Ep. 92 How To Level Up Your Life After A Break-Up With Sarah Ashcroft

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1:40What do breakups and business have in common? Just ask Sarah Ashcroft. Over a decade ago, Sarah started a blog called The Pommy Girl to help in her job interviews. Ten years later, she has over a million followers on Instagram and has built her brand SLA The Label to the point where it now turns over millions each year. Growing her business has taken a huge amount of resilience, but in this episode We really delved into how that has helped her over the last few months when she's been dealing with the breakup of her seven-year relationship If you're going through heartbreak right now and you're looking to fall in love with yourself again You need to listen to this episode I really just wanted to be able to have a bit of a chat around how Breakups shake our entire lives how to be able to recover from them how to use them to make sure that we are doing what we need to be doing in the next stage of our lives and Sarah was so incredibly open here talking about her recent breakup and I think this one's going to help a lot of people.

2:38Before we get into the podcast if you could just go and rate this on whichever podcast app you are listening to this on it makes a huge difference to the podcast and the types of incredible conversations we're able to have the types of guests we're able to get on so no it's probably something you don't think about but if you could just go rate it now or follow it it makes a huge difference thank you so much thank you so much for joining me thanks for having me I'm very honored to be here well no honestly I feel like I've been really looking forward to this conversation I feel like we are going to be like yeah probably I mean we already have been so far so that's good that's always a good start I always ask everyone whether they feel like at the moment you are more working hard or hardly working.

3:22Can I say surviving? I don't know. You absolutely can. No, I feel like this is a tough, it's been a tough year, but I'm definitely working harder, I think, than I've worked before. And do you think that's because you're like head down distraction? Because that's what I do. Yes. Yeah. I feel like I've thrown myself into everything SLA because of life and it's made me refocus and just pay more attention to things that maybe I wasn't paying attention to so I'd say yeah it's I'm working pretty hard yeah on everything I love that I do think that's it's underrated as a coping mechanism because I think that it's always seen as a bad thing then especially as women to like throw yourself into work whereas it's actually like okay well if I would give this much love and attention and everything to someone else why wouldn't I give that to building my own life definitely definitely I feel like you lose yourself sometimes and then when certain things happen it's almost like a redirection uh-huh you know yeah and I feel like that's what I'm in right now is a bit of a redirection space of life I love that like yeah no I love that let's talk about the beginning of your career what were some of the early like jobs you had or did you go straight into the blog so I had a job well one of my first jobs I absolutely loved was working as a promotional model which sounds sassy but it's actually just like you know the people that stand at festivals and hand out things yes for like brands which I think was a great job because it was like easy to an extent it was quite sociable and it paid really well because I've just always wanted to make money from a young age I was like whatever I've got to do to make more money than my friends that's what I'm going to be doing and so this job was great paid like 12 pounds an hour which back Back in the day, I was like, that's amazing.

5:09And I just loved it. And it was fun to be able to like work with brands. I also did the standard like retail jobs. But I think that's what put me off retail. Like, well, just working in general. Working in retail is like soul destroying. Like it's literally like the graveyard shifts that you do. And like the busy periods and Christmas. It's like, I feel like everyone should work in retail once in their life to really make you appreciate people that work in retail. I know, I agree. Although there's actually one of my friends who always says that her retail job was her favorite job ever. and she hates the fact that she's had to get a job a different job after you she's like okay she's like I just loved working at H &M she's like can I not I have never ever heard of anyone who loves a reader but I do think as I said I do think like I've just got this respect now for anyone who works in retail because it's hard it's like a rite of passage especially when you're a girl who like wants to work in fashion I feel like everyone's dream was like to work for Topshop back in the day wasn't it and I remember girls who did get the job at Topshop and used to be like or like Abercrombie I mean that was a whole other thing but you know I mean I worked at Monsoon Accessorize so you know we weren't quite up there but I was happy with it you were happy with your I got like 70 % discount which I loved at the time I was like because it was expensive back in the day so yeah I did a lot of like those sort of little jobs but I just yeah I was just like anything to make money yeah no absolutely and when did you so talk to me about starting the blog how that came about so I started the blog after going to the fashion retail academy so I didn't go to uni I knew it wasn't going to be for me because I wasn't academically clever and I also just didn't fancy doing another three years of education I was a bit like I wanted to go more for the social side and I thought if that's why I want to go maybe I probably shouldn't do this so I but I knew I wasn't quite ready to go into adult life yet so I went to the fashion research academy did a year there and then left and wanted to work in fashion PR and then when I went to all the job interviews they were like do you have a blog and at the time I was like what the hell is a blog because it was I mean this was back in 2012 13 I think it was and so I started a blog so that I could be when I was asking an interview I could just say yes I've got one and then yeah within like six months I was able to monetize it and then that's when I realized okay there's something in this and then it just kind of grew from there yeah because that was like you were one of the absolute OG yeah so I do feel like I've been around for a lot it's like 11 years or something now yeah because I remember when I because I started in 2015 and that was like I don't know that was a little bit into it like there was always already like the Zoellas yes you were already around like all of this and I remember you were very much like in that I remember like your misguided edits and I remember being like oh my it's so funny because I've always talked about the fact that like there was this one turning point about like three four years in where like my biggest goal had always been like a collection with PLT or something like that.

