know know. Right. And so, you know, at the end of the day I'm in this accelerator right now with Google, which is [01:04:00] really dope. It's the Google for startups like founders academy.And one of the mentors was like, I need five words, five words to describe your business. You should be able to describe your business in five words. And I was like, God, dang it. And so I came up with discover, discover the best bi-pod podcast. Right. If I had to describe it in five words, discover the best BiPAP podcast is what I came up with.And so that's what it all means. At the end of the day. It's about discovery. You will, will be able to listen to these podcasts inside of the app. And I hope people would choose to do that as well. There's an opportunity for Uproxx to tip their creators from within the app and that money would go straight to those creators.And I'm excited about that. The moment we get enough users, we'll be able to roll out an ad revenue sharing program, right? So we could put more money into creatives pockets who do want to make money from advertising. And, you know, I think we just continue to build this platform in this [01:05:00] space for folks to discover some of the amazing ways that black, brown, and queer folks of color show up in the world.And I think podcasting is a space that people are choosing to share their experiences with the world the same way you share yours. You know? I think there's a, there's a, I know there's a lot of people doing that and you just can't find them. De'Vannon: Up until now, because now Anna: you got the keyDe'Vannon: cue, baby. Yeah.All right. So just any last words you have for the world, any community, whatever you want to say, you can say, what the fuck you feel? Anna: I love it. I love, I can say whatever the fuck I feel.I feel like we're in. I feel like we're in a moment right now. So I, I feel like we've survived a pandemic and it feels like the world is restarting in some ways. [01:06:00] And I feel like we've got an opportunity here to change the way. We do media and podcasting has a way, has an opportunity to show folks how to do media collaboration.Right? I think we can show what it means to be a community inside of a media industry. I think podcasting has an opportunity to do it differently than what and how things have been done in the past. And so I hope that I, I hope that I can be part of that change. There are so many amazing people in this space doing amazing work, our partners.And my hope is that I can amplify them as well. So when we talk about the black podcast association, when I think about the women of color association, when I think about the

About AnnaAnna has nearly ten years of experience researching and advising organizations on cloud adoption with a focus on security best practices. As a Gartner Analyst, Anna spent six years helping more than 500 enterprises with vulnerability management, security monitoring, and DevSecOps initiatives. Anna's research and talks have been used to transform organizations' IT strategies and her research agenda helped to shape markets. Anna is the Director of Thought Leadership at Sysdig, using her deep understanding of the security industry to help IT professionals succeed in their cloud-native journey.Anna holds a PhD in Materials Engineering from the University of Michigan, where she developed computational methods to study solar cells and rechargeable batteries.How do I adapt my security practices for the cloud-native world?How do I select and deploy appropriate tools and processes to address business needs?How do I make sense of new technology trends like threat deception, machine learning, and containers?Links: Sysdig: https://sysdig.com/ “2022 Cloud-Native Security and Usage Report”: https://sysdig.com/2022-cloud-native-security-and-usage-report/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/aabelak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aabelak/ Email: anna.belak@sysdig.com TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Today's episode is brought to you in part by our friends at MinIO the high-performance Kubernetes native object store that's built for the multi-cloud, creating a consistent data storage layer for your public cloud instances, your private cloud instances, and even your edge instances, depending upon what the heck you're defining those as, which depends probably on where you work. It's getting that unified is one of the greatest challenges facing developers and architects today. It requires S3 compatibility, enterprise-grade security and resiliency, the speed to run any workload, and the footprint to run anywhere, and that's exactly what MinIO offers. With superb read speeds in excess of 360 gigs and 100 megabyte binary that doesn't eat all the data you've gotten on the system, it's exactly what you've been looking for. Check it out today at min.io/download, and see for yourself. That's min.io/download, and be sure to tell them that I sent you.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Oracle HeatWave is a new high-performance query accelerator for the Oracle MySQL Database Service, although I insist on calling it “my squirrel.” While MySQL has long been the worlds most popular open source database, shifting from transacting to analytics required way too much overhead and, ya know, work. With HeatWave you can run your OLAP and OLTP—don't ask me to pronounce those acronyms again—workloads directly from your MySQL database and eliminate the time-consuming data movement and integration work, while also performing 1100X faster than Amazon Aurora and 2.5X faster than Amazon Redshift, at a third of the cost. My thanks again to Oracle Cloud for sponsoring this ridiculous nonsense.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. Once upon a time, I went to a conference talk at, basically, a user meetup. This was in the before times, when that wasn't quite as much of a deadly risk because of a pandemic, and mostly a deadly risk due to me shooting my mouth off when it wasn't particularly appreciated.At that talk, I wound up seeing a new open-source project that was presented to me, and it was called Sysdig. I wasn't quite sure on what it did at the time and I didn't know what it would be turning into, but here we are now, what is it, five years later. Well, it's turned into something rather interesting. This is a promoted episode brought to us by our friends at Sysdig and my guest today is their Director of Thought Leadership, Anna Belak. Anna, thank you for joining me.Anna: Hi, Corey. I'm very happy to be here. I'm a big fan.Corey: Oh, dear. So, let's start at the beginning. Well, we'll start with the title: Director of Thought Leadership. That is a lofty title, it sounds like you sit on the council of the Lords of Thought somewhere. Where does your job start and stop?Anna: I command the Council of the Lords of thought, actually. [laugh].Corey: Supply chain issues mean the robe wasn't available. I get it, I get it.Anna: There is a robe. I'm just not wearing it right now. So, the shortest way to describe the role is probably something that reports into engineering, interestingly, and it deals with product and marketing in a way that is half evangelism and half product strategy. I just didn't feel like being called any of those other things, so they were like, “Director of Thought Leadership you are.” And I was like, “That sounds awesome.”Corey: You know, it's one of those titles that people generally don't see a whole lot of, so if nothing else, I always liked those job titles that cause people to sit up and take notice as opposed to something that just people fall asleep by the time you get halfway through it because, in lieu of a promotion, people give you additional adjectives in your title. And we're going to go with it. So, before you wound up at Sysdig, you were at Gartner for a number of years.Anna: That's right, I spent about six years at Gartner, and there half the time I covered containers, Kubernetes, and DevOps from an infrastructure perspective, and half the time I spent covering security operations, actually, not specifically with respect to containers, or cloud, but broadly. And so my favorite thing is security operations, as it relates to containers and cloud-native workloads, which is kind of how I ended up here.Corey: I wouldn't call that my favorite thing. It's certainly something that is near and dear to the top of mind, but that's not because I like it, let's put it [laugh] that way. It's one of those areas where getting it wrong is catastrophic. Back in 2017, when I went to that meetup in San Francisco, Sysdig seemed really interesting to me because it looked like it tied together a whole bunch of different diagnostic tools, LSOF, strace, and the rest. Honestly—and I mean no slight to the folks who built out this particular tool—it felt like DTrace, only it understood the value of being accessible to its users without basically getting a doctorate in something.I like the idea, and it felt like it was very much aimed at an in-depth performance analysis story or an observability play. But today, it seems that you folks have instead gone in much more of a direction of DevSecOps, if the people listening to this, and you, will pardon the term. How did that happen? What was that product evolution like?Anna: Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment, actually. And again, no disrespect to DTrace of which I'm also a fan. So, we certainly started out in the container observability space, essentially because this whole Docker Kubernetes thing was exploding in popularity—I mean, before it was exploding, it was just kind of like, peaking out—and very quickly, our founder Loris, who is the co-founder of Wireshark, was like, “Hey, there's a visibility issue here. We can't see inside these things with the tools that we have that are built for host instrumentation, so I'm going to make a thing.” And he made a thing, and it was an awesome thing that was open-sourced.And then ultimately, what happened is, the ecosystem of containers and communities evolved, and more and more people started to adopt it. And so more people needed kind of a more, let's say, hefty, serious tool for observability, and then what followed was another tool for security because what we actually discovered was the data that we're able to collect from the system with Sysdig is incredibly useful for noticing security problems. So, that caused us to kind of expand into that space. And today we are very much a tool that still has an observability component that is quite popular, has a security component which is it's fairly broad: We cover CSPM use cases, we cover [CIEM 00:05:04] use cases, and we are very, kind of let's say, very strong and very serious about our detection response and runtime security use cases, which come from that pedigree of the original Sysdig as well.Corey: You can get a fairly accurate picture of what the future of technology looks like by taking a look at what my opinion of something is, and then doing the exact opposite of that. I was a big believer that virtualization, “Complete flash in the pan; who's going to use that?” Public cloud, “Are you out of your tree? No one's going to trust other companies with their holy of holies.” And I also spent a lot of time crapping on containers and not actually getting into them.Instead, I leapfrogged over into the serverless land, which I was a big fan of, which of course means that it's going to be doomed sooner or later. My security position has also somewhat followed similar tracks where, back when you're running virtual machines that tend to be persistent, you really have to care about security because you are running full-on systems that are persistent, and they run all kinds of different services simultaneously. Looking at Lambda Functions, for example, in the modern serverless world, I always find a lot of the tooling and services and offerings around security for that are a little overblown. They have a defined narrow input, they have a defined output, there usually aren't omnibus functions shoved in here where they have all kinds of different code paths. And it just doesn't have the same attack surface, so it often feels like it's trying to sell me something I don't need. Security in the container world is one of those areas I never had to deal with in anger, as a direct result. So, I have to ask, how bad is it?Anna: Well, I have some data to share with you, but I'll start by saying that I maybe was the opposite of you, so we'll see which one of us wins this one. I was an instant container fangirl from the minute I discovered them. But I crapped out—Corey: The industry shows you were right on that one. I think the jury [laugh] is pretty much in on this one.Anna: Oh, I will take it. But I did crap on Lambda Functions pretty hard. I was like, “Serverless? This is dumb. Like, how are we ever going to make that work?” So, it seems to be catching on a little bit, at least it. It does seem like serverless is playing the function of, like, the glue between bits, so that does actually make a lot of sense. In retrospect, I don't know that we're going to have—Corey: Well, it feels like it started off with a whole bunch of constraints around it, and over time, they've continued to relax those constraints. It used to be, “How do I package this?” It's, “Oh, simple. You just spent four days learning about all the ins and outs of this,” and now it's, “Oh, yeah. You just give it a Docker file?” “Oh. Well, that seems easier. I could have just been stubborn and waited.” Hindsight.Anna: Yeah, exactly. So, containers as they are today, I think are definitely much more usable than they were five-plus years ago. There are—again there's a lot of commercial support around these things, right? So, if you're, you know, like, a big enterprise client, then you don't really have time to fool around in open-source, you can go in, buy yourself a thing, and they'll come with support, and somebody will hold your hand as you figure it out, and it's actually quite, quite pleasant. Whether or not that has really gone mainstream or whether or not we've built out the entire operational ecosystem around it in a, let's say, safe and functional way remains to be seen. So, I'll share some data from our report, which is actually kind of the key thing I want to talk about.Corey: Yeah, I wanted to get into that. You wound up publishing this somewhat recently, and I regret that as of the time of this recording, I have not yet had time to go into it in-depth, and of course eviscerate it in my typical style on Twitter—although that may have been rectified by the time that this show airs, to be very clear—but it's the Sysdig “2022 Cloud-Native Security and Usage Report”.Anna: Please at me when you Twitter-shred it. [laugh].Corey: Oh, when I read through and screenshot it, and I'd make what observations that I imagine are witty. But I'm looking forward to it; I've done that periodically with the Flexera, “State of the Cloud” report for last few years, and every once in a while, whatever there's a, “We've done a piece of thought leadership, and written a report,” it's, “Oh, great. Let's make fun of it.” That's basically my default position on things. I am not a popular man, as you might imagine. But not having had the chance to go through it in-depth, what did this attempt to figure out when the study was built, and what did you learn that you found surprising?Anna: Yeah, so the first thing I want to point out because it's actually quite important is that this report is not a survey. This is actual data from our actual back end. So, we're a SaaS provider, we collect data for our customers, we completely anonymize it, and then we show in aggregate what in fact we see them doing or not doing. Because we think this is a pretty good indicator of what's actually happening versus asking people for their opinion, which is, you know, their opinion.Corey: Oh, I love that. My favorite lies that people tell are the lies they don't realize that they're telling. It's, I'll do an AWS bill analysis and, “Great. So, tell me about all these instances you have running over in Frankfurt.” “Oh, we don't have anything there.”I believe you're being sincere when you say this, however, the data does show otherwise, and yay, now we're in a security incident.Anna: Exactly.Corey: I'm a big believer of going to the actual source for things like this where it's possible.Anna: Exactly. So, I'll tell you my biggest takeaway from the whole thing probably was that I was surprised by the lack of… surprise. And I work in cloud-native security, so I'm kind of hoping every single day that people will start adopting these modern patterns of, like, discarding images, and deploying new ones when they found a vulnerability, and making ephemeral systems that don't run for a long time like a virtual machine in disguise, and so on. And it appears that that's just not really happening.Corey: Yeah, it's always been fun, more than a little entertaining, when I wind up taking a look at the aspirational plans that companies have. “Great, so when are you going to do”—“Oh, we're going to get to that after the next sprint.” “Cool.” And then I just set a reminder and I go back a year later, and, “How's that coming?” “Oh, yeah. We're going to get to that next sprint.”It's the big lie that we always tell ourselves that right after we finished this current project, then we're going to suddenly start doing smart things, making the right decisions, and the rest. Security, cost, and a few other things all tend to fall on the side of, you can spend infinite money and infinite time on these things, but it doesn't advance what your business is doing, but if you do none of those things, you don't really have a business anymore. So, it's always a challenge to get it prioritized by the strategic folks.Anna: Exactly. You're exactly right because what people ultimately do is they prioritize business needs, right? They are prioritizing whatever makes them money or creates the trinkets their selling faster or whatever it is, right? The interesting thing, though, is if you think about who our customers would be, like, who the people in this dataset are, they are all companies who are probably more or less born in the cloud or at least have some arm that is born in the cloud, and they are building software, right? So, they're not really just your average enterprises you might see in a Gartner client base which is more broad; they are software companies.And for software companies, delivering software faster is the most important thing, right, and then delivering secure software faster, should be the most important thing, but it's kind of like the other thing that we talk about and don't do. And that's actually what we found. We found that people do deliver software faster because of containers and cloud, but they don't necessarily deliver secure software faster because as is one of our data points, 75% of containers that run in production have critical or high vulnerabilities that have a patch available. So, they could have been fixed but they weren't fixed. And people ask why, right? And why, well because it's hard; because it takes time; because something else took priority; because I've accepted the risk. You know, lots of reasons why.Corey: One of the big challenges, I think, is that I can walk up and down the expo hall at the RSA Conference, which until somewhat recently, you were not allowed to present that or exhibit at unless you had the word ‘firewall' in your talk title, or wound up having certain amounts of FUD splattered across your banners at the show floor. It feels like there are 12 products—give or take—for sale there, but there are hundreds of booths because those products have different names, different messaging, and the rest, but it all feels like it distills down to basically the same general categories. And I can buy all of those things. And it costs an enormous pile of money, and at the end of it, it doesn't actually move the needle on what my business is doing. At least not in a positive direction, you know? We just set a giant pile of money on fire to make sure that we're secure.Well, great. Security is never an absolute, and on top of that, there's always the question of what are we trying to achieve as a business. As a goal—from a strategic perspective—security often looks a lot like, “Please let's not have a data breach that we have to report to people.” And ideally, if we have a lapse, we find out about it through a vector that is other than the front page of The New York Times. That feels like it's a challenging thing to get prioritized in a lot of these companies. And you have found in your report that there are significant challenges, of course, but also that some companies in some workloads are in fact getting it right.Anna: Right, exactly. So, I'm very much in line with your thinking about this RSA shopping spree, and the reality of that situation is that even if we were to assume that all of the products you bought at the RSA shopping center were the best of breed, the most amazing, fantastic, perfect in every way, you would still have to somehow build a program on top of them. You have to have a process, you have to have people who are bought into that process, who are skilled enough to execute on that process, and who are more or less in agreement with the people next door to them who are stuck using one of the 12 trinkets you bought, but not the one that you're using. So, I think that struggle persists into the cloud and may actually be worse in the cloud because now, not only are we having to create a processor on all these tools so that we can actually do something useful with them, but the platform in which we're operating is fundamentally different than what a lot of us learned on, right?So, the priorities in cloud are different; the way that infrastructure is built is a little different, like, you have to program a YAML file to make yourself an instance, and that's kind of not how we are used to doing it necessarily, right? So, there are lots of challenges in terms of skills gap, and then there's just this eternal challenge of, like, how do we put the right steps into place so that everybody who's involved doesn't have to suffer, right, and that the thing that comes out at the end is not garbage. So, our approach to it is to try to give people all the pieces they need within a certain scope, so again, we're talking about people developing software in a cloud-native world, we're focused kind of on containers and cloud workloads even though it's not necessarily containers. So that's, like, our sandbox, right? But whoever you are, right, the idea is that you need to look to the left—because we say ‘shift left'—but then you kind of have to follow that thread all the way to the right.And I actually think that the thing that people most often neglect is the thing on the right, right? They maybe check for compliance, you know, they check configurations, they check for vulnerabilities, they check, blah, blah, blah, all this checking and testing. They release their beautiful baby into the world, and they're like, okay, I wash my hands of it. It's fine. [laugh]. Right but—Corey: It has successfully been hurled over the fence. It is the best kind of problem, now: Someone else's.Anna: It's gone. Yeah. But it's someone else's—the attacker community, right, who are now, like, “Oh, delicious. A new target.” And like, that's the point at which the fun starts for a lot of those folks who are on the offensive side. So, if you don't have any way to manage that thing's security as it's running, you're kind of like missing the most important piece, right? [laugh].Corey: One of the challenges that I tend to see with a lot of programmatic analysis of this is that it doesn't necessarily take into account any of the context because it can't. If I have, for example, a containerized workload that's entire job is to take an image from S3, run some analysis or transformation on it then output the results of that to some data store, and that's all it's allowed to talk to you, it can't ever talk to the internet, having a system that starts shrieking about, “Ah, there's a vulnerability in one of the libraries that was used to build that container; fix it, fix it, fix it,” doesn't feel like it's necessarily something that adds significant value to what I do. I mean, I see this all the time with very purpose-built Lambda Functions that I have doing one thing and one thing only. “Ah, but one of the dependencies in the JSON processing library could turn into something horrifying.” “Yeah, except the only JSON it's dealing with is what DynamoDB returns. The only thing in there is what I've put in there.”That is not a realistic vector of things for me to defend against. The challenge then becomes when everything is screaming that it's an emergency when you know, due to context, that it's not, people just start ignoring everything, including the, “Oh, and by the way, the building is on fire,” as one of—like, on page five, that's just a small addendum there. How do you view that?Anna: The noise insecurity problem, I think, is ancient and forever. So, it was always bad, right, but in cloud—at least some containers—you would think it should be less bad, right, because if we actually followed these sort of cloud-native philosophy, of creating very purp—actually it's called the Unix philosophy from, like, I don't know, before I was born—creating things that are fairly purposeful, like, they do one thing—like you're saying—and then they disappear, then it's much easier to know what they're able to do, right, because they're only able to do what we've told them, they're able to do. So, if this thing is enabled to make one kind of network connection, like, I'm not really concerned about all the other network connections it could be making because it can't, right? So, that should make it easier for us to understand what the attack surface actually is. Unfortunately, it's fairly difficult to codify and productize the discovery of that, and the enrichment of the vulnerability information or the configuration information with that.That is something we are definitely focusing on as a vendor. There are other folks in the industry that are also working on this kind of thing. But you're exactly right, the prioritization of not just a vulnerability, but a vulnerability is a good example. Like, it's a vulnerability, right? Maybe it's a critical or maybe it's not.First of all, is it exposed to the outside world somehow? Like, can we actually talk to this system? Is it mitigated, right? Maybe there's some other controls in place that is mitigating that vulnerability. So, if you look at all this context, at the end of the day, the question isn't really, like, how many of these things can I ignore? The question is at the very least, which are the most important things that I actually can't ignore? So, like you're saying, like, the buildings on fire, I need to know, and if it's just, like, a smoldering situation, maybe that's not so bad. But I really need to know about the fire.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by LaunchDarkly. Take a look at what it takes to get your code into production. I'm going to just guess that it's awful because it's always awful. No one loves their deployment process. What if launching new features didn't require you to do a full-on code and possibly infrastructure deploy? What if you could test on a small subset of users and then roll it back immediately if results aren't what you expect? LaunchDarkly does exactly this. To learn more, visit launchdarkly.com and tell them Corey sent you, and watch for the wince.Corey: It always becomes a challenge of prioritization, and that has been one of those things that I think, on some level, might almost cut against a tool that works at the level that Sysdig does. I mean, something that you found in your report, but I feel like, on some level, is one of those broadly known, or at least unconsciously understood things is, you can look into a lot of these tools that give incredibly insightful depth and explore all kinds of neat, far-future, bleeding edge, absolute front of the world, deep-dive security posture defenses, but then you have a bunch of open S3 buckets that have all of your company's database backups living in them. It feels like there's a lot of walk before you can run. And then that, on some level, leads to the wow, we can't even secure our S3 buckets; what's the point of doing anything beyond that? It's easy to, on some level, almost despair, want to give up, for some folks that I've spoken to. Do you find that is a common thing or am I just talking to people who are just sad all the time?Anna: I think a lot of security people are sad all the time. So, the despair is real, but I do think that we all end up in the same solution, right? The solution is defense in depth, the solution is layer control, so the reality is if you don't bother with the basic security hygiene of keeping your buckets closed, and like not giving admin access to every random person and thing, right? If you don't bother with those things, then, like, you're right, you could have all the tools in the world and you could have the most advanced tools in the world, and you're just kind of wasting your time and money.But the flipside of that is, people will always make mistakes, right? So, even if you are, quote-unquote, “Doing everything right,” we're all human, and things happen, and somebody will leave a bucket open on accident, or somebody will misconfigure some server somewhere, allowing it to make a connection it shouldn't, right? And so if you actually have built out a full pipeline that covers you from end-to-end, both pre-deployment, and at runtime, and for vulnerabilities, and misconfigurations, and for all of these things, then you kind of have checks along the way so that this problem doesn't make it too far. And if it does make it too far and somebody actually does try to exploit you, you will at least see that attack before they've ruined everything completely.Corey: One thing I think Sysdig gets very right that I wish this was not worthy of commenting on, but of course, we live in the worst timeline, so of course it is, is that when I pull up the website, it does not market itself through the whole fear, uncertainty, and doubt nonsense. It doesn't have the scary pictures of, “Do you know what's happening in your environment right now?” Or the terrifying statistics that show that we're all about to die and whatnot. Instead, it talks about the value that it offers its customers. For example, I believe its opening story is, “Run with confidence.” Like, great, you actually have some reassurance that it is not as bad as it could be. That is, on the one hand, a very uplifting message and two, super rare. Why is it that so much of the security industry resorts to just some of the absolute worst storytelling tactics in order to drive sales?Anna: That is a huge compliment, Corey, and thank you. We try very hard to be kind of cool in our marketing.Corey: It shows. I'm tired of the 1990s era story of, “Do you know where the hackers are?” And of course, someone's wearing, like, a ski mask and typing with gloves on—which is always how I break into things; I don't know about you—but all right, we have the scary clip art of the hacker person, and it just doesn't go anywhere positive.Anna: Yeah. I mean, I think there certainly was a trend for a while have this FUD approach. And it's still prevalent in the industry, in some circles more than others. But at the end of the day, Cloud is hard and security is hard, and we don't really want to add to the suffering; we would like to add to the solution, right? So, I don't think people don't know that security is hard and that hackers are out there.And you know, there's, like, ransomware on the news every single day. It's not exactly difficult to tell that there's a challenge there, so for us to have to go and, like, exacerbate this fear is almost condescending, I feel, which is kind of why we don't. Like, we know people have problems, and they know that they need to solve them. I think the challenge really is just making sure that A) can folks know where to start and how to build a sane roadmap for themselves? Because there are many, many, many things to work on, right?We were talking about context before, right? Like, so we actually try to gather this context and help people. You made a comment about how having a lot of telemetry might actually be a little bit counterproductive because, like, there's too much data, what do I do well—Corey: Here's the 8000 findings we found that you fail—great. Yeah. Congratulations, you're effectively the Nessus report as a company. Great. Here you go.Anna: Everything is over.Corey: Yeah.Anna: Well, no shit, Nessus, you know. Nessus did its thing. All right. [laugh].Corey: Oh, Nessus was fantastic. Nessus was—for those who are unaware, Nessus was an open-source scanner made by the folks at Tenable, and what was great about it was that you could run it against an environment, it would spit out all the things that it found. Now, one of the challenges, of course, is that you could white-label this and slap whatever logo you wanted on the top, and there were a lot of ‘security consultancies' that use the term incredibly… lightly, that would just run a Nessus report, drop off the thick print out. “Here's the 800 things you need to fix. Pay me.” And wander on off into the sunset.And when you have 800 things you need to fix, you fix none of them. And they would just sit there and atrophy on the shelf. Not to say that all those things weren't valid findings, but you know, the whole, you're using an esoteric, slightly deprecated TLS algorithm on one of your back-end services, versus your Elasticsearch database does not have a password set. Like, there are different levels of concern here. And that is the problem.Anna: Yeah. That is in fact one of the problems we're aggressively trying to solve, right? So, because we see so much of the data, we're actually able to piece together a lot of context to gives you a sense of risk, right? So, instead of showing all the data to the customer—the customer can see it if they want; like, it's all in there, you can look at it—one of the things we're really trying to do is collect enough information about the finding or the event or the vulnerability or whatever, so we can kind of tell you what to do.For example, one you can do this is super basic, but if you're looking at a specific vulnerability, like, let's say it's like Log4j or whatever, you type it in, and you can see all your systems affected by this thing, right? Then you can, in the same tool, like, click to the other tab, and you can see events associated with this vulnerability. So, if you can see the systems that the vulnerability is on and you can see there's weird activity on those systems, right? So, if you're trying to triage some weird thing in your environment, during the Log4j disaster, it's very easy for you to be like, “Huh. Okay, these are the relevant systems. This is the vulnerability. Like, here's all that I know about this stuff.”So, we kind of try to simplify as much as possible—my design team uses the word ‘easify,' which I love; it's a great word—to easify, the experience of the end-user so that they can get to whatever it is they're trying to do today. Like, what can I do today to make my company more secure as quickly as possible? So, that is sort of our goal. And all this huge wealth of information we gather, we try to package for the users in a way that is, in fact, digestible. And not just like, “Here's a deluge of suffering,” like, “Look.” [laugh]. You know?Corey: This is definitely complicated in the environment I tend to operate in which is almost purely AWS. How much more complex is get when people start looking into the multi-cloud story, or hybrid environments where they have data center is talking to things within AWS? Because then it's not just the expanded footprint, but the entire security model works slightly differently in all of those different environments as well, and it feels like that is not a terrific strategy.Anna: Yeah, this is tough. My feelings on multi-cloud are mostly negative, actually.Corey: Oh, thank goodness. It's not just me.Anna: I was going to say that, like, multi-cloud is not a strategy; it's just something that happens to you.Corey: Same with hybrid. No one plans to do hybrid. They start doing a cloud migration, realize halfway through some things are really hard to move, give up, plant the flag, declare victory, and now it's called hybrid.Anna: Basically. But my position—and again, as an analyst, you kind of, I think, end up in this position, you just have a lot of sympathy for the poor people who are just trying to get these stupid systems to run. And so I kind of understand that, like, nothing's ideal, and we're just going to have to work with it. So multi-cloud, I think is one of those things where it's not really ideal, we just have to work with it. There's certainly advantages to it, like, there's presumably some level of mythical redundancy or whatever. I don't know.But the reality is that if you're trying to secure a pile of junk in Azure and a pile of junk in AWS, like, it'd be nice if you had, like, one tool that told you what to do with both piles of junk, and sometimes we do do that. And in fact, it's very difficult to do that if you're not a third-party tool because if you're AWS, you don't have much incentive to, like, tell people how to secure Azure, right? So, any tool in the category of, like, third-party CSPM—Gartner calls them CWPP—kind of, cloud security is attempting to span those clouds because they always have to be relevant, otherwise, like, what's the point, right?Corey: Well, I would argue cynically there's also the VC model, where, “Oh, great. If we cover multiple cloud providers, that doubles or triples our potential addressable market.” And, okay, great, I don't have those constraints, which is why I tend to focus on one cloud provider where I tend to see the problems I know how to solve as opposed to trying to conquer the world. I guess I have my bias on that one.Anna: Fair. But there's—I think the barrier to entry is lower as a security vendor, right? Especially if you're doing things like CSPMs. Take an example. So, if you're looking at compliance requirements, right, if your team understands, like, what it means to be compliant with PCI, you know, like, [line three 00:28:14] or whatever, you can apply that to Azure and Amazon fairly trivially, and be like, “Okay, well, here's how I check in Azure, and here's how I check in Amazon,” right?So, it's not very difficult to, I think, engineer that once you understand the basic premise of what you're trying to accomplish. It does become complicated as you're trying to deal with more and more different cloud services. Again, if you're kind of trying to be a cloud security company, you almost have no choice. Like, you have to either say, “I'm only doing this for AWS,” which is kind of a weird thing to do because they're kind of doing their own half-baked thing already, or I have to do this for everybody. And so most default to doing it for everybody.Whether they do it equally well, for everybody, I don't know. From our perspective, like, there's clearly a roadmap, so we have done one of them first and then one of them second and one of the third, and so I guarantee you that we're better in some than others. So, I think you're going to have pluses and minuses no matter what you do, but ultimately what you're looking for is coverage of the tool's capabilities, and whether or not you have a program that is going to leverage that tool, right? And then you can check the boxes of like, “Okay. Does it do the AWS thing? Does it do this other AWS thing? Does it do this Azure thing?”Corey: I really appreciate your taking the time out of your day to speak with me. We're going to throw a link to the report itself in the [show notes 00:29:23], but other than that, if people want to learn more about how you view these things, where's the best place to find you?Anna: I am—rarely—but on Twitter at @aabelak. I am also on LinkedIn like everybody else, and in the worst case, you could find me by email, at anna.belak@sysdig.com.Corey: And we will of course put links to that in the [show notes 00:29:44]. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I appreciate it.Anna: Thanks for having me, Corey. It's been fun.Corey: Anna Belak, Director of Thought Leadership at Sysdig. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is streaming on the cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with an angry comment telling me not only why this entire approach to security is awful and doomed to fail, but also what booth number I can find you at this year's RSA Conference.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Topher Morrison has tips aplenty when it comes to authors getting booked to speak and it makes sense: he is, after all, the founder of Personofi, a firm that specializes in brand messaging for small business owners. He is the author of four best-selling books and was voted one of the top 10 business speakers in Tampa Bay. His extensive speaking career, spanning over the past 30 years, has earned him a global reputation as an expert in mass communication and influence. He has spoken for top execs with American Express, Microsoft and Google, just to name a few. In this episode, he shared so many gems I'd never heard before—including where authors who have never spoken before can get experience for a reel, the importance of a one-sheet, how to make a book into a speech by using the vignettes in it, why the opening of the speech should not be the same as your first chapter and how to sell your book while speaking without sounding like a douche. WANT 7 DAYS OF WRITING TIPS? GO TO WWW.YOURBOOKWRITINGTIPS.COM TRANSCRIPT: Anna: Okay Topher, thank you so much for coming to chat with me today. Topher: I am stoked. It's been first off way too long since we've chatted anyway. When did we meet each other, 10 years ago, maybe longer? Anna: Hold on. It wasn't quite 10 years ago, but this is sort of an awesome thing. I was thinking about it because there's a comedian that I used to know pretty well and I haven't seen him since then. I think it was John Heffron, right? Topher: John Heffron. We are still good buds. Yes. That's how I met you. Anna: But I think what happened is I saw him tweet about you. Or he told me directly. He said, "I know this guy, I work with this guy who's the best speaking coach." And I reach out to you and you were so sweet. And you said, "I'm going to be in LA. I'll just work with you." Or maybe you even said, "I'll come to LA." Topher: I can't remember. Anna: And I remember because I had this office at WeWork and you worked with me and you really helped me restructure a talk that I had and deliver it. And you are just such a sweet, sweet person and so good at what you do. Topher: Thanks. Anna: I'm really happy that you're here to talk about something I've never talked about on the podcast and my listeners are very much interested in, which is how do you convert a book into a talk? And how do you use the fact that you're an author to get booked as a speaker? So let's actually do it backward. Because as I always say, if there are two people that a booker is considering, and they're equal, but one has a book, they're always going to book the author. Tell me about that. Topher: Every single time they will pick the published author over the unpublished author even if the other speaker is a better speaker and has a better demo reel and is more entertaining. They will almost always, I guess I should probably preserve that, not be so hyperbolic, but they will almost always pick the author. Because there is this perceived notion in society that authors are experts. And that's probably rightly earned as well. At least if it's a good book, they probably are an expert in it and they took a long time, you know, you've written a book, it ain't easy. It's hard. So by the time somebody's gone through all that process, they are probably an expert. But it's a false assumption, but it is a societal assumption that the authors are the experts. Yeah. Anna: Yes. It's why we do what we do. Because a lot of our clients are experts, but nobody knows that because they've sort of been working towards their expertise, doing their 10,000 hours of work, and they need that book to show the world. Topher: Yeah, they're working on their craft. They're the world's best-kept secret because they're an expert in it and they are bonafide phenomenal and they don't have the book. And there's just no social proof. In fact, the scary part is that, especially in today's society, because publishing has become such a mainstream thing, nowadays the question people get is, "Have you written a book?" And you know, if somebody ever asked you, "Well, do you have any books? Have you written any book on it?" you know you're six months or a year behind if people are asking if you have a book and you don't. You definitely want to have one, no doubt about it. And the only anything better than having one is having two or three or four. Anna: Or eight like me, right. Topher: Yeah. Ooh. Anna: And, oftentimes bookers are quite excited to have a signing. So I think that that's... And/or a lot of speakers will gift their book or they'll say basically, "Hey, if you buy 200 copies, you don't have to pay me." Tell me a little bit about how that works. Topher: Yeah. So there are several different packages that you can offer as a speaker when you have a book, which is just what you just said. You have your speaking fee and then you will gift a certain number of books. Or you could have bought my book and I will speak for free. And something people might say, "Well, why is that important?" Because the monies to buy the books come out of a different account than the money to pay the speakers in large corporations. So they may have already blown their budget on their conference for their speakers, but yet they still have money in their budget for swag bags. And by the way, that's a great way to say, "We'll get the books in time for you to put them in your swag bags," and they love that as well. So it comes out of a different purse. And so, while you may have a budget that you have to stay within the speaker fees, the book fees could be added. And it's just a great way for you to have more flexibility and still get maximum dollars from that event. Anna: That's so interesting. I've never thought about that. And then, of course, if you have a business and let's say you one client is worth anywhere from a thousand dollars to a hundred thousand dollars, it is well worth the investment in the $3 a book or whatever it's going to cost for you to gift that. Topher: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Although, definitely don't gift it first, sell it first. And then if they don't buy, then go down to hard costs. And then if they don't buy, then you can gift. Start off with the price that makes you the most amount of money, obviously. Because like I said, sometimes these big corporations don't bat an eye. Remember this, the one thing I love to tell people when they're thinking about charging their speaking fees and like, "Oh, how much is the right fee and blah, blah, blah, blah," remember that the bar tab at a conference for a large corporation will outweigh your speaking fee by at least five times, at least five times. Just keep that in mind. It may seem like a big fee for us when we charge it. It is a drop in the bucket for these large corporations that are hosting and spending $300,000, a half million, $2 million, $10 million on their annual conferences. A $10,000 or a $20,000 speaking fee is nothing for these companies. Anna: Let's say I'm a first-time author. And my book, maybe I feel, because I hear people say this, not qualified to be an expert, even though I have all this hard-earned personal experience, but I don't have a master's degree or I don't have whatever, and I go, "Okay, I want to be a speaker." How do I start? Topher: Okay. And you don't have a book or you do have a book? Anna: You do have a book. You have your first book and you're like, "Okay, here we go with speaking. What do I do?" Topher: Perfect. Well, at the risk of sounding self-promotional, hire a speaking coach for one, because you could have the best information in the world and if you don't know how to present it in a palatable way, they're never going to book you back. So you absolutely want to do that. And by the way, you should probably get a media coach as well, because you're going to be asked to speak on TV or on the radio. And if you've never been in front of a camera or you've never had a microphone shoved in front of your face, it can be quite intimidating. Anna, you know this. You've done this for years. So for you, it's second nature. But if you can recall back to that first time you were on the bright lights in the camera, it's unnerving, right? And so you could have all the... The natural law of memory, it is inhibited when you are relaxed. It is enhanced when you're relaxed, it's inhibited when you're stressed. And nothing can cause more stress to a new time author than is the first time they're on a show. You could forget your damn name when you're on TV. So hire a media coach for sure or a speech coach. Topher: But beyond that, and I'm not trying to push my services either, I'm really not. What I'm saying, though, is that the delivery is as important as the knowledge. And that's the point that I want to make. Absolutely. Yeah. So you want to make sure you have that. Then once you do that, so the question is you're a new time... You want to break into the speaking gig, you need to have a one-sheet. It is the most important marketing piece for a speaker. It's more important than a sizzle reel, by the way, is the one sheet. The one-sheet is exactly what it sounds like. It's one piece of paper. It probably has your picture. It has your brief bio. It has a highlight of what you are going to learn in the keynote or one of the takeaways that the audience will get. And it probably has some quotes from people that are impressed by you that have some name notoriety that people if they were to see those quotes who go, "Well, if this person's saying they're good, they must be amazing." That's really all it is. Topher: And oftentimes, the one-sheet will make a bigger impact than the sizzle reel. Because the sizzle reel requires a computer to watch. And keep in mind, sometimes these board meetings where you've got the planner and you've got the board and they're all sitting around, they don't have time to sit there and watch 15 different speaker reels. So you're lucky if they'll watch it. They probably won't. What they're going to do is they're going to refer to the person who found you, who's [inaudible 00:09:02] and saying, "Hey, this is a great speaker. Here's their one sheet." And they look at it and they go, "Yeah, they look like they're smart. I like the photo. It was a professional headshot. It doesn't look like it's a stupid selfie." By the way, also be sure that you're investing in a good professional one sheet. And it just gives a quick highlight. That's oftentimes all they make the decision. They don't need to see the sizzle reel. Anna: I'm curious, so they'll book speakers without seeing how they speak. Topher: Yeah, absolutely. It depends. If you were referred to them, almost always they don't need to see the sizzle reel. If you're the one knocking on their door, doing the Oliver Twist, "Please sir, may I have a cup of porridge," then yeah, you might need to get them to watch the sizzle reel to know that you're good. But for the most part, you want to get your message out to as many people as possible so people who are on those committees hear about you and then they come to the committee and they go, "Oh my God, I saw this person on YouTube," or, "I saw this person on a podcast," or, "I heard this person on a podcast. They were amazing. I think they'd be great for our presentation." It can literally boil down to that. And they're like, "Yeah, good. Let's get them booked." Anna: Okay, but so then, and I remember how I solved this, here's the problem, you go, "Okay, I want to get booked. I don't have a sizzle reel because I've never spoken." So how do you get around that? Topher: Okay. Well, there are a couple of things. Nowadays, at the risk of aging myself, back in my day, it was hard to get video production. But nowadays, for crying out loud, you've got a 4k camera on your phone. You can set something up. It doesn't have to matter. Have a small event at your house if you have to, invite some people over. If you don't have a nice house, go to your friend's house who's got a nice house, I don't care. And do a quick presentation. Have it set up. The only thing that I'd recommend is that if you're going to set up an iPhone or a smartphone, don't use the microphone. As powerful as phones are in their high definition, 4k recording quality, they still suck when it comes to the recording of audio. So go get one... Nowadays, by the way, it used to be like an $800 lapel mic you'd have to get, nowadays, you can get it for 50 bucks, you can get these wireless lapel mics that plug right into your phone, you clip them, and the sound is just impeccable. It's beautiful. And just do something like that just so they know that when you get up in front of people, you're not going to stumble and fall and make a fool of yourself. It can literally be something as unofficial as that. Topher: But also, it's not that hard to get booked to speak nowadays. There are so many organizations from One Million Cups up to your chambers of commerce, all of the animal clubs, the Elks, the Moose, the Eagles, whatever. Those people are starving for speakers to come in. And just reach out to all of the local chapters, all of the local organizations that are in some level of professionalism and just say, "Hey, you know what? I've just published my first book. It's on this topic. And I think that your audience might benefit from it. I'm not trying to sell anything. I'm just trying to get some exposure and some experience speaking in front of the stage. I would love to come out to your group and give them a 20 minute or a 30 minute or a 15-minute presentation," whatever it is that your keynote is, "And there's no catch. There's no sales pitch. I just want permission to record it so I can improve and do better later." And honestly, you could book yourself up a month straight with local chapters for organizations that are just looking for people to come out and speak to their audiences. Anna: That's an amazing, amazing tip. So let's say I have my book. How do I make my book into a speech? Topher: Okay. Remind me, by the way, before we get off this call, to share with your listeners some techniques on how to sell the hell out of their books when they speak without being a salesy, douche-baggy guy. So remind me to do that. Anna: Love it. Topher: So what your question was, how do you turn the book into a speech? So let's first break down what a speech comprises. A speech, the best analogy that I can give, and I'm going to roll credits to this, by the way, to a gentleman by the name of Bill Gove. Now, I did not learn directly from Bill. I learned from his mentee, which is a guy named Steve Seebold, and he's a good friend of mine. And Bill Gove by the way, is kind of like the grandfather of motivational speaking. He is the guy who started it all. All of the great speakers that we admire love today, most of them are trained by this guy named Bill Gove, 30, 40 years ago. And he had it so well. He said, "A keynote speech is nothing but..." I'm paraphrasing his statements here, "A keynote speech is nothing but a concert in spoken word." So you want to have, just like if you were to go to a concert, you want to have your songs rehearsed. You want to be able to know in what order those songs are going to be played. And you want to have practiced those songs so well that if something were to happen on stage, it wouldn't throw your game off. In fact, you could even improvise and play around with that a little bit and make it look like it's effortless. Topher: So think of your speech as a concert in spoken word. And your concert is broken down into short little songs. Yours are vignettes. And a great speech is made up of short little vignettes, no more than five minutes apiece, as short as 30 seconds apiece. And they are stacked together one after another, in whatever order makes the most sense for the flow and the feel of the concert, just like a concert. You want to start off with something dynamic, but not your best hit. You want to start off with something that just kind of warms up the crowd. And then you want to build up. And then at some point in time, you need to slow down and you need to relax and you got to put the ballad on. Because you can't have a concert that's just loud, nonstop. And then after the slow, then you got to build it back up again. And presentations have that same flow. I call it the charisma pattern, by the way, which is that there is a cadence to a presentation, which is you start off at a medium pace, you work up into a louder, faster pace, and then as you get louder and faster, then you drop it down to something slow and soft. Anna: It's interesting because a book, the best, the most effective way to do a memoir is to have your first two chapters be the bottom, the most dramatic, and then you move into childhood so that doesn't... And then you start going chronologically. And then around chapter eight, you catch up to whatever that first chapter was. And that's not what you do with speaking. Topher: No. Yeah. So interestingly enough, the same strategies and skills that make a great book a great book, do not translate into what makes a great presentation. Nor do great strategies and skills as a speaker in a live audience translate to being a great speaker on camera as well. There are differences between all of those things. But there are different environments. I'm glad that you brought that up. It makes a big difference. With the presentation, you don't want to start off with your best. You want to just kind of warm up the crowd a little bit. Because let's face it, they're still sussing you out. If they bought your book, at some level, they're kind of convinced. But remember, buying a book is this person has something I need and I want to hear it. But in a presentation and a keynote, it's completely the opposite. It's, "Who is this yahoo, and why do I have to sit here and listen to them speak?" Totally different market. So you kind of got to win them over. And if you go in too hard, too fast, you're like that guy at the bar who's just hitting on the girls a little bit too fast and too hard. Slow your roll, cowboy. Just bring it down a notch or two. Be cool. Anna: Yeah. You don't walk up and propose. Topher: Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe you don't even walk up. Maybe you just sit there and just let them come to you. You got to know your game, right? Anna: Look at that. And so how do you know, do you need 10 anecdotes? How many do you need? Let's say this is a 10-minute speech. Do you need 10 anecdotes? Topher: Sure. Fantastic. Yeah. Listen, if you could do 10, I'll call them vignettes, because that's my language, but an anecdote is the same thing, yep, 10 anecdotes, 10 vignettes in 10 minutes would be an unbelievably awesome speech. Most people are not that well-rehearsed. They could maybe get two to three vignettes out in a 10-minute speech. Only a pro could do 10 in 10 minutes. And I always think back to, and I'm sure you've heard this quote, I believe it was Mark Twain, who said, "I apologize for not writing a shorter speech. I didn't have time." Or something to that effect. I'm sorry it was so long. I didn't have time to write a shorter one, or something like that. Anna: It's been attributed to so many people. Allegedly, it was a note to his wife, and who knows who he is. And it said, "I wanted to write you a short note. I wanted to..." Oh, you know. Yeah. That basically it's harder to do short than it is long is the point. Topher: Yeah, yeah. You get the idea. Same thing with the presentation. If I just wanted to tell some ideas and I didn't have them rehearsed, I would ramble on and on, I would get derailed, I would come back and I would be disheveled. And I would be like, "La, la, la, la." But on a keynote, you cannot do that. You have to have everything you're going to say rehearsed and prepared so you know how to do it. Now, the question is how many vignettes do I need for an amount of time? What I would say to that is this, it's not so much how many vignettes for a certain amount of time, it's just that do you know how much time each vignette takes? Topher: So create a vignette book with all the different stories that you have. And by the way, go into your book. This is back to your original question, how do you convert a book into a keynote? You take the best stories in your book. You bring them out of the book and you say, "Okay, what are the lessons or the big takeaways that this story in my book reveals?" And by the way, you could twist your stories just slightly to focus on something just slightly different. And one story you could have 10 or 15 different takeaways that you would use depending upon the audience that you're speaking with. So for example, oftentimes you'll hear keynote speakers, they'll say something like, "And we will customize the presentation to your audience." They don't. The good ones don't anyway. But what they do is they customize the takeaways to the audience, but the stories are always the same. And they're repeated the exact same way every single time with the right inflection because it's a song in spoken word. You got to practice it. But you do want to know what those takeaways and those lessons are. Topher: And then what I do is when somebody books me, I say, "Okay, well what are the current challenges that your company's dealing with? What are the things, what are the takeaways that your audience wants?" And then when they give those to me, then I go, "Okay, now what stories do I have that would fit into that category?" And then I'll apply that story to that takeaway. And then I just simply go, "All right, well, this is the number of takeaways," and I add up, this is a three-minute speech, this is a five-minute speech, this is a 30-second speech. And I add them all together and then I've got my presentation length. Now, sometimes though, your committees, your speaking committees, will go, "We just want them motivated. We just want them to be grateful that they're here at the conference. That's fine. We just want them having fun." "Okay, good. Then leave it up to me and I'll do my thing. How much time do you want me to speak?' And they'll say 45 minutes. And then you go, "Great." And then you go through and you put your song list together of all your different vignettes that add up to 45 minutes. Topher: Now, here's the cool thing about breaking a speech down into little bite-size vignettes. I have never in the history of speaking professionally in over 30 years, I have never, ever shown up for a keynote presentation where they have said, "Remember the agreed-upon time we asked you, that's exactly how much time we want you to speak." It has never ever, ever gone that way. This is always what happens. Once again, I'm speaking a little hyperbolic. I'm sure that I had one or two, but I just don't remember them. Topher: This is what normally will happen when somebody books you to speak. They'll come up to you backstage, usually five minutes before you're ready to go on, and they'll say something like this, they'll go, "Our next speaker is stuck at the airport. They're not going to be here. I know this is really last minute. I'm so sorry to ask this. I know we only asked you to speak for 45 minutes, but could you speak for 55 minutes?" or, "Could you speak for an hour and 15 minutes? If we have to pay you more, we will." By the way, they will say that too. But if they don't offer, by the way, that's fine. Just be cool. And they'll go, "Can you stretch it out to an hour and 15 minutes?" And then you go, "Absolutely. No problem. Because you know you've got a bank of other stories that didn't make the cut and you're just going to add a couple more of them in, not a big deal. Topher: Most commonly, though, that's not what's going to happen. Most commonly, they're going to come to you five minutes before your presentation and go, "Hey, I know we asked you to speak for 45 minutes, but the vice president just showed up and he's on a tight deadline. He's got to get on a plane. He wants to get on stage a little bit of earlier. I hate to do this to you. I know we asked you to speak for 45 minutes. Could you cut your presentation down to 30 minutes?" That happens, I'm going to say that probably happens, and I'm not exaggerating 90-plus percent of the time that's what will happen. And then you smile and you go, "Absolutely, no problem." You don't throw a fit because now you just know, "I'm going to cut a few songs out of my playlist and I'm going to get it down to 30." Whereas if you design a 45-minute presentation that has a beginning and a middle, and then I'm going to tell them what I'm going to tell them, I'm going to tell them and I'm going to tell them what I'm told them, the old Dale Carnegie speech stuff, which is just dead and done now, that doesn't work. Because now what do you? Do you tell the promoter, "No, I'm sorry. My presentation is 45 minutes. I have to do 45." Topher: No, what'll end up happening is you go, "Okay," and then you're like, "How do I speak really fast to get it done?" And then you end up going over and you piss off the promoter and they never bring you back. So yeah, take your best stories out of your book, make a list of all the different lessons or takeaways that could come from them. Create your vignette book, which is all a different story. And by the way, you might have five different stories for one point. That's okay too because you know what? They might have loved that point so much you need to drive it home again, and then you have another story as well. But that's the most time-consuming and professional way to build a speech from a book. Take your best stories, pull out the takeaways, build it based upon the takeaways and the time. Anna: And is it have a 10-minute, a 20-minute, and a 40-minute version? Do you think that's- Topher: No. I think you should just have 30-second to five-minute vignettes. And then when somebody books you, you go, "Oh, I got a 15-minute speech? I'm going to pull out my three best five-minute vignettes," or, "I'm going to pull out my four best three and a half-minute vignettes." And then you just add them up that way. Yeah. If you do it that way, you'll be golden. But that takes practice. It takes preparation. And unfortunately, most people... And by the way, this is just the mark between a professional speaker and a professional who speaks, there's a difference there. The professional who speaks is working on their slide presentation the night before. The professional speaker doesn't even deal with slides because he knows that they're a hassle and is going to entertain the audience with their stories anyway. Topher: So a couple of other things. The biggest misconception that I think people make that aren't professional speakers that have been asked to speak and it's their first keynote presentation and they're nervous about it, they think that they need to wow the audience with all of this great information and you're going to change their minds and their hearts and their lives with this dialogue. I think getting in perspective what it is that the keynote speaker does is very helpful. Your job, in my opinion, and I think if you were to talk to most professional speakers, people who run the circuit and they do this for a living, I think that most would probably agree, your job is not to change their lives in 45 minutes. Your job is to entertain the crap out of them for 45 minutes. Get them to laugh, get them to cry, get them to feel, get them to emote. Entertain them for 45 minutes. Don't try to change their lives. Topher: Which means you don't need a bunch of slides. You don't need a bunch of bullet points. You're not teaching them strategies and techniques and steps and processes. You're simply telling them stories and entertaining them. And if you do that, think about entertainment, emotion, don't worry about the content, don't worry about having them walk away with three successful strategies. Most people aren't taking notes anyway. Remember, they didn't even know who you were five minutes before you got on stage. So don't think that they're sitting there with baited breath and a pen and paper going, "Entertain me with your amazing words." They're just not going to be there. And I will say this, these smartphones have become the world's best feedback tool for speakers, because you will know exactly how good you are as a speaker based upon how many blue lights you see, glowing faces from the audience. Because they'll be on their phone. If you can see phones lighting up, you know you've lost them. Because they're, "Ah, screw this guy. I'm going to check my text messages now." And so they start- Anna: That's the worst. Topher: It is the worst. Yeah. Anna: But, speaking of the phone, I will say what I do to prep is I do it into my phone, then I listen, then I do practice again, then I listen again, then I practice again, then I listen again. I find listening when I'm practicing really, really as helpful as the practice. Topher: Yeah, absolutely. Now I will tell you this, by the way, technology has made our job so much easier as well. There's a difference between... By the way, as an author, everybody knows this, the typed word is different than the spoken word. If you just transcribe audio into a book, it's an average book. I hope I don't offend some of your readers, your listers. Anna: Yeah, they know that. Topher: Yeah. Don't transcribe your work. It just doesn't sound... It doesn't translate. Well, guess what? It doesn't translate the other way as well. You don't want to sit there and recite or memorize your book because that's not human speech as well. But I do believe that there is a need for a script when you're starting your presentation in your rehearsal. So one of the best strategies right now is to use otter.ai, I think is that software. Holy heck, that thing is incredibly good. So just hit record, start telling your stories and talking, and then it'll transcribe for you. And then you go through. And the strategy that I like is to take three highlighters, a green highlighter, a yellow highlighter, and a red highlighter. Topher: And I go through the script after it's been transcribed, and I read through and I highlight red, yellow, green, red is unnecessary dribble, yellow is, "I like it if I have time," and green is, "This is so good I have to keep it in the presentation." And go through the entire speech and just highlight it red, yellow, green, red, yellow, green. And if you're like me and you're being honest, you'll have mostly red, a lot of yellow, and just a few greens. When you're just talking a story out, it'll take 20 minutes sometimes. And you can edit that down to a two-minute story if you give it the time and the attention that it needs, for sure. Anna: So great. We have to get close to wrapping up. So how do you sell that book from the stage without sounding douchey? Topher: Yeah. Okay. I learned this technique from a guy named Tom Antion. He is one of the few people that when he sends me spam email, I read it because the man just generally makes me laugh. His sales copy is just hilarious. And this was his technique. In fact, I think he had a presentation called How to Sell from the Stage Without Being a Douchebag, I think is what it was called. I was like, "I love this guy already." Here's the technique. You have on stage your book, but you're not going to hold it up and say it's for sale or anything like that. All you do is you take one small piece from your book which is a really golden gem, and you just pick it up and you go, "Let me just read something for you real quick." And then you open it and you just read 2, 3, 4 lines, that's it. And just read it, and you set it down. You can say, "I just want to read something from my book." You can say that. But you just read it. Topher: But you're not saying it's for sale. You're not saying it's $29.95, but today you can buy a copy for $10. You don't say any of that stuff. You just read one paragraph out of your book and then you set it down, respectfully, it's a nice piece of art. Set it down. Yep. Don't just throw it off to the side. Set it down. And then you continue with your presentation. That's it. That's all you do. You just read one small... And what happens is people get obsessed. They're like, "I loved what he just read," and they make this assumption, "The rest of the book must be just as good." And they want to buy it. Yeah. And I will tell you, literally, I saw my book sales, I'm not exaggerating, they probably jumped 60%, maybe more. I remember calling Tom going, "Tom, you are a genius. I tried that." And every person I've told that to, they do this technique and they're like, "People were running into the back to buy my book." I'm like, "Yeah, I can't even really explain it other than I think they feel that was so profound, the rest of the book must be just as profound." Anna: And you're doing that thing where you're closing the loop, like how marketing people will talk about how you sort of give the first part so that people are psychologically very invested in whatever the ending is. Topher: Yeah. Well actually, let's talk about that. Because once again, going back to the biggest mistake people make because they want to give, give, give, give, give, just give so much value, so much content, so much information, if you have 10 steps to transforming your life, don't try to talk about all 10 steps. But here's what you could do. You could say something like this. You could say something to the effect of, "For the past 25 years, I've been trying to narrow down what it takes to succeed in speaking into the most succinct, small, and easy to get patterns. And I've discovered that there are five things, that if every speaker does these five things, they will hands down get standing ovations, sell books at the back of the room without having to sell it. And out of those five, here's the one that I want to talk about today." Anna: Oh, that's so good. Topher: Right. And now, you didn't say, "But we don't have time to go through all," or you say, "Here's five, but I'm only going to give you one today. But if you want to buy the others, you can." No, you just say, "There are five things. And here's the one that I think is the most relevant today." You make it like, "I picked this one just for you guys." And what a beautiful open loop. They want to know what the other ones are. And by the way, maybe that chapter one, that's that good thing, the big, whatever your 10 steps are, that's the one you... Be the good one. Anna: Well, Topher, this has been absolutely fantastic. Tell people how they can reach you. And this is reaching you for help converting their book into a speech as well as help training. Topher: Yeah, sure. They can go to tophermorrison.com. That's probably the easiest way to do it. Tophermorrison.com. Yeah. And I have a book on public speaking. It's called The Book on Public Speaking. I get to say I wrote the book on public speaking. Not being self-aggrandizing, it's just the name of the book. It's called The Book on Public Speaking. So they can go to their Amazon and get that if they want to as well. Yeah. But listen, I've got tons of YouTube videos for free. Listen, they don't have to buy anything. They can get a lot of my stuff for free. They just go to YouTube and search for my name. Anna: Except of course, by giving out these gems, you were doing exactly what you advise people to do in a speech, which is giving the gem so that they go, "Well, God, booking him and reading that book must just be even better."  Topher: Listen, hey, I'm a squirrel trying to get a nut just like everybody else. So I'd be honored if somebody feels so inspired and they would like to do business with me. I would love that. But believe me, I'm just here because I think the world of you. I remember meeting you so many years ago and had such a blast with you. For you to reach back out to me so many years, I was just like, "Oh, this just made my day." I was just thrilled that you reached out. You made my day. Anna: You're the best. Thank you so much for doing this. And you know, you listeners, thank you so much for listening. I will talk to you next week. RELATED EPISODES How Do I Use My Book to Get Speaking Gigs? How to Get on Podcasts to Promote Your Book with John Corcoran Jess Lahey on Influencer Endorsements and Much More

