Planet Organic: Renée Elliot, Staying Calm Through Gut-wrenching challenges

32:28that's amazing i think well i know everyone at manny life could benefit from that i think everyone listening to this it's just it's so it's it's it's insane advice i really appreciate it renee and um kind of where i want to go to next is is there's it's almost like a tension of two things here where i'm learning so you've got this almost you know spiritual um spiritual side to you which is which is amazing but then you've got this strategic side like you don't just build uh you know a multi-million pound business without some sort of strategy but i feel like there's they're almost like there's a tension between them so with we're kind of if you're going to like there's eckhart tolle like the the power of now like yield to the ebb and flow of life which i think is brilliant like just be with what is but then at the same time you've got strategy which is like no matter what happens not bludgeon maybe that's too strong a word but like we are going to get we're going to get here we need to get here as a business and how do you use spirituality to inform strategy i suppose like so say you're working with a client who's planning the next 12 months how how do that how those two works with each other it's that's really interesting and it's funny because I normally frame it in business, and you can correct me if this isn't really what you're saying.

33:54I normally talk about it in business as the tension between values and commercial reality. And there's a tension in the business between that. You're saying personally, I think you're saying personally, there's a tension between being and doing, which is what I referenced earlier. You want to be a certain way, but then how do you achieve all that you're supposed to do? How do you do all the doing? Yeah, it's exactly that. It's like, you know, I've got my goals written down with this podcast, or we've got the goals with the business to do this rate of sale in this retailer. Like we've got places we want to go, but how do you kind of, because I think most people could get the strategy right, but then in terms of your six spheres of influence could be so focused on that strategy that they let things go do you see do you see where i'm going like it's so yeah so let me ask you a question so when so are you saying that the strategy is at the expense of the well-being of the team not not at money like not at money life because the team but maybe me personally like i will like put away like eating healthy or what okay not having rest until last night i was up till late um like just doing work essentially and it's it's trying to find that balance i suppose but i know for okay sorry finish your sentence i'm sorry well it's more of i know there's this kind of um in the zeitgeist almost within this sort of challenge of uh brand spheres i know it's just like this work work work work work got to get here got to get here and why i'm so interested to speak to you is i feel like if we could put some sort of spirituality behind that strategy We could get to that goal, but in a way more peaceful, happy way.

35:47So do you have too much work to do? Are you struggling to get it done in the working day?

35:55If it was a working day, yes, but I love what I do. So it's like, it's a bit of a, it's an issue that I actually enjoy, whether it's prepping for a podcast, I don't see that as work. And that's kind of the... So if you boundaried, if I said, look, you have a problem with boundaries, I'm not saying you do, just hypothetically. If you boundaried your day and you only worked from nine to six and then had a life outside of that, had the balance outside of that, could you do your job in those hours? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I could. You could. Okay. So it may not be a company problem. It may be a Dan issue.

36:36That's what I'm saying. I'm saying it completely is a down issue. Yeah. So if you want to design your day or week, what would you do differently? You could boundary that time. You could say from nine to six, I work and I'm highly focused and motivated and I love it. But then from six to nine and on the weekend, six to nine, sorry, you're probably up later than that. I do actually sleep like a baby during this, Renee. I've got a bottle of milk with me by 8.30. Then, you know, it's about, as I said, awareness of the problem so that you can consciously choose something else. So what would you choose?

37:17So would you choose on the weekends or in the evenings? What would you do instead? And that's then looking at the rest of your life and how you spend your time? What do you need or want to be doing to be having more fun, to be feeling better, to be eating better? If you look at the areas where it's not going well, would you say it's diet? Is it food? Yes. Food, like drinking. I'm quite, as you're honest, I meditate and exercise, but I think it's just getting the balance back in. I think for me, it's boundaries, yeah, because I'll just, I'll, I'll work. And I think, well, I know for a fact, the issue with, with listeners is, is at the beginning you say I've just, even if it's for three years, I'm just going to work my face off.