8:01And I remember, and you had like all of the collections and I was so, yeah, I was so jealous. And I was like, oh my God, this is my, like that is like top, like top, top, top success. That was literally, I would like, oh my God. Isn't it funny though, how like back in the day, like Miss Guide was like the Oracle of like brands and like doing a collection with those brands. I mean, I was like, now it's just not like that at all. I remember having like a big moment being like, do you know what not only do i think that's not my big goal anymore but i actually think that i would say no i mean obviously now but like i remember that in like turn around and you'd be like i'm doing a collection guys you know we'll be like okay imagine that would be that would that would actually that would be very bizarre like kourtney kardashian when she announced her collection with boohoo so just social media just goes what yeah yeah well maybe we'll just you know throw a few things and we'll see what works what's that thing never let them know your next movie so at this point you've obviously like started to garner a bit of a following a bit of kind of attention in terms of like eyes viewers like visitors to the site how did you start to monetize that so i got approached by an affiliate network which was a reward style it's now ltk I think that's what they call it for sure.

9:20And yeah, literally the one thing about my blog at the time was that it had a really high conversion rate. So when people were coming to my blog, they were buying through the links and that just translated to sales and it just grew and grew. Obviously as the readership of the blog grew, that grew and the amount of income I made got bigger. And then it was also alongside then obviously Instagram's growing. You then started getting paid for Instagram posts but I mean I didn't get paid for an Instagram post until I had I I reckon like 150 ,000 followers same maybe even maybe more I remember doing three months sponsorship with a brand for 90 pounds and I had to do like 10 posts but I bet you at the time you were like I cannot believe no I was so that was like when I just when I'd just gone to uni and I had like over 100k.

10:12Especially at uni your uni mates must have been like I was bawling I was buying everyone shots. You're like anyone want a snake bite? Yeah exactly so at this point obviously you I mean it really started to take off and then obviously Instagram kind of came along and started scaling in the same way. What at this time was like your big goal? I think to be honest it was very much in the that time of you just wanted to grow so for me it was like hitting a million followers you know but like I think now because people always are like oh was it always a dream of yours to launch SLA and I'm like I don't think I can say I always wanted a clothing brand it came after doing like the collaborations so at the time it was like I just wanted to like have a higher following be able to work with the brands I love and just keep growing you know which I think is such a fair thing to say and also a very honest thing to say because I think the amount of people who you'd ask being like and being like yeah it was always the goal and everything was going in this direction but I feel like it's a it's quite reassuring for anyone coming up through their career to be thinking actually do you know what I just need to follow what I'm enjoying doing and what I feel like is the next step like I do think we get a bit terrified of this like end goal mentality whereas actually probably your end goal there you couldn't even imagine what you're doing now so how did the idea for sla come about because i know you were obviously doing these collaborations like that was obviously how you were making your money through like brand deals affiliate links big collaborations when did like the original idea spark for sla so i think it was just basically from when i was doing these collections with brands and they would sell out obviously you're getting a percentage of that and as i said i've always been very like money orientated so i was thinking okay if I'm getting 20 % here what was if I did it myself and got 100 % and also I feel like when I would sit in the design meetings for the collections I just felt like myself almost like come alive as cringy as that sounds I literally was like I think this is my calling because I loved it and I had I would like throw really rogue things out there and be like I'm gonna do this but I want to do it in this color and I remember they would sit in the meetings be like are you sure and I'd be like yes and it would sell out and it was almost like all those years of hosting pictures and buying things and you know I kind of had unintentionally absorbed all this information of what my followers wanted to wear and I was like I think I need to turn this into something the power of being an influencer is sometimes underestimated when you when you've done it right you just absorb such in like such valuable information that other people will just never forget and you know companies would pay thousands for that you've because you know even just having that like direct communication with your followers through like dms or whatever and being able to get their feedback over like you know let's say like the past collections i did and knowing that they like like this but this fit was awful they loved this but that they you know and they tell you that because they feel like they can whereas bigger companies they don't have that right so what was the original idea for sla were you just like i want to make clothes or was there a specific concept I mean I feel like it was learning from what had sold well which for me was loungewear whenever I would do a loungewear aspect to a collection it would sell out so I thought okay the safest thing here is to do that I also at the time it was when it was like that real yeezy culture so it was like when streetwear like wearing joggers with like body suits and like it was very on trend and I also really struggled to find what I thought was like the perfect fitting like oversized joggers or sweatshirts so I was like okay I'm just gonna make my own really loved like the idea of doing like brighter colors things like that so that's what we launched with and it was so successful and I loved doing it and people just loved it I mean I couldn't I think our first drop sold out within like an hour and I was so shocked because at the time like when you launch a brand as you will know you have no idea how it's going to do so when it does do well although you you are hoping it's going to do well you don't know it's going to so it's a bit of a like oh my god this is working kind of you know yeah no absolutely and obviously you did kind of start within that athleisure loungewear space and it's pivoted a lot since then can you talk to me about that because I said to you before the episode I saw that happening and I thought it was such a good idea like as in it was so clear that like something had worked yeah and you were like great cool this is what the customer wants let's go with it yeah could you talk to me about that kind of from your perspective what what happened so basically it was after lockdown luckily we were allowed to wear brown during lockdown because it actually saved us because if we weren't I don't think I'd be sitting here talking about the business put it that way and so when we left I was like I don't personally want to wear another pair of joggers so I and I really just I think like most people I was just craving to dress up and so I'd already had previously had some samples made of these glitter trousers which obviously as we all know now is like the viral glitter suit and so posted them and people were like I need these so I was like okay let's launch see what happens we called it SLA Luxe at the time and then yeah we literally it made up 60 % of our sales that year and the sales of loungewear just started to go down and also like having a sweat brand alongside like glitter suits just from a visual point of view I hated it and also like they were so different that I was like, I need to pick one here.

