We Are Power Podcast
The We Are PoWEr podcast spotlights voices and perspectives that need to be heard. Our weekly podcast, with listeners in over 60 countries, delivers PoWErful conversations that inspire, challenge, and empower... from personal life stories to business insights and leadership lessons.
We share diverse experiences, bold discussions, and real solutions. Whether you're looking for career advice, topical themes, or stories of resilience and success - this is where voices spark change.
We Are Power Podcast
Fostering Resilience and Inspiring Women in Business with Sam White
Strap yourself in for an incredible journey as we sit down with Sam White, founder of Stella Insurance, a trailblazing financial services venture that champions women. This episode is sure to leave you inspired as Sam takes us through her journey, filled with bumps, twists, and turns, yet undeniably worth the ride, reminding us that the success story is not without its share of setbacks.
Hear firsthand from Sam as she recounts her thrilling move to Australia and the birth of Stella Insurance. Dive deep into Sam's leadership growth and her fearless approach to taking risk. This is not just another success story - it's a testament to resilience, growth, and the sheer determination required to achieve greatness. Expect to be moved, empowered, and inspired to step out of your comfort zone and dare to dream. Then this episode is a must-listen!
Listen to Learn:
🎙️How to embrace your mistakes as opportunities
🎙️How to nurture resilience through challenging times
🎙️The power of having a united team
🎙️How to unlock the potential of women in entrepreneurship
Listen here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1981646
#NPWPodcast #ListenNow #Podcast #WeArePower
Find out more about We Are PoWEr here. 💫
The Northern Power Women podcast For your career and your life, no matter what business you're in. Hello, hello and welcome to the Northern Power Women podcast, where every week, I get the chance to speak with absolutely amazing individuals, as we spotlight the work that they do and those individuals using their power for good in the aim of reaching a more equal, diverse and inclusive world. And this week I get to speak to the wonderful Sam White. Sam White is the founder of Stellar Insurance, which is a female centric financial services business that is I love this unapologetically led by women and designed for women. Sam is a serial entrepreneur. She is passionate about equality innovation. She is a trailblazer, she is kickass, she's a fabulous friend of mine and I'm delighted to chat with Sam today. Welcome to the pod.
Speaker 2:Hey, lovely.
Speaker 1:I've missed you. I have missed you. Do you remember our chats over lockdown? We just jumped on her on a Zoom call and record it and put it out to the world, couldn't we? Because we were just sort of keeping ourselves sane, weren't we?
Speaker 2:Or insane, I'm not quite sure I was going to say it's probably a straight saying with us to keeping ourselves sane. No, they were a real lifeline, I think, for both of us and you know I say this all the time, particularly for female founders we need each other, like there's not enough of us and it can be very lonely and you know, you're often dealing with things that you've never dealt with before and just having each other to have conversations with to go oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's going to be okay, I'm going to make, you're going to make it through that and it's all going to work out. I think it's super special.
Speaker 1:I know we check in, don't we? On WhatsApp at varying times of the early morning or the night or whatever, and I think I know during that period we talked a lot about checking in on the checkers and it was interesting. I got a lovely WhatsApp this morning off the phenomenal Sharon Davis, who is the chief executive young enterprise, which is an amazing organization which is all about empowering our future talent to be aware of entrepreneurship, to be aware of financial sort of literacy, if you like. And I bumped into her at one of the party conferences recently. As you run around the fringes catching up with people you can only see sort of in a limited time, and I was having a moment that just been a lot going on, and she messaged she did a check in on me this morning and it's right, isn't it? You appreciate that, I think. So anyone out there you know never think that you're ever on your own. It's just just keep checking in. It's important, isn't it it?
Speaker 2:is. I think it's nice as well. I had a call with a female founder friend of mine that's a little bit earlier on her journey and she was having one of those existential crisis moments where it just all felt really overwhelming and actually selfishly. It was lovely for me to be able to talk her through that and she you know we had we were on the phone for about an hour and, you know, probably four weeks later she was like I did it, I made it, I got through the other side and it was just a really nice experience and we all need those those times because it kind of ebbs and flows. You go through those moments where you feel like a superhero and everything's going really well and everything you touch turns to gold. And then you have those moments where you know you feel like an absolute disaster and everything you touch turns to shit, and I was the same for all of us and you just got over it.
Speaker 1:And sometimes it is. Your cape feels a bit dishevelled, doesn't it? On occasion you're like it's out, it's out for dry cleaning, it's out on the line. I kind of need not to wear it at the moment. And I think sometimes, when people see people like successful, like you, you know and and and and you know some of the fellow sort of entrepreneurs out there people think we're all over it and it's been an easy path. But your path hasn't been simple, hasn't it? You started your first business at 24, didn't you? But it wasn't.