INTRODUCTION:Entwine was developed by Anna, a breast cancer survivor, for people with a low sex drive, celibates, and those who avoid sex due to physical pain.Because of her treatment, sex became uncomfortable both physically and emotionally. After her divorce, she found it difficult and intimidating to re-enter the dating scene out of fear of rejection from those that may not understand her situation.  She soon realized that many of the dating apps available had similarities; none of them offered an opportunity to find someone who had similar sexual limitations.She found herself in a space that she soon discovered many others were in – single and looking for companionship.  INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to):·      A Dating App for People with Sexual Dysfunction·      Broken Vaginas·      Surviving Breast Cancer·      Erectile Dysfunction·      The Struggles of Starting an App·      Self Esteem Related to Sexual Limitations·      Sexual Implications for Veterans·      The Value Men Place on Sexual Performance·      Reassessing Our Value Systems CONNECT WITH ANNA: Website: https://www.entwinedating.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/entwinedatingIG: https://www.instagram.com/entwine_dating/Twitter: https://twitter.com/entwinedatingYouTube: https://bit.ly/3J552FzLinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3uqBdLk  CONNECT WITH DE'VANNON: Website: https://www.SexDrugsAndJesus.comYouTube: https://bit.ly/3daTqCMFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SexDrugsAndJesus/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sexdrugsandjesuspodcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TabooTopixLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devannonEmail: DeVannon@SexDrugsAndJesus.com DE'VANNON'S RECOMMENDATIONS:·      Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)o  https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370o  TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs ·      Upwork: https://www.upwork.com ·      FreeUp: https://freeup.net ·      Disabled American Veterans (DAV): https://www.dav.org ·      American Legion: https://www.legion.org INTERESTED IN PODCASTING OR BEING A GUEST?:·      PodMatch is awesome! This application streamlines the process of finding guests for your show and also helps you find shows to be a guest on. The PodMatch Community is a part of this and that is where you can ask questions and get help from an entire network of people so that you save both money and time on your podcasting journey.https://podmatch.com/signup/devannon TRANSCRIPT:[00:00:00]You're listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to! And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right at the end of the day. My name is De'Vannon and I'll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world as we dig into topics that are too risqué for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what's really going on in your life.There is nothing off the table and we've got a lot to talk about. So let's dive right into this episode.De'Vannon: Hello hello. Hello everyone. And welcome to another installment of the sex, drugs and Jesus podcast. I'm your host. De'Vannon Hubert. And I am so thankful that you are with me again on today. So on today's episode, I'm talking with a woman by the name of Anna Leonarda. She's a breast cancer survivor, and she's gifted the world with a dating app called Entwine that's E N T W I N E. Now this app is for those who may not be able to, or prefer not to fully engage in sexual intercourse.[00:01:00] Now we all know what a big deal sexual dysfunction is in the world today. You know, sometimes our bodies just don't do what we want them to do. Now, in this episode, we're going to talk about. Sexual implications for veterans, we're talking about how self-esteem can be related to sexual limitations. And we're also going to cover things like the value men and place on sexual performance, which is a huge deal in and of itself.Pay close attention to this episode, stay tuned because I think you're going to get a lot out of it.Anna uh, you bad-ass bitch shoe. Are you today? Anna: Perfect. How are you doingDe'Vannon: I'm fam fucking tastic. My new year is off to a phenomenal fucking start. My health is great. My wealth is great. My mind is great. My cats are great. My boyfriend's great. My gardens. Great. Everything's great. Anna: Great [00:02:00] Great to hear.De'Vannon: So I was looking forward to this here episode because we are going to talk about vaginas in. How they can be broken and everything. And you created a dating app called in twine, which we're going to really get into. And of course, all of this information will be in the show we notes as they always are. You created an app specifically centered for people who have a sexual dysfunction. Be it, be it men with erectile dysfunction women with, as you coin, it broke vaginas. She said that I can say that so she can get away with it. Anna: Yeah.De'Vannon: And so, so it's a really cool app that you've made in a service that you're now offering to the public. But before we go down that delicious path, and we're going to talk about you, you, you, you, you, and what led you to this here. And so any opening words you have for the world. Anna: Just [00:03:00] get ready for my broken vagina story. definitely unique.De'Vannon: So I say, well, wait, so we've got to work in, reverse it for a little bit. So I read about when I was researching you or read that you had you're a breast cancer survivor. Anna: Yes.De'Vannon: So I want you to talk to me about what the emotions were like, like, walk me through your emotions. When you found out you got this diagnosis, do you remember where you were. Anna: Yeah, I was actually, well, when I found the breast lump, I was in the shower. I was 36 years old and I just, right prior to that, I lost like 18 pounds willingly. So I was like, finally, I look, this is the weight I want to be at. I feel great. I look great. I felt confident for a change. And so then I was in the shower and I happened to have a bar soap in my hand.And I was, I happened to cross off a lump on my breast and I thought, well, this is weird. It's never been there before, but I mean, because I lost my weight, that's where I found it, but that's why I found it. And and [00:04:00] I was just like, well, it's probably nothing. And I worked at, in the pathology department at, at the time as a secretary.So I thought, well, you know, most people that come in there, they're older that get diagnosed with breast cancer or any kind of cancer. So. The next day I got went to the gynecologist and just a couple of months prior to that, she was telling me I needed to get a mammogram. She's like, you know, you're 30, 30, 6 now.You need to start thinking about getting a mammogram and mats. I don't need to do that. I'm too young. So so when I went to her, she was like, well, yeah, it feels like a lump is probably nothing, but so long story short, I ended up getting the biopsy and and I had to wait a whole seven days for the results and was psychotic.I mean, I kind of had an idea of something was up because the people that I'm friends with in the pathology department were like, are you doing okay, honey? I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. Why? Well, you know, w just wondering, and, and so it was a lot of emotions coming through. Cause I was like, wait, is something wrong with me?Cause why are there being so sweet to me now? You know? So [00:05:00] it was a lot of paranoia going on too. Isn't it? That, well, maybe I do have cancer. And and one of my friends is like, you know, you need to call your doctor. It's just, these results are not good because she couldn't give me the results because you just knew I was like freaking out.And so yeah, I had breast cancer. I was like, whoa. I mean, it was on my mom's 60th birthday. I was at her house celebrating her birthday. And I didn't tell her that I even had a biopsy. Cause I thought, man, it's nothing. Anyway. So yeah, it was a little, little shocking. And then I ended up getting ended up having actually three tumors in my left breast, which was just like, I had no idea I had cancer.I thought I felt great. I looked great. I didn't feel sick. You know, I didn't look sick. And so it's definitely very life-changingDe'Vannon: Was there a family history there of the Panther or. Anna: but my one cousin had it when she was in her thirties, but that's it like, there was like, no, no cancer at all that I know of in my family. Lucky me. Yay. [00:06:00]De'Vannon: Well, all things happened. Where were you the Monday? How were you able to, so you said you're cancer-free as of today. Anna: Yes. Nine years.De'Vannon: So how were you able to overcome that? Anna: Well, I had to have multiple surgeries and six, six surgeries to be exact with mastectomies, double mastectomy, and then also reconstruction surgery. And my cancer was fed by estrogen. So the goal is to get all the estrogen out of my body, which can cause low sex drive. And so I had to go through chemotherapy.I lost all my hair and and then, because I wanted to get rid of all my estrogen, I decide to have a total hysterectomy as well. So, so I was forced into menopause at a young age. So a little was a little hard on my body, but but I managed to where the chemo wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, which was helpful because I had two young kids at the time and I still wanted to be a mom.I didn't want to. To suffer and or show anybody that I was [00:07:00] struggling. I felt like I was supporting everybody else around me or reassuring them because they're crying all around me. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I'm so sad for you. And so I'm like, no, it's okay. I'll be all right. I'm patting him on the shoulder and I'm like, wait a minute.I'm supposed to be comforting me. But so I was pretty strong through the whole thing. I don't think I've ever really dealt with my emotions with with all the cancer stuff that I had to go through, but, but it, but I went through, I was determined to beat it. I wanted to be there for my kids. And here I am.SoDe'Vannon: Well, congratulations, bitch. Anna: thank you.De'Vannon: I'm glad to have you here now. Okay. So you mentioned that your cancer that you.used to have was fed by estrogen. So in order to defeat that It caused you to have a low sex drive. Once the cancer was gone, that your sex drive.Anna: It didn't. So I actually lost my second. I actually never really had a sex drive, to be honest with you. So when I, when I grew up, I had something called [00:08:00] endometriosis and that causes painful intercourse, which eventually led to lack of libido. And then so I have always struggled with low beetle. So the chemo and the treatment, everything made it even worse.Cause there was more, even more pain and, and dryness involved.De'Vannon: Okay. Anna: my, vagina broke before my chemo, before my cancer,De'Vannon: Right. So, cause when I was research and you are read that something happened after you had your second child in what do you think it, do you think it was a stress of the pregnancy that kind of like pushed your body over the edge or. Anna: as far as the, the broken vagina thing or the the cancer.De'Vannon: Well, no, as far as the broken vagina thing, like what happened after you had the second child? Because I was reading about it in your blog, you were saying like you had your second child, like something changed like in your body. Was it, did it everything become more painful then, or. Anna: It was always painful. So I [00:09:00] think with the endometriosis, it, it was always, since it was always painful over time, my vagina was just like, get the hell away from me, whatever it's coming at me. So, so I ended up trying, I was trying to have intercourse with my, my ex-husband and and it was like, nothing would go in there.It was like, it was like hitting a wall. I'm like, what the heck is going on with me? So I went to the doctor and she said well, you have vaginismus. And I'm like, what the heck is that? And she's like, well, you're the opening of your vagina is it's just as fascinating mean because it's probably just anticipating the pain that it's just.It's it's that's this natural reaction is to just kind of spasm up and not allow anything to, to enter there. And so I was supposed to go through physical therapy or pelvic floor therapy, and that involved, like using these dilators where I had to slowly stretch the vaginal opening, which is a long process and not, not pleasurable for sure. And it's like, the size of the pinky is the first [00:10:00] side of the dilator. And then once you're comfortable with that, then you move up to the next size and then you just keep graduating to the largest size, which has Godzilla, which I would never use because it's like, I don't want to size, it was just enormous.I didn't know how to explain it. So I just call it Godzilla size. So I just put that in the drawer way in the back. We've covered up. So, so I asked the therapist, why does this happen? And she said, well, it's your body's natural reaction because what's happening is if somebody comes up to you repeatedly and starts punching you in the stomach, once that person approaches you, you're going to start flinching and your muscles are going to tighten.And you're going to kind of back up to avoid that pain. Vince is patient of the pain. So she's so I said, so basically my vagina broke. So that's the easy way of saying it has my vagina broke. So yeah, so that's what I was doing. Those, those, I did the treatments for a little bit. And then again, it was just like very, it was a very slow process.So there's a cure for it. I just chose not to do it. And then when I got breast cancer, I didn't even want to think about using my dilators. My oncologist is like, [00:11:00] well, this is estrogen fed. Your libido is going to be non-existent for a while. I'm like, well, it already is. I mean, I don't even know how much, how much more, how much more possible is it going to be worse, but it was, it got even more dry and.De'Vannon: How did that cause. and.when all of this was going on. Anna: Yeah, I met my ex-husband when I was in eighth grade. And then, so he was my one and only, and I was, we were married for 20 years. We got divorced three years ago.De'Vannon: So how did, can you talk to me about the sort of stress that this caused in your marriage when you were going through. Anna: It was, he was patient. I just feel like it was, it was hard for me because I, I just, I felt like I was always making up excuses, like trying to stay up, let him fall asleep first. So I had to avoid it. So I, that probably didn't help the marriage at all. And eventually, you know, the level of intimacy kind of diminished in all ways, [00:12:00] because it was just something I always had to deal with.So it was never really said that it was in the back of my head. I feel like that's one of the reasons why definitely that you kind of. Distance distance ourselves. But so yeah, it definitely takes a toll.De'Vannon: So you're so it's a, you were saying like, okay, so intercourse is painful. Anything that you would certainty your vagina hurt? So I was reading where even a tampon, trying to put a tampon in there is like, was like super, super painful. So this is this pain exclusive to anything penetrating the vagina or what about that?Anna: trulyDe'Vannon: And external stimulation does that hurt too with these medical conditions? Anna: after the, I guess it's not as enjoyable, enjoyable as it probably should be, but after all my surgeries, it's more like just, I'd rather not [00:13:00] any kind of contact right now or ever, I guess I should say so. It's, it's just very sensitive and not in a good way. So.De'Vannon: Interesting. Okay. So. Then this, so we can shift gears from here and to entwine. So.I want you to tell us what your motivation was for creating this, this, this dating app. And this is spelled E N T w I N E. And also want to know what this name means and how you came up with that. Anna: Sure. As far as the name of why I called it in twine, I was going to call it, going to call it comfortable companions. And I was told by many that, that sounds like diapers. So don't do that. I'm like, oh my God, I guess it's probably hard to remember comfortable companions though. So so the, the app developers I did use, they ended up giving me a bunch of options of what I should use.And then when they set [00:14:00] in twine and I'm like, well, I in twining hearts people's lives together or whatever the heck. So I thought, yeah. And twine sounds good. So it's not a very exciting story. That's why we called it in.De'Vannon: Okay. So Was all the, all your medical conditions and things going on with your body, your motivation for starting this app and like how your marriage into what, tell me in your own words, why you wanted to go through the, the the rigor Moreau, because y'all starting an app. Isn't just as simple as like making like a Gmail account, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's complex as fuck.And it takes a lot of time, money, resources, and dedication. So this is not like it's not just like simple to start an app, especially something like this as a dating app is running algorithms and all of that. Why did you want to go through all of the painstaking tasks that you had to go through to bring this app, this app to fruition?Anna: So when I was married, [00:15:00] my girlfriends would go on traditional dating apps and I would say, Hey, how was your date? And they're like, you know, I mean, every guy in meat so far has ed and rocked all this function. And I was like, how old are they? Well, they're in their thirties or they're in their forties. And I'm like, well, what are the reasons why they have that?And, and they would say like, well, one of them has diabetes and other one might have antidepressants that he's taking or prostate surgery or whatever the reason is. And and I thought, well, why don't you save their numbers so that when I'm, if I'm ever divorced, you know, I'll go, I'll date them.Because if I, I thought to myself, if ever, if I'm ever single, I'd rather either just be single forever, because I thought to have to have that stress of wondering, you know, if that person could understand that I don't want to have intercourse. So I'm like, I'll just either stay single or I'd rather deal with guy with ed.So I'm like, there should be like a. Dating app for guys with EDD. And then I remember talking about it and then I'd let, let left it alone. Dropped it. And then I don't know, eight years later, that's when I got divorced and I thought [00:16:00] again, I'm like, I think I'm going to be single. I don't want to be with anybody.No, one's going to understand this. They're going to cheat on me. They're to they're not, they're not going to get it. And so then I thought, well, that's not fair for what the heck. I I've been through all this stuff for, there's a reason why I went through all this. And the reason I thought at first was to help people go and tell my friends, if you know anybody that's going through a cancer scare has breast cancer, whatever it is, Kevin can reach out to me.And that's what I would do. I would talk to people I'm like, no, I need to do something more. So I thought, what about these guys that have ed? How many times, you know, are they going to get rejected before they just give up? And so I thought I need to do something about it. So that's why I decided to create a dating app for it.Cause I thought. I want to help more people. It's not just me though that I want to help some, I'm still single. I'm not using the dating app yet, but eventually I will just want to kind of focus on getting the app established and getting more users. But so then I thought, well, I gotta do this. And I was a stay at home mom.I worked part-time as a, at the [00:17:00] time I got diagnosed, I was a secretary at pathology, but then then I was a stay-at-home mom and I also worked part-time as a medical transcriptionist. So I thought I have no business background and my, what am I going to do? How am I going to figure all this out? So I started doing some research and I found an app company that took like extreme advantage of me, meaning they stole a lot of money from me because I didn't know anything about business and they knew it and they wanted they want an equity in my app right away.So I was like, no, I said, I don't know, maybe like, well, we'll give you a discount services. And, and I, you know, it sounded great at the time because I was running out of money. So I used all my savings and and, and I thought, well, they don't want equity because they care about my app. They care about people.They want equity cause they wanna make money. So I decided to tell them, no, I don't want equity. I don't want you to have equity. And then after that, everything went downhill and stupid errors and glitches and oh, you want to fix, you want to put a notification on the envelope, [00:18:00] say you have a match.Okay. That's gonna cost you something like this functionality, you know, it was like stuff like that. So everything went downhill. And so I ended up taking the code and leaving and I was like I said, I'm done. I have no more money. I can't do this anymore. And then I thought this is not, this is not right. I mean, I thought I was going to give up.And but I couldn't cause I'm like this again. Why did I go through all this? It's not because I'm for me to just get taken advantage of and quit. I'm not gonna let anybody take my dream. So so I found another app guy and he was he's great. And he yeah. Took care of it, of the professional of the cost.And, now we're live end of August of last year.De'Vannon: Girl, you think I'm right. You don't let anybody take your dream. It's it's a fucking hassle when you, when you fall into the den of vultures like that, and it happens to all of us it's happened to me. But you know, I would encourage people who were trying to start businesses or apps or whatever, you know, to keep [00:19:00] trying. But you know, now there's websites out there like Upwork free up where you can hire people from all sorts of. Th technological backgrounds. And the beautiful thing is those websites will act as an intermediary and they hold the money. So that, that other person doesn't get paid until the work is done and it's done.Right. And they negotiate everything for you so that you don't have the fuckery, like what you went through and everything like that. I've been through that myself and it can be discouraging. I had issues like that with started my podcast and writing my first book. You know, but you just got to keep on doing it, like, like what you said, but my God, you just want to strangle the people who took advantage of you. Anna: Yeah.Even like I just found out recently, I was looking at, there was these graphics that they created. They said they created. And I remember saying, oh, can you change the graphics a little bit? And they're like, well, they're custom hand drawn graphics. So it's going to take some time off to give you another estimate.[00:20:00]And this was what it's supposed to in 2019. They use them and I just found out from another dating app that just got launched. I was just downloaded it just to look at it. And I found one of my graphics on her app. So like that wasn't custom, they told me it was hand drawn and it wasn't even the stuff like that.I was like, how could someone, how could a company be like that? You know, for me, it's just frustrating. Just I knowDe'Vannon: You got them out there, honey, but you knowwhat? We don't move forward. Anna: that's right. I know I got to stop looking at the past. That's my problem is I keep going back anymore.De'Vannon: You know, it's, it's good too, for the purposes of like, say this interview to talk about that so that other people can know that they are technological solutions and safeguards to this now. So, but yeah, when we were alone and thinking, I fall into that trap too, sometimes of like anger might rise up in me, then I try to, you know, I gotta realign myself and focus on what is working and not let those people [00:21:00] take my joy anymore. Anna: Exactly. I'm tired of people taking my joy. So De'Vannon: Not no more. Anna: that's right.De'Vannon: So so let's get more granular and let's dig into exactly the uniqueness of entwine. Tell me like the typical male person who's going to be on here. Typical female person are there. Trans people and I saw them there. They're like two guys kissing and everything like that. So I know it's LGBTQ plus friendly.So what are like the sex options and all the sexual orientation options that you have. Anna: So, because the app is very basic because of funding. So I had to start off with. then are you interested in male, female or both? So that's what we have for now, but my goal is to have it available for everybody because that's how it should be. And just because of costs, unfortunately, I wasn't able to, to expand on that, but that's my that's one [00:22:00] of my main goals is to do that.De'Vannon: Okay. So then within the. Within the parameters that.you have established, give you an example of the sort of guy who would come on, come on your app and the sort of girl what's it going on in their life? Are you seeing certain income ranges, certain typical occupations? Just, just give me an example of a male or female and female profile. Anna: So since the app ended up launching the end of August, there's not a ton of users. That's probably get into that later where how it's very hard to get a hold of users that are that have sexual limitations. But it's so when. I noticed that the ones that I do have, so they had to put down, if they're male, female, then they still had to say their, their age, their location.Do they smoke? Do they drink? And do they have kids? So it's very basic, but of course down the road, it'll be more more of an algorithm that filter. So And I noticed that the feud that I had signed up, I'm actually friends with them. And [00:23:00] then I'm like, do you have sexual dysfunction? There was one guy that signed up and he's like, no, I don't, but I just, I'm tired of meeting these women that it's all they want.And I'm okay with not having intercourse. I rather, because they think they're okay with other floors and intimacy and they're okay with not having intercourse. I don't say sex cause it could be oral or whatever. So and then the same thing with the women. They're like, I'm just tired of these guys. You know, they're just, that's all they ever do is, you know, that's all they want.And so I have a few women that sign up that they didn't, they don't have that issue and they just did because they, they want something different work, more of that emotional connection rather than the physical. So so it's, it's a variety for now. I don't know that occupations or anything like that yet.Cause it's not in there and they can type as much as they want in the about me sections. They don't have to say what their limitations are until they meet the person. So there's no pressure there because of. I probably mean myself. I tell everybody my vagina's broken, but there might be someone else.They went through sexual trauma. They may not want to put that in that, in that [00:24:00] description.De'Vannon: So then it sounds like not, oh, intimacy is off the table. So it sounded like people who are sexually able can go on here. They are open-minded to being with people who are not sexually. Abel. And then even within the realms of both, they might be other things they can get into Anna: Right.De'Vannon: exactly what sex is, not the sin, sin, sin, central focus. Anna: Exactly.De'Vannon: So what, so there was a statement that I read that you wrote in and said that no one really thinks about people that can't, that can't have intercourse. Can you, and I feel like that that's a, that's a huge motivating factor into why that, that did you create this app in order to create an inclusive space For people who have sexual dysfunction? So can you walk me through some of like the emotions that maybe you and people, you know, who are, who are suffering from sexual dysfunction, this [00:25:00] isolation that it seems like you talk about because it almost seems like there's a feeling of being discarded or are devalued here.Anna: For example, when I I'm in a couple of erectile dysfunction, Facebook support groups, and there'll be men on there and there. I don't know why I'm living anymore. I'm going to be single forever. No, one's going to accept me for my issue. And I'm like, I don't want to, I want to jump on there and be like, no, don't think that there's people out there like women like myself that don't mind if you have a broken Dick.I mean, I guess I could say that, right. Because I have a broken vagina. Right. De'Vannon: You can say anything you. want, girl, they all. Anna: So I can't really comment because I don't want to get kicked out of the cause they say, oh, you're promoting your abalone, my ups free, but, okay. So, and they don't know that they're, that they have these options and, and then there's all these women that have the same thing where there are in my breast cancer group.So the vaginismus groups, it was like 17,000 women in the vaginismus groups. And like how many people have a broken vagina that couldn't believe it? [00:26:00] And the ones that are saying like I'm just going to stay with my husband because. No one else is going to want to be with me. I can't have sex and throw in like an abusive relationship and they don't, they don't want to go anywhere else.And and guys that cheat and say rude things to them. And, and I thought, that's, this is why my app has made. And, and then I started hearing some cruel comments myself, and it made me think like this, this app is needed because the regular traditional dating apps don't think about, they don't cater to people that have sexual limitations.That's like a given it's like, okay, after the third, fourth date, we're probably going to have sex. And imagine that pressure of a guy or a girl, it's a think like, when am I going to tell this person that I can have intercourse? You know, are they going to make fun of me? Are they going to reject me my own?Be embarrassed. That's a lot of pressure. And, and for me, I, I did this right away. So if I started meeting I started since I started, since I got divorced, I started going out more and I started meeting men and. [00:27:00] Hey, you have kind of your number you want to go to for dinner. I'm like, well, let me tell you about the dating app I created.And then I started telling him about my issue and the variety of answers are pretty insensitive. So it just, again, confirms that there needs to be something like in twine to be like a safe, comfortable spot for people that have these limitations to find companionship. But when I told this guys this, but my broken vagina though, like w w a few of, several of them said well, you have other holes do like anal.I'm like, well, first of all, I don't even know you for you to even ask me that is just for going rude. But, and I said, you have other holes. It's like, really that's really classy. And also and our, I hear like, well, you know, the perfect reason why a guy wouldn't want to be with you. It was a good one, too, you know?And you have, you should never get married. You should never have a boyfriend because you'll never make them happy because you can't have sex. I'm like, it's just horrible. [00:28:00] But it's been for me, I I'm strong enough to handle it. I wasn't like crying, but eventually like a sensitive woman that just got sexually assaulted and then she knows or whatever, however, history of it.And then she hears that. I mean, that's horrible to, you may not never want to go on the dating scene again. At least I wouldn't have, you know, but I'm just prepared to you're thinking really hard. I could see it. I could hear it. I could see the wheels spinning.De'Vannon: Well, yeah. You're giving me a lot to think about, and I'm absolutely feasting on this, on this knowledge over here, there's so much. So much pain and what you're talking about in so much rejection and so much fear of rejection, and nobody deserves to live like that. It's, it's reminding me of when I first contracted HIV and hepatitis a B, and I was thinking the same thing, like, okay, who was going to want to be with me now? At what point do I tell them this? You know, how does this go? And, you know, you see now, [00:29:00] like on the, on the dating apps now, especially the gay dating apps you can put on there, whether or not you're HIV positive undetectable already. So, but at first it was, I liked that, but, you know, and you had to determine a point, but now you can put it on there.And so, you know, anybody who responds back to you or who reaches out to you as you know, that they're okay with that. But I understand what it's like to have that fear of, okay. Are they gonna want to keep me around after I tell them this is a weakness about me, you know, or not. And so You know, some people are like totally cool with dating someone who has HIV and some people want to head for the Hills and everything like that. And, and it sounds like it's the same thing that's going on in the sexual dysfunction world. Now I want to say, fuck you to all the assholes out there, like the people who were taught, who, who, who were talking to you and yet, you know, women do have other holes, but there is a class that your way to, to bring up because, you know, on the one hand, you know, if you're talking about sexual [00:30:00]dysfunction, the holes that can not be used, that conversation is on the table.And so yes, assholes can be asked about, but it could be done, you know, a little bit more class or something like that. You know, it like, Anna: Moved down the road and be like on the fourth day maybe or something that I didn't even go on a date yet. I was already asking about my whole holes.De'Vannon: That's a smooth question. Like, you know, lo Hey, well, what else might you be interested in? And, you know, and then just let you answer it. And if they're answered it and come up with, then they can assume that this is off limits. Anna: would be nicer, but yeah, and my girlfriends they're like, why don't you, why don't you wait to tell the guy that you have your broken vagina issue? And I said, well, why so I can just like, get emotionally attached because I get, I seem to get more emotionally attached to anything. Cause it's, it's I don't want to wait until I'm like four dates in and then all of a sudden I'd be like, oh, I really liked this guy.Oh, by the way, I have the sister. And then, then he says, oh, you have other holes. I'll be like, I couldn't, I kind of handle that. But if there's no emotional connection yet or attachment, [00:31:00]then I'd rather them know then and have to have them make a decision right at the time. Cause we usually, when I think, well, 99% of them that I did talk to they're like we never went on a date actually.I'd never been on a date. So since I've been divorced cause. Seeing the find the guy that is just like, I'm not, I mean, looking though I should say, but even if it's just like, I don't want them to convince themselves that they don't need intercourse either, because that's another thing they might do that like, well, I guess I don't need any more.I, you know, I'm going to have a bunch of heavy D myself probably, you know? So I think no don't convince yourself because then in the back of my head, it's going to be like, either I need to fix my vaginismus, it's treatable, but I don't want to fix it for me. I'd rather fix it for myself and somebody else.So it's a.De'Vannon: Well open relationships with something that I don't think It should be off the table, really like ever, but especially, [00:32:00] you know, in this sort of situation, because like, like an open relationships, you know, if, if you have like two people who are in a couple and they allow each other to have sexual experiences with other people, given whatever their rules and boundaries might be, it oftentimes doesn't include any sort of emotional exchange with whoever the extra people are going to be.And so I could see that. And I'm curious what your, what your opinion is you know, on this. So if you have say like one person who is sick, that's able to have sex in other one, who's not really, really enjoyed each other's company and companionship about letting the person who can have sex, maybe have that sex with someone else, you know, but actually building like your core life with, you know, the one person who can have sex in the one person who can not, what are your thoughts on that?Anna: I think for me, that's I wouldn't be able to handle it. I know there's, there's a lot of individuals that can do that, but I feel like if somebody's [00:33:00] intimate like that, having sex, that there's gotta be some kind of connection there or some kind of emotional connection in my head. But like if I was with somebody now, that's just like, like if I, for my, for my ex husband, I just said, well, you can't have sex with me.So go somewhere else and get somewhere else. I was still like, that would really bother me. And so I want to be able to handle that, but I'm sure there's couples out there. There are people out there that would be okay with it. But for me, it's just something that I want to be able to, to live with.De'Vannon: Right. It is about being true to yourself. And I agree with.every sexual exchange, there is some level of mental, spiritual, and emotional transacting that does happen. You know, so it's just about what, what works for you and what doesn't. I just wanted to put that out there as a possible option. Now I wanted to talk about the self-esteem issues that I'm picking up on here and that I'm hearing in what you're saying, because you've mentioned like, some people are, who have sexual dysfunction are in [00:34:00] abusive relationships with people who are able to have sex.And so you think that people are maybe staying in this abusive situation because of low self-esteem. What, what, what sort of self-esteem issues have you seen. Anna: Well, I think there was the woman. I did talk to that. Her neighbor actually. So I haven't talked to that to a woman, but she said I talked about my app and she's like, you know, my neighbor, she's her, husband's mostly abusive. And she had breast cancer and she's like button hysterectomy. And she had chemotherapy, all that stuff that I had.And, and she's like, and I said, well, why is she in the relationship? Then? She said, well, she said, she's, she's afraid to be alone. And she said that no guy is going to want to be with her because of all of her scars. And because she doesn't want to have sex, she's never going to find anybody like, so she's just going to stay married.And, and she's like, well, that's what she said. I'm like, well, tell her about my app because that's another thing too. I want to reach all these people that are married, that, or are in a relationship. To know that it's [00:35:00] you're, you, you probably won't be alone. You'd just rather to be alone anyway, then in an abusive relationship.But but when they have all these surgeries and on scars and everything, and not like I told them, I said, man, I don't have any nipples, you know? So that might freak a guy out if you saw that, you know? But and I didn't know that even the mastectomy had nipples removed too as well. So it can be heavily promoted, I should say.But, so that's why the most, the low self esteem, they just, they don't have that courage to leave their partner or even enter the dating scene because they have these, these scars or these sexual limitations. That's why I think a twine will help them because they don't, people seem to be more understanding.I think when they're on this app, because they know right away that the intercourse or sex is not this off the table or can be off the table.De'Vannon: So how many people do you have signed up total on there now? Anna: Seventy-five I know it's not the money. That's, that's, that's where my problem is, is getting the word out [00:36:00] because the majority of the users are female. Cause I think like the guys don't really want to talk about it. If they're more embarrassed about it and women are a little bit more vocal about it. I think if there's only like a few support groups for men with ed and there's all these women's issues and for breast cancer groups, vaginismus groups, there's other types of sexual dysfunction in women, that groups for that.But and then if I put like on Facebook, I'll put 'em on my personal page, like please share my app upon entwined. No, no guys like, like my posts, nobody wants to be associated with it because it's going to be like, well, that means that I have ed. I don't want anybody to know that. So we're thinking that.So we're getting the word out is pretty, pretty difficult, but it's available in the U S right now only my goal is to have it available worldwide. And I actually had a few different countries reach out to me, UK, Canada Pakistan, and even India. They, [00:37:00] they messaged me separately and like, why is your app only available in the us, please make it available in our country.We need this to, and, and it's, it's needed worldwide. There's estimated it's going to be 300 to 320 million men in the world are going to have ed by 20, 24. I think the statistics were it's a lot of men, so there's like 30 million men right now in the U S that have ed. So like, we're all these, all these, all these men that are single, these need to hear about and fine.Cause there's, there's even veterans that I was researching. Veterans, I kind of go off, I think about something and I start talking about something else, but these, these veterans there, they have PTSD possibly, or maybe they have depression and they're on these, these antidepressant meds. Or maybe they, they lost limbs during combat genitals, even, you know?So I thought, what about these individuals? How do they find companionship? [00:38:00] And then I started seeing that, you know, there is this high suicide rate for veterans and some of them, there's not an exact percentage, but they were just in, at their counselor's office during therapy and talking about how they're very alone and they don't know what to do.And they ended up committing suicide. So it was like, I want to save everybody. I want to see the veterans. I want to save cancer patients, even people that are not cancer patients, you know, it's just, it's, it's needed in all these different areas. Diabetic clinics. I mean, I didn't realize diabetes caused causes ed too, you know, so it's just a matter of reaching everybody.And it's just me trying to do this with social media marketing, everything I'm doing on my own. So it's a little slow process, but De'Vannon: Well,Anna: there.De'Vannon: well, as the Lord says in the Hebrew Bible says despise, not the day of small beginnings. And so, you know, every app had to start with an idea and with that first, first two signed up. So there's no shame. And [00:39:00] just having 75 people, you know, 75 today, a hundred thousand tomorrow, you know, the thing in business is to stay consistent time and pressure, you know, are two things. Anna: zero before, so somebody five minute, every, every week I'm like, oh, I got another user. I got another user and I get all excited De'Vannon: But yeah, I heard, I heard high blood pressure. You can call it the right time. Can calls, towel, dysfunction. There's all kinds of medications and diseases out there. For veterans though. Yeah. I'm, you know, me being a veteran myself, you know, guys. It's just a lot of stress and you come out of the military and even when you're in the military and stress can cause erectile dysfunction.There's so many things, you know, but you know, the, the, the, I recommend for you to reach out to the disabled the DAV disabled American veterans, and because that's a good association that helps veterans and all sorts of things, they send out, you know, like a monthly magazine, they have a great website, [00:40:00] you know, they may want to post that, re your resource on there and include it in their publications as the American Legion.There's all sorts of like veterans associations that That that, that, that are set up to help. And of course you have mental health clinics in the department of veterans affairs, medical centers worldwide. And so I would work with the DAV if I were you and see how you might, could help their veterans.And then even maybe get this posted in the, in the veterans, hospitals worldwide, and, you know, look into that. Cause the, the veterans health care system is huge. You know, there's veterans, hospitals, and then there's a little mini clinics in cities where there's not enough population to have a big hospital, but mental health just in veterans alone, if.It's like a big deal and a lot of all kinds of dysfunctions play. He goes, honey. And so, and the thing with veterans is there since we tend to be so broken, the, the, [00:41:00] the powers that be are that have to deal with us are always looking for some sort of help. You know, there's plenty of veterans who get prescribed like Viagra and Cialis and all of that and everything like that.And so I think, I think it'd be worth your time to look into going down that route. And then suicide. Yeah. You had, you had said something earlier about like a form you were in the guy who was like, I don't want to live anymore. And everything like that, men attach so much of their value and worth to sexual performance. Y and I know you're not a man, but you know, why do you think that is a, what, what thoughts do you have on that? Because it goes for some, for a guy to be like, you know what? I can't fuck. So I'm just going to kill myself, you know, that's, that's like, that's like kind of a big deal in terms of like how much he thinks to himself based on how hard his Dick can get, what he can do with it.Anna: I often wonder [00:42:00] myself. I mean like, okay, I can't have sex, but I don't want to kill myself. You know, it's just like, I'm just like, eh, whatever. But it's just like, I don't know if just like, just so like, I don't know what the word is. Not even embarrassing, but I mean, I don't know. They just attached to that thing.Huh? So manhood, I don't know. But even like couples that are like the guys that are on the EDI page, like, you know, my. Is understanding, or she's not understanding anymore and she's not, she wants to divorce me now. So when guys and girls, where girls have to, where they're just like, and I don't want to be with the guy with ed, like, so it's, it's hard.It's heartbreaking to see that though. There's there were several posts that I saw guys that are like, you know, I don't, why am I living anymore? And it's, I don't, I never reached out to them to ask them why, but why there was so like, [00:43:00] they just don't want to be alone. I think De'Vannon: They don't want to be alone. And they feel like they feel like no one will have them. If their Dick don't work. Anna: Yes.De'Vannon: Okay. So then what I think this speaks to is our need to, as a, as a, as a society to reevaluate our value system, our personal value system and w and what we will allow and how we accept value from other people.So. Okay. So that means that we gotta be sure that we're assessing our value, not based on what we can do, but just who we are. So that means every day that we wake up, we are incredible and wonderful and loving and deserving of love because that's the way God made us, you know, we're here. So whether we perform fantastically today on whatever the task is, be at work sex, whatever the hell it is that you do, or if you totally suck at it, that doesn't mean that you are a bad person.It just means that you are imperfect, which [00:44:00] is true. And that's something that we just got to get over and accept about ourselves. We're just not going to be able to do everything and do everything as good as we would want to. And then if somebody wants to reject us because of an imperfection, we'll then fuck them.And I don't think that we need to go about the business of being like, I need to fix myself so that people will accept me because that's not living truth. You know, truth is, this is what's going on with me right now. I hope it gets better, but if it doesn't, I'm still going to be all right, because I'm more valuable than these, these physical limitations.I also think it's shortsighted because, you know, we have a spiritual aspect of us and a mental aspect of aspect of us. And when we die and leave this plane of existence, you know, there will be no Dixon vaginas, you know, on the other end, the other spiritual side, you know, these things, don't concern, angels and demons.And so, so I mean, I get, I get you know, somebody values something and they've made a big deal out of it. [00:45:00] I can see when it leaves them. They may not know how to cope with that. So, so, Hmm. So it sounds like then a lot of men may not be seeking mental health treatment to go along with erectile dysfunction.So what do you speak on the, everything I just said in my tirade, just now about the mental, the the, the self valuing aspect of it and the way we receive. Oh, how, how we should reject judgment from other people and then tie in mental health counseling implications to this. Anna: For myself. I didn't really, I didn't go for therapy or mental health counseling. I think like with men, there's actually specific therapists that have that specialized in sexual dysfunction for mum. And and I think a lot of them don't know that there's, there's cures further. Ed it's like, there is a cure for vaginismus.I know there's a cure of, I don't want to do it, but but these guys that they have these when [00:46:00]they do go to therapy, they might know that there's treatments. So they've lost hope, but they don't, they don't know that there's penile implants. There is injections. There's certain medications that they can take that would hopefully help them.There's even male penile press thesis that I'd met the founder of that guy that makes externally worn penises. And it, I guess the saves several marriages as well. But so without them going to a therapist and finding out, and I don't think that they may not, may not know, and for them to end their life for that, that's even more horrible.But that they need to know more about it. There's such a stigma for, for this this whole taboo of this topic, but they hope they would talk to somebody and why not? What, what options are out there and know that they don't have to do. They don't have to have surgery to have a press Penile implant.They can use my app instead, you know, because who wants to have [00:47:00] injections in their penis. I think that would hurt, you know? So that's another thing too. It's like maybe they don't want to do those treatments anymore.De'Vannon: I, I just, I just really think that we should be more valuable than our dicks, but I can see they can stroke a male ego and then how a woman or whatever it is someone's dating could praise them for their sexual performance. But I just, I just want to encourage people to let their relationships and their self value be based on more than Dick and Pelosi. I can Anna: yeah. Would be nice. ButDe'Vannon: we, we, we, can we come a little bit farther than that people Anna: I mean, not, not everybody's like that. I mean, there's couples that I hear on Facebook that are like, We have, we have such great other types of intimacy that we don't need intercourse cause outercourse and you know, they're fine with that and not [00:48:00] so,De'Vannon: You said outercourse, Anna: yeah, like a De'Vannon: there are other chorus Anna: out outer, outer course instead of intercourse, this outer core. So anything like De'Vannon: like four plates. Anna: and stuff, I guess. Yeah. Like a, yeah. Does it mean even though you're, even though you have ed, you still can what's the proper word come and ultimate. What's the cool word to use nowadays. De'Vannon: Ejaculated com bust a nut. Anna: but if you're limp, I don't know if you knew that you don't have to tell me if you know that.De'Vannon: No, I don't. I didn't know that that was possible. Anna: Yep. I didn't either until I started reading and I'm like, what really? So I guess what the right position, the outer is can work, grinding and stuff.De'Vannon: Hmm, I suppose. So [00:49:00] there's not a blockage in between the testicles and the urethra and the flow of semen can flow out because the hard, the erection is, is nothing more than blood rushing into the spongy tissue that makes up, you know, the penis, the Dick area, you know, blood is what makes Dick hard. But I guess, but yeah, I mean, there's nothing blocking the flow of the spring mountain shore Ramadan. Anna: did it. No.De'Vannon: Hm. Well, now we'll just power, you know, we gotta learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn. And we also got to learn how to love ourselves. I feel like I just keep feeling like. The whole broke. Dick broke pussy thing is like the, kind of like the surface level of this. I feel like that this is so much deeper.You know, I feel like that this is a, like a cavernous void of. I don't know, like just did something broken inside a person. Cause you know, when you're happy, healthy, and whole, you can have shit fuck up in your [00:50:00] life or in your body. And that won't take your joy away from you. You know, when you reach a certain level of mental, which you already spiritual maturity and emotional maturity, you know, not saying you won't be pissed off if, if something breaks in your body or if you get cancer or if you get HIV, but you're not gonna let it into your life because you know how to focus on what is working and not, what's not working.So you might have some health issues, but what else, what, what what's actually going on, good in your life and everything like that. Why focus and emphasize and make a big deal out of one negative when you've got so much positive going on. It's like this whole fight over cut and uncut dicks, you know, people are so goddamn, shallow and shit that they've made people feel insecure about.Okay. I'm not gonna say I'm not going to have sex with him. He has an uncut Dick. The thing is ugly. Or on the converse, somebody that'd be like, well, I only want [00:51:00] uncut dicks. You know, it was like a whole thing, especially in the gay community. It's like a whole big fiasco and, and I'm all like, God damn it.Just shit. Dick is Dick other daily work. The same, all that is is a, is a, is a, is like a cosmetic thing. You know, it was, there was a hood there. Or there's not, you know, Yeah,sure. You can have your preferences, but it shouldn't be to the point that he makes somebody feel bad. You know, if their Dick isn't pretty enough, you know, you know, all of that and nobody should accept that sort of criticism, you know, from somebody else.And so, you know, again, it just gets me back to watching how we think about ourselves, being sure that our value systems about ourselves, not based on superficial things and also not allowing somebody to make us feel bad over superficial things. If some people should accept you for who you are, no matter what, not, what you can [00:52:00] do. Anna: Yeah. That's how it should be. But.De'Vannon: Now, you mentioned, you mentioned the statistic about how many men have we worked out a function, the songs, and how many are projected to, what are those, what are those statistical projections for? What. Anna: I didn't really find much for women because either they don't report it. Like if I, if I didn't go to the doctor, I would never have known, I have vaginismus. I want to just pay just like dealt with it. But and I think I had, this was back in the day too, when I was at, when I started using tampons because they were hurt, they were hurt.I'm like, that's weird. I'm like, well, I never said anything. Cause you know, it's embarrassing to tell my parents and my mom that or whatever, or the doctor that so, so there's not like an exact statistic for women, but I'm sure there is, there's a ton out there.De'Vannon: Well, that makes sense and sense of such a big deal for men if something's not working right. You know, he's probably going to go run real quick to try to get that shit fixed. Anna: Yeah. And there's a ton of women that have painful intercourse and they just deal with it. And like myself, I never, actually, I went to the [00:53:00] doctor. When I was early marriage and I was, I would say like sex hurts. I don't know why it hurts. It hurts. And they're like, well, just relax, have a glass of wine. And you'll be fine.I'm like, okay, thanks. When I went to the next doctor, same thing, relax, have a glass of wine. I'm like, oh my gosh. So let's put, these women are being told and said, you know, this time, thankfully somebody said my new doctor was like, you have vaginismus. Otherwise I would have been like, well, you're just too tense.And it's not all mental because I was under anesthesia of having my hysterectomy. And there were it was a vaginal hysterectomy and the doctor's like, I couldn't even get instruments. And then when you were under anesthesia with thing was just super tight and closed and not gonna go away. So yeah.It's so it's not just mental because I heard that too. Like, oh yeah, it was the wrong guy then that's probably what it is literally with me. I'll cure you. De'Vannon: Yeah. Anna: Sure.De'Vannon: Well, not all doctors are created even, you know, I believe [00:54:00] in second, third, fourth opinions, whatever it is that you need in order to until you feel like you've received an answer of PISA and you know, when it makes sense to you, and then you're not trying to like negotiate with, you know, if you know some shit ain't right.That you're getting from a doctor and then go somewhere else. Anna: Yes. That's what, yeah. Especially with cancer stuff. I had a really bad plastic surgeon that a little too confident and messed up my chest and I had to have another side, the other side removed because of it to make him symmetric. And he was just very cocky. Like, I'll wait until you're done with my once I'm done with your mastectomy, doing your reconstruction, your, your friends are going to be jealous of your, of your chest.And I'm like, I don't even have nipples guy con what friends gonna be like, Ooh, look at you Ana. No, so yeah. Second opinions.De'Vannon: I would have run right then, because, you know, if you're in a doctor's office going through what you were going through it at that point in time about your friends, you know, it was about Anna: [00:55:00] know he was very cocky.De'Vannon: about you and what you need to feel beautiful. Not about giving you a look so that you can go out there and give shallow ass people a reason to give you an attaboy or an ad, a girl or whatever.You know, his heart was not in the right place. Anna: yeah. Yeah. He's not a good guy, but I know how to pick them. Sometimes these doctors andDe'Vannon: So you've mentioned that this app is free. Anna: yes, it's free and it will have premium features available right now. Their premium features are free, but once I have enough users, then we'll do the premium services at an extra charge because I have to make some kind of revenue in order to maintain the app. So so yeah, right now it is, it is a free app.De'Vannon: So that you plan to grandfather, the people in and give them the premium services to people who have signed up, have been with you from the beginning, or will you give them a discounted rate or what's the plan? Anna: I'm not really sure yet, because I was debating if I should do a [00:56:00] monthly rate too. Cause that's another reason why I wanted to do a monthly rate for everybody is because I don't want someone to just sign up for the app to just to be nosy and just to see, like, let's see if I know anybody that has ed next to me or whatever my neighborhood.And and I didn't want that freedom. Cause I mean, I've been tablet. I could tell, like I already have a fake user on there, John DOE I'm like, or like whatever it was. I'm like what do I do with this guy? And there's no picture of him, you know? So why is he on this app? Is he because he's being nosy or is he being shy?You know, what's the reason, so. So I thought that maybe having like a minimum registration fee or whatever, it will be monthly fee that they would prevent malicious users. would actually know exactly what the app's about. They won't sign up, you know, if, if it's free, they won't sign up. Or if they have to pay for it, they may hesitate to sign up because they were make sure that they understand what the apps about first.De'Vannon: Right. That might not be a bad idea. I mean, I think E harmony [00:57:00] did something similar, you know, to that, you know, and have done very, very well in terms of, you know, having a fee for everybody, you know, with the, with the money, the things people spend money on, you don't have the bullshit, the money on, you know, hello coffee is, was at least $5.If you dare eat food, which I hate fast food, but shit, you know, you're looking at a good eight to $10 for one meal at a fast food restaurant. So a couple of dollars a month. Anna: To find true love that's worth it. Right.De'Vannon: No, it is totally worth it. And then, yeah, you'll, you'll get the bullshit people, bullshit ass people off your off of your app that way. So is there anything else you would like people to know about entwined? You know, this app can be found and like what the Google app store and the apple app store and on the website, like, so tell us where it is and anything at all. You want us to know about the app?Anna: So right now, if you go to intwine dating.com E N T w I N E dating.com, you [00:58:00] can read the whole history of why I created the app again, if you'd like, and then also you can download it to the play store. So Android it's available on Android. You use it as a web web-based app and then also so. IOS I'm working on that because I have, they, I guess they're not accepting any new dating apps in the app store right now.So I have to plead my case and show them that this is not because they said there's too many scams out there. So I had to show them, look, I have this many users. I've helped this many users. It's been on Google play store for how many months or years. And I joined all these podcasts and I in this magazine, you know, so it's a legit person.That's created something to help others. So it's just to show that it's a unique app. And then once I plead my case, I'll be able to go into the, into iOS, which I can't wait for that too. Cause it's a lot to explain.De'Vannon: Right. So the, do you have like a Facebook group, but you know, you can make like a private Facebook group so that people can [00:59:00] talk to each other. Do you have something like this? Anna: I don't yet. I, I tried to, to create like a sexual dysfunction group and a. I got a lot of creepy people trying to join us. So from different countries. And so I'm like, well, that's not going to work. So yeah, I do have like my business page, my entwine and twine Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. But as far as like a group for just the users, not yet.De'Vannon: Okay. All right. All right, Anna. Well, this isn't bringing us to the, to the end of our, I felt like I don't know, very like meaningful and loving conversation here that we've had today. So what, what advice do you have that? And I'm going to let you have the last word here. What, what advice do you have for people, men and women, both who are suffering?From either cancer and or [01:00:00] sexual dysfunction. Anna: The sexual dysfunction. If you're one of those people that have been alone for a long time, this app could be your answer you've been waiting for. And I know it's intimidating to sign up at first, but there's other people out there that, that are okay with not having intercourse. And just because you can't, if you have ed or vaginismus or whatever, whatever condition you have, it's you deserve to be loved too.And, and I think you should take that leap and join in twine and you can have somebody there that's gonna love you just the way you are and you don't have to change for anybody. Just be yourself.De'Vannon: Yeah, That's like that. I think that Bruno Mars songs and he's like, girl, you were amazing just the way you are. Anna: that's right. Spear self. it, you know, I'm a karaoke horror, by the way.De'Vannon: Hey, be a horn, not a boy. [01:01:00]Anna: I go to karaoke like seven days a week when I don't have my kids. That's my outlet.De'Vannon: You do well in Japan. They love you over there. And what about closing words where anyone with cancer? Anna: If you are diagnosed or if you find like something suspicious, don't hesitate because early detection is key. If I had waited to check my lump out, out of fear, I wouldn't be here anymore because my cancer was

Welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. Today's guest is Sian Gabbidon, entrepreneur, TV personality and winner of The Apprentice 2018. We discuss her favourite task on the show and social media's depiction of entrepreneurs. This episode was brought to you in partnership with UPS. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more on starting your own business.  Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Don't forget to check out the video version of this episode and subscribe over on our YouTube channel! Sian Gabbidon podcast transcript Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I'm your host, Anna Jordan. Today we have Sian Gabbidon – entrepreneur, TV personality and The Apprentice winner in 2018. With a keen interest in fashion as a teenager, Sian did a fashion design with marketing and production degree at the University of Huddersfield. She went on to create her swimwear brand, Sian Marie, two years before appearing on The Apprentice. But with a global pandemic affecting sun-seeking holidays, Sian quickly had to pivot to loungewear, reporting a loss of £47,000 from the brand. She's since bounced back, partnering with George at ASDA to launch her loungewear range at the beginning of November 2021. We'll be talking about growing your brand on Instagram and handling a business while ill with Covid-19. Anna: Hi, Sian. Sian: Hello, how you doing? Anna: I'm very well, thank you. How are you? Sian: Yeah, not bad. You started out posting your designs on Instagram after you graduated from university. At the time of recording, you've grown that following from almost 120,000 on your personal account, and almost 70,000 on your Sian Marie loungewear account. I'm sure our listeners would love to know – how do you engage with your audience and build your brand on Instagram? Sian: It's a lot more difficult nowadays than it was back when I first set up. Nowadays with Instagram, you have algorithms and all kinds of things going on that can help or not help. But for me, it was quite organic, especially back before The Apprentice on my business page. We just ended up getting quite a lot of stylists, and even celebrities and people following us because we have designs that others didn't really have. So, we just really organically grew that following and got more and more support. Then obviously pivoting into lounge, it's almost like a new audience has came about now as well. When I was first using Instagram, back in the day, when I first set the brand up, it wasn't as monetised as it is now. You weren't really paying to get seen, you were seen automatically. Everyone that follows you will see your posts, whereas nowadays because you have to pay for posts, especially as a business, it's a lot harder to reach the audiences. You just have to spend a bit more money now. Whereas back then it was a free for all and everyone just saw everything that you posted. I imagine stylists were probably looking through Instagram at the time to try and find businesses like yourselves. Sian: Definitely. I think stylists use places like Instagram for new talent. It's perfect for those guys – they don't have to go to a store to find things. They could literally just look online, find some really unique different designs. That's what we were all about, especially with swimwear. It was very much one-off pieces, and pieces that you wouldn't crash at a pool party in, so it was perfect for celebrities. What kind of advice would you give to creative entrepreneurs now to get noticed on Instagram? Sian: I would say now that it still does boil down to that raw talent. If you've got a raw talent and you create amazing designs and use the right hashtags – there's a few tricks of the trade within Instagram that will help you get seen. But I think having that talent – and engaging with the people that you want to see – or sometimes that can work is the kind of tricks of the trade within that you can use to be seen. But I think yes, it's mainly just about having the talent and getting your pictures on there. And pushing it as much as you can and being a consistent person, posting every single day, making the people that follow you almost know when you're about to post so that they can be prepared for it. There are peak times for posting. With Instagram, you should always be posting regular content without posting too much with them without not posting enough. It's a really tricky balance because you want to keep people engaged, but you don't want to annoy them. But I think as a designer, especially when we're creating, if you're creating pieces that are one-offs, get throwing them all on there and have a wall full of your work so that people, when they do find you, can just flick through and see everything. Once you became a bit more established, were getting noticed by the stylists and everything, I believe it was an influencer who wore one of your pieces and you got recognised off the back of that as well. Then the pandemic hit, and of course, people are not going on the sunny holidays. They're stuck at home and you had to pivot to loungewear very, very quickly. Tell us a bit more about how you went about doing that and how long it took. Sian: Yeah, so we were like, 90 per cent swimwear in the UK pre-pandemic, and then the pandemic hit. I think we just launched a range in the March, a full swimwear range. It was an absolute nightmare. People were sending stuff back saying that their holidays were being cancelled. I remember first hearing about coronavirus and having a bit of a, ‘Well, we'll see what happens. It's probably going to be fine'. I think back to May, and then this all kicked off. And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.' This is destroying for my type of business. We did always plan to expand into new areas, just not as quickly as we had to do with the pandemic. It kind of forced me and us to expand quicker than we wanted to. But it's actually, out of such a terrible time, it's probably been the best thing that we've ever done. Because loungewear for me now – it's just proven how hard swimwear is, because it's seasonal. It's a much smaller demographic graphic in some ways than loungewear. And the way that, as a designer, and as a brand owner, the way that we turned around the product and made everything happen was so much quicker than it normally would be for a fashion brand. But I think I look at that now and pat myself on the back for being able to adapt it and change so quickly and react to what was going on. And yeah, survive it, I guess. One of the key attributes of a business owner is to be nimble and to be able to adapt very quickly. You even had Covid-19 yourself – how did that affect you and the business? Sian: Having Covid was dreadful. Even now, I can't taste or smell. It's so bizarre – it's been months now. And yeah, I can't taste or smell anything. On a personal level, having Covid myself was weird. I was more scared for family and friends, making sure that everybody else will be alright. My mum's literally just found out she's got Covid today. She's an NHS nurse. Covid itself was just such a strange thing to live through and to be a business owner through. Every business on the planet was affected in some way by it. And it's sad that some of them didn't make it. But you know, luckily for me, I could adapt. I was on the ball and I was involved. I think sometimes people think I'm just sat on a beach enjoying life. It's really not like that as a business owner – not for me anyway. Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a thing with entrepreneurs, especially on social media, where they're sort of living the highlife and having a good time, but I think there's less of the imagery of, I don't know, sitting with a planning board at three in the morning and that kind of thing. Sian: Social media is amazing. But I think it does depict entrepreneurs and business owners in a certain light that makes everything look glamorous, which is what it 100 per cent is at times. But then there's a lot of the time where it's just hard work. You work long hours, you're full-on, there are a lot of hurdles, a lot of stresses. I think that's why probably a lot of start-ups struggle or they don't make it past certain hurdles, because they're expecting everything to be rosy and it really isn't. Even in my position now, we're doing really well, we're growing and we're going in the right direction, and I'm in a really happy place. But there are still hurdles, there are still issues, there are still stresses every single day, but as a business owner and an entrepreneur, are you ready for that? You're ready to attack that and to keep going. What's the most stressful thing you face as an entrepreneur? How do you tackle it? Sian: One of the things that I struggle with as an entrepreneur, it's a very funny one and I'm sure others would agree, is letting go of things and letting other people do them or manage them. My business, I started myself in my bedroom and I know every single part of the business, even now. And I think it's hard. I am all about my brand so everything I do is about the brand. And I care. And I think sometimes just letting other people manage things and having a team of people who you need around you, but then allowing them to do it for you. I really struggle with it even now, you have to as the business grows, but I like to do everything myself. I can't – you can't do everything yourself. Is that just a case of, ‘Okay, breathe'? Let them do the thing, trust them? Or is there something specific that you do to try and ease that anxiety? Sian: I think to help with that, it's about employing the right people. It's about making sure that they're well-trained and know what they're doing, and that they know you're there if they need help. If they really need to speak to somebody or ask someone. For me, it's making sure you've got the right people in place for the job. And then allowing yourself to be open to questions and giving help if you need to. Great. And another challenge that's coming up that may affect you, is the possible regulation of the Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) market? Because I understand that you use a BNPL facility on the site. It's still under consultation at the moment, but how do you think that's going to change that side of the business for you as a retailer? Sian: Are they saying they're not going to allow it anymore? Anna: No, it's just that it might be regulated, like other credit facilities – credit cards and so on. So, it's more stringent checks and being more lenient with people who are struggling to make repayments and that kind of thing. But it looks like the retailers might have to be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority as well. Sian: In terms of Buy Now Pay Later, and we do have it on our site, it does come in handy. The majority of our sales are just bought directly, through PayPal or credit card. So, depending on how that works, it might affect us slightly, but I think anything that's going to make people safer and help avoid them getting themselves into debts or anything like that, then, as a business owner, you've got to make sure people are safe, that's the priority. You started the business on a very low budget. What kind of advice would you have for, say, sole traders or entrepreneurs who want to start a business on a low budget? Sian: Anyone wanting to start a business on a low budget, I would say, don't be put off by that. And it actually was, I think, I would personally say it was great for me because it taught me how to be smart with money and how to reinvest profits. I worked full-time when I first set the business up, didn't take any money out of the business for myself for quite a while I just built the pot. And luckily working allowed me to do that. And me having really early mornings and really late nights to manage your business and a full-time job. But that was my plan. I didn't want to put too much pressure on making money to begin with, it was more about getting the right things in place, having the website, having some cash saved up for any rainy days or anything that I need it for. I would just say, you definitely can do it, you just have to be very smart about planning and money management. I'd like to talk a little bit about The Apprentice and your time on it. So yeah, you got right through to the final. What was the most memorable task for you and why? Sian: The most memorable task for me in The Apprentice was definitely the QVC task, like selling on TV. I remember taking a massive punt and saying, ‘Right, I'm going to pick the most expensive product that we could choose from.' And in my head, I kind of said to myself, ‘If we win, amazing. If we don't win, I'm probably going to get kicked off for this task.' But it was one where I thought, ‘You know what? I'm going to take a risk and I'm going to hope that Lord Sugar appreciates me taking the risk. And luckily, I think we won – I'm pretty sure that we won that task. And everything paid off for me. So yeah, that was my favourite one. Right at the very end, you and Camilla, you seemed to – not as much as other years – but you seem to be in quite a head-to-head with a lot of arguing. Then all of a sudden, once Lord Sugar had made the announcement, it's as if something just fell. And you're not best friends. But you know, you kind of made up again. Tell us what it's like being in that final, that final meeting room scenario. Sian: At the time, we were actually really good friends. And we were very similar age-wise and interests, whatever else. So, it was a really strange situation because it was like we were really buzzing for each other when the fan then you were competing against each other. But we knew that when we were in front of Lord Sugar and was in the final grilling, we kind of knew the situation. And we knew that we'd have to say things about each other's businesses and about each other. And I think we just kind of took it and ran with it. But we knew that off-camera and behind the scenes, we were friends, and we genuinely would have been whoever, whatever the outcome would have been and whoever would have won, we would have been happy. Had that been coming I would have been absolutely pausing for. It was a really strange one. But what obviously for me, I'll never forget the moment that I won. But then being in the final was another thing that I'll never forget either because it was a girl power final. Were you encouraged to ham it up or was that all real? Sian: Everything on the show is real. Everything that you see is real. It's emotional. You've been in there for a long time, we're tired, you've been doing all these tasks. And especially by the final I was a bit like, I'm so competitive as well, that I was like by this stage, ‘If I don't win now, I'm going to be absolutely fuming.' So fine. I was like, ‘I'm knackered, but this is the final hurdle now and I need to win it.' You know, I would have kicked myself if I'd came second. Anna: Well, great. I mean, that seems like a great place to wrap up. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Yeah. And it's been wonderful to have you. Sian: Thank you for having me. It's been great. You can find out more about Sian Marie at sianmarie.com. You can also visit SmallBusiness.co.uk for more about growing your brand on social media. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and on Twitter @smallbusinessuk (all lower case) and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening.

In this episode, Anna Jordan meets Dragon Tej Lalvani and entrepreneur Sam Jones. We discuss how pitching on Dragon's Den from both sides. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more on perfecting your investment pitch.  Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Don't forget to check out the video version of this episode and subscribe over on our YouTube channel! Would you prefer to read the podcast interview instead? Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I'm your host, Anna Jordan. Today we have Tej Lalvani and Sam Jones – one is CEO of Vitabiotics and Dragon on Dragon's Den and the other is an entrepreneur who, according to Touker Souleyman, gave one of the best pitches he's ever seen in the Den. Sam went into the Den looking for £60,000 in exchange for ten per cent equity of his internet browser company, Gener8. Wowed by the pitch, Touker Suleyman and Peter Jones teamed up to invest in the entrepreneur, leaving Tej and Deborah Meaden with cash in their pockets. Tej sought out Sam after the show, becoming one of a group of high-profile investors to back the firm. After four years on the show, Tej will be stepping back from Dragon's Den later this year to focus on growing Vitabiotics.     We'll be talking about making a pitch – from both sides of the Den.  Anna: Hi guys, how you getting on? Sam and Tej: Hi Anna, how are you? Anna: Yeah, doing really, really well. Thanks. Sam: Awesome. Good to be here this afternoon. Thanks for having us on. Right, we've got quite a bit to get through, as you've heard in the intro. I'll start with you, Sam, talk us through the process of going on Dragon's Den and anything that stood out to you particularly. Sam: Well, wow, I mean, what an experience. It'd be hard to put that into 30 seconds. But really quickly, I start with what's happened since and then I'll jump back to what happened during so. Since Dragon's Den, the reaction has been incredible. The pitch went viral. With about 20 million views on Facebook and other five million views on LinkedIn, we were averaging a new download every ten seconds for about seven or eight weeks. Off the back of that, more than 30 different press outlets wrote about us. We used this momentum to raise a modest round of funding, which we were super fortunate to be able to include. Of course, Tej Lalvani and bringing him on board alongside people like Tinie Tempah (the rapper) and Harry Redknapp (the football manager). It's been a whirlwind since Dragon's Den, which is amazing. Going back to the pitch – God, I mean, this was a hell of an experience. I think that we all know, from watching it on TV, that when you walk through those doors, and you come out of that lift, anything can happen. Of course, from the entrepreneur's perspective, you hardly sleep the night before, because you're just so nervous. So, you're standing there in this lift, light-headed and the butterflies are multiplying in your stomach and you're trying your best just to hold it together. But then your head's getting noisier – you can't even remember your opening line – and you're just trying to tell yourself to breathe. And then there's that moment where the doors open, and you walk out to the left. It's total silence. You see the Dragons sitting in front of you, just like you do on TV. You even hear the echo of your own footsteps as you're walking out to that mark on the floor to start your pitch. I think that's tough no matter who you are. That's tough. But that's how all of the entrepreneurs start on Dragon's Den. That's amazing because you looked so cool and calm when you were on the TV. It's hard to believe that all of this was rushing through your head at the time. Sam: Oh, yeah. I mean, I think you're standing in front of these five incredible characters that we've all seen on TV for so long. And of course, you know what each one of those investors can bring to your business. So, I think the real art is being able to calm your mind, take that breath, and then go in and communicate your pitch really clearly. Yeah, absolutely. And talk us through the stages before that, because I'm sure people who are listening or watching might be thinking of, maybe someday, going on Dragon's Den. Sam: Sure. In terms of preparing, well, the thing that I did really simply was I just practiced the pitch, probably 100 times – probably more than 100 times. I knew it inside out. Of course, I watched a lot of Dragon's Den as well. I imagined answering every question, but then more than that, I just knew my business. I know why I started Gener8, I know what we want to achieve. And then really the challenge was just keeping that mental clarity so I could communicate that to these guys when I was standing there. What about you, Tej – what were your first impressions when Sam walked into the Den? Tej: Well look, as an investor, as a Dragon, you look for a couple of things in terms of what they're pitching and the entrepreneur themselves. When you're investing, obviously, the pitch is important – to understand the clarity of it. And sometimes, you know, entrepreneurs don't communicate what it is. And of course, what Sam presented is not an easy thing to try and grasp in layman's terms. He did a great job of doing that. Then secondly is the opportunity you see in the business. It seemed a very strong opportunity to potentially disrupt certain things. You ask questions to the entrepreneur and you see how they respond accordingly. So the questions I asked, he responded very quickly, promptly and dealt with the issue, because sometimes entrepreneurs may deflect the question if they can't answer it. He took on board some of those points or concerns I had, and very clearly went through them and said, ‘Okay, that's a potential risk', ‘this is a problem and this is not the solution for it'. That impressed me. I think just the space as well, the tech space I was interested in. So really, there's a couple of things that you look at, and it sort of ticked all the boxes in my head as a potential investment. I thought it was a fantastic pitch, yeah. Amazing. Do you have anything to add to that as to what other entrepreneurs who may consider going on Dragon's Den can learn from Sam's pitch? Tej: Well, as Sam said earlier, one is about practicing and watching Dragon's Den. So few people actually come and really watch the episodes because everything is pretty much there. And you can see how sometimes you can go completely on a tangent because other entrepreneurs have not prepared, they've not been transparent. You could get a complete grilling versus having four or five offers sometimes. I think that that is important, preparation. Of course, nerves hit you, and some people can manage them better than others. The Dragons will be lenient if you do forget certain things, because there is that pressure on national television. However, it's how you deal with it. And this understanding – have you been actually prepared? The other important thing is understanding the full aspect – all of your business, the ins and outs of it. Sometimes, the entrepreneur says, ‘I don't really do that, that's not my role'. But it is your business. You're an entrepreneur, you need to understand everything about the finances, to the marketing, to the competitors. That is very important as someone who wants to pitch to Dragon's Den. Be clear for what you want and what you're asking for. They just sometimes come on and say, ‘I want this amount of money'. What are you going to do with that money? How's it going to work? And what do you really want from a Dragon? The clearer the entrepreneur is – the better, the more concise – and really try and explain your business in simple terms. And very quickly, people just someone's got one for now and you like, and half the time is the questions about trying to understand, ‘What does your business do'? So really, that is an important part. Get that sorted out and use the other time to try and get the investment and negotiate the deal that you want from the Dragons. Yeah, and sometimes it's not even on the show, because you've got the due diligence to go through afterwards. Off camera, of course. Tej: Yeah. I mean, that's a different process altogether. But I mean, in the Den, the idea is you have an intent to do a deal with the entrepreneur. And of course, during due diligence, certainties can probably pop up. The BBC can only do a certain amount of due diligence. As an investor and as a shareholder, there are things about shareholders agreements that you need to look at – the bank, the finances – is it correct? Is there more debt than what was given in the show? By the time you do a deal, it could take three or four months, and the situation may change for an entrepreneur as well. They're all aspects that get involved. But by and large we try and do every single deal that we agree in the Den. Great. Sam, coming back to you, when you were having your discussion with the wall, what was that like? What was going through your head? Sam: To be honest, I think that was quite a surreal moment, because I'd spent so much time, effort and energy in preparing to try to get to that stage. But when that happened, there is this kind of rush of emotion and adrenaline, where I think I was so pleased that when I asked to go to the back, I think you can see on the piece that is broadcasted on TV, I have this big grin across my face, because I'm there thinking, ‘Blimey, what a great place to be,' and reflecting kind of momentarily on the journey up until there. Before then, of course, thinking, ‘Okay, what are the offers in front of me? How should I go back and handle this?' So yeah, it was a fantastic moment, really. It must have been nerve-wracking for yourself, Tej, because you'd put forward an offer. You must just be sitting there in that moment thinking, ‘Well, what is he going to decide? Is he going to take it? Who's he going to go with?' Tej: Absolutely. I mean, it's, it's always a tense moment. And that's the fun of the show because you are competing against other Dragons genuinely for investment. And it's about communicating what value you can add as an entrepreneur to help the journey and grow the business at the same time. It's important from the entrepreneur's side and trying to communicate that at the same time. And of course, then you have the flexibility of percentage investment, whether you offer more money for the same percentage or whether you prepared to take less equity for the same amount of money. Those levers are there. And then you just see what happens. Of course, ultimately, the entrepreneur decides – they make the decision. You win deals and you lose deals all the time. Yeah, it must have felt like that on this particular occasion you missed out. Tej: Yeah, well, it felt like was I should have provided free office space! Anna: Touker finally shifted it! Tej: Of course it was disappointing. But equally, I believed in Sam's vision and what he was doing. We did reach out afterwards, got in touch and and subsequently made the investment because I thought I could add great value to the business. I thought this was a great opportunity. And so it worked out that way. Great. You say that you've never sought out an entrepreneur that's appeared on the show before – how did you go about seeking out Sam? Tej: Previously, if I've lost deals in the Den, or they haven't gone through, then usually I just didn't get it for a particular reason. I just leave it. But yeah, I thought that was an important decision. And at the time, Sam chose two people. The more I thought about it, the more I thought it was a great opportunity. So, I contacted Sam, and, obviously the other Dragons, Touker and Peter, who invested. They were very happy to have me on board as well. We had a discussion and worked out a deal that was great for everyone. Talking post-pitch, what's in the future for Gener-8, especially in terms of managing customer expectation around what kind of rewards they can get, for example? Sam: Right now, the future is really exciting. We're growing incredibly fast still. So, 1000s and 1000s of new users are downloading Gener8 all the time. We're scaling the team. When Dragon's Den aired, there was just four of us. Now we've tripled to about 11 or 12 of us. There'll be 15 of us once we finish this hiring spree. Increasing internal capability is a key thing here. Additionally, we're working on our mobile app to get this developed, out in the world. We've got over 50,000 people on the waiting list for the app already, which is fantastic. From our side, it's full steam ahead. We're chasing down these opportunities. I mean, it really feels like we've captured the Zeitgeist in empowering people to control and learn from their data. We're just running full speed ahead with that, really. How do you scale up at such a rate as you are without over-expanding or taking any of those kinds of risks? Sam: It's amazing to have people like Tej, Peter and Touker – and some of our other shareholders too – who have also been in in similar fast-growth businesses. These guys have gone through it before. There is a tried and tested playbook. Particularly if I look at one of our investors, who is the former CEO of Spotify, he's been there with the explosive tech growth. Asking our shareholders and our board is always a great area to get guidance from. The other thing as a result of explosive growth is that, as you're saying, you need to scale up to meet your consumers' expectations. There's always a little bit of a time lag in there. It's a positive problem. Of course, it is a teething pain that you need to get through. To give you some context, we can receive over 1000 emails, DMs (direct messages) or messages every day from users and new users who are getting in touch. On Friday, when I left the office, we were down to zero in our inbox. On Monday when the team came back, that's today, we're at over 1700. Of course, there is this period where we need to put in place structures and capabilities and manpower that will enable us to respond quicker and more efficiently and more effectively. We're getting there. It's exciting, as you can imagine. Yeah. Tej, I can imagine your unique insight has been invaluable here as well, in terms of scaling up in a sustainable way. Tej: Yeah. What we like to do is work with Sam and see all the all the things he needs for the business to help grow it and we provide it essentially as a wish list. And whether it's opening doors or contacts or help on strategy or advice, we're available here to be able to help with the business because we all believe in the mission equally, too. It's a movement, as Sam was talking about, and it's a lot more important than just monetary. It's actually changing the game, people are able to control their data and monetise. Great. Coming back to a more general topic. Tej, you are very active on social media and you often ask your followers for tips and what their priorities are, what their business goals are. Have you ever seen an example of a bit of business advice or a mantra that's been presented to you that's made such an impression on you that you've adopted it yourself? Tej: With social media, I enjoy interacting with all the followers and I try and give bits and tips of advice that I've learned along the way. There are many that can apply to different people. And it's great to hear feedback from how it's helped change people or given them the push they needed to set up their business. To take decisions that need to be done that may be difficult. So, in terms of advice that I think they will follow is that there are a couple of principles in my life. One is that, as a person, I always want to learn and grow all the time. Number two is that if you want to do something, set up a business, you just have to get started and do it. A lot of the time people try and wait for the perfect opportunity or the perfect idea. That's really hard to do, because it doesn't exist. What usually happens is, when you come up with an idea, what you end up with is quite different to what you started with. I think it's always an evolving thing of business. If you have something, just go for it and see what happens. People have that hesitation. I believe in today's world, when you're selling a business, it's always important to focus on a niche, because there's no point in trying to be everything to everyone. You'd rather be great at something in particular which no one else can beat you at, then trying to provide something for everyone that's slightly better than everybody else. So, there are the essential principles. As for quick tips, I'd say, when it comes to setting up a business. A lot of the time when people start businesses, they imagine how it's going to be, but it's a lot of firefighting, a lot of problem solving throughout the way – as long as you're prepared for it. My wife set up a business recently as well and I told her that, and she realises that that's exactly what it is. There are always issues, always challenges. That could be small, it could be big. But if that's what your day is, and it's about, despite all that, how do you grow? How do you exponentially build your business at the same time? Yeah, that's also why as far as again, you should be working on your business, not in your business so that you can help drive it forward. And a similar question to you, Sam – what's the best piece of business advice you've ever been given? Sam: Oh, I've been given so much amazing advice that it'd be difficult to select one piece now. But something that I can tell you, or tell the listeners, which I think might be helpful. If they're ever looking to pitch for investment, or go on Dragon's Den, I think the biggest variable that will impact the outcome is how you think about yourself when you go into that situation. What I mean by that is that you need to start by reminding yourself that you're not singing for your supper. Never stand hat-in-hand, asking for money, because that's the quickest way to turn someone off. Instead, I think that you've got to believe that you're sharing a secret with the investor. So, you're telling them about an opportunity that they're not aware of, you're pulling away the curtain and unveiling a hidden truth that's been in front of their eyes all along. And if they're lucky, you might be willing to invite them on the journey with you. Now, how much more exciting is that? So, the tip that I would give is remember that you're sharing a secret, you're not singing for your supper, anytime that you're meeting with investors or asking for investment. Tej: I think it was Henry Ford who said this quote: ‘Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.' Because really, it's in a belief in your mind. And if you think you can't do it, then you're right, you won't want to do it. But if you think you can, and you want to do it, nearly everything is possible. Anna: Well, that seems like a great point to end. I'd like to thank you both for coming on. Tej: Thank you. It's been great. Thank you for having us. Hope it was useful. Sam: Thanks so much for having us. Anna: Thanks, guys. You can find out more about Gener8 at gener8ads.com and about Tej at tejlalvani.com. You can also visit SmallBusiness.co.uk for articles on perfecting your investment pitch. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and on Twitter @smallbusinessuk (all lower case) and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening.

