Eps 3: Balancing Life as a CEO, Mummy & Female Founder with Lisa (The Gut Stuff)

What does it really look like to build a hugely successful business while raising a family?

In this episode, I sit down with Lisa from The Gut Stuff for an honest conversation about entrepreneurship, motherhood, ambition and the realities that often get left out of the success story.

We talk about growing a female-founded business alongside her twin sister, navigating the demands of leadership while parenting two boys, and the role paid support has played behind the scenes. Lisa also shares what it was like managing the pressures of a major acquisition while in the midst of new motherhood - balancing feeding, sleep deprivation, postpartum recovery and some of the biggest business decisions of her career.

This isn’t a conversation about perfection. It’s about the messy, complicated reality of building something meaningful whilst raising a family, and the choices, sacrifices and support systems that make it possible.

Whether you’re a parent, a business owner, or simply curious about what success really looks like behind closed doors, this episode offers a refreshingly honest perspective.

Transcript

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Welcome to Heidi at Home, where we have real connected conversations about motherhood, life and everything in between. Because motherhood isn't just one thing. It's messy, emotional, beautiful, and constantly evolving. Here we go beyond the surface to talk honestly about what it really looks like and how we can grow through it, not just survive it. On this week's episode, I'm joined by lovely Lisa. Lisa Bardell, who's a mum of two first and foremost, but also just remind me, founder, co-founder with your beautiful sister of The Gut Stuff. Yep. And also presenter of Know Your Shit, which you may or may not have watched on channel four. And we're going to be talking all things motherhood and business off the back of some huge success last week, for which we have champagne over there. So I'm very excited to open that in probably like five minutes' time. Give it T minus five minutes. The slight problem today is that we have been meaning to just meet up for a chat for like two years. Yeah, we let you live over the road for me to live over the road and we've seen each other about once a week, and I'm like, we must, we must, and we don't, because we're mummy. Because you have Holden Schooled children and 75 pets and you're probably a business. That's why. That's why. It's a lot, but um, yeah, you will share in our celebrations in a bit, so it's really nice to have you here. Thank you for being here. No, thank you. Um, and so big news that stuff has just been acquired. Yes. By the s right hero group. Yes. Last week. Yes. Okay. Yes. Which is a big deal, right? When you founded a company. Yeah, I mean, I think of look at like the stats of obviously like startup surviving is like 0.01% or something. And then like and then by the time like a working class founder get into like a seed stage is pretty tiny. And then chucking female founders off the back of it. I I guess like you're so in it that you don't see the magnitude of everything how many how much many things have to go right in order for that exit to happen. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean it's been the hardest three months of my life. It's been like full help. And how old is yours? So you've got a two-year-old and a remind me before. Five month old. So you literally gave birth pretty much into this whole contract happening. Yeah, well, the Times actually on Sunday, I was like, you know, you get a Google thing, the Times did uh um article because on like exited founders, and um I basically was in Labour and the finance team were flying over from Switzerland to meet me. Oh my god. And I had a sweep and went to the meeting, and I was like, Can you come to Great Portland Street? Um so did that, and then Benny was five days old when we started like negotiations started the meetings. Um, and but that makes hero that acquired us sound bad, but they were incredible throughout the process. They were like, Why are you here? Please like leave. You've just given birth, but you know, that was the biggest thing to ever happen to us. Um, it was just a bit of an inconvenient time. Inconvenient time. Um, but yeah, mental. It's mental. You've been so committed. Like every time I see you, you're like, I'm working this out, childcare's this because this is what we're doing. So we'll go more into like the juggle and everything else. But can we go back to starting the business? Because it wasn't actually that long ago, really, on paper, right? When was it? Yeah, well, we were still DJing at the time, so we were still we were basically doing Love Island uh at the tour, Love Island tour at night and then after sun on Sundays, and then doing um they got stuff like Monday to Friday basically. So we'd fly in from a tour date, um, uh go on stage at like 3am and then be in the office for 7. Uh and we did that for a long time. That's life in your 20s, right? Like you can do these things. I mean, it's just like having a cup of vodka. Yeah, I mean, I got more sleep then than I do now, I think. Um, but yeah, so we volunteered for twin research research and found out that um despite having 100% the same DNA, we only had around 30% of the same gut bacteria. Um, and I guess that sort of threw into like I guess disarray everything that we'd known about nutrition. We come from a very working-class Scotch background. I used to have like 10 Lambert and Butler and a Greg Softe for lunch. You know, I definitely wasn't a health and well-being founder. Um, but yeah, and I think that we started the business just because our pals are like what's the guts of voice. I was gonna say, was it like a just a genuine personal interest to start with, or yeah, it was just yeah, it was like we were really interested in like physiologically what was different between us identical twins. We'd had different like health pathways growing up, so um we were sort of genuine fascination with that. I think there's a bit of like, you know, our dad died of a heart attack in his 