Speaker 2:It wasn't mission easy, no, and look, as the older I get, the more I realise that this is true for everybody. There is not a single successful person that has had a smooth path From. What I'm starting to realise is not a single successful person that hasn't nearly lost everything, at least you know, once or twice on the journey, and so it's just good to remind yourself of that. I love, I love the Winston Churchill saying success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing one ounce of enthusiasm. And I feel that, you know, I've had numerous occasions with the businesses where challenges have come in and I, you know, when they first hit you like, wow, I'm never gonna be able to get through this, I'm not gonna be able to make it work.
Speaker 2:I, I sort of grew my businesses organically from 1999 and actually for the first few years it wasn't. It was hard, but it was. It was smooth in the sense that every year we'd make more money or we'd grow more, or you know. So you're on that kind of journey where first year you couple of hundred thousand and next you know, five, six and then onto a million, and it's kind of like the snowball that gets bigger and bigger, and by the time I was. You know, mid-thirties, 2010. The business was turning over 18 million, making three, four million pound profit. I thought I was that superhero. I had a real spring in my step. I'm driving Lamborghinis. I'm like this is the life. Move to Beverly Hills, this is best life.
Speaker 2:And then you know the the business that I had went through massive regulatory changes and I lost 60% of my income line in the four-week period. So you, you, you, you have this kind of absolute drop. You know in terms of everything that you believe to be true. And in that moment, in that first moment, when you stare down, you look at numbers and you're like this is like existential, this could you completely destroy. You. You have to dig into something that I think is the thing that separates entrepreneurs from non-entrepreneurs. You have to be able to have the vision to say I can see how this can be different and how I can dig myself out of this scenario and answer a deeper future. So yeah, it's. I have definitely had all of those experiences and whilst, at the time, you would rather be anywhere other than sat dealing with them, I genuinely wouldn't change it now because it gives you such a resilience and grounding and sense the self.
Speaker 1:I think that's important, isn't it? Sometimes, I, you know, you look in the mirror, you hold the mirror up and I think, gosh, I'm not good at this or I, you know, I could have done that or I could have had a different path. But you know, I think I don't. I would ever change anything, because I think it is the bits that you learn on the way, and if it is a bit bumpy or if it is a bit sort of zigzaggy, it's, it's what you learn about yourself on the way. And you know you talk about that resilience of you know you're air in the States, in your Beverly Hills. You know the, the fresh princess of Bella, did you? You know, did it feel like starting again or does it just feel like a diversion?
Speaker 2:oh, that's a great question, it did feel in a lot of ways like starting again, because it was, and you have to be able to do that in order to survive difficult times. You have to be able to cut loose any preconceptions that you have. So tying your identity to what you believe the business says about you is disastrous. So if I bought into the idea that I was Sam White, princess of Bella, lamborghini driver person that could go and shop wherever they wanted and earn that money and and that that was who I was, then being able to make the hard decisions to restructure the business in the way that I had to would have been impossible because I wouldn't been able to let go of that, that person and and those dreams and those aspirations for a moment to be able to rebuild and and come back up, which of course we did.
Speaker 2:But you, you, I think. For me it sounds like a strange thing for somebody who is a capitalist in a lot of ways and on to know but the money is not. I don't care that much about money I got. I like it for the freedom it gives me and I'm competitive enough to know that I kind of see it as a way of keeping score, but but actually in of itself it doesn't really do much for me, and if you look at business as the same as everything else in life, something that gives you the ability to grow, then you can accept some of this stuff, I think, with a lot less resistance than you do if you've got your ego and your identity and everything else attached to it.
Speaker 1:So you're on this new journey, and at what point did you think I'm gonna go to Australia to set up a new business, Stella?
Speaker 2:Look Australia in all honesty and I'm probably too honest for my own goods on occasion but Australia was a whim initially. I'd been over there a few times when I was younger, on holidays and traveling, and I knew I liked the country. But when I first went over I was going through a messy divorce. My best mate at the time had fallen in love with a guy who lived in Sydney, who was actually Scottish, and he'd been over in the UK and she'd spent some time with him and there was a real connection there. I then met somebody and I'm entrepreneurial right and so I'm always looking for opportunities. I'm always open. I'm always curious Could we do that?
