Ep. 66 Lydia Millen: The Inside Story

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0:58Hi friends, Grace from the Working Hard Podcast here. When you're stretching every dollar, a little goes a long way and Walmart Business is here to help. They make it easy to order what you need from tech and cleaning supplies to everyday essentials, all at low prices and with helpful tools like spend tracking and tax exempt purchasing for eligible organisations. Because when your operations are smooth, your impact can be bigger. Visit business.warmart.com to get started. You've had a few controversies online. I don't know what you're talking about. The Lydia Millen has been blogging for over a decade.

1:27Lydia's story is full of twists and turns. She has often stayed quiet on this and very, very rarely does interviews. My palms are really sweaty. One of the things that I think I've struggled the most with communicating online is my childhood. What were you like back then? I've heard that you spent summers in Ibiza. I had a job at Ibiza Rocks, Plastic, Eden. I would go from one job to the other and then I'd go out and I'd party. Where do you think that desire or enjoyment of earning money came from? For me, it all links back to I learned really early on that I couldn't depend on a lot of people.

2:00How do you deal with the criticism? I've been on the receiving end of cancel culture. See, I've lost count of how many times I've experienced it. I'm not about to feel sorry for myself. Do you think you have like an online persona? Such a hard one, isn't it? Failing in the way that I did, I didn't know how to cope with it at the time and it floored me. I didn't know enough. That's the long and short. I have never felt shame like that. If you could do it all again, would you be an influencer? I think that...

2:35What is up guys and welcome back to Working Hard Hardly Working podcast. Today we have Lydia Millen on the podcast. With a combined following of over 3 million on social media platforms, Lydia has been blogging for over a decade. Lydia began her journey in 2011, documenting her outfits as a student. Then after a crucial repositioning towards kind of high luxury content. This expanded into huge online success for her blog, YouTube, and social media content. Lydia's story is full of twists and turns. She's gone from achieving three GCSEs at school to moving out of her parents' house and in with her grandmother and now building a life she says she's always dreamt of, which she shares with her followers online through her kind of opulent videos.

3:21Lydia has reflected on her past in her new book Evergreen published in October. Now look, It is no secret that Lydia has been involved in kind of public controversies in her years online and has faced significant backlash as a result of her content. Lydia has often stayed quiet on this and very, very rarely does interviews. So I'm very excited to be able to talk to her about this and her whole career and kind of her whole life online today. I consider that a huge privilege for her to feel comfortable enough to be in this space, to talk to her about it. And having done this interview, she really opens up on kind of what that's felt like, but also what she feels like she's done wrong or not got right in those times and how that's developed her as a person and as a creator.

4:04And where she thinks she can be better, but also we as a kind of culture can have a better culture towards reacting proportionately to issues on social media. I really wanted to see a little bit behind the curtain into the Lydia Millen, her life, what it's like behind this online persona, whether she feels like she has an online persona and really get into the kind of nitty gritty of that in this episode. I feel like we always try and have really interesting conversations with really interesting people and I think that it's so often kind of this idea of like controversies or cancellation it's so often shied away from and I think perhaps that's what lends it to being such an explosion when it happens Lydia's approach to it was really really open and honest today and I'm hugely grateful to her for allowing me to kind of dive into that a little bit more so I hope you really enjoyed this episode.

5:01As always, if you do enjoy it, please make sure to like, subscribe, rate, review, send it to a friend. But thank you so much. And I hope you really enjoyed this episode as much as we enjoyed recording it.

5:15Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. I'm very excited. I feel like we have a lot to talk about. And I am very grateful for you coming on here. I'm going to get straight into it. I always ask guests about their early life, their childhood, generally because I feel like it's very important in who we turn into today. So I'd love to hear a little bit about what your childhood was like. I think this is one of the things that I think I've struggled the most with communicating online is my childhood because my parents were together for five years.

