Ep. 103 Channelling Self-Worth for Success: Building Your Dream with Tash Oakley

0:06This episode has been a long time coming. When I tell you I've been wanting to have Tash Oakley on for years, she's definitely been one of the people I've looked to for inspiration from kind of way back in the beginning. She's one of the OG influencers, but the way she's used her platform and monetized it into a business that has now lasted over a decade is really, really incredible. And no one can deny that that is incredibly impressive through so many evolutions of the industry. as the co-founder of the internationally acclaimed brand Monday Swimwear. I think it's pretty much fair to say that she has revolutionized the industry, both in the way that swimwear is marketed, but also their kind of attention to detail, their knowledge of viral content, the way they've been able to build this community and be one of the first brands that really thought of brand as community.

0:59For example, as part of this, back in 2012, Tash and her best friend Devin started a blog called A Bikini A Day, which was inspired by their love for swimwear. the blog exploded into a hub for lifestyle and wellness content and eventually then saw them found Monday. Tash is someone I've always looked up to and especially considering she's been in the industry since when I started which I started in 2015 so the industry has changed so so much since then and more recently she wrote her book Excessively Obsessed which was designed to be a practical read about the reality of entrepreneurship. She very much doesn't mince her words and we have obviously got that in common but I particularly love and loved in this interview that everything that she said about the reality of entrepreneurship not just in like how you progress and how you create your career and how you get to the next level and deciding whether entrepreneurship is even for you but also the level of personal sacrifice that you not only need to be happy to make but that you need to set out to make she talks about selfishness as almost a prerequisite to successful entrepreneurship which I don't think is controversial when you think of an entrepreneur as a man but I do think that we all find that a little bit uncomfortable when we think of entrepreneurship as for a woman and even when I was listening to her speaking about this I was like oh you know that's like maybe slightly controversial maybe people won't like that and then I was like of course it's not controversial at all you build your business your business is likely to take over your whole life and you are likely not to be the best friend ever not to be the best girlfriend wife like whatever it might be and our roles as women are often thought to include so much that it is impossible to be good at all of those things so we find it quite controversial where someone says actually this is the one I chose like I chose my business and this is why and this is what that practically looks like so I thought this was such a refreshing and honest conversation about that in particular and I hope you really enjoy The market's uncertain.

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4:29Thank you so much for joining me. It is so nice to meet you in person. I've been following you in a huge fan for ages now. Thank you. Honestly, I feel like it's one of those ones where like, you know, those people who are constantly like coming up on your feet, like you're one of my, you know, when they go like most shown in feed. Really? You're all over my feed. That makes me so happy because I feel like that is not the case for so many. So I always ask at the beginning of the episode, whether you feel like at the moment you're more working hard or hardly working? Well, I've actually just come from my vacation.

5:00And so I've been hardly working for the last two weeks, which has been really nice. I had a week completely off work. So important to do a couple of times a year and something I've started to do more recently. And then, you know, obviously available to everyone outside of that. But yes, I'm feeling very relaxed. I've just remembered you went to Greece, didn't you? Yes. Your Greece trip. It was It was crazy. So good. It was like my husband's family is from a really small island there called Kithara. And it's so beautiful. Really like true real Greece. Like not touristic or very laid back. So we go there and that's where I like to switch my phone off and just literally leave my phone at home and just completely detached from everything.

5:41That sounds amazing. Greece is really special. Yeah. No, it's like the crystal blue waters. Yeah. Yeah. It was crazy. you well I was very much looking at that and I like I'm pretty sure I saved multiple locations so I want to go straight into like the beginning because I feel like that's always very useful to find out a little bit of context on like you where your drive comes from where your ambition and kind of view of success comes from you say in the introduction to your book that you've always kind of dreamed of being a businesswoman. Where did you get that inspiration from so young? So growing up, both of my parents were entrepreneurs.

6:23So my dad, he actually was a private detective. Everyone's always like, that is so fun. Has he stalked exes for you? No, he hasn't. I feel like the detective skills have come to me naturally. Uh-huh. So I haven't knew him. I actually have no connections, but actually I have some good detective skills too. Yeah. So he was a private detective. My mom was in real estate. She had her own real estate agency. So she actually went into real estate at a really young age and was also, you know, a really driven and passionate and intelligent entrepreneur. And growing up after school, I literally, instead of going to after school care or, you know, wherever, I would be in my mom's office.

7:04And I swear I felt like the most important person on earth. I was like nine years old behind the reception desk, typing away, stamping things, doing literally nothing. But I just felt so inspired by her, how put together she was, how she looked after us, but then was going to work every single day in her pencil skirt and her blazer. And I just really looked up to her and thought she was such a boss. Like to me, there was nothing more amazing than being a businesswoman. And obviously having both parents being entrepreneurs, there was no disillusion to what was involved in running a business and you know how much went into it so yeah I think that exposure from a young age just it's not that I necessarily knew I wanted to own my own business I just knew I wanted to be a boss yeah no I think that's so I think it's so funny because like the amount of people I've spoken to on this podcast who their views of success are so clearly influenced by what they saw at this young age like for me I just thought because I would take the tube to to to work every day as a 12-room show um so I would take the tube to school every day and I would look around and in London it's very different from like in the US where actually so many different people take the tube like as in you you could have like a CEO taking the tube you could have like as in it's there's a lot of use of public transport because it's the best way to get around yeah and I remember like I would just look yeah and I just look around at all these people in like suits and like rushing around and I it just felt so glamorous to me like I literally used to look at them I used to try and like see on their like lanyards like which where they worked and where they got that type of lifestyle me like on the central line being like I want this lifestyle um but honestly it's so funny when you think of like how those different views of success were formed yeah because for me now whenever I'm like rushing around London like going from one thing to another and like getting in a cab and getting on the tube and like dressed up nice I'm always like this is success yes this is it you feel like you're in your purpose you knew from so young that that's what success looked like for you and for so many different people that is so different you know and I think having that exposure from a really young age is something I was really lucky for and it's not something that everyone gets you know my parents weren't super wealthy super successful they were just average normal you know entrepreneurs and business owners and they had the highs and lows as well and experiencing that alongside them.