38:08Yeah. And then I know Stu, I found he literally worked his absolute face off, still does, but now he's got boundaries. Were you the same at Planet Organic? Like, did you say right from the off? Okay, I'm not going to work weekends. I'm going to have boundaries. No, no, I worked. I worked 24-7 and I loved it. And it wasn't stressful because I loved it. Then when it started to become stressful, I changed things. I looked at it honestly and said, okay, I don't want to do this anymore. I need Sundays off at first, and then I need Saturday and Sunday off. And then I need to leave at eight in the week or whatever.

38:45And I slowly pulled my life back. But it's about you taking care of yourself and realize that your well-being affects everything you do and everyone you know, and you're the only person who can grab a hold of that. So what does, it's defining, what does that look like for you? What do you do if you stop at six? What do you need to do? You need to put energy into eating better. You know, maybe you set some rules around drinking. I'm only going to drink on the weekend or whatever. And a lot of times we do things, and I've seen a lot of this through COVID, we do things to, because we're feeling a little sorry for ourself.

39:22I'm just going to have that extra glass of wine or I'm going to have that chocolate which I wouldn't normally have because we feel like we're treating ourselves but my question then to the individual is is it self-care or is it self-harm those choices that you're making hey guys quick one the biggest festival in challenge of food and drink is heading and coming very very soon bread and jam it's literally like the glass and brief is so banging they're in the eighth year everyone's going to be there it's going to be a great time um i'm actually doing a live podcast with the wonderful giles brooke 18th 19th of july business design center in islington london you've got to grab a ticket there's opportunities to do huge pitches meet the right buyers of cardos selfridges tesco sainsbury so much more and it's just good crack it's great fun and if you want a ticket head to breadandjamfest.com but i'll also put a link in the show notes so please do yourself a favor and grab yourself a ticket people don't think about we think about first order consequences but not second and third order consequences i.e you think about one pint for example that maybe leads to two to three which then leads to a hangover which leads to one day of being not productive which leads to then you know i mean there's like we get so fixated on the first action we're actually you you need to look at it how does that impact maybe two three days absolutely and we we have one of our sayings in beluga bean is everything never gets done so take time to have fun and enjoy yourself because everything ever gets done yeah i say that again that's everything ever gets done so take time to have some fun that's amazing I might get that tattooed on some of you.

41:14That I want to see. So if you think about, you know, some people work, work, work, work, work, work, and they think they're so productive. And I think, no, they're not productive because they're ignoring the other parts of themselves. And when you take time, even when you take time, so I always say to entrepreneurs I'm working with every week, you diarize out a certain amount of time where you're doing strategy where you're working on the business, not in the business. You're not fighting fires and doing stuff and doing your work. You're taking the high level and really thinking about things and problem solving.

41:48And people are so reluctant to do that. And I understand that because there's so much to do. But when you do that, I believe you're much more effective and efficient. By slowing down, you move forward with greater efficiency and speed. that's so there's a quite I've again probably said too many times on this podcast but slow is smooth and smooth is fast and I think it encapsulates that brilliantly I so when when you kind of prescribe I say slowly is holy slowly is holy I'm gonna have loads of tattoos by end of this this uh Renee is is um so when they when founders do you take that time in the week Are they, is it a whole afternoon?

42:29Is it a day? Is it a... It can be an hour. It can be two hours. You know, there are two things that I like to talk about with entrepreneurs. One is that it could be, and some people like to start the week with that. They like to start on Monday morning with an hour, hour and a half, two hours of strategy. Some people like to finish the week with that and then be looking to the week ahead. But the other thing we talk about is something called Head Start, which I used to do when I talk with clients who are super busy, especially people with families. When you've got kids in the mix, it's a whole other ballgame.

