Work Series: How to Finally Find Your Self-Belief and Just Start, with Debbie Wosskow

0:07Welcome to this episode of Motherkind. We are proudly sponsored by Wild Nutrition women's supplements. I am your host Zoe Blaski and this is the show that is going to grab you by the hand and be your guide through the wild ride that is modern motherhood. Each week I bring you world leading experts and thinkers to give us new ideas, new tools, new support, new inspiration for our lives as mothers. We span everything here from work to relationships to mental health and healing to parenting and I am so very happy that you are here. This is the Motherkind mini eight-part work series which you have all been loving especially the first episode of the series where I shared for the first time ever my journey from exiting corporate to starting motherkind so if you haven't listened to that definitely go back and check it out in fact go back and check out the whole series so far we are four episodes in because it's going to be so supportive to you wherever you are on your work and motherhood path this week's episode is the inspiration episode What this woman has achieved is actually mind-blowing.

1:15Debbie Wesker went from being a single mother with a one and three-year-old to starting a business on a flight home from a disastrous holiday and then selling that business for 53 million five years later. It is incredible and completely inspiring. Debbie, by her own admission, is an outlier, but that's not the point. What I took from this episode is the power of belief, the confidence in doing things your own way, being honest with yourself about the level of support and help that you need and the power of just starting. In this episode, you're going to learn what holds most women back from starting a business, why it's the people you surround yourself with that makes the biggest difference and how to just get started on your idea.

2:08I hope you love this episode. Please do share it if you did love it. Pop it in your mum's WhatsApp group. There is so much noise and pressure and judgment out there. Be that person who is doing the opposite, who is spreading possibility and positivity. Here is the episode. Hope you love it.

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3:58Debbie, I'm so excited to chat to you. As I was researching you, I felt so inspired by what you've done and start amongst some really challenging circumstances. So I just want to dive straight in. Tell us about that first business that you set up and how did you get to that point? So that's a 26 year rewind. So I started my first business when I was 25 and I'm 51 now. And I think it's always hard to understand why we do the things that we do. But I think the two things that definitely help are doing therapy and writing a book, both of which make you ask some big existential questions about how you live and what brings you joy and how you become the person that you become so I think for me I grew up in a Jewish immigrant family which was profoundly a matriarchy a sort of vast sprawling matriarchy lots of siblings but as this convention I think in those families the women definitely ran the show and they also around businesses and so having not really understood that that wasn't entirely normal or typical and again for those families what is insisted upon is kind of academic excellence but it means that business and money is just discussed around the kitchen table all the time so everybody in my family was an entrepreneur but nobody would have used that word so it's quite a fancy word but they were business owners and the businesses were really humble so my grandparents ran on the one side sweet shops and off licenses on the other side they sold stuff on the markets and so I think by the time I graduated from university one I always say that I'm the latest in a long line of proudly difficult women and I had a real sense that I wanted to do my own thing two and I think this is a very important conversation for women I like money my grandmother who was a really formative influence said to me when I was younger you like nice things you better you know go earn some money and three I think a sense in which the reality of my entrepreneurial life has been that women don't do this they don't do it in the UK women don't raise capital and we can get into this a bit more I didn't have a sense that that was the case I saw women doing it.

6:25I saw women being mums. I'm one of five kids. You know, it felt like it wasn't risky. And I would say, again, women's entrepreneurial lives, women's work lives are not linear for all of the reasons you and I are going to get into. But there's nothing as risk-free as starting a business at 25 because you have nothing to lose. You've got no mortgage, no kids, no depend no nothing you know and I think one of my life mantras has always been what's the worst that can happen sometimes that can get you into trouble but definitely as an entrepreneur I think it encourages you to take the first step and all you really have to do to start is start and I'm kind of good at that I'm good at just making things actionable so my first business was an agency called Mantra we did online comms and digital communications at the beginning of dot one.

7:17It was a brilliant first business because I knew absolutely nothing about anything other than I had quite a lot of cheek and a phone and a computer. And I think there's businesses which are people and service businesses teach you a lot about the fact that you're always two client wins away from greatness and two client losses away from disaster. It teaches you how to manage a P &L and people. I was really young. I looked young. Everybody I employed was older and more experienced than I was. And that sort of seven year arc until my first exit taught me everything I needed to know and gave me the foundations for the rest of my entrepreneurial life, because it teaches you how to sell, teaches you how to manage people, and it makes you paranoid.