5:49When they split, it was almost like two worlds happened. So my mum moved into a rented council house and my dad moved into a really luxurious man pad in Northwood so when I was at mum's house it was a very very different experience to when I was with my dad's side of the family only in the last few months I would say a year that I realized that that's actually really confusing for me because I'd explain to people oh yeah so I lived here no well I also kind of lived here and I also yeah we went to our holiday home here and but mum didn't have that holiday home so it was just it was a strange one and I think it's definitely been interesting understanding that I kind of felt like I had a really lovely experience in those first five years and then it got really confusing and I've just never really been able to communicate it in a way that even makes sense to me.

6:41Right and I think also if it doesn't make sense to you then it's very hard to communicate your kind of feelings about it and how it cemented your kind of understanding of the world because I always think that like when I talk to guests about how their understanding of the world was formed and how their understanding of kind of where they stand in that world like even as you were saying like did we have a lot of money or were we stretched or were we kind of actually incredibly privileged or whatever it might be and your understanding of the world is I mean most of the time it's developed by what your parents were like and the environment you grew up in I can imagine growing up in two very different environments would have also created two very different sides of you in a kind of understanding of what it's like in either one how did that form your kind of aspirations?

7:25I would say that the way that I navigated it was I kind of started romanticizing my life in whatever iteration it was in at the time and I think that's something that has really stayed with me throughout my entire life from you know buying my first home or where I was there in my first career to now is that I was like I kind of don't know where I am here I don't know where I am here so I'm just gonna make the best of what's here and always make the best of it no matter what situation it is it's meant that I've always felt really content and then when life gets better and I aspire to something new and I move into that stage of my life I find contentment there and I'm like this is nice this is this is more than I ever expected but buying my first home I never imagined that my mum's house was bought for her by my dad and I never imagined I'd be in that position and so I really sort of romanticized this house that was like an ex-council house where my wardrobe and I used to call it my walk-in wardrobe I could stand in it it wasn't a walk-in wardrobe but it was that was my next step that was what I was aspiring to so I was creating that happy place there in the house in the situation that I was in because I kind of had to navigate understanding where I was at that time and the limitations of where I was at that time and then hopefully aim for the next stop.

8:45And am I right in thinking you moved in with your grandmother? Yes yeah I did. Could you tell me a little bit about that? When I finished university I moved back to where I grew up. I had a quite strained relationship with my mum in the early days. I think that's kind of a girl thing but I think I held a lot of animosity to her then which I don't hold now. I moved in with her it really wasn't great and I was sort of at this point where I was like I don't know where to go I've got my job here and my grandma took me in and I think that that was the moment where I really like that was where I got focused because she's such an incredible woman like the most formidable woman I have ever met gave me structure she would listen to how I was finding my new career and I talked to her about my blog as I'd started it and she was very supportive which wasn't something that maybe I'd always got from my mum and so I had this this experience of like the mum that I hadn't had and it was a really sort of formative few years for me I think I was there for two years is where I met Ali my husband I look back on those days and I'm like wow you talk about being at university and kind of graduating and what that was like what were you like back then I know I've heard that you spent summers in Ibiza you've talked about like the difference between you then and now I'd love to hear a little bit more about kind of like what was Lydia like then Ibiza was so funny for me because I think that there's this like misconception about why people go there for their summers but I was working three or four jobs when I was there I was there to work because I loved it I loved the environment I was like a Duracell bunny I just I'd work throughout the day I had a job at Ibiza rocks plastic loads of different places and I would go from one job to the other and then I'd go out and I'd party and then I'd get up the next day go to the beach for a little bit go to work go to the next job and just do it do it like that all the time because I knew I wanted to have fun I liked making money and I've always liked making money and so that was a way of me doing two things I felt independent I felt comfortable I was earning enough money for me to be able to go and buy myself like a nice perfume I wasn't you know living in a in a flat that wasn't a nice flat when I was there and I lived a really good life when I was there so I was able to enjoy myself and I'd go home with money in my pocket and I'd go to university and I'd be able to then do my two jobs at university I think that's where I learned how much I enjoyed making money and I enjoyed that that was something that gave me a lot of purpose it gave me a lot of focus one of the jobs that I did I worked solely on commission I'd never done that before I'd worked in some fairly normal teenage jobs growing up but this was the first time I'd like it was my responsibility for me to get paid and that was probably the most money I'd ever made in my life and I was like oh wow what an experience okay so it's not scary as long as I put in the work and so it went on to affect my time at university because at university again I worked two or three jobs when I was there even though I liked to go out I liked to do the student stuff that wasn't why I was there I was slightly older as well I was 21 when I went to uni so I was working in a bar I was working at Topshop because I still wanted to live a nice life and and enjoy it.