50s, so there was a bit of like underlying let's like figure out what that is. Um and then just full naivety of like getting what the hell and then we then it just all sort of then we were on a train that we couldn't get off, really. So you started it, was it like a blog or something to start with? Yeah, so it's just a website, and the only reason it was called thegutstuff.com was because our pals are like one minute you're interviewing people on the British red carpet for your radio show, and the next minute you're at Reading University talking about probiotics. What is going on? And we were like, just that gut stuff, just that gut stuff. Um and it's funny because people like gut health was not a thing. I was gonna say, because back then, really, like it wasn't like it is now, like it was like it's exploded. Digestive health was a category, I guess, um, in terms of you know, like Kellogg's and um yeah, and Danon and like big brands are sort of playing in that space, but there wasn't necessarily like young challenger brands coming up talking about gut health, it wasn't a thing. Someone I saw the other day was talking on Instagram about the special K diet. Like Oh my god, remember that one? I used to do the cabbage soup diet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, or the Beyonce one, there was like Kay and Pepper and God knows. I did them all. I did them all. Oh god, yeah. So it started essentially as you were having great fun as DJs. Yeah. Um by the way, when we say we, your sister Alana. Yes, she's not here, but she is 50% of that stuff. We didn't ever want to work together either, but that was another story. Yeah, so it's kind of it sounds like it was kind of like accidental, kind of let's just see what happens. Like, where how'd you go from there to right, let's get this branding sorted, let's get it actually making money. So we were nannies during the day when we DJ'd at night. So we used to DJ in like Whiskey Mist and like all of these clubs in London, and we would nanny during the day because those were the only two jobs that were like you could do at the day and at night. And then the kids we used to nanny's dad worked for like a branding agency, and they were like, this got health thing is a thing, by the way. Um yeah, and then they we went in for a meeting and they were like, Let's try and make a thing of this, so they made a brand. We took invest a bit of investment at the time. My husband's company actually came on and did like the purpose and the comms, and that's how I met him. Uh, so yeah, it's crazy how it all just kind of fell together. Like now it feels like it was planned in retrospect, but it was sort of by accident rather than by design, a lot of it. Obviously, when we started to raise more cash and it got just more and more serious as we went along. Okay. So initially it was like people around you sort of like helping you out, and then obviously it started to grow from there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um so it was like we knew that we could probably make a business out of it. So it wasn't total like we weren't saying it wasn't a lemonade stand on the street. Um last week. Actually, obviously, all tattoos right there. Katie's kids were doing like tattoos next to me. Um, so yeah, and I think yeah, it's actually quite hard, like a bit sort of PDST like to talk about the journey when it's like so fresh from last week, it still feels like a like I don't know, I need to give my nervous system a walk or something. I don't know. It's been a big thing, right? Yeah. In terms of like the female founder thing, so if you look back, how hard was it being female in that sort of arena industry, if you like, and what advice would you give to anyone listening who probably is a mother to be honest, but it's obviously female and looking to start something up? Yeah, I I found like the working class thing more difficult than the female. Okay, interesting. Um, just because talking about money is harder. So we were raising cash from big VCs, and I did not have the vocabulary or the confidence to just ask them for a million pounds instead of £100,000. Um so I think because I'd never dealt with money of that size, I'd never dealt with 10 grand, never mind a million quid. So um so I think that bit the female thing was just constantly being underestimated. Actually, my husband put a LinkedIn post about it, and he's the grumpiest get ever. Or I'll put that on record. Um and I was saying that Alain and I have constantly been um patronized, and we always do it with a sort of knowing smile and just being like, and I think that that was like the thing as a female founder that I found most difficult. Like the amount of times we were asked if we were like the brand manager or the intern, um the founder. Um yeah, and I think that we were always so asked, we we like the last person that gave us advice was the right advice. Do you know what I mean? That was our thing. We're actually all along we knew exactly what we wanted to do and why. And I just wish I had not wasted so much time listening to other people and just ran at it because we knew what we wanted to do. What is that, like a gut gut instinct of some kind as to like direction you want to go in? Yeah, I think it's a confidence thing, just like make the decision bloody quick. Yeah, like because we Alan and I would call even now we stole back and forth, and I'm like, oh and we've just sold business, like you know, we can have confidence that we sort of know what we're talking about a bit. So just go like that. Yeah, um so I think that is like, and I think as women we're we're I hate saying bad at that, because that's not it, because it also makes us wonderfully empathetic and great leaders and listeners and take other people's advice because we're have humility and all that sort of thing, but it but we got in our way, our own way a lot. Okay. Um yeah. So like listen to your gut, kind of go with what you think. I feel like I've done that too as well, and it I think you often know, even though you get outsourced and get loads of different advice, like ultimately you always know. Yeah, totally. Which is hard to explain, I think, if