43:04You don't even get time to yourself. And Head Start is getting up a little early on – some people do it every day. I used to do it every day to get up when the house is quiet and I just had 45 minutes to myself and it was to do whatever I wanted. And that could be prioritizing. So I would sometimes just do it on a Monday morning. So say you get up Monday morning and an hour before work, you sit and you think, okay, looking at my goals for the year, for the month, what do I have to do this week? What do I have to do? What's the one or three or five things I have to do this week so that you're really focused?

43:42because it's so easy to be distracted and to look at emails and to do whatever else that you shouldn't really be doing. So Head Start is useful on a daily or weekly basis where you just take, you know, and it could be 20 minutes for you. It could be 45 minutes before the day starts or at the end of the day for the next morning so that when you sit down at your desk, you know exactly what you need to do because there's so much going on. Yeah. And I suppose that is the answer. That is that is using almost spirituality and that's quite nebulous but using that that awareness to inform your strategy and it's and it's not being pulled into the the labyrinth of emails it's not getting going left right and center it's having that awareness to then kind of check how do you say head start with um and check in with it with the bigger bigger goals etc and and do you have with your um clients do they stress out their strategy unlike um when they're trying to align a team do they how how do they kind of implement that through the team do you see see what i mean because that's the hard because because ideally you know it's great if the founder's doing that but it you know there's now 10 11 of us at money life and it's it's do you meet weekly a rankly or what do you do yeah we weekly month weekly mondays um and thursdays is like the check-in is as opposed is that check-in so simply what we do and there are all kinds of different iterations of this we do a um objectives list it's like a rolling agenda with an action list and we just scan it every Monday morning.

45:27And we have a monthly objective list that has, you know, headlines, finance, marketing, sales, design. And then we have a weekly list that's tighter. So we do the monthly list at the beginning of the month. And then every Monday morning we do the weekly list and we just whip through things. And there are, you can be as detailed as you like with the rolling action. So, you know, who's doing what, you know, you can track that and then the next week when you do it it's like yeah did it did it and you're just you're just you know knocking things off the list weekly and monthly and that's what a lot of my clients do that's super super super useful because i like some people just don't or people have listened like spoken to before this just don't don't do that it's oh it's and people don't know and people oh, we're so easily distracted and it's such a distracting world.

46:21So it's a way to boundary your time and keep the focus. And that's why I love the business plan. That's why I love the strategic plan, the marketing plan, because people say, oh yeah, I don't need a business plan. It's in my head. And I think, really? Good luck with that. Because you can't, if you write, say when you do your business plan, you write your financials, your projections for the year, and then the assumptions behind the numbers, the projects that are going to get you to those numbers, but then you have to stay focused on those and not get distracted. And I know people will say, oh yeah, I started out with this great plan to get sales to this and I was going to do all this stuff and I can't remember what that was.

46:57Well, you should be looking at those goals and assumptions behind the numbers every month with your financials. Otherwise, you'll wander off and do other things. So it's about keeping the focus. And if you want to do something else, If you change your strategy, fine, but do it consciously. Don't do it lightly. Look back at what you said you were going to do. And then if you're changing your mind, great. And that's true of marketing. I have people that say, oh yeah, we had a marketing plan, but then someone talked about this great PR or this great platform and we wanted to get on that and we completely ditched what we were doing.

47:30And I say, really? Because you had a budget that went with that and goals and you're trying to track everything so that next year you know what you're doing and what you're not doing because you've done what you said you were going to do and track if it worked or not. It's so interesting. And what would you, because when something does go wrong within that plan, I suppose this goes back to kind of ebbing with the flow of life, kind of say, when something goes wrong and it does not, I don't, I'm trying not to talk about COVID because we've, you know, everyone said that, but say something like COVID where it's out of your control and you've got this plan and it just goes, and it knocks you slightly.