Shipping across borders can be quite complex and is one of the main reasons many small businesses face export and expansion challenges. In this episode of Small Business Snippets, Anna Jordan discusses some of these challenges, the expectations of online shoppers and how the right partner can assist, with UPS's Marketing Director Arthur Lam and supplement provider YourZooki's co-founder, Marcus Mollinga. Find out more about consumers' expectations of small businesses in UPS's Smart E-Commerce report here. Want to read the UPS podcast instead? Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I'm your host, Anna Jordan. Today we have something a little bit different for you. We have a sponsored episode with our partner, UPS. I'm joined by Arthur Lam, director of marketing at UPS and Marcus Mollinga, co-founder of vitamin brand, YourZooki.        Anna: Hi, guys, how you doing? Arthur and Marcus: Good. Rather than me introducing you, and getting a bit winded, I'll let you guys introduce yourselves. Arthur, tell us a bit more about yourself and your role at UPS. Arthur: Sure thing. A little bit about myself, I've been very fortunate to have helped customers both big and small in the last 20 years at UPS in different capacities starting, originally, in North America, the nature pack. I'm currently now the marketing director for our UK, Ireland and Nordics businesses. Very happy to be here and to share my thoughts and best practices that I came across. Anna: And now you, Marcus. Marcus: Yep, so I'm one of the co-founders of YourZooki. YourZooki's one of the fastest growing companies in the UK. We specialise in liquid supplements, which are more bioavailable compared to capsules, pills and powders. Most of what we're going to talk about today is around international shipping and how small businesses can deal with the logistics and the issues that they face scaling up – and shipping and logistics. I'm going to start off talking to you a bit more Marcus, because YourZooki has scaled up majorly over the course of the pandemic. How did you deal with the logistics of doing that? How did your shipping provider help? Marcus: During 2020, we're in our fifth year of business now. Each year, we sort of doubled in size. Last year, we saw huge amounts of growth, especially on the online side of the business, so there's a fire alarm going off. Last year, we scaled really fast. Covid, for our type of business, that was good. In a sense where we employed lots of new people – more people interested in taking vitamins and supplements over other products. In terms of scaling and to triple a business in terms of revenue in the space of 12 months is a really difficult thing to be. So one of the major things we had to do was ensure we had the right partner to get things from A to B, because it's easy to acquire a customer to get the product made, then get an appointment from A to B is also one of the key elements in our supply chain. With UPS, for us to scale fast involves selling in different countries, and selling into Germany, France, Holland, Ireland is a huge market for us, ensuring that we can get product there, then (within?) a couple of day. Timeframe is key. And UPS, I think at some points, we used to go from having a couple of orders a day, four or five years ago, to having full lorry loads coming in two or three times a day daily just to get orders out. To really scale fast, you need to have a good product, a full supply chain from making the product to getting the product to the customer, and capital. We had to raise investment to take us to that next level as well to keep up with the growth. Arthur, how do you, or somebody like UPS, support a business as it scales? Arthur: A lot of businesses, such as YourZooki, are on markets that have gone through a rapid growth in the last 18 months. Especially within the challenges that we see from a pandemic standpoint, we've seen a huge surge in online shopping. While the shift towards eCommerce was kind of expected from a long-term trend perspective, but the global pandemic has definitely sped up that trend in regards to planning for changes throughout the shipping and logistics space. My advice is to really make sure that your business systems and processes are as seamless as possible, tailored to the individual strengths, challenges and goals of the business needs that some of the small and medium-sized business they're seeing. That's one of the reasons why we at UPS offer a range of services for businesses of all sizes. Maybe you are start-up looking for a free eCommerce shipping plugin, which allows you to integrate a wide range of UPS delivery services into your e-storefront. Or maybe you are SMB looking to expand your business overseas such as what we just heard. We have a variety of solutions to make the shipping process as simple as possible. But one thing that I would often remind companies, as we just heard, that they know what creating your product and shipping it out, it's one thing how about, we cannot really just focus on the post-sales aspect, including the hassle-free return process, will really be part of a kind of instead of just creating or acquiring a one-time shopper versus acquiring a long term repeat customer. To help companies to scale and to really understand that eCommerce market better. Our smart eCommerce report, which you can download via the link in the description box, included findings from surveys for over 10,000 consumers across some of the key European markets. In those reports, it says that 35 per cent of UK shoppers believe that it is easier still to return unwanted products in person. So, in a way that really tells me that there's still a lot of room to grow in regards to making the return aspect of the surface easier. If companies have goals to cultivate long term, repeat business, and want to provide a soft, smooth return, I think it is important to work with experienced logistic providers to able to streamline that process and be able to provide different options. We as UPS, for example, we do have a comprehensive parcel return service option. You can either pre-printed labels to ship out your order, your mobile barcode and also we have convenient drop-off and delivery points through our UPS access point locations. So really, you can choose the best fit for you, as well as for your customers. Yeah, I'm sure services like that are amazingly helpful. And of course, there's been loads of changes to shipping logistics recently. Next, I'd like to just talk a bit more about like how you safeguard against those uncertainties. I mean, of course, we've had Covid this year, which we weren't expecting. As a small business who ships internationally, how do you safeguard yourself against those kinds of uncertainties? Marcus: What we did – initially we were just a UK-based company, and we set up third-party logistics centres in the USA, in Ireland and in the Netherlands. What that allowed us to do, and, with Brexit, we were still using UPS. But we were really focused on LTV, which is the lifetime value of a customer. So any eCommerce company has to really focus on what is the lifetime value of a customer, and forced to open up a 3PLs in a separate company in a separate country to improve that customer experience, still using UPS to get the product to the end customer made complete sense for us, because we could shave off a day of shipping. What we did to scale fast, which I'm sure lots of other companies are doing, is looking at opening third-party logistics centres in different countries. How do you go about setting up these third-party logistics centres? Marcus: I guess it's like a dating process, you've got to speak to lots of different companies. Sue, who's our account manager at UPS, recommended a few companies we spoke to in different countries. But yeah, you've just got to get to know the company, understand their fees, understand how they work and ensure it's the right fit for your product. There'll be specialist 3PL companies for clothing, for food and health and wellness products like ours, for drinks, which might have ‘fragile' stickers on, for example. There's all these different types of three PR companies. And it's a similar process to finding an agency or whoever – you've just got to ensure you're comfortable with them as a business. Arthur: I think it's unexpected from a UK business standpoint, because of what we kind of discuss the changes in the United Kingdom from a Brexit standpoint, or EU VAT reform that we're seeing in July. Crossing borders now requires – coordination compliancy is a big issue, and also the right documentation and paperwork that goes all along with it. As we see that the new regulation takes hold and reforms take hold, we really need to help customers to pivot their business to ensuring that they have all the information that they need in regards to sending packages, receiving packages, working with different partners –  as Marcus has mentioned. So for example, a customer might not right now know that what they need in regards to shipping internationally because it is different from the past. Tools that we have at UPS including UPS treatability – it helps customers to really understand what some of the documentation does it require and also provide estimated landed costs, calculation including duties, custom fees and potential taxes. One of the most important things that I see for my best practice standpoint is really informing your end customers were doing the ordering process that are they expected to be paying for duties and taxes or when the retailer the company is taking that aspect of it included in the overall price. I think that's really speaking about customer experience. Another factor, as I mentioned earlier is kind of the EU VAT reform that started in July 1, really impacting any imports into Europe that's from worldwide, it's not just for UK that value up to 150 euros, and likely that it's going to change the way that especially for my eCommerce step one how what is the procedure and process is going to be so for people that are not aware, what's changing. So as of July 1, the VAT exemption for imports into the EU will the intrinsic value of 22 euros has been abolished. So before, there's no VAT to worry about going to this customer, so everything's fine and dandy. Now, the European Commission has created this, they call import one-stop shop, or IOSS platform that they have launched to help to settle this VAT in Europe for goods up to 150 euros. The last thing is the online marketplace. If you're selling on that the online marketplace itself will be responsible for the compliancy of the euro VAT, when you're selling goods up to 150 euros. Now, that's a lot of jargon. So far, not going to be able to explain all of the ins and outs in this particular podcast, but one thing that we do at UPS is really to continue our commitment in regards to supporting our small business customer through these changes. UPS has selected the test consultant PwC (PriceWaterhouseCooper) to offer IOSS intermediary and compliance service for our customers who currently don't have an EU based establishment. Our customers can register for these PwC hours as assistance on our website, if they so choose. Great. And of course, we're talking about small businesses as a customer. But we also recognise that especially since the pandemic has hit a lot of customers of your customers' businesses are going online and it looks as if that shift could move online significantly for the long-term. I guess, Marcus, is that works quite well for you because I mean, you're predominantly an online product though, I understand that you do sell in store as well. Marcus: To be fair, the majority is switched from month to month, but a big part of our revenue is still in retail. We're sold in close to 4000 stores worldwide. In the USA and GNC, Holland and Barrett and Boots in the UK, but we're also in hundreds of independent stores around the UK and Ireland and UPS do all of our deliveries to the independent stores. So, for example, a local pharmacy, and who's ordering a couple of boxes, and UPS does all of our B2B. So, so we use UPS as a D2C and a B2B solution. The shift online, from an operations point of view, is easier. But I still think being in retail is fantastic. You know, we have some great retail partners and it's mutually beneficial. We sell a lot of products in their stores which helps build the brand awareness for our brand. I don't think the high street is going to disappear. I think it's just going to change and how products are sold. And I still think more and more people will be shopping online, but I don't think the high street is going to disappear. I think they've just got to adapt to how they sell products and put more importance on the experience for the customer in the store. Absolutely. Staying on the online side of it. Arthur, what advice would you give to SMBs who are dealing with this changing market who are more and more online and their expectations as to what they would want from a business that is retailing online. Arthur: Yeah, so I think, for customer care, end customer by habits have definitely changed. And I agree with Marcus that the high street is not going to go away. I think people still need the interaction, still wants to see touch and feel and so on. They're probably just going to be operating in a different way.  Now, in regards to the changing habit and what they expect from retailers or cars, businesses, we saw that from a recent World Economic Forum report actually predicts by 2030, the last mile delivery expected to grow by 80 per cent. As we know, you can buy a lot of groceries online now, there's food delivery and online stores. All those things add up and unfortunately do create global emissions to rise and the transport sectors, contribute to around 21 per cent of that. And then roll freight is around 29 per cent. However, we do also see that consumers are really leading the charge and demanding more from businesses in regards to sustainability. Within our report, we actually did see some insights and findings, I can back this up as well. Consumers are not just right now, of course not in the boardroom to fall for any sustainability strategy of a particular business. But we do see that they are indirectly voting with their wallets during their purchasing decision. You see that our survey that 64 per cent of respondents actually said that it is important that a retail delivery partner offers sustainable delivery options. 32 per cent of shoppers wanted to see small and independent retailers offset their carbon footprint and deliveries. And an over a third of UK respondents said that they wanted to see retailers offer out alternative delivery options at a reduced price. For example, if I were to pick up from a locker or collection point, give me that option so that I can choose and be a responsible citizen while at the same time getting that flexibility and such. So, we are UPS we do offer this possibility via our UPS Access Points Locations, as I mentioned, offering free redirect options up to 15 minutes before they deliver, providing choice and convenience to our customers and that's for our customers who are businesses that are trying to provide that options to the end consumers to help them to become good corporate citizens as well. Marcus, are you seeing the same sorts of expectations in terms of flexibility and sustainability from your customer base? Marcus: I think sustainability is a huge thing at the moment. I think it's going to continue for the rest of our lives, hopefully. And we've invested quite a lot of money recently, we've recently had our products certified carbon negative – not carbon neutral, carbon negative. I believe we're one of the first supplement brands in the world to be certified as carbon negative. We've also implemented a recycling rewards scheme where we encourage all of our customers to recycle their sachets. In return, they'll get rewarded by points on the website, which reduces the cost price of the next purchase. I think consumers are happy to pay and invest more money into brands, who are carbon neutral or carbon negative or investing and giving to charity or doing something good for the local community. That's definitely a big part for people looking to set up a new brand. I think that, maybe ten years ago, that wouldn't be part of the business plan. But I think in today's generation, it definitely needs to be part of the business plan, where part of your business is dedicated to helping the local community and ensuring you have a positive impact on the world. Anna: Yeah, absolutely. I think consumers are becoming a lot savvier as to where items come from, and then they can do so much research themselves. I think that's such a huge consideration. Arthur: If I could add to that point, to follow up figures from earlier. But then there's one last one that I'll throw out, because it relates directly to what Marcus is saying. In the research that we saw in the report, it's very clear that millennials and Gen Z, that people who are under the age of 34, they have confirmed that 53 per cent of them in UK have said that a brand sustainability record is actually their number one priority. This is definitely a major shift from for the previous generations and other target customers. So, as brands continue to look for where they sit in regards to competitiveness and growth is definitely an area that needs to be focused on. It's very happy to see that, that all the work that YourZooki has been doing on that aspect. Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's brilliant. And so we've covered a fair bit of ground here, is there anything either of you would like to add or you feel would be relevant to anything that we've discussed today. Marcus: I think from a small business point of view, we first started working with UPS literally on our first orders leaving we were working from home, from the kitchen table doing one or two orders a week with UPS. They've grown with us throughout the whole the life of the business. And now we have a couple of loads every day come into the warehouse. So I think it's interesting to see how you can create a partnership and that partnership isn't there just for six months just to get you from A to B, but there were the whole lifecycle the business. Yeah, sustaining those long-term relationships is so important. Do you have any advice as to how to maintain these relationships? Marcus: I think, from my point of view, from a brand owners point of view, any relationship including the relationship of UPS, I think it's really important to have open communication, whether you're working with an investor, manufacturer, three PL or your logistics partner. So always good just to communicate. You always want someone you can pick up the phone to and just ask them a question. and you know the answer, and if they don't answer, they'll return the call. Lots of companies won't return your call. It's very difficult to win a business in the early days, where you can't pick up the phone and ask someone a question. And with UPS, especially during the Brexit scenario, we were on the phone to our account manager a couple of times a day in help and advice on how we get products into certain countries and the correct paperwork we need. It's a very personable approach, which helps us. It saves us money, because we're not having to employ someone else to head up that department and figure out themselves. We're utilising UPS as resources to help benefit our business. Great. Anything you want to add to that, Arthur? Arthur: No, no. I think as I mentioned earlier, the consultative approach that I mentioned. Everywhere we go through, we really want to partner with our customers through MP. So even in the upcoming seasons, we'll be working with our customers to understand how they are seeing their orders being projected so that we can work through to ensure that we can provide the top-notch service that they are looking for. I think, at the end, I think I would say is really I thank, Marcus and his companies I guess patronage in regards to from the beginning, and I'm sure that we would have more years to come to continue to partner and, as their company continue to grow into different areas, different continents, different lanes, we will be continue to be there with them through the process. Anna: Well, that's seems like a good place to wrap up, so thank you for coming on the podcast Arthur and Marcus. Arthur and Marcus: Cheers. You can find out more about UPS and the Smart eCommerce Report through the link in the description box below. Find out more about YourZooki by visiting yourzooki.com. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more articles on exports and international business. Remember to like us on Facebook at SmallBusinessExperts, follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lowercase and subscribe to our YouTube channel, using the link in the description below. Until next time, thank you for listening.  

In this episode, Anna Jordan meets Spencer Matthews – entrepreneur, TV personality and angel investor. We discuss how his experiences with alcohol encouraged him to launch his low and no alcohol drinks business, CleanCo. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more on branding and valuing your business. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Don't forget to check out the video version of this episode and subscribe over on our YouTube channel! Would you prefer to read Spencer Matthews' podcast interview instead? Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I'm your host, Anna Jordan. Today we have Spencer Matthews – entrepreneur, TV personality and angel investor. Spencer rose to fame on TV's Made in Chelsea and has since appeared in other shows including Celebrity Masterchef and The Jump. These days, he is the founder and CEO of low and no alcohol drinks company, CleanCo, and an investor in Cheesies cheese snacks, mental resilience app, Halen and healthy meal delivery service, Munchfit. We'll be talking about starting a business post-pandemic and what Spencer looks for as an angel investor. Anna: Hi, Spencer. Spencer: Hi, how are you getting on? Anna: Yeah, I'm doing really well. Thanks. Yeah, looking forward to the bank holiday weekend, How about yourself? Spencer: Very much. So everything's slightly blurry at the moment, plenty going on. Delighted to be as busy as we are in this tricky time, but all is well. Great stuff. Okay. First, I'd like to ask you a bit about your business CleanCo, which we mentioned in the intro. And I'm sure people are thinking, ‘Oh no, not another reality TV star jumping on the bandwagon over a trend and starting a business around it'. But yours comes from a more personal place and your own relationship with alcohol. Talk to us a bit more about that. Spencer: Absolutely. I mean, I have that same reaction just in passing that many others do when reality stars or actors start businesses and expect it to be successful based on their personality, which often isn't the case. But no, my business – or our business, I should say – now we have an incredible team and fantastic shareholders and partners, which I look forward to getting on to, was born from a personal need. I drank excessively for many years – alcohol, I mean – for many years. I decided to make a positive change, and move and throttle back my alcohol intake, well, to the point of teetotalism. For a couple of years, at least, I noticed that there was very little in the way of a credible alternative or replacement in the space. And I personally have always thought that change is quite a tricky thing. When you develop behavioural patterns in society, it's often quite difficult to break them. And I think that comes from a lack of good products in interesting markets. The gap between desire and compromise is often quite vast. That's why people stick in the in the desire camp – because a compromise is a compromise. Who would want to compromise when what you're really looking for is desire? So yeah, I noticed that when I fancy a gin and tonic, that the next best thing was either just tonic water or Diet Coke. And actually, in the UK, in particular, that made me stick out. Making a positive life choice made me stick out in a negative way, which I also thought was exciting. We set about creating a clean drinking space where you can enjoy all the benefits of a non-alcoholic drink that's essentially seemingly alcoholic. Following in the footsteps of a very successful non-alcoholic beer, of course. So in a nutshell, we just wanted to give people the experience and the social experience of ‘having fun' in drinking alcohol without the high levels of alcohol. Yeah, absolutely. You talk about trying to do a positive thing with a negative reaction. Could you talk a bit more about what kind of reception you've had? Spencer: I just think in general, not everywhere in the world, but here perhaps in particular, and times are changing. When I was drinking my most was when I was a city broker. I'd drink every day and then socialise with clients and evening drinking was just so normal and, essentially, if you weren't drinking, you'd be perceived to be boring. In the case of women, if you're not drinking, people just assume that you're pregnant. It can't possibly be because you're busy or focused or ambitious. It's turned into being a negative thing and, by the way, I was never berating bias or anything, but essentially there's a negative connotation that comes with not drinking and I actually think that due to the name, non-alcoholic mocktails sound like a mockery. Now, why would anybody go to a bar and order something non-anything? If anything, you want to have a good time, so I just thought that, following in the footsteps of an already popular word with positive life decisions: clean eating, clean living, having a clean mind, a clean body, a clean spirit. I think we I found it interesting to try and associate the already popular word, which of course we're not looking to claim came from us, but really move it into alcohol and create a positive head space within a negative industry, I'd love to talk a bit more about the word 'clean' and your use of it within the branding, because my understanding is that it's got quite negative connotations in some health circles and that it's demonising certain foods which are fine in moderation. So, tell me a bit more about why you decided to go for that particular word in your in your branding. Spencer: Well, I just I simply – respectfully, of course – just disagree with that. I think the word 'clean' is a great word. And it does exactly what it says on the tin. And I believe that, if anything, it's really attractive and makes our proposition incredibly clear. Whether or not it's detrimental in other markets – I can't speak for those markets. I look after myself. I believe that I have a good, well balanced diet and that I'm healthy. And I often eat things that I'm sure are terrible for you. Well, living a balanced life is what we're all about. We are not anti-alcohol in any way. In fact, we encourage people to live life to the fullest and have an amazing time. We also, particularly in these times, in a post-Covid world, are about to become very vocal about the importance of moderation. Drinking clean should play a part in your alcohol regime. I think full strength alcohol will one day be a thing of the past. I'm not saying that alcohol will be abolished, and people won't drink alcohol. There will always be room for alcohol. But inherently alcohol when, again, we're not waving some big flag that alcohol is bad for you. But full strength alcohol certainly has done a number on me over the years, and I'm sure anybody can attest to the fact that you very rarely, or in fact, I'm pretty sure nobody has ever woken up saying, ‘I wish I drank more alcohol'. It's usually the other way around. Just my general decision-making process, being drunk is usually quite unhelpful. I'm sure a lot of people would agree! I'd love to move into your going into investing. This is probably something that people don't really know about you, as an angel investor. How long have you been an angel investor? What got you interested in it? Spencer: I've always been interested in other people and other founders and businesses. I'm kind of led – obviously being a founder myself – I'm quite a founder-driven investor. If I care an awful lot about team and I'm the founder and the vision, then in my opinion, there are chances of success, but that's often just a kind of gut feel. Or when you talk to someone, you evaluate in your own mind whether or not you believe that this person can achieve the things that they say they can achieve. I am one for a forecast, obviously. But I do think that forecasts change. If the first domino doesn't go the way you want it to go, then presumably, your model – I'm talking really early stage now – obviously, now we create a final financial model for CleanCo and the Americas. And as an example, we do it in such a way that we're pretty confident that we'll be within 2 per cent of our financial model. But at really early stage, you don't know if you're going to sell 1,000 bottles on day one or 10 bottles on day one. It's really hard to gauge where you're heading with stuff. Take Halen as an example, the mental health app. It trains your mental resilience. It's trying to destigmatise an industry which is mental health. Joe Bates is a fantastic character founder. You should interview him, if you don't mind me saying. You get a real kick out of it – he has the most wonderful story. He's an incredibly down to earth and sensitive individual who's gone through an awful lot but remains incredibly strong. And I think that's the kind of whole Halen idea. Halen is old English for hero. And it's a Halen was someone who conquers adversity. Back to this adversity point that we're all facing in some way or another at the moment. And it's just a really interesting and exciting idea. But I knew that I was going to invest in Joe before he had a business plan. We were on a bus to Twickenham, I think, with Jodie Kidd and his partner who are friends of ours. Vogue [Spencer's wife] and Jodie are friends and I had not met Joe. We were sat on the bus. And he was to ask him about clean, and this is about a year and a half ago, so we were far less developed than we are now. I was giving him my plans and projections and what I think was possible, and he shared the idea that was Halen with me. And immediately I thought, ‘Well, how brilliant'. He was describing it as the Peloton of mental health. I just thought it was fascinating. So then and there, I decided that we'd get involved in that. That can be seen as shooting from the hip and unlikely to ever hit any home runs. But I was in Halen at the very start, from the ground level. Almost any success that it experiences is good news for my investment. So I quite like really early stage stuff, albeit incredibly risky. And if you are listening to this, and I'm a seasoned expert, but just do be very aware that when making any kind of investment, there's a good chance you might lose money. Absolutely. The companies that you're invested in, as again mentioned in the intro quite closely linked, there is very much health and wellness and fitness. What do you look for in a company that you may be considering investing in? Spencer: Experiencing the team. It's my personal belief that no one individual has the answers to anything. And regardless of the life that you've lived, and the experience that you have, surrounding yourself with people who have more experience in the sector that you're looking to crack is always a good idea. Spare no expense to get the best people behind you. Incentivise them well, make sure that everybody is happy within the team and that they are delighted to show up to work every day and that they're incentivised to carry out the dream and the vision. If I can feel that from another team, then that's a good starting point. I've spent many years working in jobs that I really don't like, and you hear about all the time that people do things that they don't enjoy and live from paycheck to paycheck. That's fine, though. Everybody's different and everybody has different dreams and goals. For me, hopefully succeeding and being at the forefront of something is all about it being exciting. I struggle to sleep at night sometimes, because I'm so excited for the following day to arrive so that I can get back into what I was doing the day before at work – that for me is awesome. I'm very fortunate to be surrounded by others who share that vision. For us, it's like we're constantly smashing down walls, we're constantly feeling like we're kind of flying. That's the feeling that I want to harness. I felt that with Joe, and I love this team, I felt that with Munchfit with Angus, and I use the products obviously as well if you use something and it's fantastic, then good. There has to be a reason I've done all this rubbish television, right? If I can spread the word on an incredible product at an early stage and get other people to try it then perhaps that, in a strange roundabout way, is the value I can add to an early stage business having done the rubbish TV. And the last question I want to ask you is kind of twofold. Over the course of pandemic, unfortunately, we've seen a lot of redundancies. But we've also seen the number of people starting their own businesses absolutely skyrocket. From a business owner's point of view, and an investor's point of view: What businesses do you think are in need just now, what problems need to be solved? And couple of quick tips on how business owners can get started because it can seem so overwhelming, and there's so much information out there. Spencer: Not having to leave your house and anything that delivers to your house, obviously, is a great business model at the moment. At one point, we were uncertain as to what would happen with retailers, right at the very beginning of the first pandemic. We were unaware if the Co-op was going to stay open. All of a sudden, you're thinking about how we are going to eat, like, we weren't sure if Deliveroo would be operating or whatever. Anything that delivers things straight to your door is obviously great. Sorry, you kind of put me on the spot with that one. We've got the great Justin Hicklin, the chairman of CleanCo, here as well. What problems needs sorting, Justin? What do you think? Justin: Day-to-day? Spencer: Yeah, just day-to-day in the UK. Justin: People turning up and sorting out computers within half an hour. Spencer: There you go – computers. Justin is of a different age. Justin: I think all the pain points in life ultimately will have some sort of instant response to it. So, instant plumbing you can have, because people are not technically minded. Spencer: Electricians – it would be good if an electrician could be on call at all times. Justin: Premium plumbing service, premium computer services. If you've got a deadline and your computer crashes, you want somebody in half an hour and you're going to pay £50 to do it. Is that [already] available? If the answer is no, then that's an opportunity. Spencer: Excellent. Let's get the trademark registration on the line. Justin: We're going to call it Key. Spencer: Yes, Key. Lovely. Spencer: Well, I need anything that simplifies, essentially. Anything that makes life easier is popular, right? People like shortcuts to things. Justin: Actually, that's a really good idea, we should do that. Spencer: Okay, Justin. Well, why don't we talk about it after the pod? And if you're thinking about starting a business, or I mean, it's going to be ever slightly boring, because I feel like I might have already covered it, but surround yourself with excellent people don't cut corners initially, raise more money than you think you might need. Don't be too bullish on what you own at the very beginning. If the right person comes along, and the deal feels good, you should do it. Owning 100 per cent of nothing is nothing and owning a chunk of something valuable is valuable. So, I think you got a lot of people – who pitch to me, anyway – who have these wild views of where they're going to be in a few years, and they want to own 90 per cent of it. This is the ‘they'll sell you this for this huge number', and you just go, ‘But without key individuals, you'll get it nowhere near where you think you're going to get it.' So, 'share the love' is what I'm trying to say. And just be intelligent with the raise. I remember, right at the very beginning, I had very little idea of how to structure and start a business, I'd like to think I do now. And essentially, we needed maybe 12 or 13 times more money than I thought we might need. I was sitting with a really interesting and eccentric gentleman who's built businesses before and it was very funny. He asked me how much money I thought we'd need to get CleanCo off the ground. I was talking in the tens of thousands. I thought we needed £60,000, maybe £100,000. I was thinking about things on how we get it going. And then how do we build from a small start, and I'll always remember it, he said, ‘Mate, you need about £3m.' And I was like, ‘What?' And then you kind of learn, and we raised a bit less than that on our first round, we raised £2.1m. But then quickly, at the end of the first year, raised another £7m and, in fact, next week our opening round to raise three times that on top of it. We're moving incredibly quickly. To get something going, particularly in a market that doesn't really exist, churns cash like you wouldn't believe. See business as kind of like going to war: try not to go underfunded and under flanked. You need plenty of good company and plenty of cash. Nice. Just quickly, you've talked about really liking exciting businesses, but getting wild propositions. Spencer: I was guilty of it as well. I think you get so wound up in your own head that your idea is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'm not saying that good entrepreneurs shouldn't overvalue their dreams, because it's [a case of] how do you get there. If you start tiny, it's very difficult to grow it into something really substantial. Dream big, for sure. But, if you're unable to back up a really ‘hockey stick' kind of aggressive forecast... Had I gone into fundraising meetings, without some of my partners at the very beginning, essentially on hot air, and they say ‘Oh, well, how do you think you're going to achieve this level of turnover in 2023', and you haven't got a really detailed, concise answer that fits the bill, you're never going to raise any money. You just need to be quite careful. I was looking to value CleanCo a lot higher than we ended up going to market with at the beginning, because I felt like this doesn't exist. We were going to be the best in the world, we're going to be the biggest no-and-low-drinks company on the planet. You just have to just calm down slightly and replace enthusiasm with projections that make sense to good people. I think there's a lot of noise out there in the market. Everyone thinks that they're the best and everyone thinks that their idea's going to change the world. It's just a question, I suppose, of judging one's character when you're talking to somebody and understanding what you think to be relevant and truthful. Anna: Well, that's a great place to wrap up. So, thank you for coming on the podcast, Spencer. Spencer: It was a great pleasure. Thanks very much for having me. You can find out more about CleanCo at clean.co. You can also visit SmallBusiness.co.uk for more on branding and valuing your business. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and on Twitter @smallbusinessuk (all lowercase) and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening.  

In this episode, Anna Jordan meets Lady Chanelle McCoy – entrepreneur and former Dragon on Dragon's Den Ireland. We talk about her time on the show and the barriers to growth for the CBD industry. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more podcasts featuring Dragon's from the UK version of Dragon's Den. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Don't forget to check out the video version of this episode and subscribe over on our YouTube channel! Would you prefer to read Chanelle McCoy's podcast interview instead? Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I'm your host, Anna Jordan. Today we have Lady Chanelle McCoy, entrepreneur and former Dragon on Dragon's Den Ireland. Born in Galway, she co-founded Chanelle Medical, part of Chanelle Pharma, which was founded by her father. In 2015, Lady McCoy and business partner Caroline Glynn set up Chanelle McCoy Health, an R&D led pharmaceutical company. From that came cannabidiol (CBD) range, Pureis CBD. She was recently ranked no 23 in the ‘50 incredible people shaping modern Ireland'. She was awarded the All-Ireland Business Champion Award 2018 for her outstanding achievements in business leadership. We'll be talking about her time on Dragon's Den Ireland and the barriers to growth facing the CBD industry. Anna: Hi, Chanelle, how are you doing? Chanelle: Good. Anna, how are you? Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited about our chat. Anna:Oh, of course, of course. So, listeners and viewers might not recognise you straight away. But they might have seen you before on the Irish version of Dragon's Den. Chanelle: Yeah, that's right. I'm Irish, home grown – from the west of Ireland. I've spent over 25 years in the pharmaceutical industry. I'm very lucky to get the opportunity to do Dragon's Den, the Irish version. Dragon's Den is owned by Sony Music, and they franchise that out to 27 countries around the world. When I did Dragon's Den, when I started the first year, Ireland was the first country to have three female dragons and two male dragons. It was a fantastic experience to do it. I definitely made a few investments. Yeah, so it was great. Smashing. So, based on your time in there, what would you say are the biggest differences between the Irish version and the UK version? I've only seen a few clips of the Irish version, but for want of a better word, it seems nicer – less cut-throat, I suppose.  Chanelle: I mean, maybe that's more of a cultural thing as us Irish are quite warm and friendly, maybe. But no, I think that the fact that Sony Music are the owners, and it's a franchise, that the setting was very much the same, was very like this, the way we sit, and the seats and, and the whole kind of procedure of it as well. It is your own money that you're investing, that you have to bring that to the table, even though the cash sitting beside you is actually not real. We would record about seven pitches in a day. So you literally would have one after another, some of the pitches would go on for about an hour and a half, even though you only see maybe 15-20 minutes on the TV when it's edited down. The reality is you get no prior warning or visibility of the pitch that's coming into the den. So you're in between all this, like when the seven pitches are going on, in between that you leave the room, you go back backstage kind of thing. You wait until the room is set up, you come back onto your chair, the product is hidden, you've got no phone, you can't Google anything. And it's literally when that entrepreneur walks out of the lift that you get to know about the products. So, that's why the pitches would go on for more like an hour and a half, because this is your money you're investing, and you have to make a decision right there and then, whether you're going to invest or not. I mean, obviously maybe some people feel Ireland, the Irish was a bit tamer than England, but there were certainly a few of the pitches that we gave them a hard time with! The fact that it's every pitch is brand new to you. Why do you think that is? Is it more of like a production thing and gets an authentic reaction from you? Chanelle: I think it's twofold. I think that the entrepreneur coming in there pitching, knows that they've got this really short window to sell their story and their business to you. Those entrepreneurs coming in, most of them really need that investment to survive, and if they don't get it, their company will close, they're running out of cash, so there's from their side of the fence, they know that we have had no prior knowledge of their of their company. So they've got to pitch really well, from our side as well. That's the whole thrill of Dragon's Den is that it's instinctive, you have to make a decision right there and then, so that builds to the excitement I'm kind of the drama of it or the appeal of it. Absolutely. I'd like to talk a bit more about your time in the pharmaceutical industry, because it's certainly been a year for pharmaceuticals, for CBD and for the wellness industry as well. And there's so much to unpick with that. Starting off with CBD, the market has grown exponentially, it absolutely exploded, and it's becoming more popular with consumers. But there are still barriers to growth. Say for example, search engines, in my understanding, are reluctant to rank products with CBD and anything related. Tell us more about the barriers to growth in that particular market. Chanelle: If we look at where we've come in the last six years. Today, the CBD food supplement market in the UK is valued at £450m. Now to put that into context, what does that mean – is that big, is that small? If you look at vitamin C in the UK today, that's £115m. Vitamin D today is £145m so CBD today and we have eight million people that take CBD today in the UK. CBD today at £450m totally eclipses vitamin C and vitamin D together. But the exciting thing is that £450m figure will grow to £1bn in the next three years. We are delighted that our product, it's called Pureis CBD, and we're on the market over a year now in the UK and we're in over 1000 retailers. We're the first CBD food supplement company to command the UK market that's backed by clinical studies. And we invested over a number of years, we invested over £1.5m in extensive safety clinical studies, because that is the requirement by the UK Food Standards Agency, the European Food Safety Authority, because they say CBD is a new molecule in your body. We didn't take it prior to 1997, they want all these safety studies done. So, we just embarked on, while adhering to the legislation. We are the first CBD food supplement company in the world to use FDA-registered raw material. And that might not mean a lot to the consumer walking in off the street, but it means a lot to the pharmacists and the doctors. Because the FDA are the strictest food and medicine sheriffs in the world. It was great that we worked with our raw material supplier, and we were able to get that certification on our raw material. What's happened in the CBD industry this week [week commencing April 19, 2021], which has been incredibly interesting to watch it evolve. The Food Standards Agency, which are basically the governing body that look after the safety of food supplements, they set a deadline for the CBD industry this week that any CBD food supplements that wants to stay on the market has got to submit a dossier into the Food Standards Agency with a full suite of clinical safety studies. And if you do that, you are allowed to remain on the market. If you don't do that, you will be pulled off the market. And the Food Standards Agency this week published a list of the companies that are allowed remain on the market. There are only three brands on that list, and we are the first brand on that list. We are officially in full assessment with the Food Standards Agency, we're on that list, which is very exciting. Anna: How many were there to begin with? Chanelle: About 800. What will happen, as the weeks go on, there will be more companies added to that list. But if you're not on the list by June, you're off the market. But this is a very positive move. The UK Government trying to bring what is an unregulated CBD market into a regulated market, because this is all about consumer safety at the end of the day. And the issue with CBD is there are a lot of rogue traders and cowboys out there. That was validated by a paper that was published last year where a number of professors got together, they tested over 30 products that are on the market. The alarming results of that paper is that 55 per cent of products on the market today have illegal levels of THC. And THC is a psychoactive addictive part of the cannabis plant that you don't want in a food supplement. It's fine in the medicine space when it's released by a doctor. And also, of those products, 34 per cent of them have lower levels of CBD than advertised on the label. There's a huge issue with misleading the consumer and this is why the legislation has come in, because they want to clean up the market. So what you'll see over the next few months is you will see a lot of CBD brands will be pulled off the market, the market will consolidate and what will be left on the market will be very safe products that are backed by clinical studies. This will help demystify CBD and give us the really good reputation that it should have because it is not psychoactive, you do not get a high from CBD. CBD is not addictive. It's just got all the good healing properties. So that's in terms of a kind the market and where we are and how it's going to grow and with the legislation. What is really hampering the CBD industry at the moment and is really going to affect the potential growth and job opportunities in the UK, is we still have banks, financial services and payment gateways that will not trade with CBD companies. They treat us like we're in the porn industry, they treat us like we're illegal, so we can't open a bank account in the UK. We're dealing with lots of payment providers like Stripe, the two Irish boys, we tell them all about our clinical studies, we are fully ethical, we are now on the approved Government list. Computer says no, they will not support our business. You then go to the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and you say well, we want to do some digital advertising and we want to run social media campaigns with our products. We have clinical studies here, we are very ethical. Again, computer says no, we don't deal with CBD companies. I think these types of institutions and these companies really need to wake up. They need to take their blinkers off and they need to think, ‘Okay, let's assess each CBD company as they approach us. Why don't we trade with those companies that are on the Food Standard Agency ‘Publish' list, because we know that they are ethical, they're safe. They've done their studies.' The London Stock Exchange has floated three companies recently, three CBD companies, one of them is the one that David Beckham's involved in. If the LSE is engaging and trading with CBD companies, well why won't other companies? What is the critical issue now is the Home Office. Okay, so the Home Office in the UK is the Government arm that is responsible for policing narcotics and drugs here – and what's been imported. Our raw material is manufactured in the United States. As I said, it's FDA registered, so it's really high quality. We are synthetically derived, so we are not taken from the plant. We have mimicked the DNA the plant, so it is not possible to have any THC in our products because we are synthetic. And the Home Office have said to us – now, this is not us, this is with every CBD company: No, you are not allowed to import your raw material into the UK. And because we bring our raw material into the UK, and then we get our products manufactured, our finished product manufactured in the UK. They say no, because your product might have THC. So we went to four labs that the Home Office use, these are independent Government approved laboratories, we got our raw material tested, we gave them the certificates, plus all our data from the FDA and said, ‘We don't have THC. We're synthetic, it's not possible.' And again, they're like, ‘Computer says no, sorry.'  What's going to happen now is you're going to see a lot of people like us leaving the UK. We get our product manufactured in the UK, we had planned with the manufacturing company we work with, that they were going to create 70 more jobs between now and the end of the year, because now we are launching a lot of different markets outside Europe and Ukraine and Russia and China. And we need lots of product manufactured. Those 70 jobs now will not be created in the UK because we've got to go to Germany and Ireland to set up, to find a new manufacturing partner and set up our production there. That's happening now, right through the CBD industry, where there will be huge job losses. They are totally suffocating the growth of what will be a huge market – not just for food supplements, but for the pharmaceutical industry as well. So, you spoke a bit earlier about the difficulties and the resistance to the CBD market, especially in the UK. Of course, we all know that, especially since the transition period ended Brexit has caused some troubles as well, it'll be great to hear from somebody who is a major trading partner of the UK. So as a business based in Ireland, how has your trading relationship with the UK been affected by Brexit? Chanelle: I mean, it's very difficult now. And we are trading both ways, we are registered as an Irish company. And we are now registered as an English company. We get our manufacturing done in the UK of our finished product. But now, because of Brexit, we will look to have a second manufacturing site as well set up. Because when we hopefully get our European license receipt for our products, for Pureis, we will have a lot of challenges having the product manufactured in the UK, and then shipping it to the likes of Germany and France, because customs, tariffs, duty, is crippling.  When we contact that customs and it's like, ‘Well look, you can get your customer to pay it, and then your customer in Germany can claim it back.' It is it is annoying for a customer to have to do that. And if they have an alternative to trade with somebody that's in a European country over you, they will do that, because they don't have that administration hassle when they're dealing with somebody else. It is very unfortunate that there is not a better trade deal between the UK and Europe. Also then bringing product in from Ireland into the UK, is very difficult. So what it has forced companies like myself to do is that when you're trading in Europe, you need to have a base in Europe. You need to move your manufacturing from the UK and position it in Europe, that is really the only way. When you're trading in the UK, what you need to do is set up a manufacturing facility in the UK to service your UK customers. That is a pity, because it has incurred a lot of costs for us we're trying to set up work with new partners, qualify them as a manufacturer for our product in Europe and also what it does is we now, for our European customers, we are now taking all our production out of the UK and basing it in Europe. The UK have lost out a lot. But no matter what way you look at it, upside down, inside out, that is really the only way because at the end of the day, this is about servicing your customer. It's about being easy to deal with in the eyes of your customer. And it's about not incurring costs in terms of extra customs and duty and taxes and all of that. So that's really the way we've navigated it, but I think if the UK had the chance again to vote to leave Europe, I certainly don't think they would. I've spoken to so many UK entrepreneurs, Irish entrepreneurs and our leaders, and they tell you that. Anna: So it wouldn't be the case where the UK is a significant enough market where the costs would be worth it on balance. Chanelle: I mean, what it just means now is that, if you want to trade with the UK, you want to supply product into the UK, you're better off to source it within the UK. And the UK might think, well, that's a good thing, because we're bringing more employment and more opportunity into the UK, because we're forcing people to set up to partner with manufacturers in the UK. But actually, your loss is much bigger, because Europe is much bigger geographically. And what you're missing out on, is companies like me, who want to service 28 countries in Europe, from a manufacturing facility in the UK, and we can't do it. We've spoken a little bit about your husband, AP McCoy. I noticed that in quite a lot of the bios and the introductions I read about yourself, that he's mentioned within that bio and is quite a significant part of it. And I wondered how that affects you. As you're a self-named brand, do you feel that your husband's presence and career kind of helps boost it? Or do you feel that you can't exist in your own right? Chanelle: I'm incredibly proud of AP and to go through his career, and to be the most successful winning jockey, and to be champion jockey for 20 years, and winning the BBC Sports Personality of the Year and be knighted by the Queen – it's a great legacy. It's a great achievement within what he has done. And he's been incredibly impactful to me. As I went along in my career, I was lucky – I met him when I was 19. I'm 44 now. We've done this journey together, where I've worked for my family business, while he was scaling the heights in his career. I suppose it was a great outlet for me, because, I had to work really hard, it wasn't like that I kind of floated through my job and I dipped out to go racing every week, it wasn't that case. I was very mindful of the fact that during that period, in our 20s and early 30s, that it was all about AP. Every time I went to the races, or you're out to dinner with people, everybody wants to talk about him. And that's okay, because it's incredibly dangerous what he does, it's very interesting when you get under the hood of like, the diet and the people he rides for, and all of that. I was very happy to go along, for like, 15-20 years, where people would always ask me about him. But I think, what was really where I benefited hugely, and it goes back to the environment you live in, you work in. His dedication, his will to win, his absolute resilience, definitely rubbed off on me and shaped my culture, shaped my values. He motivated me. That's why in the workplace, it's so important, as a leader, as a manager, that you are creating this environment, where you are inspiring, you're positive, you're giving people that self-belief because your behaviour as a leader totally rubs off on the people around you, and will become their behaviour – they will emulate that. He was a fantastic source of inspiration for me, because his behaviour kind of became my behaviour in the end. It was only really, when he stopped riding in 2015 and I started to do Dragon's Den, that people used to say to me, ‘You're on Dragon's Den, Chanelle? I mean, I didn't even know you had a job. I've seen you for years at the races.' And I'm like, ‘Yeah, yeah. I'm in pharmaceuticals, have been in here for 15 years.' So suddenly people started to say to me, ‘Oh, you're not just AP's wife then?' ‘No, no – I'm a human in my own right.'   As AP said to me, ‘Chanelle, it's your time to shine'. I've been in his shadow, very happily in his shadow and supporting him, so he's incredibly supportive when I did Dragon's Den, and now with my own business, and trailblazing in the CBD industry, because we're the first with our clinical studies. We're the first to get on this list, the Government list that was published this week. He's very supportive and very proud. He's been a massive help to me over the years and has definitely been the driving force. Anna: Well, that seems like a good place to wrap up. Thank you ever so much for coming on the podcast, Chanelle – it's been wonderful. Chanelle: Brilliant. Thanks for having me, Anna. It was really enjoyable. You can find out more about Lady Chanelle McCoy at chanellemccoyhealth.com. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more podcasts featuring Dragons from the UK version of Dragon's Den. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts, follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk (all lowercase) and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening.

In this episode, Anna Jordan meets Paul Lindley – author, campaigner and founder of Ella's Kitchen.  We talk about relearning the valuable business skills you had as a toddler and why you should consider becoming B Corporation certified.  You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more on exit strategies and making your business greener. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Don't forget to check out the video version of this episode and subscribe over on our YouTube channel! Would you prefer to read Paul Lindley's podcast interview instead? Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan. Today we have Paul Lindley, author, campaigner and founder of Ella’s Kitchen. He launched the company in 2006 after being dissatisfied with a lack of healthy, tasty and convenient food for children. He sold Ella’s Kitchen to Hain Celestial in 2013, stepping away from the business completely in 2018 to focus on his social campaigning. In the same year, he was appointed chair of the London Child Obesity Taskforce by Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan These days, Paul is the chair of Robert F Kennedy Human Rights UK and a trustee of Sesame Workshop, the creators of Sesame Street. He also sits on the board of social enterprise, Toast Ale.   We’ll be discussing what it takes to run an ethical business and how you can relearn the unexpected business skills you had as a toddler. Anna: Hi, Paul. Paul: Hi Anna, how are you? Anna: I’m alright, thank you. How are you? Paul: Good. I'm feeling I'm feeling quite positive. Actually. I had my Covid jab this morning. My arm’s sore, but it's an excuse to think positively about the future. Anna: Yeah, yeah. Paul: It is incredible what they've done. Over the last six months as a business or like the last year, but as a business, to take all that innovation through to get 25 million people within, what, 12 weeks? Anna: I know, I l know. Paul: It’s been an awful year, in so many ways. But you know, we've got a lot to look forward, we've got to pick on the things we've learned, we've got to celebrate some of the pivoting that businesses have done the innovation that's come around the resilience, the community that we've built over this time and sort of build back better, but what suffering we've had this last year. Okay, so let's just jump straight in. In your book, Little Wins, you talk about the business skills that we have as a toddler that we unlearn. So, what kind of business skills are you referring to? What kind of practical exercises can business owners do to relearn these skills? Paul: Thank you for coming in straight away with Little Wins – it's such a passion of mine. The book came out of my experience of building Ella’s Kitchen. Inside of me – in this grey haired 50- something-year-old – there's a little boy. I think that was the key within Ella’s Kitchen, that we had this childlike mindset of that we could do stuff, we could have an imagination and a free-thinking that would make me make the business work when everyone was saying that the odds are really stacked against you. So, I took that and I took the heart of our hero, our core consumer, and thought through the skills that toddlers have, and how we use them in our company. Then I took a step back and thought, ‘Well, everyone was a toddler.’ Everyone can unlock their personal potential as an adult or a business owner – not by learning new skills, but by relearning and rediscovering those old ones of imagination and free-thinking and self-confidence. And a whole nine of them that I put in my book. This is to simplify this complicated life that we've got to allow us to make decisions in business or in our personal lives, like toddlers do with much less information, and move forward with positivity and a ‘can do’ mindset. So really, it's about that idea that you can become the best person of the person you once were, the best version of a person that you want to work by having this type of mindset. You can bring that to your personal life, you can bring that to business. The sorts of things that I talk about are the fact that toddlers have such confidence, such creativity – they dive right into things and never give up, they get noticed. They're honest with each other, they show their feelings, they have fun, they involve others, all sorts of things that, to be honest, by the time we're all around four or five years old, we must think, ‘Life's great, I'm only four or five, and I've learned all these skills, I'm going to live to 85. What more is there to come?’ The truth is that whether asked how our society works, whether it's parenting or education, or the corporate system, narrows our vision, and it sort of asks us to conform. If you're a small business owner, if you're an entrepreneur, you want you and your team not to conform, you want you and your team to imagine things that could be possible, and to go and do them to have the wherewithal to do it to go and do them. It's really all about the mindset of the corporation, the culture, the mindset of the culture of the business. You as the business owner, you as the senior person in that accountancy firm, you've got the opportunity to set that. I think it's by setting up systems and processes and recruiting the right people that have the mindset so that you can be brave and curious – both of those things unnecessarily because what is true for any business, or any of us in this world right now: if we do nothing, we keep the status quo, we'll move backwards. The world is changing at such a rapid pace, we have to innovate, we have to try things that may or may not work. We've got to build the confidence and the bravery and the curiosity to experiment and find that way through because that gives us the edge. That's really cultural, I think. You can set your corporate reward system to set bonuses wholly on financial performance, wholly on growing five per cent from last year. We all know we've yet, well, maybe we should have set a five-year bonus that doesn't expect us to grow in any given year, because we're trying things that are going to really deliver in three-or-four-years’ time. We're happy to make mistakes and get it wrong. As long as we can iterate and we can learn, we can adapt, and we can build something from those trials and errors, then we have a better business over a five-year period. So how and I would advocate that we certainly didn't tell Ella’s Kitchen businesses I'm involved with now, though, is build a bonus scheme based on one year wholly on financial performance. Obviously, you need a successful sustainable business that makes profits and that interest should be tied to bonuses. But living the values of the reason why your company exists, I think, should be embedded within the way people are remunerated and motivated and rewarded for contributing to their company. Setting your values, for example, at Ella’s Kitchen, we had five. One of them was to be childlike. So that might be okay for a consumer brand that's got a kind of fun personality for the marketing people to deliver. But if you're the payroll person or the accounts receivable person, how do you interpret being childlike into your work? One of them one year brought ring and renamed the remittance advices to be ‘from my piggy bank to yours’. That was the habit, they reworded it, that was the small thing that they did. But it brought a smile to the person who's in the business that they were dealing with the parent and had to come from, and that person may have been a parent or may not may have talked to somebody that was a parent or may not. It was the way that, just a tiny little language change, we could get people talking about our business. And that was a real ‘thinking like a child’ aspect. That person got that part of their bonus based on that. So that's one thing that’s really around the culture and the systems that you set out.  Ultimately, you want to employ people with an open mindset who do believe in the reason you set up a business and believe that you can get there. Because if you're a small business, it's probably against the odds that you will get there, and unless you stack yourself with people who believe it and will go out of their way to do it because they motivate, you inspire them. They know what the mission of the business is, you know what the business plan is, what it takes to get there – and everyone works on that together to deliver and that's where this idea of thinking like a toddler can really be impactful. Right. So, I'm going to go from starting a business, right through to exit. One of the key decisions, if you're looking to exit, is who you're going to pass your business on to, and are they going to carry on as you would see fit. I guess with Ella's Kitchen, because your vision and your values are so deeply ingrained in the brand, how did you go about making the decision of finding the right successor for the business? Paul: Well, when you sell your business, it's hugely emotional. And it's very personal. So, my experience may be very different to others. Some people want to sell a business, walk away, don't really care what happens. They want the money in the bank, and they created something from nothing and that was their job. I named my business after my daughter. I have, as you said, very personally set the vision and the values of how that the first number of years went for Ella’s – it does matter to me still, what becomes of Ella’s and that it maintains those values. There are two things:  Who do you sell to? Who succeeds you as the chief executive? So, who do you sell to? I sort of thought of this as a horse race in a way and there were three jumps to get over and each of them was associated with the word ‘value’. The first jump to get over, and if a potential acquirer couldn't get over that we wouldn't talk to them, was values. Do they see the world in the same way as we see it? Will they support and protect the way we've seen the world and the way our business has been successful, because we've seen the world that way? Will they tinker with it? If they tinker with it, we’ll tell them now it’ll fail. And don't – let's stop the conversation. But if they do see the world in the same way, if they believe the why of why we set ours up and why it's successful, and they give us the confidence that they won't tinker with that, then we're over that first hump. The second is value – we've all worked really hard to create something of value, you need to pay as the price that that value should deliver – there's obviously an overlap between the two. If there's overlap, great, we can continue the race. If there isn't an overlap, we need to walk away because that's just not recognised. Then we get over that second hurdle. The final fence is really around added value. In my view, it's sort of what added value are they going to do to this business to make it better than we could do without them? Maybe they'll open up more markets, maybe they'll have their own factory, but we can be more efficient and better supply chains, lots of reasons why. We can start to get into the deal and the labels. We were very careful to go through that when we sold. Then it was okay – I stayed on board for another year, I ran that business, and Ella’s Kitchen for $300m business for a year, delivered what we promised and then wanted to stand back. And then it was, well, who is going to deliver and keep the heartbeat of this company going? I'm a big believer in promoting and rewarding from within a company with sort of developing talent and making people feel as though they can get to the top. We have some excellent leaders within the business. Third, the guy that took over had been in the business three or four years, was the sales director, seven years later is still the CEO, a guy called Mark Cuddigan. He is just awesome. He has the, you know, sometimes I joke that perhaps Mark is the best leader that Ella’s has had. But he has taken that business, keeping its heart, keeping its soul, keeping that mission and that vision as a feeling rather than something in the head and he delivered it with his own handprint with a team that has gone on and expanded. The value, the sort of impacts that the business has, both in terms of shareholder return and stakeholder return and delivering a mission to help children live better lives. I think you've got to do your homework for who that person is, if you care what happens next. I think it's absolutely based on values and how people see the world. And we looked for five leadership skills, really. I always do this with any sort of recruitment, no matter what the level. If they aspire to be a leader, if we want them to be able to inspire their team going forward. And those are about emotional maturity, because it is going to be a roller coaster ride. You've got to take the rough with the smooth and you've got to be mature about that. It's about a drive for improvement all the time, never been satisfied that where you are is where you're going to get to, driving your processes, your systems, your products, culture, everything forward all the time constantly. It's about effective communication. So many mistakes in business happen because we don't hear each other properly –and we don't take the time to talk to each other or listen to each other. That effective constant communication is absolutely vital. The final thing is that rather ability to see in the wider context of where our business sits in the industry, where the industry sits in society and what we can control and what we can't. That kind of leads to the fact that you don't have to actually win every battle, you want to win the war in the end if you achieve your vision. You can collaborate with your competitors in certain areas, you can do things together that will improve not only both of your businesses, but also the consumer or the client's life at the end of it by working together sometimes, or working with your suppliers or your customers. So, those are the five things and Mark excels at all of those. I would say the learning that I've seen from others, and which I was determined not to do, was my time was over. If I was going to stand back, I'm standing back. I'm there at his ear if he wants advice and he's counselled to device in the past in attendance tenders. But don't be a backseat driver – let them make the mistakes or the failures that they need to make to understand how they can get to success. Be a counsel. I think that the two most proud things I have about the Ella’s Kitchen experience happened after I ceased to be CEO. The first one is that it became a B Corporation. Mark and I worked with the shareholder and with the team to make sure that we’d qualify for that. I’m incredibly proud that Ella’s Kitchen was one of the first B Corporations in this country. I think the B Corp movement is an incredible movement to nudge forward the way we do business to a much better place. The second thing is, I think for the last five years, Ella’s Kitchen has been voted one of the UK’s Best Companies to Work For. And that's Mark, inspiring his team to really enjoy working there, really feel as though they're achieving something, being rewarded however which way that is for that contribution. We've talked a lot about inside the organisation and what's effective. And of course, you're an advocate of B Corp. A lot of small businesses today are wanting to show customers their ethics and their ethical credentials. How would you suggest small businesses go about proving how ethical they are? Paul: So what B corporations are, they're businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance. They set themselves up for public transparency and legal accountability to deliver on more than the purpose of making money. And they hold themselves accountable for that. What the process is, you have to do this survey, where it's really hard to pass, but you only need 40 per cent to pass. But it's hard to get to that point, since we've looked at all aspects of your business – governance, the supply chains, the people, finance, loads of things. You have to do things to make sure that you'll have a structurally sustainable business, then once you pass that you've got to go into your constitution of your company and change it effectively to say we're not just about shareholder return and maximising that, we're about stakeholder return and optimising that, we care about the environment and the communities that we draw teams from and we sell to. Each of those things are as important as the profit that we make. Think about it, the business that we operate is in the ecosystem of all sorts of other things that are happening in the world. You want a healthy interdependence between communities, the planet, and business and profit that works together. So I can give you statistics to show that B corporations perform better financially over the long term than non B corporations, I can show you that cost base is more efficient, because people stay longer because they see and believe in your mission and it’s verified, and you know where you're going. What it brings it validates your reason, your why, your mission – it tells your staff and your potential staff that you are committed to it and Ella’s Kitchen and some of the new businesses I'm involved with, we've had staff applying, team people applying to the roles because it's a B Corporation. It protects you versus your shareholders, if you like in that you can create more environmentally friendly packaging, but it costs a penny more, you can't be fired for by that because the environmental impact is as important to the profitability of the company. And you create you join this network of wonderful business leaders that really tried to use business as a force for good. I'm a huge advocate of that – it puts pressure on yourselves to live, to walk the walk of what you're talking. But it's ingrained and it helps you think through the social, the environmental and governance aspects to make your business not only the best in the world, but the best for the world as well. My hope is the future of business. And by looking at the first five years of B Corporation in this country, which we've just passed our fifth birthday, it's growing, growing like nowhere else in the world. And those businesses are performing better with more and more loyal and engaged staff. Anna: That's interesting, because I would have thought it's because consumers are becoming savvier, that it would be more of a draw for them. But I never thought that would attract employees who would be looking for the B Corp certificate. Paul: I would just say that back to – it’s people, again, consumers and employees are people wanting to find things that live what ethics and values they have in their head. If that's buying something because it's got a little knitted bauble on the top of the smoothie that going to get towards grannies versus one that isn't maybe if they employee wants to work for somebody that isn't just about making money for the shareholders, but it's also helping society where we've got a problem with loneliness with older people, that person's happy. They're just people an answer that I really think business. I don't think business is really about economics, although it has to make money. It's about psychology. It's about understanding why somebody is going to change their behaviour because you exist, and that behaviour is going to improve their lives, you're going to be able to make some sustainable returns out of it. And we all want to live in a better world because we feel really good when you create a business that does that every one of your team well, and the consumer will as well, because we're all just people. Anna: Well, I can't follow that, so I'll wrap up there. But thank you ever so much for coming on the podcast, Paul. It's been great. Paul: Absolutely welcome, Anna, and I’m delighted to share some things that I hope can help others. You can find out more about Paul and his book ‘Little Wins: The Huge Power of Thinking Like a Toddler’, at paullindley.uk. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more articles on exit strategies and making your business greener. Remember to like us on Facebook at SmallBusinessExperts, follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk (all lowercase) and subscribe to our YouTube channel, linked in the description. Until next time, thank you for listening.