9:32And I always remember that when I was driving in the car with my mom when I was little and she would get on a work call and you know, when you're little and you guilt your parents about everything, you're going away. You hate me. You don't love me. She would be like, I've got a work call. And I'd be like, what? You don't want them to know you have children? And now I'm like, but I, it was so funny because I'm now like, obviously that would have been unprofessional for us to be in the background. And, you know, especially as a business woman, you want to be taken seriously. You can't have your kids screaming in the background.

10:00I mean, these days, actually, it's more, you know, people are more open to those sorts of things. But back then it was definitely her trying to prove herself. And I just would have to sit there through hour long, you know, conversations in the car hearing her work calls. So I think all of that, I was absorbing it from a really young age. You know, I never went to college. I don't have a university education. So that really was the beginning of my education. And it was really unique to have that insight and really important, I think, for me as a businesswoman now. Yeah. No, I can imagine that was like hugely formative.

10:32You also moved around a lot as a kid. Like you kind of moved countries, including from Sydney to Miami. Yes. How did moving to the US, I guess, impact those aspirations? It was huge for me. It really broadened my horizons. At the end of the day, Australia liaison island. I was always really, in everything I did, even in school, I feel like I was always very unapologetically myself. I was always very confident in who I was, but I was also always very driven as a person. And I didn't really align as much with the laid back kind of Aussie lifestyle in that way. In other ways, yes, I'm a beach girl.

11:15I love all of those things. But I feel like going to the US broadened my horizons and also made it feel like the US is my backyard as well. Like expanding a business into the US as an Australian, as someone from the UK, from anywhere else in the world can be super intimidating because it is such a big market. It's so foreign to so many people and it can just feel like really intimidating. But growing up there for a part of my life really made it feel like home to me and like my backyard. So when it came time for me to move there, it didn't feel scary. And when it came time for me to open a business there, it was like, LA is my home.

11:51It's my backyard. What's the big deal? I didn't feel intimidated by it at all. So yeah, I think traveling when you're young is extremely important, even just for your self-esteem and realizing that there's more to the world with bullying in schools and just everything that you go through as a teenager and as a child. You need to know there's more out there. There's a whole world out there. There's people out there that will resonate with you and just feeling so stuck in the place that you're in and narrow-minded. And it can be horrible for some kids to feel that way. So for me, knowing that there was so much out there in the world to explore and to discover, it was exciting for me.

12:29Yeah, no, I can imagine. And what was your first job? So my first job, I was 14 to nine months. The second I could get a job, I got a job. It was at a bakery. And I swear once you start working at somewhere that you like love the food, then you like never eat it again because you're like working behind the scenes with all the food. it just really changed things for me. And then I held sometimes two jobs at once and I was all every at the Westfield more the local Westfield more I worked at like every single store in there. And yeah I just loved the feeling of independence. I feel like my mom was pretty strict and anything I wanted I had to work for myself like nothing was given to me as a child or even in my life in general.

13:12It was something I had to work really hard for. And financial independence, even from when I was 15 years old, it just felt so good to make my own money, to be able to buy what I want to buy, not to have to ask anyone for anything. So yeah, that was definitely the beginning of me being quite hungry for more in terms of my career and in terms of making money. Yeah. It's not about having some big job early on in your career. I do think that the earlier you're able to just understand the way kind of work correlates with finance and independence and all of those things I do think is has always been a very interesting correlation between different people who have done different things on this podcast especially as a woman right I feel like a lot of women you know do give up their finances at a certain stage in life and I have so many friends who you know their husbands are the one kind of managing the finances and they're like, oh, I have no idea.

14:09But I feel like for women and for our self-esteem, it's extremely important to have an understanding of those things, at least at a basic level. And also just so good for your self-esteem. I feel like all those little things that you check off your list, even if you're working towards, you know, I feel like in school, you were probably the same. You knew what you wanted to buy. You'd work towards it. When you bought it, it was like a little self-esteem booster, you know, like I did that, you know, and it was like just all the little things that add up to you feeling accomplished even if they're not big huge accomplishments like probably what we're both experiencing now right no I completely agree with that you obviously then moved again you moved to Hawaii after high school why did you decide to do that so well I moved to Miami when I was younger then I moved back to Australia for my last high school years and in Australia we have a thing called schoolies I don't know if it's the same in the UK.

15:03I know what you mean. It's like the, I don't know. When everyone graduates year 12, they go and do schoolies. And I was like, I am not going to schoolies. And I think I just had a friend in Hawaii that I basically was like, I'm going to do a trip with my best friend to Hawaii. I went to Hawaii and I just completely fell in love with the place. It's such a random thing, like to be like, I lived in Hawaii, but I really did fall in love. The people were so sweet and open-minded and so supportive. And also it was just literally stunning. Like every day that I lived there was turtles and rainbows and butterflies.

15:36And it was like living in a dream, which was short-lived because you can't live in that dream forever. Right. So I lived there for two years, but yeah, once I went there, I just thought I need to come back and live here. And then, you know, that was kind of my transition, um, a good little transition into what eventually became, you know, LA for me and my career. It was a nice little stopover. And what type of work were you doing in Hawaii for those two years? Oh my God. So I was working in video production before I left Sydney, one of my many jobs. And when I moved there, I tried to open my own little production company.

16:12And to do that, I had to work several jobs just to fund it, to buy my cameras, to buy my iMac, all the equipment. So I was working as a lay girl, which is actually the girl that walks around the restaurant with the lay flower necklaces and sells them to people. And then I was working at Hula Grill, which was one of the restaurants there. And just, it was actually the best experience. And even in those little silly jobs, if I was a lay girl, I was going to sell the most flowers. You know, I was going to sell the most lays. It's so funny, but I feel like anything I ever did, I wasn't just looking at what my role was.

16:46I was looking at how the woman that ran the lay company, how was she running the company? How did she manage all the girls? If I'm in a restaurant, you know, how is management managing the payroll? How does the POS system work? How do the reservations work? I think being in any business, and I talk about this a lot in my book, you are getting direct, you know, exposure to the ins and outs of business, how it's run. And I think if you can pay attention to that from a young age, it's really valuable. And you should look at your job as so much more than a paycheck. Yeah, I do think that curiosity can get you so far when it comes to just, like, there are so many jobs out there, like, so, so, so many different types of jobs, different types of industries, different pros and cons to all of them.