12:03And where do you think that desire or enjoyment of earning money kind of came from what was it that it gave you that you think motivated you further to make sure you made more and compromise other things? for me it all links back to independence because I feel like I learned really early on that I couldn't depend on a lot of people and so if I had enough money for me to do things if I had all of my ducks in a row I didn't have to depend on anyone and I remember it took me a few years to pass my um driving test and so I used to depend on someone like my mom or whoever to drive me around and that just having that where someone could hold something over me I think that's where it came from that I wanted to not have to depend on anyone and I think that that's something that my husband has had to learn to really understand because when I'm in any kind of situation where I feel vulnerable I very much close down and I just focus on self-preservation whereas I think most people look outwards and look for support I'm not like that.

13:06So let's talk about the beginning of your online presence how did that come about? I think for me it was a frustrate it came from frustration because I was at university and I really wanted to be working in fashion and fashion at the time was like the girl's career goal that's what you wanted to to do and I wanted to be a fashion buyer and I couldn't I couldn't get on the course so I was frustrated I was I was studying something that was very very helpful but it wasn't keeping me inspired and I had always had websites I don't know if you remember Homestead it was like Homestead where you just I taught myself to code and I built websites and I would just write on them before blogging this is like when I was 16 so I knew what I was doing and I saw that some I think it was like the age of um Lily Melrose and those kind of girls and I was seeing what they were doing I was like right okay I can take pictures of my clothes on the on the floor not even thinking to actually wear the clothes I just like put a jumper on the floor like really like this jumper and then write about it and then I was like maybe I should wear the clothes that's great and then there was lookbook dot new which was kind of like Facebook for fashion and I started posting on there and I saw quite a big sort of uptake on that it just kind of went from there and then I was I realized I was working at this on the weekends I wasn't being paid then but I loved it and I enjoyed it so much that I kept going at it and going at it and I probably worked it for like four years before I ever got paid which is fascinating to see how far it's come now like the industry is just so different and so my audience kept growing even when I pivoted and changed my audience still grows today which doesn't happen often so I do think that it was just sort of like a natural progression but I worked hard at it I'm lucky that I come from a family of many entrepreneurs my brother has done amazing things and I always have a nod to this what he said to me was if you're not working until 2am Lydia you're not working hard enough on your business before I was doing YouTube I would be writing my blog posts and I'd pull my heart and soul into those blog posts and I'd be falling asleep at my laptop at 2am and just constantly working at it I'd have an idea for a video I'd film it there and then and I was constantly trying to be at the forefront the most content back when the algorithm really kind of championed mass content I just worked really really hard and then the job started coming in and I thought wow okay I remember turning to to my husband one day and saying like this is a really unique position we're in because we get to invest our time and see if it pays off in a monetary way we don't have to invest huge amounts of money in this and I really didn't in the beginning it was only when I had my first big pay packet that I took that money instantly and I invested it in a Canon 5D was actually the same amount of money that I put down on my first mortgage so that was huge for me and that was the first investment I ever made in it and it paid off and then I was filming videos on on that camera and it really elevated my content and I think that's the thing you have to sort of catch the eye of brands and and businesses the next thing I know I'm sat with some of the biggest beauty brands in the world having breakfast at Claridge's and I was like I'd never been I was like this is amazing now that I look back it feels like it was like a skyrocket but in reality I like I said I've been doing this for