Episode 161: Francesca Amber

0:00Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Hi, this is Paige from Giggly Squad, and today's episode is brought to you by McDonald's. Honestly, Caesar sauce and a Diet Coke at McDonald's might be the perfect girl dinner. And Mc Crispy strips dipped in Caesar sauce? No notes. Right now, at participating McDonald's, the$2.99 Caesar snack wrap is making me rethink my entire go-to order. Caesar sauce is at participating McDonald's for a limited time, so go try it before it's gone. Prices and participation may vary. Still waiting in line? Again? That's time you'll never get back. Save time and money with Stamps.com. Over 4 million businesses have skipped the line with Stamps.com.

0:40Join them to save up to 90 % off carrier rates from your computer or phone right now. Print postage for certified mail, registered mail, and packages in seconds. Then schedule a pickup right from your home or office. For a limited time, go to Stamps.com and use code PODCAST for a free welcome gift. Taxes and fees apply. Your team just added its 67th AI tool and also your 67th security blind spot. The good news? The Vanta agent works like a GRC engineer in the background, finding every app your team uses, scoring the risk, and drafting fixes for you. Vanta is the platform used by over 16 ,000 fast-moving companies like Ramp, Cursor, and Harvey, who are shaping the future with AI and staying ahead of AI risk.

1:21Get started at Vanta.com.

1:31Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Hello, I'm Sophia Lisbexter and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but it can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates.

2:04Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Hello, greetings from Houston. I'm back here. I think this is my second or third time this week. Just trying to think because I'm in the middle of supporting, promoting the release of my eighth album, Home and a Pop. And it's been a lovely week actually. Super, super busy. I cannot believe it was just this time last week I was doing Radio 2 in the park in Chelmsford. Since then I feel like I have been all over. Yes, today I'm going to Birmingham and Nantwich for a signing and tomorrow I've got BBC Breakfast and tomorrow night Brighton and the beat goes on kind of to the end of the week. So it's all good.

2:45Sophie Ellis-Bextor: I said to everybody around me, you know, my management, my label. I was like, look, make me busy. It's a big deal. I haven't released an album like this for, well, I haven't released an album full stop for three years. So, you know, it's always kind of a big deal. And it's nice to give yourself over to it. And also, I've been meeting so many people. It's been adorable. Thanks to all of you that came to Coco on Monday, any of the signings I've been doing to launch the album, any of the little gigs I've been doing in the record shops. It's been so nice to see you all. has been good for my soul. Thank you.

3:21Sophie Ellis-Bextor: And yes, if I sound a little tired, it's only because I've been working so hard. I'm finding it really hard to switch off. Just a bit pedal to the metal at the moment. I get a bit adrenalized when I'm working like this. So I don't know how to switch off. So sleep, not much. It's okay. It's okay. And welcome back to the podcast. so this is um i don't even know what series this is is it series 16 um how great how nice for me i have another round of amazing people for you this series i've recorded 90 of them i believe so so good i've been loving it and we start with francesca amber now francesca i started following her a while back i was really interested in her ethos so i just walked into boots at the station I need some more stick-on nails they keep popping off so weird they've got like what's that nipple shields but no false nails I mean I'm not saying you don't need to shield your nipples but I feel like nails are a little bit more commonplace um sorry I was a non-sequitur um Francesca is someone who's just released a book called Manifest Like a Mother and I first came across her because I listened to her interview someone for a podcast that she has and I liked her interview style and how she came across so I started following her and she immediately dm'd me and said oh I didn't know you're a manifester and it really made me think I don't I don't think I am I um but you'll hear Francesca had a good talk about the semantics of it.

4:58Sophie Ellis-Bextor: And her story is remarkable. She, so I'm looking where my train is. Oh, it's already boarding. Excellent. She had a really rough time of it, 2020. Her business, her beauty business really suffered in lockdown. She has three daughters. So they're now twin girls of four and one of eight. But during lockdown, she just said it was overwhelming. And to be fair I actually think there's probably a whole other conversation that Francesca and I could have had about how dark she found those early mother of twin babies on an older daughter days because I got the impression that was incredibly tough for her um and so now she has really turned it around but also she so owns the success and what she's built and she has done this through now what she calls manifesting and the reason I say it slightly in parenthesis is because I think it's a lot of positive thought I think it's a lot of bringing good things your way but as you'll hear Francesca say she believes there's also magic at play and I really respect that because look if you know if there's a proof in the pudding moment it is the success that she has and that she enjoys and also the positivity that she draws people towards her with I mean it's an attractive trait isn't it hearing someone talk positively and believing that you do own a little bit of the life that you lead and what could be possible for you so I am all for it I wish her all the best and I'm so thrilled she came over to talk to me you're here proper force for good and I do honestly one thing we 100 % agree on is about embracing opportunities that come your way and being open to things being open to new new adventures seizing the best from that and just kind of not really waiting around for life to happen to you a bit really but just being open to yeah creating a new story for yourself so here's Francesca thank you so much to her she's a wonderful woman you have wonderful ears thank you for choosing to spend this time with me i'm going to go and get on my train now and uh yeah i'll speak to you the other side of the chat thank you so much it's so nice of you to come and see me um and thank you for the book and this is a good place to start what do i need to know francesca about manifesting like a mother are we recording we are oh okay so when i was thinking about podcasts that really resonated with this book i was like spinning plates that is literally exactly and sometimes i feel like when people talk about manifesting they talk about such like high plane like huge concepts but actually when you're a mother i've realized it's the real basic strategies like if you are a mum that is very time poor energy poor like i need to go back to literal basics and that's what this book is is just trying to make what I know works accessible for women like me yeah because I've heard you speak as well about through your book club about the books that you feel you've gleaned so much information for like under a tenor and how generous it is of people to put wisdom under pages so that you can carry it around you can absorb it in your you know in whichever way suits you um and manifesting I think I'd quite like to start actually as well oh thank you you've inscribed it thank you the mother of disco well don't donna summer might be a bit cross about that maybe the um maybe the granddaughter of disco but i'm happy happy to be included in the disco family no matter what um what what does manifesting mean to you because i've realized through listening to a few conversations about it reading up about it it has different connotations for people a little bit so for me i feel like manifesting is like the perfect mixture between strategy and what we focus on will grow in our lives and that very sort of neuroscience part of it that we can explain and we can and people like einstein are like it's a fact but also a little bit of magic when you manage to manifest things into your life you're like how did that happen like you can't explain how it happened there is that little bit of magic so i always think it's a bit of a fine art between science and magic and it's it's difficult like it's simple to do but it's actually quite hard to apply into your life and to consistently do it and also to manifest things that you actually truly desire and not just things that you think you should want you know I'm a single woman in my 40s society is trying to tell me I have failed you know I'm a single mother many different actually just two two different dads but I'm out here living my best life but there's a lot of people trying to tell you like that's a failure you should want this you should want this so yeah I think it's just a lifelong learning and And ultimately just knowing that you can create the life you desire.

10:04Because I don't know about you, when you're younger, you don't even realise that, do you? That you can, well, I didn't, that you could create your life.

10:11Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Yeah, I mean, there's a few sort of strands there. I mean, firstly, I would definitely, from where I'm viewing it, never see being a single mother as any kind of failure. In fact, I think, to me, that's like the ultimate, like sometimes I have that in my head. I've got a girlfriend who's another single mother of three and I spend a lot of time thinking, oh, my God, hats off to her. I'm constantly, invisible hats, always off. And so I think there's a phenomenal success in just holding it down, being consistent, keeping their world feeling safe, you know, keeping them encapsulated in childhood while there's grown-up things happening in the periphery.

10:47Sophie Ellis-Bextor: So I'm taking my hat off to you for that. But secondly, I would imagine for a lot of people, the most significant hurdle when it comes to sort of harnessing this power this manifesting and make it part of your world is about giving yourself permission to to see what is you can hope to expect in your life and what you want to encourage because I suppose it's a little bit like that old adage about you can't love someone until you've learned how to love yourself it's that similar thing of you can't start to unlock it all until you can imagine yourself living that life and feel like it's okay. You know, you're allowed to get those things for yourself.