you haven't had a business, but yeah, it's definitely a strategy. And it's uh you know, sometimes it's fine to go around the houses and get the advice and then you t it takes you to the edge and you do it, but um we wasted a lot of time doing that, I would say. Okay. So when when you first what like launched or like became a brand, how did you get from there to like book deals, TV show? Like that's that's a lot, right? And in quite a short space of time. So yeah, I guess like we knew that we wanted to create the brand before we had product because gut health wasn't really a category, so we were sort of creating the category, really. Um it's kind of like protein was 10 years ago. It was people didn't really know, and then you know, suddenly it was like boom, because every brand was going good for your muscles, makes you feel fuller for longer. Everyone said the same thing for 10 years. Um, so we knew we had to do that with gut health, especially because you know, digestive health of the category was gut issues on one side and then sort of general well-being on the other. Um honestly, I I need to map out the journey, but the book deals came because we naturally I guess it's like the like Delicious the Ella and Jamie Oliver model of having different media facets means that you've got that sort of earned media flywheel. Um the TV show was genuinely because we'd obviously been in Tele, so our producers on uh like Love Island, some of the other shows, we were like, and our agent at the time, we were just like there needs to be a show about gut off because and every channel was like no, like you'll be on the Discovery Channel at 12 pm. Good luck to you. So it's pushback initially. Um yeah, well we knocked on so many doors. Um and then Monkey, when we met them, we're like um so well Universal and Monkey were like got it instantly. And like Andy and Susie there were just amazing, and they got it, and then channel four were like, we'll give you the bake-off slot. So like the biggest slot on channel four. That is nice! Um so it launched to like seven million people. Really crazy. That's a lot, isn't it? Yeah, it's absolutely mad. And when you look back at those moments, do you just feel a real sense of pride around that, or is there anything that you would do differently or change? It's a big chunk of time to make a TV show. Um, and we were still running the day-to-day of the business, so they basically made us a little office in the studio. Um I was gonna say, because you are literally like CEOs, you're like running the business. Yeah, and well, people just think we're the faces of the business, and we're not, we do all of it. And Alana's daughter was tiny at that point, so she was getting cabs back from Manchester for four hours to breastfeed her because she didn't want to stop breastfeeding, and then getting a cab at like 6 a.m. back um back to Manchester to film and just crying and boobs, boobs leaking. Um her Milky Swinger's worst way. That is not four hours both ways, yeah. Um I think Luke brought Ari it's all but a blur, but I think he brought Ari for some of it. But the brilliant thing about that show was that we changed a lot of people's life both on the show, but we proved that you can have something that's not cool, sexy, necessarily cool, sexy, or fun, um on like prime time telly. Yeah, yeah. It was done incredibly well. And didn't it go to like have many countries as well afterwards? Yeah, it's now in loads of different the format, it's now being sold into loads of other countries, um, which is you know it's got a whole life. Like some of them obviously we're not presenting, so um yeah, it's crazy. And when you hear those stories of people who get in touch, which they do obviously when you have a business and say, like, you know, you've changed my life because I like this and whatnot, that's that's awesome. That's so nice to hear, isn't it? Yeah, I think it's why we started it. You know, we didn't start it for like money or kudos really, because we didn't know what the hell we were doing. So that was the sort of reason for it. And that does make it cheesy, but it does make all the trite days better marginally. When at what point did you go from like let's just see what happens to actually I think we can sell this? We did a big investment around post-COVID. Um and when you take millions of pounds, you have to make it work. Um so that was probably the like the lead. It's pressure, right? Like investment is you said this to me before, like, it's an incredible amount of pressure then to actually move forwards and get it right and keep going. Yeah, and people talk about exits uh quite quite flippantly, and I say we as in the royal we, like everyone, but for a strategic company to buy your business, not only do you have to fit in with the timing-wise, the size, I mean who's sitting in the seats at that time, if they're into that as a category or not, and and and all along the journey, the amount of things that have to fall into place in order for that thing to happen, you would never start if you knew what and also then the process is like you know, so many deals don't go through. Um we'll probably get on to this, but it was it really like it was been the hardest time of my life, yeah, for sure. With two children, with two, but that's a great moment to bring out the champagne, guys. Yeah, so alright, so we're looking forwards, we've we've got investment, we're looking forward to potentially selling. Like at what point? Oh, hello, thank you. Uh you're gonna get me talking. I'm probably gonna hit my face or a light, or hopefully not one of your cameras. Yeah, exactly. Are we insured for that? Shit, that's two grand. So you don't want that. Oh god! Hilarious. This episode is proudly sponsored by BioGaia Probiotics. Biogaia are experts in gut health, offering clinically tested probiotics designed to support the whole family's digestive system from day one and as your child grows. Whether it's helping with colic, gas, or overall gut balance, their products are developed with both science and safety in mind. You can purchase Biogaia in Boots, Amazon or Hollander Barrett, or use the code PPB20 for 20% off on their