so many years that it feels like a natural progression as well so weird and your content is luxury focused what was your decision behind choosing luxury luxury is really subjective and so I thought that my first house was really luxurious we painted the whole thing white we had really lovely furniture in there that you know I managed to get a good price or whatever and so really I was just talking about the lovely things in my life and and sharing what I thought was lovely that's obviously progressed as my career has progressed but those moments of luxury is something that I didn't realize that I was doing quite naturally and and making often quite mundane aspects of life like you know doing your hair there's a way to make that a really wonderful experience and cooking dinner I always say whenever I cook a meal for my husband and I I'm like I get to cook this meal and so for me it's always been just about highlighting those elements of life sometimes and very much in my early days that did focus around the handbags the shoes the cars and whilst that's still an element I've learned that there are so much more and I talk about that in my book and it's it's very much a balance I find a lot of purpose in working earning money that's that's a lot of purpose but I may not find my happiness there or with the money that comes from that or the the things that come from that I may not find my happiness but my purpose is there my happiness comes from the other things and so it was just generally sharing that that those were the things that I enjoyed talking about the so that's what I did it wasn't really I don't I feel like we didn't really think about it as much as we think about it now as like you know what's your content strategy that wasn't really a content strategy back then it was just this is what I like this is what I'm interested in and at the time especially on YouTube nobody was talking about the handbags because it was still that very young market kind of what we see on TikTok now whereas TikTok is now in that that progression that YouTube went through that was what I did on on YouTube I was like I I kind of know that I want to watch this stuff I want to know what's you know a nice handbag to have I want to know where to shop the xyz in a month I gained 50 ,000 followers which at the time was very quick nowadays we see numbers much bigger than that but at the time that was very quick and the appetite was there so I talked about it more and I do think that that's very much what my audience enjoy they they like to to hear about the nice things some of them as an escape others because genuinely they're looking to buy something there's always a side of the audience that maybe it's not right for them and I understand that I try to to do balance I don't always do it very well but I try definitely noticed that things changed when I moved to my house that I'm currently in so whether it was the me in Ibiza or whether it was the me in my old house I think it was it was better received me talking about the expensive handbags and things like that it was better received when I was in my older house I think when we moved house it was it was very it got quite intense for a while I understand I do understand as well so it is whereas I think I'm just sharing the natural progressions of life sometimes that can be stifling for other people when I get that I think it's not easy to watch somebody change and then also maybe feel like they're at a different stage in your life the frustrations that come from that I can only imagine right whether perceived as better or worse or further along or less far along like I've had creators that I've loved or loved at university and then they got engaged and then they started families and I actually was kind of like you're not disappointed but you're kind of like oh I really related to that content and now I actually can't find that replacement elsewhere because it's actually probably one of the only industries where direct replacement is really quite tough but I think it's so interesting because it's walking a line of making sure you're evolving in your career and also your personality and who you are whilst also thanking people and appreciating that they were there at a very different time and that's going to be at the very least annoying but something you liked changed yeah one of the unique things about the industry is that a lot of the time your audience is very passionate I am so grateful for that and like part of me I often make you know I feel like oh oh God, I wish I could have stayed that person that you took so much joy in.