48:03What's the process of getting back on track? If you're looking at it monthly, okay, if you're looking at your business goals monthly, then when that happens, you course correct. The whole point of that and looking at your financials every month, actual to budget, is you're able to course correct. Okay, that's not working. We need to do something different. And you put another plan in place. Or this is really working. Let's do more of that. Or we have to pivot. And it forces you to sit down and look at it. And there's so much value, and I just find myself talking about this all the time, in stopping to look at a problem, stopping and taking the time to problem solve.

48:48And I think that's why the mentoring I do is so valuable for people, because it kind of gives them permission to stop and figure it out. And you can do that as a business and catch your breath. And it's also the same idea of in the morning, you know, checking in with yourself about your well-being. You have to stop to be able to do that. You have to stop and take time and give whatever the problem is attention, whether it's yourself or the sales, you know, or something else in the business. And we're so reluctant to do that because it feels counterintuitive. We're like, I have to keep moving. I have to keep moving.

49:24Just stop. Darn it. I love that. um yeah where i want to go next is um is italy actually because you yeah yeah i know literally i did a post on linkedin actually about having a beer beer in the in the sunshine yesterday i was like oh my god like just to get out of uh get out of this country for for a bit and have have experienced something different but but you went to um italy correct me if i'm wrong post planet organic um it you got your dates a messed up but it's fine question and i'll see if it needs if that needs correcting or not yes you went to italy to kind of uh take some time time off to yourself essentially and what i wanted to to ask you is is there anything in maybe one senses any lesson you could impart to us as brits that you took from italy like what what did you learn from italy what does it give you

50:27um i think it's i think it's just keep in your mind what's really important for you you know what's really important is it chasing the money or building at that speed or is it family and friends? Is it having the balance? Is it going kayaking? What's important to you? And make sure you're making time for that.

50:58And it's funny because when you said something earlier about you and taking care of yourself, I really talk about something I call, and I think I really figured this out in Italy. It started for me when I first started Planet, but it's what I call the sacred triangle of relationships. and it's respect and trust, which are almost two sides of a coin, underpinned by good communication. So, and I used to talk about this because I started Planet with this as our MO in terms of values, how we talk to each other, how we treat our, because it started with respect for the soil, you know, so why shouldn't we respect, which is about respecting the plant, the animal, the person.

51:41We respected the farmers, our team, our suppliers, our professionals. And I used to talk about that in Planet, and it was how we rolled. But I realized in Italy that it begins in your relationship with yourself. Respect yourself. Respect your body. You talked about making the first decision. But it's not even just about the effect it has on having a hangover the next day. It's how are you going to feel when you're 50, when you're 60. And that's why I started Planet, because taking care of physical well-being is the foundation. You know, I'm 56. I had kids when I was late. I had my last at 43. I want to be alive and kicking, really kicking, when they have kids.

52:27So I have to really take care of myself. So I have to respect my body. and when you make those, you know, you're making choices that either respect or don't respect your body. I have to trust myself. So when my body says, I'm tired, I don't think, oh, but I've had a bad day. I'm going to stay up and have another glass of wine and watch a movie till late and then get even less sleep. And I have to trust that my body knows what it's doing. Trust myself, trust my gut, which I can't say enough. That inner voice where you think you're thinking something, not your head, but your heart or gut is saying, don't do that.

53:01Don't go into business with that person. Do lie down and rest or go for that run. Trust yourself and be in good communication, which is listen to that voice. And that trust, respect, and good communication starts with you, and then it extends to all the important relationships in your life, including your colleagues, your partner, your parents, your siblings. The world would be completely different if we had trust, respect, and good calm. It's, no, that's amazing. That's absolutely amazing. You can tattoo that on your forehead. Yeah, I'm really looking like a different gem when I come out of this, Renee.

53:43Kind of conscious of your time, I want to go through kind of a few quickfire questions. Not necessarily quickfire, but some questions to end, I suppose. And as I said before we came on air, is I've got a hungry WhatsApp group. And I basically say, you know, who the next guest is and people are super, super excited that you were coming on. And one of our listeners, Wilf, from a company called Island's Chocolate, make really, really delicious chocolate. He's asked, like, how does your role as a founder change as you scale the business? So as you went from you, like, how does your skill set have to change?