Speaker 2:What does that look like? Does it fit with what we've got going on at the moment? And this guy came in and he said Sam, you really need to look at Australia as a market. There's loads of similarities to the UK. There's some interesting stuff going on and I just thought why not? Like? I spoke to my mate and said, because she was sort of prevaricating about whether she'd pursue this thing with a guy, I was like I'm also an incurable romantic. So for me it was actually why don't we both jump on a plane? I can see what's gonna happen from a business viewpoint. She can see if this works with this guy. We've got like I've got a wing woman. She's got some moral support. We can justify it with a business trait. Let's see where we go.
Speaker 2:And as soon as I got there and this is where I probably do get a little bit more spiritual and touchy-feely I think that you need to listen to the nudges that you get in the universe and you need to really connect with yourself if you're gonna live a full life and a big life. And Australia from the minute I got there, good things happened. Every meeting that I had there was an opportunity that came out of it. It was like really good energy and it just felt very, very right. And so I did a number of different businesses over there. They all went well and eventually one of the guys that I'd set up a business with was the CEO of a huge insurer over there and he said would you set up an insurance business?
Speaker 2:I said I'm not doing that again. I've got loads of insurance businesses in the UK. It's not what sets my soul on fire. And he said well, what does set your soul on fire? And I said supporting women in business, female entrepreneurship. The world is not built for women, and the business world even more so, is not built for women, and I'd love to change that. And he said, well, then, change it. I, you know what can we do. And so this idea of building a financial services brand that was designed around women for women, by women for women just really captured my imagination. It captured lots of other people's imagination. So we got, you know, we got investment from a local media company and, like all this, things just kind of took off and so, yeah, stella was formed and it's been an incredible journey and I've been able to do things that I've never been able to do in the past in terms of brand building and product development and all that sort of stuff, and I'm just super excited about it for the future.
Speaker 1:And we're delighted to have Stella as a partner and that is, you know, that comes with the loyalty and influence from yourself and we've driven that and we now work with your team, who we absolutely love, and amplifying that voice and that message around women and women in business and, like you say, being unapologetically, you know, focused on women. It's been amazing and I feel like I've seen a real advent of Sam. Sam you were someone who was not really out there. You'd speak at things, you'd be absolutely say yes to things.
Speaker 1:When you were an entrepreneur of the year of us back in gosh, when was that? That was something about six years ago, I think, or five years ago, when you were an entrepreneur. You were in Australia at the time, I remember, and you know you would always do this. But then, all of a sudden, I've seen this real rise and present and ownership you really own in yourself as that entrepreneurial model. How easy for that for you was to go into that. Um, I suppose that that environment of leaning in to go right, I'm gonna go on this stage, I'm gonna go and, you know, have my voice heard, probably one of the hardest things I've ever done.
Speaker 2:Um, so, like, I'm no different to anybody else and we know that women suffer massively with imposter syndrome. So it's interesting to me now. Um, people will often say to me oh, you know God, you're like you're. Everybody always says to me now you take up all my LinkedIn feed and I'm like I only post once a week. I'm like I'm not, but you know that there's there's a kind of um, slightly jokey teasy.
Speaker 2:You're out there all the time and people will say couldn't do what you do. You know, going, putting yourself out there and and you know what it is really um, it makes you very vulnerable. I think like and I've always admired that about you, simone that you have always been. When I won that award, it's the same thing and still I see you everywhere. You're on the TV, you're doing stuff, you say yes to everything and I always used to think there's no way I could put myself through that.
Speaker 2:I had panic attacks in my 20s that were really bad and you know, I refused to publicly speak at all until I was faulty and I put myself um on a on a course to kind of get it, get it out of me, kind of thing to push myself forward. But at the first time I spoke in public I threw up for a week like the thought of it was so horrific to me. It felt so exposing and you know I was worried I was going to get on stage and have a massive panic attack and it was all all be a disaster. And I think one of the things that I've really learned over the last few years is just like going to the gym. You know you go to the gym to break the muscle so that it heals back stronger.
Speaker 2:And with putting yourself out there publicly there is no substitute for just doing it. You have to do it and the more you do it the easier it gets. And I thought about that yesterday I was on a panel somewhere and I was literally rushing from one meeting to go on this panel and I arrived late, did not really particularly planned, kind of just rocked up, sat down, said my truth and there wasn't really any moment of oh my God, like I don't want to be here or whatever. I just felt really kind of grounded in that moment. But there's still experiences that you have that are overwhelming again and that's pushing your comfort a little bit further. I did live breakfast TV a few weeks ago and that was like I was like, oh, it'd be fine, like I'm used to this. Now right, it is completely different.