11:27Because also, often in pursuing your own goals and dreams, you are taking yourself away from that traditional role of being a mother there 24-7. And there are definitely people... I had a woman on my Instagram, actually. I'd talked about how I just went into London for five days, had to record my audio book. And someone messaged me saying, how do you think that's going to affect your children? What? Yeah. Oh, man. Block. Block, Christina. Sorry. But also that's exactly the kind of thing my own mother would say as well.

12:00Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Didn't you just want to write back, how does it affect your children that you put this negativity out into the world on a daily basis? Yeah, but there are a lot of people that think like that. And I think there are a lot of women that as soon as they start to think, actually, I want something for me. I want to create something that I'm passionate about, that I want to do. they will ultimately meet resistance from their partner from their own parents from their children definitely my children guilt trip me every time I leave the house they will meet resistance but something I've learned over this whole path is that the best gift you can give your children and to your family I think is the most healed version of you the most healed happy version of you did you hear that thing on Instagram that was like um the number one indicator for a child's happiness is the quality of their own mother's happiness and I think well that makes sense doesn't it?

12:47If a mother is depressed, if she's, you know, really finding life tough, she's not going to be the most nurturing. And I know that women in incredibly difficult situations do show up every day for their children. We all do. But if you can create a life that you love, and you can feel happy and fulfilled, and even things as well, like I talk about in the book, like being rich. Do you know what I mean? Like that, being wealthy, having your own money, that's incredible it gives you freedom all this stuff I think that's the best gift we can give our children you know show them how to live not just be a mother you know there's a woman called Tammy Thomas I love her and she said your children don't need a martyr they need a role model and I'm like yes yeah every time I think of that I'm like yes they need a role model yeah and I think we are

13:33Sophie Ellis-Bextor: hopefully through you know all piling in with the wisdom we are kind of starting to banish that sort of martyr version of motherhood a bit because there might be a time when kids are little and they just think oh you know my mom's on tap this is wonderful but then there's usually a bit in adulthood where they sort of see their mother a little bit more 360 and say oh I wish they'd wanted more for themselves or that they'd given themselves a mission to chase some of their dreams too so it's I think there's always a bit where the parenting continues even when they're adults and then maybe they see things and think oh I'm learning but one of the things I've learned is I want to make sure I incorporate myself into my future absolutely but it can be it can still be quite challenging and that's why I think it's such a valuable thing to really focus on on on mothers um so I'm trying to think where I should start now so I know your daughters are eight and four your twins start school in September which is quite a big chapter isn't it that's a big deal it's the day my book gets published really in London for two days doing back-to-back events the guilt I was gonna say that's quite serendipitous though because it's like it's a time when you can actually you know there's quite a big bold way to start having a different shape of things in your house a bit but family dynamic shifts it is do you know what weird date things have always happened to me when I got divorced I moved back to London and when I moved back to London I had a playlist it was very dramatic there was like I will survive all kinds of shit on there and when I moved back I went back into my little bachelorette flat above a pub in north London and the very next day I got letter through your divorce has come through and it was my wedding anniversary so I literally called all my friends and I was like I've moved back to London it's my divorce party like and we literally had a divorce party that day but with this book as well I feel like this has been a culmination of like the last five years has been I don't want to cry but like savage like it's been awful I was in lockdown when I had my twins a single mum lost my business lost all my income and felt truly out of control in my own life before I remembered that I am a powerful manifestor and I turned it all around it was really difficult and so now this coming out on the day that they start school I'm like I'm ready to like share it with the world you know because it was hard it was really hard well thank you for sharing that with me and um my heart goes out to you I cannot imagine how that must have been I mean that's an extraordinary to have the isolation of you you know, single twin motherhood with little ones.

16:03Sophie Ellis-Bextor: So I'm guessing they were born in 2020. Is that right? And then you've got this pronounced shutdown of the world as well. So all your normal punctuation marks of how you'd go out and have, you know, little minutes to yourself or play groups or meeting parents is really difficult in that time. That's very isolating. And they say to you in those early months, like it's so important to not isolate yourself. It's so important to talk to other mothers. and I remember there was another twin mum in my village and I and we used to take our prams in like December and walk around the village and I remember we couldn't even stop at a bench because it was illegal to sit on a bench if you remember like it was illegal to sit on a bench and so if we wanted to talk and connect we had to walk in the wind and rain with our push chairs and there were so many moments like I really wish someone had done like a whole like lockdown around, I don't know, I'm sure people have, but like when I look back at it, I think, do you remember when they went on this morning and said, it may very well be that you will turn up to a hospital and you could die because there won't be enough doctors.

17:05And I remember being very early on pregnant with the twins. And I went into my midwife and I said, should I have an abortion? Like I know what happens in like horror movies or zombie movies when there's a pregnant person, like they're twins, they probably can't be born naturally. I've already had a C-section. and should I just abort them now? Like that was a genuine thought in my mind. And likewise, you know, the care afterwards was nothing like you would ever see normally. And I remember the health visitor coming round and I just said to her, is it normal that I don't love them? Like, is it normal?

17:35And she was like, oh yeah, it will come. And it didn't come for like a solid year and I was just left to myself. And if it hadn't been like for my sister and stuff, it would have just been awful. but yeah it was sorry I felt like we're dwelling on a bit it's like a really grim time you know

17:53Sophie Ellis-Bextor: I think that's really crucial I mean that's first of all that's recent yeah um secondly I think that's I do think that's a version of trauma isn't it that's traumatic so I'm so sorry that's just so much to go through on your own sort of staring and yeah I mean the idea of going to the hospital that question is absolutely heartbreaking but I do remember um it's actually quite it's quite refreshing to talk about because a lot of people now slightly um I wouldn't say romanticized because that's patronizing but there's a lot of people I meet who certainly really liked a lot of lockdown yeah people on furlough yeah and I'm like really I found it terrifying um I did think there's the cruelty as well of not knowing if it was going to mutate if the next vulnerable people would be children you know um if seeing your own loved ones could make them ill I thought that was so cruel so having those new babies and being on your own that is a lot month after month like that's the thing it's not just breastfeeding for 14 hours a day for a day month after month obviously there's so many people that have done it but you know like I'm so grateful that happened because I had no money I had no money at all I remember I had a beauty business in London obviously couldn't do that anymore and I remember just buying a massive bag of penne pasta and I just thought well if I have no money me and my daughter can eat pasta with like olive oil like that was genuinely my thoughts and that's actually a part of the book is about setting goals for the stage of your life that you're in and I think so many mothers can feel not hindered that's like a horrible word but restricted by whatever stage of motherhood they're in and they think well this isn't my stage for me to set goals for my life this isn't my stage for me to metamorphosize but actually I look back at that phase and I think okay I was trapped inside a house with newborn twins and my daughter for over a year um I couldn't travel I couldn't have fun and adventure I couldn't really socialize because seeing other people that didn't have these trappings like made me feel bad about myself I couldn't date I couldn't really do anything because I didn't really have any money.

20:05And the incredible gift that gave me is I had nothing to focus on but self-development. I was bored. I was bored as hell. I was just breastfeeding all day. And also I wasn't bonded. So I didn't feel like I just wanted to escape my reality. And I look back and I think, what a blessing that was. If I could have gone shopping, if I could have gone to Spain, if I could have gone out on a date, I probably wouldn't have just hyper focused on remembering that I can create the life that I want and just thinking, right, what do I need to focus on right now to make my life better? And at the time, the answer was money.

20:42I just needed purpose and money. And I focused, focused, focused on it. Started the podcast. What a fucking time to be alive. Do you know what I mean?

20:51Sophie Ellis-Bextor: And you found community as well, because that's what you create. The absolute tonic that comes with finding community cannot be underestimated, I don't think. I mean, it's such an extraordinary amount of intensity in what you're telling me and the picture you're painting of that time. But I'm wondering, are these life skills you'd had to draw on before? had there been similar moments in your life where you'd had that feeling of just sort of turning in on yourself and finding that cheerleader? Or was this quite a new moment where all these things collided? I would say it was the most extreme version.