8:03And only the paranoid survive, right? So it makes you paranoid about money and checking the bank account. And it was a brilliant first place to start. Thank you for sharing all that. I loved it, what you were sharing about the beliefs that you had because I'm an executive coach and so I'm obsessed with the idea that it's our beliefs that hold us back and we have to think about what beliefs do I need to break in order to do what I need to do and it's so interesting because my family aren't Jewish but I have married into a Jewish family and it is I thought you had the surname so yeah yes yes and so it's the same I really witness it in my mum-in-law in particular who has always run her own businesses.

8:44And I can see, absolutely see what you're describing of how normal it is in that environment. And I think it's just such a powerful reminder to challenge what we believe, because if we didn't grow up with that, you can come to want to do something for yourself, but with all these beliefs, if it's too risky, it's too hard, I need a safe job. And it's such a benefit to not have had that. I wanted to ask you about risk because you said, you know, starting your business young is, you know, the best time to start it. But everyone listening to this is typically, well, they will be mothers. About 90 % of them will be mothers where there is really high fixed cost, mortgages, potentially, child care.

9:21We know the cost of child care is more than the cost of most mortgages in the UK. What would you say to that woman? Because I know you also had this experience of starting your, I think it was your second business when you did have two young kids. How do we square that circle and how can you mitigate risk but still find that belief in yourself to take the leap? So I think the data on this is super interesting. So what we see in the UK is that the majority of female entrepreneurs are over the age of 40. right 85 and this is a recent HSBC study with um noon uh which is a platform I think Eleanor describes it as a platform for queen ages so probably the kind of next gen on on your audience shows that women tend to get going later in life particularly since the pandemic and I think there's something in all of that probably in your parlance around beliefs and attitude and I think as you get older, A, you have more of a desire to self-determine.

10:23B, I think post the pandemic, there was this sort of quiet quitting and a lot of women thinking, I don't want to keep doing the job for the man. And most of the time it is for the man. So I think that women listening to this should take a great deal of confidence from the fact that women's careers are not linear. And women's careers are not the same as men's. And that's okay. And actually that's our superpower. So I think all of the data shows the art of the possible and that women are doing it in droves. Then there's the reality. So it is absolutely the case when I founded Love Home Swap, my children were tiny and the story of the business PR story also happens to be the true story, which is convenient, which is that I went on holiday and the kids were probably two and three months.

11:09I went to an expensive hotel and sat inside because I was feeding one and the other one wasn't sleeping and the tv was on with the sound off and I was eating you know like one of those like when you're really in it and on the flight on the way home I watched the film The Holiday which you may or may not have seen which not which is you know if I knew how many times I was going to have to talk about that film maybe I'd have put something different but probably a couple a thousand and that was the inspiration I thought does that even exist what I really want to do right now and if we think back to that time and for your listeners when your kids are so small and they're so dependent on you I wanted to swap my life actually as well as my home and that's what happens in the movie the holiday where Kate wins all that so that genuinely was the inspiration for the business and then six years later I sold it for 53 million and of course that makes it sound like it was you know easy peasy and it wasn't it was really hard really awful really amazing really uplifting impossible boring and everything in equal measure that we just don't talk about enough because everybody's story and mine I think can probably look glossy because it's how I made my fortune, my second fortune.

12:28But, you know, the backdrop to that was I got divorced when my kids were one and three. I was a single mom. And to the point on risk and how do you do it? My thing is I only know how to do that thing. I've only had a job for four years of my life. I mean, now I'm like on boards and things. So maybe I'm a grown up. But the only way I knew how to build my fortune back because nothing focuses the mind quite like giving half of it away when you get divorced is to take a big swing so in that sense maybe it did look a little bit crazy but I think we do our best work as women when our backs are against the wall and also from a what brings you joy and what brings you energy which probably what I've done a lot of work on in the last five or so years I like building phoenix from the flames you know I my joy during that time was going to work because the rest of my life was super hard falling apart I was on my own with the kids you know it's pretty grim but I needed to get rich you know I really did to have the life for me and the children and and nobody was going to do it for me and this is my grandmother's voice in my ear now you know like what are you going to do lie down on the road and cry you know I've my one of the things that may be useful to people listening around risk and pain and things going wrong which is the thing that I always want to talk about because it can look amazing and dresses and high heels and big houses and it was not like that but I give myself 24 hours of anything, right?

