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Rochelle Humes: Learning To Be At Peace With Uncertainty | E118

February 07, 2022 / 01:36:00

This episode features Rochelle Humes discussing her journey from being a member of the girl band The Saturdays to becoming a successful entrepreneur and mother. Key topics include her childhood experiences, the challenges of running a business, and her views on acceptance and forgiveness.

Rochelle shares insights into her upbringing, highlighting the impact of her father's absence and her mother's efforts to shield her from negativity. She reflects on how acceptance has played a crucial role in her life, allowing her to move forward without holding onto resentment.

The conversation also touches on Rochelle's experiences in the music industry, the pressures of fame, and the importance of authenticity in her current business endeavors. She emphasizes the need for hard work and dedication when starting a business, especially during challenging times like the pandemic.

Rochelle discusses her recent documentary addressing maternal mortality rates among black women, sharing the complexities of navigating public perception and colorism within the community. She expresses the importance of using her platform to raise awareness about critical issues.

Throughout the episode, Rochelle's candidness and resilience shine through as she talks about balancing her career, family life, and the lessons learned along the way.

TL;DR

Rochelle Humes discusses her journey from pop star to entrepreneur, family dynamics, acceptance, and raising awareness on maternal mortality rates among black women.

Episode

1:36:00

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i just got to a point where i thought it's time to empower myself and you know what some of this is your fault because

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you've said something you'd met someone yeah you spoke to i can't 51 that

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it's been my life and i accept it like you say acceptance actually can be a beautiful thing and it

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can be a liberating thing to think i'm not holding on to something that i can't

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change so first of all the conversation was well done i didn't know about this

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and then overnight the doll turned that that definitely was like

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do you know what actually i was scared of taking my kid to nursery that day because i got death threats

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quick one can you do me a favor if you're listening to this and hit the subscribe button the follow button wherever you're listening to this

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podcast thank you so much michelle humes once upon a time she was a member of the

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saturdays one of the most famous uk girl bands that has ever risen from this country

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but since then she's become so much more she is a mother she is a fearless

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entrepreneur and honestly she is one of the most pleasant wonderful

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authentic guests i've ever had on this podcast and i can see why after having this

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conversation with her she's built this huge engaged community behind her online and i think you're going to see that too

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she's inspiring she is wise she is resilient but she's also

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just unbelievably real and today we talk about something she's

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never addressed before the moment where she was nearly cancelled unanswered questions from her childhood and also

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the all-consuming side of starting and running a business that people just

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never talk about the difficult times the rejection the struggle with work-life balance

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and in her words how she's just winging it anyway and i kind of think we are all just

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winging it so without further ado i'm stephen bartlett and this is the diary of a ceo

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i hope nobody's listening but if you are then please keep this to yourself

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[Music]

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just me and mama i was reading um about the start of your life and going through multiple interviews and that phrase kept

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coming up just me and mum why was it just you and mum it was just me and mum because that's

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sort of how my childhood looked my mum and my dad split officially when i was a

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tiny probably my son's age probably maybe one just short of one

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and then that was sort of it really so that sort of

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i had contact with my dad for a little burst of time but it was never anything

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solid and then the contact stopped all together so yeah that

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i suppose i actually it's funny that you point that out because i didn't realize how much i say that but it just me and

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mum is probably something that i have said a lot you're right i am i had a

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a relative show up one day when i was maybe 12 right and they claimed to be my uncle they just walked into the shop and

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they claimed to be my uncle and they presented evidence which was really compelling they were my uncle they

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strolled in and um they spoke to my dad and they said i'm your brother and they looked at me and said i'm your uncle and it was a

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really bizarre point in my life because although we believed them and they had evidence to prove that they were there

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was no relationship there and i i read that you went in search of your dad to

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just to find out who he was and what was going on at some point in your life can you tell me how that interaction was and

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what you what you felt yeah i think my mum did very well uh at

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not sort of discrediting my dad over the years so she would kind of make a lot of excuse well now i'm an adult and i'm a

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parent right i know that she was obviously covering his ass constantly and making a

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lot of excuses and dressing it up in a way that i suppose that at the time i could handle as a as a kid but you're

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always going to have that level of curiosity in life when i had my own children

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i weirdly became less curious which is weird right because i had my own kids and i suppose

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i've always thought oh yeah he's my dad and oh he's not been around i don't really know him but he's my and i sort of

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held hope but then i had my own children and i saw what being a dad was from my

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husband and i knew what being even not being a dad was being a parent was because i was

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then a parent and besotted and in love and lived live my life for my kids

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so i think the respect was here but it was in the basement when i had my

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own you know because i my outlook was then like okay now i really don't understand the way that you

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don't want to be a part of your child's life you know for some people that changes they have their own kids and

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then i'd like them to know their grandparents or i'd like them and i thought my biggest thing in life is to protect

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these little ones i know how flaky you were for me there's no way that i'd have them sat by

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the window saying is granddad coming to get me because i can protect i've got control over that

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i'm not against it i'd be open but it's not something that i would seek

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now and there was that day that you got a chance to meet him yeah and what did you find out that day

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about him or why he wasn't present or well i didn't really i didn't find out

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anything my mom had always told me this story that sort of went like

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bless her and this is what now i'm a parent i'm like she was so thinking on the spot but it's something that stuck

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with me she said some some daddies aren't very good at looking

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after little girls because they would look after little boy it's easier for them to look after little boys and she

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must have literally been doing the washing and i've said why don't i just you know

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i like because at that time i i knew that he had a son fast forward to have many years later i

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realized that you also had two daughters so that sort of my mum was like

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but at that point i was old enough to like realize that you know he it just he had a new set up and i

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just didn't slot into that i'm super naive to the situation because i don't know what it's like it's important to say that so everything you talk about or

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assume of the situation comes from a place of like total naivety um like if i'm if i met my dad and he

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wasn't around i would assume i would just like ask him the [ __ ] question like where the [ __ ] have you been like

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yeah i know and can i just tell you with everything else in my life i am i mean ask anybody that knows me

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the most direct person but there's just this like i can't even

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articulate it enough like there's this weird it's been my life right and i've got to

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this point and i still don't know the answer but i know the person that i want the answers from isn't the person that's going to give me the honest answer so i

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just don't waste my own time because time is something that we don't have enough of so i'm at that place so it's

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not that i'm like i'm not scared to know the truth i'm not

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like i'm just not in desperate need for it because i know that that it's not gonna be

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a real picture of what happened and i'm too old and i'm too wise to believe [ __ ] so i think

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that's where i am with it there's something really powerful and beautiful about acceptance in situations

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like yeah it seems that most of our unhappiness or frustration comes from the lack of acceptance not getting to the point

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where we need the answer and we need someone to blame well you need to be

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like i'm not gonna be me having a conversation with my father now at 32

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years of age with three kids of my own with a husband with my own career my own life

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me having a conversation and him saying to me oh it didn't work out with your mum and i

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and this i don't know what he would say this is me thinking of an answer me having that conversation i'm actually

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not going to get anything out of it that's genuinely how i feel there's not anything he would be able to say to me

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that could change the fact that he didn't come to watch my nativity play or he didn't do put in that ground

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so really i don't need a dad at my age now

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because i have my own family set up and i'm secure so i'm not seeking that because it's

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something i've never had do you forgive him for his absence yeah i think i do i don't i'm like that

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as a person i don't hold on and i think if there was something in life that i would hold on to it'd be something like this right

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because i would have the right to but i don't and i think had you have asked me

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at 18 i'd i would have i would have been like i will never forget that man for not

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being around for me but i just know what it is i know what i'm gonna get if i had contact with him

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and i accept it like you say acceptance actually can be a beautiful thing and it

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can be a liberating thing to think i'm not holding on to something that i can't

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change it's done it's in the past it is what it is there's a quote that i read one day on

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and it really stuck with me and it kind of speaks to what you're saying there which is um um

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forgiveness but i guess acceptance as well is letting a prisoner go and realizing that you were the prisoner the

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whole time so you were holding on to a weight which wasn't going to ever serve you but you

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you thought it was in service of revenge or victory i'll win if i hold on to this

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grudge or this bitterness but in fact it's like poison in your own chalice honestly i couldn't

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like i have friends that they're they are back to a t and i think you have literally

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you're you are stopping your future and the rest of your life because you're holding on to something that

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first of all no one even knows what it is when it's been that long like like what is this all about and you're but

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you're the person that remains unhappy because you're you're going through life with a side of

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your brain that's focused on the fact that well no because they've done me wrong yeah they did you're doing

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yourself wrong yeah amen it's like yeah it's exhausting and that's just not me as a person like

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on to the next and that's just me that's that's always been my mentality so you on that day when you you discovered his

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his other life his his life as it is you also discovered um two is it half sisters is that what it's

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called i have no idea i don't even know what an uncle is these days but yeah yeah so yeah i suppose technically they're half yeah we share the same

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father but not the same mother yeah um two sisters and a brother okay yeah

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so i you're right i knew i had the brother i didn't know that he had daughters but obviously

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they were young so they came with him and we we just weren't going to see eye to eye he just

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wasn't consistent and that was just the you know a continuous pattern

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so then it sort of the contact dwindled again to near or nothing

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well nothing and then fast forward to

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about 11 12 years later i was at a christmas due at my then

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agents and they had just taken on

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one of the guys from love island kemp who is a lovely lovely guy

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and i obviously you know prosecco's hit mom's got a night off have her having a

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lovely evening he randomly come up to me i've never met him before prior to this never met him

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i was like nice to meet you and he was asking me about the management and was like do you enjoy and i'm like yeah they're going to be great for you good

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luck with everything and then i could feel that he wanted to approach me and say something and the

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night's gone on and you know maybe a couple of cocktails later he comes up to me and he's like

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look okay so this is really weird but i went to school with your sister

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i was like right okay really she never said thinking the sister that i grew up with and he's like no

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so on your dad's side and he said i always said to her because

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she was a really good friend if ever i bump into your sister i'm going to give her your number

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and i lit can i just tell you i was twisted i sobered up within a second i was like

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sorry what and he said look can i just message her now and it all just happened so quickly

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he whatsapped her and was like i'm with your sister a christmas party can i give give her your number she was like please

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the next thing i had her number saved in my phone the next day