21:32So like in the past, when I first discovered the law of attraction, it was like the mid noughties, like everyone did, reading The Secret. And I was like, oh, my God, this works.

21:40Sophie Ellis-Bextor: And that's just, forgive me if I'm just getting my, that was solely about finding a partner, right? No. Oh, it's anything? Anything, yeah, just the law of attraction that you could bring anything into your life. Because I haven't read The Secret. You haven't? I haven't. Are you a manifester? Well, this was something we would definitely be talking about because I think there are elements of it that make complete sense to me, but I think semantics is the difference because I've never written down a wish list, I don't think, in the same termology. However, listening to you speak, because I've followed you for some time, And I can see that your mindset, positive mindset, framing, sort of, I suppose, the stories we tell ourselves to allow for change, for evolution, for keeping good people near you, for shifting away from things that aren't serving you.

22:33Sophie Ellis-Bextor: That stuff completely I agree with. Yeah. So I feel like I haven't used the words I've manifested because probably I didn't come across the things that resonated with you at that time. But through experience, I think the longer I do what I do and have the relationships I have, the more I feel like one of the biggest things you can give yourself is the ability to frame what happens to you. Because so much, and you have to learn that skill quite quickly if you're a musician because you've got literally, you're so encouraged to think you've got some say. You start off and everybody's, where do you see yourself in five years?

23:09Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Like you've literally got any option of what that's going to look like. you know no one now you'd be like i just really hope i've still still doing what i do but at the time you'll be like oh world domination and this kind of thing and then and then through things not working out you it's a bit like that you know the pressure of the you know forming the diamond that's when you get that bit of you that's crystallized of like right these are the these are things that matter to me i've got nothing to lose but when i get these things back in my life I will absolutely treasure them and I won't let them go you know nurture so I think that that I totally resonate with and I understand and that's why I was asking you about about the termology of manifesting because that's I'm curious about it because I'm like I think I think a lot of that is how my mind works but I just haven't really used those words yeah see I wondered because I saw one day that you followed me and I was like say what yeah murder on the dance floor get out of town but this was before um saltburn yeah yeah and I remember thinking sophie ellis bexter is a manifester I can't believe it she believes in the law of attraction and then literally a couple of months later obviously everything blew up and I thought I bet she's manifested that no did you no subconsciously but well okay again semantics i would say and i have to be careful i choose my words here because i've got a lot of really really talented musician friends who i think deserve a lot more success than they have but i think if you're lucky enough to get certain breaks at certain time because there's always got to be a big like question mark over certain things but if you take those things as like you know if we're doing it as like a pathway i think by and large through all the micro decisions you make I think you end up roughly with the career that suits you right okay I'm saying it really carefully because I don't want to offend anyone who I think should be doing better than they are because that's definitely the case for people I know as well yeah but I think so long as you know things come your way because you're making micro decisions all the time aren't you yeah and I think um I started following you because I'd listened to one of your podcasts and I just really liked the way you spoke about the world so thank you I couldn't believe it I was like you and Mrs Hinch and Jordan we're in good company we should all get together honestly what a dream what it would be amazing Mrs Hinch invited me to her house three times and then every time I replied saying course never replied oh I think she's just got millions of people in her inbox I mean my inbox is like the wild west and I've got like 60 ,000 I cannot imagine what hers must be like but she'd just be like please can you come to my garden and talk to my friend faith and i'm like yeah sure nothing but isn't manifesting i mean forgive me if i'm wrong i would say some of this is about mindset of just allowing yourself to to think what you want for yourself to be ambitious for yourself to to feel to feel the the drive in you to chase things that matter um and to sort of celebrate things and also find a way to be at peace with what what happens when it doesn't go the way you're expecting but can give you other things maybe yes am i right that is something that i have learned to over the years i used to be so i first became well known for this because i had very very specific manifestations come true sometimes they're very husband gender and my twins yeah mental stuff and i've learned over the years that now if something doesn't happen that actually, you know, people are like, oh, it was not meant to be and something better was coming.

26:47I genuinely believe that now because I can see it in my pathway. I can see if that lockdown hadn't have happened, if my salon had stayed open that bit longer, if I had a singleton baby, not twins, all these things, my life would have been made a little bit easier and I'd been like, oh, I'll just carry on the path I was on. Thank God that it just gave me a massive roadblock and I can see that happen. So even, you know, when you're buying a house, so many houses I looked at fell through and now I drive through my village being like, I nearly bought that shape. Like, look at it compared to the house we're in now.

27:16Like I look at it and I think, God, I can't believe I nearly bought that. What a mistake. So I think the co-creation part, you start to have faith in yourself and in the universe that what is best for you will show up.

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28:14Join them to save up to 90 % off carrier rates from your computer or phone right now. Print postage for certified mail, registered mail, and packages in seconds. Then schedule a pickup right from your home or office. For a limited time, go to stamps.com and use code podcast for a free welcome gift. Taxes and fees apply. Your team just added its 67th AI tool and also your 67th security blind spot. The good news? The Vanta agent works like a GRC engineer in the background, finding every app your team uses, scoring the risk, and drafting fixes for you. Vanta is the platform used by over 16 ,000 fast-moving companies like Ramp, Cursor, and Harvey, who are shaping the future with AI and staying ahead of AI risk.

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29:25Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.

29:31But also a massive fan in. So when I was an employee, I was terrible. Like I never turned up. I was never on time. I had all these fake illnesses. Oh, great. Terrible. And so when my ex-husband was like, you should quit your job. Like you hate your job. Why don't you quit your job, start a business? I had no level of trust in myself. Like the person I was, I thought I can't have a successful business. I won't wake up in the morning. I won't be on time. and it's only through over the years slowly decision by decision embodying the kind of person that I want to be in the future like I think people sometimes expect they go to a seminar you walk across hot coals and you're like a new person but for me it's waking up in the morning showing up for the kind of woman I want to be yeah even this book right for example yeah I set this up today if I'd sat back and waited for my publishers I think it's like a real thing of like like believing in yourself, but also showing up for yourself as well.

30:29Sophie Ellis-Bextor: And also knowing yourself really well, because you know what, I suppose especially with your book, you're thinking, where might the women that resonate with this book be, where are they finding out about things? Where are they getting information? So you're sort of trying to think along those lines as well. And I suppose what we're talking about, because I totally, I'm with you on the house thing. Before we bought our house, we put offers in on like six other houses. and now I'm like thank goodness none of those worked out and sometimes when people are going through things I'll say to them you know you will end up where you're meant to be when you when you when it's all done that will be where you always thought you were going to supposed to be but I suppose what you're sort of talking about as well is about building yourself kind of emotional resilience so that you can be as resolved a person which kind of goes back to the motherhood aspect when you're talking about about your being that sort of the healthiest emotional state you can be in because by all those teachings and all that talking to yourself and paying attention to how you're feeling and trying to you know positive framing you are building emotional resilience for all the things that previously you might have put a negative spin on or thought things are out to get me you know what I mean like you can just as easily probably attract negative oh absolutely you know that's the flip of it but um just for people who haven't um listened to you talk about it before you mentioned that the big thing big bold brush stroke things manifested they're both pretty good examples you mentioned your ex-husband and your twins so why don't we just hear about that i love these stories i can tell the stories for you but i'd rather hear can you yes this is wild that you know these of course i could do my research francesca i love it how embarrassing would it be if i had no they are wild stories and i do sometimes think like do people think i've made this up or what but yeah so my sister went on match.com and she said to me you should go on match.com this is before you could do swiping so you just put in what you wanted so I did put in six foot six and above which is a reach but still it paid off so I had that's really tall by the way my dad's six four six six is he single I I do just love a tall man I've got a height fetish I love it and uh normally you'd get like thousands of responses there was one wild twist by the way if you're dating my dad wouldn't it you'd have to call me mommy I'd be like you might manifest it I bloody didn't it's freaking me out it would be horrendous actually I'd like that because I'd like to come back at this house at Christmas yeah fair enough lovely um but yeah so one one result came back rather than the usual hundreds of thousands and so I was like wow the second I saw this man's picture I was like that's my husband he was six foot nine standing in front of a yacht yes all a bit of me so I messaged him as soon as I messaged him it said no like this user hasn't been on for 90 days I thought what so I actually ended up calling match.com and they were like nah data protection act you're crazy so I never got his number I never got any contact details never even got a twitter handle but I printed out his picture put it on my vision board and I knew that obviously I wasn't going to meet this man obviously but I'd like to meet a tall six foot nine mixed race man with a yacht that's what i'd like please so two and a half years goes by approximately a long time and my friend lucy is walking down the street in covent garden never done this for me before no one's done it since she walks up to this very tall man and she says my friend's got a height fetish would you like to go on a blind date he says yes we start to speak to each other and he says before we go out on tuesday should we swap each other's Facebook pages so it's not completely blind.