Speaker 1:You're like lights, camera action, right, and the heat, the heat of the camera and the earpiece the earpiece, kind of talking in your ear like distracting you.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh wow, this is a lot, but I did it, hopefully not too badly. You know, they said they'd like me to come on again, and so you kind of go, okay, like I can do this, I can work through it, I can get to the other side. But I think it's so important to be honest about those feelings Because I think there's particularly with women, I think there's so many women that don't do it because they think their reaction, their natural reaction to something that is, frankly, absolutely bloody terrifying, makes them there's something wrong with them and means that they can't do this stuff, when we both know, of course you can, if we can do it.
Speaker 1:And that's why you know we can see you on BBC's Wake Up to Money, on the Eating King Sky News, on BBC Radio 4. And Houghton, your own podcast. Sam has her own amazing podcast that I've been on, called the Human Business, which is absolutely it is just like a hanging out with your mate for half an hour or so. It's brilliant. But I think that there is that. I think that first time you step into that, it is stepping out of that comfort zone, isn't it? It's stepping out and going. You know what I can do this and I know one of your mantras in business and life is why don't we? That's something you live by. Do you ever regret making those decisions based on that mantra?
Speaker 2:No, definitely not. I mean and that is including the fact that things go wrong, like you know, with alarming regularity. But it's you know, for me, life is about things going wrong. Life is about having experiences, learning, making mistakes. It's not supposed to be perfect. I don't know at what point people thought that life somehow had to be this absolutely perfect journey, because it ain't Like. I'll save you the drama. It's just, you know, things are going to go wrong. You are going to feel vulnerable, you're going to feel embarrassed, you're going to do stuff in a way that other people might not agree with. All of those things are true. But what's the alternative? You know, you sit in a room by yourself, feeling safe and not engaging with anything or doing anything Like that's the other alternative to this.
Speaker 1:I won't talk about leadership, because I think one of the posts I saw that you put out there or you openly spoke about was when you step back from being Chief Exec. Do you think that was one of your biggest leadership decisions to sort of take that step?
Speaker 2:Look, I am constantly learning as a leader, like it is, and for me as a founder of a business, as an entrepreneur, the biggest investment that I can make and should make is into my capabilities as a leader. It's easy when things aren't going well to look at your team and say what are they doing wrong? Why aren't they supporting me? Why are they exhibiting this behavior? And the reality is, as with everything in life, the only thing you can change is yourself. So I have been on a real journey over the last couple of years of digging deep into what my leadership style is, where my blind spots are, where are the things that I can improve. And it's been fabulous and when you see it come to life in a team dynamic.
Speaker 2:We've had a couple of challenges recently and in the past I would have felt like that was all on me and Sam to the rescue, on the white horse, finding solutions. And for the first time, properly, I felt that I absolutely could lean into the team and that the team would have this. And I was on a call. And I was driving and tapped into this call because, as usual, I was darting from place to place and the team were all putting in various different solutions to this challenge and, honestly, it was magic. It was lovely to hear them have each other's backs, challenge each other, support each other with solutions, and it was like this this is it. This is the shit when it comes to actually really believing that you're on the right path from a leadership viewpoint. But I think if you start to think I've nailed it, I'm a great leader, I've got everything, yeah, it's all over. We're all on a journey with that and I'm no different than the next person.
Speaker 1:And I saw and I don't know the situation you were talking about I saw a post you put out a few weeks ago which talks about talking about your team and the fact that I think hadn't won a deal. But then the team had sort of acknowledged that actually they needed to sort of redo or rethink something, so went back and tried to re-win whatever the deal was. And it was that the way you sort of talked about. You know, I don't think it was necessarily the victorious end, but it was the fact that you really recognised the process that your team went through and it was like you stepping back and I'm really proud of how you've dealt with that team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they lost a deal. They did, and it was an important deal to us. But it kind of doesn't matter, because the reality is you are going to lose deals, Things are going to go wrong and you can win deals the wrong way. So you can have success, that's the wrong success and you can have failure that's the right failure. And this was a great example of this.
Speaker 2:They had made mistakes early on in the relationship with this partner and they had done a full analysis of what had happened. Now I had spoken to the partner and, as far as I was concerned, the deal was dead. And they came to me and said we want to fight for this. Like, can we fight for this? Because we know exactly what went wrong and how it went wrong and we want to do this. And I said, yeah, if you want to do that, if you want to put that work in caveat, I don't want you to get your hopes up. And they absolutely.
Speaker 2:You know they didn't just work out what had gone wrong. They put together a whole plan of how they'd make it up to this individual so that they would be back in a much better position than they had been before. They were humble, they were accountable, they were all the things that you would want them to be, and when ultimately it didn't come off, there was no bitterness, there was no recriminations. You know, they just they absolutely gave it their all and they accepted the loss with dignity and grace.