website. Because when your family feels better, everything feels a little easier. Cheers! Right, this is congratulations to you both. Well, congratulations to you for survival as well. Poor over yourself. I mean, I am always inspired when I stop you on the street. I'm always like trying to pick your brains on just life, business, everything. But let's talk about the merger, the acquisition, whatever you want to call it. Um, why was it so hard? Basically, you go through you, I guess like for me, having just given birth and going through like the biggest cognitive stress of my life, because you've got to be clever because you're negotiating what you like a value for what you've built for the past decade nearly. Um, and then the legal due diligence is just absolutely wild. Like I was doing 16-hour days, I work until midnight, the baby was getting up at one, so I was doing like an hour of sleep for maybe two months. What? Um Lisa. And and then when I was sleeping, I was like in a sweat, and then emailing the email the lawyers at this time because like lawyers don't sleep, as everyone knows. Yeah, yeah. Um, and then just like breastfeeding on calls, oh my god, like just literally having a baby hang on. I did I basically had to triage my life of like toddleristics, keeping the baby alive, and the deal. And honestly, my personal hygiene, everything went on. Peter was like, Are you gonna shower you be showering today? I was like, no, like I couldn't, I didn't even show literally, I was just in a hole for that whole time. Um, and I'm just emerging now like a big chubby butterfly. How how how did you I mean the obvious reason is the obvious answer is just crack on, but like how do you do that? Do you bring in sport? Like, what's been your secret, if you like, to juggling motherhood and an insane career, which will continue to be hard? Look, I always think with these questions you have to be honest about the help that you have. So my I have got a full-time nanny. But lots of people aren't. Yes, yeah. So I will I'll list the help that I have. I have a full-time nanny, I have great help around the house. Um I have the doggy goes to daycare, and my husband also sold his business, so he's at home. Um and not in a full-time job currently. So that is the only way that I can do it. Um, and I think that, and I always say this to you like how you can like wipe a bum and then do stuff on your laptop, and like I just think it's like it's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy. But you don't, this is the thing, like you can't show up in the way you want to in both. So even though you can juggle it, it doesn't necessarily mean you're doing a good job of it exactly. And I always find I have my two days a week, my two full nanny days, and those are the days where I get a lot done on those days where I'm like, I need to do this and email this person, but I'm also playing mum. That's a lot, that's like really hard. And you were doing that at 3 pm for a while. You were doing the whole like takeover from the nanny meetings, sticker TV on, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like it's just insane. You just it's you're so frazzled and like touched out, and I think that was like you know, the past three months, it's like I haven't even really seen anyone, like it's not like it's like my whole life, but I think the the positive thing with it all is, and like as a process, it was brilliant in terms of like professionally, everyone was amazing, and we knew that this was the company that we wanted that was the home for what we'd built, so all of that part of it is amazing, but obviously it was um you know like it's like a marathon, like you know there's an end to it. So I think like it didn't feel endless because it was and and the baby's sort of young enough that he doesn't really need to sleep huge lads that don't sleep. You do have big babies, oh huge and hungry babies, big hungry boys, honestly. I'm like they are gorgeous. They're uh bears like we had our like um like the what you call it, like a two-year check-in. Yeah, yeah, health visitor like and then health visitor was out to me, she was like, Does your husband go to the gym? And I was like, What? She was like, because your son is going to be a beast. I was like, right, he's like 99%ile for weight, but there's not an ounce of fat on him because he's ripped. Like he's actually like ripped. Alright, I'll tell you a funny story. I don't know if I've told you this or not. We went to Jesse's house the other weekend and I put the kids in for an hour three, six, and eight. And Felix, who's six, came out and he was like, I didn't have fun. And I was like, Oh no, why not? And he said, I got pushed over. Was it Bear? Oh my god, he's a monster. I was like, um, okay, and I said to the reception, the childcare team, you know, do you know anything about this? Just want to check, and I think is everything okay? Because he's kind of put him off coming again. And she was like, Oh, let me just go check. Went to church, she came out and she went, Oh no, it was a toddler. And I went, okay. And she went, and then she went to the other one, yeah. Bear is a bit like that. And I was like, Felix, it was bear. Oh my god. This is the thing, he can shove over big kids. I mean, this is my and he do, and he's got so shovy at the minute. Like, what like I don't know since Benny's been born, yeah. Lack of impulse control. I also think he doesn't like genuinely doesn't know his own strength as well. Like when other kids are like he's like nudges someone and they go flying across the room because he's like Hercules. And his frame of reference is Daddy, who's yeah, well built, and then the dog, who's huge. Yes. So actually everything around him is true. You can push and shove the gun actually and now he's got this baby who needs to be. Yeah, but sounds like he will catch up anyway. Yeah, well yeah, he's like nearly has Size already. So okay, so the Jarco is essentially I want to say outsource, but you don't fully outsource motherhood ever. But getting the right support and the right childcare in place, right? Yeah. Um, and I think it's really important to talk about that because I think so often