34:07It's the same profile picture. Not just, is that the same man? It's the same profile picture that has been in my wardrobe for two and a half years on my vision board. So I nearly fell off my chair. I told everyone in my office, I was like, guess what? I'm meeting my husband tonight.

34:22Sophie Ellis-Bextor: How quickly into the date did you bring it up? 20 minutes. And it was the longest 20 minutes of my life. I've got the most insane story to tell you yeah because i was like how can i keep it in yeah of course how can i think that's 20 long minutes yeah yeah i mean i waited until at least the starters were done and then i was like i've got something to tell you that's impressive i would have blurted out straight away don't be unnerved but your profile picture has been on my wall in my locker two of us but also wouldn't you be so flattered but he was very suspicious he thought that i was like a spy second option or like yeah he just he thought there was something suspicious and then when he figured out no we got engaged six months later to the day and do you know what people sometimes say to me like but you you manifested the wrong thing right you got divorced at the right time right a hundred percent and I know that also the the second thing that people always say is oh well you got your daughter I'm not a believer in that have you seen like people can have a baby with Jack the Ripper or Ian Huntley and they're like you'll always love the baby the reason I'm so glad I met him is he taught me things that my own parents could never have taught me he was the one that saw me sitting at a nine to five job that I only turned up to half the time.

35:33He's like, you hate your life. You hate your nine to five. You get drunk all the time because you hate it. You're asleep in the office. This isn't a life. And he said to me, right, quit your job. We moved into a flat in Shoreditch and he paid all the rent and bills for a year. And he said, you rent your flat out and live off the income of that whilst you build your business. And he really encouraged me to create the life that I love. And so although we don't get on, and I'm so glad we're divorced, I'm like very happily divorced um you can appreciate absolutely appreciate and I guess that's come back to what you were saying about how you can look at things as either a positive or a negative there's so many people would say look what he did to me this was a terrible time I look back and I think thank you for showing me a better way to live yeah and I think it's also a

36:17Sophie Ellis-Bextor: really good lesson in not rubbishing things where you know you now find yourself with a different viewpoint because actually you've got to be able to look back at yourself at different chapters of your life and trust that you were making the right decision for yourself at that point with what was in front of you and the wisdom you had at that time too. Oh, absolutely. I didn't know nothing. I've made mistakes and I'm like, as I'm saying it out loud, I'm like, I'm actually struggling with some of my own advice there. But theoretically, I trust enough of myself that I was doing the best I could at that moment.

36:50Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Yeah. And you're not always ready to make change as well. That takes a lot as well. No. She's got the energy to confront that or shift things or start again or whatever that might look like. So that's something. Starting again. That's terrifying. I think especially if you don't have children, it's terrifying. I knew the night before my wedding, I sat in my little bathroom with my two little lesbian housemates I used to live with. And they were like, are you going to go ahead with this? And I was like, well, the wedding's paid for. We're already legally married. Like we're here in the south of France.

37:20We might as well have a party. Do you know what I mean? Sing Lana Del Rey till two in the morning. but the night before the wedding I knew it wasn't right I knew it wasn't but I didn't have the emotional intelligence or the the courage maybe to start again now I think it's a privilege to sit here as a 40 year old woman with my own income my own house three beautiful daughters it's easy to say oh I'd leave him at the altar do you know I mean it wasn't that easy then I was like 29 I wanted children I wanted a husband for some bizarre reason because everyone was doing it Like, yeah, it's easy to say now.

37:55Sophie Ellis-Bextor: But also it means that when you are writing your book or doing your book club or your podcast or anywhere that you're engaging with other people, you've got these life experiences. So it's backed up by all this wealth because I think otherwise, you know, you if you live a life where you're always constantly bouncing against soft edges, then it's really hard to relate or even for people to feel like they could also pull themselves out of things. that don't feel like them because that's really tough um you know any sort of dysfunction shouldn't be swept under the carpet because it's a fabric of life but then you end up being the other side of it and saying all of these roads have led to where I'm at now and you can't do it without all that knowledge can you oh absolutely not so it's important yeah and people love to see the real journey of it as well and I always say like I'm not an expert I'm just telling you what's working for me and I think trying to be as honest as possible do you want to hear about the twins Yeah, go on.

38:53Again, I could tell this story. This is my favourite. Honestly, and again, I feel like people probably think I'm making it up. But Anoushka, you can verify. Sorry, my sister's here. You can verify. There's nodding going on. So my sister and I grew up with a family that for one reason or another, Anoushka has more about it than I do, but we believed we couldn't have boys. So my mum's, no, sorry, my nan's son died very young. my mum had a boy between my sister and I also died so my sister being the eldest daughter had to go and have all the genealogy and everything and she was told guess what it was some weird fluke bit of hearsay in like the 50s but basically you can have boys you're fine but if you've grown up with a lifetime saying if you have a boy you're gonna have to have an abortion like it just gets into you right it must have subconsciously really got into me so I had my first daughter and then when I had the twins I was like god I really really don't want boys because I really wanted a sister for my daughter I had all this trauma of like you can't have boys but also I was also really poor like the idea of having different genders having to buy different stuff I just really wanted girls so anyway um I feel like I have to explain that otherwise people are like why do you only like one gender but that was the and also it's okay to have a preference I think in this life.

40:12Some people want to live in Timbot too, do you know what I mean?

40:15Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Yeah. And also you, I think you are, you do indulge in thinking what kind of a baby you might have, especially before you've had one. It's like an abstract notion, isn't it? It is. And I could just see these little matching twin girls. So anyway, so I went for one of those harmony tests, one of the early tests and I couldn't afford it because I had no money at this point. Business had gone, you know, shut for ages. And she called me up like a week later and said, I've got your test results. The babies are all healthy because it's twins we don't know if it's one or two boys but there's boy DNA there you're having boys and I was like okay thank you bye had a mental breakdown for 24 hours now I was in lockdown on my own and I was pregnant yeah and I just phoned my sister and I was like I'm having boys and I was absolutely devastated because I already didn't want twins I've been very open about that like singleton grief is a real thing I did not want twins I'm an attachment parent, the idea of breastfeeding and co-sleeping and baby wearing with twins felt impossible to me.

41:13And a lot of that did turn out to be true. So I was devastated. And for 24 hours solid, I cried. And I got to the end of that 24 hours and I'd given my daughter her dinner. And we were sitting at the table and I was just sitting there crying. And I thought, what am I doing? This poor little girl has got no school, no friends, no outside communication. And I'm sitting here crying. And I just took out a piece of paper. I was like, right, I'm going to write down everything I'm thankful for about this situation. And I highly recommend this. If you're in a very high stress like situation, if you've had a big argument with someone or you've got like a big court case or anything like that where it's like stressful, this is a great thing to do.

41:51So I wrote down, I'm so thankful I can get pregnant. I'm so thankful I have a daughter already. I'm so thankful the babies are healthy. I'm so thankful, thankful, thankful. All this stuff, including I'm so thankful I believe in the law of attraction and I know how to be a powerful creator. So I wrote this list and I had a vision board on my phone that had been on there for the last couple of months of like little Pinterest images of like matching twin girls. And I looked at it and I was like, oh, it's like a kick in the gut to like see those pictures. And I was like a conscious decision to not change it.