14:11The amazing successes. And I have had some, and I've had nice things happen and accolades and 24 hours to feel great. Then back to it. Shit, 24 hours to lie on the floor and cry. And I do all of that stuff. And then I'm, I'm back on it. And I find that useful because you have to feel it and you have to feel the fear and you have to feel the risk, but you have to manage yourself and I am really good at managing myself and I've learned how to be really good at managing myself through really difficult times and I think if you scratch the surface of any successful entrepreneur they have genuinely and generally suffered adversity and I think that you do right nobody's life is perfect however glossy it looks is what you do with it it's so inspiring and I love that 24-hour rule I really do I actually had yesterday I just felt I struggled all day yesterday.

15:05And this morning I was like, right back on it. And I've sort of applied your rule. I'm like, right, come on, let's go. You still got the rest of the week. I heard this really good interview with Tom Hanks, where he, when asked what his mantra was for life, he said, this too shall pass. And he said, things are terrible. And this too shall pass things are amazing and you're on top of the world this too shall pass it's recognizing that there are ups and downs right which is trite but true and goodness knows motherhood chucks that at you but I think for me the comfort and the head up comes through routine and I can't emphasize enough how important that is in my life to get back into my routine you know get up put my lycra on I'm a very early riser I work out every day I get the kids up I did you know like that that is what gets me back on the straight and narrow and I don't think we talk enough about the comfort of things being boring you know because lots of exciting things happen in my life and lots of high profile things and lots of difficult things and things going really really right and really really wrong but the comfort of normal and of home and of routine is actually what helps me to get my mindset in place yeah and children really bring that as well don't they because you know you have to get up and breakfast you've got to get them to school it can be such a good container.

16:42And I wanted to ask about, you know, being a solo mom at the same time as growing this business, what were the real pinch points there? And what did like a typical day look like for you? You know, you hear of lots of sort of male entrepreneurs talking about working 20 hour days. I'm guessing that you just didn't have the luxury to do that. So what did that look like? So I think the first thing to say is I would not have been able to do it if I didn't have live-in help and I don't think we talk about that enough that it takes a village and for me it took somebody living in my home helping me if I needed to travel or work late so I think that's number one and I think without that for me it would have been impossible so I always had live-in help my gynecologist said to me in this year this terrible year of ending up on my own and the kids and you know he's a practical sort of fellow and he said the thing is Debs you need to be a 15 minute person you need to be 15 minutes away from the school 15 minutes away from home 15 minutes away from the office and that was very helpful so I lived when the children were tiny we're now in little Venice but we lived in Marlebone and my office was in Marlebone and the schools were in Marlebone and I was the boss and so some of the things that I try to remember because you do kind to block this stuff out, particularly the very early years, you know, were made possible by the fact that I didn't have to miss anything.

18:11So, you know, I was able to go from home to the office to do pickup to, I never missed a speech day or a sports day or blinking mystery reader, all that stuff. I was laughing with my son about that the other day. I didn't have to because A, I was the boss and B, I was close to everything. So I think that's number one. Two was my, at that age, every age is a stage because I now have 16 and 14 year olds my son has one final GCSE left tomorrow they're much less portable now because they're bigger and they have their own lives and but then if I needed to travel I've always done a lot of work in the US I would take them with me they've grown up around my businesses they when I had Albright which you know we might get onto and we had these members clubs they'd eat their dinner there and the nanny would bring them in they do their homework there you know they've had like a funny life so I have worked super hard in my all-bright life I flew to LA twice a month I would not recommend that I went for one night and one night on the plane so I needed to get back to the kids men don't do that I was always asked who was looking after my children to which I would reply to the man who asked me he's looking after yours, you know.