20:53But I can't. I am somebody who really loves evolution. And every day, I learn something new. And even just in recent years, I feel like the whole world has gone through such a huge transformation recently. And I have changed the most since we went into lockdown. That was my biggest shift. Right. And I knew that that was going to be uncomfortable. But it is. Like, growth is uncomfortable. we know the cliche sayings like growth is uncomfortable and comfort zones nothing grows there so we can all stay in them if we want to but that's not the person I am and I'd like to think that some people will take the good from showing the evolution as well just like I take the good from your evolution I'm so grateful that you do so much for women in business like genuinely hand on heart the stuff that you've been sharing recently just I know congratulations on your very big day with um is it a million pounds in an hour it was that's on like but I hope you realize that you talking about that is going to be creating a space for women where they can talk about that because I know I've never felt able to talk about my monetary wins and when I've I've never felt comfortable so the fact that you're doing that means that there are going to be women in future that feel comfortable to show up with that kind of energy this side of of you now I'm so grateful for because you make me feel comfortable in just even acknowledging so many things in my business that usually I'd be like you know we used to be so scared that people would find out how much I charged like I lived in fear that we were going to get an email from someone posing as a brand and that people are going to find out how much I charged I don't want to live like that and so when you do things like that you really are helping so many people to be more comfortable with things I feel more comfortable thank you thanks I literally knew the second I shared it I was like this is going to come back to bite me the reality is is that when you're having an amazing time in the sort of public eye it gets hot lots of eyes are on you lots of opinions and it's the same with you know the last month that I've had where I've launched my book and I knew that it was going to get hotter but I've had to learn over the years how to get comfortable in those situations and have processes in place I don't know if you have like processes in place for how you deal with it or whether you're just like, nah, got it.

23:11I don't expect it, but I also do expect it. But I also don't think I can really prepare for it. So I generally kind of roll with the punches. I know what I feel like I did right, what I feel like I did wrong. And I'm pretty happy with that. I want to, as a woman, show business success. I can't complain about the position I'm in. I do know that the negative of that is going to be the fact that it makes people very uncomfortable, whether for justifiable reasons or not. I know it will. I know that it wouldn't make people anywhere near as uncomfortable if I was a man posting about that million an hour.

23:40And I know that no one would think that was going into my pocket, a man posting about their business doing that, which it's certainly not. Even if it was, I would still have a right to post about it. But I do think that that's kind of the reality. And if you're wanting to challenge things and you're wanting to be known as someone who did some things first, you're also going to be pushing some uncomfortable buttons and you have to get comfortable with that. I like to not try and think that I'm always getting it right. In fact, I very publicly get things wrong sometimes. can I just say I'm grateful for that too thank you but genuinely though like this whole world this whole digital world that we're experiencing now where people can follow us along with things it's born because we wanted that human to human connection more we'd had the celebrity endorsements for so long and they were just untouchable airbrushed images on on magazines and adverts and the reason why this has happened and this the birth of social media in this way has happened is because we wanted human we wanted more of that so we wanted the messiness but we're sort of in a funny stage now where we kind of want the the human but we don't want the mistakes and I think that the more we share the mistakes and the failures and I think that's something that's that is happening more we a lot of people are talking about this more whereas before you didn't want to talk about where you maybe got it wrong or failed at something now we talk about it and openly and again these things make some people uncomfortable but I think that you've got to be the the person that stands up and says I'm I'm going to be part of the change and as they say first over the wall gets the bloodiest and that's what you're experiencing now I think that's a saying or I might have just paired two different sayings together to make my own yeah the market's uncertain revenues tied and hiring on hold that's why results driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving.

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26:51I know you speak in the book about kind of what people see on the outside is quite different from what there is on the inside. Could you talk a little bit more about that? and do you feel like you have an online persona? I almost feel like my online persona has almost been taken out of my hands. Like that narrative has almost been taken out of my hands to a certain extent. And I would say that I've definitely, in recent years, there's more of me now. Like on my YouTube channel, I'm much more candid and I show very much my sense of humor a bit more. I definitely struggle on different platforms.