54:25Yes. Well, it partly depends on what you want to be in the business, but absolutely. Because when I, before Planet opened, I was writing the business plan and doing tons of research on all kinds of things and forming what I think is the most important thing, the values within Planet that we would adhere to forever. Then, you know, when we opened, I was on the tills, I was sweeping the shop floor, I was mopping at night, you know, I did everything. There wasn't anything I didn't or wouldn't do. And then we started to, you know, I say it's really important, especially if you're a joint founder, that you define your roles and responsibilities.

55:06It's very nice to say, oh, we both do everything. Okay, that gets old fast. And it's not smart. It's not efficient. And you can drop things between you. You know, it's very, what are you good at? Play to your strengths. Get someone else to do what you're weak at. Not that you don't have to, you may want to learn your weaknesses or get better at them, like finance. You should be on top of the finance. but define your roles and responsibilities. What are you great at? What excites you in the business? So I shifted into from doing everything. I took over training, PR and marketing, and product. And those were the things I really loved.

55:41Now, I was very close to the numbers, but I had someone doing that. And as you build your team out, you can plan that. And when I work with clients, I also do a lot of, one of the modules in the business plan is COGS, which includes team and it includes things like induction, training, progression, but it also includes, you know, I say, even if you're just starting your business, start a file where you're dumping what you don't think you're going to want to do in the future. If you're thinking already, I hate social media. Okay. That's going to be something you hand off as soon as you can afford someone and you put that into your numbers.

56:18So when you reach X amount of money, you can afford a marketing person at x amount so you start to map out the future of your team who's your next hire what are their responsibilities going to be what do you want them to do and you map forward where you're going to be over the next one to three to five years however far you can think so people can only think in certain distance how far do you how far did you plan with uh planet organic like how was it five years was it a year no i find it hard to go that far out i mean i didn't know that we were going to be trading after a year. So I think for me, it was a year ahead was about all I could cope with.

56:56It was such a volatile market. So what do you want to be doing? What are you good at? And your role evolves that way. And then there are always things that as founder, you need to keep a hold of. So you need to keep an eye on and include that. But I love visioning. Vision what you want to be doing. Put it on paper. Get it out of your head. The number are people I talk to who say, oh yeah, it's in my head. Nope. Put it on paper where you can stare at it, where you can disagree with it. And when you write it down, when you realize sometimes there are binary choices you have to make, oh, actually, I don't want to do that.

57:31I want to do that. So it's a very powerful process, writing it down. Write it down. And on that co-founder note, Sam at Beluga Beans, what would you say is the biggest lesson he's taught you from working with him? How do you and Sam work with each other? He's my perfect partner.

58:01He's my perfect partner because I trust him completely. I trust him and I respect him. And we're in really good calm all the time, even though sometimes, you know, things get awkward and sticky. What has he taught me? Well, we've gone very deeply into the personal discovery work. So I've done that work. As you said, I learned, I saw Bread and Circus in Boston, which was my first organic supermarket, when I was in America doing a personal development course for six months. And that has set a foundation for me as well as the spirituality that's put me on a very different path. Sam has done that since he graduated from university in a very involved way.

58:49So he's been doing that very intensely. And I've gone into a deeper understanding of that with him, which then is all about feeling great about self. Because what we talk about just very, very briefly. In the heart of you is what we call your true self, okay? And that is perfect and innocent. And there's magnitude there, you know, because nature created you or God, whatever you believe in. So that is a perfect being. Layered outside of that is who you're afraid you are, which is a result of things that happened to you when you were little, bad things, you know, little things happen and you start to make decisions about yourself, Maybe I'm not good enough or I'm stupid or whatever.