17:32the more open-minded and curious you can stay in order to be able to genuinely just absorb as much information about different jobs and the lifestyles they lead to and you know the hours and whether they're on their feet or at a desk and all of these things to me it just feels like a no-brainer when it comes to really working out where you want to get to absolutely and progressing within your career if you're just staying in your lane and you know not really thinking outside the box That's great. And that's, you know, great for some people. But for those that do really want to progress within their career, like, for example, my little sister works for us at Monday now.

18:09I would not have hired her unless she truly was amazing and working her ass off. But she comes to me for advice and says, how am I going to progress with my career? She's 22 years old. I said, don't just do your job. Ask your colleagues, can I have some time, ask them questions about their role? I said, when you're in team meetings, you need to understand every single person's role in the company. The design, the production, the logistics, like just think outside of your role so that if you're in a team meeting, you understand anytime anyone's talking about anything, you know what they're referencing.

18:40You never know how it's going to come in handy. You never know what role is going to spark your interest in what you're going to move into. But also if you want to be the leader of your, you know, sector that you're in or the position that you are aspiring to be in, you're going to need to know all of those things. So I think really, you know expanding your mind I talk in my book about you know I always see workers as three different types of workers and I think of it as like a six-lane highway in Los Angeles and there's the six lane the three lane and the one lane and there's room for everyone and I love every single type of working style but the one laners they're in their lane they're not able to think outside of the box they've got their checklist they're going down their to-dos and that is perfectly fine they clock off at the end of the day they're not really thinking about work beyond that and I really respect that.

19:28And then there's the three-lane workers. They can work a little bit more collaboratively. They can think outside the box a little bit. They might take some risks, but they still need management. And then there's the slick six-laners, which I imagine you're a six-laner. From what I can see, maybe even like a 12-laner. They're switching in and out of the lanes. They're collaborative. They're working with everyone. They can take risks. They don't need praise. They just want financial recognition and raises and things like that to praise their work rather than you needing to handhold them. I think that working up those kind of into those different three lane, six lane positions and being able to see, you know, a company from a wider view is really valuable and really important and something that is actually really hard to find.

20:15So I think being aware of that, you know, from an early age is a really amazing skill set and something that you know not even you can learn in university it's just something that's you know you you learn in the trenches yeah I think that it first of all I think that's a very very good analogy and I also just think that we get taught so little about career progression and like it is very much a kind of self-learned topic and talking to other people about their careers and all of this what i do think that we've maybe misserved the generation that's just come into the workplace with is this assumption that you decide to be a lane sixer and you get to be one purely based on that decision and purely because you want to progress or you've been somewhere for two years or whatever it might be and this is what i say to everyone who i start working closely with who comes into tarla or whatever it might be is that you get out what you put in and if you don't want to coast progression wise you cannot coast execution wise so you have to decide that you are going to go above and beyond and you are going to learn everyone else's role as you say you're going to know in a meeting when someone's saying something what it means and why that's part of their role you're going to bring ideas to it you're going to speak up you're going to execute like all of these different things and I think a wish to progress without that the knowledge that that is part of the action that's needed is quite harmful because Because it doesn't set you up for success.

21:44Yeah. And honestly, I'm guilty in so many ways because I don't have the time. I always say if you're constantly filming your behind the scenes of what you're doing, you're not that busy. Because I literally do not have time to showcase what I'm doing on a daily basis. And the meetings that I'm in and everything that I'm doing as a CEO of my companies. But it also means that I'm selling this lifestyle, which was kind of a part of my earlier career, that doesn't showcase everything that goes on behind the scenes. And that's why I decided to write a book. I was like, a reel or a podcast is not going to be enough to describe the ins and outs and the day-to-day and what is involved in running your own business.

22:20And with regards to, you know, your career, if you work for another company, a big thing that I talk about in my book as well is, like you said, how to be a good manager, how to actually create a good, you know, ethos and culture within your company. And, you know, I talk about the different lanes and how I see my workers because I respect that everyone has different work styles and I'm not going to sit there all day, you know, trying to force someone to do something that they're not made to do. I want to really celebrate people's strengths, but that is a luxury that not every employee has. Someone who actually cares, someone who actually wants to help them progress in their career.

22:56So there's two sides to this. There's, you know, the employee who, you know, yeah, on social media, they're not really seeing what is involved like I did growing up with both my parents owning businesses in the day-to-day. how hard it is, how much work is involved. And maybe they're not passionate about, you know, putting in that hard work. And then on the other side, it's the company's, you know, role to help foster an environment of learning, growth, you know, allowing people to be passionate, allowing people to put ideas out there. And I'm sure that that's something that you do within your company.

23:28I can just sense it from the way you speak, you know, but that is a rare thing in itself as well. So I think my, you know, the whole point of my book is really the dream these days of being an entrepreneur is well and alive more than ever. You know, it is the dream to own your own company, but it's not for everyone. It's really not. It's like, in fact, a very small percentage of people are going to be happy running their own business and even smaller percentage are going to be able to succeed within it. So I think that being able to really know the ins and outs ahead of mortgaging your house, raising money, whatever it is to get your business afloat, I really want to create awareness before someone gets to that point as to what is involved.

24:15Because I think that the beginning is very exciting, isn't it? But then it's like, wait, where is this business going from here? Am I keeping it forever? Am I planning to sell it? What is your prerogative with the business. And then once that excitement kind of wears down and you're just working seven days a week and, you know, have no time for your family and friends. And it's an idea that you weren't really that passionate about and you just did it for the money. Like everything changes very quickly and your life can become, you know, miserable. I think it's like almost haunting people, this feeling of wanting to like be their own boss and have their own company and this idea that they might have.

24:51Like they go, oh, everyone tells you an idea that they have for a business, right? But, you know, the willingness to execute it, the work that it takes to get it to the level that you want it to be at. And even when are you actually even going to take a wage, you know, like for the first four years of Monday, Devin and I didn't take a wage. So I think there's, you know, from an employee perspective and a career perspective, there's a lot of, you know, misinformation out there and there's a lot of smoke and mirrors going on. And then also from the perspective of owning your own business, I don't think people really know until they get into it what's involved.