19:26So I think some of this you just recognize is not work-life balance. I don't believe in it. I think you can have work-life blend. And actually work-life blend is much easier when you are an entrepreneur because you make the rules. So, you know, in my Albright life, the premise of the business was Monster Global Sisterhood. We had a 95 % female workforce, global we had every stage of the female fertility journey represented in that team and we were able to create a culture that worked for our female workforce led by two female co-founders so i think you've got to pick your battles but i want to emphasize that i had help and without help i mean no way right you know I did to the point on hustle culture and men working 24-7 I worked super hard Zoe but I found a way to do it where I could blend my life through proximity to the children and because I've always been on my own with them and because I'm their person I don't can't and won't miss things but we do that by staying close to one another yeah thank you for sharing that I think it's so important I'm sort of fed up of a couple of things at the moment on the landscape One is not enough people, mothers in particular, talking about what it really takes.

20:48And the second is just so many podcasts with that male gaze where they never, ever mention childcare. And it is driving me insane. Two men talking about the successful businesses that they've grown, both fathers, and they do not mention it. So thank you for bringing that. Something that you touched on just then was the sort of freedom that entrepreneurialism gives you to define your own rules. And I'm living that too. And I really can see the deep benefit of it compared to having a boss and a structure that I'm having to fit in. I often wonder if, you know, whilst we wait for the sort of corporate working world to catch up with what mothers really need, whether entrepreneurialism is a better route for so many mothers being able to do that blend.

21:33But I also heard you say that you could only have done it with so much help, which for many people is inaccessible, right? Not many people can afford. So how does someone, if they're listening to this and they're thinking, I really want to be the master of my ownership. I want to do what Zoe and Debbie are doing. I want to set my own rules. I want to do that. But where does someone start? What I did was parallel. So I kept doing some of my corporate work and I set up MotherKind on the side. Some people go all in. Some people manage to get funding. Tell us about that. The person listening to you is like, I want this, but it feels I don't know where to start.

22:11So you have to be pragmatic. And I would say entrepreneurship is extremely difficult and more businesses fail than succeed. So don't start unless you've got a financial buffer. So you're totally right. for until I sold Love Home Shop in 2017, actually probably till we did our series B, my childcare costs were greater than my earnings. And the reason that I could do that was because I'd had a big exit in 2007. So I, for a long time, I paid to work and that is not possible or sustainable for most women, certainly not single mothers. I didn't have anybody else. Like I was a one income household, but I could do it because of my success pre-having children, which again is atypical.

22:58So I think you have to make sure that you've got a buffer, otherwise it will be unbelievably stressful. Many women's businesses start as a side hustle and that's fine. I have always raised capital for my businesses, significant amounts of capital, angel, venture capital and private equity. And if I look now at the Better Menopause, which is the business that I co-founded with Anna, my Albright founder and our exec chair, and that is doctor developed supplements for women in peri and menopause we have raised capital for that business that's how we're scaling it but you know it's hard to raise capital first time around and let's be clear women don't raise capital in the uk so in 2024 two percent of all the venture capital allocated went to back a business found by a woman in the uk 81 of all venture capital went to back a business with no woman in the cap table i.e no woman with an equity position in the business.

23:53So the odds are stacked against us. However, women-led businesses deliver better returns than male-led businesses, generally from smaller amounts of capital. And this is the work that I do for the Chancellor. I chair something called the Investing Women Taskforce, and I chair the Women Backing Women Fund of Funds, which is a funding pot to back more female investors. Female investor is twice as likely to back a female entrepreneur as a man. So the thing to remember about raising capital is nobody who gives you capital is doing it as a charitable act. uh so when you are raising money you're raising it because you've entered into a contract which is you're building a business to sell it and again that isn't for everyone and it has been for me partly because i have quite a short attention span so i quite like this kind of five six year arc of things and now i'm in my portfolio era for the last two years where i sit on different boards i'm on the board of channel four i chair this thing for the chancellor i have the better menopause which i spend a lot of my time on i have been very motivated by where purpose meets profit So I think unashamedly, women need to get rich, right?