42:22So wrote the list, took my daughter up to bed, bedtime, bath routine, took about two hours, came downstairs and I had 14 missed calls. Now, this was in the evening. This wasn't even like a nine to five time. It's the evening. I thought it's slightly higher than usual called the number back and it was the lady from the clinic she was at home she's like I'm so so sorry this has never happened before your your results they're correct like everything's okay with the babies but you're having girls and I literally could have fallen to the floor like I felt so grateful and I just thought more than the the result of the twins I was like it fucking works it works like I had written that gratitude list I'd seen that vision board and I was like, there was something in me that was like, no, not accepting this reality.

43:08This is not happening. I'm having twin girls. Now, isn't that wild? It is wild.

43:14Sophie Ellis-Bextor: It's wild. It's a crazy thing for them to make such a mistake in the first place as well, I've got to say. I know. It's literally like one of the main bits of that sort of scan, isn't it? I mean, well, she said her mum was dying of cancer. Oh, I'm sorry. So she was calling people out of hours after. Oh, wow. Because she must have made more than one mistake on it. Oh, no. We were just going through a whole list of people. Yeah. Wow. I just couldn't believe it. It just floored. I was just like, oh, my God. Yeah, that must have felt absolutely bizarre. And you must have felt so sort of drained as well because you've kind of gone through all these permeations of this other sort of supposed outcome and then having to be like, I could let go of a lot of these things I've been like trying to like now navigate.

43:56Well, I remember saying to my dad, like, I'm just going to be sat by the edge of a football field for the rest of my life. I'm going to be watching football and cricket and rugby and I don't want to.

44:05Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Well, as a mother of five boys, I've never done any of that. Really? Yeah, yeah. So it's not a given. Wow. Yeah. What do they do? Like more music-y stuff? Different things, yeah. I mean, my second one got a little bit into football, but he's just doing GCSEs at the moment. Well, I just finished them. So at the moment he's without a team and he'd quite like to get by. But the other four are not really interested. Okay. Yeah. So maybe it would not have been as bad. I would have liked a gay son. I would have taken a gay son. Also, you might find your girls get into it. Yeah. Yeah, they do sometimes get really into football, you know.

44:36Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Yeah, they do. It might be okay. And rugby and all the other things you say. So I can't count it out either. But if it's not on your vision board, maybe it's not going that way. I don't know. But I think it's like, yeah, and I suppose it's an amazing thing to go through feeling very connected to your mind in that way as well and all this visualising. um I suppose yeah I can I can understand that because I think it feels like control as well doesn't it and if you're feeling scared as well about the future the idea that you can have a say in what you're navigating is really powerful but I'm thinking about your your working life so when you had your first daughter you is that when you were running the beauty business yes I had a beauty salon in Islington I love that I love doing that what did you get from that that you sort of carried with you do you think do you know what I think from like a mindset sort of perspective it's that you can be really successful at something that I don't even know how to articulate this but you can create the life that you want through avenues that you may not think of if that makes sense so when I told the people in my office I was quitting to be a spray tanner they were like that's mental but I literally would earn like 130 pounds an hour that's more than some solicitors It's like, that's a lot of money.

45:53I worked a couple of hours in the evening. I was free to do what I wanted in the day. And I created this life that I loved. And I kind of made it my own. I think what we're saying about you can make something as amazing or not as you want. I could have been like, oh, I work in a salon with no air conditioning and it's really hot and I hate it. Instead, I was like, I'm going to be the best spray tanner in London. I spray tanned Live on Loose Women, good old Ruth Langsford. Like I did it for loads of celebrities. Like I made it the best it could be. and I love that life like I absolutely I sometimes wish I could still do spray tanning and lashes I

46:27Sophie Ellis-Bextor: really miss it very therapeutic well that's lovely to hear as well as you say that thing of like frame thinking to yourself this is great I get to curate it this way I get to do these hours and I was thinking that that's so much you know the idea of um sometimes as people get older and I don't know if you've noticed this sometimes but I feel like there's two ways your mindset can go either kind of expands or it can kind of get smaller um like it's very easy to get into a sort of slightly bitter because as you get into your 40s there are doors that close that won't open again and that's okay like I'm a piece with my you know non-gymnastic career or whatever it's that when I know now no will never happen for me but I do think if you're not careful you can get a bit um about sad about opportunities or I suppose like people who come to terms with where they're at and feel a bit cross that there wasn't something else and I do think it's something you've got to be really careful with so I think that's another reason why what you're encouraging people in people with your with your book club and your book and everything is to think just to be careful of how you keep your mind feeling good about all the places you're at because you you are now sort of realizing there won't be infinite decades stretching ahead do you agree with that yeah Yeah, absolutely.

47:46And I do think it's wild how we are conditioned to feel like turning 40 is something to be scared about and midlife as a woman. Like you say, doors close. I feel like these days they don't as much.

47:57Sophie Ellis-Bextor: I think you're right. But I've definitely noticed some people I've met, they start, what am I trying to say? They may be like not as curious about the world as they used to be. And I think it's really good to stay open to, I don't know, thinking about other people's experiences and what everybody's going through. and sort of, I suppose, allowing the stories of when you felt vulnerable to be part of where you found yourself in a way that makes people feel less alone when they remember those times. Do you know what I mean? To sort of let go of any bitterness, I suppose. Yes, and it is. It's so easy to feel bitter about the past, isn't it?

48:37There's so many things. If I let it consume me, I could be so, so bitter. but it's a conscious choice to not and it's work sometimes i have an ex that is very difficult sometimes and rather than get consumed by it and feel like this person's trying to ruin my life i write a gratitude list about him i do it regularly every time and it absolutely works every single time there's so many things that one of the things i feel resentment for actually is a lot of people in my sort of industry that don't have children and they can just go and record 10 podcasts a day and go on an influencer trip and go here and I'm like I want to do that like that can feel really hard but I feel like also 2025 what a time to be alive like in our 40s and being able to create what we want without really any um what do you call them gatekeepers yeah like I feel like the gatekeepers are going if you want to make an album record it yourself you want to make a podcast record i'm not waiting for anyone you're right there's a purer

49:42Sophie Ellis-Bextor: purer system for getting things out yeah what a time what was going on in your life when you had the twins then what were you doing with your work at that point i know it was lockdown but what role was manifesting in your world at that time so my plans for my life were wildly unhinged and they all were like if one little thing had fallen the whole system would have fallen down so I had my salon in London my goal when I first became a single mother me and my daughter moved into my little one bedroom flat above a pub shared a bed shared a wardrobe not ideal had the time of our lives and I've become the bedrock of your relationship as well that time do you know what I look back at it and I'm like that was incredible we did yoga every night oh anyway it was incredible oh that's a very sweet little image it was and do you know what it always sounds like I'm talking She must have only been like three or something.

50:31She was two or three. I think she was two and three. Two-year-old younger. Yeah.

50:36Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Cosmic kids on the TV. Super bendy, actually, as well at that age. Yeah. She couldn't do it now. But it was incredible. And do you know, like, I don't want to make it sound like we were in the Second World War, but we used to have one painting book, one set of paints and two paintbrushes. And after dinner, we would sit and paint this one little book together because we had no space for anything. It was a one-bedroom flat, like 500 square foot. and we had a really pure and simple life we did a lot of stuff you know went to the city farm sat at rooftop you know shortage house on the rooftop like having our breakfast we were living our best lives but it wasn't you know forever and so the goal I set myself then was by the time she starts school I want to buy a house in the country close to my family I wanted to go to a little village school and have enough space to have a sister for her because that was really important to me.