15:34And obviously the sparkle's one because you can also be more unique with it. You can really like have something that you feel like is your design. And yeah, I think for us, like what is now like our main thing, which is the glitter suit, it went viral and it made SLA for that. Whereas I don't think a sweat set would have gone viral. Yes. You know? No, a hundred percent. And I think that a lot within the kind of active wear space. Because I've always said one of the toughest things about athleisure, say someone posts like a still photo yeah wearing black leggings yeah you don't know which black leggings they are yeah yeah you don't you don't know how they fit you don't know how they feel you don't know how they last you don't know if there's a pocket you don't know like if they make your bum look good like you literally just see someone wearing black leggings and you assume you can get that same quality from like up the road yeah and that's why we're so specific in the way we're on socials because we can have never been able to be like that whereas like for example we had like like with the resort dropped today i was like oh my god like as in on socials it makes so much sense because you're able to be like this looks nice full stop yeah like as in like gorgeous and you guys have such gorgeous designs and like have coming out with the back glitter suit like at the beginning i mean i've got it i love it absolutely love it you'll see you wearing it and i think that to be able to like hit on gold like that and be able to like actually run with it I think is such a strength because it's like really about listening to your customers yeah was there ever a point where you kind of were moving from this kind of loungewear to you know the sparkles and like the dressing up and like an entirely different area of her life that you were worried that it was a bad decision for the brand I mean yes I feel like it was more it wasn't that I was worried it wasn't going to work because we'd seen the success but it was more the feedback from some of the customers it was like where are the lounge sets like I miss them and I felt guilt almost for not doing them but and you know I never say never who knows down the line whether SLA will become big enough that it can have the lounge wear back and it won't be such a thing but I just feel like for me personally it was a business decision that for to grow it it had to have a strong identity as a brand so yeah there wasn't like a because it was successful before we dropped the sweats I wasn't nervous it was just more that I felt sad for the people that wanted the lounge you know and I think there's always a balance between evolving the brand quick enough that you don't satiate demand and then get like stuck yeah but I also and also balancing as you say if it works it works and like give the customer what they want you don't need to do it in every color that they want if you don't feel like that's the brand but it does there is definitely a disadvantage like if you're too stubborn to see what the customer thinks of you rather than just what you think of yourself yeah I'd love to talk about the beginning of the business in terms of people you hired the roles you feel that were the most important to like SLA's growth yeah so when we started I have always had Susie who's like my right-hand man she started off as like what we call an office manager then she became like the sort of PA to SLA she's now operations manager So she's grown as the business has grown.

18:45So she was obviously quite like important from the get go because you'll resonate with this. When you are also doing the influencer stuff, you do need someone to sort of manage other things so you can do everything. And I don't think I would have been able to do still do the influencer stuff if it wasn't for Susie. And then we I basically had a lot of freelancers for a long time. So I went quite like down that route before employing. I think it was also because I was so nervous to fire anyone. so I was like if I just keep them all on freelance I can't hire anyone then it's fine do you know what I mean because if I don't like them then I can just get rid of them I swear to god I'm such like a pussy with things like that I'm like I'll just keep them all freelance so I got like designers in and that was obviously for a fashion brand game changer yeah quite that was that was really important because for so long it was me like trying to explain to a manufacturer what I wanted I am really interested in obviously like you've hit gold on this glitter suit yes and it's something that you know people know sla for have you obviously you've evolved from that point like you've got look you've gone into other bits of party wear and all of that were you ever worried that you wouldn't be able to evolve from this like one really strong viral product yeah it was hard when you create something that's so unique and i remember at the time when we designed it we designed the blazer to be worn on its own and we had the trousers and the bralette as like a separate thing and then i remember we were in a design meeting we were like no one will wear them all together of course they won't it's a bit much isn't it and then we realized that that was literally what everyone wanted and then we were like okay so the definition of it's a bit much is just basically how we design for sla now we're like if it's not sparkly enough like just add some more sparkle because that's what people want so but then it was definitely like the following year the pressure to design something that was like as viral was scary but that's when we came out with our theoblazer which had like the diamante cuffs with the matching skirt also have that by by the way.