59:36And then layered on top of that is who you pretend to be because you don't want people to know what you think is the truth, which is who you're afraid you are. But that isn't the truth. The truth is that perfect person inside. And Sam and I have gone deeper with that. And we do that in our Be Yourself Wellbeing Workshop Series. And that's just, I've got that completely. I mean, it's a process. It's still a process. It'll be a process until I die. But I understand that intellectually and on a cellular level now because of Sam in a way that hadn't really landed with me before. And what was he doing at post-start of university?

1:00:17Well, he's an artist. He's a sculptor, an amazing portrait sculpture. But he was also very involved with a personal discovery group called Insight. And he did trainings with them. Then he led trainings with teens and self-discovery. And he's been involved in that work forever. And then when I met him, he was coaching and still is coaching senior female execs on the personal discovery work. Whereas I do, you know, I tend to be strategy and resilience. amazing um next question is um what do you there's so much what advice do you give to your kids about like what's the best piece of advice you give to your kids because i think i ask um lots of guests this and i think it's a really good lens to to impart wisdom onto listeners okay i could write a parenting book because I've done it so differently.

1:01:17So I love my parents. They've both passed, but I didn't want to parent the way they brought me up. I know I have no angst. They did the best they could. They did great things and I love them, but I wanted to do things very differently with my personal discovery understanding. So I think the most powerful thing that I've done differently, because it has been a great experiment raising my three kids, the thing that I've really done differently is this trust, respect, and good calm. And I have been able to live that consistently with the kids. So I have a 19-year-old who went through the teen years, and I have a 19-year-old girl, 16-year-old boy, and a 13-year-old girl.

1:02:00And they trust me completely. They tell me things. They come to me. They let me coach them because they trust. They'll come to me and say, mom, I'm struggling with this girl at school, or I don't know what to do about this. Will you help me out? Get me on track. So that is huge for me, huge success. And when I look at parents where they're fighting with their teenagers, I can see it's because they don't have trust and respect, and they're not in good calm, and they haven't established that. It's that fighting tit for tatting relationship, it, which we don't do. But the other really powerful thing, if I'm allowed two things, is I tell them to trust their gut and that they can do anything.

1:02:42I believe that anything is possible. And I tell them that and affirm that. And I say to them, anything is possible. The only limiting, the only way that you limit that is your thoughts. It's your beliefs. And I'm teaching them, it's a journey of teaching them how to turn those beliefs around. And this is the work that we do in the boss program, the business planning, and the be yourself program that we do. Because when you realize that, then you are empowered to do anything. You can unpick any belief that's holding you back and be whoever you want to be, live to your full potential. And I always say, a thought is not a fact.

1:03:22And people think that their thoughts are facts. They aren't. and when you realize that you realize you can change them and when did you like when did the gut comes because i i follow up with everything like i had a with with money life i had an oxford going for a high paid job which on paper looked much better or or kind of starting right with this which it was just me and stew at the beginning so super early days and i felt um uh well there'd been other employees there but for a long time it was it was just me and him and I followed my gut and it's been like the best thing to happen. Where did you get the, has there ever been a time where you haven't followed your gut?

1:04:02Yes. And it's been a disaster. Yes. The two colossal mistakes I made in my professional career was when I didn't follow my gut. When I thought, and now then I realized when I had this thought, I had to stop.

1:04:20When I should send alarm bells ringing and red lights flashing. When I was in a situation, I thought, well, it doesn't feel right, but it'll be okay. Absolutely not. It wasn't okay. And you find your way. And I worked my way through. One of them was the partner I started with. When I met him, I saw it. No. And then I met him. And I thought, oh, it'll be okay. And I did a lot of things to ensure that it would be okay. But when he tried to remove me from the company, we ended up in court. I thought wow if I had listened to my gut and I really learned it through that through the litigation process to trust myself and we aren't always taught to trust ourselves particularly women I wasn't taught to trust myself as a girl growing up I was taught to canvass the opinions of the experts or the wiser older people around me and then pick what they were saying and I relentlessly teach trust your gut you know best even if you're not even as an entrepreneur you don't know anything about marketing or investment you know what's right for you and you know what's right for your company and don't think that other people are going to give you better advice you give yourself your own advice and as a parent oh my god i wish i had known that you know what's best trust yourself and no i love yeah i love that it's so so important i think every every hire every every decision has to come from from the gut we're just have you managed to accept hiring oh interesting because that is the one thing i have found is you have to be very very careful about and i actually advise um a lot of people for senior level hires i would do psychometric testing.