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i sent her a message we had arranged to meet later on that

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week with all of them so so the two sisters the brother

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so i was like okay this is great like and i told my mum and and then it got to

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thursday night and i promised you i had the worst time like i was so nervous i said marv i don't know if i can do

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this i don't know if i can go like this is so i made him come with me really

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so he came because i was like the three of them are together they've grown up with each other they know each other like i feel really i don't know why i

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just felt really vulnerable about the whole thing so yeah we went for dinner we it was

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like marv said it was really weird for him to witness

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because he was like i just felt like it was the norm

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and it was weird like i was like my brother going you look like my eldest daughter like you know just jeans are really mad and like she's super tall so

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i'm like she must get her height from you it was just a really weird thing and

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marvin was just like in the kind of way homie was like i was just staring at them all because you are all so similar and

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it's that weird like nature and nurture thing isn't it like we are just so similar mannerisms everything

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and then from that day we like talk every single day

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i can't remember a time when i wasn't in my life isn't that a gift it really is and that's what i mean when

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i speak of not holding on to resentment not not holding on to because

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you know me thinking oh well that's lovely for them they live the life with my with my dad and they seem to get the

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attention and not holding on to things that you actually don't know too much about like not holding on to those feelings of

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anger towards the fact that he wasn't around for me because if i'd held on to that i

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wouldn't have gone i met them for dinner and struck up that relationship and i wouldn't have real key players that are

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in my corner now in my life and people that i adore but that comes of age as i said the younger me i've read

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something on instagram that said i'm so proud of how the older me and situations that the younger me just wouldn't have

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entertained and that is the key of just not holding on to stuff that you

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think you have to because actually there is always a light at the end of that tunnel and

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my light is them and the siblings that i didn't have around me that are now everything to me you know

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i've always contended with that with um especially growing up with this idea that i i assumed my family should be and

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look perfect yeah and we go through so much um like self-harm trying to make our family as we see it in like

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the movies like home like i just need them to be like this and act like this and so much

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despair and misery when they fail to meet that expectation and i i think there's not enough people talking about

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the fact that like by the way your family don't get like a free pass into your life you don't have

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to fight forever to make the setup perfect in fact you end up harming

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yourself more than you gain from trying to achieve that and i definitely noticed that in my life so with me at some point

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when i got a little bit older and maybe a bit more secure i realized that like just like everything else in my life

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that too has to serve me you don't get a free pass like if you're going to be toxic and

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you're going to be an [ __ ] to me goodbye [ __ ] like i don't care if we have the same you know i mean and

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yeah that's not a narrative people talk about enough so i was really yeah and i think and i think for me i

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definitely grew up i grew up with the sort of i don't want to say embarrassment

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because i'm not sure if that is the right word i suppose as a kid maybe it was but my family didn't look like everybody

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else's so i knew i was very aware like i knew my grandparents god dress themselves

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um from my dad's side but i grew up in a white family felt like i'd constantly have to explain

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that my sister didn't look like my sister but we were sisters and you know she'd be the last

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person in the room that you'd say that was my sister because we don't look anything alike and you know i was aware that i then had

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a side of my family my black side that i wasn't around and but i would but that

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was still a big part of my life that and i was very aware of how that looked and i knew that i had siblings

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that looked like me but my family was just a bit of a big messy picture but like with so much love like i had the

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best upbringing my mum did everything by me to raise me in the right way and she did a phenomenal job but i was

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really embarrassed of how that looked like i didn't see a christmas commercial that had like

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my family on on the ad but really

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as i'm old as i'm older now and as i said it does come with age i'm like it's amazing like i have so many

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different elements of my life but yeah i always want to speak about it

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and be open because your family doesn't have to look like i met marvin and his mum and dad have been married like 40 odd years

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and you know they they share the same dna and it's all you know it's all very in

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my mind how i would wanted my family to look but everybody's family comes if they're different problems their their

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road hasn't been plain sailing and i just think so it's something that i've always spoken about because

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it is what you make it at the end of the day and i think like you said if it serves you in the

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right way then brilliant but also if your family is perfect on the outside and it's not serving you

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then you don't have to hold on to things that you think you have to because you've got that

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ideal picture in your mind and even a dysfunctional family can teach you a lot of important lessons

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about life and so really interesting course it tends to be the case with my guests that come here it's in fact often

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the the thing that made them different the thing that made their family slightly dysfunctional which leads to them having

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wild success obviously sometimes or becoming an anomaly later in life yeah

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it seems to tends to be the case that a little bit of a different start to life causes a little bit of a different end

00:19:27

to life yeah you know what i mean um and that's again needs to be said there's always a

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downside as well to that so we have people here that are incredibly relentless in their career because of

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some insecurity from their childhood so just understanding that and being self-aware about that is um important

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speaking of tremendous successes the saturdays when you look back on that phase of your

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life how would you describe it now in hindsight and now you're 32. oh my gosh you know you look 22. i look back now

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and i think the saturdays existed at the perfect time in my life like i was a young girl in

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well i think when i joined the group i was like obviously it took a while for us to

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launch so i think i was 18 when we formed and

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what young girl doesn't want to be

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in a girl band well i mean i'm sure there are girls that don't but for me it was the most incredible experience

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when i look back now i think we were actually really fortunate when i see other girl bands and their fallouts

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and the way that looked i think goodness me yes we bickered but we bickered like

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sisters we never had a row that was like we just never had it we didn't we kind

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of was all there for the same reason we loved what we did and we had a respect for that

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so i feel blessed because when i look at the history of girl bands it doesn't always play out that way so

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we had the best time if there was something up we'd sort it out and that was it done and it was only only really

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ever a work thing so it'd be like i don't like that i don't think that's the right vibe for the video

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or i don't think and that's the sort of disagreement that's sort of where it stopped and then we always had this there was

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five of us so we had the majority rules rule and it was and on that on the on the

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time where you were in the two and not the three it was so annoying yeah so you'd be like

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and it was one of those things because you know you couldn't do anything about it because that's we lived our life by that so it is what it is and even if you

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think your point is so valid you're in the two so go back down [Music]

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um but yeah so i had a ball i was young for a proportion of it i was single

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you know i didn't have chill i just we we traveled the world we performed i had a bloody good time doing it so

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when i look back i only actually look back fondly

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so interesting because liam payne sat here from one direction before he arrived i

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would have said the same what young guy wouldn't have wanted to be in one direction but then when he described how

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turbulent that experience was and being a young dude that comes out on stage there's 150 000 people screaming at him

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he then has to go back to his hotel room straight after the gig and he's basically locked in the hotel room because there's tens of thousands of

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fans screaming downstairs and doing that over and over and over again for years and years and years really took a toll

00:22:25

on him yeah obviously like also not being able to walk down the street without people coming up to him and

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um and then the band ending and there's almost that sense of like well what the hell do i do now yeah

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was there not it almost made me think that there's a bit of a curse of being in the public eye especially in that

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context of a band and yeah and then what happens after and yeah did they experience i don't know i just after the

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conversation with them i thought yeah so glad i wasn't in one direction yeah i think look i think one direction's level

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and it was a global phenomenon right and i've noticed

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being married to mark there's a very different level of hysteria when you're in a boy band to a girl band like it's

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just it's just different it comes with the nature of this job the hysteria is wild for boys

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which i do think would come with a different level of pressure i mean

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there's pros and cons to both you know when you're in a girl band it's very visual and people are obsessed with how

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you look and if you're the one that may have enjoyed your christmas too much and put on a bit of weight oh people are

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gonna tell you or if you're the one that kind of you know there's there's with girls it's all very visual and i think

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that's what i think we can all say that we would have found the toughest at one point

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for us our we didn't burst onto the scene right so like we weren't like jealous or like

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one direction who went on x factor in its prime

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and gained this overnight momentum and girls overnight want to wait outside their

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house because there's one minute you're a guy that's just turned up for an audition and the next minute

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you've got this pressure that you don't know how to handle because no one's taught you that so for us we did the

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like university gigs we did the we we didn't have that

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burst we really did it was a real sort of grind to get our single

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played on radio and we you know so for us it was kind of every little bit of success meant so

00:24:32

much because we would all at the time we'd be like oh we should've just got an expert and we'd say things like that because we think it

00:24:40

was so hard for us and we'd see these groups that appeared overnight and we'd be like oh my goodness we've been here for years trying

00:24:47

um you know our dressing rooms would be toilets because that's sort of that's the level it was it wasn't it wasn't all

00:24:53

glitz and glamour but it worked that way in the end and we were all on that same page and it was

00:24:59

kind of like you're only as strong as your weakest member right so we were all there we were all present we were always

00:25:05

on time and we really wanted it we enjoyed it because as these things happened or we got booked for

00:25:12

an amazing performance which was really hard to get or we you know an appearance or a jonathan ross chat show we were

00:25:18

like we've only bloody got jonathan ross because we couldn't get on there the single before because nobody was interested however yes there were

00:25:25

massive downsides it's like a whole merry-go-round and that's a downside you're on a hamster wheel i think the

00:25:31

downsize is not having control over your own life and i'm a control freak i don't know if

00:25:37

you'll gauge that already um i like to know what i'm doing i'm like

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that's me as a person so there's time you know there would be times and when you'd feel responsible and because that

00:25:49

was always our sort of mantra like we're in this together like one of us drops off we let the other one down

00:25:55

if you weren't up to it the pressure that you'd put on yourself to be up to it for everybody else like i

00:26:01

had a layer and i came back to work three and a half weeks later and performed on national television like

00:26:06

with spanx up to my neck to try and hold in the belly and like this is gross for you but boobs leaking

00:26:13

because i'm like trying to navigate am i breastfeeding on my not all because i didn't want to let the girls down and

00:26:19

and the fact that the label were like you've got another single to release and i think it just got to a point

00:26:25

where we became a bit more adult and we all just were like this has been quite a lot

00:26:32

you know and we're ready to sort of wind down we never actually officially broke up there's probably someone in the record

00:26:38

label somewhere that probably would still say that we owe them a single we didn't officially break up because

00:26:45

there wasn't a need to because we love each other and it's look we don't talk every day because we spent so long of

00:26:50

our life together but i see one of them tomorrow and it's like we haven't not seen each other i think

00:26:56

we just got to a point where we were like we've you know we've grafted we've done