20:36And that was like another viral moment for the brands. That was great. But I think having almost that was then when more pressure came, I'd say after that, because it was like, how do we keep building on this? But I think also the problem is, and you will probably understand this, when your products go viral, they then get copied because people see the success. And so that's what I think was harder was the fact that then we just kept seeing all these like cheap knockoffs. and again it's that thing where like they look similar on social but like the fit and the quality is so different because i think one of the biggest things like i know for example that tarla is expensive for its customer like as in like i know that we are but quality costs we are we are a treat yeah like she's investing in us like i'm under no illusion that she's buying this every month like and you know that's not the aim yeah but i i think that what isn't like doesn't always translate online is the fact that like that is entirely reflective of like why people love the quality yes is that like there's a reason it needs to cost that and i wouldn't say i mean we're nowhere near the price of like lululemon or whatever it might be but like i do think that becomes like very very clear when like the amount of like knockoffs and like duping culture is like very yeah it's tough on a business i'd love to know how you've dealt with seeing knockoffs pop up in fast fashion i mean we're quite lucky we've got such a supportive customer base that like they get angry at the brands for us because like we i'm i just basically like obviously we talk about in the office and we're like this is so annoying like i think it's more that you just think you've got you've got a design team like what are you paying them for if they're just ripping off small businesses do you know i mean but i think we just know that like we have such like faith in our own product that we're like you can go and buy the cheap one if you want but actually if you want the quality then come to us you know it's kind of just having that like belief in your own product i guess to know that the people that want the original know where to come yeah it's always hard but you just try and do that whole like imitation is the highest form of flattery tell yourself all those but it's never it's never easy but i think you can get so lost in it if you let it fester you know yeah no absolutely and like i very much have a rule where like i will deal with that privately not publicly just because i think that sometimes especially with like the influencer balance or like the audience balance it's like it's i don't know i always think that causing drama online even if it's something that is like justified yeah feels like it's always going to come back to bite you you're normally nine times out of ten you regret it don't you it's like you know like i mean i used to do this like back in the day the beginning of like the social media career you'd get like a comment and you'd reply and then instantly you'd regret replying so like I learned very early on to like read the comment leave it walk away for like 10 minutes if I come back and still want to reply then fine but you never do do you know what I mean and it's like that with anything really yeah you will always regret putting out on social media if it's not positive I think yeah no I think that's totally fair and so I want to move on a little bit to talk about like obviously you've hit some amazing times with sla i can imagine also as part of that like or i know at least from my experience that as much as it might look like we go from strength to strength there you know there are some real lows there are some launches that like no one even touches with a barge ball and you're like okay cool and that's hard and that is hard for team morale that is hard for your morale that is hard for like knowing the business direction have you had any moments where you've kind of felt like oh fuck like god i really thought that was going to be successful and that did not hit yeah like all i mean it just happens all the time i think as well when you're i mean sla self-funded and we have had like no you know we haven't raised money we haven't investment we haven't done any of that so we like trying to grow with our own money and that is so fucking hard and so cash flow is a constant issue because it's like you want to buy more but then and then it's like if you haven't managed it properly it just becomes so that I feel like when at the moment we're dealing with SLA that's what can make me feel a bit like I'm failing yeah because it's like you find yourself constantly in this like spiral of like where the money's going we've got a CFO now who obviously helps us manage that but I think it's like I'm the first person to admit that I actually do not have a freaking clue what I'm doing I just kind of hope that it all works out yeah so I think when you know you have those issues that then does make you think like am I cut out for this you know and then we have obviously had launches that have flopped but I mean I feel like with the launches that don't work out luckily they are such a lesson sometimes I think it's quite good when you're selling a product and it doesn't work because you know that that direction is just wrong right absolutely and it was always like it's always easy to look at the big wins and be like oh yeah we kind of always knew that was going to be a win that could have been a risky one it could have yet and so if you don't do the risky ones you don't get the wins and you also don't get the losses but like you need the wins to succeed as business yeah i'll also counteract the fact that you say you absolutely don't know what you're talking about it's so easy when you have a business to think of knowing what you're talking about specifically as the finances and actually if you just had the financial arm of SLA there would be no business yeah if you were putting just your finances and your spreadsheets on Instagram do you think that people it would be going as viral as the blazer I often say I think that's the one thing I wish I had with SLA was like a a partner who was like the financey person because I feel like that's when I'm always so jealous of two business partners when they've got one who's like what I would be more like the creative and like that and then you've got the other one who's like does all the real nitty gritty stuff and I'm like oh that would have been a dream yeah no absolutely I'd like to come on to speak about we've been obviously been talking about like generally like resilience getting through like the lower points in business you've obviously recently been very open about the fact that you've just gone through a big breakup yeah I'd like to talk about the decision to be public with that online I can see how many people it's helped but I can also imagine that going through that and then going through that publicly as well yeah would have been fucking tough yeah why did you decide to like open up about that I think the thing is when you're an influencer who's been around for so long and you've shared so much of your life it's important to share the ups and the downs and I obviously I didn't think I was going to go through a breakup you know right but to not share it felt wrong because they've seen all the positive sides of me and joe so it was like i it would have it just felt weird and i think originally i obviously announced it i announced it about a month and a half after it actually happened because obviously i knew i needed time to process it myself before putting online i actually announced it when i did because we had the bridal collection i mean the timing was just like comical oh god was launching because i knew if I went to do the shoot for the bridal collection all I would get from followers would be like oh my god Jo's gonna propose what a perfect time blah blah so I was like I need to announce this before so I probably would have left it longer had I not had that sick for you so then I had to do this whole bridal thing while I just literally the week after I announced I went to Italy to shoot it it was quite comical I mean we then ended up calling it the hot girl summer white collection like within the office and everyone who works for me was so supportive and it was quite funny but I think when I'd put the post up that was when I started getting like inundated with girls who were either sharing that they were going through almost a mirror image kind of like situation or they'd been through it and they were like this has happened I'm now happier than ever blah blah blah so that's when I then decided to post the video on it because I thought I want to help girls the way that these girls that are messaging me are helping me by telling me that you know it gets easier and all the sort of stuff plus there was some allegations going around online that he cheated on me and I was just like that's not true and I just wanted to like get my side because you know it's like people just come up with their own scenarios so i was like i just want to speak on this so that everyone just knows that it was just his decision he just didn't want to be with me anymore you know like nothing happened yeah so the 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31:24And how are you doing now? Yeah, fine. I feel like the change, I'm wondering if anyone else who's going through a breakup feels like this too, but the change between two months to three months is crazy. By the second month, I was like, I'm so sad. Like, what the hell am I going to do? Month three, I'm like, I don't even care. I'm like I'm a bit worried because I'm like why do I feel so fine but there is such a shift and I don't know whether it's just that you have more time to process I don't know I think every like everyone says time is a healer and it really is it's the biggest healer yeah and I don't think you can't cheat it no I also do think there's some truth and obviously it's different for everyone but I do think there's a small bit of truth in the fact that like women tend to feel it very deeply immediately and therefore like like you can't cheat feeling it deep no you have to go through something because if you push it down yeah you're never going to be able to like process it and i think that like we as women we're very lucky in the way that actually we do talk about feelings and we're good at talking about feelings and like i would meet someone who's gone through a breakup and i will happily go like straight into it and be like you know how are you feeling like do you Like, what are you feeling about this?