25:27And yeah, I think it's important to address those things, especially in this day and age of social media. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think the headline really is there is zero obligation to choose that the sooner you know which you want and what you want for your future, the sooner you can get to where you want to get to and really build like a solid, secure base, whatever that looks for you. Exactly. And I think even not on just a career level, but even on a personal level, I think that people are looking for this fulfillment that sometimes they think is going to come in the form of having their own business.

26:01But for some people, they recognize that fulfillment is being a mom. You know, for some people, they recognize that that fulfillment is having a passion project on the side that's not for a financial gain or, you know, doing charity work or whatever it is, maybe it's picking up a new hobby or a sport that you become obsessed with. And I think then very easily you can recognize that, okay, that was something I thought was going to make me happy and fulfill me. So I think again, yeah, the sooner you can recognize the path that you want to be on, and that's why I felt it was so important to write the book is because I'm like, if I can just help someone get rid of the head noise of like, no, I think I want to be my own boss.

26:37And like, you know, that sounds great to me. And that that's the life I want. I mean, some people have literally given me the most ridiculous reasons for wanting to start businesses, you know, that I'm like, that is not going to help you when you're working at 11 o 'clock at night on a Sunday to actually like enjoy what you're doing, you know? So I think the sooner that you can recognize that both personally and professionally, the more peace that you'll have within yourself and within just direction in your life and knowing like we're lucky we found that direction early on. And we were so, you know, set on what it was that we knew we wanted to do.

27:10But that is something that a lot of people take a really long time to find. Yeah, no, absolutely. So let's talk about starting a bikini a day. When did you meet Devin? So we met in, I think it was 2010 when I was moving to Hawaii. We actually met on Facebook or maybe it was Facebook, not MySpace. It was that long ago. I know. So all my life is just based off social media, basically. We met on Facebook because I moved to Maui and she saw that I was hanging out with her friends and she was like who is this new Aussie girl on Maui and she just reached out to me and we started talking about a guy and then we ended up Facebook Skyping and then we became best friends so then when I was um visiting LA from one of my trips from Hawaii I said can I just come and stay with you and I just will never forget the day that I pulled up at her house she's waving off the balcony like so Devin and she could have been a serial killer yeah she really could have been so brilliant that she turned into a co-founder and best friend yeah absolutely so then when I moved to LA a couple years later after my Maui stint I said to her can I stay with you until I find my own place and we were in her tiny little one bedroom studio apartment the two of us for like four months sleeping in the same bed every single day I thought I was going to move out and eventually we just said what are we we kidding ourselves like we're not going to be like going back and forth from each other's house we just need to find an apartment together so then we moved in together um and I had my production company which I had started in Maui I just ended up having a bunch of swimwear clients so Devon was in college at the time and she actually started um assisting me on the shoots for these swimwear clients that I was doing like videos and photos for um and they were kind of going to us you guys are the ones that should be in the bikinis and we were like no but we were actually like shooting them in swim you know um and so then when when we started our instagrams we we were just posting like the cali girl lifestyle down at malibu we went on a trip to mexico and i think everyone at the time was just posting like a coffee cup or whatever like the most basic stuff on social media but we were posting our trips and us in swim and our lifestyle and so people really started to love our friendship and our lifestyle and but there were also some of our friends that were like can you please stop posting in bikinis because at the time no one was doing that.

29:29And we were like, it's actually so funny that we're always in swimwear because, you know, growing up in Maui and Sydney and Miami, Hawaii, like the whole lifestyle, California was just all about swimwear. And so one night on the couch, I was just like, you know what we should do? We should post a new bikini every single day and call it a bikini a day. Anyway, we started the next day. Never would you think a bikini a day was going to become what it became. and that's what I love so much about our story is it started so organically it was just like I think these days that everyone on social media is like how can I grow my following how can I become an influencer how can I do all these things and there's part of me that's like just do what you love and if it organically takes off then roll with it but if it doesn't don't force it don't try to become something you're not um and for us it just took off overnight we became like you know, the largest marketing platform in the world for swimwear and people were aspiring to have their suits featured on the site.

30:28We were shooting in a really professional way, obviously, because of all my production background. And yeah, designers just started reaching out to have their swim featured. And we just ended up wearing, you know, bikinis 365 days of the year. Sounds pretty great. Yeah. I don't know what I'm doing here in London. But obviously, like this is right when Instagram was starting to, well, it was when it was starting to exist but you know the beginning of it taking off was really the birth of the first influencers I guess. When did you because obviously making money for doing the production side that would have felt normal I assume because you know it's a role that you're giving them that already exists.

31:08Yeah. When did you start making money from the Instagram posts themselves? So the second that we started a bikini a day I drew up a terms and conditions and it was a hundred dollars for a post so we started making money at the day that we started a bikini a day um and I don't think we personally had made any money before that but I just knew this is a business it's a service yeah knowing me I took it very seriously you know Devin like she's more of the fun free-flowing um beautiful person that she is whereas I'm more of the like oh if we're doing a post like someone's paying for it. So it was a hundred dollars a post.

31:46I'll just never forget it. And yeah, people were all really interested and immediately started reaching out. And it was back when there was no swipes, you could only do one post. So for us to feature the suit, we had to do one of those collages. Love. And one square was the butt from the back. One square was the top. The other square was like the whole suit. And then there was like a detail shot. And the look of it, it was so cute now that we look back and I'm like that was adorable you know it's just changed so much since then but yeah we just started charging immediately and when did you start noticing that it was really taking off also like kind of immediately because back in those days if you would make the explore page you would immediately get like 10 ,000 followers overnight so the first time we went and we made the explore page was in New York and I just remember we were screaming because one of our friends was on Instagram and saw that we made the explore page and we were like oh my god like it was just so crazy for us at the time so we just grew exponentially like people were so interested in what we were doing you're talking about the og influencers i remember all the girls that had started back then like ruminelli and army song and all the u.s girls that ended up you know becoming close friends of ours that at the time i remember we would really look up to them and be like oh wow and then immediately overnight we kind of became them as well and i I started my personal blog and we were just working, you know, nonstop on shooting, creating content.