00:27:02

this now we're ready to sort of just like there's things that when you're in a group that you don't even think about right because you're

00:27:08

in control of yourself in the same way i am now but thinking about things like we would all have to agree on the same day

00:27:14

off well that's near on impossible because you want to go to see your friend in

00:27:20

i don't know whatever he's doing that day and you and i want to do this and i've actually got this

00:27:25

so it was those little things that became hard for me like i want to be off

00:27:31

because mars got down for work so can we have friday well no actually because i want and it naturally

00:27:37

it's going to just become a little bit like okay let's pause on this for now and we can all

00:27:42

go in our own lanes and that's sort of how it ended and how it still is

00:27:49

as those priorities shift i guess and you start to you know then i had a baby yeah exactly i'm like you know and

00:27:55

that's that became everything and

00:28:00

owner had already had a little one too before i had a layer but it just yeah there's a there's a switch isn't there

00:28:06

and you start to go okay we've done this now for us so when's the reunion quite some time you know what i just can't imagine doing

00:28:12

it i'll be totally honest with you and i'm always honest i just can't and i've been there to see marvin on

00:28:18

side of stage doing the whole groupie wife thing but i thought i just

00:28:23

just feels like a lovely chapter that ended for me and it was so lovely and i

00:28:30

will always speak of it fondly but it just feels like a period in my life

00:28:36

that's done when you think about doing it when you think about getting that email and they say we're going to do a

00:28:41

tour reunion what what are the emotions that come to mind

00:28:49

as in the sense yeah it just would feel like i just i've look i've got three kids and

00:28:55

there's so many things that i turned down because it wouldn't work for my life and that falls into that

00:29:02

category like my life's changed i have a business there's no way i could be on tour

00:29:08

imagine the girls in the office would be like oh she's at the o2 tonight like we've got stuff to do you know i think

00:29:14

it's just it just wouldn't well i don't think i'd remember the dance routines the thought of doing it's all of the like the actual

00:29:20

i love it and i feel like a bit of a cool mum that i had that time but it's not me now it's just not and i

00:29:27

think it's okay do your kids realize that you're in a

00:29:32

really well-known girl band elia does but she doesn't care it's really sad like i was i was showing her these

00:29:39

videos she cares to watch the videos and that's quite nice but i was telling her i was like you

00:29:44

know because she loves little mix oh my god she is like the biggest little mix fan you should tell her they copied me

00:29:49

and i was like literally i was saying to her because when the little mixed girls were on x factor we were on tour and

00:29:56

they come to one of our tour rehearsals and like asked for our advice so i was i was

00:30:01

saying this to a lady and i was like what do you know actually when i was telling this whole story they

00:30:07

they come to and i tried to find it and there was a clip on youtube of them coming to meet us and watching our rehearsal it was like it's ancient this

00:30:13

clip she was like but why would they ask you for advice

00:30:18

go to your room be crafty

00:30:25

so in her mind because she she understands i did it but she i don't think she realizes but it's funny because because she loves little mix i'm

00:30:32

like god she would probably love it if i did that again you know like she would probably love that

00:30:37

but yeah i'm just not there in my life anymore

00:30:42

and that isn't there's no that's not bad mind as me and my friends would say it's just not

00:30:49

yeah not for me now i've had so many people tag me on instagram even on telegram and in my

00:30:56

twitter dms in a picture of them starting their heel journey and it's one of the most

00:31:01

amazing things in my life that i get to do a podcast which of course needs money to to fuel and i have a sponsor like you

00:31:07

who i genuinely believe is going to help every single person who starts their heel journey change

00:31:13

their life because this podcast the central intention of this podcast is to help people live better lives and we get

00:31:19

to sit here and i get to promote to you a product which has not only helped me change my life but it's going to help

00:31:24

millions of people and is helping millions of people live a nutritionally complete life it's so it's such an

00:31:30

incredible product and for me the reason why it's incredible is because it gives me my protein it gives me my vitamins minerals it's plant-based it's low in

00:31:37

sugar gluten-free it does all of that in a small drink that tastes good there are other products there's foods there's the

00:31:43

hot and savory collection many other things but for me this ready to drink is the absolute saviour of my diet throughout the week

00:31:50

where i'm moving at such pace look i don't want to labor the point but if you haven't tried you'll give it a

00:31:55

try and if you do tag me instagram wherever you try it give me a tag anyway

00:32:01

back to the podcast you talked about starting a business then you've got a business you run now my little coco

00:32:08

tell me about that why why did you want to start that business and obviously you know being a mother of three wonderful

00:32:13

children starting a business especially starting a business at the start of the pandemic is a uh really great time right yeah

00:32:20

phenomenal timing to take on tremendous responsibility yeah so obviously i'd started the business

00:32:26

before it didn't launch until a few weeks before the pandemic hit um

00:32:31

but there was an emotion right we couldn't stop then so i was pregnant

00:32:38

with a layer and going through that real phase of like

00:32:43

thinking i'm an earth mum and being really precious about what i use or my kid you know they are the most

00:32:48

precious thing ever in your life like that just and

00:32:54

i was really fussy about what i used and i would shop really premium so i'd be like going into like liberty beauty

00:33:02

hall and finding out you know and i'd be really into it there wasn't anything

00:33:07

that existed on the high street that i felt happy with you know a lot of them have like outrageous chemicals in and

00:33:12

things that you are like oh that's quite harsh for baby skin so for me it was bridging that gap

00:33:18

of products that you could use for the whole family that were gentle that had everything

00:33:24

that i wanted as you know my values and so the journey began and i didn't want

00:33:31

this to be a flash in the pan thing i didn't want this to be baby by rochelle humes this

00:33:37

wasn't about me right this was about me building a brand from the ground up

00:33:43

rolling with the punches which we certainly have done and yeah bigger picture you know

00:33:49

almost creating a space i knew what i wanted to do but almost creating a space for myself that like

00:33:57

i'm always going to be needed right because it's mine and no one can make the decisions that i can make because this is my baby so why was that

00:34:04

important well i think i suppose there's a little bit of the nature in what i do

00:34:09

that yes i host television but any day someone

00:34:15

more relevant or more current could come along because that's the way the time is there could be somebody new that now

00:34:20

fills the gap that i you know had created or left open so i think

00:34:26

for me it's always being that one step ahead and being in control being in control you're getting

00:34:33

this thing yeah um marvin told me [Laughter]

00:34:38

um it hasn't been easy though goodness to me

00:34:43

so i knew exactly what i wanted so developed pro we started off with a

00:34:49

range of seven products um that would develop which takes a long time and please believe it's like

00:34:55

particularly when it's children involved so the testing for any product the process is quite

00:35:00

stringent and it's it's a full-on thing but add newborn into it we're dealing with a whole new level of

00:35:07

testing which rightly so um so it took a while it took three years

00:35:12

in you know for before the pandemic hit and it was in store it was three years work prior to

00:35:17

that and i'm never happy with something on the first round it's notorious it's not happened yet it won't happen there'll

00:35:24

always be something that i want to change so that obviously took quite a long time and then it was me

00:35:31

i suppose deciding from a sensible business perspective if i want to take the risk and go on my own

00:35:38

e-commerce first of all or do i want to partner with a retailer most people eventually want to partner

00:35:43

with a retailer right it's getting in there and it's you know and that's where i was lucky you know

00:35:49

the business has been me and it's been my graft aside from rochelle humes but that's where i do feel lucky that i

00:35:56

could use my profile to have a meeting with certain retailers and

00:36:01

be in that room and you know use that to my advantage which i did do

00:36:08

however it can go against me too so it's not always yeah okay you've got that because you

00:36:15

have had the profile that has helped with that it actually can can go against you because you know what do you know you're a celebrity coming

00:36:21

into this world and what is this going to be another celebrity range people say that to you or was that kind of implied

00:36:29

yeah i mean they said it without saying it as bluntly as i did yeah it was it was yeah definitely implied

00:36:35

so then so i was going for a whole thing and there was i'd had this moment where

00:36:41

one of my products um was a cult well it is a curl custard and

00:36:48

that was key to the range like that's happening and

00:36:54

there were quite a few retailers that didn't feel the need they liked the range

00:37:00

i think they like the range and they like the association with me and what that might bring to

00:37:06

their store but the values and everything else that

00:37:12

comes with the brand that i've created they wasn't so interested in so the fact that i'm trying to make it

00:37:18

diverse the fact that you know that i want people to walk on

00:37:23

their high street and be able to get a hair product for afro hair

00:37:28

that that's a must the fact that you know the level of moisturizing is different

00:37:34

when you're of a black background you know and that that appreciating those things and i think

00:37:41

i mean what's really interesting is i think if i'd have pitched this idea now

00:37:47

post blm movement i think they would have bit my hand off yeah yeah which is wild right

00:37:53

but when i did pitch it it was like now there's not really i don't think there's a need and i'm like there's no need for

00:37:59

a product for people with curly or afro hair sorry what

00:38:04

so i there was a bit of a struggle and then i

00:38:09

had this meeting with boots i actually felt like i was on dragon's den really yeah felt like i was

00:38:15

on the telly um i actually was i was really nervous i felt like i was really just

00:38:21

pitching something that i knew that was great and that i believed in but it was really i suppose when it's your passion

00:38:27

it fills you with that level of nerves that are different right instantly

00:38:33

but it was boots they got it they were like okay love it we want to take it all

00:38:39

and we love the curl custard and that's that okay these are my people these are my people and it's i mean it's

00:38:47

ironic it's it's just i'm i'm so pleased that i went with my gut and i was persistent with that because i felt like

00:38:52

it was gonna go somewhere so i needed to stand firm on that what else has surprised you about running your own

00:38:58

business that you uh if someone had told you before you started you might not bothered

00:39:05

oh my gosh it's all-consuming and i think if you're gonna start a business you have to know

00:39:12

that don't think you're going to turn your phone off at five because that's not a thing it's not a thing

00:39:18

and if you turn your phone off at five don't expect a successful business like don't expect to make money for the

00:39:24

first period of time expect to if you break even that's good

00:39:29

and you have to be all in you can't like i i speak to like some of

00:39:35

my sister's friends and they want to we want to start business but you know do you

00:39:41

do you actually and i think it's it's and that's not being patronizing that's like you're not going to make an