32:36Like all of that. And I think that that allows us to process it better because literally seeing a friend is always like therapy. Yeah, well, I mean, I actually was probably slightly rogue with mine because I didn't tell anyone for any of my close friends for about three weeks. So I went through it alone for quite a long time. But it was because that's how I cope with things. I'm very independent. And I was like, this is such a life change. I was so heartbroken that I was like, I literally have to process this. on my own first because I just, and I didn't tell anyone in the office. I mean, I came in and out the office for about a month and a half before anyone knew.

33:13So when they did find out, everyone was like, what? We had no idea, which I was like, realized I've got a very good poker face at pretending that everything's fine. But yeah, I just, and then obviously slowly started telling people. I mean, yeah, I luckily, I say luckily, I mean, Joe told all of his mates straight away. So I had all of their wives and girlfriends reaching out to me. So that was quite good because he kind of did it for me. But my friends, I told them much later and then I got the support of them. But it was quite nice because it came in waves. Because you know, that's the thing as you get older, like you do get support from friends, but obviously they have their own lives.

33:44So after a while, that support does sort of go away a little bit. They'll always be there for you if you want to speak, but not like the way they are at the very beginning. So the nice thing, and I'd actually recommend this to anyone going through a breakup, is split who you tell. Because then you just keep getting... This is actually your shift. So you're on for the next week, if that's okay. Just pick different people at different stages because you just get these new waves of support, which really helped me because, you know, every time you told someone, well, you just got new advice from people, basically.

34:12Yeah, and I feel like one of the influx of, they do definitely say that there are like a few times in our lives where they're like an influx of breakups. Like one of them is like just after school or just after uni. One of them is generally like late 20s, early 30s. it's like there seems to be like a mass like this is generally kind of like what happens yeah i read about that saturn return thing right yeah yeah yeah when i realized that i was like well i mean obviously the universe has a plan yeah exactly brilliant i'm fine maybe that's why the shift came because i just thought the universe knows yeah maybe that's your two months to three months but i think one of the hardest things about that kind of like late 20s early 30s breakup is obviously that like different to probably like uni time you do have this like idea of your like future that you've like you spent years together yeah yeah and like if anyone who's listening it was seven years yeah just for context just so like yeah you plan things based on the fact that the assumption is that that will work yes and i think that how have you dealt with the grief of actually grieving what you expected to be, I guess, your next stage.