51:25And I achieved that goal just before I got pregnant. I bought a little house in this village I wanted. This was my wild plan, right? The two, three days a week that my ex-husband would have her, I would travel down to my flat in London. I would work in my salon all the hours God could send. I would then Airbnb my flat the rest of the time, travel back up on the train and live in my house and look after her the rest of the time. That was it, right? And then of course, when lockdown happened all the airbnbs cancelled the salon was shut down and then i thought hang on how would i take two babies on a track like it was just it was too much one baby i probably could have done it well every avenue that i'd ever known how to earn money and i'm a hustler like i will make things happen like they were all shut down yeah i could not earn money anyway and it was it was terrifying I mean, I bought the pasta.

52:16Panic bought the pasta in bulk. But it didn't take long for me to remember, hang on, the law of attraction does work. I was in that like race to the bottom where people would be like, oh no, I'm on furlough. And I'd be like, are you? Are you a single mum? Are you self-employed? Have you just taken on a second mortgage? Have you got no money? Are you pregnant with twins? Like I was literally, I was trying to compare myself to every person and be like you haven't got it as bad as me and then there was just one day when I realized actually this could be like something incredible yeah this could be a great gift so at that time was this

52:53Sophie Ellis-Bextor: you know the sort of law of attraction and the learnings of that from like the sort of mid noughties did you say you were reading that so that was just sort of simmering alongside like something you would have alongside I guess you're in the doing with a very young daughter and then you're probably not were you not giving it like was anything like what it takes up in your life now it was a youtube channel and i grew to hate it because the lighting having to put makeup on this is what i hate about podcasts these days i'm so glad that you're like a purist with this because so many people film their podcasts and then they talk about oh look at this and i'm like it's a podcast i can't look at this i love that i could just do it in my dressing gown i love that I could just do it with no makeup on.

53:34But I really did just start it because I wanted to help myself selfishly and I wanted accountability. I thought, I know this works. If I start a podcast, I can share the journey. Have to do it. Show up for it.

53:47Sophie Ellis-Bextor: So when did that start? What year was that? It was like 2020, probably in the summer. So proper mid-lockdown. Babies not born then? No, not yet. And I took one week off when they were born. What? I'm pretty proud of myself, yeah. um but yeah it really so many people messaged me and say oh my god your podcast saved my life I was gonna say I bet you had this click of doing the first one and getting these really lovely responses and then it just yeah it was helping people yeah it was really helping but I was always like no you're helping me like you've saved me sounds like kitchen disco for us yeah sort of thing of just finding those people that's why I said about community it's amazing what a tonic it is for yourself and just the ability to have a you know people to share things with it's such a like human desire I think yeah to have that connection particularly if the reality with the babies in the buggy and the other mum you'd walk around and no benches and it's a lot to it's a lot to lose out on that contact it is and also like even now you know I live in a countryside village my office is in my house and you know what's wild I've been doing this five years I don't feel lonely I've never felt lonely because every day I'm talking to my audience and they're incredible I mean you must feel this when you meet people who's that guy that was on the in-betweeners the one I can't remember his name the actor the one who does really well with um oh gosh my brain that's cruel I can't think uh not Simon Bird there's another No, you know, the one with the haircut.

55:23Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Yes, James. James something. Yes, him. I always remember seeing a thing of him and they were like, what's it like to have like fans? And he was like, it's fucking amazing. Everywhere you go, people are pleased to see you. And that's how I feel when I meet people. They're always like, oh, I don't want to interrupt you with your children. And I'm like, this is the highlight of my day. You're my people. Like, talk to me. We've got shared trauma. And it's, yeah, it's incredible. Yeah, and it's energising, I think. It makes me feel topped up, actually. those sort of interactions sometimes you think that person doesn't realize how much that's really pepped me up actually just having a nice little comment or something that has resonated with them I love that very much as well um and so with your sort of daily life and I'm thinking for me as well what would be a way to and how does how does you how does it manifest you're manifesting so everything in the book I wanted it to be something that mothers could realistically do in their life.

56:20So it's not talking about adding anything new in that's going to take up tons of time and energy. This actually came about because I was reading a book. What is it called? The 5am Club. Have you ever read that? No. Clearly written by a man who does not look after children. Is it like how much you can achieve in the morning if you get up at 5am? Journal, meditate, exercise.

56:39Sophie Ellis-Bextor: I was like, absolutely not. Meditation would send me back to sleep if I'd got up at 5. Yeah. I mean, it's 11 o 'clock. But also, if you are co-sleeping, breastfeeding, any of those things, like none of these self-development books, which I knew worked, by the way, they were amazing, but none of these mentioned childcare or responsibilities. They were all written by men. Well, Headspace, when there's those little people needing you. I mean, we've had to lock my six-year-old out of the room today. So I very much know how hard, especially during lockdown, actually, for me, the headspace thing was that was really tough I felt like I had nowhere to go that was just for me I've really struggled with that so I think yeah you're right that that perspective has not been I don't think well represented it hasn't it's never been talked about before Penguin initially wanted me to do a book that was just about manifesting and I was like nah I'm not interested because it's been done so many times before I want this to be something that women pick up and they're like oh my god this is this is something that i can apply into my life yeah so it talks about things like like we talked about earlier like setting goals for the season of your life if you feel incredibly trapped by a part of your life right now and that sounds horrible to feel trapped but that is how many women feel yeah look at how you can turn that and use it to your advantage there's also parts about like your home being like setting up an environment for success i'm a massive fan of this i think your home environment or your environment in general can either be your sanctuary or it can be a massive source of stress.

58:10Agreed. And so many people, you know, they talk about if there's lots of clutter around, how it actually raises your cortisol, your brain. You can't think about what you want to do because you're like, oh, look at all the mess. So creating an environment that actually helps you achieve your goals rather than hinders you on a practical level, but also like an energetic level, dressing for the life that you want, but also like really practical things like the law of attraction. I think anything that you want to incorporate into your life thrives on consistency and routine. And what do children want?

58:41Consistency and routine. So things in the past I found difficult to implement on my own, I find when I involve my daughters, it makes it stick. So every single night when we go to bed, I say, what is the best and worst thing that happened today? It's what we do every night now. And if I forget, they certainly are like, mum, what's your best and worst thing? and we do it every single night. Something else I love doing is crafting your vision. So when my daughters would want to just paint or draw constantly, they'd want me to sit and do it with them. But of course you're thinking, I've got to take the washing out, I've got to do the dinner, I've got to do this, that and the other.

59:16It can be hard to like switch off and do it. So I started to just draw my dream house. I would just start drawing my dream house and I'd do what I wanted the windows to look like, a pool in the back garden, this, this, this, you know, a blossom tree. and I would just draw it and paint it over and over. So the children have got me there. I'm present, I'm connected, I'm painting with them, I'm getting involved. This is what I mean by sometimes I feel like it feels almost like too basic, but for mothers that every day are confronted with laundry piles, endless crafts with children, these are real tangible things that you can use in your life.

59:51Another thing is, talking to laundry, I discovered like the cognitive break of mundane tasks. so like a lot of my work is very like high octane in terms of like thinking power you know i'm having to think like right i've got research this episode or i've got to do this i've got to do that i've got to read this i've got to learn this we rarely get a chance now to just have a cognitive break so like meditation ain't got time but did you know that folding laundry uh unloading the dishwasher they can all be classed as meditation it's doing something with your hands that doesn't take yeah mental flow state yeah so once you start to take those tasks and you think rather than thinking oh this is taking up all my time i'm resenting doing this i don't want to do this instead you think this is my mindfulness time let my mind be blank and actually your creative ideas come to you

1:00:41Sophie Ellis-Bextor: so much faster yeah i love all those ideas especially like the one you spoke about the with the craft idea because i think it also connects you to a part of your brain that you can really switch off which is that the one we encourage our kids to have all the time with imagination and positive thought you know what do you want to be when you're big where do you well you know what tell me about your future that you imagine for yourself we encourage it with our kids all the time but sometimes we don't really play like that for ourself what do I want for myself what am I thinking here what do I if you know if I'm not anchored by anything where do I see it going that's such a powerful thing and really a really wonderful way as well to to re-engage with that side of yourself I think especially if you are in those early years bits where your head does feel so full and you're micromanaging things all the time so I think that's I think that's a really really lovely idea and do you think that I suppose with your your daughters you're seeing it in real time I love the best and worst thing as well I should do that with mine that's a nice idea and encourages them to sort of think about their day differently and share things that they might not normally share if you just say how did that go or how was school or whatever might have happened but sort of engage with their emotional response to things because the best thing might be something that you're really surprised to hear you know which is really sweet as well um how do you find it with your your you know because we were talking we started at the beginning you're talking about that lady um put a comment about your actually i think you said it's a woman i think it's a woman who said the comment about you know you being away for five nights how do you navigate that because you mentioned attachment parenting and co-sleeping and so these are obviously like you know part of the like very tactile parts of your life and how are you how do you give yourself the permission with the work are you good at that I said this is someone who struggles and also somebody goes away a lot so no judgment over here it's very hard isn't it like the struggle I don't think ever ends so I find one of my like real practical things I do is every Sunday I plan out my week in advance now I know this is very basic but I never used to do this I didn't know what I doing from one day to the next.