24:56We need to talk about money, get rich and deploy our capital and backing other women. And I will toot that horn all day long. And I think it worries me when I see so many female entrepreneurs who are entrepreneurs not owning that and not talking openly enough about their desire to be financially successful through their business endeavor and financially independent of men. And if I have, you know, one life lesson is that, which is take it from me. You never know what's going to happen in life and don't stop work. Don't stop work. Like, like keep your eye in somehow or other through this period of motherhood, keep something ticking over because you will be ready to reemerge in some shape or form.

25:40And we need to have our own bank accounts. Yeah, I totally agree. Even if that thing is it doesn't need to be paid work which you know is is inaccessible with the cost of child care for so many but I think even if that thing is growing a skill or you do a you know a course you know one night a week on AI whatever it is something something for you yeah that makes you feel like you it makes you feel like you're in the world I think is really important it made me really angry when you shared that statistic I knew it but I think just you framing it in that away made me feel so frustrated that that is the landscape that we are operating in against this extortionate cost of childcare.

26:20It's kind of a miracle that any mothers get to start any business against that landscape. Yeah, agreed.

26:34So if someone's listening and they don't want to go down the route, you know, I guess someone like me. I have my own business. I'm probably, it's not a business that I would ever sell. I haven't taken capital. If someone wants to start more of that sort of business, how would you suggest someone does that? Because you must work with, you know, such a broad range of women starting these businesses. What do you see that differentiates the people that do it successfully? Honestly, starting. Like so many women don't start, you know, they've got the idea and they've definitely got the skills and they've got the capacity but they're nervous or they're overwhelmed or they've got imposter syndrome and honestly my advice is really simple which is just start and just start means finding a way to take the first step it means that you don't have to start by being all in but it does mean that you have to start and I think I particularly would love homestop actually i had so many women saying oh my god i had that idea and it's like well an idea is worth bloody nothing you know like do it you know whatever that means now again i build businesses generally which are tech enabled so what does start mean it means you know build a platform and fight you know it's a complicated thing but a lot of women start businesses that our service rather than product and there you can just start and I see so many of my peers and my old Albright community porting into coaching or you know my next sister Dan is a psychotherapist which has a big practice and so I think finding ways to start and finding ways to skill up in order to start is how you start I know that sounds very blunt but you'd be amazed at the number of women who I know are phenomenally capable with all of that potential who feel too constrained to even get going.

28:25Yeah, I see that all the time as well. I also feel like if you have perhaps been in an organization in a corporate role and you've wanted that buffer of that maternity pay and you've stayed in that organization, I feel like it's very easy to get blinkered into that corporate way of working. And I think it's quite difficult, particularly with these high fixed costs and higher risk of being a parent to then make that exit. How would you encourage or coach someone to do that. You talked about confidence and imposter syndrome. What are the best tips and tools that you've got to just do what you're suggesting?

29:00And I want someone to end this episode and just register that URL. What's going to help them do it? I do think there's having a buffer. I mean, if I look back to the beginning of Albright, which I co-founded with Anna, who at the time was the CEO of Hearst, right? So she had a really big job. She had the corner office. She had two little kids, you know, fine for me to some extent, because I've always done this, I've always been on this sort of entrepreneurial circus. I think the thing that emboldened her to start was A, she had prepared. So she had some savings. So she wasn't in panic that she was going to run out of money.

29:35And B, she was doing it with me. And way more women co-found businesses than do it on their own. And I think there's something in that, in terms of that Albright time of doing that with Anna was the best of times and the worst of times as it always is but we still she's now the CEO of the Daily Telegraph she's back in corporate world she's kind of come in and out and she sits on boards as I do but we have our the better menopause together and that's important for both of us but it's important to do it together because we like doing things together so I would say you know part of it is yes register the url I have so many urls registered it's sort of a standing joke whenever I come with an idea But B, not always, but often having a partner in crime is a lot of the way that women do get started, because I think that person keeps you honest.