35:25Because that's definitely the hardest thing with a long-term breakup is yes, you are sad that the person who has left you has left you. But for me, it was definitely the life that I thought I was going to have now doesn't exist. And it was like the friendship circles that you put so much time and energy into that you're suddenly like, that is just now completely different. so but I think what helped me was realizing that the idea I had of my future was just that it was an idea and actually the relationship that I was in wasn't as good as the idea I had in my head I wasn't getting from it what I wanted to get from a relationship and I think that's helped because really when you fully sit down and you actually spend time to unpack it and I've thought about what I've lost versus what he's lost and it's just there's no comparison so I just feel like I have been able to just process it like that and and also I think weirdly enough running a business has helped me with the breakup because having had such hard times in business and you know failing and seeing things go catastrophically wrong but work out I think I've applied that to my breakup and realize this feels like everything's falling apart but what happens if it's just falling apart to get better that's so funny that you say that because i always like when i i have this like whole note on my phone which is like worst founder weeks yeah and it will have like the date and it will list all of like the comically terrible things that have gone wrong including like things that would basically kill the business and like all of this and like whenever i'm like really rock bottom with those times and whenever i'm trying to explain it like to someone I'm like the thing is I worry about like my mental load so much because I have these points where I'm like I feel more grief than I've ever felt and like I don't know like a break a breakup or like a huge life moment something fully falling through like whatever it might be like these life-changing moments and really within a business they come not like overly regularly like bad problems come up all the time but like they do come up probably at least like once a year like you think the whole business is going to fail or you think and like there is evidence to suggest that is the case or like you have something big legal come in or you have something that costs loads of money and can't be rectified and like it might genuinely sink your cash flow or whatever it might be and you start to develop this kind of just like okay yeah like well I'm gonna have to come in tomorrow and I'm gonna have to make this better and I'm gonna have to work through this rock bottom yeah rock bottom I feel like the resilience building of it I can imagine yeah has definitely contributed to like that idea of being fine after upheaval 100 % and I have had a lot of girls reach out to me and they're like you just look like you're doing so well and I'm like I am but I I think it is because I've as you said the resilience of just life has made me like have all the skills I need to deal with this huge change so I think there's yeah there's just I'm almost so grateful even more grateful for SLA because it's been great because I've been able to throw myself into SLA to take my mind off things but also it has given me the skills that I didn't even realize to deal with a breakup yeah no absolutely and that makes a huge amount of sense I would love to know now being at this like three month mark that you say is like a lot better I would love to know what advice you would give to yourself like the you when after it happened to be honest I would say it is so cliche but it is so right when people say this is happening for a better reason you know like you are making room for something better yeah and it's like I'm such a believer in the universe and like manifestation and all that stuff and I do it's funny since the breakup there are just little things in my life that have fallen into place in ways that I'm like that's weird but it's like it's happened because of the breakup and I feel so much more like peace I was basically suffering with really bad anxiety for years and I was going to therapy for it and when the breakup happened obviously like we changed my therapy and we were talking you know dealing with the breakup and I think it was on like my fourth or fifth session into that my therapist said to me she went by the way just out of interest how's your anxiety and I was like it's literally gone and I was like I would have never in a million years had thought that my anxiety was brought on by a relationship but I think I don't know maybe I did feel insecure in my relationship maybe I didn't feel like I was getting what I needed or the support I don't know what it was but it's just amazing how even things like that I'm like I just feel lighter actually it's interesting you say about the Saturn returns thing because there's an episode of the Saturn returns podcast with Shona Virtue and they were speaking in that episode about the fact that when they'd been in bad relationships they were getting like recurring UTIs and stuff like would start to get ill like over and over like I was like a bit sick earlier this week and someone who works at Tala was literally like oh I used to get sick all the time when I was with my ex and I was like isn't it so funny the way our bodies like manifest this kind of like I am not settled like because the anxiety you would have got in that time I mean sometimes I'm sure it would have been about the relationship but like the majority of the time it's about other things because your mind like displaces it especially when like we all have this need to be loved and to like belong and to be accepted and therefore it's unlikely that the person you're going to assume is that's like giving you this anxiety is the person who's also giving you that love even if that love is not being given in the way you need it or like it's not being you know affirmative enough or it's not being clear enough or like anything like that you're unlikely to push that one person away because they're giving you like a teaspoon of the kind of like gallon that you need and I think that that's always so interesting you only realize those things once you have had distance yeah and it's funny I actually now think that I I feel like going through heartbreak is something that everyone needs to experience because you not only learn so much about yourself but you learn so much about everyone around you it teaches you things that you will just never understand unless you've gone through it so although at the time when you're living it feels like the hardest thing in the world you don't realize that you are learning things that you will never learn if you don't go through it and that's why it's so important to go through it you know like sit with the emotions take in everything because it just it's important yeah I do feel like it's one of those really funny things because we never like it feels like heartbreak is never a good thing unless you are on the outside and you are seeing your friend go through it that wasn't right yeah and I think that like I don't know I've had some friends go through breakups recently and I remember when I first found out I'd be like what like what like you guys broke up and then like you start especially like having conversations with them and then they're like oh there's one time they actually did this and you're like why the fuck didn't you tell me like that's well that's what I literally it's that saying it's like you actually don't realize the relationship what the relationship's like until you explain your relationship to someone else and when you explain your relationship to someone else I think everyone should just do it whether you're happy in your relationship whether you're not happy going through a break whatever it is sit down with your friends and explain your relationship because you will learn so much about your own relationship explaining it and I think as well that's what we often do to protect our relationships is like you will know if you are not telling your friends certain things and I don't even mean like deep kind of big things yeah but I do mean like sometimes just the way they talk to you or something like that like you will know if you are keeping that in and I always know that a friend is about to like is never going to go back or about to go through a breakup because they'll start telling you things aren't solicited yeah that you know that they know that they can't take that because they know that the second you know that they did that yeah you're going to be like bro you should not be with that person and it's so funny because you start seeing it like pouring out and then you're like okay you're ready to move on yes I think that like what you were saying about the two to three month mark I think in the first two months at least from my experience you think of that person as like this kind of same stay with me here the kind of same is like when someone's died you only remember the good things about them like those two months you're kind of like oh well they were great at this and this is the future they gave me and like all of these different things and you think about all of those good things you literally cannot see the bad things and then you start to really sit with it and you start to like really be quite honest with yourself and as you say really explain it to friends and it starts to be like a little bit less sensitive so you can really talk about it but i feel like that kind of around that two to three month mark onwards when you start being honest with yourself you start really being honest with your friends it switches to the complete opposite like you can only remember the really bad things and then you're like why was i with that person you almost start to get an ick oh a hundred percent you start to get this it almost like embarrassment of like why was that yeah you just you you it just is an eye-opening thing i'd say it really is no absolutely but it's also lovely when you get to that point and it does happen because i was really like so sad that i was like i'm never gonna get to that point and it came a lot quicker than i thought and that is how you know and i'd love to talk about like the idea of very much like falling in love with yourself and your life again i think that one of the biggest like upheavals after a breakup is the fact that like you were doing life as a couple the majority of the time and therefore like you even like you look at a weekend you're like what do I fucking do like what what what what on earth would I do with that time weekends are funny when you're single because you're like so you used to go in for like a brunch on a Sunday and you're like oh you're like I'll just go sit in a cafe by myself which I actually do love to do but I I would love to talk about the idea of like yeah just like falling in love with yourself and your life again and how you've been able to do that if you feel like you've been able to do that I think the most important thing after a breakup is to say yes to things you wouldn't do and that's what I've been doing I have like done a 360 on myself that I just feel like this new person like I've just I'm pushing myself even if it's like I don't love going to like workout classes they like stress me out but I've just gone to like those new ones and like make sure that I'm doing things that are so different from what we did you know so trying like new restaurants new brunch places new coffee shops new everything and also just like spending the loveliest thing I think you get from breakup is how much closer you become to not only your friends but your family if you're lucky enough that they're all still around you know I'm so lucky that I've got mum and dad still together you know and my mum and I have become so close through this and I know that in years to come I will look back on this and be so grateful for this time that I've spent with her and my dad because you just don't spend that much time I think when you're in a relationship and so having that time because I don't even know if I'm not doing anything on a Sunday I'm straight out to my parents yeah whereas before that wouldn't have been the case so I think that you find ways to find new things that make you feel like you yeah and it's it's actually in a way that's quite nice to find that and as I say like hanging out with friends more just I don't know there's just this difference you can't explain it but it feels different and it's lovely you obviously go into a relationship in a younger mentality so I actually think there's something so powerful about now being slightly older and single because I mean the last time I went on a date I was literally 22 so there's such an age difference now but I think learning these lessons now every lesson every relationship teaches you something new and I think you're so right that now I would learn from the breakup to then make sure the next relationship life stayed the same but was just the value was added by someone else you know no absolutely I think that's really really important it's like making sure you are your own 100 % and then together you're 200 % yes rather than being 100 % together yes I think also like one of the big things that like when like when I was last single like me me and my friends would always say anytime like I have some friends who go for really really fucking terrible people and we would always say we would always be like your life in a relationship should be at least two times better yes like categorically it should be two times better and if it is not you shouldn't be together 100 % like you should be questioning that and I mean that in every single sense like of course it's not always going to be financially two times better it's not always going to be like emotionally or like companionship wise or like future wise or like I don't know but it should be at least a few of those things two times better yes and like i feel like that's quite a good thermostat for being like do you know what it's actually like i'm carrying a lot of the weight emotionally i'm carrying a lot of the weight financially or like whatever it might be yeah it's like it should be two times better yeah honestly i feel like there's a lot of people out there that need to hear that exact thing well good yeah here you go because it is so true like if you're not if you're not feeling happier what are you doing yeah yeah you know yeah and I think that that is often like often forgotten I think it's easy to forget and one thing I you've spoken about which I absolutely love is the idea that we should all be high maintenance yes yeah I'm a big like this is a big thing for me because I think I just love being someone who can pay their way right I don't really want to ever feel like I'm relying on people.