1:02:40And it sounds mental, but I do literally schedule in quality time. I will write in there quality time. So on a Monday, me and the girls, I don't have to think about emails. I don't have to think about work. I don't have to think, oh God, I've got to be doing that. No. Mondays are just for us to be together. And it gives me that headspace just to think, I don't have to do anything till Tuesday. Like there's no obligations. And so scheduling in times where I'm very, very good at not looking at my phone in front of them. And that is a conscious effort all the time well done um that's good yeah but it's hard but i have to do it um but it's just yes scheduling in those block times where i say right these are the times where i am in mum mode and i'm just doing that yeah but i think it's also really important for them to see that i have needs and i also have desires not just needs like i don't need to do everything

1:03:31Sophie Ellis-Bextor: but i desire to do it and you're working hard to achieve these things as well yeah to follow the you know the momentum yeah I love the fact you talk about money as well I don't think that comes up often enough I think there should be more more chat with that and I don't think we're always encouraged to celebrate our successes either I think culturally we're not very good at knowing what to do with success sometimes actually yeah um and I think talking about that thing as well and success um breeds success too doesn't it so the more you put out about the things that are doing going well the more it can attract people going well okay well it's understandable that that might happen for you they sort of see it more for you if you're putting out there yeah diminishing things all the time oh do you know what there's an amazing book uh called brag better by meredith feyman i read it years ago and she said you have to brag about your success so i remember when i was doing the spray tanning anytime i'd do a celebrity you better believe my website changed their picture went straight on there and like literally my email signature would be like celebrity spray tanner to this person this person i put it everywhere i you have to brag about your achievements because they'll just get lost yeah it's a noisy world it feels like you're doing something a bit um that we're not really encouraged to do but I think it's really it's actually a really good thing and I do think it's cultural I think like in Britain we're not not brilliant at it usually especially as women yes well yeah celebrating ourselves in general I feel like you know something I have changed in recent years and I love it is I am not blessed with ex-partners who will say to the children you should get mama birthday card you should get mama Christmas present Mother's Day I don't have that right it's fine it is what it is so for a couple of years I went just having nothing on these days and then it was my daughter Laveau who's actually my youngest daughter saying why do you never get anything that you don't get birthday cards or anything like that and I was like you're right so she sounds like a sweet soul She is an old soul.

1:05:30She's named after the voodoo witch. Who knows what she's going to be? And I started buying myself very bougie presents for Christmas, birthdays, Mother's Day, and I would start to celebrate myself. I thought if no one else is going to do it, I will do it. I will literally buy myself a Mother's Day present. And it only took one year of doing that. And they now create incredible celebrations for me. so at eight and four on my birthdays and christmas and mother's day i have to stay in bed they go downstairs they make like a hospital bed for me it's the weirdest thing ever made out of like soft play and blankets they make a hospital bed they get a bottle of rosé wine fruit they put relaxing music on for me they make me all these things and then they're like come down mother wow and i lay there and i think god that's one year of modeling how i deserve to be treated and if someone else isn't going to show you, I'll show you how I deserve to be treated.

1:06:23And it's taken one year and they now treat my birthday and Mother's Day as they should, like the queen that I am. I love that. It's amazing. They've got so little to give

1:06:34Sophie Ellis-Bextor: and they give so much. Well, I suppose as well, you've already, you've demonstrated to them what I think becomes the biggest thing you can give people, which is time, tension and time. So by having that Monday, by having the, you know, the things you put in place has been common but that will that's very valuable yeah I do think and maybe that's also why you're not squeamish about talking about money because you've you know once you've got to the place you need where you can live comfortably you can also just start to be like right this is actually where the moral compass you know what I want to really indulge is the the actual main focus which is attention and time and listening to each other do you know what people have said to me so many times when I've been like I'm so overwhelmed I'm so stressed they're like you could have a full-time nanny why don't you put them in nursery five days a week why don't you have an au pair but for me this is something mothers will always encounter no matter how much money you make or how successful you are you cannot outsource motherhood you cannot outsource love and so we shall continue to struggle because you can't can you like you can outsource child care but you can't outsource love so it is a constant struggle of like there's certain times like during the promotion of this book I'm not there to pick them up on their first day of school I'm not there that that's something I'm gonna have to come to terms with but it means that there's gonna be other times where I'll be there abundantly more than mums that work nine to five yeah because I've created that life for us so I use this I say the same thing to my kids too yeah it's like waves isn't it it's like not a straight line it's like sometimes I'm not gonna be here sometimes I will and it'll be amazing and we'll be in Dubai yeah and it also means you're teaching them about the things we've been speaking about about about the emotional resilience and about the framing because it means that they're not going oh I feel really sad because my mum's not here today they're going she's not here today but because of what she's doing we'll have other ways to do other things so we I try and encourage that as well I think I think if you work in in an environment that's not structured and where you're basically picking your own you know make it bespoke then I think you you have to like find your way of building in some sort of I don't know narrative with the family that works for you so that you're everybody's feeling kind of their needs are met including including yourself sort of thing but also I do feel like as well when people sometimes say like oh don't you feel guilty leaving the children I'm like can we just remember I'm a single mother with a single income like household you know what I mean like can we remember this like lots of mothers people like don't you feel guilty I have to work life is expensive like yeah I just find it funny like do people say that to men I don't think so no there's a whole different I mean yeah that could be a whole other hour of of our chat and probably part of the reason why I started this podcast as well because I was feeling yeah the questions would come but also I really like hearing from other women who have had to deal with similar things similar issues dealt with lots of stuff and are still very committed to family life but also want things for themselves I think it's really helped help me yeah sure well like you said about you want your children when they're older to still like not respect you because they're going to respect you but be impressed with you as like an adult as a human I don't want my children to just see me as I was a martyr I was a caregiver and that's all I did my daughter went as me for world book day last year what a flex what an iconic move which daughter is this the oldest one she said she wants to get i got on amazon i got a blonde wig as fast as i could and she went as me and i was like wow like that's i want to have that incredible sweet it is so cool but i often think about you know we're always oh i don't want them to grow up i can't wait until they're adults and i can say girls we're going to new york do you know what i mean like i look forward to that adult relationship and I want to be a fully formed human not someone who lost themselves completely in motherhood I might be wrong but do you feel at this point you've kind of got for yourself the the pillars of what you needed or is there still a lot of kind of you know visionary things you're thinking of for each day of where you're hoping to get because it feels like you've done so much very quick quickly but with with what you've managed to achieve like thinking back to you know you're describing lockdown and new babies and and how bleak it felt at times are you still thinking for more things there's more there's more I feel like this doing it for mothers I feel like is my calling because there's so many people that say oh my god this stuff works but I fell off the bandwagon or my child got ill or I didn't have the time and I know that women have the power to create a life of freedom that's essentially what it is is freedom and so I want to turn this into a tv show manifest like a mother like queer eye but just for mums oh yeah go in sort their house out sort their wardrobe out make some scheduling changes so they feel more supported and more free and then start to do things they love it's the small things that will make such a massive difference yeah I suppose you're talking about the mental declutter really and then and a physical one yeah yeah yeah okay well believe it We actually did one here, but it's quite hard to tell.