In this episode, Anna Jordan talks to Will Butler-Adams, managing director of Brompton Bikes. We discuss taking over the company from its founder and the future of manufacturing.   You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more on business succession and international trade. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Would you prefer to read Will Butler Adams' podcast interview instead? Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan. Today we have Will Butler-Adams, managing director of Brompton Bikes. He started at Brompton in 2002 as a project manager, moved up to engineer director and decided to take on the role of MD when a rival company was going to buy the company out in 2008. After making some changes, production sped up and Brompton now sells 55,000 bikes per year, with key markets in the UK and China. A UK-based Brompton bike hire scheme was launched in 2011. Outside of the firm, Butler-Adams is a fellow at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and the Royal Geographical Society as well as the City and Guilds of London Institute. He’s also a member of the British Manufacturing & Consumer Trade Advisory Group, consulting on post-Brexit trade deals outside the EU. We’ll be discussing what it’s like to take over a business from its founder and how to maintain brand loyalty. Anna: Hi Will. Will: Anna, good morning. Anna: How are you? Will: Well, very lucky. In the current climate, as we are seeing, some really, really challenging times both emotionally and also commercially, for many people globally. It's a pretty unprecedented time and we are finding ourselves as a business, one of the few sectors that has benefited from the current crisis. Anna: I understand you're in the factory right now. Will: Yep, I'm in the factory. We've traded non-stop throughout from the very first lockdown. And that has come with all sorts of challenges. But funnily enough, and we'll talk about a little bit more no doubt, that bicycle is a very, very useful tool in a situation like this. And there has been this sort of global enlightenment, to the value of something so humble as a bicycle. So, you know, we've contributed in our own peculiar way to try and to help people through this crisis. Well, I will start a little bit further back from here. When you when you bought the company, way back in 2008, you made a generous valuation estimate and you bought out the founder Andrew Ritchie's controlling stake in the company. Some might see that as a bold strategy. Why did you go for it at the time? Will: I joined the company in 2002, there were about 30 of us. Initially, I just thought I was going to muck about with a mad inventor making what looked like a fun and interesting product, not much more than that. And then [after] two or three years I'd move on. I was pretty young at 28, but the bike got under my skin and it affected my life. I wasn't naturally an urban liver. And yet, it's such fun living in London with this bike because it gave me this freedom. And I saw it had a similar, quite profound effects on our customers. That's very alluring and, in some respects, addictive. I was consumed by the company, entirely consumed by it. And Andrew, the inventor, is an absolute flipping genius. But he's not a builder of a business because he is much more of a sort of complete megalomaniac, detail, engineering right down in the nitty gritty. We're both engineers, but I'm more of a ‘vision, empowerment and grow’ engineer. And I wanted, by the time we got to 2008 – in fact, 2006 or 2007 – I wanted to commit my life to the product he'd invented, but I couldn't do it if he still had the control. The reality is that, even if you've made me the MD back then I wouldn't have had the control that I needed to do what I needed to do because I knew I needed to do things that he wouldn't approve of. He had to let go of control. It didn't mean I was then taking control because I never did. I just took out his controlling stake. But it then meant I had authority and autonomy to do what I knew needed to happen to the business for it to fulfil its potential. Were there signs that he [Ritchie] may have been getting to the point where he was more willing to give over some of the control? From what I've read, he was quite reluctant to delegate when he was in charge. Anna: Life isn't black and white. It's full of moments in time, and people, and there's a certain amount of luck. And it's whether you see the opportunity or the luck floating by and whether you jump on to it. But in this particular case, I think it was a moment in time where Andrew was getting so caught up in the detail. And when a business gets to a certain size, if you're trying to control everything, you've become the eye of the needle, and everything has to go through you. And you think that by recruiting people that you will find that then, you have less work to do. But if you are the person who is controlling everything, everything has to come through you. And by recruiting more people, you find you're even busier. That's what happened to Andrew: he got busier and busier and busier. It was making him unhappy. Because he was putting himself under so much pressure, there was a sort of nosedive where he was not enjoying himself because the business was becoming so successful. Also, I was being more confident. In the early days, the company was owned by him and his friends. His friends weren't Andrews. They were entrepreneurial, independent businesspeople in their own right. They could see and bring perspective and support Andrew to make the decision because they could see there was no way he could continue, because it wasn't his forte. So, they encouraged him to let go. It's worth saying that on many occasions, since then, he's vehemently regretted it because I've done things of course, which I knew I'd have to do that he didn't agree with. Tell me – what kind of protestations did he have? Will: It's about detail. Andrew is an inventor – in the absolute classic sense of the word. He spent 13 years, he hand-drew 1000s of drawings – technical drawings – not just for the bike, but how to make the bike and in insane detail. It’s something straight out of A Beautiful Mind. It's unreal that one human being could do what he did against a sort of backlog of everyone telling him, ‘What are you doing, wasting your time? You've tried, you fail, you're still at it, why are you still at it?’ He wouldn't give up. But he would worry about training and worry about tolerances, worrying about the grammar and would pick up on some problem, you know, six pages deep in our website, and ask me, ‘How would I let this happen?’ It's wrong, but in the grand scheme of things, when you're running a business and trying to do this and open up markets in Japan and an office in London developing this, he assumed that I would know everything and check every piece of written word and that I'd signed off every detail, but it doesn't happen like that. You have to find people better than you, you need to trust them, you need to allow them to make mistakes, just not mistakes that will take out the business. But his perception is that I was running the business – when it had 100 people, 200 people, 300 people, 400 people – in the same way that he ran the business when it had 40 people. That's just not possible. So that was the friction, and in some respects, still is a friction. In most cases, everything Andrew said was technically correct. It just wasn't the priority. And the problem is, when you're running a business and you're growing at some speed, you actually have to walk past things that are wrong. You're walking straight past something that is absolutely wrong. Unacceptable, not right. But you have to leave it because there's an even bigger wrong over there. You need to deal with the biggest [wrong]. It gives me huge pleasure that there are some things that I've been walking past for eight, nine, ten years. Finally, we've got the breadth and the capacity as a business to finally address some of these things that have been bugging me. But if you get distracted by every minutiae, as you're growing a business, you won't move the business forward because you'll never get to the most important thing that then allows you to move on to the lesser things and as you build down through the priority list. I think especially when you're starting a business, you're so used to playing all the roles, so that can be difficult to let go of. But interestingly, in Brompton’s case, when I joined, there were fewer than 30 people. I was the person running the machines. I rolled my sleeves up, spent three weeks running machines. The business was so small that that is what I did. That role has changed significantly. We now have offices around the world and we've got lots of people and I'm really doing nothing. That's a really tough call to design yourself out of a job, because there is no operational control in my role. Speaking of internationally – and you probably saw this coming – but I'd like to talk a bit about Brexit. We’re a week and a half in now. It's been ‘chaotic’, in a word, especially for exporters. I think that as somebody who has worked to advise on trade deals, and who wants to grow their market in other parts of Europe, especially for small business exporters, what do you think the forecast is for them, say the next three to five years? Will things get better? Will: What I would say – and this is not entirely directly answering your question, but indirectly does – when you're in business, you need to focus on things that you can control. You can control who you employ, you can control the culture of your organisation, how you present yourselves and what you do to inspire your team. What you can't control is FX (foreign exchange), what you can't control is Brexit. So, what you need to do is put in place strategies to mitigate the things that you can't control to allow you to get back to focusing on the things you can control. What happened with Brexit was, it started four years ago, we took a decision four years ago, to plan for the worst-case scenario. It took us about three months, the worst-case scenario hasn't then changed in three-and-three-quarter years, it's still the worst-case scenario. So, for the last three-and-three-quarter years, we've focused on growing our business innovating, distribution, communication – and we've doubled the size of our business. But what I saw over Brexit was many businesses got so caught up in worrying about something that they couldn't control, that they didn't do anything, they stagnated. They were worrying about the latest rumours – ‘I've heard it's that but maybe it's this or it could be this’. And I think in business, you need to not get distracted by things you can't control, focus on your core, focus on your added value, and manage the things you can't control by putting in place strategies to minimise the risk. Small business owners are so accustomed to planning ahead but without a lot of concrete information that's been difficult to do. Will: I'm not sure I agree. With a small business, you're more flexible than a bigger business, you're much more nimble. You have a tremendous advantage against some of the bigger players because you can adjust and you're smaller. I think it's not straightforward. It is possible to be able to try and mitigate those risks. And there aren't that many of them. Clearly Brexit is one, FX is another, trade tariffs is a third, but there aren't that many. And there's some good advice out there to support you. I know that Brompton has been open about being against planned obsolescence. This is where a company will manufacture a product so that it is unusable after a couple of years [or a certain period time], which is long enough where somebody can develop a connection with the product, but not so short that they get disengaged from the company and never buy from them again, there's regular income for that company. Phones are especially notorious for this practice. My question to you is that if a customer is only going to buy one Brompton bike for life, how do you maintain brand loyalty from customers? Will: The way you can maintain brand loyalty from customers is to give them a product that they may need to buy once in their life. Capitalism has done some amazing things – brought people out of poverty, it’s brought health, it’s brought education, but it has come at a cost to our planet. And certainly, in the last 50 years, increasingly. So, we have to rethink how we engage with consumerism and how we buy things and how we reuse things and don't just buy and chuck away and just, we're sucking value out of our planet, which our planet can't sustain. Apart from the fact that the customer must prefer the product they've had for a long time. If you've got some pots and pans that came from your granny or your parents or an old jacket or anything that's had longevity, you cherish it because it's given so much to and if you can keep it working for as long as possible, that makes total sense to me. Coming back to brand loyalty, there are things we can do to engage with our customers where they're having fun. We do races all round the world, not the last 12 months, but we do activities, we do events. And we want people to have fun, and this year with a fair wind we’ll make 70,000 bikes. I mean, they're like eight and a half billion people in the world of which nearly over 50 per cent live in cities. I mean, we haven't even started, the opportunities are immense. We want to create things, then actually what we want to do is when it's finished, which we're not out yet, we should be able to take the product back, recycle it and start all over again and have a full circular economy. Anna: Is that something that you're planning to do in future? Wil: Definitely. We need we need to do that, because there will come a point where the bikes that we were making 20 years ago, in some cases 15 years ago, have come to the end of their life, at which point for those bikes, we should be able to bring them back, take them apart for recycling, then round we go again. I've read that your marketing budget isn't huge, either. Will: I think the experience that a customer has with your product, too often, businesses are obsessed with selling you something. But that's not how you build a brand. A brand isn't what you feel when you bought it, you can buy anything. And the moment you buy and you have this sort of rush of, ‘Whoopee isn't this fantastic?’ The question is, go back to that same customer in two years’ time and say, you know that £100 you spent or that £300 you spent, was it worth it? And, sadly, in most cases against you might have never been used, or yeah, it was brilliant for about six months, and then it bust or something went wrong. There aren’t many things that that we absolutely cherish and love. I think the scope for us to be delivering a useful product, it's not just about buying, it's about looking after the customer for the life of the product. Things need looking after, which is why we have put in a lot of energy. If you like, our marketing budget goes into looking after the customers we already have – that's the most effective marketing budget. If the customers that you have really love their product, and when things go wrong, which they do, we look after them as best we can, then that's the best marketing you can get. So, spend your money on warranty or on customer service, customer support. And then when that's all perfect, you might have a little bit left over for doing some proactive marketing. But often people they forget about are the customer, they just want to go out and do this trend or get more new customers, forgetting about the ones they’ve already got. To round off, I'd like to talk a little bit about manufacturing in the UK. For a long time now it's dwindled, but then others have said, ‘Well, the UK is so innovative and it's still a very strong player in the manufacturing industry.’ In your view, where do you see it going in the next few years? Will: I think there is so much potential to manufacture in the UK, simply because the barriers to entry to doing efficient lean manufacturing are so much lower than they used to be. When I was at university, which is increasingly becoming quite a long time ago – Anna: Oh, I know the feeling! Will: Yeah! If you wanted to design something like a car, you needed a computer that filled up a room and they cost, in today's money, millions of pounds. So, the only companies that could afford the technology to allow you to design effectively were the Fords or the massive companies in the world. But you can buy a computer and start doing 3D design, you can get things printed in 3D in metal. If anything, manufacture’s become entrepreneurial again, because if you come up with an idea, if you can design it, you can print it, you can prove it, you can go on to social media, and then you can raise the money to get started. There's so much potential. The real sense of pride comes from, the reason that it's so satisfying with manufacture, is you see you’re creating something. It's that sense of creation, it's like growing plants – you're seeing something happen and come alive in front of you. You're creating something tangible – that's really, really satisfying. We've been encouraged and told that everything is on a computer and it's all noughts and ones. Actually, it’s the innate sense of pride about something tangible that's going out the door. I think actually the opportunities for it, not just in the UK but globally for manufacturing. Manufacturing doesn't need to be where there's cheap labour. Manufacturing is where there are the best ideas and robotics, semi automation, 3D printing, the cost of software and the ability to design, meaning the best ideas can sprout anywhere in the world, and you can manufacture locally, where the brains are. Anna: It would be a bit like, since the rise of social media and blogging, we've seen content creation go more into the individual’s hands, you feel like manufacturing can go from larger companies to individuals. Will: Definitely. It's a really positive thing because of disruption. I mean, if you look at things about flying taxis, people coming up, there are like 50,60,100 different companies around the world, all coming up with their different flying taxis. It was unthinkable 25 years ago, because it just wasn't possible for small businesses or small groups of individuals to try and come up with something so revolutionary, it would only be a LES four-digit or Nissan, or something – forget it. Yet, all these start-ups are doing it, because the whole engineering and manufacturing has been broken down and it makes it much more accessible. And if your idea is strong enough, if your passion burns bright enough, you can do it. Anna: Well, on that rather inspirational note, I'll leave it there. Thank you ever so much for coming on the podcast, Will. Will: Anna, it's my pleasure. Thank you for asking me. You can find out more about Brompton Bikes at brompton.com. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for articles on business succession and international trade. Remember to like us on Facebook at SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lowercase. Until next time, thank you for listening.    

In this episode I talk to Trinny Woodall, TV presenter, author and founder of makeup brand, Trinny London. We discuss influencer marketing and augmented reality within the beauty industry.   You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more on SEIS and the importance of communities. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Would you prefer to read Trinny Woodall's podcast interview instead? Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan. Today we have Trinny Woodall, fashion and beauty guru, TV presenter, author, entrepreneur and new entrant in the Telegraph’s Top 100 Tech Entrepreneurs 2020. Formerly one half of Trinny and Susannah earlier in the 2000s, she now runs Trinny London, an online make-up company providing personalised stackable products. It includes the Match2Me service which matches Trinny London make-up to a person’s skin tone, hair and eye colour. The business is worth £46m. We’ll be looking at influencer marketing and the changing habits of beauty consumers.     Anna: Hello Trinny. Trinny: Hello, Anna. How are you? Anna: Yeah, I'm doing all right. Thank you. How are you? Trinny: Very well, thank you. Anna: Great. First, I’d like to talk about your business background. Trinny London is pretty on the pulse when it comes to emerging business trends – personalisation, building social media communities, the founder being an extension of the brand. Of course, you will have a team behind you, but it looks like there is some knowhow there already. Is this your first foray into business particularly in the pre-Trinny-and-Susannah days? Trinny: Even pre-Trinny-and-Susannah days, I had gone into finance. So, I started my career in commodities, selling commodity funds, which I detested. I would go down from Earls Court to Tower Hill and I would have the FT on the outside and inside, I'd be reading the Daily Mail. But there was an obligation in my mind, because my dad was a good businessman, an entrepreneur. I was the youngest of six kids and I think I didn't feel smart enough for university. I started as a secretary in a physical trading house. I was surrounded by business conversations at the dining room table because my father, brother and brother-in-law were involved in the same business. And then, when I was doing my foray into the City, I realised how much I disliked it and I wanted to do something else. But there was a part of me that wanted to have a business. I think I always had that from a very young age. I fell into television and before I even did TV, Susannah and I had a column and the internet started emerging as a as a platform that econ was just starting in ‘98. I really thought it was so interesting that you could do some form of personalisation online. And with all the traction we had with our followers on Trinny London, I remember I spent a weekend and I was doing a fast, I had very bad skin, so I was doing this fast, very weird thing. But my brain became very clear. I thought, ‘What can one do that could bring together what the internet's beginning to offer and refine choice?’ I think the idea of refinement of choice was a really big one for me. And that came about in Ready 2, which was something that we started in 1998. By 2001, it had closed. The idea for it was a portal for women with fashion and clothing and beauty. We just couldn't get to the profitability, because there wasn't enough traction online of being able to do a transaction so you could take a commission, so it didn't happen, but I loved it. Susannah didn't love it, because for her, she loves more the creative side of things. We then did television and spent ten years doing TV shows around the world. And during that time, we had an agent. I also was more of the kind of driver of the business side of what we would do next. I’ve got lots of beeps by the way going in this podcast because as much as I love tech, I cannot for the life of me get my notifications to turn off on this laptop. I will apologise for the beeps. I'm trying to get Slack to quieten down, but it's not going to happen. So, there was that moment, after about 10-15 years working with Susannah where we both felt a fatigue with what we were doing. I think I will never stop loving the concept of making over a woman. And by that I don't mean make somebody who looks bad look good, but just moving their sense of how they see themselves. Then I had this idea for Trinny London at the back of my mind, and I didn't realise until I look back at certain things, and people remind me how early on I had that idea. And in those last few years of making over women in every different country, I would be in Poland using Inglot makeup, and then I'd be in Israel using MAC and then somewhere else, I noticed the team of makeup girls would always do the same look on everyone and I felt that I kept saying to them, ‘Look, they have all have a different skin, hair, and you must look at colour palettes and look at how you can put them differently on women.’ And I felt that was something that really didn't exist, that level of personalisation. And I also felt that it's something that really didn't happen in store. I thought, okay, it's going to be online. And by the time I made that decision, I'd started developing with an SEIS scheme, I'd gone and I thought, ‘How can I raise some money?’ I was really coming to the end of my royalties from the different shows I'd done. Probably I was the most broke I had been in 15 years. But sometimes that's when you got to do stuff. With the SEIS scheme, you can raise up to £150,000 and it's 50 per cent tax back. Two people who were kind of committed to me as a businesswoman, they knew I had a good work ethic, a friend of mine’s mother and well, one of my daughter's friends. The mother who I didn't know that well, but was in beauty. She runs beauty at Mintel research, and my daughter's Godfather, both believed in my work ethic. So I asked them, and they put in £150,000 between them. I then had the opportunity to explore. I think if you look at all different entrepreneurs, they either start tiny, and every time they get a tiny bit of revenue, they invest in something else. And I think the younger you are, the easier that is to do. But I was 50 when I started this, so I knew I needed to really accelerate to get that proposition out there. I raised that money – probably the most expensive money I raised in terms of the percentage of revenue I gave away, the percentage of the value of the business I gave away for that. But I wouldn't have got it got off the ground. And one thing I've learned in life is you must never ever regret any decision you make. I got to that point and I think then I knew from what I'd learnt in the past with Ready 2 is I had felt an inexperienced businesswoman so I had hired what I deemed to be really experienced people in their field. The CMO I paid at that time £100,000 to because I'd raised £7m for Ready 2. I hired a CEO who came from Barclays, because I thought she'd be a good – CFO, CEO background – and a lot of other women who were in quite high-powered tech. There was a huge amount going out in salaries and a really high burn rate per month.   I knew that with that £150,000 I've got to do a really good business plan, I've got to show a prototype, I've got to show where I'm going to get it made, I've got to show how I'm going to make the money. And I was building up a little social media following. I'd started on it – I realised I just wanted to do video because I come from television. And it was gaining traction. By this stage, I had a very nice guy called Mark who became my COO, and he had a CFO background. When we were doing those spreadsheets, which any small business, you spend days doing those projections, months doing those projections. People can do crazy projections. And I kind of knew, I wanted projections that, when I went into an investor meeting, I could say, ‘This is really why I believe I'll get to that revenue in 2020,2021 and 2022.’ We did it as a percentage of a conversion of my social media following. And as that social media following grew, we felt that between two and two and a half per cent of those people would buy from the brand. And now, three years later, the valuations are actually probably double what you said, because we've had huge growth in the last six months. But it's been based on that, there hasn't been a huge amount that's changed. I hired that middle management, that C-suite, a year and a half into the business. I hired a CMO. I hired a strategic CTO, I have a very nice CTO who started with us early, but he was more he's now head of development. And I hired an MPD. And I was at the stage where I got enough revenue in and I thought I can sustain those salaries. Because otherwise all you're doing is earning money to pay the salaries, and I wanted to earn the money for growth. Absolutely. As you there are a few different things in there that I'd like to pick up on. First of all, women investors, especially when they're pitching, they have a harder time because they’re often all-male panels or a majority male panels. What kind of unique challenges did you face, being a woman but also being a woman in her 50s? Trinny: I think the challenges I face were those two plus somebody who was known, but known in a different industry. That might have got me the meeting, but it was oddly prejudicing in other ways. People put you in a box. And we think in the press, they make assumptions. They don't know what you're like as a businesswoman, they've just seen you on television, which might seem to investors a light-hearted industry. There's a sort of double importance to make them appreciate and understand that you will know how to run a business and get the right people at the right time to support you in running that business. I probably went to see 22 VCs before I had somebody say. ‘Actually, I get it.’ I always thought I want to be more than a makeup brand owner. I want this to be a community for women to feel good. It was about having every age represented, every skin tone represented, every type of woman could feel that she could identify with what we were offering. So convincing investors of that, instead of our target market is 18 to 34. Because many investors said to me, ‘Love it, but can you just skew the whole thing and do it for the Millennials?’ And I was like, ‘No, to me, the gap in the market is 35 to 55.’ It's for everyone, but this is a huge gap. So I want to definitely have over 50 per cent of my customers from 30 to 60. So I just felt that there was this real untapped market in a very, very crowded area. Yeah. And you've got to stick to that vision I think if I look at the difference between what Trinny London represents and what Trinny Woodall represents, they're not all the same customer, but a lot of people from Trinny will convert to become a Trinny London customer. And there's a lot of people on Trinny London who don't even follow me, so I love that.   We have these Trinny tribes that have stopped around the world and about 70,000 women around the world who are part of our Facebook tribe, which is in their area. And that, to me, is that other part of the business when I say that Trinny London isn't just a makeup brand. I think that the word ‘community’ has been very overused in brand building, because it might have been started by some men in dark suits in a room of a very commercial business. I think community has to start organically. And then you have to feel how can you harness what is in fact, a sort of fan base, a passion? People are the most passionate about your brand, how can you harness them? It's not going to become a multi-level marketing business. That's not what we are. But how can we make them feel good about the fact that they, for free, love to chat about Trinny London?    Yeah, you were saying as well, one of the problems you had earlier on was of personalisation and reaching enough women and even on What Not to Wear, in a series you can only do maybe six people at a time. Whereas with social media that's completely revolutionised that and you can have a much broader reach now. That has brought about the Trinny Tribes on Facebook. I'd quite like to know, was that part of your plan originally? Or did that come about organically? Trinny: I think that the very original Trinny Tribe were people who follow me on my Instagram. And some of those were like, ‘Are you the person who used to be Trinny of Trinny and Susannah? Yeah, I used to be that person. Now I just do my own thing. And they follow that. There was a woman called Kelly in north west England and she just started a Facebook fan page. And she took a bit of our logo and called it Trinny Tribe and said if there’s anyone else who’d like to know what she's doing at the moment and follow her. This is, as we launched the brand, I mean, literally, maybe a tiny bit before. These people started joining. And then somebody said, ‘Well, I'm in London, I might start a London one.’ And so we saw our logo on Facebook, or a picture of me or a bit of yellow, really random little things that you put on Facebook. And so we thought, ‘Okay, well, what we can't have this very fragmented interpretation of our brand, because it sort of dilutes what we are and, and in a way there is an association there with the word ‘Trinny’. We approached the admins, and we said, ‘Look, we just love what you're doing, would you like to be more connected to us, and we can give you a nice logo for your area and think of ways that we could… you could come in for a drink occasionally and it’d be lovely to meet some of you.’ They were very excited. And so that's in a way how it began. And then we assigned a woman who did a lot of stuff on social media called Paris, to be the contact for those people. We then said, ‘Look, we think admins a horrible word, let's call you ambassadors, or ambassadresses.’ So they love that too. We have some of them in unit for a little brainstorm, what they liked about things and what they'd like more of, just so there was that feeling that they are a part of the growth of what Trinny London represents. Yeah, exactly. I know I can imagine that over COVID the habits of beauty consumers has changed because Trinny London has quite a soft, radiant glow-y type of makeup which people are actually saying is quite good for Zoom calls rather than something that's very heavy that you'd see more on a night out. How would you say that your customer base has changed over COVID? Is it more people who would be going to the makeup counter who are now looking online? Trinny: For sure. And as you were saying there is a certain advantage to having the social media videos because you bring in the people who are less seasoned when it comes to makeup, maybe want to try and explore it a bit. They have tutorials on how to layer different pots. There are a couple of things I would like to talk about before we wrap up. First off, within the beauty industry, we see a lot of influencer marketing but with your Ambassadresses is there as much a need for that? What kind of role does [influencer marketing] play? Trinny: it's interesting, in a way, because I have across Instagram and Facebook, about 2m followers, I am to an extent an influencer. And because Trinny London is my revenue stream and my brand building, I've never done any deal with anyone. I talk about Zara a lot on my own channel, because I think it's the most internationally available. And I talk about what I love. I was very reticent [about influencer marketing]. When we tried very early on, we worked with rewardStyle. And we paid – what for us then – was a fortune to get them to select the people they thought were good influencers, and I found incredibly low conversion. I think our strategy has been far more that when we look at for Facebook advertising, for example. Facebook advertising has changed their algorithms, so that instead you can still designate an audit audience. But they can also say, ‘Okay, we'll take control of that earlier stage.’ And we will find the algorithm of the people who are buying from you already and match it and do their weird magic, which… it's a computer teaching another computer to teach another computer, it's like a dark hole. Any brand that's going down that route, and deciding to do it, and I do think it's a far more successful route for the influencer route and for our brand, is the importance that these shouldn't really always look like ads. And because people are engaged by something that grabs them that they think is something they're going to learn from. So sometimes you and I would look on our feed and would see an ad, it will grab us, because it's a really clean ad, it's like this will clean your teeth better than any other toothbrush. And you're like, ‘Okay,’ but some other things need a story to be told. And sometimes you think you've got 30 seconds to tell that story, or you've got five minutes to tell that story. But some of our most successful ads on Facebook are just actually women saying, ‘I'm trying this’ and they're telling their story. We have a lot of content, we have at any one time about 200 ads running on Facebook. And that is a strategy that was implemented when our CMO joined us, Shira. Because she said, ‘Look, we really want to put in the marketplace a lot.’ And everyone is going to be attracted by a different bit of content. I think there are some good influencers. But generally, an influencer is a business. And we must respect and appreciate that as a business. But I think to be a really successful influencer, you have to have a proportion of your feed being, ‘This is what I really love, and there's no ad or whatever involved.’ And when you see an influencer, where it's basically ad or affiliation, ad or affiliation, that’s it, there's no objective, ‘This is what I really think about the product.’   The other problem we've got as consumers is magazines are drying up and magazines are going online. The concept of the war between advertising and editorial, which used to be quite strict in a magazine, is very blurred online. Because magazines need to make a revenue, and the revenue is they write an article and the user clicks through and they have an affiliation to that product. And that happens whenever I'm on any magazine. That's a revenue stream. We know that if we read an article in a magazine, and these are the top 10 there'll be a click through to all of them and the magazine is making money because that's the only way they can make money. They are an influencer on a grand scale, but they are still getting the cut like the small influencer is getting a cut, so I'm not sure. But to answer your question in a very long-winded way, for our business, the influencer model is not the right model. There are beauty businesses in Germany, there's a young beauty brand called Bananas or something I can't remember, it's quite often young brand, like a Glossier but younger. And their model is a purely influencers. They put all their revenue that I might put into Facebook into 200, 300, 400 key influencers and it's very successful with them. Is that an age thing or an attitude thing? I'm not sure. Anna: I guess knowing your business as well. I mean, it's going to be different. You're going to have different target audiences, you'll find them in different places. So I definitely think that you do what's right for you. Okay, last thing I'd like to talk about is the the future of Trinny London, and where it's going. Match2Me is a huge part of the overall brand. Do you see yourself moving it on a bit? Say, with augmented reality. We were seeing it with L'Oreal, having apps that you can put makeup on your face virtually, things like that. Do you ever see Trinny London going that way? Trinny: I think that's the fundamental difference between what a lot of brands did during COVID is they did virtual trial, because they knew all their customers wanted to try. Virtual try-on to me, to date, is still gamification. The majority of them come with filters. And it's kind of, for some women, it's like, ‘I know, I'm not going to look like that, because they've made my face perfect.’ Is it just a fun way to play? And would it make me buy the lipstick? On some brands, the conversion is great, because it's catering to an audience that already is building and doing filters on Instagram and Snapchat and TikTok and therefore, they love it. And it kind of makes sense. I think Match2Me is unique, because there is no other beauty brand that is actually saying, ‘Let's look at your skin, hair and eye. And let's look at the refinement of choice of colour that suits you.’ I think that can't be replicated. I mean, I haven't seen anyone do it. And I've been working with four or five different augmented reality and virtual trial brands and have come to the conclusion that, in fact, we are going to develop something internally. Because what I see is very set out of the box plug-ins, and I want to do something which is a step ahead of what these people are currently offering. There is a huge, very interesting opportunity for brands to really personalise and personalise to their customers. But I think there's going to be cleverer ways than just what is still a little bit of gamification. Anna: So, something that perhaps isn't on the market yet? Trinny: Not on the market yet. Anna: Well, that sounds like a good place to wrap up. Thank you for coming on the podcast, Trinny. It was great to have you on. Trinny: It was lovely to talk to you.              You can find out more about Trinny London at trinnylondon.com. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for articles on starting a business of your own and building social media communities. Remember to like us on Facebook at SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lowercase. Until next time, thank you for listening.

There's nothing more infuriating than when people throw shade at the anti-diet perspective without bothering to actually research it. When "The Biggest Loser" trainer/shameless fatphobe Jillian Michaels arrogantly released a Youtube clip trashing the 10 principles of intuitive eating, WITHOUT EVEN READING THE BOOK, she REALLY pi***ed off the community! And none more so than my guests, anti-diet fitness trainers Anna Hearn and Shreen El Masry, who have been dying to come on the podcast and set the record straight! Finally the COVID window opened just a crack so I could record the very first IN PERSON podcast! Join us as we dissect Jillian's often hilarious inability to comprehend a life beyond diet prison. WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS 'PERMISSION TO EAT!!' It seems the lady doth protest too much - could it be that the Queen of Diet Prison is sensing the paradigm-shifting power of the anti-diet revolution? That's right folks, the unrivalled reign of Biggest Loser-esque terror is over!! Vive La Difference! Please note - this episode comes with a hefty side serve of calorie count discussions, so if you're in recovery from an eating disorder please consider your level of spoons to hear the diet talk. But, if you've had a gutful of igno-rants about anti-dieting, it's time to get ALL FIRED UP! Show Transcript:   LOUISE: So, here I am with Anna and Shreen. Thank you so much for coming on the show. ANNA: Thank you for having us. SHREEN: Yeah, thank you so much. LOUISE: It’s so exciting to be alive with actual humans in the room, and slightly weird. Why don’t you guys tell me all about what is firing you up? ANNA: We’re really fired up about Jillian Michaels and her aggressive fatphobic rant on intuitive eating. LOUISE: (sighs) First of all, I have to say I love how you say ‘rant’, it’s very proper and awesome. But yes, Jillian Michaels – Biggest Loser trainer in the United States. Horrendously fatphobic. ANNA: Yeah, I mean … she got her living, she makes her living from shaming fat bodies. I think that tells a lot about her character and where she’s going to go with her intuitive eating rant. LOUISE: So, she was on the Biggest Loser for years and years and years. Her website … well, she’s touting herself as the world’s best trainer. Like, the biggest expert in the world on all things fitness. Which, well … this is just a hunch, but I could find people on the planet who are more qualified. ANNA: Well, if you want to break down her qualifications, I think it looks like she’s done a couple of personal training qualifications, a couple of fitness qualifications and … SHREEN: One ‘woo woo’ nutrition qualification. ANNA: There is a nutrition qualification there too, but it doesn’t look like there’s any degrees or anything. So, when it comes to intuitive eating and looking at all of that, when we go into it you’ll realise, I think, that she hasn’t really done her research. She doesn’t understand it. And I think it’s interesting that somebody without that nutrition background or lived experience with that sort of thing talks about it the way that she does. SHREEN: I think as well, not only does she come across really aggressive and shaming, also I think her insecurity is really coming out in this video. Intuitive eating is a movement that’s really starting to take off, and she’s clearly threatened by it. You can see her defence mechanism is up, and she’s … you know, really, just … her demeanour is just awful. LOUISE: It's hard to tell, though, if her demeanour’s just awful because she’s defensive or because her demeanour’s just awful. SHREEN: Yeah, that’s true. ANNA: I kind of picked up on that and thought she was sensing a threat because intuitive eating is becoming more mainstream, people are becoming more aware of it. So that could threaten what she does, because she makes a living forcing people to lose weight. LOUISE: So, during the 90’s and the early 2000’s, like … it was a free-for-all with bullying people with larger bodies, as we saw. World-wide, the Biggest Loser was the number one show, and everyone thought it was okay. So, she’s had this unfettered ability to be horrible about body size and really belittling of people in larger bodies. And now, I think she’s realising it’s not okay to keep on doing that. ANNA: The backlash about it. LOUISE: So, just to set the stage. What we’re seeing … because I did see the internet blow up. It was a while ago now, but let’s face it - we’ve all been in iso and unable to talk to each other. So, she has like a YouTube channel and one of her YouTube little presentations - I don’t watch what she does, just for my own mental health - but this one was Jillian Michaels talking about intuitive eating. Which, oh my god … let’s just get Donald Trump talking about sexism. ANNA: That’s a great analogy. SHREEN: She’s basically, I think she’s just gone on the website and just pulled up the principles without doing any research into it or even understanding there’s over a hundred studies done on intuitive eating and there’s a whole book as well. She just went on there, read out these principles and gave her, I guess, her opinion.  ANNA: It became really clear that she hasn’t taken the time to understand it. She hasn’t learnt about the authors; you’ll see as she comes to the end of it, she talks about assuming that it was written by somebody who had just had some bad experience with diet culture, maybe had an eating disorder LOUISE: Oh my god, that’s so disrespectful SHREEN: So disrespectful. ANNA: No understanding or bothering to explore that the authors are actually dietitians who had come up with this approach because they had done so much work with clients who had struggled a lot and this is what they’d learnt from working with them over years and years. LOUISE: These are the gurus. Like, Tribole and Resch, they wrote the initial book Intuitive Eating and it’s just been updated, which is fantastic. But even that, even their book which is written from that perspective of helping people recover from eating disorders, that book is built on another big long history of social justice and fat activism. To not recognise that intuitive eating is part of a social movement and like, the way she presented it is like, she just stumbled across a webpage and … oh my god. ANNA: Definitely, yeah. And it came across very, very condescending. I felt really bothered … SHREEN: It’s so harmful, as well. That was the thing that really bothered me the most, was how much … I mean, she causes so much harm anyway, but the message was just next level harm. And if anyone was watching that and had no idea, the things that she was saying … yeah, it’s just not on. LOUISE: Oh god, yikes. So, we thought we would unpick Jillian Michael’s feelpinion to each of the ten principles of intuitive eating. And you guys have written some awesomely detailed notes. ANNA: We had a really good chat about it. LOUISE: Fantastic. But I’m so interested, because you guys both work in this industry as HAES® positive, body inclusive, weight neutral trainers hearing from almost like the personification of diet culture woman. SHREEN: She is the reason why people have so much fitness trauma and so much negative association with fitness. She’s causing that. ANNA: She is the epitome of diet culture. SHREEN: Yeah, she is the epitome of diet culture, for sure. ANNA: And I think we chatted about this as we were hanging out one day, and we just came across this as a topic that fired both of us up. And it’s frustrating when you see … when you’re so heavily involved in this space, and the HAES® space, and the body inclusive space, it can be … and luckily for me working here at Haven, this is the space I come to work every day. So, I’m not exposed to traditional diet culture unless I stumble across it or it’s brought to my attention. So, I couldn’t help but just be really quite wild about this. LOUISE: I love it. I mean, I don’t love that you’re wild, but I kind of do. But, yeah. It’s nice to know that in this industry there are people who feel really strongly about just putting an end to this. She’s what’s wrong with the fitness industry at the moment, and you guys are the future. And I think she can smell that. So, I think, like I … I managed to watch it and still shaking with rage but thank you for this glass of champagne. ANNA: I don’t think we could do this without a little bit of champagne. SHREEN: No, we need some bubbles. LOUISE: The first thing she starts with, so she’s actually going through all the principles. SHREEN:  Correct. LOUISE: Why don’t you give me the lowdown on your reaction. ANNA: Let’s kick off. So, she does go through the points one by one, and the first principle is ‘reject the diet mentality’. And I just want to point out a few things that came up for me that were just so apparent throughout. Her fatphobia is so clear. She’s driven, everything she says, and her approach is all drive by this. And I think she’s very ignorant, like she doesn’t see that there’s an issue with this. She comes form that space where it’s very normalised to shame fat bodies, it’s not okay to be in a bigger body. And she very clearly associates weight and health, they’re so closely tied, which I think it really problematic, obviously. So, in this ‘reject diet mentality’, what came up for you, Shreen? SHREEN: Well, the first thing for me was that she couldn’t distinguish a difference between fad diets and what dieting is, and diet culture. She’s like, “oh you know, if it’s fad diets we’re talking about yeah, yeah sure”, but this is a woman who has sold supplements in the past. LOUISE: She’s sold fad diets. SHREEN: She’s sold fad diets. And she is diet culture, so I guess she can’t … she doesn’t understand what diet culture actually is and why it’s so important to reject it. I mean, diet culture in the US alone is worth 70 billion dollars. ANNA:  She profits off it. SHREEN: She profits off everyone’s insecurities. So, she was just like, “reject diet culture? What’s this, what does this mean?”. And I really did sense there that her insecurity is coming out there because that is her, that’s how she makes her money. ANNA: Well that’s it, she’s really incentivised to support diet culture.  LOUISE: But the distinction that she made between “well, if it’s fad, but if it’s proper” … it just made me laugh, because she’s had no less than four separate lawsuits … ANNA:  Jillian? SHREEN: Yeah. LOUISE: Launched against her by her consumers who bought her caffeine-fuelled diet pills. ANNA: Which I think she might have … there might have been something on the Biggest Loser where she gave them to contestants unfairly, apparently, as well. LOUISE: Oh my god, scandal on the Biggest Loser. Like … ANNA: Well, the other thing that came up for me there was she said, “what is this, healthy at any size?”, and that’s immediately a red flag representing that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She hasn’t researched this because … I can understand it’s very easy to misconstrue Health At Every Size® for healthy at every size, but it’s quite a different meaning and that assumption that, you know, just assuming that we’re saying as a Health at Every Size® professional that all bodies are healthy, that’s not where we’re aiming. We’re talking about people being able to pursue health regardless of shape and size. LOUISE: Or, also, we’re talking about the choice not to pursue health and to be left the fuck alone. SHREEN: Yeah, there’s no moral obligation. If people want to do so, then it’s up to them. It shouldn’t be … they shouldn’t have to do it if they don’t want to, but that’s what diet culture is saying. ANNA: Your body, your rules. SHREEN: And this part of her rant really, really … we know that she’s incredibly fatphobic and she fat shames, but it just came out so much in that where she was again talking, talking about size 16. And she’s saying “well, you know, if you’re a size 16 of course I love you but you’re not healthy”. Which is just … LOUISE: Get fucked. SHREEN: Yeah, absolute garbage. ANNA: Yeah. And Health at Every Size® also is about respect for all bodies, and I think there is a real lack of respect in just making that assumption. You can’t tell. How does she know what someone’s health is, you know? What their metabolic functions are, their blood work, their social, mental health … you can’t tell that by someone’s size. SHREEN: Genetics, everything. There’s so much, it’s so multifaceted. LOUISE: Everything I think is just far too complicated for her. She has to actually, like … I mean, clearly, she hasn’t read anything or thought about anything. “Nope, that’s a number, that’s an assumption, and don’t challenge that”.  SHREEN: Yeah. And if someone’s watching that, I mean, how triggering. How much harm that one comment could cause somebody that could lead them down a path of dieting and to an eating disorder. ANNA: And especially if they were already vulnerable of somebody who would identify with being in a size 16, or plus. And also, size 16 is quite variable depending on which shop you shop in, you know? Where you get your clothes from. What’s a size anyway? What does it matter? SHREEN: Yeah, it doesn’t matter. LOUISE: Size is not the same as health, and she needs to pull her head in. I wonder if her YouTube videos come with a trigger warning. I don’t think they do, but they should. Because good point, you know, that she … everything she says is potentially a trigger. SHREEN: Especially the size of her audience as well, I’m worried. ANNA: She’s got a big reach still. Some of the comments though were interesting, some really great points. People were talking about intuitive eating and picking up on that she doesn’t understand it, she’s missing the point. LOUISE: That is really reassuring. ANNA: She stopped the comments, she cut them off. LOUISE: Oh no, they were too complicated. ANNA: So, the next principle is ‘honour your hunger’, and she said something pretty radical here. Well, it’s not really radical in the fitness world. These numbers get thrown around a lot. But trigger warning, there are numbers here. She says, “if you’re trying to lose weight, you can keep your body fed on as low as 1200 calories”. And that most women, especially those over, you know, relating to being a certain age, shouldn’t be eating over 1600 calories a day. SHREEN: Which is just absolutely unbelievable. She’s saying that … I mean, that’s what a toddler needs. A toddler needs 1200-1600 calories a day. LOUISE: How very dare she tell me how much I can eat, under a principle that says, ‘honour your hunger’. ANNA: She … on one hand, I’m not surprised she threw those numbers out because those numbers are thrown out all the time in the fitness world. I don’t know where … MyFitnessPal? LOUISE: Are they really? SHREEN: We were saying, MyFitnessPal may have started the whole 1200 calories thing … LOUISE: I think Michelle Bridges is guilty of that too. ANNA: Oh actually, you’re right, she had a program that was based on that. LOUISE: It’s just a nice round number, isn’t it? Let’s just pluck this out of our arse and throw that at all women. ANNA: What I find there though is that like Shreen said, it’s something that a child needs. And I just wanted to double-check that, because I’m not a nutritionist, I’m a yogi and I run a studio, but I wanted to check with somebody who does work with that. I chatted to our non-diet nutritionist Nina and she clarified that yes - this is generalisation - but that kind of number is something that would serve a child. Like, a toddler or a four, five-year-old. And then thinking about the effects of being on a low-calorie diet for a long period, things like loss of menstrual cycle, loss of bone density, fatigue, mood swings, constipation, blood sugar imbalance, stress hormones getting out of whack … SHREEN: Sex drive … ANNA: Sex drive … what did you say before? SHREEN: Dry vagina (laughs). ANNA: She didn’t mention that, did she? SHREEN: No. LOUISE: No, but that might be suffering all of them, you know? And why she’s so grouchy. ANNA: Memory fog and brain fog … memory loss and brain fog. So, these are all things that can be affected by not being adequately fed. And the better indicator of your needs are your body and your internal hunger signals. And we’re taught to … these external sources of just following this rule plan of 1200 calories a day means that if I need more than that – maybe at the time of my period especially I might need much more - and I’m just denying my natural hunger levels. LOUISE: The whole ‘per day’ thing really gives me the shits as well. SHREEN: Yeah, that’s a really good point. LOUISE: This is just a statistical method to help researchers make assumptions about nutrition. It’s not supposed to be something religiously followed. SHREEN: No, there’s no … ANNA: An individual thing, yeah. LOUISE: It’s bizarre. But, isn’t that interesting that even as she’s like, she’s trying desperately, the poor little thing to understand that this is a principle of intuitive eating but she can’t quite get there because she immediately lurches into “well, if you want to lose weight …”. I just felt like reaching through the screen and saying, “realise that intuitive eating is not a weight loss program”. ANNA: That’s half the problem, is that she clearly thinks that the only people who explore intuitive eating are going for weight loss. She says that a few times. LOUISE: Oh, she’s a scrambled egg. ANNA: Yeah. She doesn’t understand that the whole purpose of intuitive eating is more about finding a peaceful relationship with food and your body, not about trying to pursue making your body be something, a certain size. SHREEN: It’s about food freedom, it’s about having a healthy relationship with food, stopping the obsession. It’s not … it’s definitely not following these external rules. It’s about being in tune with what your body wants and needs and getting in touch with those signals. LOUISE: Different planet, I don’t think she’s visited. SHREEN: I don’t think she understands what the ‘honouring hunger’ … it’s a basic self-care need. If you’re not honouring hunger … LOUISE: Again, you’re mentioning a foreign concept here. This is someone who will happily live with a dry vagina, it doesn’t matter. SHREEN: Yep (all laugh). LOUISE: We all went there. SHREEN: She just really doesn’t understand and that is the reason why … people don’t give themselves enough food and they’re following diet plans, and they’re going to give themselves cravings leading to overeating and bingeing, and that’s perfectly normal as well. Other than ‘rejecting the diet mentality’ one of the first steps of intuitive eating is to just honour your hunger and it’s so important. It’s self-care. ANNA: It's so liberating too, if you’re been on the diet bandwagon for many, many years, to recognise that “hey, my body’s got a lot of wisdom, and it’s telling me, it’s giving me messages and I can learn how to reconnect with that”. And I think part of the common thread that comes up with what she says all the time is that … she thinks it’s all about ‘you can’t trust your body’. I think an important thing that I’ve learned is you can really learn how to trust your body. We get into this as we move into the next principle or two. It’s not about endless eating and not being able to, you know, like you’re just not going to go out of control all the time, which is what she sort of thinks. SHREEN: Point number three is that ‘unconditional permission to eat all foods’. LOUISE: She really had a problem with principle three. Like, she was visibly … SHREEN: Yeah, and she started comparing it to smoking, and credit cards, and it’s like …what are you talking about? ANNA: So yeah, this ‘make peace with food’, you’re right. And she talks about saying, talking about the ‘last supper mentality’, and she says, “I’m not religious, I don’t know what Jesus ate”. LOUISE: She really needs to read some books. ANNA: She needs to read Intuitive Eating if she’s going to talk about it. Because if she read it, she might really understand what that means. I thought it was quite clear just from the ‘last supper mentality’, don’t you think? SHREEN: You just eat everything in sight. LOUISE: I don’t even think it has religious connotations, I thought it was like a death row thing. SHREEN: Oh, that’s true … LOUISE: Like eating your last meal. ANNA: That’s right. And it makes sense, I think, if you think about that. You know you’re not going to have something again, so you want to make the most of it in that moment. And ultimately that’s what it’s about. I think that’s kind of clear. But she didn’t understand that, she was sort of like “I don’t like this intense, this hostile approach”. And I’m like, you ARE intense and hostile.  LOUISE: How is that intense and hostile? I’ve not ever read the ten principles of intuitive eating and thought “gosh, that’s angry”. I mean, gosh. Visit the internet, really (all laugh). ANNA: I think she is the, again, the epitome diet culture, and she is the hostile one. Think about the Biggest Loser, she is very aggressive and in-your-face, pushing her clients. So, here she talks about it all being about self-control and willpower, and I think that’s missing the point of intuitive eating completely as well. LOUISE: She just can’t … SHREEN: She doesn’t understand. If she’d read the book, she would understand there’s science behind it as well, if she … LOUISE: I don’t think if she read the book she would understand.  SHREEN: Yeah (laughs) ANNA: I picked up on that too, she’s [inaudible]. LOUISE: She almost yelled “You do not permission to eat”. Which was quite scary. SHREEN: Because I think that reflects her inner narrative. That’s what’s going on in her head. LOUISE: Yeah. Not … not relaxed, that’s for sure. That response to the third point was quite unhinged. ANNA: And like you said, relating the food to credit cards or smoking, that’s a completely different thing. I don’t think … you know, food is something that we rely on, like biologically … SHREEN: We need food to survive, we need food … and intuitive eating is about healing your relationship to food, it’s about having a healthy relationship to food, and you can’t have that if you’re restricting foods. That’s why it’s really important to give yourself unconditional permission to eat. And yeah, it is scary. Of course. It’s scary when you’ve come from that mentality, but it’s the only way for food to lose its power. ANNA: Yeah. And I think it may be a good point to think about how it’s helpful to be handheld through that process. It can sound really scary to somebody who’s new to it, or who hasn’t delved into intuitive eating too much, or worked with a coach or therapist or something. Maybe working with a. dietitian on this would be really helpful. I understand how it can feel like that lack of control, but I think that’s a period that sometimes is part of that healing process. When you let go of the restriction, and allow yourself full unconditional permission to eat, then you might explore some of those foods that were off-limits for a period. And it might feel like you are diving into them a lot. But … LOUISE: Which is perfectly normal. SHREEN: Yeah. LOUISE: The last supper effect … like, that actually, now I remember. The ‘last supper’ effect, it is the paper by Herman and Polivy, “Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we diet”. That’s the ‘last supper’ effect. It’s a perfectly normal psychological response to restriction is to eat more. And the difference between that and going into massive credit card debt is if you keep giving yourself permission to eat, if you keep reminding yourself that the food’s always there, it’s perfectly safe and I’m allowed to eat it, you will naturally settle down when you get food safety. Eating is totally different to compulsive spending on credit cards. I think she’s just … a lot of people freak out when they let go of dieting and get into that all-or-nothing pattern with eating, but there’s like … a real difference between being in an all-or-nothing pattern of eating and adopting intuitive eating and going through that first phase of eating all the food. It’s just different, and its’ not pathological. It’s a normal response to restriction that obviously … she is so restricted and terrified of that. ANNA: It’s all about control, isn’t it? And I think that, you know, talking about the 1200-1600 calories, and I think she refers to that 1600 calories as something you should never, ever go over. So, as a woman, we’re meant to live our lives constantly not going above that. SHREEN: And it’s such a dangerous message. It’s just not enough food, at all. And it’s … and that’s what she’s selling to people, as well … LOUISE: She’s more like ‘honour your restriction’. SHREEN: Yeah! ANNA: We could reverse all of this and create a Jillian Michaels plan. LOUISE: The non-intuitive eating principles. Accept diet culture … what’s the second one? ANNA: Honour your hunger … don’t honour your hunger. LOUISE: Ignore your hunger. SHREEN: Ignore your hunger, yeah. LOUISE: Number three, you do not have permission to eat (all laugh). Alright, principle four? ANNA: Principle four is ‘challenge the food police’. LOUISE: Okay, so hers would be ‘obey the food police’. SHREEN: I don’t think she really understands that she is the food police. When she’s going through it? Like she is … the food police are all the things she’s already talked about. 1200 calories, 1600 calories, these are things that are the food police. ANNA: These are the rules. SHREEN: She doesn’t understand that principle at all. ANNA: The one thing that she said that I did agree with her on was “don’t beat yourself up”. I think she says it in a different way, she means it in a different way, because she kind of adds on and says, “don’t beat yourself up, but don’t fuck up”. Oh sorry. LOUISE:  Please, swear. ANNA: She says, not quite like that, but “maintain balance, it’s all about balance”. And don’t … SHREEN: And self-control. ANNA: So, “don’t beat yourself up, but just don’t do it”, sort of thing. SHREEN: Or, “you can do better”. She always says that, “you can do better”. ANNA: Yeah, so that message is like, it’s still that sort of shaming approach. SHREEN: Condescending. LOUISE: It makes no sense whatsoever. ANNA: But don’t beat yourself up, I mean, that’s important. LOUISE: You know what, ‘don’t beat yourself up’ means she knows people are not going to be able to do it.  ANNA: That’s a good point, yeah. Yeah, which she talks about the… LOUISE: … about going straight back to jail. ANNA: She talks about the stats, which is interesting. She brings up the stats. LOUISE: Oh, the stats. Yeah, that bit made me itchy. ANNA: That’s coming. It’s coming. The next one is ‘discover the satisfaction factor’, which I think she was actually in agreement with. SHREEN: Yeah, that one … she was saying, food for pleasure … I think that one was almost okay. ANNA: Like wow, okay, we agree. And then six was ‘feel your fullness’. And what came up here was again, it was just clear she hasn’t read the book because she didn’t understand that concept at all. LOUISE: She probably doesn’t know what fulness feels like. SHREEN: And then she started talking about how it’s in your head, and kind of went off … even I got a little bit lost with what she was saying. Like, “oh, we’re on fullness principle? I thought we were …” ANNA: She was kind of saying, yeah, she was kind of saying that if you’re not listening to your body, you’re not picking up your fullness levels, there’s something messed up in your head. And I was thinking, you know what? Sometimes I eat food and I’m quite satisfied physically but I’m still eating because the food’s really good, or I don’t want to … I’m eating in company and I don’t want to finish the meal and want to show that I’ve appreciated it … SHREEN: That’s the thing with intuitive eating, that it’s not the ‘hunger/fullness’ diet. And eating past fullness is normal. It’s totally okay. And it’s not just about eating, you know, getting in touch with your fullness signals. It’s about eating foods that give you pleasure and satisfaction. ANNA: Which is the ‘discover the satisfaction factor’. SHREEN: Which is the next one, but yeah. (sighs). LOUISE: God. So, if you can’t feel fullness, there’s something psychologically wrong with you.  ANNA: That’s the message that she’s giving, yeah. SHREEN: But not understanding that if you’re dieting or especially if you’re only eating those dangerous amount of calories a day, you’re going to be absolutely … LOUISE: You mean, like an adult [inaudible] SHREEN: (laughs). Absolutely starving and of course you’re not going to feel your fullness. But there’s nothing wrong with you, it’s just your body. Your body is doing exactly what it is meant to do. It needs food. ANNA: She doesn’t see that 1200-1600 calories as a restriction. She sees it as like … SHREEN: That’s her normal. ANNA: That’s food, that’s what you’re allowed during the day. LOUISE: So depressing. ANNA: Pretty sure I eat double or triple that. LOUISE: Oh, my goodness. ANNA: So, we’re at number seven. We’re still only … oh, over halfway. ‘Cope with your emotions with kindness’.  SHREEN: I think the thing is … LOUISE: That doesn’t really bring her to my mind. SHREEN: Yeah. She kind of goes “oh, yeah, I agree with this, but it shouldn’t just be one paragraph …”. And I’m like YES, there’s a BOOK. A book! There’s a whole book to go with this.  ANNA: She clearly seems to think it’s just this very basic, you know, overview … SHREEN: Guidelines. ANNA: Yeah, just these ten principles. She hasn’t read the book; she doesn’t know who wrote it. LOUISE: No, but this one really shat me to tears. Because this is where she’s saying that she’s had some childhood history with being maybe fractionally larger than someone else and has had to do, like … basically what she’s saying is that if you cannot lose weight and keep it off forever, that is your psychological fault. SHREEN: Yep. LOUISE: You haven’t done the work in therapy to fix your seemingly not thin body. Which is like, such a load of bullshit. And just unscientific and not sound whatsoever. And like you were saying before, people … she doesn’t understand that food is a relationship, and it’s a complex relationship. And the refusal to see anything other than like … she doesn’t even mention hunger as a reason to eat. Anything other than eating to a calorie control, anything else is incorrect. And we eat for an infinite amount of reasons and all of them make sense. And that’s what I love about intuitive eating, it doesn’t pathologise eating. It doesn’t pathologise hunger, it doesn’t pathologise fullness, and it doesn’t pathologise emotions as a reason to eat. And she clearly is. Seeing the function of how wonderful sometimes binge eating is as a way of protecting yourself from [inaudible] stuff. There’s no pathologizing in intuitive eating, but she’s full of pathologizing thinking that even to read statements like this, it doesn’t sink in. ANNA: She’s oversimplifying the whole thing; she doesn’t understand it at all. And this is where she moves into talking about the percentage of people that are successful versus not successful at diets. SHREEN: So, she acknowledges that 95-98% of diets fail. Is this where she starts talking about the Biggest Loser? ANNA: Yeah. SHREEN: She then starts talking about how the Biggest Loser, there’s a 30% extra success rate if you follow the Biggest Loser method. LOUISE: Really? SHREEN: Yeah. ANNA: So, she basically says, she acknowledges that the studies are very clear that 95% of people are unable to sustain a diet or sustain that weight loss, not a diet. But she says that actually on the Biggest Loser it’s only 65% of people that fail. So actually … SHREEN: So, she’s basically saying “we’ve got this success rate, if you do this …” LOUISE: Which study is this published in? Because the only study I’ve read from season 1 which is the … ANNA: The six-year study? SHREEN: The six year, yeah, really interesting. LOUISE: There were 16 people, and 14 of them regained. I don’t think that equates to 65%. Am I …? ANNA: I don’t know but even so … no, she says 35. So, 30% more than … she says 30%, 35% are successful. SHREEN: But even the fact that she’s now saying that 95-98% of diets fail, and she acknowledges that, but all that she’s been talking about is dieting. Diet the whole way through. She’s just completely contradicting herself. ANNA: Not only is it that they don’t work, but she continues to spruik it, continues to say that it’s possible, and if you do it her way, the Biggest Loser way … they did 7 hours of exercise a day, with gruelling regimes and being pushed and yelled at … LOUISE: And they all put the weight back on. ANNA: They put the weight back on. SHREEN: yeah. LOUISE: And their resting metabolic rate was screwed, six years later. SHREEN: Yeah, 700 calories it decreased by. They lost lean body mass, their fasting glucose increased, their blood sugar levels, yeah. They were the main things. But the fact that their metabolic rate decreased by such a large amount … especially where we were saying, she’s telling people to only eat 1200 calories but then you’re going to follow the Biggest Loser method, your metabolic rate’s going to drop by 700 calories, then what are you going to do? LOUISE: So, she lied about the stats on the Biggest Loser, and she’s not even talking to people about the metabolic impact. Because that study was fascinating, and I talk to clients about it. Because they predicted, the researchers predicted how much their resting metabolic rate would be dropped by …  ANNA: And what did they … LOUISE: And they found out it was even lower. So, they were worse off metabolically than they had predicted six years later. No one expected it to last that long, to have such a devastating impact. ANNA: Yeah, so it’s like a continued effect. It hasn’t regained back to before, pre … LOUISE: Exactly. And when stuff like that is suppressed, we know people are going to experience intense hunger, which of course you can’t honour. SHREEN: And the thing is, again, she’s completely misquoted this study herself but if she’d done her research she would know that there’s been over a hundred studies on intuitive eating that have been done that show you have better body image, higher esteem, improved metabolism, decreased rates of disordered and emotional eating, diminished stress levels and increased satisfaction with life. That’s over a hundred studies on intuitive eating that have been done. ANNA: And I’m pretty sure that you couldn’t say the same, with all of those positive effects, with dieting. LOUISE:  No, especially the ones that use her supplements, which show that everyone puts the weight back on. And the Biggest Loser study, everyone puts the weight back on … but let’s not focus on whether or not the weight comes back on. It’s actually the damage to the body and the metabolic systems that’s just absent from her rant. SHREEN: And not even the psychological damage, that’s not even mentioned. LOUISE: She’s evidence of the psychological damage. SHREEN: Yeah. That is true, yeah. ANNA: So, the next one is … principle eight, respect your body. LOUISE: Oh, fuck. ANNA: So, I think going back to when she spoke about size 16 always equalling healthiness, I think that shows that she doesn’t have respect for all bodies. And that kind of bothers me a bit. SHREEN. A bit. A lot. ANNA: It’s a big part of like, you know, our approach here and being a Health at Every Size® professional, you know? It’s about honouring and understanding and respecting that all bodies are different and need something different. SHREEN: And that you can’t tell somebody’s health by their body size, and that’s such … it’s a huge misconception as it is, let alone, I mean, Jillian Michaels saying this and it’s just … ANNA: Yeah, and just recognising that bodies are diverse, and they will do different things. Your health looks different at different points in your life. What you need changes day to day, and only your body really knows. You know? No external source, no trainer, no Jillian Michaels, no Dr Oz, nobody knows your body. SHREEN: And the whole principle of respecting your body is about being kind to yourself and compassionate and self-care, which is the complete opposite of Jillian Michaels. Like, she is just not kind. She’s not compassionate. She’s just shaming, judgemental, mean. Like … yeah. She’s … I just don’t think she even understands the word ‘respect’, quite frankly. LOUISE: Unless it’s like ‘respect my authority”. SHREEN: Yeah. ANNA: Something I noticed too, that came up before, was that because she’s so invested in it … have you heard of the concept of religion, like dieting? The religion of dieting? She’s so completely invested in it, she’s almost not willing to look the other way, or explore that there might be some truth in this, because she’s so invested, like financially and that’s her way of living … LOUISE: It’s her identity. ANNA: Exactly. LOUISE: It’s interesting, isn’t it? I think Alan Levinovitz, ‘The Gluten Lie’ … ANNA: That’s the guy. LOUISE: He talks about this, the religion of diet mentality. She is definitely the Pope. SHREEN: Quote of the day (all laugh). ANNA: So, then we come into ‘movement, feel the difference’. Which is principle nine. SHREEN: I think this one really got us fired up, didn’t it? ANNA: Well, the first thing that she said was like, “what is this? I don’t know what this ‘militant exercise’ even means”. LOUISE: That’s so funny (all laugh). ANNA: Like, really? Are you sure? LOUISE: She’s like, world-famous on memes for [inaudible]. I think I even did a presentation once where I used her with her finger in her face at someone as a demonstration of militant exercise. ANNA: Yeah, the kind of exercise that you don’t want to do if you want to have a sustainable relationship with movement. LOUISE: Yeah, your name’s on the t-shirt, love. SHREEN: Just telling people in this thing that, you know, this myth that’s just not true – ‘no pain, no gain’, that only hard exercise counts, it’s just utter rubbish. All movement counts, it doesn’t matter what it is. From playing with your kids, to hoovering, to dancing around your living room. LOUISE: Hoovering doesn’t count, I don’t even know what hoovering is … ANNA: She’s talking about hoovering, the hoover … SHREEN: Vacuuming, is that more Aussie? LOUISE: No, I don’t understand. (all laugh). SHREEN: But like, movement can be anything and you get the exact same health benefits from any type of regular movement, doesn’t matter what it is. But what she’s just trying to … she’s just bringing movement and aesthetics, that’s what she’s talking about. She’s talking about … ANNA: That’s a really good point, because if she was really interested in somebody’s health, then any kind of movement would be accessible, you know, like … SHREEN: Beneficial. ANNA: Helpful, yeah. SHREEN: Your blood markers, and stress levels, and sleep, it doesn’t matter what it is, it has the same health benefits. But she’s not talking about health. She’s talking about the way you look. ANNA: Yeah. She’s talking about ‘results’ a lot, and “if you want to get results fast” … because you know, let’s face it, she says “if you’re coming to look at intuitive eating, you’re trying to lose weight, you’re trying to get results fast.” LOUISE: Jillian! ANNA: “You’ve got to do a certain type of exercise, and my programs do that”. So, a little bit of spruiking her own programs too. SHREEN: What she doesn’t realise that she’s doing is having that negative relationship with exercise is not going to make people want to do it.  LOUISE: She doesn’t care about that. SHREEN: She’s the reason why people don’t want to go to the gym, or they hate exercise, because of people like Jillian Michaels. ANNA: Yeah, it’s that fitness trauma that you were talking about before. And what I recognise here, at the studio at Haven, community … in my experience, community has always been really powerful in building that sustainable and healthful relationship with movement. Joy and … SHREEN: And it’s that you enjoy, you [inaudible]. ANNA: And to want to come back, too. And that militant approach might work well for someone who responds to that but maybe for a short time. And then that motivation kind of wanes. And then it’s always trying to get back the motivation, you hear that a lot in fitness culture. But if you’re not coming at it from external, an external place, for external purposes, and it’s more about the … SHREEN: The way it makes you feel, using it as a tool for self-care rather than punishment … ANNA: Your mental health, having fun with your friends, it’s a completely different experience to being yelled at by Jillian Michaels. SHREEN: Her whole thing is yelling at people, making them feel guilty, punishing them. Like, and that’s just not what people need in a fitness professional. They need someone who is kind and compassionate and she’s just … that’s just not her, unfortunately. She’s just giving … ANNA: What is she? She’s the Pope of … the religion of dieting. She’s also the epitome of diet culture. She’s all of those things. And then the last principle is gentle nutrition, principle ten. LOUISE: I think this actually blew up her brain. SHREEN: Yeah, because she couldn’t understand the whole diet … principle one, principle ten … LOUISE: She couldn’t figure out how that fits with unconditional permission to eat. Because of course, if you have unconditional permission to eat, you’re going to stick your face into a burger for the rest of your life.  ANNA: Yeah, so again she thinks it’s all just endless eating. LOUISE: She’s stuck in that ‘all or nothing’ mentality. ANNA: Exactly, yeah. SHREEN: It’s funny, because she talks about that ‘black and white, all or nothing’ mentality and not understanding that’s exactly what she’s saying. Yeah. ANNA: Yeah, and again it came up just very, very clear that she hasn’t read the book, she doesn’t really know what she’s talking about. SHREEN: Yeah, I think that’s the main … ANNA: This is when she said, you know, “it’s probably written by someone who has just really been hurt by diet culture and probably had an eating disorder, and, you know, probably just some random” and actually … LOUISE: Such a shame that she didn’t actually look at the author. SHREEN: Yeah, just even look up to who they were. Yeah. ANNA: It’s a little bit disappointing because you’d think somebody who has such a following, I think, has such a … I think there’s a moral obligation in a way to represent something that … when you have such a big following and you’re sharing something that can affect people deeply … SHREEN: It’s what we say, that she’s really coming from that dieting mentality and all that sort of shaming that she doesn’t understand that intuitive eating at its core is a self-care model. It’s very compassionate and she doesn’t understand that. Also. with intuitive eating, we’re not saying that it’s a solution for everybody. Everyone has the right to do what they want with their body. She just doesn’t understand the concept at all, what it stands for. ANNA: It’s like she’s on such a different planet, and it’s not … doesn’t come across as open to exploring that this might be something that really serves people. SHREEN: Yeah, and that it’s having such a positive impact. We talked about earlier with the … ANNA: Feeling a bit threatened by the impact on her, you know, her … LOUISE: To her bottom line. I also think that, I mean, if she really is undernourished to that point that she has restricted her entire life, one of the things that happens when you’re weight supressed is cognitive rigidity. ANNA: That’s a really good point. LOUISE: So, it’s quite hard to be flexible. We see that a lot with people who are suffering in the depths of Anorexia, that you simply cannot think. And perhaps there’s an element of that that’s happening here. ANNA: That’s really interesting. SHREEN: That’s a really good point. Because what dieting, that kind of restriction is doing to you … LOUISE: Well, it gives her massive benefits. Huge amounts of recognition, it gives her income. She can’t think out of it. So, there’s not a lot of reason for her, like … I think the reason for putting up that video wasn’t a genuine exploration of “what’s this thing called ‘intuitive eating’?”.  SHREEN: It was just to … LOUISE: It was just to kind of … ANNA: Debunk it. LOUISE: To debunk it and keep hold of her customer base. Look, let’s assume that she is interested in the book. Jillian Michael’s house is in Malibu, California. I reckon we just whack a copy in an envelope, address it to her, maybe she’ll read it. ANNA: Do you think?  LOUISE: Yeah? I don’t know. Maybe if all of our listeners whack a copy into an envelope … SHREEN: Yeah!  LOUISE: 20 copies, please read. Maybe. SHREEN: Maybe, yeah. LOUISE: But I don’t think that was anything other than a … it’s quite interesting, I’m seeing this more and more. The famous people, the people who have really invested in diet culture, even the obesity researchers and all of that. They’re all kind of getting a little bit nervous about this pushback. SHREEN: They should be. LOUISE: It makes me feel warm and fuzzy. SHREEN: It’s time. LOUISE: It’s got nothing to do with the champagne. I think the celebs are getting nervous, like “what do you mean, people in larger bodies are okay with themselves just the way they are?”. And finding non weight-loss things to look after themselves, oh my gosh. What a huge, horrible threat. So, we’re not sorry, Jillian, that we made you nervous. ANNA: Agreed. I hope it gives her a little bit of food for thought (all laugh). LOUISE: I don’t know how many calories would be attached to that thought (all laugh). ANNA: I have to say, like, the thing that I think fires me up the most is how fatphobic she is. SHREEN: And how much harm … that’s the thing that fired me up the most, how much harm she’s causing people out there. And having had an eating disorder myself, it’s just … LOUISE: Horrible. You can see how triggering it is. SHREEN: I can see what it can do, yeah. That’s what fires me up. LOUISE: and let’s not forget when we say fatphobic, we mean people who hate fat people. And that is really reflective … even though she is professing “oh, I’m going to love you … but you’re unhealthy so change”. That’s troubling. Using health as a halo, an excuse or a reason for my core treatment of you just based on your appearance. And that’s just … those days are done. You can’t do that anymore. It’s just not cool. And I do wonder if there is like a Biggest Loser university somewhere?  ANNA: Michelle Bridges went to it as well. LOUISE: Because the same kind of hatred of fat people, you know … again, like masked with a thin layer of concern trolling for your health was Michelle Bridges’ thing. Four years ago, when she was on Australian Story and she was saying “I’m yet to meet someone who is morbidly obese and happy”. So, for people who are listening from overseas, Michelle Bridges is the Australian version of Jillian Michaels. And what an awful comment. So, Jillian has been pushed back against from this video, right? Michelle was pushed back against from this video too, with really clear … I know we all live in a bubble, but with quite a lot of push back. ANNA: That’s good. Was she on … was that on like Australian primetime TV? SHREEN: She was on Australian Story. LOUISE: Yeah [inaudible] … it shows how deeply she feels [inaudible] about people she’s profiting from. Putting them through three cycles a year of 1200 calorie program and she knows it doesn’t work. But the thing is, what they do is they double down. People like this double down, when they’re called out, when there’s a pushback. Instead of kind of opening up and say, “okay, I should probably issue an apology, maybe take the video down, maybe do some work”. They’re not doing that. Jillian’s not doing that. ANNA: I think she just keeps responding. And she’s just responding with the same rhetoric, so she’s not … SHREEN: I think she kind of comments that [inaudible], to learn about it more, which is a shame. ANNA: And how did Michele Bridges respond? LOUISE: Doubled down on it. About health, “I care deeply about health”. ANNA: The whole thing with health and weight, this is what really frustrates me about it too. If she’s really interested in health, she could support all the behaviours that support someone’s health. LOUISE: Too complicated. Remember? Too complicated. Anything that actually involves having to think about something other than my own diet plan … ANNA: It makes me realise how happy I’ve become in moving away from all this, that’s why I got away from it. Because I learned about how there’s another way. Intuitive eating, Health at Every Size®, the body positivity movement … I started delving into it and it just felt so triggering being around other fitness professionals from the traditional approach. And this here, I’ve got to say, got me so fired up. I’m going to be fired up for a while from this. SHREEN: We talk about fitness trauma, and Jillian Michaels is causing that. LOUISE: May she go the way of the dinosaurs and … (all laugh). ANNA: Well, hopefully there will be less and less of her to be seen in the future and more and more of kind of this messaging coming up, challenging … LOUISE: Absolutely, I absolutely think that’s going to happen. You’ve just reminded me actually, she … because Jillian, earlier in the year before she posted the nasty intuitive eating thing, she said something nasty about Lizzo. SHREEN: Yeah, of course.  ANNA: That sounds familiar … SHREEN: Yeah. That was before …  LOUISE: A little while before, I don’t know. It’s Covid, none of us have a timeline. ANNA: She’s said some pretty horrendous things. SHREEN: Really horrendous things yeah. LOUISE: Again, like … “she’s clearly going to get diabetes” or something? ANNA: I think she said something along the lines of “there’s nothing sexy about diabetes”, or clogged arteries or something.  SHREEN: Something like that, yeah. ANNA: How can she … that’s so inappropriate. Lizzo’s bouncing away on stage. She’s got stamina, she’s got energy.  SHREEN: We don’t know anything about her or her health. ANNA: And why do we have to talk about that anyway? She’s this amazing performer and doing this really cool stuff. It’s wonderful to see some diverse bodies out there that are getting out there as much as the other, the thin ideal that you see everywhere. LOUISE: Yeah, the comments that she made were like “why are we talking about Lizzo’s body, we should be talking about her music”. ANNA: So, she said that? LOUISE: Yeah. ANNA: But then … LOUISE: And it’s really funny, because she’s saying that we shouldn’t be talking about Lizzo’s body, but her entire website is full of shots of her body. ANNA: Yeah, and that’s her thing. SHREEN: That’s her thing, yeah. ANNA: She’s always talking about people’s bodies. Size 16, yeah. SHREEN: Yeah, non-stop. LOUISE: The point I’m making is that you don’t say that about Lizzo. And the pushback she got after she made that comment? This is the future Jillian. Lizzo is setting the world on fire.  ANNA: We need more Lizzo. SHREEN: We need more Lizzo. LOUISE: and you are the biggest loser. ANNA: Well put. LOUISE: Oh my god, let’s finish on a high note. Thank you, guys, that was an elegant unpacking of Jillian Michael’s ten principles of not understanding intuitive eating (all laugh). And how firmly we can steer the ship to this new awesome way of looking after our body. ANNA: Thank you. SHREEN: Thank you.  Resources Mentioned: (Watch if you can stomach) Jillian Michaels' Igno-rant on Youtube Urbszat, Dax, C. Peter Herman, and Janet Polivy. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we diet: Effects of anticipated deprivation on food intake in restrained and unrestrained eaters." Journal of abnormal psychology 111.2 (2002): 396. News article about 4 lawsuits against Jillian Michaels for her weight loss pills Fothergill, Erin, et al. "Persistent metabolic adaptation 6 years after “The Biggest Loser” competition." Obesity 24.8 (2016): 1612-1619. Alan Levinovitz's The Gluten Lie Find out more about Anna Hearn & Haven Find out more about Shreen El Masry and Be You Be Free  