00:39:47

instagram page for it it's going to be a success overnight and you're going to post a few pretty pictures it takes

00:39:52

everything and i think once you're happy with that

00:39:59

then i think you'll be okay once you know that it's really interesting um because people don't talk about that

00:40:05

enough there's a definitely a culture of be your own boss start a business as if it will be you know the minute you make

00:40:12

that decision it's a decision of like freedom and your life is just totally yours and in control but it

00:40:17

tends to be the case in my experience anyway that starting a business becomes almost the antithesis the opposite of control yeah you you are controlled by

00:40:25

your emails and your whatsapps and crisis and employees and and i think it's important part of the

00:40:30

reason i started this podcast was to try and shed a light on that that side of things that instagram won't like

00:40:36

definitely tell you about and i think that's because that's the that is the culture that we live in now

00:40:42

that that you literally can launch a page and you can look something overnight it doesn't mean that it's gonna

00:40:48

work and i think yeah i think i just i'm always real with

00:40:55

that sort of stuff because you have to work hard like you it

00:41:00

people underestimate graft and i think particularly that's something that's really important to me for my children

00:41:08

like are they gonna have the same level of hustle that i have and that same work

00:41:13

ethic and i still don't know the answer to that to be honest with you do i do that through schooling do i i really

00:41:19

make a fuss about their tests but i also want to let them know at the same time i didn't leave school with x y and zed i

00:41:25

did it myself so i think that's an it's something that i just look

00:41:31

show up be present be committed work your ass off at the thing that you

00:41:38

know that it is that you're good at and i think i'm not into like i'm not going to be that mum that lets my kid go

00:41:44

and expect if she can't sing and be clapping in the wings i adore my children and i will love them no matter what and

00:41:49

i would like to hear them sing but i'm going to be real and i think that's what we need more of and i think that's what

00:41:56

because i'm everyone's hype girl to the end i will hype you now i've met you and i like you i will hype you so hard

00:42:04

but i will always be real with you and i think that is what it doesn't have to come up

00:42:09

you know from a place of judgment or a place of disrespect it's like look maybe go away and think about that a bit

00:42:16

more and go and i think that's what i want my kids to have from me they'll have love and abundance

00:42:23

but if if you're not good at a certain thing i'm not gonna go do it and lead them into a room blind i'm gonna say

00:42:29

look this is what you're amazing actually look at this and i think we can love our kids and support them

00:42:35

without you know because i think that's doing them wrong

00:42:42

i think we can be real at the same time a lot of our guests in fact have sat here in in the last couple of weeks and

00:42:47

said the same thing about the importance of actually don't focus on the [ __ ] you're really bad at if you want to go far in life don't try and turn your d in

00:42:54

physics to a c in physics just focus on jimmy carter just focus on the a like double down on the on the competency so

00:43:00

and it's that it's taking that like focus put your energy in in what you know

00:43:06

because you know what you're good at you know what happens you get that you get the buzz from it you know what sits

00:43:11

right with you you know where you're aligned to go with that and work on that because

00:43:19

that's sort of how i live my life everything that i know that i'm not people always said oh you should go into

00:43:24

acting i'm like i can act up to marvel and i need a couple of things but i'm not an actor i'm not i know i'm not so i'll

00:43:31

just why are we gonna do that the same way when i left the group everyone was like you're gonna release a solo album i work

00:43:38

well in a band i know my strengths i'm not you know i'm not beyonce i mean i'd

00:43:44

love to be and i think i am after tequila but that's a different story but i know what i'm good at i'm a good

00:43:49

talker so you know media and television that's my route that's something that i'm

00:43:55

passionate about so and everyone for ages was like i bet she's in the studio and i bet she doesn't want to tell us and i bet she's doing a solo album i'm

00:44:01

like i'm bloody well not because guess what i've i've taken what i need from this experience

00:44:07

and i got away with it in a band and yes i you know i can sing i'm not the best singer in the world i'm

00:44:13

really not and guess what the charts are full of amazing singers so let me do something that i know

00:44:19

that i can deliver and i work my ass off at that what you're describing there to me sounds it's really interesting because

00:44:25

you're describing like pursuing the thing where you have a degree of competency you're good at it but also where you have like that internal

00:44:31

intrinsic passion yeah and like both are so important i actually spoke to a girl the other day on a zoom mentoring call i

00:44:37

was doing and she'd gotten to a stage in her life where she just just and this is where the passion bit's really important

00:44:43

she kind of just followed the the opportunity so she was good at let's say maths so she found herself at 35 as

00:44:49

being this accountant but she actually never cared about maths she didn't care

00:44:54

about being an accountant she got dragged by the the opportunity it's like you saying

00:45:00

okay i'll do the single just because i can or i'll do my solo career just because i can i'm not taking that moment to pause and go actually what is it that

00:45:07

i care about and regardless of the fact that i can do it do i want to do it yeah

00:45:13

and of money and is this carrot that sometimes can lead us to make short-term decisions which

00:45:18

become long-term regret right and i've definitely done that yeah i've definitely done that i've definitely thought

00:45:25

i've done i've done it with brand work before definitely i've taken on a brand project

00:45:32

and known it's not really me but the money was so bloody good welcome to my world

00:45:39

i will take all the deals but i've got to the do you know what i think i've got to that point now well

00:45:46

yes and it does again come with age it comes with i suppose more financial stability than i had

00:45:53

before like i left the group and people were and i wasn't sure what was going to happen right because i'd left this group

00:45:58

where my life was planned to a tea for me and then i was going it alone and i

00:46:03

thought well that's good money i should take it i don't know what and hi i'm michelle humes and this is

00:46:08

sausages i don't know whatever and i've definitely done that and i'm not ashamed to say it and yes with i suppose

00:46:15

more now financial stability it's it's easier to be choosy right so

00:46:22

this is now easier for me to say because at the time it was like well i don't know when you know when the next one might be you know the

00:46:29

next deal might come in and do you know even more so in the last sort of 18 months

00:46:35

if i and this is with everything it's now i'm so it's the no's that are not more

00:46:41

important to me than the yeses and look i come from a working class background where my mom has always been

00:46:47

like make hey where the sun shines like this is amazing but i've really sort of flipped the switch on that now

00:46:54

and said to myself do i feel it

00:47:00

i put myself in this situation this is actually mentally what i do you're gonna laugh so if i get a phone call about something

00:47:06

and something's come in or because i have my five-year plan of stuff that i know that i would like to do

00:47:12

and we will work to make that happen but some you know we're also reactive so people might call

00:47:17

and say we thought about michelle for this and this would be great and i actually pretend that i'm interviewing

00:47:24

myself on the sofa on this morning and i have to promote it no do this because it's

00:47:31

actually mad so if i was interviewing you about i don't know you you now

00:47:37

are being the face of this mug right could you sit on the safer and i'm not so tell me

00:47:42

everything so why did you want to do this could you genuinely say it with your gut

00:47:49

and feel passionate about it and believe in it and know it works and feel proud

00:47:54

of that association and there are those checklists that i do in my mind and the questions that i would ask someone so tell me about it so

00:48:00

when did this start when did you get the phone call how exciting is it and if i don't feel confident in that interview

00:48:06

i'm not doing it and that is my new thing and for the past sort of year that's what's been playing out in my

00:48:12

mind and it's changed the landscape for me that's such a i love that i think that's so powerful because what it did for me

00:48:19

then is i was trying to think about the ways to sell this mug right i saw your face you weren't selling it and this is your mug in your house by

00:48:26

the way i'm buying you some christmas well i think i think you look closely actually matches the table so there was

00:48:31

it does but you don't believe in it i can tell no i said to myself i think i could do it

00:48:37

once but then getting called to and to build a business or to pursue something you have to do it over and over and over

00:48:44

again for an indefinite period of time maybe 10 years i couldn't do it for 10 years the first time we'd be acting we can all act in the short term if we have

00:48:50

to but acting for a sustained period of time does all kinds of damage i mean eventually it's going to become really

00:48:55

hard to get out of bed to do something i'm not passionate about and it's not just acting the wants because then it turns into the whole new world now which

00:49:01

is social media yeah so then which i treat my social media like my home right i keep it tidy i keep it nice if someone

00:49:08

wants to come in i'll make sure i've tidied up the place so my pictures are good but you know and i you know i try

00:49:14

to visually i'm you know i'm honest but i also like it looking nice i'm not

00:49:19

going to post the worst part of my day and i have respect for people that do and i say this a lot because i think

00:49:26

there's become a pressure with social media that we now have to be honest constantly and i should be displaying my

00:49:32

stretch marks at all times and i should be saying my child's just you know i don't know had a really messy

00:49:38

nappy in front of everybody and they're bombed on me and i've got to take a selfie and document that moment i have respect for you if you can do that but

00:49:44

i'm too busy getting myself out of the [ __ ] at the time that the last thing i'm thinking about is a selfie do you know

00:49:49

what i mean so i i really i fee so i think there's now a pressure that we all have to take that approach

00:49:56

which is interesting that we should be a politician we should come comment on current affairs like look

00:50:03

i have a blue tick for the reason that you know for the reason that i'm verified and it's not because i'm a news

00:50:09

anchor and it's not because i know everything that's going on in the world and it's not because

00:50:14

you know i'm constantly going to expose every part of my life and

00:50:20

but i'll be the real me on there but i just can't if something bad is happening at home i might be ready to talk about it in a

00:50:27

week but that's the sort of instant instagram for me so i think it sounds like you've had a couple of dms of

00:50:33

people pushing you to talk on things well i think i think but i think you yeah you do and i think it's not just dm's i think people just expect and i'm

00:50:40

also really aware of that i call it the blue tick responsibility i'm really

00:50:45

aware of the fact that people could take my information and it it might not

00:50:51

be correct so i don't want to become and i think there was a lot of that over the pandemic people reposting stuff before

00:50:57

they knew the right information and then i've i've then become part of that scaremongering

00:51:03

culture and i feel i feel it's my responsibility to report on stuff that i know everything about

00:51:09

and the stuff that i know everything about is myself my brand my right so i think don't

00:51:14

expect that from people that are also not in the know yeah yeah i think

00:51:20

it's quite a it's quite a big ask actually and obviously there's a lot i'm passionate about and that might