27:23I'm not one of those people that like turns on and they're like, I'm not like that. I'm like unexpectedly funny. when I do things it just comes out no I can't it doesn't translate well quickly and on other platforms I would say on some platforms I may be perceived as almost like being like a perfectionist and perceived differently if someone wanted context around me they could definitely go and and find it I'm much better at sharing who I am and what I'm about and the things that that really matter to to me on my YouTube channel that's where you know my videos are an hour long you can get acquainted with me I think that now I need to bring more of myself to other platforms and I think that that's where there's maybe a different perception of me which I am sad that that would be because I think that there's a lot of good that I do and I work hard and I'm doing my best and I think that I'm quite open with a lot of things that that happen in life and I share a lot and I'm quite a vulnerable person I don't know how to be guarded online I don't know if you're good at that I'm not good at that I'd love to know what does your daily routine actually look like like what's a I kind of want you to make me feel better here about my personal you know the aesthetic of my personal daily routine but I'd love to know like what it actually looks like I think that I I struggle a lot with routine because my job is so here there and everywhere everywhere one day I'll be in another country one day I'll be in bed you know getting a lay-in and so I have to have structure one of the things I've learned about myself recently is that if somebody puts something in my diary in the middle of the day and there's nothing else before then I don't know what happens to me but I can't move I can't do anything until that because I'm so scared I'm going to miss it but I just sit there and I'm like I could do this I've got an hour but I don't want to start doing that so I've had to really get quite good at having a succession of things before I undertake anything in the day so that there's right okay this is what's going to happen here then I'm to do this and then I'm going to get to that so I do have to have a lot of routine and I want to give you the comfort that maybe I don't have sometimes I don't have a routine but for the most part I have to otherwise I don't get anything done and I know you share your routines quite a lot you share your um I operate like a child at school yeah I must have a timetable at all times and that is the only way I operate yeah I I know that about myself now that if I don't just even physically write it down that's I can't type it on a phone I have to physically write it in my diary and that's how I work best and I do struggle with not having a routine and not having the ability to have structure in the normal way like I would love to have like every day where I get up 5 6 a.m work out take the dogs for a walk get ready for work have to get ready for work I can't I'm not someone that can work in my pajamas I have to get ready makeup hair full outfit but then I'll have an event that evening and I might not get home until three in the morning and then the next day I can't get up until 10 o 'clock and that's my whole routine that gives me my most effective most productive days that's all gone and so I do I have to always on a Monday be quite strict to myself I have my PT session always like scheduled in on a Monday so that I kick off my working week in the exact same way as much as possible but yeah routine is is a big one but I think we hear that quite a lot I think that it depends whether you're an evening person or a morning person but having a set routine really helps but I will operate in a world where that you can't it's not like a I start work at nine and I finish at five there are no lines you've spoken about the need for council culture versus council culture could you talk to me about that a little well I think we touched on this before and how a lot of the time our response nowadays days is disproportionate to the issue at hand.

31:14I know I found myself in a number of situations where I've been on the receiving end of cancel culture. Honestly I've lost count of how many times I've experienced it. I've had to understand the human response, the difference between you know being offended and harm and that kind of thing and I've really wanted to look at this and understand it and a lot of the time we're approaching situations that should be done through conversation, education in the way that you would sit down with a friend if they said something or did something or made a mistake you talk to them about it and you'd hope that they were able to hear you out and have a conversation and instead it becomes a very very destructive environment online over things that you know most of the time and absolutely we need to hold people accountable to things when they're like crimes you know there are some really really terrible things and I don't and that's not what I'm talking about here like those are very very different the general day-to-day of life that we talked about like making mistakes failures it's in those moments where discussion reflection is really where the council culture side of things rather than council culture is needed because it's just like when you're parenting a child we've learned over the years that shouting at a child doesn't really help them much doesn't really get the message across any quicker speaking to them having the conversation and giving them the time and the reflection on it that's where children flourish and I don't know why we we can't apply the same level to each other but I do think it's just a culture that we're in at the moment and I think that that will change but it's got quite disproportionate to a lot of the things at hand whilst I understand that there will always be people that are hurt by things and that's important to acknowledge but I really like to think that we could talk about things a little bit more and as you say you've had a few controversies online I don't know what you're talking about