There's nothing more infuriating than when people throw shade at the anti-diet perspective without bothering to actually research it. When "The Biggest Loser" trainer/shameless fatphobe Jillian Michaels arrogantly released a Youtube clip trashing the 10 principles of intuitive eating, WITHOUT EVEN READING THE BOOK, she REALLY pi***ed off the community! And none more so than my guests, anti-diet fitness trainers Anna Hearn and Shreen El Masry, who have been dying to come on the podcast and set the record straight! Finally the COVID window opened just a crack so I could record the very first IN PERSON podcast! Join us as we dissect Jillian's often hilarious inability to comprehend a life beyond diet prison. WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS 'PERMISSION TO EAT!!' It seems the lady doth protest too much - could it be that the Queen of Diet Prison is sensing the paradigm-shifting power of the anti-diet revolution? That's right folks, the unrivalled reign of Biggest Loser-esque terror is over!! Vive La Difference! Please note - this episode comes with a hefty side serve of calorie count discussions, so if you're in recovery from an eating disorder please consider your level of spoons to hear the diet talk. But, if you've had a gutful of igno-rants about anti-dieting, it's time to get ALL FIRED UP! Show Transcript:   LOUISE: So, here I am with Anna and Shreen. Thank you so much for coming on the show. ANNA: Thank you for having us. SHREEN: Yeah, thank you so much. LOUISE: It’s so exciting to be alive with actual humans in the room, and slightly weird. Why don’t you guys tell me all about what is firing you up? ANNA: We’re really fired up about Jillian Michaels and her aggressive fatphobic rant on intuitive eating. LOUISE: (sighs) First of all, I have to say I love how you say ‘rant’, it’s very proper and awesome. But yes, Jillian Michaels – Biggest Loser trainer in the United States. Horrendously fatphobic. ANNA: Yeah, I mean … she got her living, she makes her living from shaming fat bodies. I think that tells a lot about her character and where she’s going to go with her intuitive eating rant. LOUISE: So, she was on the Biggest Loser for years and years and years. Her website … well, she’s touting herself as the world’s best trainer. Like, the biggest expert in the world on all things fitness. Which, well … this is just a hunch, but I could find people on the planet who are more qualified. ANNA: Well, if you want to break down her qualifications, I think it looks like she’s done a couple of personal training qualifications, a couple of fitness qualifications and … SHREEN: One ‘woo woo’ nutrition qualification. ANNA: There is a nutrition qualification there too, but it doesn’t look like there’s any degrees or anything. So, when it comes to intuitive eating and looking at all of that, when we go into it you’ll realise, I think, that she hasn’t really done her research. She doesn’t understand it. And I think it’s interesting that somebody without that nutrition background or lived experience with that sort of thing talks about it the way that she does. SHREEN: I think as well, not only does she come across really aggressive and shaming, also I think her insecurity is really coming out in this video. Intuitive eating is a movement that’s really starting to take off, and she’s clearly threatened by it. You can see her defence mechanism is up, and she’s … you know, really, just … her demeanour is just awful. LOUISE: It's hard to tell, though, if her demeanour’s just awful because she’s defensive or because her demeanour’s just awful. SHREEN: Yeah, that’s true. ANNA: I kind of picked up on that and thought she was sensing a threat because intuitive eating is becoming more mainstream, people are becoming more aware of it. So that could threaten what she does, because she makes a living forcing people to lose weight. LOUISE: So, during the 90’s and the early 2000’s, like … it was a free-for-all with bullying people with larger bodies, as we saw. World-wide, the Biggest Loser was the number one show, and everyone thought it was okay. So, she’s had this unfettered ability to be horrible about body size and really belittling of people in larger bodies. And now, I think she’s realising it’s not okay to keep on doing that. ANNA: The backlash about it. LOUISE: So, just to set the stage. What we’re seeing … because I did see the internet blow up. It was a while ago now, but let’s face it - we’ve all been in iso and unable to talk to each other. So, she has like a YouTube channel and one of her YouTube little presentations - I don’t watch what she does, just for my own mental health - but this one was Jillian Michaels talking about intuitive eating. Which, oh my god … let’s just get Donald Trump talking about sexism. ANNA: That’s a great analogy. SHREEN: She’s basically, I think she’s just gone on the website and just pulled up the principles without doing any research into it or even understanding there’s over a hundred studies done on intuitive eating and there’s a whole book as well. She just went on there, read out these principles and gave her, I guess, her opinion.  ANNA: It became really clear that she hasn’t taken the time to understand it. She hasn’t learnt about the authors; you’ll see as she comes to the end of it, she talks about assuming that it was written by somebody who had just had some bad experience with diet culture, maybe had an eating disorder LOUISE: Oh my god, that’s so disrespectful SHREEN: So disrespectful. ANNA: No understanding or bothering to explore that the authors are actually dietitians who had come up with this approach because they had done so much work with clients who had struggled a lot and this is what they’d learnt from working with them over years and years. LOUISE: These are the gurus. Like, Tribole and Resch, they wrote the initial book Intuitive Eating and it’s just been updated, which is fantastic. But even that, even their book which is written from that perspective of helping people recover from eating disorders, that book is built on another big long history of social justice and fat activism. To not recognise that intuitive eating is part of a social movement and like, the way she presented it is like, she just stumbled across a webpage and … oh my god. ANNA: Definitely, yeah. And it came across very, very condescending. I felt really bothered … SHREEN: It’s so harmful, as well. That was the thing that really bothered me the most, was how much … I mean, she causes so much harm anyway, but the message was just next level harm. And if anyone was watching that and had no idea, the things that she was saying … yeah, it’s just not on. LOUISE: Oh god, yikes. So, we thought we would unpick Jillian Michael’s feelpinion to each of the ten principles of intuitive eating. And you guys have written some awesomely detailed notes. ANNA: We had a really good chat about it. LOUISE: Fantastic. But I’m so interested, because you guys both work in this industry as HAES® positive, body inclusive, weight neutral trainers hearing from almost like the personification of diet culture woman. SHREEN: She is the reason why people have so much fitness trauma and so much negative association with fitness. She’s causing that. ANNA: She is the epitome of diet culture. SHREEN: Yeah, she is the epitome of diet culture, for sure. ANNA: And I think we chatted about this as we were hanging out one day, and we just came across this as a topic that fired both of us up. And it’s frustrating when you see … when you’re so heavily involved in this space, and the HAES® space, and the body inclusive space, it can be … and luckily for me working here at Haven, this is the space I come to work every day. So, I’m not exposed to traditional diet culture unless I stumble across it or it’s brought to my attention. So, I couldn’t help but just be really quite wild about this. LOUISE: I love it. I mean, I don’t love that you’re wild, but I kind of do. But, yeah. It’s nice to know that in this industry there are people who feel really strongly about just putting an end to this. She’s what’s wrong with the fitness industry at the moment, and you guys are the future. And I think she can smell that. So, I think, like I … I managed to watch it and still shaking with rage but thank you for this glass of champagne. ANNA: I don’t think we could do this without a little bit of champagne. SHREEN: No, we need some bubbles. LOUISE: The first thing she starts with, so she’s actually going through all the principles. SHREEN:  Correct. LOUISE: Why don’t you give me the lowdown on your reaction. ANNA: Let’s kick off. So, she does go through the points one by one, and the first principle is ‘reject the diet mentality’. And I just want to point out a few things that came up for me that were just so apparent throughout. Her fatphobia is so clear. She’s driven, everything she says, and her approach is all drive by this. And I think she’s very ignorant, like she doesn’t see that there’s an issue with this. She comes form that space where it’s very normalised to shame fat bodies, it’s not okay to be in a bigger body. And she very clearly associates weight and health, they’re so closely tied, which I think it really problematic, obviously. So, in this ‘reject diet mentality’, what came up for you, Shreen? SHREEN: Well, the first thing for me was that she couldn’t distinguish a difference between fad diets and what dieting is, and diet culture. She’s like, “oh you know, if it’s fad diets we’re talking about yeah, yeah sure”, but this is a woman who has sold supplements in the past. LOUISE: She’s sold fad diets. SHREEN: She’s sold fad diets. And she is diet culture, so I guess she can’t … she doesn’t understand what diet culture actually is and why it’s so important to reject it. I mean, diet culture in the US alone is worth 70 billion dollars. ANNA:  She profits off it. SHREEN: She profits off everyone’s insecurities. So, she was just like, “reject diet culture? What’s this, what does this mean?”. And I really did sense there that her insecurity is coming out there because that is her, that’s how she makes her money. ANNA: Well that’s it, she’s really incentivised to support diet culture.  LOUISE: But the distinction that she made between “well, if it’s fad, but if it’s proper” … it just made me laugh, because she’s had no less than four separate lawsuits … ANNA:  Jillian? SHREEN: Yeah. LOUISE: Launched against her by her consumers who bought her caffeine-fuelled diet pills. ANNA: Which I think she might have … there might have been something on the Biggest Loser where she gave them to contestants unfairly, apparently, as well. LOUISE: Oh my god, scandal on the Biggest Loser. Like … ANNA: Well, the other thing that came up for me there was she said, “what is this, healthy at any size?”, and that’s immediately a red flag representing that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She hasn’t researched this because … I can understand it’s very easy to misconstrue Health At Every Size® for healthy at every size, but it’s quite a different meaning and that assumption that, you know, just assuming that we’re saying as a Health at Every Size® professional that all bodies are healthy, that’s not where we’re aiming. We’re talking about people being able to pursue health regardless of shape and size. LOUISE: Or, also, we’re talking about the choice not to pursue health and to be left the fuck alone. SHREEN: Yeah, there’s no moral obligation. If people want to do so, then it’s up to them. It shouldn’t be … they shouldn’t have to do it if they don’t want to, but that’s what diet culture is saying. ANNA: Your body, your rules. SHREEN: And this part of her rant really, really … we know that she’s incredibly fatphobic and she fat shames, but it just came out so much in that where she was again talking, talking about size 16. And she’s saying “well, you know, if you’re a size 16 of course I love you but you’re not healthy”. Which is just … LOUISE: Get fucked. SHREEN: Yeah, absolute garbage. ANNA: Yeah. And Health at Every Size® also is about respect for all bodies, and I think there is a real lack of respect in just making that assumption. You can’t tell. How does she know what someone’s health is, you know? What their metabolic functions are, their blood work, their social, mental health … you can’t tell that by someone’s size. SHREEN: Genetics, everything. There’s so much, it’s so multifaceted. LOUISE: Everything I think is just far too complicated for her. She has to actually, like … I mean, clearly, she hasn’t read anything or thought about anything. “Nope, that’s a number, that’s an assumption, and don’t challenge that”.  SHREEN: Yeah. And if someone’s watching that, I mean, how triggering. How much harm that one comment could cause somebody that could lead them down a path of dieting and to an eating disorder. ANNA: And especially if they were already vulnerable of somebody who would identify with being in a size 16, or plus. And also, size 16 is quite variable depending on which shop you shop in, you know? Where you get your clothes from. What’s a size anyway? What does it matter? SHREEN: Yeah, it doesn’t matter. LOUISE: Size is not the same as health, and she needs to pull her head in. I wonder if her YouTube videos come with a trigger warning. I don’t think they do, but they should. Because good point, you know, that she … everything she says is potentially a trigger. SHREEN: Especially the size of her audience as well, I’m worried. ANNA: She’s got a big reach still. Some of the comments though were interesting, some really great points. People were talking about intuitive eating and picking up on that she doesn’t understand it, she’s missing the point. LOUISE: That is really reassuring. ANNA: She stopped the comments, she cut them off. LOUISE: Oh no, they were too complicated. ANNA: So, the next principle is ‘honour your hunger’, and she said something pretty radical here. Well, it’s not really radical in the fitness world. These numbers get thrown around a lot. But trigger warning, there are numbers here. She says, “if you’re trying to lose weight, you can keep your body fed on as low as 1200 calories”. And that most women, especially those over, you know, relating to being a certain age, shouldn’t be eating over 1600 calories a day. SHREEN: Which is just absolutely unbelievable. She’s saying that … I mean, that’s what a toddler needs. A toddler needs 1200-1600 calories a day. LOUISE: How very dare she tell me how much I can eat, under a principle that says, ‘honour your hunger’. ANNA: She … on one hand, I’m not surprised she threw those numbers out because those numbers are thrown out all the time in the fitness world. I don’t know where … MyFitnessPal? LOUISE: Are they really? SHREEN: We were saying, MyFitnessPal may have started the whole 1200 calories thing … LOUISE: I think Michelle Bridges is guilty of that too. ANNA: Oh actually, you’re right, she had a program that was based on that. LOUISE: It’s just a nice round number, isn’t it? Let’s just pluck this out of our arse and throw that at all women. ANNA: What I find there though is that like Shreen said, it’s something that a child needs. And I just wanted to double-check that, because I’m not a nutritionist, I’m a yogi and I run a studio, but I wanted to check with somebody who does work with that. I chatted to our non-diet nutritionist Nina and she clarified that yes - this is generalisation - but that kind of number is something that would serve a child. Like, a toddler or a four, five-year-old. And then thinking about the effects of being on a low-calorie diet for a long period, things like loss of menstrual cycle, loss of bone density, fatigue, mood swings, constipation, blood sugar imbalance, stress hormones getting out of whack … SHREEN: Sex drive … ANNA: Sex drive … what did you say before? SHREEN: Dry vagina (laughs). ANNA: She didn’t mention that, did she? SHREEN: No. LOUISE: No, but that might be suffering all of them, you know? And why she’s so grouchy. ANNA: Memory fog and brain fog … memory loss and brain fog. So, these are all things that can be affected by not being adequately fed. And the better indicator of your needs are your body and your internal hunger signals. And we’re taught to … these external sources of just following this rule plan of 1200 calories a day means that if I need more than that – maybe at the time of my period especially I might need much more - and I’m just denying my natural hunger levels. LOUISE: The whole ‘per day’ thing really gives me the shits as well. SHREEN: Yeah, that’s a really good point. LOUISE: This is just a statistical method to help researchers make assumptions about nutrition. It’s not supposed to be something religiously followed. SHREEN: No, there’s no … ANNA: An individual thing, yeah. LOUISE: It’s bizarre. But, isn’t that interesting that even as she’s like, she’s trying desperately, the poor little thing to understand that this is a principle of intuitive eating but she can’t quite get there because she immediately lurches into “well, if you want to lose weight …”. I just felt like reaching through the screen and saying, “realise that intuitive eating is not a weight loss program”. ANNA: That’s half the problem, is that she clearly thinks that the only people who explore intuitive eating are going for weight loss. She says that a few times. LOUISE: Oh, she’s a scrambled egg. ANNA: Yeah. She doesn’t understand that the whole purpose of intuitive eating is more about finding a peaceful relationship with food and your body, not about trying to pursue making your body be something, a certain size. SHREEN: It’s about food freedom, it’s about having a healthy relationship with food, stopping the obsession. It’s not … it’s definitely not following these external rules. It’s about being in tune with what your body wants and needs and getting in touch with those signals. LOUISE: Different planet, I don’t think she’s visited. SHREEN: I don’t think she understands what the ‘honouring hunger’ … it’s a basic self-care need. If you’re not honouring hunger … LOUISE: Again, you’re mentioning a foreign concept here. This is someone who will happily live with a dry vagina, it doesn’t matter. SHREEN: Yep (all laugh). LOUISE: We all went there. SHREEN: She just really doesn’t understand and that is the reason why … people don’t give themselves enough food and they’re following diet plans, and they’re going to give themselves cravings leading to overeating and bingeing, and that’s perfectly normal as well. Other than ‘rejecting the diet mentality’ one of the first steps of intuitive eating is to just honour your hunger and it’s so important. It’s self-care. ANNA: It's so liberating too, if you’re been on the diet bandwagon for many, many years, to recognise that “hey, my body’s got a lot of wisdom, and it’s telling me, it’s giving me messages and I can learn how to reconnect with that”. And I think part of the common thread that comes up with what she says all the time is that … she thinks it’s all about ‘you can’t trust your body’. I think an important thing that I’ve learned is you can really learn how to trust your body. We get into this as we move into the next principle or two. It’s not about endless eating and not being able to, you know, like you’re just not going to go out of control all the time, which is what she sort of thinks. SHREEN: Point number three is that ‘unconditional permission to eat all foods’. LOUISE: She really had a problem with principle three. Like, she was visibly … SHREEN: Yeah, and she started comparing it to smoking, and credit cards, and it’s like …what are you talking about? ANNA: So yeah, this ‘make peace with food’, you’re right. And she talks about saying, talking about the ‘last supper mentality’, and she says, “I’m not religious, I don’t know what Jesus ate”. LOUISE: She really needs to read some books. ANNA: She needs to read Intuitive Eating if she’s going to talk about it. Because if she read it, she might really understand what that means. I thought it was quite clear just from the ‘last supper mentality’, don’t you think? SHREEN: You just eat everything in sight. LOUISE: I don’t even think it has religious connotations, I thought it was like a death row thing. SHREEN: Oh, that’s true … LOUISE: Like eating your last meal. ANNA: That’s right. And it makes sense, I think, if you think about that. You know you’re not going to have something again, so you want to make the most of it in that moment. And ultimately that’s what it’s about. I think that’s kind of clear. But she didn’t understand that, she was sort of like “I don’t like this intense, this hostile approach”. And I’m like, you ARE intense and hostile.  LOUISE: How is that intense and hostile? I’ve not ever read the ten principles of intuitive eating and thought “gosh, that’s angry”. I mean, gosh. Visit the internet, really (all laugh). ANNA: I think she is the, again, the epitome diet culture, and she is the hostile one. Think about the Biggest Loser, she is very aggressive and in-your-face, pushing her clients. So, here she talks about it all being about self-control and willpower, and I think that’s missing the point of intuitive eating completely as well. LOUISE: She just can’t … SHREEN: She doesn’t understand. If she’d read the book, she would understand there’s science behind it as well, if she … LOUISE: I don’t think if she read the book she would understand.  SHREEN: Yeah (laughs) ANNA: I picked up on that too, she’s [inaudible]. LOUISE: She almost yelled “You do not permission to eat”. Which was quite scary. SHREEN: Because I think that reflects her inner narrative. That’s what’s going on in her head. LOUISE: Yeah. Not … not relaxed, that’s for sure. That response to the third point was quite unhinged. ANNA: And like you said, relating the food to credit cards or smoking, that’s a completely different thing. I don’t think … you know, food is something that we rely on, like biologically … SHREEN: We need food to survive, we need food … and intuitive eating is about healing your relationship to food, it’s about having a healthy relationship to food, and you can’t have that if you’re restricting foods. That’s why it’s really important to give yourself unconditional permission to eat. And yeah, it is scary. Of course. It’s scary when you’ve come from that mentality, but it’s the only way for food to lose its power. ANNA: Yeah. And I think it may be a good point to think about how it’s helpful to be handheld through that process. It can sound really scary to somebody who’s new to it, or who hasn’t delved into intuitive eating too much, or worked with a coach or therapist or something. Maybe working with a. dietitian on this would be really helpful. I understand how it can feel like that lack of control, but I think that’s a period that sometimes is part of that healing process. When you let go of the restriction, and allow yourself full unconditional permission to eat, then you might explore some of those foods that were off-limits for a period. And it might feel like you are diving into them a lot. But … LOUISE: Which is perfectly normal. SHREEN: Yeah. LOUISE: The last supper effect … like, that actually, now I remember. The ‘last supper’ effect, it is the paper by Herman and Polivy, “Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we diet”. That’s the ‘last supper’ effect. It’s a perfectly normal psychological response to restriction is to eat more. And the difference between that and going into massive credit card debt is if you keep giving yourself permission to eat, if you keep reminding yourself that the food’s always there, it’s perfectly safe and I’m allowed to eat it, you will naturally settle down when you get food safety. Eating is totally different to compulsive spending on credit cards. I think she’s just … a lot of people freak out when they let go of dieting and get into that all-or-nothing pattern with eating, but there’s like … a real difference between being in an all-or-nothing pattern of eating and adopting intuitive eating and going through that first phase of eating all the food. It’s just different, and its’ not pathological. It’s a normal response to restriction that obviously … she is so restricted and terrified of that. ANNA: It’s all about control, isn’t it? And I think that, you know, talking about the 1200-1600 calories, and I think she refers to that 1600 calories as something you should never, ever go over. So, as a woman, we’re meant to live our lives constantly not going above that. SHREEN: And it’s such a dangerous message. It’s just not enough food, at all. And it’s … and that’s what she’s selling to people, as well … LOUISE: She’s more like ‘honour your restriction’. SHREEN: Yeah! ANNA: We could reverse all of this and create a Jillian Michaels plan. LOUISE: The non-intuitive eating principles. Accept diet culture … what’s the second one? ANNA: Honour your hunger … don’t honour your hunger. LOUISE: Ignore your hunger. SHREEN: Ignore your hunger, yeah. LOUISE: Number three, you do not have permission to eat (all laugh). Alright, principle four? ANNA: Principle four is ‘challenge the food police’. LOUISE: Okay, so hers would be ‘obey the food police’. SHREEN: I don’t think she really understands that she is the food police. When she’s going through it? Like she is … the food police are all the things she’s already talked about. 1200 calories, 1600 calories, these are things that are the food police. ANNA: These are the rules. SHREEN: She doesn’t understand that principle at all. ANNA: The one thing that she said that I did agree with her on was “don’t beat yourself up”. I think she says it in a different way, she means it in a different way, because she kind of adds on and says, “don’t beat yourself up, but don’t fuck up”. Oh sorry. LOUISE:  Please, swear. ANNA: She says, not quite like that, but “maintain balance, it’s all about balance”. And don’t … SHREEN: And self-control. ANNA: So, “don’t beat yourself up, but just don’t do it”, sort of thing. SHREEN: Or, “you can do better”. She always says that, “you can do better”. ANNA: Yeah, so that message is like, it’s still that sort of shaming approach. SHREEN: Condescending. LOUISE: It makes no sense whatsoever. ANNA: But don’t beat yourself up, I mean, that’s important. LOUISE: You know what, ‘don’t beat yourself up’ means she knows people are not going to be able to do it.  ANNA: That’s a good point, yeah. Yeah, which she talks about the… LOUISE: … about going straight back to jail. ANNA: She talks about the stats, which is interesting. She brings up the stats. LOUISE: Oh, the stats. Yeah, that bit made me itchy. ANNA: That’s coming. It’s coming. The next one is ‘discover the satisfaction factor’, which I think she was actually in agreement with. SHREEN: Yeah, that one … she was saying, food for pleasure … I think that one was almost okay. ANNA: Like wow, okay, we agree. And then six was ‘feel your fullness’. And what came up here was again, it was just clear she hasn’t read the book because she didn’t understand that concept at all. LOUISE: She probably doesn’t know what fulness feels like. SHREEN: And then she started talking about how it’s in your head, and kind of went off … even I got a little bit lost with what she was saying. Like, “oh, we’re on fullness principle? I thought we were …” ANNA: She was kind of saying, yeah, she was kind of saying that if you’re not listening to your body, you’re not picking up your fullness levels, there’s something messed up in your head. And I was thinking, you know what? Sometimes I eat food and I’m quite satisfied physically but I’m still eating because the food’s really good, or I don’t want to … I’m eating in company and I don’t want to finish the meal and want to show that I’ve appreciated it … SHREEN: That’s the thing with intuitive eating, that it’s not the ‘hunger/fullness’ diet. And eating past fullness is normal. It’s totally okay. And it’s not just about eating, you know, getting in touch with your fullness signals. It’s about eating foods that give you pleasure and satisfaction. ANNA: Which is the ‘discover the satisfaction factor’. SHREEN: Which is the next one, but yeah. (sighs). LOUISE: God. So, if you can’t feel fullness, there’s something psychologically wrong with you.  ANNA: That’s the message that she’s giving, yeah. SHREEN: But not understanding that if you’re dieting or especially if you’re only eating those dangerous amount of calories a day, you’re going to be absolutely … LOUISE: You mean, like an adult [inaudible] SHREEN: (laughs). Absolutely starving and of course you’re not going to feel your fullness. But there’s nothing wrong with you, it’s just your body. Your body is doing exactly what it is meant to do. It needs food. ANNA: She doesn’t see that 1200-1600 calories as a restriction. She sees it as like … SHREEN: That’s her normal. ANNA: That’s food, that’s what you’re allowed during the day. LOUISE: So depressing. ANNA: Pretty sure I eat double or triple that. LOUISE: Oh, my goodness. ANNA: So, we’re at number seven. We’re still only … oh, over halfway. ‘Cope with your emotions with kindness’.  SHREEN: I think the thing is … LOUISE: That doesn’t really bring her to my mind. SHREEN: Yeah. She kind of goes “oh, yeah, I agree with this, but it shouldn’t just be one paragraph …”. And I’m like YES, there’s a BOOK. A book! There’s a whole book to go with this.  ANNA: She clearly seems to think it’s just this very basic, you know, overview … SHREEN: Guidelines. ANNA: Yeah, just these ten principles. She hasn’t read the book; she doesn’t know who wrote it. LOUISE: No, but this one really shat me to tears. Because this is where she’s saying that she’s had some childhood history with being maybe fractionally larger than someone else and has had to do, like … basically what she’s saying is that if you cannot lose weight and keep it off forever, that is your psychological fault. SHREEN: Yep. LOUISE: You haven’t done the work in therapy to fix your seemingly not thin body. Which is like, such a load of bullshit. And just unscientific and not sound whatsoever. And like you were saying before, people … she doesn’t understand that food is a relationship, and it’s a complex relationship. And the refusal to see anything other than like … she doesn’t even mention hunger as a reason to eat. Anything other than eating to a calorie control, anything else is incorrect. And we eat for an infinite amount of reasons and all of them make sense. And that’s what I love about intuitive eating, it doesn’t pathologise eating. It doesn’t pathologise hunger, it doesn’t pathologise fullness, and it doesn’t pathologise emotions as a reason to eat. And she clearly is. Seeing the function of how wonderful sometimes binge eating is as a way of protecting yourself from [inaudible] stuff. There’s no pathologizing in intuitive eating, but she’s full of pathologizing thinking that even to read statements like this, it doesn’t sink in. ANNA: She’s oversimplifying the whole thing; she doesn’t understand it at all. And this is where she moves into talking about the percentage of people that are successful versus not successful at diets. SHREEN: So, she acknowledges that 95-98% of diets fail. Is this where she starts talking about the Biggest Loser? ANNA: Yeah. SHREEN: She then starts talking about how the Biggest Loser, there’s a 30% extra success rate if you follow the Biggest Loser method. LOUISE: Really? SHREEN: Yeah. ANNA: So, she basically says, she acknowledges that the studies are very clear that 95% of people are unable to sustain a diet or sustain that weight loss, not a diet. But she says that actually on the Biggest Loser it’s only 65% of people that fail. So actually … SHREEN: So, she’s basically saying “we’ve got this success rate, if you do this …” LOUISE: Which study is this published in? Because the only study I’ve read from season 1 which is the … ANNA: The six-year study? SHREEN: The six year, yeah, really interesting. LOUISE: There were 16 people, and 14 of them regained. I don’t think that equates to 65%. Am I …? ANNA: I don’t know but even so … no, she says 35. So, 30% more than … she says 30%, 35% are successful. SHREEN: But even the fact that she’s now saying that 95-98% of diets fail, and she acknowledges that, but all that she’s been talking about is dieting. Diet the whole way through. She’s just completely contradicting herself. ANNA: Not only is it that they don’t work, but she continues to spruik it, continues to say that it’s possible, and if you do it her way, the Biggest Loser way … they did 7 hours of exercise a day, with gruelling regimes and being pushed and yelled at … LOUISE: And they all put the weight back on. ANNA: They put the weight back on. SHREEN: yeah. LOUISE: And their resting metabolic rate was screwed, six years later. SHREEN: Yeah, 700 calories it decreased by. They lost lean body mass, their fasting glucose increased, their blood sugar levels, yeah. They were the main things. But the fact that their metabolic rate decreased by such a large amount … especially where we were saying, she’s telling people to only eat 1200 calories but then you’re going to follow the Biggest Loser method, your metabolic rate’s going to drop by 700 calories, then what are you going to do? LOUISE: So, she lied about the stats on the Biggest Loser, and she’s not even talking to people about the metabolic impact. Because that study was fascinating, and I talk to clients about it. Because they predicted, the researchers predicted how much their resting metabolic rate would be dropped by …  ANNA: And what did they … LOUISE: And they found out it was even lower. So, they were worse off metabolically than they had predicted six years later. No one expected it to last that long, to have such a devastating impact. ANNA: Yeah, so it’s like a continued effect. It hasn’t regained back to before, pre … LOUISE: Exactly. And when stuff like that is suppressed, we know people are going to experience intense hunger, which of course you can’t honour. SHREEN: And the thing is, again, she’s completely misquoted this study herself but if she’d done her research she would know that there’s been over a hundred studies on intuitive eating that have been done that show you have better body image, higher esteem, improved metabolism, decreased rates of disordered and emotional eating, diminished stress levels and increased satisfaction with life. That’s over a hundred studies on intuitive eating that have been done. ANNA: And I’m pretty sure that you couldn’t say the same, with all of those positive effects, with dieting. LOUISE:  No, especially the ones that use her supplements, which show that everyone puts the weight back on. And the Biggest Loser study, everyone puts the weight back on … but let’s not focus on whether or not the weight comes back on. It’s actually the damage to the body and the metabolic systems that’s just absent from her rant. SHREEN: And not even the psychological damage, that’s not even mentioned. LOUISE: She’s evidence of the psychological damage. SHREEN: Yeah. That is true, yeah. ANNA: So, the next one is … principle eight, respect your body. LOUISE: Oh, fuck. ANNA: So, I think going back to when she spoke about size 16 always equalling healthiness, I think that shows that she doesn’t have respect for all bodies. And that kind of bothers me a bit. SHREEN. A bit. A lot. ANNA: It’s a big part of like, you know, our approach here and being a Health at Every Size® professional, you know? It’s about honouring and understanding and respecting that all bodies are different and need something different. SHREEN: And that you can’t tell somebody’s health by their body size, and that’s such … it’s a huge misconception as it is, let alone, I mean, Jillian Michaels saying this and it’s just … ANNA: Yeah, and just recognising that bodies are diverse, and they will do different things. Your health looks different at different points in your life. What you need changes day to day, and only your body really knows. You know? No external source, no trainer, no Jillian Michaels, no Dr Oz, nobody knows your body. SHREEN: And the whole principle of respecting your body is about being kind to yourself and compassionate and self-care, which is the complete opposite of Jillian Michaels. Like, she is just not kind. She’s not compassionate. She’s just shaming, judgemental, mean. Like … yeah. She’s … I just don’t think she even understands the word ‘respect’, quite frankly. LOUISE: Unless it’s like ‘respect my authority”. SHREEN: Yeah. ANNA: Something I noticed too, that came up before, was that because she’s so invested in it … have you heard of the concept of religion, like dieting? The religion of dieting? She’s so completely invested in it, she’s almost not willing to look the other way, or explore that there might be some truth in this, because she’s so invested, like financially and that’s her way of living … LOUISE: It’s her identity. ANNA: Exactly. LOUISE: It’s interesting, isn’t it? I think Alan Levinovitz, ‘The Gluten Lie’ … ANNA: That’s the guy. LOUISE: He talks about this, the religion of diet mentality. She is definitely the Pope. SHREEN: Quote of the day (all laugh). ANNA: So, then we come into ‘movement, feel the difference’. Which is principle nine. SHREEN: I think this one really got us fired up, didn’t it? ANNA: Well, the first thing that she said was like, “what is this? I don’t know what this ‘militant exercise’ even means”. LOUISE: That’s so funny (all laugh). ANNA: Like, really? Are you sure? LOUISE: She’s like, world-famous on memes for [inaudible]. I think I even did a presentation once where I used her with her finger in her face at someone as a demonstration of militant exercise. ANNA: Yeah, the kind of exercise that you don’t want to do if you want to have a sustainable relationship with movement. LOUISE: Yeah, your name’s on the t-shirt, love. SHREEN: Just telling people in this thing that, you know, this myth that’s just not true – ‘no pain, no gain’, that only hard exercise counts, it’s just utter rubbish. All movement counts, it doesn’t matter what it is. From playing with your kids, to hoovering, to dancing around your living room. LOUISE: Hoovering doesn’t count, I don’t even know what hoovering is … ANNA: She’s talking about hoovering, the hoover … SHREEN: Vacuuming, is that more Aussie? LOUISE: No, I don’t understand. (all laugh). SHREEN: But like, movement can be anything and you get the exact same health benefits from any type of regular movement, doesn’t matter what it is. But what she’s just trying to … she’s just bringing movement and aesthetics, that’s what she’s talking about. She’s talking about … ANNA: That’s a really good point, because if she was really interested in somebody’s health, then any kind of movement would be accessible, you know, like … SHREEN: Beneficial. ANNA: Helpful, yeah. SHREEN: Your blood markers, and stress levels, and sleep, it doesn’t matter what it is, it has the same health benefits. But she’s not talking about health. She’s talking about the way you look. ANNA: Yeah. She’s talking about ‘results’ a lot, and “if you want to get results fast” … because you know, let’s face it, she says “if you’re coming to look at intuitive eating, you’re trying to lose weight, you’re trying to get results fast.” LOUISE: Jillian! ANNA: “You’ve got to do a certain type of exercise, and my programs do that”. So, a little bit of spruiking her own programs too. SHREEN: What she doesn’t realise that she’s doing is having that negative relationship with exercise is not going to make people want to do it.  LOUISE: She doesn’t care about that. SHREEN: She’s the reason why people don’t want to go to the gym, or they hate exercise, because of people like Jillian Michaels. ANNA: Yeah, it’s that fitness trauma that you were talking about before. And what I recognise here, at the studio at Haven, community … in my experience, community has always been really powerful in building that sustainable and healthful relationship with movement. Joy and … SHREEN: And it’s that you enjoy, you [inaudible]. ANNA: And to want to come back, too. And that militant approach might work well for someone who responds to that but maybe for a short time. And then that motivation kind of wanes. And then it’s always trying to get back the motivation, you hear that a lot in fitness culture. But if you’re not coming at it from external, an external place, for external purposes, and it’s more about the … SHREEN: The way it makes you feel, using it as a tool for self-care rather than punishment … ANNA: Your mental health, having fun with your friends, it’s a completely different experience to being yelled at by Jillian Michaels. SHREEN: Her whole thing is yelling at people, making them feel guilty, punishing them. Like, and that’s just not what people need in a fitness professional. They need someone who is kind and compassionate and she’s just … that’s just not her, unfortunately. She’s just giving … ANNA: What is she? She’s the Pope of … the religion of dieting. She’s also the epitome of diet culture. She’s all of those things. And then the last principle is gentle nutrition, principle ten. LOUISE: I think this actually blew up her brain. SHREEN: Yeah, because she couldn’t understand the whole diet … principle one, principle ten … LOUISE: She couldn’t figure out how that fits with unconditional permission to eat. Because of course, if you have unconditional permission to eat, you’re going to stick your face into a burger for the rest of your life.  ANNA: Yeah, so again she thinks it’s all just endless eating. LOUISE: She’s stuck in that ‘all or nothing’ mentality. ANNA: Exactly, yeah. SHREEN: It’s funny, because she talks about that ‘black and white, all or nothing’ mentality and not understanding that’s exactly what she’s saying. Yeah. ANNA: Yeah, and again it came up just very, very clear that she hasn’t read the book, she doesn’t really know what she’s talking about. SHREEN: Yeah, I think that’s the main … ANNA: This is when she said, you know, “it’s probably written by someone who has just really been hurt by diet culture and probably had an eating disorder, and, you know, probably just some random” and actually … LOUISE: Such a shame that she didn’t actually look at the author. SHREEN: Yeah, just even look up to who they were. Yeah. ANNA: It’s a little bit disappointing because you’d think somebody who has such a following, I think, has such a … I think there’s a moral obligation in a way to represent something that … when you have such a big following and you’re sharing something that can affect people deeply … SHREEN: It’s what we say, that she’s really coming from that dieting mentality and all that sort of shaming that she doesn’t understand that intuitive eating at its core is a self-care model. It’s very compassionate and she doesn’t understand that. Also. with intuitive eating, we’re not saying that it’s a solution for everybody. Everyone has the right to do what they want with their body. She just doesn’t understand the concept at all, what it stands for. ANNA: It’s like she’s on such a different planet, and it’s not … doesn’t come across as open to exploring that this might be something that really serves people. SHREEN: Yeah, and that it’s having such a positive impact. We talked about earlier with the … ANNA: Feeling a bit threatened by the impact on her, you know, her … LOUISE: To her bottom line. I also think that, I mean, if she really is undernourished to that point that she has restricted her entire life, one of the things that happens when you’re weight supressed is cognitive rigidity. ANNA: That’s a really good point. LOUISE: So, it’s quite hard to be flexible. We see that a lot with people who are suffering in the depths of Anorexia, that you simply cannot think. And perhaps there’s an element of that that’s happening here. ANNA: That’s really interesting. SHREEN: That’s a really good point. Because what dieting, that kind of restriction is doing to you … LOUISE: Well, it gives her massive benefits. Huge amounts of recognition, it gives her income. She can’t think out of it. So, there’s not a lot of reason for her, like … I think the reason for putting up that video wasn’t a genuine exploration of “what’s this thing called ‘intuitive eating’?”.  SHREEN: It was just to … LOUISE: It was just to kind of … ANNA: Debunk it. LOUISE: To debunk it and keep hold of her customer base. Look, let’s assume that she is interested in the book. Jillian Michael’s house is in Malibu, California. I reckon we just whack a copy in an envelope, address it to her, maybe she’ll read it. ANNA: Do you think?  LOUISE: Yeah? I don’t know. Maybe if all of our listeners whack a copy into an envelope … SHREEN: Yeah!  LOUISE: 20 copies, please read. Maybe. SHREEN: Maybe, yeah. LOUISE: But I don’t think that was anything other than a … it’s quite interesting, I’m seeing this more and more. The famous people, the people who have really invested in diet culture, even the obesity researchers and all of that. They’re all kind of getting a little bit nervous about this pushback. SHREEN: They should be. LOUISE: It makes me feel warm and fuzzy. SHREEN: It’s time. LOUISE: It’s got nothing to do with the champagne. I think the celebs are getting nervous, like “what do you mean, people in larger bodies are okay with themselves just the way they are?”. And finding non weight-loss things to look after themselves, oh my gosh. What a huge, horrible threat. So, we’re not sorry, Jillian, that we made you nervous. ANNA: Agreed. I hope it gives her a little bit of food for thought (all laugh). LOUISE: I don’t know how many calories would be attached to that thought (all laugh). ANNA: I have to say, like, the thing that I think fires me up the most is how fatphobic she is. SHREEN: And how much harm … that’s the thing that fired me up the most, how much harm she’s causing people out there. And having had an eating disorder myself, it’s just … LOUISE: Horrible. You can see how triggering it is. SHREEN: I can see what it can do, yeah. That’s what fires me up. LOUISE: and let’s not forget when we say fatphobic, we mean people who hate fat people. And that is really reflective … even though she is professing “oh, I’m going to love you … but you’re unhealthy so change”. That’s troubling. Using health as a halo, an excuse or a reason for my core treatment of you just based on your appearance. And that’s just … those days are done. You can’t do that anymore. It’s just not cool. And I do wonder if there is like a Biggest Loser university somewhere?  ANNA: Michelle Bridges went to it as well. LOUISE: Because the same kind of hatred of fat people, you know … again, like masked with a thin layer of concern trolling for your health was Michelle Bridges’ thing. Four years ago, when she was on Australian Story and she was saying “I’m yet to meet someone who is morbidly obese and happy”. So, for people who are listening from overseas, Michelle Bridges is the Australian version of Jillian Michaels. And what an awful comment. So, Jillian has been pushed back against from this video, right? Michelle was pushed back against from this video too, with really clear … I know we all live in a bubble, but with quite a lot of push back. ANNA: That’s good. Was she on … was that on like Australian primetime TV? SHREEN: She was on Australian Story. LOUISE: Yeah [inaudible] … it shows how deeply she feels [inaudible] about people she’s profiting from. Putting them through three cycles a year of 1200 calorie program and she knows it doesn’t work. But the thing is, what they do is they double down. People like this double down, when they’re called out, when there’s a pushback. Instead of kind of opening up and say, “okay, I should probably issue an apology, maybe take the video down, maybe do some work”. They’re not doing that. Jillian’s not doing that. ANNA: I think she just keeps responding. And she’s just responding with the same rhetoric, so she’s not … SHREEN: I think she kind of comments that [inaudible], to learn about it more, which is a shame. ANNA: And how did Michele Bridges respond? LOUISE: Doubled down on it. About health, “I care deeply about health”. ANNA: The whole thing with health and weight, this is what really frustrates me about it too. If she’s really interested in health, she could support all the behaviours that support someone’s health. LOUISE: Too complicated. Remember? Too complicated. Anything that actually involves having to think about something other than my own diet plan … ANNA: It makes me realise how happy I’ve become in moving away from all this, that’s why I got away from it. Because I learned about how there’s another way. Intuitive eating, Health at Every Size®, the body positivity movement … I started delving into it and it just felt so triggering being around other fitness professionals from the traditional approach. And this here, I’ve got to say, got me so fired up. I’m going to be fired up for a while from this. SHREEN: We talk about fitness trauma, and Jillian Michaels is causing that. LOUISE: May she go the way of the dinosaurs and … (all laugh). ANNA: Well, hopefully there will be less and less of her to be seen in the future and more and more of kind of this messaging coming up, challenging … LOUISE: Absolutely, I absolutely think that’s going to happen. You’ve just reminded me actually, she … because Jillian, earlier in the year before she posted the nasty intuitive eating thing, she said something nasty about Lizzo. SHREEN: Yeah, of course.  ANNA: That sounds familiar … SHREEN: Yeah. That was before …  LOUISE: A little while before, I don’t know. It’s Covid, none of us have a timeline. ANNA: She’s said some pretty horrendous things. SHREEN: Really horrendous things yeah. LOUISE: Again, like … “she’s clearly going to get diabetes” or something? ANNA: I think she said something along the lines of “there’s nothing sexy about diabetes”, or clogged arteries or something.  SHREEN: Something like that, yeah. ANNA: How can she … that’s so inappropriate. Lizzo’s bouncing away on stage. She’s got stamina, she’s got energy.  SHREEN: We don’t know anything about her or her health. ANNA: And why do we have to talk about that anyway? She’s this amazing performer and doing this really cool stuff. It’s wonderful to see some diverse bodies out there that are getting out there as much as the other, the thin ideal that you see everywhere. LOUISE: Yeah, the comments that she made were like “why are we talking about Lizzo’s body, we should be talking about her music”. ANNA: So, she said that? LOUISE: Yeah. ANNA: But then … LOUISE: And it’s really funny, because she’s saying that we shouldn’t be talking about Lizzo’s body, but her entire website is full of shots of her body. ANNA: Yeah, and that’s her thing. SHREEN: That’s her thing, yeah. ANNA: She’s always talking about people’s bodies. Size 16, yeah. SHREEN: Yeah, non-stop. LOUISE: The point I’m making is that you don’t say that about Lizzo. And the pushback she got after she made that comment? This is the future Jillian. Lizzo is setting the world on fire.  ANNA: We need more Lizzo. SHREEN: We need more Lizzo. LOUISE: and you are the biggest loser. ANNA: Well put. LOUISE: Oh my god, let’s finish on a high note. Thank you, guys, that was an elegant unpacking of Jillian Michael’s ten principles of not understanding intuitive eating (all laugh). And how firmly we can steer the ship to this new awesome way of looking after our body. ANNA: Thank you. SHREEN: Thank you.  Resources Mentioned: (Watch if you can stomach) Jillian Michaels' Igno-rant on Youtube Urbszat, Dax, C. Peter Herman, and Janet Polivy. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we diet: Effects of anticipated deprivation on food intake in restrained and unrestrained eaters." Journal of abnormal psychology 111.2 (2002): 396. News article about 4 lawsuits against Jillian Michaels for her weight loss pills Fothergill, Erin, et al. "Persistent metabolic adaptation 6 years after “The Biggest Loser” competition." Obesity 24.8 (2016): 1612-1619. Alan Levinovitz's The Gluten Lie Find out more about Anna Hearn & Haven Find out more about Shreen El Masry and Be You Be Free  

In this episode I talk to Merlin Griffiths, pub owner, mixologist and bartender on Channel 4's First Dates. We discuss current difficulties in the hospitality industry and how you can cut your costs.  You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more on running a hospitality business and the latest COVID-19 measures. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. We've paired up with Smart Energy GB to bring you this episode.  Would you prefer to read Merlin Griffith's podcast interview instead? Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan. Today we have Merlin Griffiths, pub owner, mixologist and bartender on Channel 4’s First Dates. Merlin grew up in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. He used to own the Priory Tavern in north west London, with his wife, Lucille. These days he runs Maltsters Country Inn, located in Badby. Cocktails are a staple speciality on Merlin’s menus as he’s been a bartender and mixologist for 20 years. He first appeared as the bartender on First Dates in 2013 and the show is currently on its 14th series. We’ll be finding out a bit more about him as well as the challenges facing the hospitality industry.   Anna: Hi Merlin. Merlin: Hi Anna, thank you for having me. How are you doing? Anna: Of course – I'm doing very well, thank you. How about you? Merlin: Yeah, yeah, all things considered, well, I think, yeah. Now, many of our listeners would recognise you as the man behind the bar on First Dates. Tell us more about how you got into the hospitality industry and then onto the show. Merlin: Hospitality – what a trade to be in! It's one of those things, isn't it? Do you plan to go into hospitality? Some people do they really do? I don't think I did. I was quite young, when I first started working as what we call a barback, up in the West End of London. I think I lucked out by getting into the right bar at the right time. This was just as that cocktail renaissance was starting to happen in the mid-90s. Yeah, for me, I mean, it was one of my first jobs in London. I was just happy to have a job really, to work all hours all days or, yeah, do just about anything necessary. You know, it wasn't probably until about five or six years in and you start going, ‘I'm still doing this?’ This is more than just a stopgap of a job, isn't it? Yeah, I think this is now officially a career. And yeah, that's where it's led to now via corporate money. I had a good stint working for five-star hotels out in India for Taj hotels. I was living in Bangalore for a good while. From there, I was headhunted into Bacardi Global, as one of their global ambassadors for Bombay Sapphire gin and Oxley gin at the time. That was a great experience – almost four years bouncing around the world teaching people how to make martinis and from there into pub ownership. It was at that point where we suddenly thought, my partner and I, we’ve been looking at this, and especially on my travels – I've been in America loads – I have this idea that a good American neighbourhood bar, you can still get a really well-made Cosmo or Margarita as well as decent draft beer. And I had this idea that why can't you do the same in a sort of a British pub setting, you know, the cocktail side of things, the drink side of things shouldn't really be mutually exclusive. Cocktails and cask ales, quite literally. So that's sort of where we started cocktails and cask ales and no screens and no machines, because I decided there were enough TVs in pubs at the time as well. Pubs should be sociable. And so that's what it led to that. And it was while doing that, there was a job advertisement for Channel Four. They were looking for a bartender. That's it, it was literally advertised as a job and I was like, ‘Okay, I think I could pull out a small amount of time to have a go at that too’. And I was lucky enough to land it – it’s a fantastic role which I've really, really enjoyed. Just out of curiosity, how do you get headhunted as a barman? What kind of things are they looking for and who approaches you? It’s an odd one, you see, because the social media side. You go online these days and you can find loads of really good bartenders up and down the country and all around the world. There's a really developed network nowadays. But we're going back ten years and it wasn't as developed as we know it now. For me, moving into the job of First Dates, for instance, I was very lucky thanks to the Bacardi Global support. I've done a whole bunch of videos of online training and bits and bobs for them at the time. If you if you literally just search ‘find me as a cocktail bartender’, there were about three pages of me making nice and dry martinis, and Tom Collins [cocktails] and so on and so forth. So really, I think, you know, a certain amount of luck, but at the time. These days, you really have to work hard for it. Anna: I imagine it's not just the showy, throwing bottles over your shoulder and setting things on fire, either. Merlin: No, but that's also fun. Obviously, I was never much of a flair bartender. For me, it always has been about customers and customer service. That's the real key for me as a people business. And I've always said that. The clues in the name hospitality: we’re hospitable. And that's genuinely what we get up to here. It's not about how well can you can mix a martini or how well you can keep your cask ale, all of that. At the same time though, what's really important is how you deal with people, I don't like to use the word customers – ‘guests’ is better. You know, how you deal with your guests, who become friends as well, your local community, especially in the pub game. There is loads to think about when it comes to running a pub. When you took on Maltsters, it was in pretty bad shape when you took it on. How did you turn it around without blowing your budget? Merlin: Slowly but surely, evenly divide the task up piecemeal, otherwise these places can become. Anyone who's taken an old pub or an old, an old tumble-down pub. Why call nil-premium size, anyone who's done that journey knows what I'm talking about, when you have to divide up the task because otherwise it can become overwhelming. Unless you've got unlimited budgets and contracts as to throw it all in one big hit, which let's face it, most of us don’t. I know that at small business level we tend to sort of bootstrap our way up. First things first, yes, I'm going right what obviously, I need to get the kitchen, clean, comfortable, hygienic. Once you do that, we need a basic bar and trade area. So they're the first two things you look at, then we start looking at upgrading the function room, then we start looking at doing the gardens, then we can start looking at doing any of the letting rooms that are available here and things like that. Slowly but surely, now we're only just over three years into our journey here. There's still lots more to do. But you just take it one chunk at a time and make it manageable. One of the things I noticed when I was looking around was that the TripAdvisor reviews before you took [the Maltster] on were also not great, they tended to be one star. How do you recover from these kind of bad TripAdvisor reviews (or other platforms that are similar)? Merlin: I don't know in all honesty. I don't really keep an eye on that side of it. I'd rather keep my eyes on the people that are coming in and the customers that I do have. I think it is as a small business, it's a whole other job managing online and especially getting involved in managing reviews. Some people do very well at it, my hat goes off to them. I decided that my efforts are better placed elsewhere in the business, in looking after those people that I can see in front of me and those people that phone me here to make bookings. Anna: Do you think it was worth would be worth hiring a separate person altogether to deal with that side of things?   Merlin: If you can afford it. I don't know if I can! I mean, that's what sort of segways neatly to the work I've been doing with Smart Energy GB as well with this guide advice. I mean budgets are tighter than ever at the moment. Crikey.  You’ve been vocal on Twitter about how the government has been handling measures affecting the hospitality industry during the coronavirus pandemic. What do you think of the action being taken and what measures would you like to see? Merlin: Honestly, I don't think it's my place to say yay or nay. It's too easy to bash any point of view that people might have at the moment or any approaches that have been taken, realistically, as a small business owner from talking, honestly, so much of it's out of our control. And so much of it is out of my control, at the end of the day, whether I agree with things or not. And in all honesty, what I've really spent since March and up till now doing is looking at what I can control, because it's so easy to feel helpless in these situations. It really is, you know, when you're faced with ever higher hurdles to jump, ever more onerous bits of legislation to go through. But with the help of peers as well, I stay in touch with a large network of publicans these days. One of our groups, we've got about 250 of us chatting away. And it's lovely to be able to bounce ideas off each other and get advice about ways of doing things. This helps you feel more in control, honestly. That's really useful. Because otherwise, it's very easy to get quite down about the whole thing, angry and shouty, or just generally depressed and withdrawn. And, yeah, it's tough. I'm not going to say it's easy. But nonetheless, by approaching this with the idea of what can I control, it certainly makes you feel a little bit better. Ordinarily, I’d be asking about what small improvements hospitality businesses can make to improve and grow, but unfortunately the situation is different right now. What advice do you have for these business owners to get through this time, both professionally and personally? Merlin: I'll start with the personal one. You know, honestly, for me, do one non-work activity that brings you joy, at least once a week. Honestly, it really does feel like we're hardwired to work 24/7, but it is important to try and do that one thing that's just for you, however much you convince yourself that there isn’t time. I cycle – that's my thing. I'll take a couple of hours each week and go for a long ride. I'll get, you know, I'm really sorry. I'm one of those weirdos who dresses up in Lycra. Anna: Oh no, I’m a keen cyclist myself – no judgement here at all! Merlin: I don’t know what age you turn into, what do they call it, a MAMIL (Middle-aged Man in Lycra)? Anna: You’ve got time yet! Merlin: Good, thank you. But honestly, seriously, what I say just do this one thing that brings you joy, even really, if that's something as simple as pulling yourself down to the local park, right, sitting on a bench in some peace and quiet with a cup of tea or coffee and reading a book or doing the crossword, whatever it takes just to try and remove yourself for a moment. It's incredibly important. I think whether people realise it or not, there's this underlying bubbling stress and tension, and especially more so as a small business operator these days. In the survey work that we've done here, as well as 69 per cent of changes in their financial situation has led to negative impacts on their mental health. So, all of that needs to be dealt with, somehow, it really does, before it bubbles over. You can't hold it in. Talk to people as well, you know, utilise your peer networks, really. Friends are really wonderful if you've got a good friend and will listen. But sometimes there are sector-specific things and business owner-specific things. It does help to talk to other people in the same situation in the same boat. Try and get involved in some of the groups that are out there, you know, maybe just to vent a little bit and get it off your chest. Anna: Yeah, I think as a business owner, sometimes you're inclined to put other people, namely your employees, first. Merlin: Always employees. They're like a little family. Honestly, they're extended family. Any small business person knows that, they're the biggest asset you have in your business, your team, your staff, your people. You’ve got to look after them. I mean, in March that was that was the first thing was stressed us – what are we going to do, that stuff we need to make sure they looked after? Like many of us, we looked at our cash flow and thought, ‘Oh, crikey’. Well, it's going to be a while before we get the furlough payments into pay them. So how do we go about this without also bankrupting the business? The true way to look after my staff is to make sure that they've got jobs to come back to as well. You know, and so yeah, we had some very frank and honest discussions with our staff, and they were absolutely brilliant. They worked with us and completely understood. I think we were incredibly lucky to have the team that we do, we really are. I love them all to bits. We've seen on the website that with the increased rate of redundancies, more and more people are interested in starting their own business. What would you say to somebody who wants to start a hospitality business? Merlin: It's hard work but go for it. Honestly. Put in the hours and you get the rewards, quite frankly. It's a great trade to be in. I think it's an absolutely great trade. I've been there – 25 years now behind bars and involved in hospitality in one way shape or form. And ten of those as a landlord. It is absolutely tremendous. I'd say that's awesome. Do it. You know, ONS stats say that 99.6 per cent of British businesses are classed as small to medium businesses. Anna: Most are micro businesses too. Merlin: Yeah, most of those are micro businesses usually. So, best part of six million. It was Napoleon quote who said Britain is a nation of shopkeepers, wasn’t it? Yeah, that hasn’t changed. You know, the small business is what makes this country tick. It absolutely does. It's so incredibly important. Absolutely important. And it's not just that, and it's not just the standards we hear about, you know, jobs in the economy and so on. This is families, livelihoods, children, the socio-economic impact here at a macro level is really far-reaching is incredibly important. It's really easy to sort of get the view these days that Britain's dominated by big business, but of course, they've got marketing budgets, and that's why you hear about them. But really, as you can see from those statistics, 99 per cent it's small to medium – all hail the little guys. I'm going to head back – we started this or with advice as well for small business owners. Let's have a look. What else have we been recommending to people? Controlling controllables is what I wanted to touch on, really. Rent, this is a really big one, but you've got to open conversations with the landlord, haven't you at the moment. Trust me, it's tough to keep calm, but you have to keep calm and do that with a level head. Yeah, again, staff you need to control. This is looking after them in the best ways possible. And now if you're doing this alongside changing your business as well, hopefully, maybe you could find other ways to pick up some hours for staff if you're been exploring the possibilities to go. Normally I serve a bit of food or a bit of drink, but suddenly, well, now you start looking at your site going, ‘I got a licensed A3 space, it's a commercial site. What else can I do with it?’ This hopefully brings out new work, new workflows, new ways of operating, whether that's local groceries, setting yourself up as a sub postmaster, you might do local deliveries, hot takeaway, cold takeaway, there are so many different bits and bobs going on here. There are operators even doing full meals to cook at home from their kitchens, bathrooms being sent out, that there are so many different things. But these are good ways to assure your business so you can provide the hours for your staff. And then you start looking at utilities, get a handle on utilities, and honestly, there again, they're an important part of what you do. And this is where you get into this idea of marginal gains. I'm a big fan of marginal gains, they are a great thing as long tail effect, because if you do enough of them, they actually start adding up to be a significant gain for your business. Anna: If people want to make those marginal gains, how would they go about that? One of the clearest easy wins, contact your energy supplier and see if you can get a smart meter. I think it's a really good, sensible thing to do. up to date information on how your business is running and how much things are costing is essential now more than ever. This is more than just turning lights off. You could start controlling your stock levels, your exposure, and that sort of sense. Tighten up your menus to focus on the crowd pleasers and the profitable dishes and so on. I want to know how much stuff costs to run now, I really do. I've got a sneaking suspicion that I'm going to be able to save a fortune on extra kitchen extracts and some of the electrical hardware in the kitchen, especially, you know, I'm interested to look at when my chef turns this on, when he turns it off, is it actually necessary at certain points If I can save maybe eight to 12 hours’ worth of electric a day, and trust me, you're talking high kilowatt devices here. Ronnie, you know, he was running an electric pizza oven, for instance, out there, they know this is a 12 kilowatt device. Yeah, this isn't small beans we're talking about anymore. These are ways of controlling what you can, knowing that you've trimmed the fat, made your business lean, all those little these things, again, tend to be little things that are going on. They also tend to be at normal trade times, tends to put these things on a back burner – ‘Oh, yeah, I must have looked at that one point’ or they’ve got a whiteboard in the office or a Post-It note somewhere or a to-do list or what have you. And you sort of eventually get around to them. Now is the time to dive into all of that stuff and start getting a really good handle on what you do and the way you work and being prepared to change as well. We all have to adjust. Anna: Yes, it’s also amazing what some small business owners have done in adding in new kinds of services. Merlin: Yeah, it's fantastic for the rural side of things. I'm loving the fact that loads of rural pubs, for instance, are reinstating lost village services like post offices and shops. The fantastic thing is if you look at them as standalone things, I can see why they largely closed in a lot of small villages. It's very difficult to make a profit as a small village shop, given the cost of renting a building, and so on and so forth these days. If you're already doing that as a pub, and you've got the space to expand to a retail offering, right now it's a given win and you're engaging with your community now in new ways, by restoring the services, it’s fantastic. Let's not forget a lot of rural communities as well have people who will be shielding in certain ways or you know, just sort of largely keeping out society's way. So, a chance for them to literally just be able to walk down to the end of the street and get a bottle of milk or something without having to go into town is huge for them. Absolutely huge. Anna: Is there anything else you'd like to add? Merlin: I tell what I will add. Really plug into these hospitality networks, the industry networks, take advice where you can get it, speak to your accountant. If you don't have an accountant, take free financial advice from your bank as they will always be happy to give it, but wherever you can, take that advice. The more people you speak to, the more you suddenly realise you're not alone in all this. And there are ways still to sort of keep the glass looking half full, even though it may look half empty, if I can be so frank. But we are, as I say, creative, resilient, adaptable, this is hospitality! Challenges are something we routinely rise to, something we're very good at overcoming in this business. Anna: Well, that seems like the ideal note to wrap up. Thank you very much for coming on the podcast, Merlin. Merlin: Thank you so much for having me on, Anna, thank you. Watch Merlin in First Dates on Channel 4’s catch-up service, All4. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more guidance on COVID-19 measures and running your hospitality business. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Until next time, thank you for listening.   