33:12Eventually it made sense to let go of my production company and just focus on what we were doing. No, that's crazy. Like it's such a, it's such an, I can't imagine what it would have felt like at the time. Like coming across a gold mine whilst it also being something you're like incredibly interested in and fun and working with your new best friend and being able to like travel the world. Like that must have just suddenly been such a dream come true. It was. And there was people, I remember a really, you know, a businessman that was a friend of my family's that I kind of told him about a bikini a day and what we were doing.

33:44And he was like, I think you should go to college and not be doing this. And it wasn't even that we knew where it was going. It wasn't that we knew he wanted to start us when we're aligned. It wasn't like anything to do with our future. And that's the beauty of that age is you can just have fun with something. There's no pressure. And I really loved that about our story, that we didn't have that pressure that a lot of people are feeling these days to become successful, to do something, to be something, to make a ton of money. We just were literally having fun. Like we were two best friends. We loved bikinis.

34:16We were in the sun. We were going down there shooting every day. And we were also working our asses off. We were hustling. I remember being up till once we started our blog, 2 a.m. every single night, doing every single blog post. We were talking about our fitness routines and our beauty and lifestyle posts and travel blog posts and working with hotels. And then we started traveling around the world. And like, I'm exhausted just talking about it. Since that started in 2012, like we have not stopped for one day, but it was so fun. It was something we were so passionate about. And it was just like, everything it's turned into is a huge bonus.

34:49But I also talk in my book about, you know, that tiny apartment we lived in, those were some of my favorite days. Like I remember when we moved into our apartment and we bought our fridge and it was like the most exciting thing on earth and the fact that all of those little things were so special to us and so exciting for us is like that's what's beautiful in life like my Instagram bio for years has read appreciate the little things and the big things will come and I'm all about really focusing on your small wins because the more momentum you build and the more that you just appreciate the little wins and give yourself a little pat on the back along the way I feel like it's a snowball effect and it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

35:26And throughout our careers, we've just maintained this crazy momentum of like never stopping and just always following our intuition and following what makes us feel passionate and what makes us feel good. And we've just luckily like navigated this crazy industry of social media. You know, 12 years later, we're still here, which is pretty crazy. And turned it into something which I think is really special. Yeah, no, absolutely. It really, really is. And we spoke briefly before the episode started about how, like, you've built something with real longevity out of something which people thought was inherently short lived at the time.

36:05But at the same time, you already had something that was working well, that somewhat would have had to change for you to start Monday Swimwear. So can you talk me through the thought process behind the idea and also how you knew that a bikini a day was going to have to evolve to accommodate that? Yeah. So Monday was, again, so organic. It was also just the name. If you're in a bikini on a Monday, you're having a good day. It was all about the lifestyle we were living. And at the time, it was so blatantly obvious. It was like a red light flashing in our face. There is a huge gap in this market.

36:46Devin is a triple DE cup and she could never find a suit that fit her well. We would literally have to kind of hide the sides of her side boob and make the top look like it fit for us to feature swim on her and all the girls were looking to her that had the larger cup sizes for whatever Devin wears I know I can wear and at some point we were like this just isn't right we need to start our own brand again we didn't aspire to be designers we didn't aspire to be in fashion we didn't even know we were getting ourselves into really but we just dove into the deep end and started our own swim company because we were so passionate about it we knew there was a huge gap in the market.

37:22And yeah, it was also just something we obviously really needed ourselves, which all the best things come out of necessity, right? But yeah, like you said, we're so particular with what we wear, how we want it to fit. At that point, we were two and a half years into a bikini a day. So you can imagine we probably wore like close to 2000 swimsuits because we didn't just wear the ones we featured every day. We tried on several suits just to know what suits to feature. so we were just wearing thousands and thousands of bikinis and the fact that between all of those bikinis or all that swimwear we couldn't find something that actually just fit right or that made us feel like confident like sometimes we would find a really good suit but it would be in the most horrific print or it would be from like a brazilian brand and it was just not our vibe but the fit would be amazing we'd be like god if if only everything could be like this but you know timeless and classic so when we created Monday it was all about changing that experience that every woman has which is such a negative one of putting on swim and feeling uncomfortable and feeling not good about yourself which is such a big thing to attempt to change because you know it's just a worldwide thing of like oh trying on bathing suits is the worst experience you can have so we set out to really change that you know we created seamless designs every single part of the suit is adjustable over the shoulders around the back.

38:43We get a lot of messages saying, can you do a clasp back? And we're like, no, because just because you're a G cup doesn't mean that you're not a 32 bust or vice versa with an A cup and a larger bust size. How can you create, you know, these kind of one size fits all bust bands with clasps at the back? So we just wanted everything to be really adjustable, seamless, comfortable. It, you know, complements your body and fits to your body rather than the other way around and you having to fit into it, which was the experience we were having most of the time. So luckily, I think we accomplished that.

39:17And I think that Monday moment of trying on, as I'm sure you would have with your customers as well for Tala, when they finally go, oh my God, finally. Like we've had people crying in our pop up stores because they're just so happy they've finally found a swimsuit that they feel good in, that they feel confident in. And then their customers for life, like our return customer rate is 50 % for a reason because everyone just keeps coming back for more. And once you find your perfect fit, like you're not going anywhere else. Yeah, no, I completely agree. And I agree with all of that when it comes to building product in a problem solving sense and going above and beyond to make sure it actually delivers on all of those.

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41:22Learn more at capella.edu. you. At the start of the brand, I can imagine because your background wasn't in sourcing, I can imagine it was probably quite hard to find like where you should be producing them. How do you like find the factory, all of these different things. How did you even start when it came to that? Just asking a million questions to every single person I know, my mom, my dad, all my friends, like everyone I'd ever met. And eventually you kind of find your way. Like it takes time. It took us a year just to even get our first samples. It took even longer to really nail down, you know, like the collection and what the brand became.