00:51:27

you know that might muddle into you know if i know about it and i've got an opinion on it yeah i'm going to tell you but i'm not going to talk about

00:51:32

something that i don't know about i don't think it's fair let's talk about that then things you're passionate about um and

00:51:38

sort of topics you've you've spoken on the black maternity scandal was one of those topics um

00:51:45

i was i was reading about why you wanted to do that documentary and the

00:51:50

statistics around um mortality in the black community at

00:51:55

pregnancy are pretty staggering for me yeah the thing that i found really i want to talk to you about particular

00:52:02

was there was a bit of a a conversation when you decided to do that documentary around whether you were black enough

00:52:08

let's it was quite it was quite the conversation let's just call it how it is and i find it we've both got i believe

00:52:15

i'm guessing here a white parent and a black parent as well correct it's interesting because growing up in an

00:52:21

all-white school i was blacker than black yeah i was the blackest thing anyone had ever seen i was the nice guy and then when you go

00:52:28

into adult life and you also seem to get then rejected by the black community even though you've

00:52:34

spent your whole life thinking and you know yeah being the blackest person in in my circle and i i funnily enough i

00:52:41

was posted on um an instagram account when i was announced as a dragon and the debate in

00:52:46

the comments section from this kind of like black instagram account was all around whether i was black enough

00:52:52

and it was black people saying well that's enough for what for what i don't know to like be part of that community

00:52:58

like i'm too much of a lighter i don't even know what that means i'm apparently i'm too much of a lighting to be um

00:53:04

to be part of that community and i just think i have to say and i just don't give a [ __ ] because no one could find me i just

00:53:09

think it's pathetic i think personally i think it's totally [ __ ] pathetic like black people trying to decide whether

00:53:15

i'm black enough to to understand like my mother is nigerian i was born in africa what do i

00:53:21

have to like what do i have to do to be able to speak to yeah look i i'll be honest with you i found that really hard

00:53:28

and i actually found that probably the hardest thing that i've come across in

00:53:33

my career i found it really it's our background on that before we

00:53:40

come to this so as you said so at the time of filming the show

00:53:45

um there was a campaign started um by two brilliant women um called five times more

00:53:51

and black women were five times more likely to die in and around childbirth

00:53:56

than their white counterparts and if you what we say black and brown women but if you were from a mixed

00:54:02

background so i was four times as likely if you were if you were of an asian background you

00:54:08

were three times as likely and it basically if you weren't white it didn't look good for you in and

00:54:14

around childbirth so i got approached by a production company

00:54:22

to go on this sort of journey into why

00:54:30

and at the time they asked me i was very pregnant

00:54:36

and i just was like it's a little bit too much i found it a bit overwhelming i was also scared about working

00:54:42

um during covid and that you know at the peak of kobe 2.6 we're very much still living through it

00:54:48

um because if you were pregnant you were also at more risk and then obviously if you're of a black background and

00:54:54

pregnant you're at more risk of getting covered and also it was so i was just like look i'm going to be in my house

00:54:59

i will 100 because this was just a pitch at this time right and you know how this works you can make a million different

00:55:05

programs but none of them necessarily make it on telly so i said look if you think you put my name on this pitch to

00:55:12

channel four is going to get it across the line put my name on it but i'm in the new year once i've had the baby in october

00:55:18

get let me just i will i would i'm here for it i will do it so that conversation happened

00:55:24

they said yes we would want to commission it we'll wait for you all to do in the new year so that was that and then

00:55:33

fast forward to we announced that we were taping it which was probably we'd already started

00:55:40

but we were announced because i think i wanted to get a couple more women that i'd found through my channel

00:55:46

to maybe share their experiences and so i sort of did a call out on social media i announced i was filming

00:55:52

it and did a call out to to say this is what we're filming and it sparked a conversation it's back to a real

00:55:57

conversation of did you know and a lot of people were like yes what you know white midwives had messaged me saying

00:56:03

i've seen this you know i would i'd like to be a part of it you know there's a

00:56:08

there's lots that needs to be needs to be done here but first and foremost people didn't know those stats and i

00:56:15

think that was for me really important that we we get that

00:56:21

on a big stage there's some women that have been doing some incredible work for years working

00:56:26

tirelessly um to promote these figures and to you know get some sort of acknowledgement that

00:56:32

this happens so let's give it a big voice right so first of all the conversation was and

00:56:38

that was the feeling everyone was like well done i didn't know about this and then overnight the doll turned

00:56:46

there was a post that was posted on instagram that was from another woman who is

00:56:52

an author um a presenter that said that she had been asked

00:56:58

to front the same show so this conversation has happened and it was like great and then

00:57:04

she had said i'd been asked to front this show which obviously i'd woken up and seen

00:57:10

this post and was mortified she was a darker skinned black woman

00:57:15

the first thing i did was dm her this is my number i don't know what [ __ ]

00:57:21

has gone down here but this is my number give me a call to this day i've not heard from her

00:57:29

and then that sort of triggered this whole conversation of the fact that i'd taken a a darker

00:57:36

skinned woman's bread and it it the dial switched overnight and i was

00:57:42

can i tell you i was beside myself devastated because first of all that isn't i'm not whether you're white black

00:57:50

i'm not stealing any woman's bread that's not for me so i kind of wanted to get to the bottom of this so i called

00:57:55

channel four i caught i was like just tell me has anybody because i was on the pitch right so i was like this is

00:58:02

bizarre because we pitched this together has anybody been asked to host this apart from me because i'm not cool with

00:58:09

this and this isn't i'd i'll do it with her we'll do it together but this isn't the way that i work

00:58:15

and she and she hadn't been asked and obviously as i said there's lots of shows that are being made so i'm not sure if there was

00:58:21

another production that she'd maybe had word with and maybe started making something similar that i that i don't

00:58:27

know and it's probably more than likely so obviously it sparked this debate

00:58:32

around colorism which is also a great conversation to be having we don't have that conversation

00:58:38

enough but it wasn't the debate we were trying to spark we were talking about maternal mortality so it sort of snowballed into

00:58:45

this chat and colorism most definitely exists i'm aware of that i might be

00:58:50

lighter than one woman but i'm definitely darker than some that's how my life has been so

00:58:57

in a way i was like look this is at my expense and this conversation that sparked is

00:59:03

incorrect and it isn't this isn't how it went down however it sparked a conversation that

00:59:09

i'm not gonna release a statement and stop it and say listen it wasn't and i'm not gonna out another woman for saying the wrong

00:59:16

information because that isn't me so i let it i let it go because i just

00:59:21

thought do you know what that's also a conversation worth having yes to some i definitely have it a lot

00:59:27

easier because i am lighter skinned but as i said before i'm also darker

00:59:33

than some so i understand it so i let that conversation play out for that reason because the more we talk about

00:59:39

these things the better right however it was harsh and it was a hard

00:59:44

pill to swallow because in this instance this isn't it wasn't it i felt really hurt because

00:59:52

i was first of all i was being denied of my black gene yeah first off

00:59:57

secondly the community that i'm making this show for and that we were fighting

01:00:03

to get this on tv it was the first documentary of this kind being made

01:00:08

weren't happy about it until they saw it and i was like just wait and see it because it's actually not about me it's

01:00:13

about the brilliant women that have been brave enough to take part in this dark so yeah it was a really weird period of

01:00:19

time because i genuinely didn't know how to handle it because i didn't i then put the show on the other foot and then i

01:00:25

said okay so if i'd been asked to do this which i had to do this show put my name on it to get this commissioned

01:00:32

and i'd said no if you think it's going to get commission but we really feel rushed that by putting your profile to

01:00:37

it we'll get it across the line and if i'd have said no am i not then doing my bit for the back

01:00:42

am i not then doing what i should be doing and so i really imagine it was a yeah

01:00:48

imagine imagine imagining that that story broke michelle was asked to do this um documentary about um

01:00:54

the increase in the the staggering statistics of mortality in black women at childbirth and she said no

01:01:00

imagine that you would have got the same this is a lose-lose situation and that's how it really felt and i

01:01:06

think that was the biggest frustration and also in all of this so this big conversation happened

01:01:14

fine okay i get it and i'm not saying that colorism doesn't exist because it really [ __ ] does and it's awful and

01:01:20

it's unjust and it isn't right and there's a lot of work to do in that space and i think that'll be

01:01:25

something that exists for a very long time unfortunately however

01:01:31

that it wasn't it and it wasn't right to make this situation about colorism

01:01:38

and yeah i just found it a real struggle because at the same time and there was a

01:01:43

lady called mars who's just a brilliant woman she's a doula and she has been campaigning

01:01:50

for this disparity for a very long time and she said the thing that you're forgetting she called me because she saw

01:01:56

it all go down she was like are you all right are you okay and i literally burst into tears

01:02:03

she was like you're forgetting you've you've lost yourself out of these stats

01:02:09

because being a mixed woman you are still four times as likely to

01:02:14

die than a white woman you're losing yourself in this too and your children and the re so you are still very much part of those

01:02:22

stats so let's not lose this here you know these the stats are about black and

01:02:27

brown women so i had to remember and there was talk of we had a meeting at my management and

01:02:33

we go we're going to pull out of this should we just pull out of this because and i was like no do you know what i'm

01:02:39

not because it's not actually about me and they will learn that when this program

01:02:45

airs because these brilliant women have trusted me to protect their stories we

01:02:50

were so careful we had we had one director a black female director and it was just we didn't have a soundie we

01:02:56

didn't have any a whole crew we turned up to these women's homes and

01:03:02

we protected we wanted them to feel safe so it was just her and i and they could tell their story and we didn't want to sort of

01:03:09

make them relive their trauma in a way that wasn't going to be helpful so we it was we we did it in the best way that we

01:03:16

could um and what's interesting is i've had so many different letters since

01:03:22

saying i'm so sorry that we wrote this article because actually we watch the show and it's not what we so it's just funny that when i

01:03:30

talk about that blue tick responsibility one post can set a whole community

01:03:35

alight when actually it was incorrect and that's where i think we all need to do

01:03:41

better in our position to make sure that we're always posting the right information when we do that

01:03:49

social media is is very much a place of um trying to hold everybody

01:03:55

to a standard of fit like false perfectionism like as if we're all just perfect human beings we make perfect