33:17those days where that's happened and you can probably see it boiling up and you can probably see something and you wonder whether that's going to be one that's going to go or whether it's not could you talk to me a little bit about what that type of day is like or like the feeling or what you notice or any kind of similarities is everyone kind of different first and foremost what's important I say is that I never mean any harm to anyone and I think that that's like something that I always want to like underline is that my content is very vanilla a lot of the time it's me my dogs my cat my husband me going to collect the eggs from the hens me gardening I might show you a few nice things it's very very vanilla it's not a space where I necessarily set out to ever offend anyone in fact I want people to sit there with a blanket and a cup of tea and watch my my video that's what I how I envision it in my head that's I think really important for me to say because I I never ever want to offend anyone with what I say and that really hurts me whenever that that happens because my Achilles heel is people not thinking I'm a nice person.

34:24And I've been very candid with that. Tough job to be in. Oh, yeah. And I was really vulnerable about this in the beginning. I was like, yeah, I struggle with people not thinking I'm a good person. And I think that that's potentially why a lot of the things that have happened have centered around me not being a good person because that is my Achilles heel. And so in those moments, I'm naturally devastated. Devastated because I'd never want that. that's just not the type of person that I am that being said I've had to learn also who I actually am in those moments when it's quite intense and there's a lot of opinions and a lot of a lot of the time a lot of stories that aren't true that come out and you're just sort of like oh god I'm not about to feel sorry for myself what I do is I understand the limitations of who I am as a person and I dust myself off and I just hope that I can do better in the future that's genuinely how I want to approach every obstacle nothing is the end and I kind of hope as well that in the world that we're in I always envisioned that I'd be like the sweetheart of the industry that's definitely not me um but what I hope that I can maybe be is that because this happens to so many people we we make mistakes we're human and I hope that other people moving into this space other creators perhaps they can see that there is resilience in that as well and just dusting yourself off knowing okay that was a tough one getting better doing better showing that that's what I really like to do is to just show that I'm a better person for it and it has made me a better person every single one of those situations I can promise I've always come back and I'm like wow that has made me so much better I like myself more for getting through it you speak in the book about the idea of failed projects as someone who's living online you've obviously got to be failing online could you talk a little bit about your experience with failed projects and failing online failure is something that I have only just got comfortable with I had no idea how to fail because I'd never failed like I'd never experienced that at school if I didn't think I could achieve something I didn't bother with it if I could achieve it I did my best at it so failing in the way that I did during the pandemic and I and launching my brand I didn't know how to cope with it at the time and it floored me and now I can see it as one of the best learnings of my entire existence but I wish I was more like you in that you're really good at confronting things there and then I think that that's and I have to go away and I have to dissect things I have to understand I can't do anything without understanding it I need to be able to rationalize something understand every element of it before I can talk about it and I think that and I wish I could be that person that responds in the moment and says like the right thing but I have to understand it first and I had to grieve for that project it was as much as it's been a few years I pulled a lot into that I just like anything I do I wanted it to be great and it wasn't I remember when my best friend was like you just said you failed for the first time and I was like yeah what a day yeah I had to go through the motions of grieving for something that I really thought was going to be great because you know that was what we did that was the blueprint you became an influencer you did really well at it you launched a brand and and then you think you're Grace Beverly and I'm like but genuinely I was like I we're learning now that that isn't how it works and actually I didn't know enough that's the long and short but I didn't know enough and now I know more and so hopefully I can take the lessons of that failure and wear them like a badge of honor because in the beginning it was a lot of shame a lot of shame and now it's like it's it's so fascinating to me to be able to turn something that I have never felt shame like that and now it's like yeah love that for me that was great yeah I personally had a great time there and what did you learn from that experience I learned that I am a creative and I very much need people to rein me in on that element.