In this episode I chat to Charlie Mullins, founder and chairman of Pimlico (formerly known as Pimlico plumbers). We talk about how to build a customer base in the early days and upcoming IR35 changes.   You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more on running a family business. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Would you prefer to read Charlie Mullins' podcast interview instead? Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan. Today we have Charlie Mullins, businessman and founder of Pimlico Plumbers, now known as Pimlico. After finishing an apprenticeship in plumbing, Charlie launched Pimlico Plumbers in 1979. He started out with a second-hand van and a bag of tools, gradually building up the business. Pimlico reached a £1m turnover in 1994 and currently has a turnover in excess of £50 million. In 2015, Charlie was awarded the UK’s first OBE in relation to plumbing. Earlier this year, his son Scott took on the role of chief executive while Charlie went into the role of chairman. Anna: Hi Charlie. Charlie: Hi Anna. Thanks very much for having us on. Been looking forward to this so I’m very excited, thank you. Anna: Great stuff. How are you doing today? Charlie: Very good. I’m in Marbella in Spain at the moment and we have a small business out here – also to do with Pimlico – and yeah, life's good. I'm going to come back right to the beginning of the business, and a lot of our small business owners are in the early stages themselves. And I'm sure they're wanting to know how you built up your customer base in the early days, especially without tools like social media. Charlie: Yeah, well, thinking back then, back in 1979, I finished my apprenticeship and had been working as self-employed, and then started working in the Pimlico area. I started getting repeat work and that undoubtably, whatever service you're offering, is quality of service. That's what's going to get you customers and keep you busy. I have to say I was a pretty good plumber and offering the service to people required. It starts with word of mouth and then other people will recommend you to other customers. I  quickly learned that the art of it is to retain your customer and back in them days, I think I was working on that basis, and you go to these customers regularly, and that would just sort of get more and more. I quickly learned that it’s retaining a customer that gets you through. First of all, it gives you a customer base, and then it gets you through any difficult times that you may like recessions or lack of work. As the business has progressed, we have a policy now at Pimlico once you’re a Pimlico customer, we work on the basis that you’re a Pimlico customer for life. I would say to anybody starting out, retaining your customer is the way to build up a great customer base. What is the secret to retaining the customer?   Charlie: Quality of service. Quality of service can mean many things: turning up on time, dressing correctly for the for the job, having identification on you, be very transparent in what you're doing, make people aware of your rates before you start, get the job done, tidy up after you. And I think in general, just your sort of behaviour in somebody’s house or for a customer, just be as professional as you can. That could be whether you're in their house, or you're running a business from the internet, or you're sort of got a shop or whatever you got. Undoubtedly, the way forward is quality of service, whether it be a product, whether it be something you're fixing, something you're selling, it's all about quality of service. Anna: I think part of the reason that you became successful was there is a bit of a reputation for cowboy plumbers back then and you wanted to set yourself apart. Charlie: Yeah, well, again, I had the idea that, I thought that when I first started Pimlico that I was doing anything clever, I just thought it was common sense things. I know common sense isn’t that common. I wrote a list down of all the things – or not all the things, but about 20 items that I've heard over the years that customers get unhappy with a plumber. You can do that in any business you're in. Find that what upsets customers and just do the opposite. So, customers used to be very unhappy about a plumber not turning up on time, not finishing the job, leaving a mess, not clearing away any rubbish not being transparent, making excuses why they're not a job, so I thought just done the opposite. In business I’ve also learned to be honest, if you're not getting there because you've got delayed or you're running late or you can't make it, be honest with the customer. Not keep making excuses about ‘I broke my arm’ or ‘my van’s broken down’. I've learned is that customers don't want excuses. They want results. I understand that financing is essential to the running of a business, especially when you're trying to grow. I know that when you're trying to expand Pimlico plumbers, back in 1990, you sought out help from the bank but unfortunately, they turned you down. Can you go a little bit into what happened there and how you overcame it? Charlie: Yeah, well, the business in 1990 was going okay. And what I wanted to do was buy a different premises to operate from, a larger premises. Basically, I went to the bank and they and they lent me the money to buy this property – it was about a quarter million pounds, this was December 1990. Everything was going great. They lend me that money and then around about April, all of a sudden, the recession’s kicked in, maybe I wasn't that aware of it. The recession kicks in, and then the bank basically comes down, I was getting in difficulties with run-ups and debts and didn’t get on top of things. They came down to reassess the property to see whether I could get some more money on it, keep things going. They actually went the other way and told me it's not worth a quarter million pounds now – that's worth £50,000. So, I’d ripped it all out to refurbish it for when we were going to move in, and all of a sudden, it was a property not finished. Basically, I was trying to get an overdraft and keep things going, or even a loan, but they weren't having none of it. If anything, well, they just went the other way. They said, ‘Look, we want our money back.’ And I know people think they can't force you into it, but I borrowed it on another property that I'd owned. And they said to put that property in an auction and I’d get £45,000 for it. Well, I didn't do that. I sold it for £90,000 in the end. With the property that I had in the I was borrowed the money for, they told me to sell that and give them the money I get on it. Well, I didn't listen to them. Well, I don't like banks anyway, they’re crooks in suits – they lend you an umbrella as long as it’s not raining. Anna: I think people do underestimate the power that banks have, especially in situations like these. Charlie: Well, what you mustn't get into is a situation where the banks running your business, telling you what you can do and what you can't do. And they were difficult with me so I said to myself, ‘I need to get rid of you people’. So, we carried on working, sold a few bits and pieces, made a lot of changes in the business and got rid of the bank. I've changed banks, I don't I'm not sure how good banks are these days with businesses. All I do know is that thing I've been with this bank since about 1991/92. I've never met my bank manager. I never will. There's just no point now – I can't work with them. They just left a bad taste with me, as far as I'm concerned. All I do now with the bank is put money in and take it out. Part-way through business, you decided to steer away from solely doing plumbing into other services like air conditioning, carpentry, commercial heating services, what kind of challenges did you face in shifting Pimlico's business model? Charlie: Yeah, it wasn't overly difficult because what I was finding that, with plumbers and engineers, we were sending them to jobs and then customers had a carpenter and needed an electrician, or they had wall damage and needed a plasterer. I just found it so difficult to recommend people because not everybody works on the policy that we work on or the way that we operate. And again, that what I have to say is that it's only common sense and being very professional. But there are so many bad tradesmen out there – I'm not suggesting that's all over because there's some great tradesmen out there. So, the fact that they kept asking for people, and I wasn't comfortable recommending anybody, we started getting our own people. We started employing a carpenter, employing a builder, employing a plasterer. When you go to a job, and if the customer’s happy with you, and all sudden, you've got to send a carpenter or another tradesman, they’re even happier with you because it just flows nice. And they know what they're going to expect. If we're running it on the same terms, which we did, and it's just developed from there, we we've got roofers, air con, electricians, carpenters, painters, tilers. Yeah, all in everything, I think. Were there any sort of changes in legislation or anything related that you had to deal with in taking on different kinds of tradespeople? Charlie: Well, we've got one set of rules and regulations for everybody, so everybody follows our guidelines. And whatever requirements are needed for electrical work, or gas work or roofing work, there's just a formality. The most important thing is that you've got your rules and regulations worked out and everybody complies with that. If it's a successful model, then why would you need to change anything? You just follow the same pattern. And to this day now, like 40 years down the line, it's the same thing. We're seeing with a lot of small businesses right now that they are indeed changing their own business model, say going and taking more of their service online or offering takeaway service at home meal kits, that kind of thing. How has Pimlico adapted to the changing conditions around COVID-19? Because it's not just a central office, you're going into people's homes as well. I can imagine there is more to do in that respect. Charlie: Well, you're right, the world has changed and it’s changed businesses. And again, you have to improve your quality of service to people. And immediately, what we've done was geared up all our tradespeople that go to people's houses with all the requirements: gloves, shoe covers, sanitisers, sinks in their vans, masks. We've got them all geared up correctly, we’ve also done the same for our office: social distancing, temperature machines we've got in there, all the bits that you need to run proper business. And I don’t think it's a big deal if you think about it. It's just like a few things that you put in place. Unfortunately, a lot of people with things in business, they make it too complicated. We didn't stop throughout the epidemic, we haven't stopped and we won't stop. We were allowed to continue working, being essential workers, but we just made sure that it's a safe working environment. From a customer's point of view, we would bring them up and say that you can just let the engineering leave the door open, you haven't got to be in the same room. He’ll come in, do the job, leave, close the door, then you obviously pay by credit card. And that went down quite well with customers. That isn't so how much the case now. People seem to be getting a little bit more used to the situation, the virus is out there, but some people are very cautious. And we're doing what we're required to do, and it's welcome. How do the rules and the guidelines that you give to employees translate to contractors? Charlie: Look, engineers work on a self-employed basis. Some of them have been with me for 30 years, 10 years, five years, 20 years. There are a couple of differences about holiday, sick pay, but as far as working under their umbrella or working on a rules and regulations, it makes no difference whether you're self-employed or employed, the guidelines are the same. You turn up, you do the job, you do what we want you to do, and that's it. Okay, we've had a couple of problems, but it's no big deal. Another potential difficulty we will be facing in the future, year is we've got changes to IR35, coming in April. I do understand that there has been some ambiguity [for Pimlico] in the past around contractors’ status and their rights. I'm wondering, with these changes coming in, how exactly will that change the way you operate? Charlie: Yeah, look, it won't change the way we operate. What it changes is the contract for that engineer. If it says he’s not self-employed, then yes, the choice is PAYE or he needs to go somewhere else, basically. But again, I'm going to say, I don't think it's a big deal. Unfortunately, if they're not going to let them be self-employed, then obviously, they're not going to earn as much, they're not going to be able to claim so much, sort of tax deductions. But there are pluses – they get holiday pay, sickness and they can claim for unfair dismissal. But our policy isn’t necessarily, we’re not trying to get rid of people, we want to retain our engineers. We went to the Supreme Court on this where one of the engineers evidently had a heart attack, but there was a little bit more in it than that, I don’t know why he had a heart attack, non-related to work, and he was self-employed for seven years. And all of a sudden, he wanted to take the advantages of being employed. And we knew that was incorrect. But we went to the High Court and various other courts and it took about eight years, and the end result the Supreme Court came up with that he should have been an employee, but no big deal – we've changed their contracts – the tax people are happy with it, our accountants are happy with it, and we're happy with it. If there's big challenges out there, you just got to try and challenge it that works for everybody. Contractors have already been hit quite hard by COVID. And I can imagine if employers are less willing to pay increased taxes and contributions, they may be get less work from their existing clients as well. How will these changes affect the balance of employees to contractors that you currently have? Charlie: Well, it’ll affect the balance. If they can’t be self-employed, then they’ll have to be PAYE.  But I don't think we'll be cutting their numbers down. I feel we can address it accordingly and work on something that everybody's happy with. I don't think that it’s a big deal but in the same token it's just changes. And if that's what we have to do, then that's what we do. There's a massive demand for skilled workers who can demand good money. I think if you're paying good money, you’re a good company and look after your staff, and keep them busy all year, then people are going to want to work for you. The last question I want to ask is, as mentioned in the intro, your son Scott has taken over as chief exec. And Pimlico is very much a family business because his children, your grandchildren, are also heavily involved in the business. For our audience out there who have family businesses of their own, how do you set that line between work and family life and keep them separate? Charlie: This is a difficult one, and I'm probably going to say, working with your family doesn't work for everybody. And if it does, work it’s great and if it doesn't work then it's terrible, of course. How do you keep it separate? I just think that, obviously, when you're at work, I don't think family issues come up, or that you get too involved with family things. And obviously, when you’re outside of work, you're going to get involved in a little bit of family work things, but I think it's nice to keep them separate as best you can. I didn't really plan anything but when we’re at work and, as much as we’re family, I don't feel that it's the big part of it anymore. In other words, they’re doing the job, they're happy doing it, we're happy with them. I know it's difficult when you've got talk to a family member about it, but on saying that, most family members understand how you operate, and they follow the guidelines. But of course, there’ll be hiccups, bits and pieces. I think we have about 12 or 13 members of family there and all I can say that it's great because I think we're all drinking from the same teapot. And it seems to work. But yeah, that's been our uphill sort of tasks. I'm on my fourth wife now! I’m joking. It can be difficult, but I think pluses outweigh the minuses. Look, you can't run any business, whether it be your family or just other people working for you, without the ups and downs. With any business there's going to be many sleepless nights, there's going to be many struggling for money, but once you get it going, I mean, there’s no business like your own business. Anna: Of course – I think that's the reason that so many people go for it. Charlie: Yeah, that’s right, and a lot of people that want to start their own business, they're toying with the idea for years and playing around with it. They say, ‘I don’t know when’s the best time and Christmas is coming and winter's coming’ and it comes every year, and then it's, ‘This is bad, and the banks are not lending and interest rates’ and they ask me when's the best time to start your own business. Well, the best time to start your own business is when it suits you. You need to get up there and just make it happen, that's what it's about. All the talking doesn't make you a busy business where actual action does, and you’ve just got to get it started. You got a 10,000-mile journey and that starts with the first step, you've got to make that first step in business. It just develops. I mean, I didn't set out to run the largest independent plumbing company or service company in the UK, I set out just to be a plumber. And once I got the bug a bit of the demand and you can employ somebody, and it goes from there. I say this to anybody starting out or even if you're just a small business, the ways to become successful, obviously, quality of service, I'll always say that's number one. And number two is to employ people take on staff, whether it be friends, family or people you don't know but are believed that you need to employ people to grow your business because this is not about one person. It's a team affair and your business is only as good as the people that work for you.      Anna: Well, I think that is an ideal place to wrap up, so I'll leave it there. Thank you very much for coming on the podcast, Charlie. Charlie: That's been good and obviously if anyone wants to check the website at pimlicoplumbers.com, there are some pieces on there. As Charlie said, you can find out more about him at pimlicoplumbers.com You can also visit small business.co.uk for articles on building your customer base and running a family business. Remember to like us on Facebook at Small Business Experts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lowercase. Until next time, thank you for listening.

In this episode I chat to Theo Paphitis, businessman, retail expert, shopkeeper and former Dragon. We discuss tips retail during COVID-19 and his experiences of surviving school and becoming a business owner with dyslexia.  You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more on running a retail business and supporting employees with dyslexia. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Would you prefer to read Theo Paphitis' podcast interview instead? Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan. In this episode we have Theo Paphitis, businessman, retail expert, former Dragon and shopkeeper. Born in Cyprus, Theo came to the UK at age of seven, living in Manchester then London. He left school at the age of 16 with no qualifications after having struggles with dyslexia. He started work as a filing clerk in a Lloyds of London brokerage, moving on to Watches of Switzerland at the age of 18. He had a stint in insurance then returned to retail, taking on names such as Ryman, La Senza and Robert Dyas. In spring 2011, he launched lingerie brand, Boux Avenue. Since then he’s created the Theo Paphitis Retail Group encompassing the aforementioned retail businesses and the London Graphic Centre, which he acquired in 2016. In 2005, Theo joined Dragon’s Den and in 2012 to focus on his growing retail empire. He came back for a few episodes last year to fill in for Touker Suleyman. 10 years ago, Theo started Small Business Sunday, #SBS, where entrepreneurs describe their businesses via Twitter. Theo retweets his favourites to his audience to boost their exposure. Today we’re going to be talking about retail in the age of COVID-19 and what it’s like being a business owner with dyslexia. Anna: Hi Theo. Theo: Hello! That was quite some introduction. Anna: Oh, I know. I tried to shorten it, but it’s just come out as ‘Theo’s done quite a lot of stuff!’ Theo: It keeps me busy. Anna: How are you today? Theo: I’m good, thank you – in a very soggy Wimbledon. Anna: Yeah, it seems like that all over the UK. I’m up in Scotland and it’s much the same. But that’s very much, you know… Theo: I did refrain from butting in there but thank you for doing that for me! Let’s crack on. I’d like to go back to – I believe you were 15 years old at the time – you opened up a school tuck shop, so retail must’ve been in your blood from quite early on. What was the inspiration behind that?   Theo: Well, the inspiration was actually a need. I didn’t even know what retail was. I’d been in shops, obviously, but at that age – 14, 15 – there was a need at the school. We didn’t have a tuck shop. And on the basis that I didn’t enjoy school very much and I wasn’t a model student in classes. When I suggested to the school that they fund me to do so, they jumped at it because I didn’t have to sit in class for too long, being disruptive. I’m sure that was the main reason. I thought it was a great opportunity, it was great fun. It was great to learn on the job, overcome problems – of which there were many – everything from litter to security to stock control. All the things that us shopkeepers do day-to-day now. So, your first retail job was at Watches of Switzerland and you sold a Rolex on your first day. Tell me what that was like and how did it spark your love of retail? Theo: On my first day, it was all very different for me from what I was doing as an office clerk before. There’s no paperwork involved, just loads and loads of shiny things. Watches and all bits and pieces. I spent the morning having my induction by the manager. And then I was let loose on the shop floor, a customer came in and there I was, extolling the virtues of the Rolex Oyster, that I’d only just heard of barely an hour ago. All of the information that’d been fed into me came blubbering out with some authority. And there you go – I had a sale. It was amazing.     We know that one of the things from this year is that online sales have exploded – what other changes in consumer habits have you noticed this year? Theo: When we went into lockdown, I said quite publicly that the longer this goes on for, the more consumer habits will change. And in fact, within the second week, I could see that digital was accelerating at unprecedented rates and I estimated at the time that we’d had at least five years of acceleration in the adoption of digital in the time from the end of March 2020 until the end of June 2020. Eventually, it was always in our businesses plan, investment in the digital side, that a lot of our business would go online. So, we’d already invested quite heavily as a business. But the acceleration in those three months was phenomenal. We weren’t expecting to get that level of increase until about five years’ time. Actually, coming back to that, your business portfolio is made up, as we heard in the intro, of a lot of retail firms that are traditional to the high street. That must mean you have quite a lot of faith in the future of retail on the high street, despite what naysayers might say and an encouragement to move towards more predominantly digital businesses. What would you say to that? Theo: I think that like many retailers, we’ve got two legacy, very traditional brands in Ryman and Robert Dyas. Robert Dyas has been trading for over 150 years and Ryman for over 125 years, so they’ve been a big part of the fascia of United Kingdom high streets over those times. But our services within those and the things that we sell within those businesses have changed quite tremendously in that time. And we always anticipated that some of our stores just wouldn’t make it out of the other side. That was always going to be the case. It was just a matter of when. There’s no point in keeping a store open if you’re the last person standing and nobody’s visiting the high street. Or, in fact, because of short-termism. And, quite honestly, workshy politicians not reviewing the business rates, which in itself has killed so many high streets. It’s not the rent, it’s the ancillary costs. We’d already planned for that. That doesn’t mean we had plans to shut all of our stores – far from it. We just need to make sure that we focus on the stores where there’s a community. That was always the plan and remains the plan. You’ve talked about an acceleration in adopting technology, do you think there will be some sort of push to reduce or reform business rates [in the longer term]? It’s been talked about for some time. Theo: It’s been talked about forever, but I use my words very carefully. I use the word ‘lazy’. I use it a lot when it comes to various people that have held the seat at no.11 that just couldn’t be bothered to put the work in to repurpose business rates. Business rates is an archaic tax from the 1500s. Ye Olde Internet Shoppe would not exist in the 1500s. The Exchequer needs income, of course it needs income, otherwise how are we going to pay for our services? But you can just keep loading it up on what is a very easy tax to collect and then put people out of business because you reach the law of diminishing returns. They needed to repurpose taxation to reflect the new modern and digital age. It’s very difficult for people paying rent and rates when other people are trading out of warehouses and contributing very little. It needs to be balanced – it has always needed to be balanced – but even more so now. Of course, since March, the present Chancellor has absolutely done the right thing in suspending business rates, giving a business rates holiday. That expires in March ’21 and it’ll be interesting to see what he does then. I can’t believe for one minute that he would even contemplate bringing them back. If he does, that would spell the demise of many high streets and many trusted names within those high streets. What do you think should happen instead? Theo: I think we’ve got to relook at the way we pay taxes. It’s very simple – it’s not complicated. It requires work, but we’ve got to look at the different ways of collecting taxation, whether it’s a sales tax or any other form of tax you put on, that is fair and allows people to trade on a level playing field. I think that arguably, for a long time, the worry has been the wealthy individuals who benefit from having those business rates and high costs in place. Theo: The fact remains that, with landlords, we’ve been able to negotiate as footfall has gone down in various parts of the country. We’ve been able to sit down with landlords a lot. We’re taking a lot less money now. If you want us to remain in your store, then we can only afford to pay X or Y and in the main, they’ve agreed. We’ve got so many stores where the rates are higher than the rent. That can’t be right. And obviously, you can’t negotiate with the Exchequer. Absolutely. Do you think there are certain types of businesses that would move into empty high street spaces in the future, especially when things start to settle post COVID-19? Theo: What we’ve seen is the conversion of many high streets into old age people’s homes where they’ve just built loads and loads of retirement homes, sheltered accommodation because it’s in close proximity – right on top of the high street. If that’s what we’re planning – to turn high streets into retirement villages – then that’s a different story altogether because that’s what you’re going to get. But high streets have really been the backbone of the community. So, you start destroying it and everybody stays in their homes and you’ve got millions and millions and millions of vans driving around and polluting the atmosphere, delivering a £4 or a £5 or a £3 product. Does that really make sense? What do you think about a digital tax? Theo: The Exchequer needs to collect income and that’s a great way of doing it.                     I’ll move on a little bit here. In the intro we mentioned Small Business Sunday which, on the day of recording (October 12th), launched 10 years ago yesterday. In your view, what is the greatest success story to come out of SBS? Theo: It’s got 3000 businesses at different sizes, different levels of activity. The biggest success story is the fact that it exists, and it allows small businesses and medium-sized businesses, all of a sudden, to get a leg up, get PR, get a social media boost, support for other SBS winners in the network. It boosts sales. It offers opportunities for them to collaborate. It gets them together at our annual event to hear great speakers, talk to them and inspire them about what the future holds. Don’t forget that it’s really tough to be a small business – 50 per cent of businesses fail within the first two years. And that’s probably normal because they haven’t got the skillset, the information, the support that they need. Some fail and then go on to run really successful businesses because they’ve learned from their failures. So, the whole gambit of SBS is to try and assist to lower that failure rate and give support and all of the things that small businesses need. It’s tough – if you’ve got two or three kids and you’re running a business from your kitchen table and you’ve got to balance a household. Where do you go for help when things aren’t running your way? Who can you talk to that’s having or has had the same experience as you? I can guarantee that someone form SBS has and someone will be able to talk to you about it. And somebody when you’re having a tough time is going to be having a really good time and there’s nothing better than to talk to somebody to bring you out of those doldrums and give you that burst of enthusiasm that you desperately need to get you going. Anna: Sometimes that’s all you need – I’ve seen some of the comments back and forth on the thread and it’s quite the community.   As mentioned in the intro as well, you struggled at school because you have dyslexia. From the research I’ve done, it seems like people with dyslexia felt discouraged at school (‘you have this, so you can’t do that’) but went on to be successful entrepreneurs because they worked hard at their other qualities, like social skills. How does that align with your experience of school and going into business? Theo: Oh, that describes me. When I turned 16, they showed me the door. Not because I was particularly disruptive, but because I was a lost cause. I wasn’t going to get any examinations. Anna: They dismissed you before you even took them? Theo: No, I did sit a few, but I ended up with great big ‘U’s. In fairness, I did get one certificate, and it was a Scottish certificate in colouring in maps. It was geography. And the reason I say it was a Scottish certificate is because we had the most amazing Scottish lady teacher who worked incredibly but had got all of our attention and made it very interesting. I always call it my Scottish certificate in colouring in maps. It was clear school wasn’t for me. Even to get through to 16, I had loads and loads of workarounds to try and get my work and homework done. I couldn’t do it in a traditional way. I was always problem-solving to try and achieve what other kids were achieving in minutes. It took me hours. I always found workarounds to deal with the issues so that when I actually went to work, dealing with issues and problems was a piece of cake – I’d been doing it all of my life. Some kids go to work, who had an academic upbringing at school, sit there and there’s a problem. Now they’ve got a problem. So that was one of the things that I benefited from. Anna: What do you mean when you say workarounds? Could you elaborate a bit? Theo: For instance, my first day at work, I had to go with a picture in my pocket. If I’m doing numbers – which I’m not bad at, to be honest with you – I couldn’t remember my times tables. It was a nightmare. But I could find workarounds. For instance, if I needed to do 12x12, it’d be 10x12 which is 120, and two more equals 24. That’d be 144. Or I’d break it down into fives or threes or ones to get there or find percentages. You always had to find different ways, it takes longer, but you get there. Anna: Exactly – and that’s what’s important. Theo: And then the biggest thing that changed my life was computers. I no longer had to worry about spelling or rubbish handwriting. All of these things I could get over, so I really embraced technology very early. Anna: That’s an advantage in a way, isn’t it? Theo: It is an advantage – and always has been – hence why I embraced eCommerce and digital and I embraced computers and had one of the first computers. I learned to program because there wasn’t any programs to give me what I wanted. I thought, “It can’t be that difficult, can it?” It gives you a push. It’s interesting to see that other entrepreneurs like Lord Sugar, Richard Branson and Jamie Oliver have dyslexia as well. Theo: Well, of course, a lot of dyslexic people are pushed to be entrepreneurs because they can’t get a job anywhere else. The key thing is that that it’s difficult to get a job when you can’t spell or you can’t read very fast. I can read, believe you me, I can read. Give me a contract and I will read it front to back and I will understand it and I will be as good as anybody else, but it will take me three times as long as anybody else to do. It’s just a speed thing. Exactly. Fortunately, we are in a better place now, especially in schools with picking up dyslexia earlier on, allowing longer exams and that sort of thing. But if you’ve got someone out there who’s still at school, has dyslexia and wants to be an entrepreneur, what kind of things would you say to them? Theo: Well, the good news is that it will be one of the least resistant paths open to them. You’ll find it hard to compete in the jobs sector when people have got all of these qualifications and you haven’t. But all I can say to them is make sure that when you become an entrepreneur, become an entrepreneur doing something that you love and are passionate about. You can become an entrepreneur doing lots of things but find something that you’re passionate about because on those dark, wet winter days, when things are not running according to plan and you’re down to your last few quid, you need that passion, that enthusiasm, that drive, to get you out of it. And if you’re doing something you’re not really passionate about, then you might, just might, throw in the towel. But it’s about doing something you’re passionate about. That’s the best chance of success. Anna: Well, that seems like a great place to wrap up. Thank you for coming on the podcast, Theo. Theo: Absolute pleasure. Find out more about Theo at theopaphitis.com. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more articles on retail and supporting employees with dyslexia. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Until next time, thank you for listening.   

In this episode I chat to Jenny, businesswoman, investor and former Dragon. We discuss tips for investment in the time of COVID-19, exit planning and whether your business should still be accepting cash. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more on raising capital and choosing the right payment system. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Would you prefer to read Jenny Campbell's podcast interview instead? Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan. Today we have Jenny Campbell, businesswoman, speaker, investor and former Dragon. Rather than going down the traditional education route, Jenny left school at 16 to become a cash counter and cashpoint filler. She worked her way up in the banking world and by the age of 23 she earned her banking qualifications and a Chartered Institute of Bankers prize. Her first taste of running a business was when she bought RBS-owned cash machine firm, Hanco, which she rebranded as YourCash Europe. At the time, Hanco had expanded too quickly and was making a loss. The company underwent a major operational restructure overseen by Jenny. In 2016 she sold the business for £50m. During her time on Dragon’s Den, Jenny invested in companies including Didsbury Gin, Look After My Bills, Driven Media and Carun UK. These days, she is the vice chair of the Prince’s Trust Enterprise Fellowship Programme and supports the Young Enterprise and the New Entrepreneurs Foundation. She’s also a dog breeder and an accredited breed judge. Anna: Hi Jenny. Jenny: Hi. Anna: How are you doing? Jenny: I’m really good, thank you. Really good. Anna: Great. OK, let’s get cracking. One of your mantras is to live by corporate standards but breathe like an entrepreneur. Tell us a bit more about what you mean by that. Jenny: Yeah, that really came out of the time when I was taking over the cash machine business then owned by RBS. I found the business to have got enormous growing pains [from] when it was incorporated in 2000 and sold to RBS in 2004. It had grown enormously fast and it did have an impressive customer and asset base, but it had grown up on very simple – if any – policies, procedures, people, codes of conduct, etc. So, the business I came to in 2006 was in quite a lot of chaos, to be honest. But I found that all the skills I’d learned over my banking career, which you don’t really appreciate at the time, but I could apply them to this business, particularly around change management, turnaround scenarios, risk management, process mapping – all those corporate things. I could apply them to this business and that’s what got me through the first two years in getting it ship shape. It was losing a lot of money at the time and by the time we got two or three years down the path it was breaking even and that lead into the management buyout. On reflection, when it came to selling the business, before that even became a management team buyout, I said to RBS, ‘Look, you’ve helped put the corporate procedures into this business but it now needs to have its entrepreneurial wings in order for it to be nimble and compete against its competitors in the UK.’ It’s important for a business of that size to have corporate standards, but it also needed to be nimble in terms of decision-making and innovation and product development, which we weren’t at that stage by still being part of a bank, due to how bureaucratic that can be in a big corporate.       How do you introduce ‘entrepreneurial wings’, so to speak? Jenny: Start with the people. One of my big transformations was the people – the quality of the people, the culture of the people. I turned over a lot of people in the early days, those who didn’t have the right skills or attitude to drive the business forward. I created a real people culture in the business: work hard, play hard, lots of rewards for delivering performance, lots of fun as well. And the ability for the staff to feel they had their own initiative to drive the business forward [was important]. You could always put your hand up to suggest this or get on with doing things and mistakes were made – you wouldn’t get berated for that – it was, ‘Get up, you’ve grazed your knees, let’s move on’. It was a real ‘can do, will do, want to’ attitude in the business and we lived it and breathed it from the top, right the way down.      On your time in Dragon’s Den, perhaps it was clearer that you’d come from this corporate background and moved up in the banking world, as opposed to starting up a business from scratch like some of the other Dragons and the other businesses coming in. What do you feel your experience brought to the table over the other Dragons who had started their businesses from nothing? Jenny: I came to pure entrepreneurship myself later in life when I went to Hanco (which then became YourCash), so I was in my mid-40s by then. But as I reflected on how I turned from corporate career to entrepreneur, some of my reflections were, firstly, around my childhood where my grandparents were all entrepreneurs – builders, printers, etc. in my local town, so I came from quite an entrepreneurial background. Yes, I went into a profession, but that was seen in those generations as safer and more secure and you’ve got the pensions and all of that good stuff. But I also dealt with entrepreneurs almost every day in my banking career, just on the other side of the desk. One of my roles was as a business relationship manager and I had 200 clients out in the community. Everything from famers to builders to lorry driver to retailers. I was working alongside those entrepreneurs for all of my banking career, so I just felt like I’d stepped from one side of the desk to the other, to be honest – and it’s in my DNA. What did you find was the biggest difference of going from one world into the other?     Jenny: Freedom, scary, exciting. You realise that there’s a lot that rests on your shoulders. The first month after we’d bought the business out, instead of me receiving a salary cheque on the 18th, I had to think about paying a quarter of a million pounds’ worth of wages every month and you feel responsible for people’s homes and families and that sort of thing. But equally, all of the freedom that comes with that and the responsibility to keep that business going and grow it.     Coming back to Dragon’s Den. Look After My Bills, in your own words, ‘negotiated hard’. What advice would you have for business owners who are looking for funding but are that sort of position? What negotiation tips do you have and what would win you over? Jenny: I think what wins me and many investors over is that, besides investing in that business and that product, you are ultimately investing in that person or persons. With the people standing in front of you, I’ve got to get a rapport with them straight away – that I admire them, I believe them, I’m confident that they can deliver on their proposal. The boys, Will and Henry from Look After My Bills, did negotiate hard, but that showed me that they had the experience to do that. I admire that. One of my other entrepreneurs accepted my offer before I’d even finished making it, but he was much younger and much more inexperienced. Will and Henry did a great job of negotiating and Tej (Lalvani) and I got a very small slice of Look After My Bills, but it proved to be a great investment as they sold to GoCompare ten months later and we got a very nice return on a very small investment. Anna: I think it’s interesting that because of them not budging much on their offer, Peter said that it shows a certain level of naivety, so it must be quite different between investors.     Jenny: Yes, but there’s quite a bit of gameplay in the negotiations – you’ve all got to play your own part. There’s admiration behind that hard negotiation stance as well. As an entrepreneur you’ve got to have some emotional intelligence as to where that tipping point is with the investor. You can push them so far, but you’ve got to realise where you’ll lose that investor, where they just going to sign out and say, ‘I’m out’.     Let’s come back to raising finance. Of course, we’re going through a difficult time at the moment – this is the first of the remote recordings we’re doing because of COVID-19. What advice do you have about raising finance in particularly tough times such as these?   Jenny: Is it any different in these times to pre-COVID? If anything, there are more options because of Microbusiness Bounce Back Loans etc around, so my advice is probably the same: cover a lot of bases in looking for those options. First of all, think about the structure of what it is that you’re looking for – are your able to take any debt into the business? That’ll save you giving away equity. Equally, sometimes it’s a strategic thing to find an equity investor because you get smart investors in the business who will help to propel your business further than if you were trying to do it through the existing equity structure. It’s always a balance of what your business can take and what it needs and that strategic aspect. I’m working with one of my businesses now on doing our first fundraise. I’m just educating them on taking those steps really carefully, to find the right structure of equity and debt and, crucially, the right people to come into the business. I always say to them, ‘This is like a snooker game: it’s not just about getting the first red ball down, but it’s about getting the black ball down, which is your exit.’ Every step is fundraise is important – you must think about how that impacts the next step and your eventual exit. But I think all those usual funding routes are there and, if anything, there is pent up demand from private equity and VCs to get money invested right now. Has COVID-19 affected the way that you invest in or the companies that you’d be interested in investing in now? Jenny: I don’t think it’s affected the way that I invest. Apart from not meeting in person, we’ve all got very used to tiled Zoom screens or Teams or Google. We’ve all got used to those virtual meetings, so the way in which I invest has not changed. Maybe where I invest has changed. Some areas you might have thought of investing in pre-COVID, but in post-COVID they’re either not the right areas or there are certainly better areas which have capitalised on COVID. I always say that wherever there are challenges, there are opportunities, and it’s just watching which ones will rise out of this. My Didsbury Gin business pivoted into hand sanitiser and they’ve done a fantastic job. Did I think I’d ever be invested in hand sanitiser? No! But it was the right thing to do and they’ve done very well. Anna: It’s been very much extremes – either a company has done very well or struggled quite significantly. Jenny: But that’ll be the true test of the entrepreneur in dealing with that. My eldest son has three restaurants in London, and it has not been an easy time. However, he’s probably going to come out of this leaner, fitter, stronger and with a different strategic path, which will actually be a better one. You as an entrepreneur have personally got to have the resilience, the foresight and the vision to deal with that. And that’s what the key strength of an entrepreneur is. Anna: And going digital has helped a lot of businesses. Ones that didn’t have a website before are very quickly learning and moving online. Jenny: Yes – you’ve got to go where the consumer is going to go which is a huge shift to online as you say.    I’d like to ask a couple of questions about your views in business. I’ve read that your plan wasn’t to become a business owner, rather, you ‘take things when they arise’ and when your children were young, you’d ‘just think about the year ahead’, contrary to popular business advice of planning one, three, five years in advance. What’s your view on planning vs spontaneity in business? Jenny: I mean, I always say that when I was 16, 18, 25, I didn’t really see much further ahead than the next year. As you get older, you tend to plan your runway out a bit more. But it’s always a balance for a business owner of never losing sight of today and the detail you need to do of today while balancing that with a vision of the future. And that’s a tricky thing sometimes – you can be lost in the weeds on a day-to-day basis and never have that time to think about the future. But you can find different places to do that future thinking. I remember when I was very busy in YourCash with the turnaround work. Where my vision and strategy used to come from was when I was on the running machine at the gym in the evening or in the bath. I used to come back fuelled with what we need to do differently, so you just need to find those spaces to let your head clear and think about the future of the business. You must do that and not just be lost in the day-to-day. Now I think I plan much further ahead, hence it’s actually driven my exit of YourCash because I’d been at the business for ten years. And I had half an eye on where cash was going as well in the future which proved to be quite prophetic. And equally I wanted another ten years in business doing other things, so focusing on the end game is quite important.      My next question was going to be about your exit from YourCash. Talk us through your exit plan – when did it begin, how did it unfold, did it change? Jenny: When you reflect on these things, again, I think it happened on the day I did the management buyout in 2010. The reason for that was as soon as the business became independent from RBS, I straight away started getting courted by other independents to amalgamate with them, so I realised from day one of year one that there was an opportunity for a trade sale. But I knew it wasn’t going to be right then when I put all of my energy and passion into buying this business out and mortgaged my home and I was on a journey and I was going to sell at an optimum time. But knowing those courtiers were out there, I played that dance with them for five years and it eventually reeled one of them in there for an exit. So there, you can see I was planning, even in 2010, to exit, probably five to six years down the path, which is what I did. I think in any market, I’ve seen in the supermarkets, in industry, etc. I’d say all businesses compete on the ground. But at top level, CEOs all meet each other at conventions and industry gatherings, and all have quite a professional and grown up relationship. I always had those relationships with the bosses of the other businesses and there were always muted conversations, seeing if there were any areas of cooperation and synergies between us. There’s a lot of dancing around handbags before you come to the formal marriage. Anna: I suppose it’s like networking of any kind, isn’t it? You’ve got to build it up quite slowly. Jenny: And it’s important to do that. That’s a really good point – I had extensive networks across my industry, not just in the UK but across the globe. I would take plane trips across the globe to go to certain conventions to make sure I had face time with people, so I was out there and present and had a really good black book.     Finally, given your background with YourCash, what do you make of cash vs contactless, especially in this COVID-19 landscape? Is it still worth it for businesses to accept cash? Jenny: Before I sold the business, there was also a challenge externally around the future of cash. And I think cash is still here for another generation in this country. It’s very entrenched in this country as it is in other countries such as Ireland and Germany. Yet if you look at other countries like the Nordics, they’ve been almost cashless for a very long time so where do we sit in all of this? I still think there’s a place for cash in the UK for a while because I don’t think we have all of the systems to donate to charities, to pay for certain things for the elderly and the disadvantaged, so all of the systems aren’t there yet to digitally support moving to totally non-cash. I do think there is a place for it and, to that end, that it’s important for retailers and businesses to accept cash, because not everyone is able or ready to move to digital. The consumers have to be educated and cajoled but not forced, if you know what I mean. Yeah, of course it’s important in terms of budgeting or for people who may not be best able to manage their money. Do you think we’ll ever go completely cashless and if so, at what point? Jenny: [laughs] Crystal ball again… I think we will, it depends how you define cashless, if you mean totally cashless. Surely in the next 25 years we’d go cashless, I would’ve thought, providing all of the systems are there to cope with that. But if you look at the young people of today, they just don’t carry cash – at all. And I myself would have always had cash with me and never have I used Apple Pay so much as in the past three months, and I’m much more comfortable with it now. That has forced buying habits but equally, I doubt very much that older people have changed their buying habits and the disadvantaged need to work with cash as well. Anna: Well, I’ll wrap up there unless there’s anything you’d like to add. Jenny: No, thank you for letting me come on your podcast. I’m delighted to come on any time and have a chat and happy to do it any other time you wish. Anna: Thank you for coming on the podcast. You can find out more about Jenny at jennybcampbell.com. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more articles on raising capital and choosing payment systems. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Until next time, thank you for listening.   

In this episode I meet Rachel Elnaugh, businesswoman, author and one of the original Dragons. We talk about her time running Red Letter Days and what it means to be an evolutionary entrepreneur. Be sure to visit SmallBusiness.co.uk for more articles on wellbeing.  Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Would you prefer to read Rachel's interview instead? Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan. Today we have Rachel Elnaugh, author, speaker, mentor, former Dragon and the creator of Red Letter Days. She launched the experience day voucher company in 1989 when she was 24 years old. And after a precarious start, a print brochure campaign launched it to success. This led to multiple awards and a place as one of the original Dragons on Dragon’s Den. The company went into administration in 2005 due to over-expansion and the remaining assets were bought by fellow Dragons, Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis. They eventually sold the firm to Buyagift and it’s now owned by French firm, The Smartbox Group.   Taking the lessons of Red Letter Days with her, Elnaugh now mentors business owners and speaks at events in the hope that fellow entrepreneurs can learn from her experiences. Anna: Hi Rachel. Rachel: Hi Anna. Thank you for that intro. Anna: Not at all. How are you doing? Rachel: Yeah good, thank you. Great. The first thing I’d like to ask you about is that you describe yourself as an ‘evolutionary entrepreneur’ – what do you mean by that, exactly? Rachel: Well, I’ve been on my own journey of transformation and particularly being a business mentor, have got really interested in what makes one person successful and one another not. That’s kind of my holy grail – to really understand what makes the difference which has kind of taken me on this journey of discovery through mindset, through energy work and metaphysics and so I do think there’s a new era of consciousness opening. I think I’m moving out of that old capitalist business paradigm into this new era, along with many other people, which is a very different way of doing business. It’s much more intuitive and much more about manifestation and effortless flow. If your focus isn’t capitalism, what is it? Rachel: Well, capitalism is fundamentally about scarcity and really about putting money ahead of all other considerations. As we move into this new era, we’re seeing that businesses that aren’t just about profit but are also very much about people and about the planet are really coming to the fore – those brands that embrace a much wider idea of success than just money. We’re seeing a massive change and we’re also starting to unravel some of the programmes of capitalism like scarcity. For example, with renewable energy, the sun never stops shining, the waves and the wind never stop. There’s so much natural resource to tap into that I think this deep programme of scarcity is being unravelled and uninstalled. Anna: Yeah, you can see in businesses now that a corporate social responsibility is non-negotiable. If the business doesn’t have an ethical basis then at least it’ll be embedded in their business plan. Rachel: Yeah, and I think it goes way beyond the veneer of corporate social responsibility of wrapping a company with that. I think the companies that are really powerfully coming through are ones that have actually got ethics at the heart of them. So, I think there’s a new breed of entrepreneur coming through which goes way beyond social enterprise, it’s people working from the heart, really passionate about their businesses and their brands. And wanting to do business but in a way that is very nourishing.                   Definitely, I agree. I’d like to talk a bit about Red Letter Days as well. You made a loss of £4.7m at the time that you realised something was amiss. According to previous reports, there were various issues: management consultants taking on too many projects, a dud CEO, suppliers going unpaid, your financial director keeping information from you. Rachel: I think that when a business goes wrong, a lot of waves hit the ship at the same time. Up until that point, we’d had a very successful company that was growing every year, that was profitable. In 2002, I started winning awards and getting on television. I think you can get the Midas touch and start to push too far and fast. Suddenly it’s driven by profit motives and ego rather than just wanting to create great products and experiences and services. We brought in some management consultants who recommended that it was time for the business to grow up and to parachute in a new chief executive to take it to the next level – we really thought we could groom the business to float it. It was really that process of over-expansion, as you said in the intro, that was our undoing. It was a very big lesson. I think if I had to share that lesson with other entrepreneurs I would say just grow organically and in a very steady way rather than trying to step change a business and leap to the next level. That was the mistake we made. Anna: So, there’s a surge in confidence – then a real dip in confidence – on your part. Rachel: Well, as I said, a lot of waves hit the ship at the same time, so we parachuted in a chief executive who was brilliant at spending money. He’d actually come in from Thomas Cook and he is the one who created the JMC brand which, literally the day before he joined, was closed down by Thomas Cook. That should have been a warning. I also didn’t have a strong enough finance director and I think that’s really crucial in a business, I realise now. To have a very trusted, rock-solid finance director is key. So we over-expanded, overspent and then crucially, our credit card takings were bonded by our bank. When we were forced into administration, we had £3.3m cash at bank. That was another big lesson in that whoever controls the money has all the power. We had a huge amount of cash at bank but we just couldn’t touch it. And the bank forced us into administration. When that bond was unbound over the next year, all of the vouchers had been redeemed, the actual cost of fulfilling them was only just over £1m. While the bond was appropriate, the level of it was way in excess of what was necessary. And it was that cash flow that strangled the business and forced us into administration. There were a lot of factors involved and it was a very very dark, difficult learning process for me. From your learnings, what kind of advice would you give entrepreneurs about finding the right bank, the right account, the right adviser for them?      Rachel: It was interesting because I remember having a discussion on the set of Dragon’s Den with Duncan Bannatyne, my fellow Dragon. I was telling him the problems at that time I was struggling with trying to get this bond lifted. And he just turned to me and said: ‘Rachel, the first rule of business: do not bank with Barclay’s’. And the thing is, you don’t really understand how much power a bank has over you until you run into problems. And I think some banks are more ruthless than others. It was a big learning curve. But I don’t want to sound like I’m blaming and in victim mode because in truth, we were undercapitalised. And it’s very difficult to re-finance yourself out of a cash flow issue like that. If I could’ve re-run the clock it would’ve been much better for us to have got some proper venture capital funding before embarking on the expansion plan rather than trying to fund it out of cash flow. Tell me about the months after the company went into administration – what was it like for you? Rachel: It was a bit of a double-edged thing because on one side of things, it was quite tragic for me because I’d spent 16 years building this company literally from nothing, it was literally like my baby. I’d poured my whole life into it. All of my passion and all of my money, I’d lost that. On the other side of things, it was so stressful towards the end that when I finally signed the papers and put it into administration – and I really had no choice – it was a massive relief and a release. I’d just had my fourth son the week before so that was a great gift from God, you know. It was August, the sun was shining, I had a newborn baby and also, I’d just been on Dragon’s Den. So, I had this new world opening up to me of being this TV celebrity entrepreneur. And even though I got annihilated by the press, I was given a book deal. I wrote a book called Business Nightmares about the fine line between success and failure. That came out in May 2008 and in September 2008, world economies crashed, and we had the banking crash. And this repositioning of myself as a business survivor was actually perfect timing because it opened up a whole new world of speaking at business events, becoming a mentor and creating lots of products and ways of helping other people on their entrepreneurial journey. It was synchronistic and beautiful even though at the time it felt like the worst possible thing that could ever happen to me. Anna: I read that you found a note that you had written some time before about what you wanted for the future. It said something along the lines of ‘I will sell off Red Letter Days’. Rachel: This was long before I understood the power of words and the law of attraction. A friend of mine was training to be a life coach and she needed guinea pig clients. I said, ‘I don’t need a life coach but I’ll be your guinea pig client’. She got me to write this life plan and I found it after the company had crashed. I had written this several years before, but I found the piece of paper. On it I’d written: ‘By 2006, get rid of Red Letter Days so I can spend more time at home with my children, be creative and write.’ And so the universe had delivered that little cosmic order exactly to plan. You notice I didn’t write on there: ‘Sell Red Letter Days for £20m, be creative and write’, it said ‘get rid of’. And ‘get rid of’ is a very angry energy and so the universe got rid of it for me. We have to be very careful about our spelling, spelling is very powerful. You have to be careful what you ask for because it’s delivered often exactly to the word. What about planning what would happen within your business, including the staff. What was the process there? Rachel: We didn’t want to go into administration and we were working on all sorts of ways to re-finance. I had a re-financing offer from HBOS and I was looking for match equity funding. What happened was one of our suppliers – and sometimes in these situations, suppliers can be their own worst enemy – took a winding up order against the company. Could you briefly describe what a winding up order is for our listeners who don’t know? Rachel: Basically, if a company owes you money and they don’t pay, you can enter into court a winding up order which is if they don’t pay, you’re going to wind up the company and get paid that way. It’s a bit like dropping a nuclear bomb on someone to get what you want. Usually, in normal circumstances, if you get a winding up order from a creditor then you just pay them. But in our situation – it was a long time ago – but there was a legal reason why we couldn’t just pay them because we couldn’t create preferential creditors. When a winding up order has been put in, it basically opens you up to every other creditor. What happened was the creditors started arriving at the company offices to try and take the assets. So the only way we could protect the staff was firstly to lock the doors. We were in London and we had staff in our head office in Muswell Hill on the phone saying, ‘There are people at the doors, what do we do?’ We had to say, ‘You just have to lock the doors.’ We were advised by the lawyers that the only way to protect the company and its assets from these creditors in their vans was to put the company into administration. Through that winding up order we were forced into administration and as a result, no one got paid because I couldn’t complete the re-financing and it was game over. It was a very fine line between success and failure. Had we not had that winding up order, I could potentially have maybe, and it’s always an if, completed on the HBOS deal, the bond would’ve been released because we would have re-financed. Then we could have traded through and floated the company which was the plan because it had growth and it had profitability and it had a great brand. But alas, alack, it was not to be. How long would the re-financing process take? Rachel: All of my time was spent in meetings with bank and financiers, so I had the deal agreed. It was just a case of finding match equity funding. I actually did go to Peter [Jones] and Theo [Paphitis] and said, ‘I’ve got this deal. Could you match-fund it?’ There was potential they could’ve done that, but they felt there was a bigger opportunity to push it through administration, although that proved not to be the case. It is a bit like going nuclear, pushing your company through administration. And certainly with that industry, they couldn’t wipe the deck by putting it through administration because no one would supply the business without getting paid. It was quite messy.                                          The experiences industry is huge now. If you could have started Red Letter Days at any time within the past 30 years, when would you have started it? Rachel: We were the pioneers of the industry. And really, the 1980s were about how much you owned and the 1990s were about what you could experience, so the timing of creating the company was perfect because it captured the zeitgeist of the era. We weren’t the first company that did experiences, but we were the first company to truly embrace the concept of experiential giving. Anna: I suppose – I’m not sure about our listeners – but for me it seems like a pretty recent shift towards less buying of stuff to more buying of experiences, but it’s interesting to find out that back then that it was emerging – it’s always great to get in on that emerging market. Rachel: Yeah, for sure – we were creating that as we went. And a lot of people picked up on it, so we had lots of copycat companies and competitors. Then Virgin Experiences came in on it followed by all the retailers. And now it’s commonplace to see experiences as your prize or gift as opposed to a TV or a tangible piece of technology or kit.           You’ve said that part of the struggle of Red Letter Days initially was getting experience providers on board with something that was novel at the time – what would you say to entrepreneurs running a business based on a fairly new concept? Rachel: In essence, Red Letter Days was a marketing portal. When we launched in 1989, everyone’s books were full, and business was booming. Then the first recession happened in the early 1990s and people’s revenues started dropping. Even though a recession was opening, that was a great opportunity for us because people could see that their sales were dropping, and they wanted more promotion – especially free promotion – which is what we were offering. So I think in every era there’s always opportunity in adversity and I think you just have to tune into the market and be resourceful and just go with the flow and find out where people’s point of pain is and provide a solution to it.      Anna: Well, that’s it from me – is there anything you would like to add? Rachel: No, that’s fine. Hopefully that’s been useful. Anna: Yeah, it has been. Thank you so much. You can find out more about Rachel at rachelelnaugh.com. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more guidance on mental wellbeing and expanding your company. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Until next time, thank you for listening.   

Dog trainers are commonly asked to help dog owners teach a dog to "potty" outside. Well, thanks to this crazy quarantine situation, we're not being asked the opposite question: How can I teach my dog to pee and poop inside? Annie interviews School For The Dogs' trainer Anna Ostroff, who has a dog who is a professional when it comes to peeing and pooping inside. Learn how to train a dog to have a potty spot inside, and how to put it on cue! Also: How socializing with people in face masks can help us thinks about dogs greeting each other in leash. Get our illustrated guide to house training when you sign up for our newsletter at AnnieGrossman.com/potty Learn more about School For The Dogs at SchoolForTheDogs.com. Make sure to also check out our 2018 episode all about house training! Products mentioned in this episode: http://FreshPatch.com http://DoggieLawn.com Partial transcript: (00:38): Hey everyone. We've been getting a lot of questions about how to train a dog to go inside. Usually dog trainers are asked for help training dogs to go outside, but due to this mass quarantine, people can't go outside with their dogs or don't want to go outside with their dogs. And suddenly this new problem presents itself. How do we train dogs to go inside for an expert opinion on this? I wanted to talk to our trainer, Anna Ostroff, who is one of my very good friends and just a wonderful trainer and person. But as often happens with me, I was kind of last minute on this. And so rather than arrange an interview with her in advance, I called her up with kind of a surprise interview. I think you're going to enjoy hearing about her dog ginger and how she trained ginger to do her business in the closet. (01:50): Annie: So this is a kamikaze interview cause I, I want to talk to you about teaching your dog to pee in that house recording right now. Is that okay? I can record you talking about how your dog pees in the house. People don’t normally call you up to ask you how you got your dog to pee in the house? Is this weird? (02:16): Anna: Well, you know, these are weird times. You never know these days. How are you? Cool. I'm doing okay. So, you want me to just like talk about how I trained Ginger? (02:36): Annie:To anyone listening, I should explain that you have a dog who's very sensitive to New York City among other things and well why don't you explain how it came to pass that she is an indoor pottier. I mean, the reason I want to talk about this is because so many people are asking this question right now because they don't want to, some of them can't go outside or feel like they shouldn't outside or whatever. The reason is there's an increasing amount of people trying to get their dog to go to the bathroom inside, which is unusual and unusual thing for a dog trainer to be asked about because usually it's the opposite. (Full transcript available at https://www.schoolforthedogs.com/podcast)

In this episode I meet Tim Campbell, an entrepreneur and the first winner of The Apprentice back in 2005. We discuss his views on apprenticeships and the idea behind one of his more unusual business ventures. Be sure to visit SmallBusiness.co.uk for more articles on apprenticeships and grants.  Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Want to read the Tim Campbell's podcast interview instead? Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan. Today we have Tim Campbell, an entrepreneur and the very first winner of The Apprentice back in 2005. Since working for Lord Sugar, Tim has launched Bright Ideas Trust, a charity for disadvantaged young entrepreneurs and Alexander Mann Solutions, a talent acquisition firm. We’ll be talking about what it was like to be in the first crop of candidates on The Apprentice and how to give interviewees useful, constructive feedback.   Anna: Hello Tim. Tim: Hi, how are you, Anna? Good? Anna: Yeah, very well, thanks. A bit of a grim day but doing alright. How are you?   Tim: Oh, if we didn’t have the weather to complain about, what would we have? Anna: Exactly! It’s the essence of being British. Tim: It is unfortunately, but let’s hope for better tidings to come. Anna: Awesome. Right, for a bit of context, we are recording in the Alexander Mann Solutions offices today – in a sound booth, which is very nice. Tim: It is indeed. But one of the interesting things that amazes me about London and is very exciting, is the juxtaposition between the old buildings we can see and the new cranes you can see everywhere.   Anna: Exactly, yeah. It’s wonderful seeing the architecture of the new vs the old. You wouldn’t think they work together, but they do. Tim: That’s the thing about London – we make it work. That sings to the essence and the entrepreneurial nature of individuals from the UK. My mum was an entrepreneur, but she didn’t call herself an entrepreneur. She was just making ends meet, as it were. A Jamaican immigrant to the country who had three children and brought them all up to be relatively successful. But she always underpinned that with working hard, going out and earning a living. And London has always facilitated that and I suppose the inspiration for me in a lot of the things I do is my mum in that she came over with all the skills and attributes but didn’t have the knowledge, contacts or mentors to be able to do that. Do you think your mum didn’t call herself an entrepreneur because she didn’t go through the formal avenues of having a grant or a mentor? Tim: Definitely. She just didn’t have time to worry about the nomenclature, she was just focused on the outputs and I think that one of the things we talk about with the people that we either mentor or support is to strip it down to its bare necessities. Lots of people are very interested in the successful outputs of getting in business. They want the money, they want the accolades, they want the title and we have to start at the very beginning: ‘What problem is it that you’re solving? What is your business? Then we get some blank looks and they say, ‘We just want the money at the end. Can’t you just give me that?’ And I say, ‘Well, no actually – there’s a process to it.’ I think with my mum and me and the people we try and support, we try and encourage them not to focus on what the title is because titles are for corporate environments, whereas when you’re a business owner it doesn’t matter, particularly when you run a micro or small business, you do everything. But essentially, you’re focused on the output and delighting the customer. As long as you keep that at the forefront of your mind, then you can enjoy the pats on the back and the celebrations of what you’ve done. But never lose sight of why you’re in this and that’s to delight a customer and make them happy, and then get them to give you money as a result.       The thing I’d like to talk about is your time on The Apprentice. You were on the very first series before anyone even knew what it was. Tim: A long time ago, neither did we! We didn’t know what it was. For the 14 contestants on the first show, there were probably only two people who did the investigation to find out exactly what The Apprentice was, which is a bit stupid to admit, but I’m going to be very honest. Anna: Was one of them you? Tim: Yeah. Anna: Oh really?! Tim: No, I didn’t. I was very naïve, I actually applied for a job with the main focus being to get the six-figure salary. That’s what I wanted. Because [the programme] wasn’t as popular as it is now and didn’t attract the millions of people watching every single episode, so it was a different beast. But when I applied, it was about securing a salary that would look after my family. And naïvely, I just applied thinking that 1) I was going to work with a great British entrepreneur in the then Sir Alan (as he is now Lord Sugar) and 2) it was a sizeable multiple on the money I was earning at the moment. I thought, ‘What could I lose?’ Little did I realise what you could actually lose, but that’s why I carried on with the application and thankfully it was a positive outcome. Yeah, that’s it – because people who apply now see it as a platform for a business idea that they might have and obviously you get the investment at the end. Tim: Correct. I suppose the thing for me is that the bigger opportunity for a show like that, apart from shouting and screaming at the contestants who don’t want to do the dreadful things they sometimes have to – or coming out with the ridiculous one-liners they seem to continually do every year without fail – is learning from Lord Sugar himself. He’s a brilliant entrepreneur in the truest sense of the word, in that he can spot problems, come up with solutions and deliver true value, not just to investors, but stakeholders, customers, in what he would be able to deliver. From what I’ve seen, there weren’t as many zingers in the first series as there were later on. What else is different between then and now? Tim: Probably because I was just boring. On the first series, I remember all of the contestants. All of us were really competitive – we just wanted to win. What we agreed on very early, was that the way we could secure victory was by not losing task and not falling out with each other. If we worked as a team, we’d actually do more. That must have been so annoying for the television producers because that’s not what they want to hear, but that’s what we had. When we went on task, we were going to be polite and civil. And when we were on task, we were going to be competitive, but not devious to the point where we would hurt other individuals. That wasn’t on our agenda. And that sung to our values – particularly me and Saira – who were project managers a number of times. Our values were that you could win without being negative to people. And I think that’s sometimes lost, particularly when people talk about business in general, where the image that people get is ruthless, belligerent character that kills everybody and steps on the heads of minor people to get to where they are. And there are some people who are like that in business, but the vast majority of people I’ve worked with – either on the show or in business in the real world – just want to survive. Anna: Those relationships are so important. Tim: It’s critical. What we took from our series was that the power of strong relationships helped you go further. As you said, the prize in the first series was a job with Sir Alan, back then. You set up his health and beauty division at Amstrad. Tim: It was a very interesting journey. You were asked on day one to come up with a health and beauty product. And I thought, ‘What is this?’ And what I saw it as was a test. What we were trying to do – and we did successfully, was replicate other multi-level marketing processes. We got other women to sell the products to other women. It was a very interesting two years I spent. The whole gambit of business was involved in that particular project. I look at it like it was a real-life MBA. It was phenomenal in terms of learning and experience. I still rub cream on the back of my hand now and say, ‘Ooo, isn’t that lovely?’ because I understand how it was all made. How was the reception of MLMs back then? Now we’re seeing a backlash, particularly with companies that don’t have a great reputation, make false promises, are quite exploitative. Tim: Yup, and I think people are right to see a backlash against those ones who don’t deliver against what they say they’re going to. The key thing that I learned from Lord Sugar was to deliver on your promises. The products that we put on were about empowering people to make a revenue from the products that we had already generated. But we had very clear outputs, a very clear rewards structure and had very clear marketing, which had no false pretence behind it. And the good thing about going on a television programme which had multi-million people viewing it is that you get held to account very quickly if you don’t do what you say you’re going to do. So thankfully, all of the work that we did was regulated, it was checked and verified by independent people and delivered against the promises. What we were really focused on was them learning about business while possibly generating some income for themselves as well as using a good, highly potent and effective product. If you were to go back on The Apprentice now and win the investment (£250,000) rather than the job, what would you do with it? Tim: Very interesting. I think if I were to do something today it’d be around artificial intelligence and some form of tech. You look at some of the industry sectors on a medium scale which are accelerating in excess of 20pc every single year and you’re immediately gravitating towards use of tech, particularly in the financial sectors. The fintech market has been amazing. I think there are some really interesting plays in the insuretech space and the edutech space. Education and people insuring against risk are never going to go away. If you look at some of the fast-growing businesses at the moment, they’re providing ancillary services behind businesses, so courier servicing, making sure that you can deliver consultancy advice and guidance into business. Or anywhere around tech in terms of promoting business propositions. Those are the areas I would’ve come up with a proposition for him to give me some money for.      I know you’re supportive of apprentices. From a small business owner’s perspective, we’ve seen that some are put off hiring apprentices because they don’t have time to train them or they can’t afford them. What would you like to see that would make things easier? Tim: I think for small businesses you’ve got to make the decisions which are really important to your company. You can’t just follow on. It’s got to be right for you as a business. The difficulty with a small company is if you make a mistake the impact is much bigger than in a bigger company where you make a mistake, it might not be right, but you can move around and you’ve got the resources to absorb that. Small businesses have to make really critical decisions around can they take on an additional wage because when you take on an apprentice, it’s not a free resource. In my opinion, you have to pay them the living wage – and the London wage if you’re in the capital. Then you’ve got to work into the equation how long the value add is to you as a business owner. They’re going to have to learn the ropes and get off the ground before they become of value to you as a small business. And the training that comes with an apprenticeship – how valuable could that be to an organisation in making an assessment? It’s not for every small company, with the amount of supervisory element to an apprenticeship programme, the resources may not be there for a small business to be able to go along that journey yet. But it’s something that should definitely be on the agenda and maybe for the smaller to medium-sized businesses that are growing, as opposed to the micro businesses who are at the beginning. I’m going to take what is typically seen as a more morbid turn here. I understand that you are the director of a company called death.io. Tim: Yes, I am indeed. And rather than scaring lots of people, it should fill them with joy. What we have done, and when I say we it’s me, my co-founder Paul Wiseall and our chairman, Tom Ilube, have come together to start a company which is using artificial intelligence to help people better prepare for the inevitable. And the rather shocking title of ‘Death’, similar to the likes of Virgin or Google, makes you wonder what this is about, where is it coming from and it’s a bit of a shock factor. We want it to stick in people’s minds that this is one of the last taboo areas that you should be talking about. Because the whole industry is a conversation which happens behind closed doors, in hushed tones, and no one really wants to speak about it. There are so many different ways to talk about death. What we at death.io have done is utilise technology to help you live forever. We are able to take the essential elements of you as an individual and tell your story, tell us the significant moments of your lives and utilise technology to create a virtual person out of those recollections, which others can interact with. Is that verbally or in writing? Tim: Both! At the moment, we have a platform which allows you to talk using typed words back and forward to your avatar. But the developments are quickly incorporating voice into that. So very much like you might like you might tell a speaker to turn the lights or the music on in your house, you will have the ability to talk to yourself via one of those devices as well. Anna: Oh, that’s kind of eerie. Tim: In one way, I can understand why people think, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t want that, where would that come from?’ But at the same time, bringing it to back business, I had the privilege of speaking to the head of the Chinese Takeaway Association. It was very interesting – I didn’t know one existed – but one does! What he said is that you’ve got a lot of people who have come over as immigrants to this country and worked really hard to build up fantastic businesses within every single major city in the world. They’ve done that to facilitate a better life for them and their children. What happens though is that these children go to fantastic schools, go off to university, and may decide that they don’t want to run Mum and Dad’s Chinese takeaway. What happens to all of that information? What happens to all of that insight around how you pick stock, how you purchase stuff, how you set up a marketing campaign to get people to do stuff? That information has to go somewhere otherwise it just passes with the individual. It’s also an opportunity for us to make sure people have their lives in order: have you got the right insurance in place? Have you got the right protection for your family going forward? We have the facility to let people do that in a nice, friendly, social way. Yeah, from what I saw I like the holistic approach of it, especially with the blog. It’s touched by so many of today’s topics like rapidly advancing technology, sustainability, gender identity. It’s fascinating. I like the tone as well – normally with traditional funeral care providers and planners there’s a formal and sombre tone where again, on the blog, it helps breaks the tension around, as you say, a taboo subject. Tim: We had a great conversation with a phenomenal agency called Ready Ten, started up by a very good friend of mine, David Fraser. He was the only agency that picked up the potential of this in terms of how you could turn this into a positive conversation. Their ideas around how you could really grasp a difficult subject like death – you have to talk about these things because they’re not going to go away. We want to take the stance of not making light of the conversation, but in lightening the conversation around subject matters that have to happen. Like, if you got sick, what would happen? What’s your blood type? I don’t know – most people don’t know! If you don’t know what your blood type is or you don’t know if you’ve got any hereditary diseases, we have a way to capture that and share the true essence of who you are rather than the curated bit that you might do through other social platforms.       I think there are some interesting ethical questions around grieving, the way that people’s memories are held. Because we touch so many people, you might want me to come back alive, but I might’ve been really horrible to someone else who doesn’t want me to continue on living. What are the ethical implications of all of those? But for us as a platform, we want to give that ownership and option over to the individual. Where you can sign up to have this delivered in any way, shape or form based on what you feel those around you need. It’s not for us to act as judge and jury around that, but it’s going to be a very interesting development to see how far people want to take it.      Well, I’d love to talk about this a bit more, but I must move onto our last topic. You’re an advocate of the Fight for Feedback campaign, encouraging employers to give interviewees good quality feedback. In your opinion, what makes quality, decent feedback from an employer? Tim: I think it’s incredibly important that employers to understand that they have a responsibility to leave candidates with a good candidate experience from their resource process. Why is that important? I was always told that it’s important to say goodbye in a nice way rather than just say hello in a positive way. Those people will tell another ten people exactly how you treated them. It’s very important from an employer brand perspective to make sure that employees – whether they’re successful or not in going through a process – leave with a good feeling. And the best way to leave with a good feeling is to be told ‘No, but this is how you could improve’. As employers, I think we all have a responsibility to raise the level of our candidates, and I think the only way you can do is alert them to what they can do better in the future. Let me make it clear, because there are lots of very big employers who are saying, ‘Hang on a second, Tim – we see hundreds of thousands of people every year for our placements.’ Yes, that’s true, there are a lot of people coming through. It would not be impossible to put a structure in place which says to individuals, ‘You might not get direct verbal feedback from every person you spoke to but we can at least highlight the areas that we didn’t select you on.’ There are so many candidates who talk about filling out an application, taking the time to nurture a CV and make it bespoke to that employer, write the covering letter, do everything necessary, and don’t hear anything – not even a ‘no’. That’s a very negative seed that’s been planted around that brand and the value that they place around the people who interact with them. And for me, just to be able to say, ‘No, but these are the areas you fell down’ is as powerful as a half-hour phone call with an individual to walk them through exactly what they could do to improve. Now, the scale of when you can do that may alter depending on how far they’ve gone through a process and how senior the actual role is. I don’t mind that. And the other thing to think about from an employer’s perspective is that it’s a two-way process. You could get some free marketing research from individuals who have interacted with you and they can tell you what they found and that can help you develop and get better as well. You can create a brilliant campaign, attract a fantastic funnel of talent, but you don’t know unless you’re asking them how they are receiving it. I think feedback is such a small thing to do which can have such a big impact on how people perceive that brand and how they will go and work in the future. So, if somebody has a big problem presenting information in a way, tell them, help them to be better and you never know, they might come and work for you in the future because of that feedback. Plant good seeds; give good feedback.            Anna: Well, that seems like the perfect place to end it on, so I’ll wrap up there. Thanks ever so much for coming on the show, Tim. Tim:  Thanks so much for having me, Anna. Let’s hope that the sun is shining now in London and elsewhere and that all of our businesses improve. Thank you very much for having me. Anna: It’s been a pleasure. You can find out more about Tim at timcampbellhq.com. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more information on apprenticeships and grants. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Until next time, thank you for listening.     