01:04:00

decisions there is correct and there is wrong on social media there's no nuance there's no middle ground there's no

01:04:06

appreciation for like complexity and how okay this is right but also this is right that that

01:04:12

conversation doesn't happen because we're the algorithm pushes us into these tribes where we're either left or right

01:04:18

um when you're trying to be true to yourself when you're trying to

01:04:24

um speak on issues that matter it's almost it's almost impossible in in the age of social media and what i

01:04:30

really like about what you've described there is um there was this intense pressure to like fall in line with

01:04:36

correct with what when i say correctness i don't mean that it's right i mean like they're like false correctness this is

01:04:42

you know it's like a mob screaming in your face rochelle this is correctness stop do come and join us yeah on the

01:04:49

side of false perfection and come and and you had the i guess the i wouldn't

01:04:54

even describe it as courage because that doesn't feel like the right word but you had the sense to say i'm gonna do this anyway

01:05:00

um a lot of people don't have that these days a lot of i find it so incredibly hard like

01:05:05

i'm someone who's probably at some point going to get cancelled because i really when you describe that story to me it just pisses me off so much yeah but you

01:05:12

have to sit on it i know and i but with this it was different because of the reason i was doing it yeah so i was like

01:05:19

look i don't want to say anything because there's a lot of noise happening and i've not even said anything yet yeah and my the old me with what we were

01:05:25

talking about would have just gone yeah but really i didn't want

01:05:31

if i spoke on it it would be another daily mail article and the noise would have just it would just kept

01:05:38

you know snowballing out of control so i was just like look i'm not do it this

01:05:44

isn't about me it's not about me it's about

01:05:50

i had a job in my mind and my mind and that's what kept me going because those women that i spoke to i was it was for

01:05:56

them and the whole time i was checking they were okay with this look do you think and i was getting their their take on

01:06:02

this and if they had said to me at one point rush i actually think maybe stepped down from this

01:06:09

i would have done genuinely i would have done but they had trusted me and i i'm not going to let them down we're

01:06:15

thinking about the bigger picture here and i think so it was that so i just i just kept silent on it because i thought

01:06:23

what is it the queen you don't ex do like the queen if someone said to me once you you never

01:06:29

you don't explain and you don't complain in certain situations i was like i've never done like the queen in my life but

01:06:34

i'm going to put it to use right now because i didn't want to make it about me i

01:06:40

didn't want to make it about the fact that do you know what actually i was scared of taking my kid to nursery that day because i got death threats i didn't

01:06:46

want to make it about do you know it's not about me it was about the bigger picture and i

01:06:51

think i just had to hold on to that marv did take my phone off me that day i lost my

01:06:57

i lost my for the weekend he was like that is going off and he literally texts everybody that works with me and was

01:07:03

like if you need him here but like no more phone

01:07:09

you're right if you had responded it would have been fuel for the fire i think when those moments happen people are intent on misunderstanding

01:07:15

that's what it feels like they are tr so even if you'd come with your explanation honestly the lens in which they would

01:07:21

have viewed your explanation or your side of the story is like where can we find another [ __ ] twist exactly and i

01:07:27

thought you know what a num it's it's too tiring and then if i say something then someone like you said

01:07:33

would yeah but you still didn't and then i would have had to have gone back to that and i think it's a never-ending

01:07:38

yeah it's a never-ending cycle but that that definitely was like

01:07:45

navigating through that was probably the hardest thing i've actually been through ever

01:07:51

would you would you if you could now erase that experience and not have going through it would you yeah you would erase it yeah

01:07:58

i'd erase the i wouldn't erase doing the show and doing i would have raised that day and that

01:08:05

that it was just awful but didn't it teach you something because you'd be erasing the lesson it

01:08:10

taught you as well if you raised the experience yeah you're right you are right yeah

01:08:16

i'm gonna give you an eraser would you erase that day no a little bit

01:08:22

just just just touch it up a little bit um no do you know what i think i think you're right and i actually

01:08:28

think that happened at the start of this year and do you know what you was we were saying like over the past year my whole

01:08:34

outlook has changed on a lot of things and maybe you're right maybe it has also come

01:08:40

from experiences like that that have taught me not to you know not to react so quickly

01:08:47

and not i think sometimes we're so quick to jump out to our own defense

01:08:53

because i don't want someone to think i'm that person and i don't want them to think that i would do that to another woman guess what i know i would never do

01:08:59

that to another woman that isn't me the first thing i did when i saw that was message her and say babe here's my

01:09:05

number call me because that isn't me but do i need to defend that to a whole

01:09:10

lot of people that have already made up their mind no because it's exhausting and

01:09:16

i'm not achieving anything so i think sometimes we're so desperate to to defend ourselves and put out a statement

01:09:22

to say actually this isn't what happened and you know justice yeah cause it sounds a lot like what we

01:09:28

described with the relationship with your father that need for justice ends up being really self-harming yeah and accepting

01:09:34

acceptance again is the yeah and because i know i was coming from a place of love i was coming from the best place in the

01:09:40

world people were saying things like oh yeah you just you've got you've got enough money give it to a presenter that didn't

01:09:46

have that opportunity i'm like i didn't take the money from the show that's what you don't know i gave it to the charity

01:09:52

in order that i was working with i didn't take a penny from that event if anything it cost me money

01:09:57

so but was i going to write that in a statement and to make myself look like a

01:10:02

you know look like the angel no because it wasn't about me and i think sometimes it is just taking that like you don't

01:10:10

have to jump to your defense to prove that you're an incredible person all the time it's just i know where it was coming

01:10:17

from and sometimes it's enough and it's exhausting because someone's always going to have something to say always

01:10:23

always especially on social media always yeah i i i i've gotten to the place where i can

01:10:29

open my dms and i'll be reading it and it'll be like love the podcast you're amazing another podcast you're amazing and then one guy goes make these

01:10:35

podcasts are proper [ __ ] and you look at it and you go like do you laugh now i do yeah i'll screenshot

01:10:41

it we're shutting down the podcast brian from skunthorpe with like a egg avatar

01:10:46

has decided i know but this but this is exactly it

01:10:51

right and there was that that time when that prudent i turned everything off i turned off comments i turned up um

01:10:59

and then i just like i'm not dealing with this i'm just gonna live my life i literally cried

01:11:05

for 48 hours and was devastated it was really weird i made a roast dinner

01:11:13

marv had my phone and then i remember him that week going well i think you can be you're all right

01:11:18

now on this because i i was like right let's let's cancel filming this week because i also didn't want it to affect

01:11:24

the contributors thinking oh we now can't be part of this show which we thought we were because now

01:11:29

we're worried the black community don't approve of you know it means there was a bit of that so i was like look let's stop filming this week

01:11:34

and we'll go back to it when we all have had some sleep and we don't feel too emotional and

01:11:41

so that's what we did we picked it up the following week so i took that week off and

01:11:47

rebecca that works with me she marvin was on the phone today said right can you just do me a favor before you

01:11:52

give it back so just clear the dms and then she was actually like look it's actually not as bad as you think and

01:11:58

whatever whatever it you know it's fine we move we know the intention

01:12:03

and she sent me a screenshot of one of my messages it was like you're cancelled to me you're this you're that you're you

01:12:10

know what you know there was a few of them and then it was like uh can you just tell me the recipe to

01:12:16

your roast potato and then the next one would be like i had so much respect for you before but i can't believe what you've done and then

01:12:23

it would be like um where's your dress from when you were so it was you know it's just like do you know what that is just

01:12:30

and i also think it was that period of time where everybody was locked down and it was like

01:12:36

everyone was on their phones more which became like everybody came out and it was like it felt just like such an

01:12:41

attack i was like do you know what the reality is

01:12:47

sometimes you're not going to get everything right and deep down i really don't think i would have handled anything differently

01:12:53

because i know where it came from and the place but you're not always going to get everything right and not everyone is

01:12:58

always going to be impressed with everything you do and i think that was maybe maybe that's why it was the hardest time

01:13:04

because maybe it was the first moment in my career that blindsided me

01:13:10

that i wasn't in control of that someone could have said something that wasn't quite the truth and i had no control over that

01:13:16

and yeah so maybe that's why i found it because i wasn't you know normally i'm

01:13:22

like i know what i'm doing i go on telly i do my thing i do this or i've released a single and it come

01:13:27

but i just didn't know i could yeah that that was possible and i think that's probably why it got me in the gut

01:13:36

you talked a little bit there about earlier about um you said made a comment that you've never had one like this when

01:13:41

describing marvin and i can see there you know he's doing a lot to shield you and protect you by taking your phone and

01:13:47

kind of being a human shield from a lot of that chaos um and you also said earlier in the

01:13:52

conversation that your business is all-consuming yeah so how do you find that balance because i'm i'm in a

01:13:58

relationship now and i struggle with the balance of do it being my professional steve and

01:14:04

all that stuff and then having to like switch off and fall into a different mindset where there's no like kpis and it's not about profit and like you know

01:14:10

my girlfriend just wants to do simple things watch movies watch something about ayahuasca and peru like and i i

01:14:16

have to kind of compartmentalize but like how have you and you've had a you know

01:14:22

outside looking in again it's important to say that because we never know what's going on yeah we

01:14:27

talked about families so it looks like you guys have had a really solid relationship how have you achieved that how do you find that balance and

01:14:33

what's what's the key i think we just have this real understanding of one another

01:14:39

and i think we we both really appreciate how lucky we are

01:14:44

like that's something that we always say like i can say it from my point of view because i feel very lucky to have him

01:14:50

i'm not gonna say why he's lucky to have me but why is he lucky to have you

01:14:58

i'm joking well um no so i can only speak for me but it's

01:15:03

something that we always agree on like he really is my calmness in the chaos

01:15:08

like if that makes any and he always has been he's got that real calming demeanor

01:15:13

and he really is that for me so we've always we've always both had a real respect of

01:15:20

how lucky we are in this world that it's kind of like that we are in to find somebody that's

01:15:27

solid like i know how rare that is have we nailed balance babe no

01:15:33

we have three kids we have full-time jobs we're self-employed we're winging it pretty much through

01:15:40

life but never with each other he makes me feel really secure you know

01:15:46

and i think that is something that's really important to me and i don't know if that's where my dad comes into play too