1:11:54Sophie Ellis-Bextor: I did. I did it with Dilly Carter. Oh, I love her. Yeah, so do I. We did it from this attic down. Got rid of so much stuff. I've still got so much stuff. How long ago did you do it? Like earlier this year. Wow. Was it amazing? Did you feel amazing after? I'm only laughing because it's like a bit sheepish. I mean, you have come around during summer holidays, to be fair. There's some stuff everywhere. But yeah, I absolutely loved it. And if you open like drawers and cupboards, they're in a really good state. Wow. We didn't really have time to do what's on top of the cupboards and on top of the sides because it was too busy going through.

1:12:24Sophie Ellis-Bextor: All the electrical cables, old photographs, admin, everything. Everything. Yeah, literally attic down. Wow. It was good. I'd have loved to have been here for that. And I'd have just had a little carrier bag out for anything I wanted. Do you know what I mean? Oh, gosh, yeah. Can I have that? Don't worry. Behind the sofa, there's probably some things left. But I think, yeah, I love the idea of the TV show. because also I think sometimes those stories can be so those people can feel so invisible I think oh yes and I mean it sounds like you touched the sides of that when your babies were born particularly your youngest two and you know you spoke about what do you call it singleton oh the grief of not having a single baby it's it's real when I first found out I was having twins I cried for three days I couldn't leave my apartment like I was just crying it was awful because that's you know when you imagine having a baby just like how you imagine like what it might look like or if you have a girl or a boy sometimes you don't want three children as a single mom like i didn't want three children especially not two at once um i've talked about it quite a lot and it does get like mixed but the the multiple mums know what i'm talking about oh no i i have i have a i've got twins in my family my brother and sister on my dad's side are twins right and i could see how overwhelmed they were when they were born and how these very wanted babies um but just it's hard i think they would probably say it was very hard to enjoy those early bits because it's all about just getting things done all the time and keeping up with stuff the feeding all through the night obviously and like not no rest um so i've seen like firsthand the intensity you know the love yes all those things but it's it's full on and and another one as well so yes not dissimilar they have an i have a sister on that says we're a bit older right So they had like three under three.

1:14:09Oh my God.

1:14:10Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Yeah, and it's full on. It's the intensity, but also I don't have any memories of either of them. So like, you know, like you'd have a memory of like sitting on the beach with a baby in a sling and the sun's setting and you're like, oh, this is a lovely moment. I don't know who that was. I don't know if that was Reva Oliver. I don't know. I have no memories of either of them at all. Not one. The only memory I have two weeks ago, my daughter Reva and I went to a festival to see a fake Taylor Swift and Chapel Rhone. And she's nearly five years old. It's the first day I've ever had out with her on her own.

1:14:41I don't know who she is on her own. It's bizarre. And it's, I know it's quite a niche thing to talk about because not everyone will understand it. But yeah, twin like grief is a lot, I think, for certain people. Some people love it. They embrace it. Octomum, bet she loves it. Not me.

1:14:59Sophie Ellis-Bextor: no but then I think well firstly I like the honesty of it but also I think it's a good example as well of when we spoke about when they rang up and said oh we got it wrong it's actually girls not boys but there wasn't a phone call to say it's not twins it's one and you still yeah deal with it right like there's just like there's things that come with the things we don't plan for ourselves and we think that we don't want that now you would never oh yeah yeah so I think that's actually I quite like the yin and yang of that actually yeah I think if you're open honest about one thing it's okay to shine light onto the bits that people don't talk about as much but I know resident I mean as I said I have first-hand experience so I know I know that's absolutely it there's actually a part in the book where I actually say in there like I've written this and deleted it five times because I don't ever want I've got to cry at least once I'm such a crier but I don't ever want my daughter's to read something or hear something where I'm like, I didn't bond with you.

1:15:57I didn't really want, like I didn't, I struggled with this and I was trying to find an escape from caring for you. And then I put it in because I was like, do you know what? My daughters are most likely going to be mothers. And I think to not talk about not bonding with your baby or twin grief or whatever it might be, even gender disappointment, people have that. I think to not talk about it is doing such a disservice to mothers everywhere. So there are some very honest bits in there that I know that they will probably have questions when they're older but I feel like they need to know

1:16:25Sophie Ellis-Bextor: yeah and also this is like the future where they've also had all the years and years of what your relationship is about oh yeah nothing to fear oh they're my favorites now there you go well thank you so much thank you for the book I'm gonna get stuck in do you think I'm a manifester from what I've been I've been speaking about it I think you are honestly I just feel like the fact that you started following me and I'm not saying that I was the creator of this, but I'm just saying the fact that you were like, oh, law of attraction. Yeah. And then literally a couple of months later, your song from what, 20 years before?

1:16:57Suddenly was like everywhere. Oh my God, did you manifest it for me? No, I don't think I manifested it, but I'm just saying, maybe even if you consciously... I've got an album coming out as well. What can you do for me? But I just think, don't you think? Like, I think that's a prime example of someone could say like, well, there's no way that song is done. You're never going to get anything more from that. And then all of a sudden, all these 20 year olds

1:17:17Sophie Ellis-Bextor: are singing it in clubs like what i do think you have to be open to things for sure i think you have to be don't complain show up get on with stuff be open to opportunity 100 and i think you have to really seize and enjoy the the good energy that comes along with unexpected adventures i would definitely agree with that and actually while you're speaking i always remember firstly um practicing my signature over and over and over at school thinking one day i'll probably need to sign things which is a bit of a cheesy thing to admit but it's true my girlfriends would be like yeah I scribble over their maths books and um I had a bit of paper where I drew um the outfit I'd like to accept my Oscar in so there might have been a little bit of uh manifesting I mean I sort of shifted my attention a little bit but I think little me same vibes though same vibes what you wore to Glastonbury with the tassels oh yeah that's good so you've still got that you didn't declutter it did you thank god no you've got to wear that to your funeral i don't know somewhere yeah amazing that'd be i mean they'd be trailing out of the car they i dropped those everywhere i had them all different colors and i will hook you up you you deserve to have one of those things oh my god yes i do you're right thank you

1:18:40how lovely is Francesca and how absolutely uh what's the word what's the word I'm trying to

1:18:49Sophie Ellis-Bextor: say when you catch something infectious that's the word how absolutely infectious is Francesca's positivity and I have thought a little bit about that whole manifesting because as I said in my intro, I think there's a lot of crossover between Francesca's perspective and mine. But I think the main thing is, it's always good to hear people talk about the ways they have turned their lives around and what has worked for them and then passed on that knowledge to others. And I've got a very good friend who is absolutely a manifesto and I can see how it's transformed her whole perspective, her whole outlook.

1:19:27Sophie Ellis-Bextor: So if that is something you're more interested in, her book Manifest Like a Mother is out and it's absolutely got Francesca's brilliant tone of voice, where she wants good things for you, and she is a great example of what manifesting can do. Her life has been totally turned around, and it was a joy to talk to her. I think I struggled to find the word infectious because I've just completed a three-hour signing in Birmingham HMV, so my brain cells are a little bit rinsed. It was so lovely to meet everybody. do i was informed at the end that i signed things for 324 people so thank you so much if you're one of them um it's really tricky with the signings everybody's queuing up and i know really like you know no one wants to have to stand in a queue for three hours but from my point of view it's so nice to meet everyone and hear their stories and see what fun bits they brought along for me so yeah thank you for everybody who's been seeing me this week and all your stories and all the memorabilia all the trips down memory lane I've loved it right I'm off to Nantwich tomorrow I've got BBC breakfast Tuesday I'm in Kingston oh tomorrow I'm in Brighton Wednesday I am doing Lorraine and then Thursday I am off to Scotland I've got Edinburgh signing Glasgow for some singing and then Friday I'm celebrating my mother's 70th birthday what a week alright lots of love thank you so much for joining me again for the podcast series whatever this is is go got some lovely guests lined up for you have a wonderful wonderful week and thank you for lending me your ears and your time let's love

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