1:06:13I think it's a tricky place because we're so easily go into our heads without realizing it. And it can be really hard when you end up with someone in a senior role and it's a nightmare. And you have limitations about, say, who you are and who you may need as a number two, for example. And if you're not really honest about who you are, then you could hire the wrong number two and it can be a disaster. And I've seen this with some of my clients. So it's the one area I would say, back it up, back up your gut with some testing. Okay, interesting. Yeah, okay, maybe that's the best. Yeah, follow your gut, but back it up with...

1:06:52Research. Yeah. Research, yeah. I like the marriage of those two. It works perfectly. Heart instrument. Have you managed to forgive your old... In terms of this healing process over the time, Have you managed to forgive the person who put you through that 40 months of just turmoil? Great question. What a great question. I can't believe you asked that. Absolutely. Because I absolutely believe in forgiveness and having an open heart. And it took time. But I reached a point a few years after the trial where I thought I needed to see him. I needed to sit face to face. And it's funny, in Beluga Bean, we say when communication is important, it's human to human.

1:07:37It's not over social. So I managed to find him. It was really weird how I found him and asked him to meet me for a cup of coffee. And we sat and talked. And I found out the truth about what had happened. And it all just melted away. I didn't want to carry that. I didn't want to carry that angst. And I wanted to close that door. it's important to me I like things tidied up and I didn't want to be carrying that that ugly inside were you nervous going into that or like that terrified I was gonna say yeah yeah that's absolutely yeah yeah there's only soap there's no no amount of meditating can prepare you for that coffee you know or rescue remedy yeah exactly and down the bottle before I went in no it was great and I was so glad I did it and I you know I really acknowledge people who can go back and do that and I think it's really important because you are defined by your relationships and your being able to forgive is so powerful to forgive yourself for things and to forgive other people amazing and that's a spiritual that's leading a spiritual life but that but that ties into business because as soon as you you relinquish that angst you're then in a much better place to to be strategically prudent if you want to put it like that so i love that's the central kind of theme of this is how kind of spirituality can inform business and i i i think that's just that's a perfect example and two more questions and these are quite easy um is in food and drink founders like are often on a smaller budget what would you recommend to eat on a daily basis on, say, lunch and dinner to be super productive and not burn out?

1:09:32Is there anything we should be feeding ourselves? So I know you've written a book on this as well, any kind of meals or things that be... That's a tough question. You know, that's not a two-second question because people are in different places. So just very briefly, I would say, first, you've got to cut out the crap. You've got to start with, and I could do a podcast on this because I do this. I do teach a course called Nourish. It's cutting out the soda, the junk food, the greasy food, the processed food, the chocolate, not organic chocolate, but the chocolate bars, you know, cut out the crap and then gradually improve your eating.

1:10:16And, you know, eat fresh, eat seasonal, eat organic, eat a wide variety, eat good fat, eat complex grains. And I could talk about this, you know, I've done day courses on this, so it's not a two-second answer. What's your favorite meal then? Sorry, so you carry on. the the the really important thing within this is you know i did a speech on a talking panel with nat west recently 2000 people and they had nat west have surveyed england following this year of weirdness and said that four out of five people in england described themselves as what do you think a little anxious sometimes anxious highly anxious four out of five people in the uk that's an epidemic.