30:27And I think picking somebody and my tips on partnership are who is attitudinally similar, emotionally similar. So for Anna and I, what was very important in our partnership was we are long fused. we laugh and have a dark sense of humor and we've got very short-term memories so we can't remember how shit something was the day before and that really worked for us because disagreements were quickly resolved we could always laugh but we had very different skill sets you know we'd done different things we were good at different things we never when we were raising the private equity money for all bright and people wanted to know what what's your different job descriptions and how do you it's like it's just very natural for us I'm really good at this stuff and she's really good at that stuff so I think that's a lot of what made it fun and for women that often is but make sure you pick someone who's good at different things to you yeah I think that's really good advice on on a co-founder because I can see how many successful businesses do have that and what about confidence and imposter syndrome particularly if someone has got two young kids they might have been out of paid work for a couple of years they're kind of thinking I don't want to go back in as you call it work for the man I want to do something for myself but my confidence feels so low but how can we help build that person up I think you need your personal cheerleaders or your personal board of advisors which I would call as shorthand the sisterhood so that's a lot of what we try to build with with Albright you know I don't have imposter syndrome I've never felt like that so I'm not going to pretend that I do like my cup is always like overflowing and for me the kind of shorthand to that but we all have our moments right so I go to the gym throw some weights around put my makeup on do my hair put my high heels on and I'm like right get back in the room right I like being in the arena but I didn't this is not a macho point this is a real life point I had no maternity leave with either child because I was working right so I was back working and this is like pre-Zoom and pre-everything, like a few days later, I would not recommend it.

32:39But unfortunately, but if you're the founder, you know, I have businesses, if you're the founder, it's very, very hard to have proper mat leave. Most founders don't really. Having said that, the upside of that, because I always see positive in things, is that I never had that coming in and coming out. I've kind of always been in. And so I think that the confidence loss that I see amongst so many of my extremely accomplished girlfriends not just at the stage where you're very focused which is early child years but what you've all got coming down the pipe is the menopause and that I'm afraid you know the stats on that are really quite scary which is that 25 percent of women who are still in work from their late 40s onwards want to leave the workforce because of their menopause symptoms 10 percent actually do so I'm very focused with the better menopause and the work that we're doing there to make sure that does not happen because I want women to be economically productive and to have choices I don't want any woman to feel I can't it's too late which it never is I feel like shit I don't want that I think that prioritizing women's health prioritizing our ability to be productive really matters so the thing that has always kept me going is my whatsapp group of women don't think we shout that out enough you know the ones who say you've got this you're amazing the ones who check in with you I think the ones in my world you know that's a pretty high-end group of what would seem objectively extremely successful women because those are the ones that you pick up along the journey as a female founder because there aren't very many of you so you do tend to sort of a network be become friends and see that is the universe of people with whom you don't have to have a game face on with them you know you can say I fuck this up this is crap I'm worried about this and that's okay I wouldn't do that with men I just wouldn't actually whilst I've got some amazing men in my life and I work with my brother Ben in Love Home Swap I would be more likely to be vulnerable I think with women so all of that I think the long-winded answer to the question is what can you do if you're not feeling like it fake it till you make it so like get whatever your uniform is for me I've never done a meeting in jeans like I just can't you know that's not how I think about because it's a uniform you know I've got my kind of like mum wardrobe and my work wardrobe and I think find the women by your side who are going to lift you up and where you do the same for them I love that I've been researching recently this thing called the Batman effect which is fascinating which is where you kind of create a more confident avatar for yourself Beyonce does it and so many amazing performers and I've been thinking gosh I think I can really there's so much amazing research behind it, but I can really see how that can help mothers because it is, you know, one minute you're covered in, you know, pesto and, you know, your hair's a mess and you're thinking, I can't even think straight.