James: Hey, audience. This is James Kandasamy. Welcome to Achieve Wealth through Value Add Real Estate Investing Podcast. Today, I have Anna Kelley from Central Pennsylvania, who owns around 175 units, around $16 million in worth until now. And you know, I should have invested passively in 900 units. And she's also under contract on around 200 units right now. Hey, Anna, welcome to the show. Anna: Thank you so much for having me. Good to see you, James. James: Good to see you too. And, I mean, for those who do not know, we also have a YouTube channel that shows all our interviews. And you can catch up with us on iTunes or Stitcher or YouTube or Spotify so go and do that. I'm actually in one of my property here in San Antonio so trying to do it from my office. And Anna, are you in your office or where are you right now? Anna: I'm in my home. I'm not actually in my office. James: Yes. Good. Good, we work from home, I guess, right. Anna: Yes. James: So Anna, why don't you tell our audience about yourself? Anna: Sure. So I started out in real estate about 20 years ago, just kind of dabbling in real estate. And I started out doing some property flips and some single-family rentals. And then I slowly started moving up to small multi-unit properties, like four-unit apartment buildings, 10 unit apartment buildings. And I recently last May retired from my full-time career, I worked for AIG for 20 years. And I really built my real estate portfolio up on the side, part-time for all of those years. So busy mom, have four children. And I just went full time. And now I'm focused on and have been focusing on for a while much larger apartment building assets. James: Got it. So let's go back to the beginning. I mean, you work at AIG, which is a big insurance firm. And can you just quickly tell us what was your role? Anna: Sure. So at AIG, I had various different roles. I did internal management, consulting, product development, and then I moved into a role that was very compliance heavy. We worked with private placement hedge funds wrapped in an insurance product. So we worked on SEC audits and filings, reviews of PBMs and hedge funds and things of that nature. James: Got it, so it looks like you have some PPM level syndication experience, even at your workplace, I guess, is that right? Anna: Definitely, we worked with alternative investments for about 17 of the 20 years that I worked there. James: So you work there for 20 years and when did you start to real estate venture? Anna: Why I'd say, you know, I dabbled, I bought some, you know, singles and I bought a flip. And then 12 years ago, when I moved from Texas to Central Pennsylvania to start my husband's chiropractic business, we were looking for properties to lease for his office space. And we found that it was very difficult to do that. But they had a lot of buildings that came with tenants, you know. Older buildings on Main Street that had been converted to businesses on the first floor, most of them had residential rental space on the top floors. And so we bought a building and inherited tenants. We had three tenants with his commercial space. James: Okay. Anna: And then that kind of threw me into the idea of having tenants and having a little extra cash to cover the mortgage. And then at that same time, James, we sold a house in Houston that we lived in, liquidated everything, we had to come here and start a business. And so I knew it wasn't very wise for me to buy another home right away. And AIG let me work from home on a very temporary trial basis to see how it worked out. So I bought a four-unit apartment building for us to live in. So we downsize significantly and house hacked, basically, to make sure that our business expenses, you know, for the space and our housing expenses were covered if I happen to lose my job, you know, 12 years ago when we started out. So that got me into starting to think about and invest in residential real estate. James: Got it. So you basically, you did not like had an ah-ah moment, I need to go tomorrow and buy real estate. You were actually thrown into it? Anna: Well, I'll say this before I went to work for AIG. I was in private banking, I was a Financial Relationship Manager for Bank of America. And so I handled the top 10% of the wealth in our bank, both small businesses and individuals. And what I found is that many of them owned real estate and had accumulated their wealth in real estate or were already investing in real estate. So in my young 20s, I was very interested in real estate thought that it was something lucrative that one day I'd like to own, but I really didn't start thinking too much about it until I had my first child in 2003. And all the flip houses shows, you know, we're coming on and I thought, oh, I can flip a couple of houses and be home with my child. And so I dabbled in flipping before the rental real estate. But my move here is what kind of gave me the impetus to think about rentals more quickly. James: Got it. So, I mean, I never had a woman guest until now. So you are the first one. And I'm very -- Anna: Oh, thank you. James: We have a lot of listeners that are listening everywhere and I'm sure a lot of them are women. So I'm trying to get from a woman’s perspective, on how could they start like what GF started, right? I mean, your husband is working and you are working too. Like, I would say what do you think could be the secret formula, or they're just the formula on how can any woman start while they are in your own position? Anna: Sure, you know, there are different ways to starting, a lot of it James truly does depend on the personality of the person, your family dynamic. You know, how much support you have for watching your children? What other income sources you have, you know, when you're starting out? And how much basically time and money that you have available to get started? So, you know, people that have very, very limited time might have the significant cash flow or they might, their spouse might make enough money that they could really get started more passively. And that's where maybe they want to start investing in other apartments syndications or getting invested as a passive partner maybe joint venturing with someone that has experienced you know, buying and managing either a single or a small multi or a larger and then just investing with money. And learning how to review the financials and review the operations each month and each quarter. Just to kind of get yourself familiar with what it's like to own and manage an asset might be a good way to get started. For someone like me, that doesn't have any cash and really wants to get invested by investing time, you have a lot more opportunity to really educate yourself through reading books and through podcasts. And going to meetup groups to learn what it takes to ask actively, evaluate deals, find them and hire people to update them and improve the values and put a renter in or you can start learning the skills yourself. You know, my husband and I when we started out, he did a lot of the maintenance and I painted every unit. And I called flooring contractors and you know, designed kitchens and help paint cabinets. I mean, we did everything actively because we started out, we had liquidated all of our, you know assets and started out with quite a bit of debt to start a business and we're running that. So we really didn't have a lot of money. So we invest at the time. So there are many ways to get started. But I'd say definitely align yourself with other people that already know what they're doing, attend some meetup groups, listen to podcasts. And then just decide whether you want to be active or passive for your first one or two until you kind of learn what you like, what your personality works well with and kind of what works within your family dynamic. James: Got it. So who convinced who between you and your husband? Did he convince you to, hey let's go and do, spend time and rehab this real estate or did you convince him or how did you? I'm trying to understand how did the discussion happen? Because a lot of people are struggling, I mean could be struggling, right? How do I convince my spouse especially from a woman to the husband side? Usually, the husband can convince the wife, right? But you are the one who's active right now real estate, how did that work out? Anna: Yes. So it's one of those things when we talk about the personality of the individual. When you're married, there are two people involved in your decisions. And my husband and I, from the beginning, have always looked at our finances and our lives as a partnership. But we kind of has our roles in reverse. I mean, he's a doctor, he's a chiropractor, he went to school for a long time. He's very smart. But he's very hands-on and a people person, he doesn't like the finances, he's not financially minded. He's not the kind that wants to be an entrepreneur and grow a big business, like he's content, just having a small practice, and letting me handle all of the finances. So because I had a background in finance and understanding investments, I pretty much have always handled our investments. And when we decided for him to start the business, I kind of took over the operations and learned how to, you know, run a chiropractic business and set up insurance and all that kind of stuff while he was the doctor and saw the patients. And so when it came to real estate, I said, listen, we're starting out with a lot of debt after paying off all of the school that it's just not financially wise for us to do anything other than buying something so we have tenants helping to pay the rent. So it was easy initially to get Vincent to buy his practice and our building, just to be financially wise and not going into more debt. But growing that beyond that was definitely me as the driver, he was busy with this practice. He did not like to do maintenance, but he learned to do it and liked the fact that once we did rehab units, they were worth a lot more and we had a lot more cash and could keep buying them. But I've been told multiple times, slow down, pull off the brakes, we have enough units, why do you want to keep growing? And I am like because I'm passionate about it. And I'm passionate about the wealth that it can create. So I've been kind of the driver. And he's been very supportive and very hands-on for the 70 units that we self manage in our area. But definitely likes that I'm now buying much larger assets where I'm asset managing and he's not involved day to day in the management and maintenance of the properties. James: He must be very happy now. Anna: Very happy, yes. James: Yes, we started with 45 units. And my wife used to be sitting there whenever we were missing our property manager in the beginning, I mean, she was sitting there doing things and I didn't do maintenance. But, I used to be with her and trying to buy this and buy that and make sure you know the contractors are lined up. And it's a lot of work, but it involves teamwork. And yes, we are two different people, we have to learn how to work with each other. Anna: For sure. James: That's good. And so you started with 70 units, with the chiropractic real estate, right? I mean, is it like a commercial center? Anna: It is. It's a commercial mixed-use building. So there's a commercial space that his business lease's from my business. And it had three tenants, three, you know, residential renters and four garages to that property. James: Got it. So you got some kind of tax benefit, I guess because the [inaudible11:44] is leasing from the owner itself, I guess, right? Anna: Yes. James: So get some write off there, good. And how did you, I mean, so after that and then what was the next acquisition that you did? Anna: So James, as many people were affected by the 2008-2009 economic crash. Imagine working for AIG at the time and AIG, you know, coming in and having one of the largest insurance liabilities of any other provider in the country between mortgage insurance and credit default swaps. And I worked for them. So I had already, I had been working for them for a year on a work from home basis. And we thought we were going to be laid off, my stock went from 1-o-1 a share to 43 cents a share. My retirement funds were almost just destroyed. They were destroyed. I lost about two thirds within a week. And I decided, oh man, I'm going to lose my job. My husband has a brand new business with hundreds of thousands of dollars in startup debt and I'm the sole income. So what are we going to do? And the only thing I could think to do right away was to borrow from my 401k, about $50,000 that I had left that I could borrow and buy another four-unit because I thought at least if I buy another 4 unit, I'll have another, you know, $1200 to $1500 dollars a month of cash coming in. And that's in the asset, that is solid and stable that I won't lose any more in the stock market, no matter what happens. So that was my next acquisition. Again, it wasn't really thinking about oh, this isn't a phenomenal investment. It was, what can we do to survive? And I know that cash flow is a good thing. And that residential real estate will not go down in value significantly compared to the stock market. James: Got it. So after that four-unit, what did you buy the next one? Anna: Another four units. James: Okay, and when did you start with the 70 units where you self manage? Anna: Okay, so what we did, we self-managed, again, initially just out of necessity, not having a lot of extra cash, thinking our finances were not super stable because I was the sole breadwinner at that point. My husband's income was nice, you know in six figures gross, but it was covering expenses. And so we just we're continuing to find ways that we could cash flow and make the most cash and be willing to put in the time to do it ourselves and learn at the time. And so we kept buying a couple of single-family homes that we bought as foreclosures, renovated them and instead of selling them as a flip, we did a cash-out refi, we kept them as rentals, we took the proceeds to buy another and another. And then we did the same thing with small four-unit apartment buildings. So four-unit apartment buildings were kind of my niche and the sweet spot for several years chains. Because there were in a smaller area, I'd say maybe a tertiary market right outside of Hershey. And there's not a lot of apartment complex supply, no big complexes, but there's a lot of demand for housing. And so most of the rental real estate here were four-unit apartment buildings that had been built that way or converted, you know, couple decades ago. And there weren't a lot of big buyers buying those four-unit building. So they'd sit for a while. So I kind of I saw a niche where I could buy properties without having a lot of competition. And I could basically treat them like a larger commercial asset, but on a, you know, on a four-unit scale instead of a five or six-unit scale. And so I kind of honed my skill in updating those units, managing those units, raising the values, cashing out repeating. And then decided, okay, now it's time, once I built up, you know, a strong six-figure passive, you know, net rental real estate portfolio, then I decided, now I can retire and I can scale and start going after much larger assets. And so that's what I did. James: Okay, got it. So when was the first time that you acquired a much larger than four-unit property? Which year was that? Anna: Okay, so in 2018, I had basically created a five-year plan James in 2013, that by 2018, I wanted a $5 million portfolio, you know, about $150,000, at least in passive income, and then I would retire and start going for a bigger one. So I'm my goal in four years in 2017. And then just started kind of working my way into, you know, saving six months of salary and expenses for all my buildings and starting to look for larger deals. So I found the first larger deal for me, it was a 73 unit apartment building, right outside of Hershey, Pennsylvania, that I found off the market and I [inaudible16:20] on that with two other owners. That was a six and a half million dollar purchase 73 unit. And we closed on that in 2018. James: Got it. So how did you manage your time? I mean, your husband is working, and you are doing this fourplex, fourplex, fourplex and your four kids. And you give some tips for people who are in a similar situation and how can they manage and be as successful as you are? Anna: You know, I think really the key to my success has just been resilience and grit and determination. I worked truly, most people say oh, rental real estates passive. But I like to say and I totally believe James, that passive income is built on the blood, sweat and tears of active income. And it takes years of active, sometimes to build up the financial wherewithal that you can truly become totally passive. So between my husband's business and my work, and my rental real estate, I truly worked 70 to 80 hours a week over the last 10 years, in order to be able to get to where I am. My four children are all involved in sports, pretty competitive sports. So we have sports every morning, we have sports after school every day. And most days, it's seven days a week, you know, multiple tournaments on a Saturday and on a Sunday. So every waking moment when the kids went to school before I started work, I did real estate. My lunch breaks, I did real estate. My vacation days, five out of six weeks a year, I did real estate, you know, evenings between when the kids got home and I worked, it was real estate. And after nine when the kids were in bed, I often stayed up till midnight to get things done. So it was very time-consuming. But I'm very, very grateful that I stuck with it and did it. And it was just a matter of utilizing every day, I didn't watch TV, we didn't have cable, I didn't go do a lot of recreational things, I really, you know, not nose to the grindstone just focused on building the portfolio so that I could retire and spend more time with my kids. James: Yes, it's really hard work, I can really appreciate what you've gone through. Because I was working and my wife was like running around in the beginning. I mean, I only stopped working after we had like, 340 units. Now we have like, 1300, it's a lot of work, right. So based on what you're saying, it can be done. It's just like not, please don't give excuses, right? Anna: Exactly. I'm here to tell you, you know, if I can do it, working full time, running my husband's business, four kids and doing it, you know, anybody can do it if you just have grit and determination. So you make the time for what's important to you. And I knew that it was important to me to be able to work myself out of my job. And especially with AIG, you know, a couple of years ago, they said, we really are going to sell our unit, and we need to all be prepared to figure something else out in terms of career. So that kind of drove me to have executed my plan in a certain period of time. And now you know, that I'm retired, I'm still very, very busy. But I have the freedom to control my time, you know, to do what I enjoy and go after larger deals where I'm not having to be quite so involved in the day to day. James: Yes Can you define what is grit and determination in your mind? Anna: Sure, so grit is the ability to stick with something, no matter what comes, no matter what obstacles without basically, you know, melting into a wallflower. And just keep ongoing. And, you know, there's been a lot of studies done on what makes people successful. And you know, some kids were tracked from high school, through college, through their professional lives and they were really surprised that the top students like the valedictorian, the [inaudible20:04] rarely ended up actually being the most successful people in their professional lives. It was usually the people that went through a lot of hardships, and just kept going and push through and got creative and figured a way through and around every obstacle and became stronger and more confident, and determined. And those are the people that ended up the most successful. So I just I think it's an extra drive and extra determination and a willingness to keep pushing through no matter what and to not give up on your goals. James: Yes, so look, I mean, I always tell my listeners and whoever talked to me that it's always, you know, whether you want to be successful, or whether you like to be successful, whether you required to be successful so, I mean, if you have been this successful, you must have that, I really need, I really required to be successful. I mean, is that true statement that you came to that way? Anna: I think so. I grew up with very, in very humble means. And I always knew that I wanted to create a different type of lifestyle and a different financial future for my kids and I was just determined to do it. So I've always been driven, I've always taken on challenges. You know, my first job at Bank of America, I won the number one ranked Financial Relationship Manager in Texas and Employee of the Year awards at multiple jobs, my first couple of years. Because I've always had, that I'm going to be the best, I'm going to succeed, I'm going to achieve and do whatever it takes attitude. So I think part of that was ingrained in me from a young age. James: Yes, I think it's important, I mean, just the personality itself and the drive to be successful and the requirement; I mean, because your husband and your AIG was going downhill and you must be successful otherwise, your family, it may not be in a good place, in terms of financial. So that's really good. So describe to me, what was your toughest day in a one day when you have like four kids and all going to all these classes and schools and all that? Have any time where you think that, oh, my God, this is just too much for me as a mom and as a real estate sponsor? And can you describe that feeling and experience? Anna: Yes, I just actually, you know, Facebook is kind of a mixed bag of whether you like it, or whether you don't. But I like the Facebook memories that kind of pop up and remind you of something. And I had something pop up this last week, about a three day in the life of a real estate investor that works full time and has four kids. And I looked back and thought, well, I don't know how I survived it. But back in February of 2018, I believe it was, I had a call that there was mould in the basement and that they were smelling mould. So they opened it up and there was a lot, well, you know, I'm thinking it's probably like a dripping water heater or something we walked in and there was literally like six inches of goopy mould hanging from every rafter of every space in the basement of a three-unit apartment building with the ground floor, a dirt floor. And when we opened it up, I mean, it was just really bad. And what had happened was a hot water heater, pressure relief valve had failed in the basement, nobody seemed to notice nobody called us. The person in hindsight said, you know, I thought my hot water pressure was kind of low and not as hot. And I should have called you well, within about a six week period, six to eight weeks, somewhere in there, our entire three in an apartment building was just covered in mould. And inside all the units, I had to meet the tenants, it was snowing and really bad weather. And I had to call, you know, restoration companies and re-home all my tenants and get all of this stuff out of the property. Right after that, we had another property where a roof blew off in another big storm. And we're handling the kids and multiple other small things were going wrong, we had a couple of frozen pipes because it was a winter that the ground was just frozen for so many days. So we're dealing with frozen pipes, re-homing tenants, working full time, insurance, the tenants all wanted to sue me because there was mould and their kids were sick and going to the hospital. And my kids were just young and very needy. And it was like a two or three week period where I thought I'm done, I can't do this anymore. It's not worth it. It's too hard. And I kind of had a little pity party for a few weeks and said, okay, I need to take a break. I'm not buying anything else. And I took about a three-month break where I didn't buy anything else. And I just kind of took care of those issues. And then, you know, said I need some breather time, we went to the beach. And after I got back from the beach, I'm like, okay, I'm refreshed. It's behind us now that I've handled that period can do anything and just kept going. James: It's crazy the amount of pressure and tense moment that you have during that kind of things with family and issues with the deal. So I want to ask one last question before we go into the details of some of the deals that you have done here. So why do you do what you do? I mean, you don't have to do this right now. Right? Anna: So a couple of things, James, I'm really passionate about real estate, I'm really passionate about wealth building. And there is nothing like real estate to build wealth. You know, I started out teaching clients about mutual funds and stocks and bonds and how they can make you know, eight to 10% returns on their money if you time everything right. And realize that it takes money to be invested in the stock market. It's volatile and it's risky. And really, people can go from nothing to multi-millionaire in a couple of years of investing in real estate if they do it the right way. And so I've just seen the real power in that. You know we went from literally negative $750,000 net worth when we started my husband's business to a several million dollar net worth and just a few years of really aggressively buying rental real estate. And so it changes lives. And I want people to know, especially women, that that you can change your financial family trajectory, not just for today, but for future generations. And also we're providing really good housing to people. So you know, I grew up in government housing, my mom was a single mom, she was a property manager for a government housing apartment complex. And I know what it's like to grow up in an apartment and we didn't have the best amenities. You know, all my friends were wealthy, and I lived in a little apartment complex. And I've worked with inner-city kids who live literally in shacks with dirt floors in the middle of Houston, Texas. And to be able to empower people and say, your life can be different. And I can show you the financial tools to take better steps and to know better so that you can create generational wealth for yourself. And it just empowers me, it drives me to keep doing it, not just for my own wealth accumulation, but to help other people to learn that they can do the same. James: Yes, that's very interesting. I mean, what you say this, anybody can do this, right? And I know a lot of people are listening to you, there will be some people who think, yes, I can do it too. Then there's another group of people, they're going to give reasons, oh, Anna has this, Anna has that, that's why she's successful. So if you are the one who's giving reasons, I know you want to stop that, because indefinitely, you can make money in real estate, especially millions of dollars, if you really work hard. And if you really, really want it, a lot of them just do not want to do the work. They really don't want the success, they just want to continue with their life and just go ahead and do whatever they've been doing and let the life takes wherever it takes them. Anna: Yes and I think part of that James, for so many years, you see these teams, these shows reality TV, and people convince you that it's easy money that you can do it, that you can be successful. There's coaching programs and gurus that you know, charging five, ten, twenty thousand dollars to sign up and learn how to do real estate. And they promise you that if you follow these three steps, you're going to be independently wealthy in a year or two. And I think when reality hits people, and they start investing, and they start to see how hard it actually can be on a day to day basis until you build up that experience and that wealth, they just give up and they feel like failures because they've been sold an unrealistic expectation of getting rich quick in real estate, when it's really the long game. You know, you're playing a long game, it takes sometimes longer than it should you know, some people get lucky or find the right network and connections and very quickly can build wealth. But for most people, it's slow and methodical growth. And it's just people need to realize that it's not easy, but it's not that complicated if they just stick with it. James: Yes. And they are people who did one real estate and failed badly. And they gave up on real estate. So there other people that you know, yes, one time fail doesn't mean anything we could, we would have failed many times, I guess. Right, so. Anna: Sure. I lost money on my first flip. And I was convinced I'd never do another one. And yes, I changed my mind quickly. And I've done a few but rental real estate is really where the wealth build up comes. James: Yes, yes, in my single-family days, I do like 11 rentals, but I was also doing two flips. And I regret doing flips, because I made like, 40,000 on one flip and I buy a loss and $1,000 on another flip. And that thousand dollars feel very painful. Anna: Yes James: Because you shouldn't be losing money in real estate, but it really taught me a lot of things on how I didn't do it right in terms of the flip. But just because somebody did one and they fail, doesn't mean the whole real estate is a scam. Right? Anna: Absolutely. James: Definitely make millions of dollars in real estate, especially if you're living in the US. Anna: Yes, yes. James: It's a country where it allows anybody to grow, there is no limit is just you. Right? Anna: Absolutely. James: So no reasons, right? So if you give reasons, that's you so that's the only thing. So let's go to some of the deals that you have been done. And you so you are buying fourplex, fourplex, fourplex. And you started [inaudible30:21] on the 70 units and you self manage and you go into the syndication, why are you going into syndication now? Anna: So, I think some of it comes back to the time and the money, that spectrum of do I have more time or do I have more money? When I got started, I didn't have money and I could have said I didn't have time, but I made time. So it was a heavy, heavy time investment. As I built wealth and as I built more cash flow, it just made more sense for me to be able to scale larger with other partners and to be able to be an asset manager, operator, rather than the property manager or the maintenance person. So I've gotten to a point in my life where even though I've retired from my job, I really want my evenings to be free with my children and just to be wife and mom in the evenings and just spend a certain number of hours a day doing real estate. And so I got to a place where I had to say, you know, how can I really scale if I'm still self-managing many, many more units, it's going to take me a lot longer of full time effort, even though I don't have a job. And I wasn't really willing to sacrifice any more years with my children working more than 40 hours a week. And so I wanted to control my time and continue to scale. So I figured I needed to start working with other people, utilizing other people's time and other people's money. And the larger multifamily allows you to do that because you can afford full-time property management, full-time maintenance staff and really become more of an asset manager and business plan executer than you are an individual who self-managing your own properties. James: Yes, business plan executer, that's the operator definition, I would say. Anna: Yes. James: How do you define operator slash active asset manager in your mind? Anna: Sure. So an operator is basically the person responsible for operating that asset soup to nuts and executing your business plan. So it's generally, you're just general partners. And there will be either all the general partners will be involved in the asset management or overseeing the business plan and making sure that your plan for that particular property is being executed the right way. So for example, if we're buying a value add property, like the 73 unit that we did and the others that I go after, it's a property that is usually poorly managed, its expenses are not being managed well, the rents are below market, and perhaps the units need to be updated in order to maximize the rents so that you can then increase the value of that property. So as an asset manager and operator, I'm working with our property management company or a property manager and with our contractors to make sure that you know, when units come available, we turn those units quickly, we update them on time and on budget, we raise the rents, we get the new tenants in there. So that we can execute our plan to raise the values before we sell or refi. And we work with the property managers to make sure that they're cutting the expenses in the way that we planned, that they're monitoring the expenses, monitoring the rents, making sure rents are being collected, and you're just basically overseeing soup to nuts, all of the things that are supposed to happen to make your asset more valuable. James: Got it, do you think there's a certain advantage of being a local asset manager? Anna: I would say yes, in that really bad, unforeseen, unexpected things happen, like mould damage, or like when blowing roofs off or a hurricane, you can be at that asset very, very quickly. And you can also stop in and visit with your property manager, your property management company on a monthly basis, bimonthly basis and just say, hey, let's walk the ground, show me what you're doing. And there's just never anything as valuable as actually being on the ground and seeing it. However, in today's world, where we have the technology, we have zoom, we have our phones, where we can take pictures, and we can walk around, it's pretty easy to do things virtually as well. So while the operator in me that's always had, you know, my boots on the ground, and always been able to see kind of likes the control of being able to be at a property within an hour. It's not necessary, if you trust your team and have a good team that's boots on the ground, and can just go to your asset maybe once or twice a year. So I haven't really done it from afar. I'm asset managing my first property that we have under contract right now, two properties in Atlanta. And so I'll be sharing asset management responsibilities there. And that'll give me a little better feel for how much easier or harder it is to do from afar. James Got it. Got it. So let's come back to value add. So all the deals that you're buying a presume are value add, right? Anna: Yes. James: I mean, you're adding some things to the operation, either the income or the expense, right? So what do you think is the most valuable value add in your mind? Anna: So I really like Class A to B areas and an older building because your area you can't change, a lot of syndicators go after class C area, workforce housing and older buildings. And so you're struggling not only to bring the asset up to today's standards but also with a tenant pool who may suffer more heavily if we head into a recession or they may be more susceptible to losing jobs and not being able to pay rent. Where when you're in a nicer area where there's really good school districts and people want to live, there's a lot of good employers and a lot of good shopping and things around, you're always going to have people that want to move into that area because it offers the best lifestyle for those people. And so if you can find an older asset, you know, you're not struggling with the area to keep your units filled. It's just a matter of now offering an asset that people want to live in while they are in that area. So I'm really a value add investor, not doing like full major repositions, taking units in a C class area, that's 40% bacon and trying to fill them up. I like stable assets in a stable area that just needs some updating and operational efficiency in order to bring them up to today's standards. James: Good, that's very interesting. I never heard that from anyone else. Because the strategy is for you to look for the good area, but look for older buildings and try to improve from those older buildings, I guess. Anna: Yes. James: Okay. Interesting. But what about the like interior rehabs and do you do any like rehabs on the inside? And do you think is there any specific rehab that you think is more valuable than others? Anna: Sure, you know, it's really market-driven James's I know that you know, but for your listeners, every market demand something different. So where some parts of the country in order to get you to $1100 a month rent might demand granite countertops, and they might want really nice luxury vinyl plank flooring, other areas like tile, and they don't like granite, they like maybe stone countertops, and other areas to get that much, you might be competing with a $3,000 a month luxury apartment that would have granite and vinyl plank and maybe 1000 would get you carpet and a nice floor-laminate. So you've really got to look at what does your particular market demand and not just assume that every rehab has to be a cookie-cutter that looks the same. So what I do is I look at what is the competing market? What is the complex is offering to get that top rent that they're getting today? And I kind of secret shop those complexes or go on their website and see what those units look like. So for the 73 unit, for example, our property was a 1985 vintage when we bought it in 2018. So it was a little bit older, had a lot of original oak cabinets, plain commercial grade carpet, old looking vinyl. And basically we went in and we just changed up the flooring to vinyl plank flooring in the main living areas with carpet in the bedrooms. And the reason we did carpet in the bedrooms is because it's really cold in the northeast. And so a lot of people don't like solid flooring in their bedrooms. So we kind of save a little bit of money on doing carpet in the bedrooms and vinyl plank elsewhere. And we replace some countertops and updated old cream-coloured appliances to stainless steel, or very nice white depending on the unit. And then we painted the apartments, a soft, grayish color kind of more on the gray side. But the flooring has kind of had some greys and browns that go well with everything. And really for just a couple thousand dollars in new flooring and paint and some countertops and appliances, we were able to raise the rents $200 a unit. So it was a significant increase in rents because when we bought the property, not only were the units kind of dated, but the owners had not raised rents on several other tenants for several years. And so the property right next door to ours was asking 175 to 225 more a unit with the exact same floor plans as we had. So it was a great property because we didn't have to do a whole lot in order to bump those rents and achieve that big increase in value. James: Got it. So I want to go a bit more detail on how did you choose your rehab plan because you said you did countertops, you did stainless steel and a few other things there. But it's for example, how did you choose? Why did you want to install stainless steel appliances? Can you give some education on how did you go to that process, say I want to do stainless than black appliances? Anna: Well, and again, this is we've kind of left appliances, we've kind of played with it a little bit because we had so much room to bump the rents. And we looked at what is next door offering? They're the biggest competitor. So next door had certain units where they offered a premium package with stainless steel appliances. But the standard package didn't, it had white appliances. So we said for the first couple that comes available, let's do the vinyl plank, let's paint them. And if there's a cream color, for example, one unit had a cream color stove and a white refrigerator and cream color, you know stove and we said let's keep the brand new white refrigerator. And let's just put in a white dishwasher, a white stove and see if we can get the rent that we want without going stainless. So we did that on a few. And we had a huge waiting list of people that wanted those apartments, they couldn't care less about the stainless steel and so we didn't do it. So you know initially we thought we were going to go all stainless but people, we've been achieving the rent bumps we want without having to do stainless. And so we haven't done it at this point. James: Got it. Yeah, that's how you and I think that's a good strategy to look at the base on where you didn't want to overspend versus how much rent bump you need, right, because -- Anna: Yes. Sorry, go ahead. James: No, I mean, somebody can use that extra money for something else. Anna: Exactly. And the other thing, you know, because I focused primarily in my general area, I know the market like the back of my hand. So the buildings that we bought the 73 unit and the subsequent 31 unit that we just brought too, they're basically my direct competition. So I know what tenants are looking for, I'm already offering it in my town. And basically within a 30-mile radius, we know this is what the market demands, this is how much room we can get for it. And so while people think, oh, I need to do all these fancy bells and whistles, you really just need to look at what your competition is doing it over, improve it to the level that you're going to get the top rent, but don't over-improve it to the point here that you're spending needless cap backs, that aren't going to get you that much of an incremental rent bump. James: Got it, sounds really awesome man. Let's go back to the slightly more personal side. Is there a proud moment in your real estate career that you are really, really proud of, one moment? Anna: One moment, I think, on my 73 unit, sitting down with my JV partner and his partner that he had partnered with stuff, and really being able to convince him that this was an amazing asset to invest in. And he agreed to fund my first large syndication deal. So I was just really proud that I was able to build up the financial knowledge and build up the confidence and the track record from what I had done on a smaller scale that investors would trust me to take their investment and really manage an asset well for them. James: That's where you broke out from the four units to more than 70 units, which is a big achievement, I guess, right? Anna: Yes. And I think that and the day that I retired, when I was able to retire from a job where I worked with accredited investors to be able to say, you know what, I'm retiring, I've replaced my income, I've more than doubled it, I'm now an accredited investor. And I don't ever have to work for someone else, again, I think is probably one of the best moments of my life. James: Yes, that's really important. Can you name like three or five advice that you want to give for newbies who want to walk along your path? Anna: Sure, I'd say educate yourself as much as you can, you know, listen to these great podcasts and just learn from people that have already done it because you learn the things not to do and you learn that the good habits to do to kind of make yourself an excellent investor. So really commit to your education, podcast, read some books and attend some local investor meetup groups so that you can align yourself with other investors. So one is education. One is networking and alignment. And you'll get some continual growth and continue education just from learning from people that are in your network that are already doing what you want to do. I would say also start really looking at yourself and what your goals really are. So like you said early in the podcast, many people think they want to be a real estate investor. But when they discover how hard it is to do so, they kind of back off and maybe flounder for a while. And all of us can do that if we really don't know why we're doing something. So look at yourself, ask yourself what you really want in life. And why do you think real estate can get you there and then back into how much time and money am I willing to commit to my real estate investing venture. And if you don't have a lot of time, you've got to commit yourself to find money or finding other people's money or working with other people. And if you have a lot of time and not money or I think vice versa, then you need to really be willing to put in that time. And so look at your why; look at your time and your money and start figuring out how best to utilize every moment of time that you have, every moment of cash you have and other people's time and money so that you can start to scale as quickly as possible. James: Awesome, awesome. So Anna, why don't you tell our listeners how to get hold of you? Anna: Sure. So I'm on Facebook as Anna ReiMom Kelley. And I have a Facebook group called Creating Real Estate Wealth that lasts with Anna ReiMom, where we talk about real estate and really creating wealth and kind of the good, bad and the ugly of all the different asset classes. And you can email me at info@reimom.com. James: Well, Anna, thanks for coming into the show and providing tons of value. Anna, you gave a lot of very good perspective from how you juggle your role between being a mom and being a wife and trying to grow the business and I think our listeners would absolutely get tons of value out of this. And as I say there's no reason not to be successful in anything that you do and real estate is just a tool. You can be successful in anything but you can be successful if you really put your heart into it. If you really, really want it you will be successful. I mean, if you give reasons, there are tons of reasons you can give not to do something. Anna: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, James. It's been my pleasure. James: Thank you, Anna, bye. Anna: Bye.

Anna Jordan meets Piers Linney, an entrepreneur, investor and former Dragon on Dragon's Den. We discuss the most memorable pitches from the show as well as Piers' first foray into entrepreneurship.    Be sure to visit SmallBusiness.co.uk for more articles on starting a business and raising external finance. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Want to read the interview instead? Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan. Today we have Piers Linney, an entrepreneur and investor who is best known for his time as a Dragon on Dragon’s Den. We’ll be talking about Piers’ enterprising beginnings and how you can drive your small business forward, even during difficult spells.  Anna: Hello Piers. Piers: Hi Anna. Anna: How are you? Piers: Very good. Anna: Great. OK, as the intro suggests, I’d like to go back a bit. As we know, it’s easier for entrepreneurs to get started earlier and reach a larger audience, helped by the likes of selling platforms like eBay and Depop. But you were just as entrepreneurial, even when you were a teenager – that was before the introduction of social media, apps. I understand that you used to sell the Sunday papers, but you bypassed the… Piers: Ah, you’re going way back now! [laughs] Yup, yup, I did. So, you bypassed the newsagent because you saw a gap in the market there and you want to the wholesaler and distributed the Sunday paper around your neighbourhood. Piers: Yes, so, just going back to your earlier point. The fact that you can start a business more easily these days – there are platforms that help you in terms of distribution – it doesn’t mean you should. It’s still about the idea. What I learned early on – I’ve always been fascinated about business, really – I grew up in a village in Milltown, so a lot of the neighbours had their own businesses. I didn’t really know anybody who had a job in terms of getting up in the morning and going off to work. They were builders, joiners, jobs that you work with your hands. Maybe owned a quarry. I sort of thought: ‘Right, I had a job’ which was my paper round, which paid £5 a week. If I was late it was £4.50, which shows you how long ago this was. And I thought: ‘This is just a mug’s game’. It was very cold up in the north in those days. Global warming’s made it easier. And I thought: ‘What can I do?’ So, one morning on a Sunday when they [the newsagent] didn’t deliver, my dad said to me: ‘Could you get me my paper? I don’t want to get out of bed.’ And I said: ‘OK, I’ll go and get it for you.’ And he gave me 50p. I said: ‘Hang on a minute, that’s pretty good money compared to what I’m earning on my paper round.’ The next-door neighbour said to me: ‘Oh, can you do the same?’ My dad was telling him about the new service. And I thought: ‘Hang on, there’s something in this.’ I flyered my whole neighbourhood and built a paper round. I was earning £15-£20 on a Sunday morning for doing a bit of a longer paper round, but it was first entrée and my first understanding that if you find a niche and you find a product or a service that somebody wants and it adds value to their lives, and they’re willing to pay you more than it costs to deliver that service, i.e. it’s profitable, then you can create value and – in this case, it was a small example – some wealth. I used that money to buy my first and very expensive BMX. And through that I understand that the idea’s great and the execution clearly, but what it also came down to is a lot of hard work and graft. I Imagine it must’ve taken quite a bit of confidence as well at that age. How did you approach the wholesaler and how did they respond to you? Piers: I’ve never lacked self-confidence and it’s probably something that’s helpful in being an entrepreneur. Becoming confident or becoming a leader in many ways is something that can be instilled in you or you can be born with it, or it’s something you can learn. In the military, they can train leaders. I was always confident, and I could see the opportunity to make money. And again, the wholesaler, all he got was another customer, it just wasn’t a newsagent. His bundle of papers, rather than drop it outside a newsagent, was dropped off at someone’s house, at a residential address. He didn’t really care – he was just making a bit more money.                 I understand that your mother set up her own business after retiring from nursing in the NHS, I’m sure that was some kind of inspiration to you.   Piers: People say to me: ‘Who are your role models in life?’ I’ve never had formal mentors. My initial role models were my parents. My dad was a Mancunian working-class lad who got into Cambridge on a scholarship, so he was bright. Then after that, it was people that I worked with. I’ve always worked with people who are more senior that are better than me. Then after that, I’ve always tried to hire people that are better than me. I’ve had three meetings today and they’ve all been with people that know more about something that I’m looking to get into. And that’s really important because you never have all the answers. The world’s moving so quickly now and the market is so dynamic that you can’t be expected to have the answers. And if you think you have, you’re probably wrong. What would you say in terms of small businesses being able to hire better talent? Perhaps because they’re nimbler, they can innovate at a faster rate. Would you agree with that? Piers: I’ve been through this quite a few times where you’ve got a small business and you want to attract talent. Now, a couple of things: the first one is that, really, you shouldn’t be concerned about where talent resides. If you want to have a talented forklift truck driver, they probably need to live reasonably close to your warehouse. But if you’re looking at the creative economy and tech-based businesses, talent can live anywhere now. It doesn’t matter. The idea of a city even is arguably unnecessary going forward into the future. Don’t worry about where talent is, just go for the best talent. You’ve then got to be more creative to access more talent because they’re going to have more people talking to them, they might have a nice cushy job in a big company. You’ve got to be more creative about how you bring them onboard, about renumeration. If you’ve got a company you intend to sell or float one day, you can offer people shares. You shouldn’t give shares in a company that’s intending to be a lifestyle business forever – unless you’re going to make money in dividends. Think about how you’re going to add value to their lives. A lot of the entrepreneurs I come across think that these senior people who are joining them are doing them a favour. But you’ve got to remember that you’re doing them a favour actually because if they didn’t want to leave corporate life and do something more interesting and entrepreneurial where they have a better work-life balance, they wouldn’t be talking to you. And when you bring people onboard – no matter who they are, how talented they are – think very carefully about handing out shares. Make sure that when they leave, for whatever reason, you can get them back. But the talent is out there. And the other thing about talent that I’m very passionate about is diversity. There’s a pool of talent. If you’re looking for people who look like you, have the same religious beliefs as you, same sexuality as you, they live in the same area and went to the same school as you, you’re limiting your talent pool. Don’t do that. You need to think about diversity in all of its forms, especially in terms of thought as well, to access a broader and deeper talent pool. That’s the competitive advantage. There’s a huge amount of talent out there. I’m a trustee of Nesta as well, the innovation charity, and if you look forwards, the research about robotics and AI, menial jobs and even jobs such as accountants and lawyers [are at risk]. Software’s pretty good at adding up numbers, it’s pretty good at looking at datasets and applying logic to it. It’s not just Uber drivers and forklift truck drivers that have got a problem; it’s the professions. So, creativity is what differentiates us from the machines. And the talent you access in the future is going to have that creative edge. My mantra is that you’ve got to have a plan, but your plan has to have some growth in it. Add some creativity, some innovation, some differentiation to your product or service to attract different customers. Having no plan for growth, in a world that is changing very quickly, is a very bad plan. You wake up one morning, and you find your market, your customers, your product, your supply chain – something’s changed which means that you’re no longer relevant or you no longer have a profit margin. Anna: I was actually reading an article about ice cream vans the other day and they seem to be a type of business that – there are some that have moved forward but a lot of them are in the same types of vans, still doing your normal vanilla with a Flake and they haven’t moved on and they’re wondering [why they’re falling behind]. Piers: They should be doing smoothie vans! Anna: Yeah! Piers: It doesn’t matter what you do, 20-30 years ago – I’m generalising now – you could do that. I don’t think it’s a wise plan these days – ice cream van, corner shop, tech company, it doesn’t matter – to rest on your laurels. You’ve got to keep talking to your customers about what it is they want so you understand change, ideally before it happens.                        You’ve spoken a bit about instilling the values of entrepreneurialism. How are you doing that with your two daughters? Piers: Another interesting thing I’m quite interested in is the future of work, the future of employment. Dell has some research that says in 30 years, 85pc of the jobs that exist don’t exist today. There’s other research that says ten years out, half of them don’t exist today. You’ve got an education system that’s training your children to enter a world that the teachers don’t understand, that I don’t understand. It’s very difficult. They’ve got to equip kids with these sorts of skills and keep them as a rally car, as I call it, to the unweighted so you could go left or right as you go over the brow of the hill – and that’s hard to do. My daughter – I’ve got a daughter called Tiger. I got called into school, actually, by the head teacher. She said she’s been selling things at school and they need to talk to her. I thought she’d made a couple of quid. I asked what happened and the teacher said: ‘She got some erasers and she was making them funky and selling them on at a margin.’ I asked how much money she made and she said £60. They said that I need to tell her off and I refused. I take the point about taking money off the other kids, maybe there should be some kind of bartering, but I’m not going to punish my daughter for being entrepreneurial and making some money – that’s all she’s ever seen me do! Anna: Exactly. Do you know who her dad is?! Piers: It was quite interesting to see that. I bring them up to – they’re young, so I don’t really sit them down and go over how to start a business with them. But I think they get it, that my view is that – especially when they enter the labour market – is if you can, work for yourself. It’s got its problems, you sacrifice, it’s got its risks, but at the end of the day you’re masters of your own destiny. You seem to have a knack for identifying emerging markets as well [Piers launched cloud tech firm Outsourcery before the cloud was popular]. What kind of emerging markets do you see coming up?  Piers: I was into the telecoms which was the tail-end of that, really, the particular way it was done. I was into cloud and cloud is the way things are now. Since then I’ve been looking at what I do next. I made some investments, some work and some don’t, and I’ve been looking at doing something big, something disruptive. I’ve been looking at wellness, so health, fitness and now I’m looking now more at going back almost into what I know, which is markets, SME services. I’m trying to disrupt those because a lot of them just have not changed, even since I was in them ten years ago. And even ten years before that, they haven’t changed. I think there’s an opportunity in there in services for small to medium-sized businesses to disrupt markets.      Coming on to everybody’s favourite, Dragon’s Den. I’m sure you would’ve had a lot of pitches in your time on the show, but which was the most memorable one for you and why? Piers: There’s two, I suppose. I’ll give you the negative, funny one first. That was Bathomatic, which was a chap that turned up wanting £1m or £2m for 20pc and he had a product which pretty much filled a bath and dropped some rose oil in it. I said I’ll do that myself actually. I don’t need to spend £15,000 on something that turns a tap on and off. We asked what the money was really for. He had this pretend plaque/device that didn’t really work, it was a mock-up, and he said he needed a floor in the Shard for the marketing suite. You laugh at that, but I’ve heard about entrepreneurs who have got equally bonkers ideas and raised money from people. That was one of the comedy moments. The most interesting one for me was a company that at the time was called Lost My Name and now it’s called Wonderbly. That was the leading producer of personalised children’s, it was books, now it’s increasingly content. They raised investment from the likes of Google and other venture firms, and they’ve been growing. I was one of the first to do real tech on Dragon’s Den. There were four or five Israeli entrepreneurs walked in the Den and they all had their venture capital term sheet and I thought: ‘What’s there not to like?’ They knew what they were talking about and that’s been very successful. So hopefully out of Dragon’s Den I’ll make some money because it’s like a portfolio – some work, some don’t, some you lose money, some make money. Anna: Yeah, it was as you were saying as well, personalisation is a huge market and growing, as is tech, so combine that – Piers: Personalisation is everywhere now. I’ve met lots of founders recently and whether it’s books or baby’s clothes, technology allows you to do that now. It was very hard, very expensive to do this. Companies like the Moonpigs and all those kind of people in the world and the moo.coms, personalised greetings cards and business cards, is normal now. It was very hard to do a decade ago, so personalisation is somewhere where you can really add value. People want to see personalisation, they want to see provenance, they want to know the founder’s story. The new consumer that’s beginning to amass disposable income, they want to see more, they don’t want to have some clever advert that’s sold on something they don’t really want. But increasingly, people are interested in – not all sectors – but they’re interested in where did this product come from, who’s put it together, what’s the ethos of that business – how do they treat their customers, their employees, the environment – locally, globally. That’s what you need to think about because especially on the eco side of things you’re seeing now that the Millennials, whatever you want to call them – Gen Z – Millennials now have the… Anna: Hiya! Piers: Like yourself. Millennials are mid-level managers in most companies now, they’re moving up, because they’re getting older. And they are changing the way in which products and services are consumed – because these were little things that didn’t matter too much, they were seen as ‘got to have it for the marketing’. Now you’ve got to have it because if you don’t have it, they’re not going to buy your product or service. Anna: And it’s so easy to research as well. So, if there’s something you fall down on, people can research it. Boom – there you go. Piers: That means you have to be transparent about it as well.  Because if you’re not, people are going to start asking questions. You don’t have to be, always. There are lots of people that make good money out of businesses that don’t do any of this. They just found a product. I mean, mobile phones. I used to be in mobile, and people made a lot of money out of it and the service was pretty awful. But at the end of the day, they had a product that selling it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Because it was an amazing new product that everyone wanted, nobody had one, so you couldn’t really go wrong – and those markets haven’t really changed much since. At the time of recording, it is Small Business Advice Week. This year it’s running from 2nd-8th September. First off, it’s a little bit difficult to get around this topic and it may very well change by the time the podcast goes live. What advice do you have for small businesses to prepare and operate in the event of a no-deal Brexit? Piers: Well, the problem with that is that we don’t know what a no-deal Brexit means. That’s the bad thing about it: we should not be in this position. The economy depends upon entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship and innovation. And having a period of time where – and I’ve seen this – on a large scale and also on a small scale, where investment, decisions, sales cycles, things have been delayed. That slows the economy down and it has slowed the economy down and that’s going to continue. And even if we end up with a no-deal, and it’s been said that over time, we’re all dead. So, if you’re looking at it in one year it’s probably bad but in five years, ten years, things change and water will find its level again. But there’s going to be a period of time where the innovation in the UK, the economy and entrepreneurs are being stifled. And I don’t care what the outcome is, we should never have been put in this position. So, in terms of answering your question, it’s very hard. It actually makes sense, and I hate saying this, it does make sense in many ways to delay investments. Maybe in terms of marketing or looking overseas or EU relationships or your supply chain. Just give it a week. It was worse six months ago, at least now you’re looking at maybe days and weeks. It’s a very hard question to answer. Anna: It is, isn’t it? Piers: It’s incredibly frustrating. Anna: Yeah, we’ve had so many people ask. Piers: There’s no easy answer to that, sadly. Possibly something a little more positive. What is the most common question you get and what advice do you give small business owners in return?    Piers: One thing I’m talking about this week a lot is financing. I’ve worked in the US quite a lot and you look at entrepreneurs there and even small business owners, the ones who aren’t looking to grow exponentially, it’s about if you need to grow a business sometimes, your net income, your profits, don’t provide sufficient capital to fund your growth aspirations. You need to raise money. That could be debt, it might be equity. It depends where your business is in its life cycle and its profitability, and your balance sheet. And a lot of UK entrepreneurs, it seems, are afraid of raising external finance. So, raising external finance isn’t for everybody, but given the numbers are 70pc-80pc of UK businesses would rather forego growth than raise external finance, that needs to change. I don’t know exactly how much, but by changing it you can put more into the engine of the UK economy, and how these businesses grow. And that’s really simplistically about understanding your options. There are lots more options now: peer to peer lending or challenger banks or angels or angel funds, crowdfunding. There’s lots more ways you can raise capital which you couldn’t do five, even three years ago in some cases. Go and look at the options if you need to grow, understand them and then it comes down to a contract. Be happy with the terms of that contract and the small print. Can you lose your business, can you lose your shirt? Are they draconian terms? This is where you need a good lawyer, I’m not joking about that either. When someone hands over a term sheet or a document for debt (or a shareholder agreement if you’re looking at equity), you need to understand exactly what that means for you and not just if things go well. You need to understand what happens if things don’t go well. Extreme examples – there’s no point having an investment agreement where you are restricted, you have a veto of you raising debt and equity if you need to raise more because they can hold a gun to your head, essentially. There’s no point having documentation for your start-up which says that in year four, you will hit this EBITDAR number (Earnings Before Interest, Depreciation, Amoritisation and Restructuring or Rent costs) or they have swamp rights. They can take over the board and fire you. They’re extreme examples, but I’ve seen them. Both professionally and I’ve seen them in things put before me as well. So, understand the detail and the small print and make sure that if things don’t go to plan, you know where you stand. And I’ve known one example recently where someone built a business, they had a 12 million evaluation, they raised £2-£3million and within a month, they were out. They missed some sales target. But don’t be afraid of raising finance if you want to grow because otherwise in many, many cases, you can’t really grow. Anna: Well, that’s it from me unless there’s anything else that you’d like to add. Piers: No - we’ve covered some ground there. Anna: Thanks for coming on the show, Piers. Piers: It’s a pleasure. Anna: You can find out more about Piers at pierslinney.com. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more information on starting and growing your own business. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Until next time, thank you for listening.   