1:11:05That's a pandemic. And I think anything that you're going to do that's going to increase your stress, not good. So my way is think about a year. You can achieve so much in a year. We think we can achieve a lot in a day. You can achieve so much in a year. Think about one change you could make this month. I'm going to stop drinking fizzy drinks, unless you all don't because you're so healthy. I'm going to stop eating crisps or chips. One thing that you can get excited about to get behind. Do that for a month. Embed that new habit over 30 days. Next month, pick something else. I'm going to reduce and avoid sugar.

1:11:44I'm going to eat, I have sugar five times a week or 10 times a week. I'm going to cut it down by what? Do that for a month. See how you feel. Keep that habit. Pick something else. And then start making positive changes or do positive changes as well. But one thing a month, imagine where you'd be after a year you could change your eating without stress uh it's that's almost like you're now sort of doing the strategies now informing the spirituality it's like just do one thing one thing break it down into chunks yeah amazing and just out of pure curiosity here what would you say is your favorite meal um when just to enjoy on a on a kind of weekly basis i suppose Rose?

1:12:27Well, I am just addicted to this roasted cauliflower dish I do at the moment. So I do roasted cauliflower with, it's just olive oil, salt, crushed garlic, and chili, as much chili as you want. And then it's whatever I'm having that with. So if you eat fish, a piece of fish, I only eat complex grains. So red rice or black rice or brown rice. We do a lot of gluten-free, we just avoid my son's gluten-free. And then another veg. I normally have a raw veg, a cooked veg, a bit of protein, a bit of grains. And I know people disagree with that. There's the whole keto thing and there are all kinds of diets.

1:13:09But I think less processed. Try and cook from scratch or do meal assembly. Pasta with a good sauce, good pasta, not white conventional pasta, with a good sauce and then some raw salad and some cooked veg. You don't need skill. You need a little bit of time, half an hour. But again, it's prioritizing, taking care of yourself. Amazing. And kind of a final question for listeners who kind of want to build of what we've discussed here. Are there only one or two, three-person books that we should be – or I suppose one or three books that have had a really big impact on your life that you'd recommend to listeners I was not expecting that question it's always hard to answer that on the spot I'd say a book that I haven't read oh that's a really good thing because when you said where Sam really changed my life my partner the other thing that I forgot to say is this so he knows David Allen from getting things done and has gone to so many lectures with David when David was you you know, and they still do this, GDT.

1:14:24And Sam is a machine in terms of organization. And I've learned things from him that I've never known. I haven't read the book, but I've worked with Sam for three years, and it's an amazing book. And I have clients who've read it and said it's changed the way they work. It's about the notion is that you're getting stuff out of your head and onto paper, the same thing that I'm saying, but different, because your brain is for creativity, not for remembering. And then it's about systems so that you can track stuff. So getting things done on a practical level is great. A book that I love just because it's a great read and I love the notion behind it that ideas are energy and even more is Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert.

1:15:07And then I think my all-time favorite book, which is spiritual and runs through all different areas of life is The Prophet by Khalil Gibran. okay the prophet by khalil gibran okay amazing um renee that was absolutely awesome thank you so much um i really appreciate it in terms of if people want to gain it gain contact with you regarding um beluga bean is uh i'm gonna the website would you want them to email you Yeah, it's Renee. It's R-E-N-E-E at belugabean.com. And it's B-E-L-U-G-A-B-E-A-N. Beluga. Amazing. Amazing. Thank you so, so much for coming. I really appreciate it. Thank you. That was great fun.

1:16:00Thank you so, so much for listening to the podcast. I really, really do appreciate it. If you liked that episode, only if you liked it, please do give it five stars, subscribe, tell all your friends, families, foes next door but one, cat, dog, whatever please tell everyone about this podcast it means the world to me and I really want to understand what your pain points are as the new wave of Challenger food and drink brands please do hit me up on LinkedIn search Dan Pope and hopefully we can together create a more meaningful and powerful podcast for the next wave of Challenger food and drink brands thank you so much