01:15:53

where that like he like we could be anywhere in the world but if we're together in our little

01:15:59

family this evening before we had kids like i'm like happy i'm i'm good with life

01:16:04

and i and i feel like that's why i can i'm in a place

01:16:10

i'm not going to give him all the credit actually here but i'm in a place where in my career i feel like i can take a

01:16:15

lot on like when i arrived today i was like i'm not good i've not stopped but i've got i've all that side of my life feels very

01:16:23

content and is content which can push me on to do other stuff and when i say like i look he'll always

01:16:28

be like oh my god it's amazing that you've done this or that and people will talk about well i

01:16:34

yeah it's great but i've got i've got good people behind me you know and and he is definitely at the

01:16:39

forefront of that for sure you were you talked about how you were cheated on a previous relationship

01:16:46

often when people are go through that when they've gone through that kind of deception and dishonesty from a partner they go into the next relationship kind

01:16:52

of holding holding it the next person like responsible for the last person and

01:16:57

i see that a lot of my dms i had this conversation the other day and i don't normally respond to this kind of thing but she this

01:17:03

this um this woman had sent me her screenshots with her boyfriend and she was hammering him going show me your

01:17:09

phone and then she explained to me she'd been cheated on in the past so she's insecure and she actually said to her her current

01:17:16

boyfriend like i think it was guilty until proven innocent and i was like no honey no

01:17:22

i was like you're going to do so much damage by yeah to the foundation of the relationship by bringing that but it

01:17:28

goes back to what we were saying again you do damage to yourself because now she is feeling

01:17:35

that she constantly has to be that person but who's happy here because the

01:17:41

boyfriend isn't happy doing that and she really isn't so i think that was a real conscious decision for me to not take

01:17:48

that into this because i don't think you can ever let any relationship grow its full potential

01:17:54

if you're still dealing with old [ __ ] and that's in friendships that's in

01:18:00

the workplace but i think yeah for me that was really really

01:18:06

important and like anybody until someone gives me a reason

01:18:12

to feel a certain way like i'm not going to meet you and think oh i met someone the other day that

01:18:18

interviewed me and was a bit of a dick so this day is going to be horrendous because sorry what was that i mean

01:18:24

you're a person you're a lovely guy and we've had a very nice chat um but do you know what i mean

01:18:30

like you can't walk into every situation thinking because you had a bad time one day that it's going to be the same the

01:18:36

next and i think that's what i was really i will say when i met mark i was very anti-getting with

01:18:42

him didn't they tell you not to get with someone in a boy band and yeah anyway yeah i did really not eat me and frankie

01:18:48

they were like it's really going well girls you know you've worked well the singles are going

01:18:53

down well the worst the only thing that you could do now you know afterwards work so we didn't

01:18:59

have that overnight success as i was saying the only thing you could do because it's a really hard thing to get

01:19:04

girls to like girls girls love to be fans of boys and boy bands the only thing you can do to mess it up now

01:19:11

you've got the girls on side is to date someone from boy groups and you thought and i just remember

01:19:16

looking at frank cat was in this meeting at the record label she was at the time she was dating dougie from mcfly

01:19:23

and i was obviously dating marv and i was like well we [ __ ] this one

01:19:30

so it was kind of like we tried to keep it a secret for so long and i remember like sneaking into one of marv's gigs

01:19:38

and i was watching from the sound desk and a girl come up to me and she said

01:19:43

you have ruined my life i was like oh i think i know what he meant the other

01:19:49

day she was like like with intent like she was like you have ruined

01:19:55

my life and i was like huh like okay you know it's like i couldn't really hear and then but the third time i was like oh i

01:20:01

totally understand and the eyes i knew what she meant like i remember being like that's mad

01:20:07

because she wanted marvin yeah and i remember thinking oh okay then this isn't going to be

01:20:14

straightforward but now the other side all these years later reunion tours

01:20:21

i don't get that anymore i don't get that anywhere else and now i'd be like well babe listen you've got

01:20:28

to contend with snoring you've got to deal with it i'd give him a list of reasons why i've probably helped your life

01:20:33

what's he like as a father oh the best like

01:20:39

do you know what's mad is i kind of when i when i speak about this it's it's

01:20:45

a really weird thing that sometimes sits with me odd and not because of

01:20:51

my dad and my childhood actually because we spend a lot of time going

01:20:58

as a society people will say you're so lucky marv is such a good dad

01:21:04

and i'm like uh-huh he is and my children are lucky to have a good dad i get that totally get it because i didn't

01:21:09

have that i really get it but at the same time there's always a part of me that goes

01:21:15

he's doing what he should be doing and we do all that oh it's daddy daycare today no he's just taking his kids out no one

01:21:22

says it's mummy daycare today or it's well they're lucky to have a good mum because it's assumed you should be a

01:21:27

good mum right you should be a good mum you should be able to have a career

01:21:32

you know be be a hot a hot girl for your fella

01:21:38

you should be an amazing there's a lot of pressure that's put on women

01:21:43

in that perspective i really really think so and i think so yes he is an amazing dad and he is devoted and he is

01:21:50

patient and he is everything i'd want him to be everything that i would have wanted for

01:21:55

you know of a dad but really at the same time i'm like no guess what he's stepping up to the plate

01:22:02

and i'm not taking anything away from him because i really appreciate him and we really do in my house he's a rock but

01:22:08

at the same time it's we live in this weird world where it's like you get a clap for

01:22:15

being a great dad but if you're a mom and you're working you're like oh she's out to work is she

01:22:20

not going to make the nativity on time you know there's that like judgment for

01:22:26

doing what dads do if you're a mum it's a really weird concept and it's something i wasn't aware of until i had

01:22:31

kids so true i've actually never thought about that before but that is so incredibly true it's like a dad is

01:22:37

giving a trophy a few daddy daycare he's taking them out again for the day unbelievable

01:22:43

i literally did that every day this week but no one said anything you know it's bizarre it's bizarre to me

01:22:50

earlier on you said you talked about a five-year plan yeah so what is the michelle hume's

01:22:55

five-year plan so in career it would be

01:23:00

tv i feel like i've got enough i feel like i don't want to i'm don't

01:23:07

want to saturate myself with stuff so i'm trying to find a real balance of there not being an announcement every

01:23:13

other week of something else i'm doing and i'm so excited to announce now do i i'd like balance so i would i love the

01:23:19

fact that me and marvin have a show together that's a saturday night entertainment show which is a family show which is music it couldn't be it

01:23:26

couldn't be more perfect for us i love that so i would love that to run until the end of time

01:23:32

i love what i do when i dip in and out of daytime television that suits me in terms of my business i want it to keep

01:23:38

growing at the rate that it is that's really important to me i obviously now manage myself which is a

01:23:45

very different thing and that was something that was really crucial in my five-year plan tell me why you made the

01:23:50

decision to move away from external management and to manage yourself and what does it mean to manage yourself

01:23:56

i've got my manager in the corner there so sell me on the upside this could get bloody awkward

01:24:03

so i i could never do it so i i've been in this industry in

01:24:10

different forms since i was 12 years old so i was in scope juniors when i was 12. i then did

01:24:18

presenting for kids television and then obviously went into the group and then i went back into telly after the group

01:24:23

ended um so i've always

01:24:29

a level of guidance throughout this because it's something that we all need it's a crazy world right

01:24:35

but i've always sort of been at the mercy at some of somebody else

01:24:42

and i think i've been really lucky over the years to work with some of the best

01:24:48

management teams in the industry i really really have and i feel there was a time where i was

01:24:54

desperate to be managed before all of this i want a manager and i want to maybe they can make this happen for me

01:25:01

and then i got to a point where i feel like in terms of tv

01:25:06

in terms of what i do for branding or for how my job looks

01:25:12

i feel like i'm not trying to build a name for myself anymore in the sense of

01:25:20

a lot of the execs that these the channels know me they know what i can do if they want me for a certain thing

01:25:26

they're going to book me and yes i will always pitch ideas and i'll have my own ideas and they might take them or they might not but i got to a point

01:25:34

where i feel like in terms of that i'm happy in what i'm doing

01:25:39

and really nobody knows me better than i know myself it felt like a new challenge i felt like

01:25:46

i didn't want to be part of a big corporate firm where people it takes people quite a while to get an answer

01:25:51

whether i want to do x y and z i'd like someone to be able to speak to me or one another

01:25:58

and i i could tell you when i'm on a whatsapp ralph says thank you you want to do no no don't waste your time let's

01:26:04

not take months to work up and offer and present it to me because we've wasted everybody's time so i wouldn't have done it anyway

01:26:09

so i just felt like i got to a real point where it sounds like control

01:26:15

it does doesn't it it really does consistent things it's what this podcast is what this episode is going to be

01:26:20

called control um but it really was actually gaining that control back

01:26:27

like i didn't want to keep being advised of what someone thinks i should do it's not like okay

01:26:33

you have a very clever business and a clever firm there's a lot of numbers and a lot of things i don't understand but it's not like somebody's saying to you

01:26:39

this is what we need to do because of xyz and this is how this is moving so we need to go this and this is the market we need to dominate

01:26:45

really people advising me on me because my business is me so

01:26:51

i know how i know what my vibe is because i am the vibe i'm the verb yeah

01:26:56

um so i think i just got to a point where i thought it's time to empower myself

01:27:03

and trust in that because there were ideas being thrown around i'm like oh no this isn't oh this is so far off of me

01:27:10

so yeah i had a real realization and it was quite an emotional thing too

01:27:16

because it felt like a weird sort of like a break up like you know we've had a really good road

01:27:22

but i don't want this in the same way anymore and it felt more that was the hardest thing to do because i don't i

01:27:29

don't like upsetting people and and we've built friendships over the years which i hope still remain and i'm sure they will

01:27:35

but it was that that was harder than the actual decision which told me everything and you know what some of this is your

01:27:42

fault uh thank you for coming rachelle we had a great podcast i would like to say thank you for clicking around because

01:27:48

you've said something and i think you don't listen to what i saw no i did i watched

01:27:54

you talking and you said who had you'd met someone you met obama oh you spoke to i couldn't find 51

01:28:02

that and i was like this is it and i literally the next day i i called them

01:28:07

the next day so it's actually sort of your fault

01:28:13

so the context on that is when i saw me and obama both spoke on the same stage in sao paulo um a couple of years back