we make it look like not we necessarily, but social media makes it look like you can do it all. Yeah, oh you can. And actually, I've always said when people say to me, How do you do it? I'm like, Well, I have the you know, I have 98 days a week, I have help, I don't do it all because you can't do it all. Yeah, well Jessie's house is a great example of that. Like we were having to put Bear in the crush at Jessie's house at the weekends because then like even during the like those 16-hour days weren't even enough for the workload that I had. So it was, you know, it and that's the time that you know especially because Bear I think was eight weeks old when our nanny started. Um and that's hard, and I think that people do judge me for that, and I find that difficult, but I I had no other choice in terms of I had shareholders and staff, and it w it's not just B. And I was seeing him all night. Yeah. Oh my this kid's a home, I see him all the time. It's the same 12 hours, yeah. I just don't know what I didn't mind, which I actually never mind. Minded him not sleeping because it was my time with him. Yeah, yeah. Um, but and I know I'll sort of never get that time back, but I did see him because I was working from home a lot and I fed him still, so I exclusively breastfed him for nearly a year. She essentially had no mat leave, right, with either of you. Yeah, no. And with your second, not only just no mat leave, but like going into 16-hour days off the back of basically giving birth. Yeah, I think my and I think the sort of fallout of that is like I actually fully think my nervous system is broken. Like my nerves are like my whole left side is like tingly. And my jaw is like so painful from saying saying SOS. Um but I'm working on it. Like I've got two weeks off, so I'm like getting massages in the line in the dark room. Um, but I just don't I would I mean it was not a good but I didn't really yeah, again, I don't know. Well we know lack of sleep is massive, right? Yeah. So if you're not sleeping, I think that there's this thing going around social media, which is the whole, I don't know if you've seen it, it's like my version of Motherhead is different because my child doesn't sleep at it. If you've seen it, yeah. And I kind of looked at it and I thought about it, and I wasn't quite like mine have always slept. Um, but then in the last two weeks I've had very broken sleep for various reasons from wet the bed alarms to broken legs. And I totally appreciate it. It's like when you're a 24-7 parent, which obviously we are all 24-7 parents, but when you're physically up all night as well, like it kind of breaks you. Oh but it's just stuff that you don't like. Some stuff is common at my mouth, and I'm like, that what like or I'll send a message and forget I've sent that message, or like I've got 240 unread WhatsApp messages because life has just had to literally be paused, and I think I'd be not I don't think I'd be able to articulate myself and on it anyway. Oh my gosh, I'm surprised she can speak. No, and she's given up her time to be here, which obviously I know it's a massive great. Quiet hour. How do you think it's impacted you as a mother to have to go back to work so early on? Do you think it's changed anything about like the dynamic of your relationship or the way in which you feel or think about motherhood at all? I think that it the time that I do spend with them is you know, I can drink them in a bit more, I think. Um and I think that a lot of the day-to-day, and you know, shoot me down for saying this, but it's pretty boring with kids, right? And it's quite perfunctory. It's the mundane, yeah, yeah, the routine stuff, exactly. And I'll you know, I get to spend all weekends with them, and it's difficult because it sounds like I'm like in a um like in a suit in an office, leaving the house with like a blow dry and thinking, and it's not, I'm just a room away from them. Yeah, and then I just get wheeled in from the udders in the udders get wheeled in and the udders get peeled wheeled out. So I do see them like all day. Um but it's not because I I felt like I was always like not missing something before I had kids. I never was like knew that I definitely wanted kids, but I knew that there was definitely something not like in alignment with my life because we've always been so ambitious that I just have kept running at stuff and goals. And then as soon as they came along, they just changed my perspective on that completely. And it sounds really cheesy, but they are just the best thing that's ever happened to me. Um in so in so many ways. Like they're just the best, and I actually like love them as people as well. Like, theirs hilarious. Yeah, and Benny's just like my little bit because for three months he was tied, he was like we didn't have our nanny, she was like away for the first bit, so we raw dogged it with no um childcare and no parents helping either because my mum was in the hospital, so we didn't um have any parent help, and that was like good because we know now that you know it sounds like such a wanky thing to say. Like, we know we could do it, look after our own children, but like um, and my mum was always like you know, where we're from, it's just like don't tell anyone you've got nanny. Yeah, what support system dad like I don't have like we were at my grandma and granddad, someone and dad could work, so this is the problem, isn't it? I think if it's not family, it gets people look at it differently, and that's also I think because so many people aren't fully honest. I mean, there was obviously that whole sort of controversy last week with was Emma Greed talking about how she only sees her kids what was it four hours a week, yeah, and that's what she chooses, and everyone was kicking off, but it's honesty, yeah, and that's really refreshing because if you look at what you've built and you've just sold an incredible business, you're not gonna get that by not having any support. You just you you cannot do everything, yeah, it's just what it takes, like that's and I think that's what she's completely right in is that I I I don't think you can work at that level and do it. I mean, you would literally