35:28I can see how helpful it would be to be like, I'm going to put on this uniform and I'm going to go and, you know, for the next day, eight hours, whatever it is, I'm going to step into this version of myself. Cause I think, I think doing those two is difficult. How do you switch between sort of mother because it's very different energy isn't it that mothering energy to that sort of you know entrepreneur driving things forward how do you switch between those two yeah it's funny isn't it my kids now are 16 and 14 they would say probably that they think they get a lot of my work energy so no you know no one will say stop being so Debbie Wasco you know as I'm kind of managing him through his GCSEs because I'm like right there's a thing and there's a timetable we need to do this and then we need to review it and how he's like uh so I think sometimes it is hard when you're used to being very output focused which I am so I think there's probably a bit more crossover than they would like but you know I think that's such a bad thing I think clothes and I love clothes and shoes and I think they have a real power so my daughter's a very accomplished lacrosse player she's at boarding school in the week so I watch her play every Saturday and she plays in the England squad and I have like my lacrosse mum outfit you know that I wear and my thing and my so in the weeks are very different to my weekends because I've got this very sporty child who's away in the week so my weekends are all about her I'm watching her and taking her to matches and all of that so I think some of its circumstance a lot of its wardrobe I think I am a huge reader fiction reader that's always been my happy place I'm on the board of the women's prize for fiction and have been for a long time and I never read non-fiction despite having written a non-fiction book called Believe Build Become How to Supercharge Your Career with Anna but I'm starting to read it a bit more now as relates to the kids because I'm afraid it's trite but true little kids little problems big kids big problems you know teenagers are complicated my daughter has ADHD you know my son's gay which is amazing but obviously has been a wonderful thing but challenging thing for him in some ways so I think it's just a lifetime of learning with them and also recognizing both my kids are talkers and we have a very close relationship I think because it's always been the three of us but being able to acknowledge to them as teenagers that I get it wrong you know and it isn't perfect and I'm not perfect and some of your and we're all a product of our upbringing and baggage and so we're kind of we do the work as a family we've all been in therapy for years both separately and together and I think having a sense in which it is really difficult as a single mom and a founder who's economically responsible for your kids and who's out in the world a lot to switch between being different versions of yourself and sometimes you don't yeah and I think I really heard that humility actually yeah I mean look you know it I I hope, I think, particularly my son who's near 17, sees me as a person with all my failings, right?

38:55And we are good at apologizing. And that means that when things go wrong, so I tell you the big, something I read about a year ago, having an ADHD child has its own series of issues, particular kind of high performing one or high performing athletically and all that sort of complexity. But here's my big lesson on parenting teens that I stole from someone I don't even know where, which is strike whilst the iron's cold. Right. So I'm really trying with that. I'm trying just to not let things escalate. And I think I've really had to adapt my work style, which isn't confrontational, but I like immediate outcomes.

39:39right my list is so long particularly now I do five jobs it just has to get done done done done parenting is not like that you know it's not like no we're doing it now it needs to get sorted now strike whilst the iron's cold and that has been a lot of rewiring I don't sit comfortably with unresolved anything but you have to with these teenagers you can't just drive to outcomes so strike whilst the iron's cold and the other thing this is hard and this is particularly adhd you have to let them sit in their pain so my natural state of mind is to problem solve absolutely everything i'm like a legendary award-winning problem solver and that is not what your kids want they do not want when you're slightly bored this is a bit how i am in meetings i'm like yay i've heard it enough we need to do this this this and this everybody agree right we're in move on You cannot do that with teenagers.

40:36And I'm getting much better at just going, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And that has not come naturally. So I think at every stage of motherhood, there's a load of different stuff. And I think we have to keep adapting our style. And definitely, we have to show up differently to the way that we do at work. yeah and that's why I asked the question because my sort of perception of you at work like that was kind of accurate based on what you just told me yeah completely I mean look don't get me wrong my son's GCSE revision much to his disgust has been wrong like that and that's not how he would have done it but um I think also you've got different children with different personalities and all of the rest of it but if I showed up with my daughter in that mode like firework so you just get better at changing up.

41:30Yeah, I love that. And I just, I really love your, I think humility probably is the right word, but also your growth mindset, which is what we need across everything in our lives, right? Which is, okay, what do I need to learn? Where are my gaps? And how do I fill that? And I think we have to do that at work. And of course, in parenting, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions before we end. The first one is if you had to distill everything that you've learned about building a business whilst raising a family into one principle or idea, what would it be? I think get up early and what's the worst that can happen?

42:08Nice. I'm not very good at chasing the day. And with children, particularly on your own, the list is long. So I think for me, having that time before anybody else gets up to kind of get ahead of the day is important. And I think what's the worst that can happen is just this principle of you always have to start. Actually, even again, you know, like I'm good at, I think, taking something from being an idea. And if it sticks with me long enough and gives me goosebumps and I can see the product market fit and monetization, I'll really push it. Hence, the better menopause came about because I got super ill when I was 48.