42:03But I think that going back to what you said about the foundation of the brand and creating something with longevity, we always knew that we wanted the product to speak for itself. And anything I ever start, like very innately from a young age, I just knew it's really important to have a strong foundation. I'm not starting something that's just like, I want to start a business and make as much money as I can and sell it overnight. Firstly, my name is on these businesses. So I need them to be really strong from the foundation up. I need them to be something I'm proud of. I am held accountable for every part of the business and everything that goes on within it.

42:38So, you know, us creating a really strong foundation from the beginning was super important. And that's why we went for organic growth. We didn't raise money. We didn't want to, you know, progress that quickly because we actually wanted to just take our time with our growth. And I think that that really shows in the company that we are today, a decade later with Monday, because for us to survive through that 10-year period, which, you know, 70 % of businesses have closed down by that point, we really needed that strong foundation and we needed to maintain just that gradual growth, expanding the business, expanding the range, but always taking so much care along the way, every step of the way.

43:15It's also like in business, you really do need to be okay with taking risks, but it's better to be taking those risks when, you know, the outcome of the risk is smaller. So, you know, and you're not having to deal with these huge numbers, like you're saying, and the pressure of all of those things. And you can just focus on the product itself, your team, building that team, creating, you know, a community around your product and all of those things. And then once you've really got that foundation strong, it's like, okay, now we're at the start line, let's go. It's a race. Like, but just in the beginning, I think that a lot of people these days, you know, with us talking about the illusion around or disillusions around, you know, what it is to be a business owner and all of those things, I think that, you know, that's really that Steve Jobs in his garage, you know, moment that you don't want to skip that.

44:04You really do want to be in the trenches. You want to do every job in the company so you understand your company inside and out. And I think just as, you know, quickly as a business can grow these days, it can end 10 times quicker. So I think it's really important to understand that those early days are essential for every single business. Do not skip them. Do not attempt to skip them. Embrace them, if anything, and just enjoy them. It's the same as thinking because I do think you're completely right with that. And I do think social media has had a big part to play. And I think that the same thing is to be said for becoming a content creator, for example as you said earlier you can't do the content for the sake of the brand deals you have to do the content first otherwise it's you're not going to be an enjoyable person to follow and that's not gatekeeping it's purely based on the fact that actually it has to be content first because social media is a content platform and therefore if you're just going for the brand deals then it's not going to work but I do I think on top of that when it comes to like running a business it feels like you would skip those stages because you want to get them out the way whereas in reality, the only way you get to step two is by doing step one.

45:09Like you have to go through it to be able to deal with it and to be able to build on it and to like be at the standard you need to be at. Yeah. And I think in this day and age, it's more important than ever to really understand your customer, be doing something to improve their life. You know, marketing has completely changed over the last decade or over the last 15 years to being about someone wanting to buy into a lifestyle or a product or a brand and being more about what can you do to improve someone's life? What are you going to do to help them with their time management or help them feel good about themselves or all of those different things?

45:45So in this day and age, you really cannot be selling a product that is not firstly amazing and then maintain like a business that has longevity. Like when I talk about our return customer rate, you need to build a business where your customers keep coming back. You need to build a business where they'll even continue to spend more and more money because they trust in the product. And if you don't have those things, where is the future of your company? So those are things that we've always really focused on really, really early on. What would you say some of the mistakes that you made early on were?

46:17I think obviously we had production issues just like you. I remember an entire shipment of black swimwear was running and all the dye was running off the suit. So we didn't have black swimwear for six months, which was very early on in our business. And all of those little production things that especially and specifically being in fashion that you have to learn very early on were huge things for us. I think the big thing with when people say, you know, what have been the scariest moments or what have been the biggest mistakes or what have been the biggest learnings? There's been so many along the way, but I don't ever really think of them in a negative way.

46:51So for me, it's all just part of business. It's not personal. we just keep rolling with it I mean even just navigating through COVID as a company was a really really difficult time you know and I think that every single one of those little mistakes or pitfalls or you know what other people would see as difficult moments for me were just an opportunity to learn how to navigate that scenario and then expand my knowledge as not only as a business woman but you know as a brand as to what to do in those scenarios I think that you can't really say and I never would have written my book if I hadn't been through so many different scenarios that I've had to personally deal with to give other people advice when everything's just been smooth sailing and, you know, someone's funded your business and done the work for you and you can't really sit there and say like a lot of brands, you know, that are female owned publicly have someone else running them behind the scenes.

47:44It's either a private label. I mean, you're probably one of the only people I know who are actually the one running your business behind in the scenes, you know, and a lot of other people, it might be their partner or their best friend or, you know, it's a private label or white label business deal. But for me, I take a lot of pride in, you know, the fact that I have been the ones to navigate, you know, the company's future on behalf of the business. It's on my shoulders. Every single one of our 40 employees' careers is reliant on me navigating what I need to navigate with the company. So I think that just, yeah, taking all of those learnings and seeing them as opportunities is so important.

48:27And it's something I've always done. Yeah, no, I completely, completely agree with that. And you've spoke there about your 40 person team. I'd love to know what for you were the inflection points in key hires so specifically people that you had to hire that created a good growth trajectory for the business yeah so all of those bigger hires for me have been more recent I you know have always been extremely involved in every department of the business and um I'm I'm involved in the design I'm involved in the finances I'm involved in you know our marketing and PR I'm involves now social media, I'm sure you are exactly the same way.

49:09But it does come to a point in the business. And I've always been so great with hiring and delegating and I've never spread myself too thin. I always know that I need to be in a position to be able to see the company as a whole and to see its future. So therefore, I can't be caught up in day-to-day admin, which is a mistake a lot of business owners make. And I've always put myself in that position through hiring great people. But more recently with the team expanding, hiring my general manager was a really, really big and amazing moment for me. And then also other hires that were, for example, we would just have our small team kind of manage all of our events.

49:45And then we hired an amazing girl, Amanda, who worked for Burberry and other companies over the years to run all of our events. And that really took everything to the next level. And then more recently, I've hired my art director because no one got the vision except me and I was having to run every single shoot and I really wanted to find someone that just got it like I do. And then, you know, obviously having my general manager, Britt, who is just an absolute gun and can be, you know, in the trenches day to day managing the team and also giving the team the attention they deserve. I talk about, you know, allowing people to feel like their job is a potential career and not just a job, but that takes good management and I can't be that person for everyone.