drive yourself into the ground. And I think like the what when we talk about like the patriarchy and be the helo founders are how difficult it is for women, the thing that we all find really difficult to articulate is the physical thing that things that happen to our bodies, like literally being cut open, literally and metaphorically, and then going into a negotiation meeting, like bleeding and like stuff coming out of every crevice in my body, um, and hormones going wild, sweating like you wouldn't believe for so many different so many different reasons. That is absolutely insane. Um and you know, like you think at that point in your life, in your career, if you'd got your business to that level, you'd be in a crisp suit with a Mont Blanc pen, ready to negotiate. And I was literally changing my pads in the thing, like leaking milk, breast pumps going off. That isn't the view of my uh business story that you would expect, as you say. No, and the team as women we just are used to being we're used to discomfort, yeah, I think, and we have to sit with that all the time. Like so, even when you're breastfeeding, you're like, and you've got that whole thing on the back of your head going, oh, I could really need to feed. Um, and this hurts a bit, and we just live. Yeah, should we not talk about how great women are at just cracking on? Which is just what we do best compared to minor operations that um yeah won't go into my story. Yes, yes. Um okay, so sold the company last week. Congratulations again. Thank you. What does that feel like on an emotional level? Because presumably gut stuff becomes your identity as much as being a mother. So you are the gut stuff. What does that look like now? Well, we're in the business for like quite a long time still now, so not much really changes on that level. I think like the emotionally how it changes is just maybe trying to be a bit nicer to myself, and that sounds like a really again quite a wanky thing to say. But I don't think so when you do that for 60 nowadays. We're really tough on ourselves. And I don't know why. I don't know if it's like the Scottish chip on our shoulder or what it is, but um I don't yeah, we're just like and Alan and I are quite tough on each other actually too. Um and we push each other, and I think that we need to not do that as much. Um yeah, I think that would be like emotionally how I I feel is like I need to give myself a bit of a break, I think. What does that look like? Obviously, you've got these two weeks sort of post the sale before you go back in, but oh god, I'm just thinking about your day, thinking like where is where are your needs then as a mother and as a person as well. Like the Lisa that's pre-gut stuff and pre-babies, and do you have a relationship? Like I haven't um like danced for ages. Like, do you know you're just like I haven't like done anything like that for ages? Um I got on the Peloton this morning and I was like, Well let's tell you so just like that, um and then yeah, like just I don't know, like yoga, like all the like and I hate like the woo-whileness like because it's not about that, but I have a bath nearly every night, and that's like my time where I'll like do that, and then I have martini Fridays where I make myself a martini on a Friday. Oh nice, nice uh swanky bitch. Just a little bit, but there isn't much like when you have a two-year-old and a five-month-old, yeah, it's it's not my time. No, no, no. Just now for that. Whereas Alana is like, you know, going on the yoga retreat with her one of our friends in a bit, and um but she's out of the say her daughter is school age now, so she's kind of out of the hazy, early like the milk and the peer and the everything else that goes with it. So I feel like it's a little bit easier to step back in some respects. Yeah, and you've got sort of clarity. I'm actually on HRT while I'm breast because your estrogen is so low by your breastfeeding that I'm on HRT to try and get my brain to work. Okay. Because I couldn't do all of the legal stuff with the breastfeeding, you're like and you're like not quite happy, but not quite sad, and your body's built to basically just produce milk for that child. So you do not sign contracts in big boardrooms. You don't do that, yeah. So I've got my HRT patches, and I feel like so much better. Really? So interesting because so many people put that off, don't they? And so you're not doing it for sort of perimenopause reasons, you're not doing it. No, I'm doing it to keep my focus. Yeah. Yeah. And my joints and stuff were agony, but I think that was maybe because I wasn't sleeping and stuff as well. So but it has helped, yeah. Wow, interesting. Um, but the birth this time was like easier in terms of trauma. I've had another emergency C section, but I think that like emotionally I was probably like more ready to go back into the real world than I was first time around. Well, you had no choice. Yeah, well, yes, I was thrust back into two days before. So, really, what you're saying is now, like this week is the first time you've been able to slow down since you gave birth to your baby five months ago. Yeah, yeah. I mean I did that's a lot. I did work yesterday as well on my day off, but that's huge. I'll jump on these calls. Um, yeah, I know it's sort of weird, but I I don't know. I just have sort of workhorse anyway, so I don't I feel better. I'm probably just running away from my own thoughts I might have a stop. What will happen? Well, this is what I was just thinking like, is there an element of it that's like keep going, keep going, keep going when you do stop? What comes up? And it's just interesting, isn't it? Because you're you're almost on this treadmill of you've got to keep going, and now you've done the sale. So it'd be interesting to see when you have to work a little bit less, potentially, like what life looks like. Yeah, well, I think I'll have to stop my brain because I'm in full like adrenaline mode still, I think. Like Peter was like, we went out for lunch and he's like, Shut up, are you are you well? So I was like and I think I have to sort of come down from yeah, well also, you know, presumably it was a massive high as well to