49:18I've always been like that. But I think in this day and age, like liking nice things and like wanting to go for like lovely dinners and liking five-star holidays and like that can be seen as like high maintenance, right? But there's nothing wrong with it if you're paying for it yourself, you know? So I think that high maintenance back in the day was probably like slightly difficult to deal with. I don't view it like that. I just see high maintenance is just literally maintaining yourself you know being self being a self-maintained girly is what I just think is great yeah and I also feel like the words high maintenance are often used to devalue someone yeah like as in it's very much like don't be high maintenance or you're too high maintenance high maintenance is never ever seen as a good thing no and that's such a like to me that feels like an encouragement to settle for less yeah because I'm not saying that like everyone needs to want those things at all your high maintenance can just be being loved in the way that you need to be loved it can be having communication and responsiveness in the way that you need it can mean building the type of life together that you want to build yeah anything worth having is probably going to be high maintenance to a certain extent like relationships are high maintenance so if anyone at any point is saying you're too high maintenance yeah essentially what they're saying like i love the saying like you're only as needy as your unmet needs like that is categorically correct yeah because you are only like needy high maintenance all of these things are used to essentially explain a deficit that someone else has created yeah that is just a mismatch in like how you should be yeah and i think that it's so funny that something like high maintenance is used as a criticism especially in like your case when you are quite clearly maintaining those standards and you also would be able to outside of a relationship yeah and i think that's the thing i've maybe to me high maintenance is just having high standards right you know and wanting things to be a certain way and like as i say i think where if you if you want to call someone high maintenance but they're maintaining it themselves that's just not and how has your mindset changed in terms of the type of life that you are building for yourself since you've been through the breakup I think for me personally now I just want like peace you know like I want to feel calm in every sense of the word I think when I was in the relationship there was a lot of pressure on me to maintain the lifestyle we were living and so it put me in some seriously hard financial situations because when you're supporting two people there is a lot of pressure so I think now coming out of it I want to feel just like I'm not have no one's relying on me in that sense and I can just become feel a bit calmer maybe you know yeah and have your like have your goals in terms of what you're going for in life, in your business and any of that, have they changed at all?