50:25And I recognize that, especially having multiple companies. So those key hires have been more recent, but it has created like, it's a pivotal moment for us where we've spent literally like nine years or eight years just building our foundation. That's what we were doing. We weren't, you know, you know, we weren't gunning for aggressive growth. We weren't getting greedy with, you know, how much money we were wanting to make or our revenue. And now we're really at a point where I'm like, okay, It does feel like the start line for us because we've got all of our ducks in a row. You could say we have the dream team, the products where we want it to be.

51:00And now it's like, okay, now we can really aim for that more aggressive growth. And the potential is obviously enormous. And Monday is a global brand. Our biggest markets are the US, Canada, UK, Australia. And, you know, we're looking at the UAE and France. And I just know there's so far to go with it. Yeah, absolutely. And I do think that it's so funny there because I think that people will listen and say, like, you're at the start line, like you're 10 years in, like, please, like, where am I then? It usually takes some good time for you to be able to like properly take money out of a business.

51:34And I think until that point, you, you're not getting the money and it's like, it can be really. And you're like, wait, I thought I was going to be killing it and I would be my own boss and I'd be, you know, doing whatever I want. and then you realize the harsh reality of what it is to own your own business. And also that as a business owner, your role is forever evolving. You know, you start out as like customer service and shipping and packing and like all of those things and running the social media. And then, you know, from one day to the next, you're the CEO and you're managing a team. And, you know, there's so many things that you need to continually be learning and working on yourself as, you know, the owner of the company.

52:14You can't just expect everyone to kind of, when I talk about those things like working styles and the fact that everyone has different communication styles, you can't just expect everyone to fit into what it is that you want them to fit into. At the end of the day, your business is only the business it is because of the people that work for it. And you need to cultivate those relationships. And all of those things take time. You know, I think if you want to be happy in your business, if you want to be fulfilled within your business, you need to take your time and you need to realize that you are going to have to evolve as a person within that business.

52:46And so is everyone else. And it's not just an organization that's there to make money. It is something that's almost like a living and breathing thing because there's people involved. So I think, yeah, knowing those things from the beginning and something I also talk about in my book, which is super important, the last chapter, which actually the publishers really wanted me to include because I had a really horrible experience with long COVID and burnout myself. And I was down and out for almost a year and a half. And I was so concerned that that was the way I was going to be forever. And it's really that health is wealth thing where all I really care about is my health.

53:20So when I lost that, I was like, I was just so sad and it was just such a horrible time. But I think that that chapter, I didn't realize how important it would become to me as well. Just talking about the idea that we want to do it all. And especially as women, we want to do it all. And there's so much more that we need to think about, even just with regards to how we look or how we come across or having children and like balancing everything. We all know that like we obviously have so much to be considered when you want to have your personal life and your career as well. And I think that recognizing that you can't do it all is really important.

53:58And, you know, we take on so much when we're passionate about our businesses and it just keeps piling up and piling up and piling up. And at some point it's going to break you. So you have to be aware of the fact that you could experience burnout and your company can literally, you know, turn into nothing overnight because you are the one steering the ship and you need to be healthy and well and feel good and be happy. And it's a full circle thing where it's like, that's why you need to love what you're doing because it is going to be hard. So you need to be able to manage to stay afloat and also give yourself love and respect yourself and the other people around you.

54:34There's just like the book, I wanted to write a whole book because I was like, there is so much to be spoken about that is not being spoken about. I'm going to have to write a book just to even be able to, you know, just even to be able to address slightly all the things that I want to be able to talk about with regards to business ownership. And when it comes to things like burnout and making sure you have those parameters in place so that you're not pushing yourself so hard that, you know, I think there's definitely this false narrative that if you're pushing harder and harder, it's always going to be better.

55:07And as we've said, in terms of like burnout you know sometimes you're spinning the wheels like you really are spinning the wheels and you just need to like take a step back and have your boundaries in place and that doesn't mean not working really hard because if you're having a business like the likelihood is you're not going to work any normal hours but what do you put in place to ensure that you do keep healthy and able to push forwards at all times yeah I think that's such a great question because asking any entrepreneur to slow down is like almost impossible. You're not going to slow down necessarily, especially if you're in your twenties or, you know, just early thirties and you're wanting to work your ass off.

55:46And if you're like me or probably like you, where you like literally love the adrenaline of your career and I like thrive in those environments. I love high stress environments. I like, that's my time to step up and shine, you know, and I love it. I genuinely enjoy it. But that doesn't mean that my body can keep up with it. And especially being, you know, 34 now, you start to really feel the effects of it. So you have to have those little things to manage, you know, day to day. And, you know, in my book, I talk about different methods like the 2020 rule or just breath work or sitting back in your chair, recognizing, you know, specifically as women, our hormones and what our body needs from us and the self-love that we do need to give to ourselves because we are built differently and we can't handle that high cortisol, constant stress, constant adrenaline because you will literally get sick from it and it's not healthy.

56:37So, you know, for me, it's really about doing breath work or, you know, not taking the call in the car in between the meetings and actually taking a few minutes to bring it all down, bring down your adrenal levels and your parasympathetic nervous system. And once a day, every single day, whether it's a meditation or a 10-minute nap at some point in the day, whether it's in the privacy of my office or in my home, I will literally meditate for 15 minutes and I bring every single thing down to zero. And I think as women, it's so important to bring it down to zero once a day. You cannot run in that adrenaline state all day, all night, and then just sleep and hope that that's going to be enough for you.

57:17You need to, at some point for me, it's around like three o 'clock, four o 'clock, whether you just sit in a room on your own on your break and just bring it all down to nothing. Don't be on your phone. Don't be speaking to anyone. I think it's really, really important for our bodies. And I think it's something that, again, is not spoken about enough. There's this girl boss thing going on. You know, we all want to be like those boss bitches. We all want to have the career. We all want to be living in that momentum, in that career adrenaline. But I think that our health is number one and it needs to be spoken about just as much as all these things that you can do to progress within your career.