01:28:20

in brazil and one of the things he talked about on stage was when he had to make the decision whether to take out

01:28:26

osama bin laden or not they didn't have all the information they have like tip offs and they have little snippets

01:28:32

of information that suggests bin laden is hiding in that that complex in pakistan but they never know 100

01:28:40

and there's lives at risk he's sending in 20 or 40 american soldiers to go to

01:28:45

fly into pakistan at night in these helicopters and if they get caught if they get shot down then he's gonna have

01:28:50

to you know sit with that for the rest of his life but he says when you're the president of the united states and you

01:28:56

have these huge decisions to make you're never going to get to 100 certainty so what he did which i really do believe in

01:29:03

is once you get to like 51 certainty on your decision then make it and be at

01:29:08

peace that you did the best with the information you had because so many people and this is kind of what he didn't say but what i took from it is

01:29:15

what ends up happening is the procrastination of the decision um ends up costing you more in the long

01:29:21

term than actually just making the decision and finding out if you're right or wrong because like it's the same in business if i i'm thinking about

01:29:27

something but i'm not entirely sure but i suspect it's the right thing i should just go ahead and make the decision

01:29:32

and then find out hopefully in the next couple of months whether i was right if i was wrong i can actually just reverse

01:29:37

the decision again but a lot of people spend like years remunerating over these like relationship decisions or work decisions

01:29:43

or professions they cost themselves 10 years which does more damage than the decision itself at 51 would have done

01:29:49

exactly that so and i honestly it was like i listened to that at the

01:29:54

best time then the next day i did it and i honestly felt

01:30:00

the the reason that i knew as soon as i'd done it that i'd that i knew it was

01:30:06

right well i knew anyway but the reassurance i had is i felt the emotional side of it i hated i hated

01:30:14

you know the phone call and the meeting and the you know letting people

01:30:20

feeling like i've let somebody down and in the sense of upsetting them because

01:30:25

they would have probably liked to have continued working together so i felt i don't want to upset anyone it's not bad blood it's just making a decision i need

01:30:31

to make for myself and i felt

01:30:37

shitty first of all because i felt like oh god do you think they're really upset do you think

01:30:42

but that's that's all i felt everything else i felt like i had just

01:30:49

had a massage and a weight was off my shoulders and i was like okay right now we go isn't it funny how we always know

01:30:54

um we always know i was ready i felt like i needed to celebrate the only thing i felt bad

01:31:00

about was potentially upsetting somebody but everything else was right everything

01:31:06

else there was like i felt like oh thank goodness i've done that there's so many people listening to this podcast now

01:31:11

that know the answer to a decision and in fact because of that psychological discomfort associated with making the phone call

01:31:17

letting someone down they procrastinate off into the future but they know you know like i always think with the

01:31:24

major decisions in my life especially the ones which i really did dither and procrastinate over and regretted not making quicker i knew early and i

01:31:32

actually talked myself out of it because i was trying to avoid that discomfort of confronting it and that's what it is

01:31:38

it's the like when i say confrontation and it's not in the aggressive sense it's that

01:31:45

actually having to deliver that news that's the what some when you know something's right and you know it's

01:31:51

something you want to do and you are 51 plus percent sure

01:31:58

the hardest thing you have to do is deliver it so do you know what i said i was like i've just got to put my big girl pants on as i call him i'm going to

01:32:05

pull up my big girl pants and if that's the worst part of this

01:32:12

then that is just do you know me if that is the worst part the worst part is that essentially you're a good person because

01:32:19

you like you said you don't want to upset so you're skirting around it because you don't want to actually have to say it

01:32:24

but you know it's right and that will nine times out of ten be the worst part

01:32:29

i think is delivering it because you know it's right for you and your journey and you just have to lean into that and

01:32:35

just get the balls too and it's that once you've done it you'll feel

01:32:41

you will just feel so liberated it's crazy we have a tradition on this podcast

01:32:46

which is a fairly new tradition where the previous guest asks the next guest a question oh and i

01:32:53

actually i don't know whether people believe me or not i actually don't know the question because what happens is they sign it they pass the book to jack

01:32:59

and then jack places this in front of me the next time we have a guest okay so i'm going to read this one for you

01:33:04

what would you like to pay attention to that you don't currently pay attention

01:33:10

to and why oh that's a really good question

01:33:16

do you know what i would like to pay more attention to this is and this isn't

01:33:22

i'm not a bad person by the way you don't need to worry i would really like to pay more attention to my dog

01:33:29

okay is this really this is really a simple answer i know however

01:33:34

i work a lot in the day marvin works evening so he's around a lot in the day so he does all the stuff with the dog

01:33:41

but when i walk through the door she loves me so much so unconditionally

01:33:46

i think i've not even seen you all day and she's around and you know yes we might we've gone out for the walk and

01:33:52

i'm doing the kids and then i've got what you know and then i think oh i've not really like laid on the sofa and really like

01:34:00

made the most of you it almost feels undeserved doesn't it to some degree yeah the excitement i get from my dog

01:34:05

after i've walked through the door after a month in new york yeah you'd expect them to be pissed off in the corner like that oh yeah now

01:34:11

you're rolling this time yeah what don't you call this yeah so i feel like i would like to this is really yeah

01:34:18

i'm going to sound like a really bad dog owner i promise you i'm not she's she has so much love but i would just like

01:34:24

to give her a bit more attention rochelle thank you thank you for coming here today and having this conversation

01:34:30

with me it's been incredibly uh inspiring it's taught me a bunch of lessons about the importance of

01:34:36

authenticity as well and being your true self because i can tell from you know this um brief encounter that you are

01:34:41

you're you've kind of leaned into your own authentic self and that's and it's so evidently clear where that's taking

01:34:48

you in terms of fulfillment and being a solid human being and your kindness and your empathy and that's really what i

01:34:53

take from you there's so much inspiration surrounding how the hell you're managing to juggle three kids and build this business and all that stuff

01:34:59

but the overarching feeling is you just feel like this very bright light i know you're bad at taking compliments because i know you said so in an interview or

01:35:05

two but i've not i've just not mastered that yeah yeah yeah yeah i just can't thank you i appreciate it i just can't say thanks i'm just like

01:35:13

oh no i'm not no it's fine but you are you're an incredibly bright light and um that's probably also why you've built

01:35:19

such a phenomenal community because that comes through like you can't act like a good person you either are you aren't

01:35:24

and you clearly definitely are so thank you for giving me your presents today and thank you for all the wisdom it's been incredibly um fruitful conversation

01:35:30

for me and i'm sure everyone listening has enjoyed it thank you i've really enjoyed it thank you thank you

01:35:36

[Music]

01:35:43

oh [Music]

01:35:49

[Music]

01:35:55

[Music] you

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Episode Highlights

The Power of Acceptance
Acceptance can be liberating, freeing us from the burdens of the past.
“Acceptance can be a beautiful thing.”
@ 00m 13s
February 07, 2022
Forgiveness and Freedom
Forgiveness is about releasing yourself from the weight of resentment.
“Forgiveness is letting a prisoner go and realizing that you were the prisoner.”
@ 09m 37s
February 07, 2022
Navigating Fame and Pressure
Being in a boy band comes with wild hysteria and pressure, unlike girl bands.
“There's pros and cons to both, you know.”
@ 23m 20s
February 07, 2022
The Struggle for Success
Success for us meant grinding through university gigs, not overnight fame.
“Every little bit of success meant so much.”
@ 24m 26s
February 07, 2022
The Reality of Business Ownership
Starting a business is all-consuming and requires total commitment.
“Don't think you're going to turn your phone off at five because that's not a thing.”
@ 39m 12s
February 07, 2022
The Importance of No's
Michelle discusses how prioritizing personal values over financial gain has changed her perspective.
“It's the no's that are now more important to me than the yeses.”
@ 46m 35s
February 07, 2022
Colorism and Identity
A candid conversation about the complexities of identity and colorism in the black community.
“I just think it's pathetic... black people trying to decide whether I'm black enough.”
@ 53m 09s
February 07, 2022
Navigating Misunderstanding
It's a never-ending cycle of misunderstanding and defending oneself. 'It's exhausting.'
“It's exhausting to defend ourselves to people who have made up their minds.”
@ 01h 09m 10s
February 07, 2022
The Pressure of Perfection
The struggle of balancing motherhood and career while facing societal expectations. 'There's a lot of pressure.'
“If you're a mom and you're working, you're judged differently than dads.”
@ 01h 22m 26s
February 07, 2022
Empowering Myself
A decision to manage her own career led to personal empowerment. 'It's time to empower myself.'
“I know how I know what my vibe is because I am the vibe.”
@ 01h 26m 51s
February 07, 2022
The Power of Decision-Making
Making decisions with 51% certainty can lead to peace and liberation.
“Once you get to 51% certainty, make the decision and be at peace.”
@ 01h 29m 03s
February 07, 2022
Embracing Liberation
The relief after making a tough decision can be incredibly liberating.
“Once you've done it, you'll feel so liberated, it's crazy.”
@ 01h 32m 41s
February 07, 2022

Episode Quotes

Forgiveness is letting a prisoner go and realizing that you were the prisoner.
Rochelle Humes: Learning To Be At Peace With Uncertainty | E118
We never actually officially broke up because we love each other.
Rochelle Humes: Learning To Be At Peace With Uncertainty | E118
I've definitely thought about taking on a brand project for the money.
Rochelle Humes: Learning To Be At Peace With Uncertainty | E118
I just think it's pathetic... black people trying to decide whether I'm black enough.
Rochelle Humes: Learning To Be At Peace With Uncertainty | E118
Sometimes you're not going to get everything right, and that's okay.
Rochelle Humes: Learning To Be At Peace With Uncertainty | E118
Once you get to 51% certainty, make the decision and be at peace.
Rochelle Humes: Learning To Be At Peace With Uncertainty | E118

Key Moments

Hysteria of Boy Bands23:08
End of an Era28:36
Personal Growth45:46
Maternal Mortality Awareness53:51
Exhausting Defenses1:09:10
Self-Empowerment1:26:51
Emotional Liberation1:32:41
Bright Light1:35:19

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Mary Portas: How To Stop Living A Life That Isn't True To You | E85

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