finally deal done. Yeah, I mean you're so broken by that point, you're just like okay. You don't really get the champagne moment, so I'm having it now. Um but yeah, no, I think I need to like work on because I I I guess as mums as well, like you don't ever get the space to fully switch off. Like I think we envy husbands, partners, and friends that can um just walk out the house and leave it there, and I just think that never that just doesn't happen, especially not with tiny. You're always distracted, right? Yeah, because essentially you're always thinking about even if you do have this incredible full-time nanny, it's always you know, this is what you want them to eat today. There's a lot of still like admin that goes around it, I think. Yeah, um that gets underestimated potentially also between partners. Yes, yes, so mental load stuff. Yeah. On that note, mental load, how like feeding yourself because you're feeding a baby, how do you eat? How on earth do you manage? Like, I can't even do an accardo shop, let alone if I was in a boardroom signing a breaking contract. I have no idea. So, how do you keep yourself taking over? And um obviously we've got to talk about the gut a little bit as well. Yeah, well, that that's the thing, like you sort of don't practice what you preach, and that there's sort of like things that I have to hold on to, so like I'll have like you know, in the morning I'm getting up at five and just having a like coffee and whatever else, but when I'm breastfeeding, I crave sugar in the morning too. Um, not that there's anything wrong with that, but I guess like meal prep boxes have been my saviour. It's like because I needed no knew I needed good fats, and when I was breastfeeding, I was having like tins of oily fish with like packets of grains that I could just shove in the microwave. Um, and the boys like bear because I'm like conscious, our nanny helped cook and batch cook stuff, so I'll like get shopping and we'll both either make muffins or batch cook loads of stuff. So I guess it is quite an important part of what we have, but I guess like more so in the past few weeks, like eating for pleasure has been more a thing because it's just been like snacks, and I'd have like uh gin and dilly when I had to do like some of the really serious due diligence. I'd be like have a little gin to slit set to get me through it. But it's something like when you're when I I find that on my work days, like mumming working, whatever, the juggle of the two, the last thing I'm thinking about is what I'm gonna have for lunch. Yeah. So I open the fridge and I go, uh, sandwich, whereas there's probably loads of stuff in there, but it's just that like the focus and the concentration to be able to work out what I can make that's healthy for myself and full of fibre, I find really, really difficult. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's why you know we do genuinely eat our products because they're there and they're easy, and that's why we made them to make like gut health easy, but um, yeah, ever like meal prep boxes and like yeah, packets of grains, all that stuff is like super quick. Um, and just like yeah, soup, slurping soup in the thing, like crackers and cottage cheese, like just just things that are easy to do, like loads like bags of nuts that I can just graze on if I'm at my desk. Um, loads of herbal teas. Yeah. And I think it's really hard now with the whole gut stuff and the fibre thing to not overthink it. And I think you guys have done some great posts, which is like this is what it used to be, and it shows like five pieces of white bread, and then this is what it is now, and it's like four pieces of white bread, maybe one piece of brown bread or whatever, but like small incremental changes rather than just you know, here's a brand new cookbook, bang, go and get all of this all day every day because it's not not sustainable. Yeah, do you know what's the funny thing about those posts? Like, even every single one of those goes viral, and they're so simple. Yeah, it's like you can think of so much stuff content-wise. Yeah, and loads of them have had millions of views, and they are so simple because it's what people want is just like small switches, yeah, um, brown for white, just yeah, but it's hard, like even like with the boys, I always say try to give them probiotics and a multivitamin, I'm pretty sure it takes you. Like Paris is suddenly not eating anything. Yeah. Do I give them a multivitamin? Like all that stuff you try to do, and by three days, the multivitamin and the syringe are back in the thing. Like you've forgotten. Exactly. It's just intense, isn't it? Yeah. There's so much going on, yeah. It's really hard. And I think looking after well, I I feel like with kids you kind of get it right more of the time, whereas with ourselves, you do, you get put to the bottom of the bar. So it's just like little wins where you can, essentially. Yeah. Um it's just manic. But eating stuff that would like, yeah, I guess as I say, like eating, because that was like my only fun thing to do, yeah, was to like have a nice meal or a takeaway or whatever. It was like that was yeah, yeah. I didn't leave at one point, I was got to Friday and I hadn't left the house. I was like to Peter, I've not left the house since Monday. Like he's like, have you showered? I was like, I don't know, I don't know. Unsure. Oh my god, there we go. This is commitment, right? Commitment to the cause. Oh, I'm not sure you'd recommend it, but no, no, no, no. I've not done it well. I'm not a beacon of hope. So if you were to start again, if you think back to those DJ days and just getting set up, would you do anything differently? Apart from not give birth the same week as she was signing based contracts, which I'd imagine would be one of them. Um no, but I like the the things that I would change to like Alan and I, and everyone also says the devil is in the detail of all those things. And Alan and I, if something went wrong, it was a catastrophe, right? Because it was the jeopardy was so high. Yeah. But I feel like if we didn't have that, we wouldn't have been as successful because we cared about absolutely everything