Speaker 1:And when I read that, that's what I saw, I thought that's leadership, that is leadership in action to actually acknowledge that, acknowledge that whole journey. And so I know Sam the humanist passionate is now say yes and leaning in. I know one of the things I always is so in awe of is the fact that, through your business, the donations that you make to domestic abuse charities out there, but which is phenomenal, and that's, you know, these things that drive you and enable you to make this happen. But the Sam, sam the human you recently did the ice bath and breathing challenge, wim Hof, has got into your life, hasn't it? A year ago you gave up the booze, didn't you? You've given up the booze and now you've, you've, now you've kind of looked and really I saw the post around you in the ice bath. I literally shivered as I looked at it. You've talked about that being life changing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was, and look, I realized I'm becoming one of those really annoying people that I would have hated 10 years ago. So, like my wife is always, like you know, don't get too much on the soapbox that people will not invite us around for dinner anymore. But I did. Look, I'm getting older now I'm 48, every bit of energy that I can master I want to take. But I also wanna enjoy life fully, like that is really important to me, and so alcohol for me is a nummer. It numbs you. I don't wanna be numb. Like I love life, I wanna feel everything I can feel. So got rid of that.
Speaker 2:But the Wim Hof was Jenny was going away with her sister to Italy to drink wine and eat pasta, which lots of people listening to this would say she's the smart one. And I had a free weekend, didn't have the kids, was gonna go to this health retreat that I've been to a few times and when I phoned to book in they said actually it's a Wim Hof weekend. I'd read the stuff you know, the ice bath and the breath work and stuff. And I hate cold water, like hate it. I won't even go in the pool on holiday unless it's like bath water warm. So this was my idea of hell, like there's no way. But then I stepped back and I was like, didn't you feel like that about public speaking? Isn't it exactly the same as all the things that you think? And I'd read so many incredible things for the health benefits and what have you. I just thought, yeah, I'm gonna go.
Speaker 2:And it was transformational For loads of different reasons. The breath work in and of itself is really quite magical and I've done it every day since it was probably six weeks ago that I went. I'm now over two minutes able to hold my breath as part of this process that you do, but it does something to your nervous system. It hits your I think it's your parasympathetic nervous system, but it basically it's like meditation on steroids and then the ice bath is just about doing something that you would believe you would be incapable of doing and conquering that fear of the thing that you think is impossible, and it was definitely that for me. I had a real emotional breakthrough. I lost my dad in March this year and the grieving process has been challenging because I've been so busy and it's been a real process.
Speaker 1:And I think that's part of that you being you, isn't it? Like Jenny you're wonderful, jenny going off to eat pasta and wine. It's like you have to do you, to conquer whatever those challenges around you, whether it's grief, bereavement, business challenges. It's you've got to do, you, haven't you? And so, as we get you know, sam, it is always a joy to talk with you and to hear what you, where you are and what you're up to in the world. And I know this is an extra special long edition, this one. What's next for Sun White? Sun White, the movie, the book, the series.
Speaker 2:Come on. Well, I've got a few things I'm working on that I'm hopeful to get into production in the next few months, but some entrepreneurial show stuff. I'm doing my Toast series on Radio 4 again, which I'm starting recording in November, which I absolutely love. Stella, we're launching we've already launched in the UK motor insurance, but we're launching home insurance. We've just launched travel in Australia. We're looking at business insurance for female entrepreneurs. So just more of the same building growing. I just kind of fighting my way through all of this stuff, but I really also want to get out there more and just really encourage more women to get into business and more female entrepreneurship. That's everything for me.
Speaker 1:And we will put details about Stella and all of the opportunities in the show You're not fighting through. You are blazing a trail and the thing about you, sam, is you don't forget the people that have helped you or supported you on the way. You are an ultimate champion. So thank you so much for being such an amazing human, amazing business woman, amazing role model and a friend. Thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2:Right back at you. Thank you for everything, Simone. You're an absolute wonderful human being and I really genuinely value everything that you've ever done.
Speaker 1:I'm off to Google Wim Hof now, but I'm not so sure. Thank you so much for joining us and thank you to all of us, all of you for listening in. Please do stay connected, and all of our socials at North Power Women on X or Twitter, and Northern Powering and all the other ones. We love hearing these stories. We love hearing from you, so please drop us a line. Podcast at northernpowerwomencom. Please do listen to next week's episode. We'll have another fantastic human. My name is Simone. Thank you for listening. This is the Northern Power Women Podcast and we're live at what Goes On Media Productions.