You can find Anna's work on instagram @annabondocartist  and her website http://www.annabondocartist.com/ Anna Bondoc is a Los Angeles based artist, writer, and educator who was originally born in the Philippines, raised in Ohio, and now resides here in LA with her husband, her daughter, and their dog penny. In 2005, Anna started her business on the Bondoc designs, creating just very intricate layered paper cuts for fine art creations, stationery, and creating patterns. Her work has been featured in Apartment Therapy, Traditional Home, as well as Cloth Paper & Scissors, and in 2012 she created a how to book called Simply Paper Cutting. However, since then she has changed gears and she is now working with Pen and Ink, as well as with Alcohol Inks, and I'm curious to talk to her today to find out what else is on the horizon. Ever since I've known her she has been curious, been innovative, and always trying her hand at different things. So I'm really excited to welcome her to the podcast today and learn what else is on the horizon. Katty: As long as I've known you, you have been dabbling in some sort of a creative endeavor, which is so interesting for me and looking in it's always been so exciting to see all the various mediums that you're touching. I'd love to tell our audience really talk about how you got your start and, you know, where you are today. Anna: Sure. Well, I love that you use the word dabbling because it sort of characterizes how I approach creativity. And if you ask me how I got my start it, I often have no answer because I have never until recently, and I'm now 50, I hadn't considered myself an artist in professional terms, until I don't know the last five or so years. I know it sounds late but I think because I have always been motivated by almost being a beginner, and being a little bit out of my element and trying a new medium. It's taken me a long time to realize that is my primary motivation and it is not a singular, you know, painting, drawing, graphic design. I've just followed my curiosity, to a large extent, and that's led me to, every medium from Paper Cutting to Pen and Ink drawing to photography graphic design and it's taken me a while to reconcile myself with that because dabbling is not something that I was brought up to do. I was brought up to focus and to choose and so I never really committed to one type of art or creativity, and that's just the way I am, even though I have tried to commit to one thing or another. So there's been actually no particular start, but where I find myself now is an interesting time that you come to me because I finally had my first solo show of art, and had a business which didn't do so well under my belt, but I feel like an artist and they have not gone back to teaching which is what I did in between doing creative projects. But I had a bit of sort of fallow period at the start of January where I had this great show and everybody said to me, “oh you're going to keep drawing, or your going to keep doing your paintings, you have momentum now you've had sales.” And to be honest, when I sat down with myself I just was not feeling it for those things anymore, and they felt like finite experiences as though I'd written a book and I wasn't going to rewrite that book. So where you find me now is, after a period of frantic creative block, I finally have found some momentum in a project that combines my writing, drawing, and design skills, and it has no particular form, so I'm a little bit insecure about it. But it's it's one of those times where, you know, creative people tell you all the time. “I don't know where this one came from, but it's here and now I'm either going to work with it, or I'm not” and I decided that I want to work with this one. Even though I'm not exactly sure where it's headed. Katty: Okay. You letting the creative process guide you... Anna: Yes, and you know, usually I don't let that happen until I found a medium and sort of played with like “oh my Pen and Ink drawings, here I'm going to learn how to use this medium, and then I'm going to practice with it I'm going to study and I'm going to research.” This one is much more unruly than that, and it's different for me, but I think, I think it's my age where I just kind of say “you know what, creativity, isn't like a horse that you harness.” I don't want to romanticize it because I don't necessarily believe in the muse or whatever, but I do think that there's a reason that creative people talk about muses as being something outside of themselves that decides to visit. This one feels like a combination of a lot of things that I'm interested in, and it's nudging me to put it all together. Katty: Fabulous. Well, you mentioned something early on in the conversation about being a beginner, it kind of made me think of that beginner's mindset, which is filled with curiosity. And, this sounds like that to me. You know, the curiosity of where it's going to go and you're just allowing that flow. Anna: Allowing is a big thing for an artist, right, like for anybody. And I happen to also be a control freak. So it's a...this particular one began with a sudden urge, and curiosity to investigate typography and fonts. It kind of appeared one day, to me, I felt like drawing but I didn't feel like drawing the way I had done abstractly for many years actually in my that resulted in my last show that you saw. But this one I had the urge to make forms, but not people. I don't like to necessarily render objects or trees or things like that. I'm sort of more of an abstract thinker, but I kind of resisted this because I thought, “Well, I'm not a typography designer. I don't know why I want to do this it's unclear, this is weird.” But sometimes it just keeps asserting itself and I think that the only issue I have with beginners energy, it is a wonderful playful, curiosity driven as you said energy. But the problem with people like me is that when you get to the point where it feels a little boring, or you can easily abandon projects. When it's no longer that first blush, of ooh this is exciting, I don't know how to do this, sometimes I've dropped projects that I should have probably just stuck through in some particular way like made it fresh or beginning or added something to it so I'm learning how to play with that. Katty: Okay. Because I remember you saying that when you feel that you're not learning or growing anymore you, maybe you just switch mediums. So how to -- what I'm hearing is trying to figure out a way to harness that and see it through versus switching partially, right? Anna: Yes. I think that what I'm doing right now and we're talking about like two days. Of this realization is that the current project that I'm working on, let's describe it as a combination of trying to use charts and graphs and visualizing the data of my life, and trying to apply almost mathematical chart making skills to things that are very esoteric and abstract and like midlife crisis oriented. So it's very chaotic but I think that what I have decided to do with this project is to conceptualize it as a bunch of different tasks which include, drafting, writing, sketching, doing typography, maybe a little photography and so what I've structured is almost like I'm a person who went to Montessori and in Montessori, they say, rather than following first math then science, kids have a period in which they can choose okay I'm really drawn to this. Right now I'm feeling it, I'm really drawn to this task right now, and so what that allows me to do is from day to day instead of grinding it out and say, I'm going to finish the spread today or this sketch. I really look at it and I say okay where's the energy good today? And maybe sometimes I literally only work on it for 20 minutes, and then I feel a little bit of stuckness or meh, it's not happening, and then I can jump and look at some books that I've bought to help me, inspire me to design a certain way. So that I feel that beginner energy from day to day, and I'm really following my pleasure and my joy and my playfulness rather than employing this part of me that's more grim determination, which is sometimes necessary. You know, we have to use discipline at one time or another but I think for me, that's a buzzkill. I've just considered myself one of those people like “well we have to get through the buzzkill part.” It's kind of like, people who want to go exercise or do something that's not natural to them, and if they don't find a source of pleasure in it, you're not going to continue with that habit. So I'm become a believer in listening to the voice inside that says, “This is what wants to happen this morning or this afternoon”, and I just chunk it out. I just chunk out my tasks rather than thinking about it as some long march to work. Katty: Got it. Because I know you've spoken in the past about really cultivating that creative practice. How does this fit in with that? Is it just as cultivating the creative practice but in shorter bursts, or whenever it happens to strike? Anna: That is a really good question, I think it's the shorter bursts concept and being okay with it. I think that there are many books out there about creativity, or business or whatever and those are all incredibly helpful. But there comes a point at which you need to really personalize and tailor the information that you're taking in about how to work, how to best be creative and, it's very easy to slip into the mode, for me anyway of, “oh, look how so and so is doing it. Look how they got it done. Why am I not doing it that way?” And it's easy to reframe short bursts which I have done as dilettantism, a jack of all trades, master of none, can't finish a project, you know, undisciplined...and at a certain point, you just have to look at the nature of the work and say, “Is this work good? Is it worth continuing? Is the way I'm working in concert with the work as it wants to be made too?” Because not every project is the same either, like writing for me I have to say, does not come as naturally as drawing or sketching and it's not as pleasurable. Katty: You started out your path as a writer. Anna: Yeah, that is true, I would say that my entry point to creativity, in terms of academic studies and my degree was an English major. I learned how to be creative through the written word, but in fact I think that this latest project that I'm working on started out as me wanting to tell some wisdom and stories and anecdotes from my life, but I became impatient with linear thinking and words require linear, you know, first the subject and the verb then the next thing and the descriptor. But what I started doing was, as I was journaling to try to write about these things, it's just sort of naturally happened I'm like I'm just going to try to stretch what I mean. And let me see if I can create an image that conveys the same thing that I'm trying to say, in a way that pleases me is more naturally pleasing to me, which is to say graphically and drawn, and as we all know, that's why road signs are not all written in paragraphs, the image is much more sort of holistically digested. So, what is pleasing to me now is, I'll write almost a caption to the image and then the two are conjoined, and work in concert, almost like you know, the children's book writer will do is, the image has its weigh, the writing has its weight, and they work to inform each other and that has been much more pleasurable to me to write than just straight paragraphs and essays. Katty: Now, is the typography that you're doing is this pen to paper? Is this digital was the medium that you're using there? Anna: I'm a strange person in that I can't seem to make designs on the computer at all. I think that one of my goals in life had been in my 20s to be a graphic designer because it does merge word, and the written word and images. I love that interaction, but I could never make myself enjoy-- It felt almost like I was wearing gloves or there was a glass wall between me and my art, and I really have been drawing all my fonts even if they are, you know, German Gothic black letter thick fonts I really enjoy the process of hand lettering with a pencil, for now. And the pencil keeps me really loose and less worried about outcome. I noticed that when I try to shift right now to pen, or do a finished drawing, it's another buzzkill where it keeps me tight, so I have to work pretty hard to just retain that an original freshness to my to my ideas at this point. Katty: I'd like to see it when you're at that stage to show it. Anna: I think more and more because of Instagram and because of social media, there is, a movement for artists to show their process. I love looking at people's Instagram stories where you track backwards, where the iterative processes of creativity. I love that. I think people are really like using it, I think, artists, when I was in an artist mastermind group we talked about being able to convey the value of our art through price, you know so hard to price your art, but when people understand your story and then it's not just this you know pricing by size and inches but they really see that you've made small sketches or you've done this or thrown this out. People, I think they will buy your story, ultimately. Katty: Yeah, absolutely and it's you know it's an iterative process. If you know i don't think art necessarily is easy to look at a piece of paper or a piece of art and say, “Oh, great.” But, you know, the months or the years that it may have taken to take into that place, and that's just the value of thinking. Anna: Well, yes and I was thinking the other day that the disadvantage that artists have, in some ways is that, I think your average person who doesn't necessarily create a lot, they have this notion that the time it takes for them to consume the art is comparable to the amount of time that it took to produce that art. I watch people stand in front of paintings, and they breeze past and it kind of pains me, you know, not mine even other people's. Like I was at LACMA just watching people breeze past, snap a photograph of themselves in front of a drawing. I don't have a problem with that per se, but I read somewhere I wish I could remember where it was a challenge to stand in front of an artwork for, I don't know 15 minutes, and that's not very long but the, what you encounter, and what you're forced to encounter in 15 minutes in front of one work of art, you realize how much you breeze past, and you don't take it. Katty: That happens for some of the artists that we work with on more commercial work, design work, where, you know, when a client is looking for an estimate,it's really necessary to think about the hours to actually produce the work and forgetting about the hours that it's going to take just to conceptualize it. Anna: Yes, and also on, I mean because I do more fine art, I have done more fine art work. Recently, it is the -- I mean it sounds so esoteric but it's really the courage to kind of put your life story, your life values, something you have to say into that. That is, that's just living. You can't, you can't put a quantity or, qualitative judgment on wisdom that one is gleaned about nature or about, aging, or parenting or whatever that's the poetry and that's what makes it hard to be an artist, because you shouldn't expect that everybody would understand that, and yet if you're trying to make a living doing it and applying your visual talents to a commercial realm, you kind of have to be understanding that people aren't going to be interpreting your work the way that you what you brought to it emotionally. Katty: Yeah, everybody looks at it through their own lens. Anna: That's right. You have to let it go. But the paycheck may not reflect what you put in. Katty: It's true. I knew in your previous  work that I'm familiar with your patterns and your dots and you murmurations nature has been a huge source of inspiration for you. Where is the inspiration coming for the new work that you're doing? Anna: Oh, I'm going to laugh at myself now because I don't even want to tell you, and I'll tell you why because I am sort of -- I'm outing myself now. I'm a secret hoarder of self-help books. And, and I'll tell you, I'll just out myself again like I have them, and they're all facing the spines are all facing the other way underneath my desk, and I don't know why I should be so embarrassed about this but they are so, I mean, some of them have changed my life, right? Like some of the especially the Buddhist, the Buddhist so let's not even call them self help books, but they're very much about inquiry. Yeah, why are we here? What makes a meaningful life? And I have just made that shift in my life, in the last probably the last decade, especially. I have been trying to find a way to, I don't know, express my interest in them and generate something from within me and then interpret that visually for a lot of years. Or not visually at first, but actually through written stuff and it all sounded so, overly earnest, almost cultish, very esoteric, and believe me like I read a lot of this stuff and I love it. But I've been trying to find a way to express it in a way that I feel has some levity and humor and beauty and anecdotal, maybe a little self-deprecation. I am just one of those people who is an over-thinker, I'm philosophical by nature, and I've been trying to find a way to bring it down to earth because I do have a very skeptical cynical side of me too. And so I think that I'm trying to make that kind of important meaningful wisdom, accessible in a visual form. That's my current project. Katty: It's interesting you use the word wisdom because that's the word that was playing around in my head, as you were talking. Whether it's just coming to this, you know, time in your life. But that's the word that's coming to me. Anna: Well, I appreciate that. And I and I will say too, I think some of that wisdom has been a hard one, because of my particular experience growing up as an artistically minded a philosophically minded creative person in a family of Asian immigrant parents.  I'm not trying to stereotype but there is a particular expectation that you be pragmatic about your life and how you make money and what you study. My creativity was amusing to my parents, but it was not, it was not something that they were going to support as a way of living, and so I think, ironically, like, I think my commitment to this project this latest project and to finding wisdom is kind of asserting that you know artists and creative people have a particular path. And particular obstacles that they have to overcome and those coupled with that of immigrant parents who say to you, you know, just go, it's not boring but like just go be a doctor, an engineer and then you can do the stuff on the side. This has been my way of saying, you know what, I've tried that way, it didn't work, and now I really value, I value my creative talents, I value the way that I express them, and I do believe that there's wisdom for me to share, not so much like, “Oh, I know better and I'm going to tell you how to do it”, but I find the most satisfying encounters with my artwork is when people say to me, “I so connect with you about this. I felt alone in this and now I don't.” And I think that to me is why I've turned to the books why turned to certain artworks and I guess my hope has always been that I could provide a piece of art or writing that can make somebody else feel a sense of relief in that regard too. Katty: What would you say to someone who is maybe in this searching mode, early in their career? If some of the books that maybe have really helped you and you mentioned there was a couple that really changed your life. Are there any recommendations that you could share with the audience? Anna: Sure. Well, for me personally and this is a little esoteric but Pema Chodron, any of her books. The ones that I'm thinking right off the top is The Places That Scare You and When Things Fall Apart. It sounds very dire but it's not. She just reset my thinking as many Buddhists will, that we spend so much time segregating what we perceive to be good and bad things that happened to us in life and the times to -- we spent a lot of energy segregating. “I don't want this, I want this. This will be good for my career, this is not. This is great art, this is crappy art that I've made or whatever.” And I think when you get to a certain level of maturity, you start to accept that it's all mixed in, that it's all a portal to wisdom in some way or another if you have the right frame of mind towards it and just certain patience and acceptance. And that doesn't mean rolling over and play dead but it just means don't spend your energy, pushing back, all the things that you think are going to be bad for you because some of the most frustrating things that have happened to me as an artist and creative person have led me to some real breakthroughs and that's just the truth of it. And then there's another book, which is radically different in tone, but kind of soothes the cynic and the hard ass in me, is Steven Pressfield's book, The War of Art. And it is brief, and it's cogent, and he basically in his own way says, “Stop whining don't spend your energy on that all artists are going to encounter obstacles. Get up do the work.” And the way I interpreted his work because it's a little bit harsh is if I had to summarize it for myself and how I metabolized his writing was, every piece of art that you do for me, every drawing is a study for the next drawing, everything. And so, yes there is a time at which you have to say, “Okay, I'm going to make this finished piece of art that I want to sell or that my client wants, or whatever.” But in order to relieve yourself of that stiffness and anxiety and putting too much weight on yourself or the project, you really have to face the truth that every piece you make is your education for the next attempt. It's all an attempt, it's all an experiment and stop thinking about it too hard and just make the thing, and be you know truthful about whether it's worthy of presenting to the world and I would, I don't know, in the last series I did my ink paintings, I would say, was the ratio of the ones I kept to not were one out of twelve. And that's okay, you know like, you can whine about the other eleven, and berate yourself or you can be grateful that you have the time and energy and talent to try to make these twelve, and you got one out of them. Great. That's kind of what I take from his book. Katty: They're building blocks. Right? Yeah, one foot in front of the other.  Well thank you for sharing those and surely thank you for sharing your wisdom. I think that, especially for someone who's starting out, and hasn't necessarily come into their own as they're listening to this podcast I think you're sharing a lot of nuggets of what you've gone through and have come out on the other side and recognizing why you're doing what you're doing, as well, just accepting the process. Anna: Well, I would say too, and this is just something I've been thinking about this week to add to what you're summing up there is. It's all for me about reframing, not as a Pollyanna way but reframing as a creative act in and of itself. So, use your creativity on yourself and that is an act in an of itself, is to reconsider how you work, the methodologies, try things that are new if they don't work.I mean these are all similar to the actual creative acts themselves, but you can apply that same creativity to your own emotional states, your own psychological states. It's all of a piece, nothing is separate. I mean I kind of think of it as like a creative ecosystem where it has to be healthy and sort of balanced for all the elements to work in a healthy way. Katty: It'd be cause and effect in there so, absolutely.Because I know, you know, just in having known you over the years that innovating is very important to you and so it is just beautiful to see how all of that is coming together at this point. Anna: Thank you, I appreciate that because it doesn't always feel like there's a through line. But I guess for creative people the through line is one's actual self. You have to honor that. Katty: Thank you for tuning into this episode of the Artisan podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Artisan Creative, a staffing a recruitment firm specializing in creative, marketing, and digital talents. You can find us online at artisancreative.com or via social channels @artisancreative We look forward to connecting.    

Are you an HSP? An empath? Just feeling overwhelmed and like you're "doing life bad"? You're going to love this interview with Anna Holden. Anna Holden is a professional intuitive, energy healer and spiritual teacher. She mentors burgeoning psychics and healers in her professional training program, The School for Sacred Rebellion. She also runs The Refuge for Sacred Rebellion, a spiritual enlivenment platform for highly sensitive people, and she hosts The Soul of Sensitivity podcast, a show that explores the intersection of sensitivity and spirituality. WE TALK ABOUT: clairsentience and empathy highly sensitive people as an indicator species reclaiming the sacred self This is not your run of the mill conversation about being a psychic sponge and carrying the weight of the world around with you and being burdened with everyone’s ugly shit. Anna refers to herself as a "sensitive revolutionary" ... and she has a whole different empowering angle on this topic. MENTIONED ON THE SHOW Anatomy of the Spirit by Caroline Myss Heidi Frank Palmer https://subtlebodysolutions.com/ GUEST LINKS - Anna Holden sensitivityuncensored.com Soul of Sensitivity podcast Anna's Free Guide You Are a Goddamn Magical Unicorn The Refuge for Sacred Rebellion The School for Sacred Rebellion HOST LINKS - SLADE ROBERSON Slade's Books & Courses Get an intuitive reading with Slade Automatic Intuition BECOME A PATRON https://www.patreon.com/shiftyourspirits Edit your pledge on Patreon TRANSCRIPT Anna: I'm Anna and I work with people who are highly sensitive, empathic, intuitive, and usually these people find me because they're overwhelmed. So I work specifically with people who are highly sensitive to help them develop their intuitive channels and strengthen their sense of sensitivity so it's not overwhelming them, and that they're able to work with it. I see that, I mean, I really see sensitivity and being an empath as a really huge gift that we're not given any tools around, any sort of know-how around, so I kind of create a structure and a language to be able to work with those things. And I do that one-on-one, I do that in my membership group, and I do that in different courses and an intuitive school that I'm working on. Slade: Very cool. I want to come back a little bit and talk sort of about your manifesto, and the whole thing about sensitivity in particular how you kind of relate that to everything. That's something I want to dive in a little bit deeper on. One of the things I'm interested in - I've been asking a lot of people this, so I'm going to ask you - when you meet someone for the first time in real life and they ask you what you do, what do you say? Anna: Oh Jesus. You know, it really - it's funny, because I listened to the episode that you're referencing and I'm like, 'I'm taking notes', because this is something that I still struggle with, you know? It really depends. Sometimes I tell people I'm an intuitive. If I feel pretty comfortable with people I'll tell them I'm an intuitive. If it's somebody who is just totally out of this realm, I'll call it, sometimes I'll say that I have a healing arts practice. Sometimes I will say that I work with people who are highly sensitive to help them manage overwhelm. Those are usually the three places I will go, but I find it, I really find it a struggle. And for me, it's the sense of, how much do I - or it's kind of this battle between how much can I own about what I do and how much is actually going to get in and how much is safe in this situation? Slade: Yeah, well, and you know what? Also, some people ask that question very politely with the expectation that they're probably going to get a boring answer. Anna: Mmhmm! Slade: You know, like, 'I work as a clerk in a shipping department', or whatever. And sometimes people, just to be polite, might ask a bit of follow-up questions, but most people, myself included, when I ask somebody what they do, they may tell me and I'm like, 'Oh, okay, cool!' And I just kind of gloss over it and move on with the conversation. So I think that we feel especially under-the-gun about our identity in some way that we're projecting onto the situation a little bit. But I do, you know, I live in the Bible belt, so I don't walk around calling myself a psychic to every stranger that I meet. But I will say that I have learned, over time, more and more, how many people DO get me, and DO like what I do, and sometimes I'm pre-judging them and thinking, 'Oh, they're probably super conservative and traditional, and this would wig them out.' And then I find out later that they're not at all. And then I feel like as ass for, you know... being weird about it. Anna: Oh, I so resonate with that! Because sometimes, I've said this before, particularly in the early parts of my practice, where I was like, I feel like the witch on the edge of town that everybody goes to but nobody talks about. Slade: Yes! Anna: Where it's like, sometimes yeah, I'll tell people I'm a psychic and they'll come up to me later on and be like, 'I really want to know more. I just feel really drawn to knowing more.' And it's always kind of funny when that happens, that there is an opening. Oftentimes people are really searching for this, and particularly people who are more conservative often are really, you know, looking for some of this and when - we can create an opening for curiosity, I suppose. Slade: Well and another weird full-circle thing that I've discovered is that sometimes people of religious faith, even though I think, 'Oh, they're really traditional in their faith', people of faith generally are more open to conversations about faith. They're more open to the subject matter of supernatural phenomenon. They believe in angels and guides and archetypes and deities and all this kind of stuff actually. So sometimes they're weirdly open minded about the metaphysical part of it, almost a part that the intellectual crowd would dismiss us for. Sometimes the little old ladies who go to church every day, they're the mystical one. They're totally like down-low witches, you know what I mean? Anna: Totally! Yeah, you know, the way that I relate that is, so I grew up in Utah in Mormon country and my - I was not raised Mormon, but my mom's family is very Mormon. I think she's the only of her eight other siblings that left the Mormon church. So when we go to family reunions, there's always been this like, you know, we kind of get very reserved and we stop cussing. There's just not a lot, besides traffic and weather, that we talk about. But I was really surprised in that - and I feel kind of bad that I was surprised, like not putting as much, kind of faith in these cousins, particularly a couple of women that I grew up with, where we had this fantastic conversation about sensitivity and energy and different energy tools to help her sensitive kids and she was so open to all that, and a very, very devout, religious person. And I realized, wow, that is MY prejudice. That was ME getting in the way of what turned out to be this really beautiful exchange. Slade: Yeah, that's very cool. So obviously you didn't always identify as a professional intutiive or as a psychic new age person, so how did you become one? Anna: Oh gosh, yeah. What's kind of interesting is that I was a scientist first. I have a Bachelors degree and a Masters degree, Slade, in science. In conservation science and environmental science and really, I kind of chalk that up to I'm-really-interested-in-nature. I'm really... I find so many answers in nature and I realized recently - not recently but I've realized over the years that I really have an intuitive, you know, I have intuitive telepathic conversations when I'm in nature. That was kind of the place that I lived - in this very analytical, very scientific place. But on the other side of that, I was always seeking, and, you know, growing up in Utah as a non-Mormon, where everybody (I did a whole podcast on this) everybody that I was around. The town that I was in was a huge percentage Mormon, I think, in the '80s, 80% Mormon. So pretty much all the people that I went to school with had this really strong sense of relationship with God that included a lot of rules and books and, just things I didn't have, but I was really interested in having a relationship with something higher because I saw spirits and animal spirits and all kinds of things. And so, in my early twenties, I started exploring that kind of on the side. I started - well, after I went to college, I started studying. I studied some reiki, I studied qigong, I read the Tao Te Ching, I dabbled in Buddhism, just trying to find a sense of connection and along the way, when I was Colorado (I had taken a year off of school to follow a guy, ahem) I met this great community of intuitives like, the first psychics that I've ever met, and had really ground-breaking, earth-shaking experiences of validation, of really feeling seen for the first time in my life. And it gave in me a sense of direction that I had never really had before. So, over the years, I continued dabbling in meditation and different energy healing arts and it was funny because I think at that time in my early twenties, I read my first Caroline Myss book, the Anatomy of the Spirit, and I was like, 'Ohmygosh. This is so cool. I totally want to do this.' But thinking that it was really out of reach, you know, believing that it's something you're born with or you're not and... Eventually, in my mid-twenties, I asked the main intuitive that I worked with, 'Hey, do you think I could do this?' And she just, she kind of laughed, you know? She was like, 'Ohmygosh, Anna. Of course you can do this!' And so I just started taking some basic energy management meditation classes and then eventually decided to join a full clairvoyant training program. And clairvoyant, I mean, clairvoyance, you've said this on your podcast, where it's like clairvoyance is the only thing people are teaching which I totally agree with that. And for me, it was really helpful because I am very clairsentient, in a way that's actually kind of damaging and hard on my body. So learning to be clairvoyant was really helpful, and I actually then didn't right go out into the world and get readings, or to give readings rather. I had to, I kind of was very type-A, I had to get all the certifications first and studied yoga and ayurveda and stuff. That's the general story. I then eventually, when I moved to Seattle about six years ago, I was going to set up as an ayurvedic practitioner and the laws in Washington are a lot stricter than where they were when I was living in California. I was like, Crap! I can't set up as an ayurvedic practitioner. Well, I guess i'll just give readings then. So I feel like I kind of fell into being a professional psychic but that was definitely the place where I was supposed to be. Slade: Mmm... By the way, your website is called SensitivityUncensored.com, if anybody's listening and they want to kind of look at you and check out your site while we're talking, because there's so much about the personality. The imagery on your site, the language on your site, that really drew me in. And seeing some of that, I immediately connected with you and couldn't help but feel that you must've been motivated to create something in a response to all that goody-goody that's out there that I sort of feel like I try to respond to as well. So I was wondering, what motivated, just kind of the vibe of your site and the concept? Anna: Yeah, oh that's great. That's part of the reason why I was drawn to you, Slade, it was the less hearts and flowers. So I was like, 'Oh, thank God.' Someone else, you know? Slade: Yeah! Anna: Well there's a couple things. First actually, was that I recognized that the clients, the highly sensitive clients I was attracting, one of the real challenges they had was this real sense of seriousness, that everything was so serious. And, like you know what happens when we get serious all the time. Our energy shuts off. It stops flowing, you know? So part - so they learned, working with me, that we're not going to be super serious. We're going to go through important, difficult stuff and we're not going to do that in a life or death, with a life or death energy, you know? We're going to go through a little bit more lighthearted so that we can stay just above and work with what's there. So that was the first thing. The second reason is that I had, before that, kind of pigeon-holed myself with my previous website as like, the perfect healer. I think you know what I'm talking about. It was really annoying, Slade, my website. And I think about it now, I cringe. It's like when you are in the year 2000 with a 1981 haircut. You're like, 'Oh, that should have been updated.' So I had felt like I had created this pressure for myself to show up perfectly, which is like, I'm nowhere near perfect, and it just wasn't the vibe that I actually worked from. So the website was a bit of a 'coming out' in a way for me, being like, 'Hey, yeah i'm a healer and I do things really, really differently.' And then kind of the third thing is, I have avoided for years calling myself psychic because I don't tend to like a lot a lot of the psychic community, kind of that new-age vibe because it's like the Law of Attraction and that's all that exists. Which, like, I just want to vomit a little with that, and I see a lot of clients getting really hung up on some of these new age principles that have been spun really poorly, taught really poorly, kind of from a, I like to call it, Puritanical way, where it's like, 'I did everything right. Why isn't the Universe giving me what I want?' And i'm like, okay well we just kind of - that's not how it works! Slade: There's a kind of fundamentalism that has crept in to it all. Anna: Exactly! Yeah! Slade: Yeah. I totally know - well, I have to say, in keeping with kind of lightness and the vibe of your site when people first land on it, they'll know what I'm talking about. You have to go check this out because I honestly kind of felt like, and I don't mean this to sound in any way like you're smaller than me or less mature, something like that, but I felt like you were like my little sister who I thought of as being like an elementary school kid who suddenly got really cool and turned punk rock over the summer, and I was like, 'Wait a minute!' And I looked at you and I was like, 'Oh wait, she's cooler than me!" And it felt like something I did respond to, you're right. The less hearts and flowers thing. But you had it dialed up in a way that was particularly feminine, I think, but in a badass kind of way, you know, like a babydoll punk kind of vibe. There's something kind of retro '90s grunge about it. I don't know how to put words on it but it was really refreshing and exciting to me to see that, and I do think that you're in a safe space, talking to this group of people who follow me or listen to this podcast. They will totally get you and they will appreciate it and they will laugh in all the right places and be excited. Anna: Right, right. Slade: But you have this manifesto and again, the language that you use, everything is very, kind of, cool and grounded and kind of in your face in a good way that kind of wakes you up. But it's not trying too hard. It feels very natural. It feels, like you said, you came out of some pristine kind of shell that you were trying to be in, and sort of let it all out and, you know what it is? It's like a cool, it's like a cool hair cut. You know, like when you cut all your hair off and you dye it blonde, which I know that you recently did. Anna: Yes! Hahaha... Slade: It's like your site kind of feels like the spiritual 'coming out' version of that. Like, I'm going to go into the bathroom and I'm gonna shave my head and then I'm gonna come out and be like, raccoon eyeliner watch out. Anna: Yeah. Slade: But having said all that, that definitely is like a, WHAT? You know, like it made me stop in my tracks and want to come in. But then when I started to read your actual manifesto, kind of your About page, about where you're coming from and everything, there's some real depth and philosophical originality going on here. So, I want you to kind of talk to me about this concept of Sacred Rebellion, and it's clear from your domain name, Sensitivity Uncensored, that there's this relationship between highly sensitive people and then this concept of rebellion. Explain all that to us. What is that manifesto? Anna: Yeah, absolutely. So I, you know that when I wrote the manifesto, I mean, that comes straight from inside. I feel every word of that manifesto. It wasn't something, when I created my website, that I was like, and then I will have a manifesto! It was like, one day I was like, I have a manifesto! And it must be written! And... I think this is actually where my science background comes in, because something that I observe about the people I work with, people who are sensitive, who are empathic, who are intuitive, we have so many answers for the problems that are plaguing the world. I mean, we are like, I liken this in science to the indicator species, you know? A way you could say that more commonly is, the canary in the coal mine. We can, we feel what's happening. We have a knowingness about what's happening when we're clear. Sometimes we see, we hear, and we receive tremendous amounts of guidance. I really believe that there's a critical place for sensitive, empathic, intuitive people on the planet, and that we currently have a culture that is not set up to recognize our gifts. Nobody is going to step aside for that to happen right? That has to come from us claiming our space, finding our power and our place, wherever we want that to be. I'm not saying we all need to get on the front lines and be social justice warriors or something, you know? But coming into our power and having enough personal sovereignty to do our thing in the world. No matter if that's, you know, being a professional psychic or being a really good interior designer, or an artist that just moves people. I just feel like it's so important. And so, the Sacred Rebellion is that claiming. The Sacred Rebellion has two parts. First, it's about personal practices and personal tools that help us come to a place of spiritual and personal sovereignty, where we are much more able to clearly able to discern between what is our STUFF to deal with and what is the stuff of someone else or the world. Basically being able to discern between energies, right? So that we can do US. That's the first part of Sacred Rebellion. It's a re-claiming, a claiming, remembering. The second part, and I think this is so critical, is the 'so that'. We do that work - SO THAT - we can be in this greater world, earth, doing our part, for humanity, the earth, consciousness, whatever. So, and you pointed this out, so much of my work is really grounded because I believe it has to be. If we really want to change the situation of the planet and really help, you know, human consciousness raise up or, however you want to, however you want to talk about that goal. So, again, the Sacred Rebellion is about doing those two things and doing them in community with other highly sensitive, empathic, intuitive people. I mean, I think I've heard you said, Slade, sorry, you had said, Slade, that, you know, we're spread out, as intuitives. You have that theory we're not all bunched together, and how isolating that is. Slade: Mmhmm. Anna: And I'm like, 'Okay! Let's group up!' Like, we need community, so that's where my Refuge for Sacred Rebellion is that place where we come together and do this. Slade: Yeah, talk about, a little bit about this. It's kind of a program, right? Or it's, I mean, it's a community. You explain what it is, the Refuge for Sacred Rebellion. Anna: Yeah. The Refuge for Sacred Rebellion - it's a membership group. It's a place for highly sensitive, or sensitive souls, empaths, intuitives, others, people who have felt 'othered', to come into community with other highly sensitive empathic psychic others. And I co-lead this with a woman named Heidi Frank Palmer, and she was a long-term client/student of mine who's right up with me, and we are co-leading the space. What we, our goals for this space is, are to create a real sense of community. To provide ample opportunity for us to get to know each other, to share what's happening for us daily and where we're at in our stories. We do this through a Facebook group. We also have monthly discussion calls about different subjects that are either guided by us or guided by other members. Basically the things that creative people struggle with. Like, we break it down. We have what we call 'office hours', kind of stealing something from my college professors, where we kind of hang out online, and if you want to, you can come and ask us questions and get advice as part of the group. And then, twice a year, I teach the Fundamental Tools for my School for Sacred Rebellion and intuitive development Program, and this was, these are a set of tools that I created and originally was calling, 'Sensitive Self-Defense'. It's like spiritual hygiene for sensitives. It's a bunch of meditation tools that really help us take those first steps to getting spiritually sovereign. I used to sell this course for so much money and whatever, and now it's just like, you're in the Refuge, you'll get these tools. Twice a year, we go through it together. You can join us. You can not join us. They're available within the membership area of the website so you can refresh, or work through, at your own pace. Basically we are trying to create a place where you can come, you know, come together and go through this experience of being a sensitive, creative, intuitive soul on this planet at this time. Slade: Hmm, okay. I was hoping that you would have some advice for sensitive people. You kind of touched on that idea of the first thing that you need to do, that kind of sensitive self-defense, and I encounter people who refer to themselves as HSP, Highly Sensitive People, empaths. One of the first things that I teach everyone who comes into my intuitive training is a different kind of shielding technique that's not just a, you know, wall of white light and bleach. It's like, it's too much, you know. I always tell people there's a difference between a blindfold and sunglasses. Anna: Yes, yes! Slade: So what are some tips you have for someone - because the thing about people who are empathic and highly sensitive is, they're the most likely to be shut down. They're the most likely to have walls. They're the most likely to be like, so withdrawn within themselves that they're not seeking, they're not reaching for this stuff like some of us are. So when you encounter one of those people, and you're kind of triaging that highly sensitive empath, and you need to give them a pair of sunglasses instead of a blindfold, what do you advise? What's the first thing to do? Anna: Such a great question. So, the thing that I notice about these people, I mean, this is everyone I work with, is that, I mean, rightly so, they're inside themselves, right? Because the world is fucking harsh. So I just see no judgment in that. They've been doing what they learned to do to protect themselves, you know? Good job. Now it's not working so let's do something else, right? So, what I notice is that HSP, what they do is they eject. Like, their aura usually, not always, but usually the first thing I see clairvoyantly when a HSP comes at me is, they're not in their body. Slade: Mmm... Anna: Because their body is painful. It's too painful to be in their body. It's scary. It's over-whelming. There's so much sensation, you know? So they're just like, I'm ejecting into the spiritual, the theoretical space that is so much easier for me to be in. So before I actually offer sunglasses, and I used to do this, Slade, I used to just offer protection first, and it didn't work for HSP. Slade: Okay. Anna: Because for them, what I find, is they've got to get grounded first. Slade: Okay. Anna: They HAVE to be in their body. So that stuff actually, the first thing that I give them is, I teach them how to create a really dynamically solid grounding cord I'll call it. So it's not like you're stuck to your chair, you know, but it's a way to plug in and to really fill up the space of your body. And then after that, I offer actually a little bit of like, I call it 'turning on the tap', how do you then get nourished with air and water, now that you're in your body, and then I give protection. Because I think about it like, I think about protection kind of like the alarm system of a house. Right? And say this alarm system works like, will only protect if you and all your shit is in your house. You know what I mean? If they're not in their bodies, then what's the alarm system doing, you know? Slade: Mmm... Anna: That's kind of what I, that's how I explain it at least. And this is just came from me working with THIS population for so long, that I was like, Why isn't a protection working? Oh. Because they're not there. Slade: I had an image come to me while you were speaking. I'm just going to share it, that for me, I had this kind of fitness image come in, which was the idea that without core strength, you're not really in a position to work a bunch of kung fu and martial arts, you know what I mean? Anna: Haha.. Totally! Slade: You can't throw a punch if you don't have a strong core. You can't spin around and kick someone in the face if you don't have balance, you know what I mean? You can't put all these muscles on top of something that doesn't have a centre. Which I think, in general, is a lot of what, when people call themselves spiritual seekers or they're working on all these tools and all this stuff, I often find that they're orbiting the body... Anna: Yes! Slade: ...playing with all this stuff that's kind of like in the upper chakras and you've heard me talk about this and the whole idea of re-booting, re-grounding energy and working back up again if you feel like you're frazzled or fried or whatever. But that's coming to me as a part of this picture of what you're describing, like, it doesn't make sense for you... like, you gotta be in your body first before you can manage the kind of shell of energy. Anna: Well, absolutely. I mean, for most HSP, this is our natural tendency, to take up space in the upper chakras at kind of the expense of the lower. And this, then, just generally makes us feel like we do life bad. Slade: Yes! Anna: You know? Most people who are not sensitive and empathic, you know, no judgment on that, but they naturally tend to just hang out in their lower chakras, so it's like, easy to get a job, and kind of easy to make money and they're not too worried about what their Spirit's doing, you know? It's just like, it's basic. And then, HSP we're all up in our upper chakras going like, why can't I get a job that I like? Like, why... Slade: Yes... Anna: Why is this... And it's like, Yeah! There's a gift about occupying those upper chakras. And, you do have a body. And, you don't have to occupy those lower chakras in the same way that everyone else does. So let's find a way to occupy them that, you know, really resonates and validates who you are as a Spirit. Slade: Yeah, it's like your Wifi isn't going to work if the little box isn't plugged in to the wall. Anna: Yes! I love that - that's totally it. Yes. Slade: Yeah, and the thing is, is like, when I talk about people doing that, and I do talk about it because I see it in clients and I see it in myself. There's been this ongoing theme this year where I keep returning to real basic stuff about the body and wellness, and nutrition, and simple fitness. And the thing is, is I don't think that any of that stuff has to be complicated. I think, actually, everyone's impulse is to over-complicate it by a bunch of outfits and special shoes and like, go for a marathon and, I mean it's good to have goals and stuff but I think that if you are sort of working in all those upper chakras and they're not working right for some reason, like you said, I feel like I'm doing this wrong, then look at really simple grounding. Do you walk around outside? Anna: Yes! Slade: Do you feel sunlight on your eyelids? That creates a vitamin in your body, you know? And getting back to your, sort of, I want to say it's kind of neo-pagan, in a way, like the way that you connect from your science background in conservation and ecology back to the sort of you know, earth as life force as a living entity, all that kind of stuff. So there's that connection to it as well, and that's really simple, basic, animal, like you said, lower chakra kind of stuff to work on. And we're all guilty of it. Anna: Oh, yeah. Slade: I mean, I spend most of my time trying to climb up in my third eye and balance on my divine crown all day long and, you know, all this kind of stuff and, you know, everything from the heart chakra up is like getting all this attention and it was a real life-changer for me when I was forced to rebuild my body, first with yoga, and then on some other kinds of fitness. But it came out of a really, like, ohmygod, I had surgery, and my core muscles had been cut into and I had to rebuild my basic strength and I did that after doing all the psychic stuff. So I don't want anybody to think that you can't be perfectly great psychic if you've got, you know, if you're chubby and you're working on it, it's okay. You can still do all this stuff. Anna: Oh, god, yeah! Slade: I used to do all this stuff. But do look at, if it's not working, maybe this is, what we're talking about is the reason why. Anna: Yeah, totally. I just want to add, you can be chubby and not working on it. Slade: You can. Anna: There's nothing wrong with that. Slade: Absolutely. Because, like you said, some people who are really sensitive are not spending time in the body, it's on autopilot in some way, and that could include being sedentary and sort of eating on autopilot and all kinds of things that go along with that. And you are spending all your time in your head. And years and years ago when I tried to quit smoking, I was trying to treat it as an addiction and I went to a doctor who asked me a gazillion questions about my lifestyle. It felt more like a psychiatric assessment, if you've ever been to someone, you know, to be kind of assessed for depression or something like that. There are these elaborate quizzes that you take and it was that kind of process. He told me at the end of it, he said, you're not addicted to the cigarettes, you're addicted to the endorphin that the body releases when you starve yourself and you're using caffeine to stimulate and to stay in your mind and you spend a lot of time doing activities that are super super mental. And it's like your happy place is to feel like a robot, like you're riding around inside this machine and your body is not really you. You're just your brain. And that, I don't know how that changed my perspective but that was the clue to me realizing what was really happening, and it was that I was disassociating. Anna: Totally. And, even like addiction energy is kind of an upper chakra energy anyway though, so it's probably just, you know, easier to focus on and it's funny, as you talked about that, the image I got is like, oh! That kind of helped you drop into your body and kind of let go of that concept of addiction. Slade: Yes. Anna: Super cool. Slade: Total tangent there but I feel like it's all related. It's all related. Anna: Yeah! Slade: I keep having this image, like a... There's gonna be some links that I'm gonna share but there's some images of you on your website, on your psychic school, on your intuitive school program page, that are out in nature and they're very, um, they're very much the, that kind of intersection of spirituality and nature and... That's what this has all been about for me, is kind of bridging those worlds, so to speak. I think that that's really what you're doing, from my perspective. But I'm interested in what you hope to contribute to this kind of new age world, spirituality, personal development... What do you kind of hope to offer? Anna: I think we're... Yeah, that's such a great question. I think you're the first one to really ask it to me. So, you know, I think what I'm really trying to contribute is, there's been a really large focus in this realm of the upper chakras, of transcending the human experience. And I think we've got to stop doing that. To be honest, if we want things to change on the ground, if we actually want to improve this world that we are in, in these human bodies, then I don't think that we can have spirituality divorced from the body, and divorced from what happens in the body. So what I'm hoping to leave behind is, is that. It's how to have all of this juicy, creative, inspirational, psychic stuff, you know, as an in-the-body experience. And actually have it connect us more to our humanity and to, then, how we interact with other humans in the community. I see so much spiritual bypassing these days. I see so much pain and trauma inflicted on other people, saying from some kind of spiritual elitism viewpoint that I think is so harmful, and I see it because we're using our spirituality kind of divorced from our humanity, from our soul, from those deep soulful chakras. So I think that's what I'm trying to do, and really help HSP and empaths step into their power, because there's a power and there's a place for all of us here, particularly us sensitive empaths, and it's so easy for the culture that we're in to feel like there's NOT a place and I just... There is. I think I'm going to say that until I die. There's a place for us and it's really important. Slade: Mmm... We have to talk about your, the free book that you offer on your website and I'm really excited about this. I don't think that, if I'm projecting into the future, I don't think I'd title the podcast this, but I wanted to just steal it and make it the title of the podcast. The title of your e-book is, 'You Are a Goddamn Magical Unicorn', which, I have decided, wins the award for the best title on a subscriber incentive that I have personally seen, and I've looked at a lot of them because I coach people around this, and I was like, Yes! That is awesome. So, 'You're a Goddamn Magical Unicorn'. It's free to everyone who goes to your website. What's it about? Anna: Yeah. So this is actually a guidebook for HSP. It's kind of like, oh! So you found out you're highly sensitive. Here's your instruction manual. Not instruction manual, but your guidebook. And I wrote it from that place of, we are being too goddamn serious, you know. We, there's so much tiptoeing around our sensitivity and just... I just wanted it to be out there. You are special and goddamnit we need you. So this is, I'm not gonna lie, I may have had some whisky while I wrote this, but this is a guidebook written in, take the title, it's written in that sort of tone. It also, though, offers really practical suggestions for getting in your body for grounding. It offers guided meditations. You also, if you sign up for my newsletter, you get a book and you get the guided meditation that's in the book as an audio file. So you get both. Slade: Okay, cool. Anna: Yeah. And I think I even, ohmygosh, I think I even created a unicorn mandala for you to colour in there. But basically it's like, Here's what high-sensitivity means, like, this is what it means biologically. Here's how herd animals, because all mammals have highly sensitive individuals. So here's how mammals handle high sensitivity, which I think is super cool. Like, the highly sensitive deer or like zebras of any herd are so revered, because they're the first ones to know that there's danger. Slade: Mmm! Anna: So everyone is like, What are the sensitives doing? We will follow the sensitives. And it's just in humans where we get all backwards. And so, I talk about the herd mentality in a very fun way and then I talk about, yeah, taking up space as your own highly sensitive being, and here are three ways you can get started. Slade: Okay. That's awesome. That's exactly kind of what I was kind of hoping that you would have somewhere to send someone. When someone approaches me and they say, 'Help, I'm just kind of like, curled up in a ball here.' I always want to say, 'Do this.' And you're right. I teach them how to protect themselves first, and I like what you talked about on the show about the need to be in the body first and all that. So I think that's an incredibly cool resource even if it didn't have such a kickass title, it sounds like a really awesome piece of information, so definitely we will link to that. Go to your website. It's right there on the homepage and you can't miss that cute little image. So what's next for you? Do you have any big projects on the horizon here? Anna: Yes, yes. I have been building what I'm calling the School for Sacred Rebellion for awhile now. And this is kind of the next step from the Refuge. So the Refuge for Sacred Rebellion is that place where we all get started together. Within that, you learn those sensitive self-defense tools that are kind of like Spiritual Hygiene 101. The School for Sacred Rebellion is my intuitive development program where we go through all of the clairs. We learn how to do, um, you can jump in kind of. Part One is doing basic aura healings. So actually working in, I call it 'Activating the healer' because I believe we're all healers so let's just find yours. Let's find your healer and bring them to the forefront. And you can kind of stop there, and that provides you with a tremendous amount of resources just for working with your own energy and doing healings on yourself and with others. And if you want to dive deeper into those intuitive arts, it goes into Part Two, which is developing clairvoyance, claircognizance, clairsentience, clairaudience, all of that and at the end, we finish with this really cool integration mentorship, because I don't want to create little Anna-bots, you know, like you're having to go out in the world and do what I do. The people that are, that this program is really for are, you know, people who are already doing some form of healing work. I mean, it doesn't have to be for this, but people who are like, 'Yeah, I'm a massage therapist', 'I'm a yoga teacher', 'I'm a doctor', and I would just love to have more to offer my people. So you go through this program, you learn which of the clairs are your strengths, how you want to put them together and then in the mentorship, we, you basically get a bunch of one-on-one and group support in how are you going to go do you now, in this world? Slade: One of the things that I notice about it that I thought was really appealing was the fact that it's broken up into stages, almost more like, if you go to college, and you take, like, 101, and then you come back the next semester and do 201, you know, 102, however they number it, I can't remember, it's been too long. But I like the fact that you can kind of come in and get a stage of the work and then get off and work at that level, or you could keep going, or you could come back and go continue on with the next thing. Anna: Yup. Slade: But rather than it being ONE big huge long program that you commit to from the beginning, you can kind of go through it, you can break it up a little bit more, which I think is gonna really appeal to people, both for financial reasons and also just because absorbing and processing some of this stuff, you need to sit with a tool, like what you just described, you know... Anna: Totally. Slade: ...discovering the self-healer within you, that's something you could sit in that might carry you for months, as you're processing that and integrating that into your life, before you feel like you need to come back to the next thing. Rather than kind of stuffing your face with too much stuff and then trying to figure out later, why did I buy all this, you know. Anna: Yeah. Slade: I want to mention, too, that the course is really not officially launching until the summer of 2018 but Anna has decided to share the page with us. Like I said, check it out just for the cool photography, if nothing else. There's some really great imagery there, great information, and if someone does go to that page and they're interested, they can go ahead and start working with some of these programs? Anna: They can, well, yes and no. So my - if you get to the school and you are just super stoked about it, and you really want to be in it, then get into the Refuge, because the Refuge is where you get those, kind of the starter tools... Slade: Okay. Anna: Like, the prerequisite tools that really guide everything else. The next round of teaching those tools is going to be early Fall of this year. And then there'll be another class of the School. Eventually, I hope to have enough co-teachers and enough bandwidth. I have a one year old right now so I don't have a huge amount of bandwidth, that I can have, you know, multiple sections of the courses going at once, so it is like, 'Oh yeah, that section is offered then and then.' Slade: Okay. Anna: But right now it's a little bit more linear, just because of all of that. Slade: Yeah. Okay. So we're getting a sneak peak at what's coming from you. Anna: Yeah! Slade: And that's very, very cool, and still, the entry point would be to get into the Refuge and start working with the tools and the community there, either way. But we'll link to it just so you can check it out and see what's on offer and see your cool new haircut. And um... Anna: Oh, it's funny, Slade. So I just want to share something with you, with the audience, which is that, so I cut all my hair off and dyed it platinum blonde, which I loved. And now I've been doing a bunch of mountain biking in Seattle, around Seattle, and I nailed these upgrades to my bike and my husband was kind of frowning, like, Okay, I won't bleach my hair anymore, in order to pay for the upgrades. You know, to kind of make it even. So right now, I'm kind of rocking '90s boy band colours. Slade: Okay! Anna: You know, like, it's like a little '90s boy band. I'm not that stoked on it but it's kind of funny. Slade: Hey, listen, one of my best girl friends is platinum and it's, you gotta be like, dedicated to platinum. It's a lot of upkeep and a lot of chemistry involved. Yeah. It's not just something you do once. Anna: Nope. Slade: Anna, it's been really fantastic capturing this conversation with you and hearing about your take on everything. I definitely learned a few things and I'm processing some things differently, having spoken with you about HSP and how to, how to work with that. I think I will go away and ponder and probably do some things differently. Definitely gonna be sending some people to the Goddamn Magical Unicorn book and... But just before you leave us, tell everyone where they can go to find you online. Anna: Yeah, you can find me at www.sensitivityuncensored.com. And then I'm also, I'm kind of on Facebook but really I'm more on Instagram @sensitivity_uncensored. Slade: Cool. We'll put all the links in the Show Notes to the various parts of your site that we highlighted. That was great, Anna. Thank you for coming on. Anna: Yeah, thank you so much. I really enjoyed it.

  This story is about travelling the world, interviewing lots of men (everyone from porn stars to famous author John Grey), and going on a magical Ayahuasca journey. And at the end of this episode I'll share with you the best mushroom you can use to make your own magical brew in your home in case you don't happen to have Ayahuasca growing on your doorstep. What you will learn an easy way to start travelling the world and working from anywhere three things about men that not everyone may realize how to make a tasty brew at home that isn't Ayahuasca, but is pretty darn magical all the same At the end of this episode I'll share with you the best mushroom you can use to make your own magical brew in your home in case you don't happen to have Ayahuasca growing on your doorstep. Our guest, Anna Rova I am very excited to be joined here today by Anna Rova, who is a fellow podcaster, writer and entrepreneur. And among other cool things, Anna has some very interesting insights on relationships. She has interviewed all kinds of people about this topic, from porn stars to John Gray who is the author of the bestseller Men Are from Mars, Women Are From Venus. Anna has also done lots of other magical things, including Ayahuasca which she'll talk about a bit later. So Anna welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast! I'm really excited to have you here today! Anna: Thanks for having me! I'm so excited too! Beginning to travel the world with a one-way ticket Me: Now I know that you basically travel the world writing and doing other amazing things, and I would really love for us to start by having you tell everybody how you came to become a digital nomad. Anna: OK, well that's an easy subject to start with. I became a digital nomad about 2 years ago. Last year around May I started travelling full time, and I was in Malaysia working for a company called MindValley who make personal growth products. I did online marketing there and I got exposed to the digital nomads out there and one day I was like "Oh my God, I don't need to be in an office, I can be anywhere and do my work". So I was over my Malaysia chapter and I booked a one-way ticket to Bangkok. I had a friend there, I went to a wedding there. And then after a week in Bangkok I booked a ticket to an island, got an apartment, taught myself how to ride a scooter and that was it! And the rest is history! It's such a journey, I've travelled all over the world, I've lived in more than 15 countries in the last 2 years. Just ask me what you want to know more about! When in doubt, teach yourself Me: I love how you taught yourself how to ride a scooter, I mean, was that just trial and error? Did you just fall off and then get back on? Anna: I think that was the scariest shit ever in my life because overall I think I had that summer 3 accidents on the motorbike and that's unavoidable. When I was renting an apartment, I had to get around. And for anyone who's been to Thailand, besides Bangkok, the only way to get around is by motorbike. I was scared to death to ride it, I didn't have a driver's license and I thought "I suppose I'm just gonna do it!" But I learned how to balance it in the right way, and that's it. So I went on the street and in the first 3 minutes I realized I was gonna be out of gas, and I was like 'shit what am I gonna do' and you know, I just did it. In 2 months I was pretty much like a pro. I loved it, I loved the freedom of going wherever I wanted. An easy way to transition from full-time work to digital nomad Me: At that point were you writing articles? Anna: Well no, I have an interesting story because for me it wasn't like quitting everything and then doing my business. It was good because this transition from having a full-time job in an office to a digital nomad lifestyle with remote work can be a really hard one. I think a lot of people aren't prepared, they think it's easy. But I negotiated to basically start working remotely for the same company. I had a full-time job and I didn't need to be in an office, so that was for about half a year so it really helped me to have stability for the first 6 months, somebody out there waiting for me to show up and do my work. The rest was so unstable, you didn't know what's going to happen tomorrow, where you'd be, it was crazy. So that was great and I wasn't ready yet to jump into my full-on entrepreneurship journey. But I actually found another job with a company that's in the same industry and I signed a contract for another year to work full-time remotely doing online marketing which was great. I negotiated like a double salary and it was awesome! Another one-way ticket...to Colombia I booked my one-way ticket to Colombia and you know, Latin America was a continent that was always in my dreams. But after a year I came back to this feeling that I'm an entrepreneur, you know? I need to do my own thing, I have so much in me to write, to say, to discover the world, to teach. So I quit the job this January just 3 months ago and I went on this 90-day Wanderova journey and I thought I'm just gonna write about it, and it was incredible! In two months of writing on Medium I got to top writer in Travel, top writer in Relationships, I got published by a publication, I'm building my own business, I coached a couple of people. Becoming a relationship expert Me: So then that was my next question actually, because we'll link to Medium in the show notes and then people can read about the posts that you were writing when you were travelling. But I'm curious to know how you then started to write about relationships and how you got to interview porn stars and John Gray? Talk about a mixture! Anna: So actually that project, my expertise in relationships started way before I became a digital nomad. This is also a sign for me when I look back I realize that I was always entrepreneurial. I just didn't fully realize it consciously. From MindValley to John Gray While I had my full-time job in Malaysia, some of you might know that MindValley is such a creative, entrepreneurial place. And I started my podcast in 2014. At that time I had just broke up with my boyfriend. We were almost engaged and all of that but I said I don't want that. I didn't know anything about relationships but I was into podcasting and I just said "I'm going to start my own podcast where I'm going to interview men about relationships to figure it all out". And you know, it was such a journey, I did the project for two years. In these two years I got a chance to interview 43 amazing men all about women and relationships. I asked them all kinds of questions, and yes I interviewed John Gray. He wrote 17 books on relationships and you know, he's a famous writer and speaker, men go to their cave and whatever. I was shocked myself when he decided to say yes and have an interview with me. Enter the porn star I interviewed porn stars. It's actually a funny story because after my interview with a porn star, his name was I think John Logan. A couple of weeks later I was doing my self satisfaction moment in bed and then I saw the guy in a porn video in like a threesome and I was like "Oh my God I can't watch this! I interviewed him on my podcast!" But yeah, I interviewed all kinds of men from all kinds of nationalities, all kinds of walks of life. And I just asked them what do they find attractive in a woman and all of that. Me: And what kind of things came out? What are some of the common things that men seem to say about what makes women attractive? Anna: Oh this is such a huge subject! Me: Maybe two or three little things. Anna: I actually learned a lot, not only from them, but I read a lot, I researched the subject. And I became a totally different woman. It was a journey to discover men, but at the same time it was more of a journey of discovering myself and what I think about men, what I think about relationships, what I think about women. The first thing Anna learned about men A lot of shit came up that were limiting beliefs, patterns from my childhood, whatever. So one of the things that I love to tell everyone, and women especially, is that we have this notion that men are something based on what we've seen in our life. But I absolutely believe 100% in the good of men: I love men, I love their masculinity, their polarity. And I started appreciating men. I realized what they have to go through to even talk to a woman, you know? Like I never thought about it. Men go through their puberty and they just start Googling things and talking to other men about how to get women. We as women, I mean I don't want to generalize but a lot of women are so bitchy to men and so down on men and "oh they just want to get into my pants" and I just went inside and realized who they're raised by and how they're going through all of this process. First I'd say that I just got to understand and appreciate men, which was my mission. I realized that it's a journey for all of us. Anna's biggest learning The other thing that I realized is that I dug deep and this is all about patterns and limiting beliefs that come from my family and my childhood and my culture and what I've seen. And I realized that I was attracting all of these emotionally unavailable men because I myself was emotionally unavailable. So my second tip and my biggest learning is that our partners or the men that we attract as women are a direct reflection of us. If we attract someone that doesn't call us back or whatever, that means that we ourselves are unavailable. And it's really hard to realize cause you're like "But I want love! I want a relationship!" But you're just not ready. That's what I tell all of my girlfriends when they ask me. If you're attracting super needy men there's a lot of deep, deep work in there. So that's the second thing. The third thing: we're working with broken tools And the third thing I'd say is that I just realized I never saw growing up a healthy model of how relationships should be. I come from a small Eastern European country, my mother passed away when I was 8 years old, and my dad after that remarried a couple of times. Well, once he remarried, but there were many women in his life and there was a stepmother, there was an evil bitch there, I mean I have a crazy story. Basically I just didn't see healthy relationships where men loved their women, women loved their men and they had healthy relationships where they're partners. They're not like "Oh my God, you're my other half" and like "Save me" and "Heal all my wounds". I guess one of the biggest realizations was that I just realized that our modern notion of love and relationships is completely broken. We just expect the other person to come in and "Make me happy, heal my wounds". It just doesn't work. A healthy relationship today, and still travelling! Today I'm engaged to my man, but I always make sure that this is me, and my shit is like my shit and I need to work on me constantly. Even when I'm getting married. I'm like "this is his own shit, this is my shit". We're together in this, and we're choosing each other every day and you know, we're not dependent on each other emotionally. At least I hope we're not. Me: You know, I like that phrase 'choosing each other every day', that's really quite cool. Yeah. Anna: Yeah. So I believe that really helped me and you know, I just became emotionally independent and that's how I met my man currently and that's how he proposed 9 months after we met. We're having a wedding in Moldova in my country and it's so beautiful and flowery but there was a lot of work behind it. I went through a lot of stuff. So that's the story. Anna's Ayahuasca journey Me: So when I was reading your blog and the stories of your travels, I just zeroed in on your Ayahuasca story. I was like "I have got to read this!" because I've always wanted to try it and I haven't had the opportunity yet and I know that I will. But for the benefit of anyone listening that doesn't know anything about it, can you just tell us really briefly like what it is, and also how you came to be taking it and what happened? What Ayahuasca is Anna: Ayahuasca is very common among travellers because full-time travellers have a certain character, they're adventurous, so they often know about Ayahuasca. But people who don't travel that much, they're like 'what the hell is that'. So Ayahuasca is something that I heard about a couple of years ago that somebody did it, and it was such an amazing experience. Life-transformation and whatever. I thought "I've gotta do it, I've got to have it on my bucket list!" Me: Cause it's a herb, right? You take it as a tea? Anna: Yeah, so what it is...There's a lot of controversy out there. Scientists have done research and experiments on what ayahuasca does and its effects. But basically it's a herb, it's a medicinal plant that's found in the Amazon so in the Brazilian part in Peru. How you use Ayahuasca...the right way It's mostly in Peru, people go there to have this experience. Ayahuasca's a psychedelic plant. But the difference between all the psychedelic drugs out there, MDMA etc, I mean I haven't done any of that by the way. They call Ayahuasca a medicinal plant and a life transformation experience because it's a shamanic ceremony. So it's not like you go into a club and eat a plant or a mushroom. There's a ceremony, there's a shaman who guides people through. It's a very serious experience, it's an adventure. You've got to be ready to do it and there are so many positive stories around it. People are realizing their life purpose or whatever. And there are also bad stories around it, that people have horrible experiences. What they say that ayahuasca does is that if you look at the research it's actually used as a treatment for drug addicts for example, and people who are lost and want to see but they can't see. So it affects some parts of your brain that are responsible for emotional memories. What Ayahuasca can show you That's why it's healing. It's a healing experience in a way. They say that ayahuasca will show you what you need to see. So I wrote this post, there are two parts. One of them is where you count down... Me: That's the one I read. I haven't read part 2 and I was like "What happens?" Anna: Yes I describe how I felt before, and I was like pushing away the fear and then 48 hours before, an hour before...I was really scared because I didn't know what the hell was gonna happen. What Ayahuasca does So basically it's a liquid tea, they call it Ayahuasca tea. You drink it and maybe in like 20 minutes it starts coming to you. And then basically after that you fall into a state of deep dream and you start seeing psychedelic things for like 5 hours. Me: Wow! 5 hours! Anna: Yes, it's really intense. Me: But you don't see the time go by, I would imagine, right? Anna: Yes, it's totally, well not out of body, I wouldn't know how to describe it. Me: Well it's like when we dream, we're in a completely different state of consciousness, right? And so time doesn't have the same meaning. Anna: Exactly, yeah. And I was aware of what was happening but I was deeply into it. I put it all out there in part 2 for readers to read, but every experience is different. Our group had a really good experience. We did it during the day. We were in a very safe environment which is very important. But I've heard stories of not having a great experience, so it really depends where you are in life, how ready you are, and how much of a control freak you are. A lot of people who didn't have a good experience tried to control it. And you just can't do that. You've gotta work on just letting it go, letting it do its job and all that. Anna's main takeaway from her Ayahuasca journey I'm really happy I did it. It still has its effects on me up until today and I think it always will. I plan to do it again and I'm actually still processing it. I'm really glad I did it. It was powerful. Me: What was the main thing that it gave to you? I mean, if you had to pick one thing, what would that be? Anna: Well I think it's two things. First of all, there's a feeling of oneness. Oneness with the world, with nature, with people. And at the end of it you just feel bliss. Our shaman explained that when you do Ayahuasca, you're at a very high rate of vibration which is actually the human natural state of vibration. I totally believe that we are here to enjoy life. We are here to be happy and to be on that really high vibration. I just felt this feeling of oneness. I felt like whatever I have to do at home, like "Oh I have to do a podcast?" Whatever I have to do, it doesn't really matter. It's like humans we complicate it so much. I felt that before through travelling, but this was a really intense feeling. On top of that... The second thing is that I just look at life as a game. It's all a game! Me: Yes! Totally! Anna: We just complicate things so much but if you just let things flow and be in the game, nobody knows what the fuck they're doing anyway! Me: I tell myself that a lot. I do! It's a game! It was like today because you know, for me, I'm super excited because you're like my first podcast guest, right? Yay! Anna: Yay! Me: And so you know this morning, of course you get a bit nervous. Because I'm using different technology for the first time and all that, and I'm like "You know what? So what!" It's a game as you say, and we're having fun and learning and exploring. Where to find out more about Anna So you've done so many cool things and I know you have a lot to share with listeners. Where do people go if they want to find out more and read about you and read more about your journey? Anna's writings Anna: Well first of all I send everybody to Medium. So if they go to www.Medium.com/@wanderova, this is my profile and I'm writing everything there. I'd say there are three different topics I write about which are travel, relationships and life. But travel not in the sense that I'm not a travel blogger. I don't write about 'ten things to do here and here', I don't care about that. I mostly write about personal growth and self development and my thoughts. My angry thoughts...and so if they like what they're reading I also love to send people to wanderova.com. It's my website and you can sign up to get updates and whenever I create something I'll just send you an email telling you how things are and just sharing my thoughts and stuff. I'm building a business and a lot of things are coming up. But I'd say that, yeah, read my Medium stuff and if you like it then go and subscribe at wanderova.com and we'll have a conversation about life and purpose and travels, yeah. Anna's podcast Me: And your podcast as well, that can be found where? Anna: Well, as I said the podcast isn't active yet but people can listen to it. My previous website is meninsideshow.com or they can find the actual episodes on SoundCloud and type 'meninsideshow' and you can listen to all these different interviews with men. There's a lot of deep, cool stuff because men get very vulnerable. That's what I realized, they're not like robotic machines that don't have feelings. They've been taught to have this image but their world is as intense and as deep as ours. It's just a different polarity but it's powerful. Me: Super! So I'll link to all of those in the show notes for people. Anna, thank you so, so much. I really love your stories. And I for one am definitely going to listen to those podcast episodes. A super mushroom for your own magical brew Now I did mention at the beginning of this episode that I'd share with you what mushroom you can use to make your own magical brew at home. Now I can't promise you it will take you on a magical journey, but it's a great coffee substitute. The mushroom is reishi. Now before you freak out and think where the hell am I gonna get reishi, you can easily get it on Amazon. Benefits of reishi mushroom Reishi mushroom not only makes a great drink, but it's an adaptogen. What that means is that it helps us deal with stress. So super important, right? Reishi also helps keep your blood sugar stable, and it's great for both your immune system and your lymph system. On top of that, reishi is said to be able to help defend against tumor growth, improve liver function, balance your hormones as well as help fight diabetes, allergies and asthma. So you really want to be getting yourself some reishi. I'll link to a very informative article in the show notes as well if you want to get more in-depth scientific knowledge about reishi. How to use reishi mushroom As to how you use it, well, if you've got pieces of reishi, you brew them. You make a tea. If you've got the powder, you just tip the powder into your blender with some warm water. Then you blend your reishi brew with cacao powder and a handful of cashews for a super delicious mocha. Or you can make my coffee substitute which I'll link to in the show notes. So I hope you've enjoyed our tales of magical journeys and brews! And if you try some reishi (or ayahuasca, for that matter), let me know in the comments! Have YOU got a story to share? If you've got a crazy, true story to share - with or without magic mushrooms! - and you'd like to know what food could have saved the day in your situation), I'd love to hear from you! Got a question, or a comment? Got a question, or a comment? Pop a note below in the comments, that would be awesome. You can also subscribe to the podcast to listen 'on the go' in iTunes, Stitcher or Tunein. I hope you have an amazing day. Thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now! RESOURCES Anna's podcast: https://soundcloud.com/maninside-show Anna's blog: https://medium.com/@wanderova My recipe using reishi mushrooms: https://rockingrawchef.com/five-more-superfoods-and-a-coffee-substitute-you-wouldnt-believe/   Anna RovaAnna Rova is an online marketer, lover of life and a yogi who is living the dream working and traveling the world. Originally from Moldova, Anna has lived in over 15 countries including Malaysia, Columbia and Mexico. She continues to travel as a digital nomad.

Here we are for another episode for Heartreprenuer radio. I am having so much fun bringing you people that I have met who have interesting ideas, agendas and have a passion for doing what they love. Recently, I met a woman that just resonated with me. Her name is Anna Leutbecker and she works full time as a client relationship manager. She plans, sponsors with their retirement plans. She is also involved with a direct sales company called Kyani. This is what resonated with me about Anna. She has a passion. She wants to help people achieve a healthier version of themselves. She shares the triangle of health. Her goal is to transition from the corporate world to direct sales full time. She recently joined the Polka Dot Power House. It’s a wonderful way to help people to grow and allow her to increase her circle of influence. Anna also has a passion in mental health and is trying to figure out ways to get involved and to help people who are struggling with mental health. Making sure they get the proper care and treatment. I brought her here and would like to introduce her. Welcome to the show Anna. Terri: I am excited about you for a lot of reasons but mostly because of your mission. How did you get into what you are doing and what is your mission? Anna: I have done a lot of direct sales. I was approached with Kyani a couple years ago. I started taking the product but wasn’t sure about getting into the business. I started taking the product and I used to get chronic headaches two to three times a week. Every once in awhile they would be migraine like. After about 6 or 7 months after starting to take the product the triangle of health, I look back and thought wow, I haven’t’ had a headache. That was the only thing that changed. I hadn’t taken ibuprofen or changed my diet, so this was a big win for me. That is when I decided there is something here. I decided to do something different with this company and this product. Terri: I know so many people who get migraines and to know there is something out there, that is awesome. You mentioned something we first talked, triangle of health. What does that mean? Anna: Kyani has created three unique products. They are so unique in the health and wellness industry. When we think about nutritional supplements, pills, taking this and that, and measure it, this product is unique because its food and plant based, a 100% natural. They have broken it down to three products: First one is Sunrise. We take this in the morning. We need a product with water and we need a product that will help absorb the nutrients. The bio availability is 97 to 100%. Which to me is fascinating because our body is 70% water, we have that product that is geared to the water soluble parts of our body. The next product is Sunset, the next is Nitro. Terri: That is really smart. People sometimes forget, which is interesting that our bodies are water. We are water. Thanks for that reminder. What is your interests in the mental health area come from? Anna: Well, it’s something that is near and dear to my heart. In 2012 I met my husband. We got married in 2014 and he was diagnosed bipolar. Marriage isn’t easy and it isn’t easy with a mental health component added to it. For him, the disability and being the sole provider, it’s something I try to focus on is making sure he gets good care with the limited amount of resources provided by Medicare. Making sure that he gets psychiatric help and counseling as well. Terri: I have recently had a client and a friend who people said that are acting weird or strange, or whatever and in both cases, it was nothing more than they were dealing with some depression. Mental health issue in another case. There is such a lack of understanding. Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join Heartrepreneur® Radio community today: heartrepreneur.com Heartrepreneur® Radio Facebook Terri Levine Twitter Terri Levine Instagram Heartrepreneur® Radio Pinterest Terri Levine YouTube Terri Levin LinkedIn