38:39I also learned a really, probably the most valuable lesson is about who you work with on things. And that I have taken with me into building my team now because the ride has to be with really good people. I'd rather have a business that does all right and be surrounded by really epic people and say that we had a great time doing it than a business that's doing exponentially well and I'm surrounded by people that no one cares about each other no one's no one's interested in each other I couldn't do that I really love to be around people that I have a good time with all the time and so that's one of my biggest lessons.

39:20And so if you could do the whole thing again. I wouldn't do it. No I'm joking I'm joking I'm joking I would I would. But even looking at your whole career if you were back to 18 you're considering your next steps if you could do it all again would you be an influencer? I think I confronted that very question even just recently where I genuinely for the first time I thought am I going to keep doing this I 110 % would do it again I would and I think that the price we pay in this industry is because we had the perk of being in it early and as with any industry in its infancy there are growing pains there are areas where it doesn't work it does work we learn new things I mean we're still a completely pretty much unregulated industry to emerge to there's no like governing body of influencers we have it for the sponsored side of things but not the the the actual industry itself and so of course we're still we're still learning any person can become an influencer of anything at the moment and so it's really early and I would I love the fact that I got to experience the early days because the early days were magic before the cultures that we see now honestly I'll never forget my first event I went to it's a motel rocks event and we had a cardboard cupcake tower and I have never enjoyed myself like more and it was just amazing thank you to motel rocks who is not sponsoring this podcast I'm actually wearing motel rocks no I'm not very on brand yeah but it was it and you know what I remember because I think Lily Pebbles was there and she was uh working with is it Birchbox at the time and so she was like you know she was one of the very very first wave and I remember walking in and it was just like it was the golden age of this industry where we were in the early days the sort of awkward girls and guys that that I didn't really have a lot of friends at school at uni so I found myself online and there we were in our awkwardness at a Motel Rocks event and it was great with the cupcake tower but it was and it was simple like it was just it was lovely and so I'm I'm really happy that I experienced that side of the industry.

41:37It's not an easy thing to go through when you're going through the growing pains of any industry in that way. I do think that it will grow and it will evolve and things will get better. I'm also not one of those people that's very talented. So I was always going to do something like this, to be honest. I hate it when people can like, I said this in my video not long ago, like when an influencer can all of a sudden like play the piano or sing. I'm like, you can play the piano, can't you? You're not allowed to be talented. We're supposed to be talentless. like this is this is the only job i could have done grace okay and there you are with your piano to be fair i'm shit at the piano now it's got really down but genuinely i think that's the thing i i like i i've really enjoyed the ride the ups the downs and you've got to have the downs to experience and i've had some highs like some incredible highs i'm gonna blow my own trumpet here but like i have i've worked with some of the biggest brands in the world in my career and like i would never have ever had that opportunity i tried to be a model it didn't work so So I did this and it worked-ish.

42:35And so I've had some amazing opportunities and I wouldn't change it for anything. I wouldn't. Well, I think that's the perfect place to end. Thank you for being so honest and open. It's really clear who you are. And I think that's really important in the midst of everything. I mean, it's clear you're a lovely person who means really well. And I think that's really all we can ask for. My Achilles heel is smiling right now. Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Now that I'm starting to stop sweating. I've had a really great time

43:07thank you so much for listening to this episode of working hard hardly working Lydia I think we can all agree was incredibly vulnerable and open and as I said she very rarely does interviews so I'm so grateful to her for kind of trusting me with this conversation and trusting me in going further than a kind of profiling piece and actually talking about these specific things because I can imagine that's not easy to talk about when those things have happened. So I'm really, really grateful for that. So thank you so much, Lydia, and thank you for subscribing and listening to this podcast. It helps us to get incredible guests and to have conversations that hopefully you don't see too much online.

43:45That's really my aim after all. Thank you so much. Your business is one of a kind, so your website should be too. With Wix, it's easy. Almost two

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