52:29I feel like the funny thing is, which I always think is quite funny when you're the one that's broken up with, is that people are like, oh, you can go and like find yourself now and you can go. And it's like, but I'm, I'm like pretty happy with what I'm like got my life goals. I'm like, so that's why I say like, no, they probably haven't because I'm quite like a self secure pure person so I don't need to go and like do an eat pray love and like find myself and like you know I I'm not it's like I've just my life is the same except I'm gone through a breakup you know I was there because I wanted to be there and I wanted to build that like I don't have to go and change anything about myself which is a strange place to be because when you are the one that's been broken up with you don't want to be single you were very you thought you were going to be like with that so it's like nothing you know normally the person who's doing the breaking up they're the ones that like want to go and find themselves and they change their life plans and they're like you know they want to but when it's not that way around it's weird because i don't feel like anything's really changed i'm still if anything it's just good because i've got more time to focus on the things i want to achieve but i think on the flip side of that the good thing was actually having the business and not as you say being able to fuck off because you've got to run it it was also like a blessing because i think had i just been like working you know a nine-to-five job for someone else I probably would have just called in sick and made myself just feel worse and worse and worse so sometimes having that kind of like you just got to get up and get on yeah I think think it's so funny I do feel like there's an element of discipline when it comes to heartbreak and the more you grow up the more you understand what's going to affect you and your mental health most yes whenever I have a shit day now I know I need to be in the office yeah Because if I am at home, I will spiral.

54:16And that's a distraction technique and all of this. But like actually understanding your brain and understanding where it goes a little bit out of control and going like, do you know what? I'm literally going to book in to see my friend that evening because I know for a fact after that happens, I'm going to feel like shit. Or after this happens, I'm going to feel like shit or whatever it might be. and just like having the discipline of knowing your mind and being able to stop it doing what it wants to do which is catastrophizing and like really going down a little rabbit hole I feel like that's probably why in a way you didn't tell people for the first month because that's exactly what I did as well I was like I know if I tell people and I'm getting loads of sympathy from them I need to get through it myself before I am able to talk about other people you know someone's like goes and says are you okay and then it happens so you're like rather people don't know because I don't need anyone asking me if I'm okay yeah and I think one of the most beautiful things about like growing up and generally just like getting more and more understanding of yourself and like working to really understand like what sets you off what makes you feel better and knowing that we all have like this a little bit of like a masochistic edge where like something feels shit we will like you know when you like listen to sad music and stuff like lean into it yeah like sometimes you need to let it out but sometimes you need to know you always need to know exactly what you need in that moment yeah things like breakups that you go through and things like real life upheavals do get you closer and closer to truly understanding yourself like you will i don't think you will ever have a breakup again where it rocks you as hard as this because you you the last time you were single you were really really young yeah and actually this is probably the first time that you like truly knew yourself and knew this is what i need yeah this is what's going to stop you spiraling yeah and this is how i'm going to deal with it and also i think that's the thing when you do have a breakup you just learn so much even about like what you want in the next one that hopefully you won't have to go through it again yeah and like i literally made myself a checklist last breakup of like things that i will make sure in the first few months of a relationship that are like are the case or are not the case if we see red flags we're not going to run towards them we will not turn them green we are not colorblind we know red and green flags and what is the difference gets a bit blurry though doesn't it kind of turns to like blue at some point you know you're like oh i can't really tell the color i'm like kind of looking at it in a soft black and white you know why is it all grayscale i know literally like can't see it oh it's so aesthetic those those red flags oh dear yeah no I feel like it's um like it's always so fucking shit but like I really I don't know anytime I see a friend go through a breakup that is just like you can always see from the outside that it was meant to happen but that doesn't make it any easier from no like them but actually like I am such a big believer in you cannot have the life you dream of while keeping things in your life that you do not that you do not dream of that are not meant to be there yeah and that those can be small things that you don't necessarily see but like you have to make room for the future blessings yeah and you can't have them all at once yeah like you can't get your like dream next relationship and like a partnership and like what you actually need from your future if you like decide that that's what you want you cannot get that while still having someone else there I mean yeah I can try there have been people who have tried yeah there are those people that think they can do the both together but it doesn't work out but yeah and I yeah I think that that's always like uh I don't know you need different times different things at different times when going through a breakup in terms of what's reassuring but like to me that's always been quite reassuring yeah like oh okay clearly didn't need that yeah and that's the thing I feel like if anyone's listening that actually has gone through a breakup or they're in the midst of it that there there cannot be this many people that tell you the same thing that it will make sense it will get easier and that not be the case because i don't think i've spoken to anyone or had messages from anyone who's gone through a breakup and has said it's the worst thing that happened to them almost every single message is it was the best thing that happened to me it's so true so and i feel like that is the perfect place to end i feel like that to me just like really stands out as like breakups are an unfortunate part of life but they are also no one has learned like no one has suddenly known less about themselves after going through a breakup no one has had an upheaval in the type of life they want that they you know didn't actually want to like no matter how shit it is it's kind of like a you know it's cliche everything really does happen for a reason it really does the reason is sometimes hard to understand but it will come the reason will come no well thank you so much for being so open i feel like it is like the amount of people at any one time who are going through like a breakup full of shit or just like a life upheaval and like being able to see someone in a position like yours being so open about it and like clear as well like you could have sat there and said like oh it was mutual and being like bitch what the fuck imagine here we both wanted this you're like twitching no but I feel like that means a huge amount to people yeah no and I think that's the thing I feel like when you are you have a social presence I'm a big believer that you should do something with it and I feel like maybe I haven't had that opportunity until now and that's also something lovely that's come from the breakup as I'm like I can help people with this so that's you know oh i love that yeah that's great well thank you so much thank you for having me

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