and absolutely everyone. Um like every member of staff, every social post, everything was like we're so extra of the stuff, like both of us are just so extra. Um and I think that that like is a lot and on you like emotionally and thinking because you just put everything into it, everything. So I think that I would say, Oh god, I wish you hadn't sweated the small stuff so much because it turns out, but it might not have turned out if we hadn't sweat the small stuff. So okay, so maybe potentially don't sweat the small stuff, yeah. Maybe do sweat the small stuff. And like, do and yeah, I don't know, like, would I have like changed the time that I had the boys? I don't know. Like Peter's older, like there's quite a big age gap, so we couldn't really have waited much longer. And also, like you said, you said at the beginning, like you never quite know, so you could have got all the way through and it might not have come off anyway. So it's very, very hard, isn't it? It's a bit like moving house and babies and stuff. They always tend to happen at the same time, not because you plan it, but because stuff just takes time. Well, I think your career usually tends to be going whether you work for yourself or you have a job, tends to be starting to take off, and the time where you want to start having kids, um, potentially, and yeah, as you say, like you don't know whether it's going to work out or not, and we just assume that it is, and when it doesn't, like I had a miscarriage in between Bear and Benny, and you like you just I we we get so angry at our bodies, um and it's so unfair because they're incredible and they do all these amazing things, whether you have kids or not. Um and that emotional turmoil, like now, I would be devastated if we had a member of staff that didn't feel like they could tell me they'd had a miscarriage and wanted to take time off because we're gonna bit of a detour, but I think it's just it is so consuming all that get like fertility journey is so consuming for a lot of people. So many people struggle with it, don't they? It's just it's a lot these days. Yeah, especially, you know, we're all tend to be having kids older, um and our bodies weren't but like even that last pregnancy, I'm like, oh, can I do that again? Like my body was I mean third time, honestly. Well, can you can you persuade Peter to let us have a third one then? I'm not sure I'd persuade you to be honest, unless you tell me you're gonna go on a five-week holiday and get yourself in the right way. I know I'm actually having to like Peter's like, Can you get all that newborn stuff out of the house? And I was like, no. If you're not done, you're not I think if you're not done, you're not done. Like two to three, it's something I get asked about all of the time. I've done a load of podcasts on it. Yeah, I need to listen to you and Charlie's one on it. Exactly. It's it's people ask all of the time. And I would just say, if you're not done, you're not done. Like, you know in your heart, if you're obviously persuading your husband is a completely different story, but it's for me it was kind of like we do or we're not. Yeah, yeah. Mama, someone else, a younger model, midnight, good. As long as you just know, like, it is chaos. Yeah. But it's I always refer to it as beautiful chaos, like it's amazing, but it's just absolutely nuts. And you have even less time for each child, you have less time for yourself. But the benefit is you see three of them together, as you do with two of them, and you're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is incredible. Yeah, I haven't quite got that to that stage yet. But nothing, but you are still in the trenches, like, and I also think sleep is a huge factor, and if he's not sleeping, you can't, I just don't think you make that decision off the back of it. Yeah, although I feel like you might have done last time. Yeah, I did. I did. So I was like, You're actually like I'm not sleeping anywhere. We might as well add another one to the map. Check another one in. Come on. Oh, so yeah. Lisa, just to finish off, I asked everyone who comes on the podcast um what support looks like to you in motherhood. So, what have you needed to get you through to well this far? WhatsApp groups with mum friends. Okay. Like, oh my god. My Scottish Mass group is like is my absolute lifeline. Really? Yeah. During the night, the paranoia, um the do you want to kill your husband? Um you know, all those questions that you're just like, you just need someone to be like, oh that's you're not, you're okay, you're fine. Um, yeah, that I would yeah, I'd be lost without the other my mum pals for sure. Because you feel alone, don't you? A lot of that stuff you wonder, like, is it just me? Is there something wrong? Yeah, and the guilt, like, you know, I'm just thinking, do I want to stop breastfeeding? And I keep flip-flopping about whether I do or not. Um, and they're like just trying to. I would say with breastfeeding, that the worst part is the making the decision to give up. When you've done it, it's like, oh my god, like I'm glad, actually, whatever. But yeah, that in-between part and the riding the hormone wave in between is I find like we're going to a wedding at the end of the month, and like rightly, my sister-in-law has the boys, and she was like, Can we try and get him off the boot by that point? Because it is not fair to give someone your child when they've not like been breastfed. But I'm like, I'm already. But then he's basically having a three-course meal, he's absolutely massive. He needs he needs a three-course meal, the boy. So I need to start getting him on solids early, I think. But we can actually ask you about that after. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your honesty, and um, congratulations again on selling your female founded company. That's just incredible. And I hope you get the chance to just slow down. I'm just gonna stay here and sleep under this table, that's right. Not leaving. Thank you. Thank you for coming to me. Thank you for listening to this week's episode. Don't forget to subscribe on whichever channel you find your podcast on, Spotify, Apple, or other podcast players.