57:53Yeah. And I think that there's the balance as well of like, I think as part of that, you know, everyone wanting to have the career and also, you know, being this boss and flying around everywhere and all of this, like it's about working out what aspect of that you even enjoy. Do you want it because you want it or you do want it because you want other people to see you have it, I think is very important to bear in mind. Yeah. I think most successful people, I think you would agree, they're selfish, but I don't want to say selfish with a negative connotation. I think that when I moved to America, when I was 19 years old, I moved away from every single one of my family and every single one of my friends.

58:33And that meant that I didn't have all those, the pressure of family obligations and friends' birthdays and things that I, you know, if I was working, I would have burned out a lot sooner if I had to try to maintain a really intense personal and social life and schedule alongside my really, really intense career that built up so much momentum and was having the snowball effect. I couldn't have done it all. And honestly, recently, you know, when I met my, who is now my husband, and I started to try to do both because I was wanting to be with his family and his friends on top of my friends, and I was trying to do it all.

59:08And it really, I got to a breaking point because I was like, I can't do this all. And I don't want to feel guilty if I'm letting someone down. And the people in my life need to be understanding of, you know, how my life operates, how I need to be able to be healthy and successful. And I think a big part of it is women, we do feel guilty taking time for ourselves or saying we're going for a massage or, you know, we always have something to prove. But I think that knowing that those moments are only going to better enhance your work ethic and the longevity of your career because you're taking care of you is number one.

59:45And it's so important and there should be no shame whatsoever around being a bit selfish and being prioritizing yourself. You know, I think for me, my mom always brought me up saying never rely on a man. Always, you know, be your own. I've never put my career in anyone else's hands. I've always, I've never had a manager for my social media. Everything I've done is within my own hands and I'm navigating it personally myself because I don't like the idea of relying on anyone else for anything else because I do think majority of the time you're going to be let down. And I think as women, we do have the pressure of knowing that we're going to have the children, the family, the life, the social life.

1:00:26But also So if we want to be able to maintain our career, like it's a lot to do both. And it's a lot of pressure that we are under. But I think it's extremely important for women to maintain their independence. And so that's something I've always prioritized. And I don't care if people think I'm selfish. You know, I don't care if they think it's not right that I missed out on a birthday or, you know, if I'm prioritizing myself and my career. Because I also know I've seen so many women left in the worst positions you can possibly be in because they gave all that up. And they prioritize what other people think of them.

1:00:59And they try to just be a people pleaser and make everyone else happy. And I think that prioritizing what you are passionate about, what you know you want in your life, and knowing at the end of the day, it's you, yourself, and you, me, myself, and I. That is who is going to be there at the end of the day. And everyone else is a bonus. And I have the most amazing people in my life and the most amazing husband. But at the end of the day, I want to know that like the relationship I have with myself is first. It's always going to be there. And, you know, anything I can do to improve that or improve my own life, I'll put that first.

1:01:35Yeah, I think that's really valuable. And I think that everyone will have different levels of like they'll want to be different levels of present in other people's lives. And I think that the really important thing is just understanding what you want and understanding like what you want out of this, what you want out of your business, what you want out of your work. what you want out of your relationship all of these different things because i do think that they're like we that would not be a controversial thing to say at all if you were a man like as in it just wouldn't because we have this expectation that a man's work is inherently more valuable and it's understandable why we would need to put that it's actually crazy above friendships above a relationship like whatever it might be there would be no discussion because the assumption is that that is the provider role and because the assumption is that that is what that person is meant to do and it's so funny because it's I always think it's wild when I like hear things and I'm like oh okay yeah no I completely get that but you wouldn't that wouldn't be the assumed level that you'd operate at yeah and therefore there will absolutely be people who listen and think oh god you must be then like a terrible but I don't know like I always get it it's like you know are you are you even present for like these types of things your friends things your relationship things and all of that and that would just be an assumed state yeah and I think again what I talk about in my book is recognizing that if those things are really important to you like to be honest when I left to Hawaii it was because a lot of people would have been like but what about my friends and my family and I don't want to miss the birthdays and I don't want to miss and for me it was just like I was so excited to explore the world that was what made me happy and that's what I enjoyed but for some people it's really important to be there for those key moments it's something that gives them a lot of enjoyment.

1:03:19And obviously for me as well, to some degree, I love family time. I love all my time with my friends, but I just have other interests as well. And I think recognizing that when you're looking to start a business or in your career is really important because you might find some clarity in the fact that those things are what's important to me. So I'm going to set everything else up accordingly. Yeah, no, absolutely. And knowing what your truth is and what that needs to be and you living your life and that doesn't need to be anyone else's and they don't need to agree with that. ultimately it's only you and the people you love and whether you all you know are happy with each other and before we end I always like to ask people the exact same question what is the best piece of advice that you've ever been given oh my gosh that is so hard because I have gotten so much good advice.

1:04:11I think it really goes back to really advice from my mom, which is to just be really self-reliant. I think that expands into so many categories of my life. A lot of women are not confident and they ask me, why are you so confident? And it's because I rely on myself and my own self-esteem and my own praise of my own work and my relationship with myself for my own confidence, not on other people or, you know, where I'm at in my career. I didn't rely on a manager to tell me where to be or where to go or how far I was able to go. I really took that into my own hands. And even with our business, you know, I didn't rely on someone questioning certain things we did.

1:04:58I've just always taken everything into my own hands. I've always been super self-reliant. And I think that people come and go throughout your life, whether it's your best friends, whether it's employees. And I think that that relationship with yourself and having a really healthy relationship with yourself and then that spreading into every area of your life is so important. So I get so much confidence from knowing that I've got my own back at the end of the day and that that's the most important relationship to me. It's so funny. We're literally the same person. I know. That's why I feel like we could talk for five hours.

1:05:33It feels like we're really cutting this short, doesn't it? I know, it really does. Maybe we'll be able to do a part two. Yeah, that would be fun. But thank you so, so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. Congratulations with everything. Thank you. And you. No, honestly, it's so great to watch. And I've loved watching it for years. And it's just, I love watching people go from strength to strength and really evolve. Like it doesn't need to be the same thing. It doesn't need to be the same level. it can be up it can be down it can be like just you're constantly pushing and evolving and i really love to watch that oh thank you

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