How to manage imposter syndrome as a founder, Ella McKay, FATSO

In today’s episode, we’re joined by Ella McKay, founder of FATSO, the unapologetically bold, brilliant and beautiful chocolate brand shaking up the confectionery world.

Launched in 2022 after being dreamt up in lockdown, FATSO is on a mission to make chocolate fun again - big, chunky, and full of life - while doing things ethically and with integrity. Behind the humour and bold branding is a founder navigating motherhood, lean budgets, and the ever-shifting culture of work.

Stay tuned to hear how Ella has managed imposter thoughts, turned limited resources into major visibility, and learned to prioritise both sales and operations without burning out in the process.

Ella’s advice:

• Imposter experience insight: be aware of your weaknesses (not insecurities) and accept that sometimes you just have to work on them
• Accept your vulnerabilities, don’t be overwhelmed by them
• Support-network lesson: Have a good mentor network and ask for help.  You can usually overcome self doubt by talking something through with someone.  But spend time first thinking it over, deciding who best to share with
• There’s a fine balance between sharing a problem and being swamped with too much advice
• Budget-friendly growth tip: Be honest about what you can afford. Approach partners transparently and find people who want to grow with you.
• Sales-first strategy: Sales always come first. Everyone in the business should think like a salesperson — you can’t build operations without revenue.
• Hiring advice for startups: Trust your gut. Look for energy, passion, curiosity, and the willingness to get hands-on. Not everyone is built for startup life.
• Motherhood and entrepreneurship: There’s no maternity cover when you’re the founder. Embrace help, drop the guilt, and remember — your child benefits from seeing you strive.
• Mindset for founders: Don’t chase perfection. Start, iterate, and learn as you go. 
• Values-driven business tip: FATSO wasn’t started to make piles of money — it’s about building a brand with purpose, humour, and integrity. Stay true to why you began.

FF&M enables you to own your own PR & produces podcasts.
Recorded, edited & published by Juliet Fallowfield, 2024 MD & Founder of PR & Communications consultancy for startups Fallow, Field & Mason.  Email us at hello@fallowfieldmason.com or DM us on instagram @fallowfieldmason. 

FF&M recommends: 

• LastPass the password-keeping site that syncs between devices.
• Google Workspace is brilliant for small businesses
• Buzzsprout podcast 'how to' & hosting directory
• Canva has proved invaluable for creating all the social media assets and audio bites.

MUSIC CREDIT Funk Game Loop by Kevin MacLeod.  Link &  Licence

Transcript

Ella: [00:00:00] Lots of people glamorize startup.

 The weird and wonderful world of chocolate, which has a lot of darkness in it as well.

Ex colleagues of mine will all tell you, project management is not my skillset.

It's very human to just do the things that you love 

I think that's almost how I approach those moments of insecurity.

There are much worse things to eat than there is a bar of chocolate, I'll tell you that.

Welcome to How to Start Up the podcast that dies into stories of startups and scale ups told directly by the founders. I'm Juliet Fallowfield, founder of PR and podcasting consultancy Fallowfield and Mason, In today's episode, we are joined by Ella Mackay, founder of Fatso, the unapologetically bold, brilliant, and beautiful chocolate brand that's shaking up the confectionary world.

Fatso is making chocolate fun again, and behind the humor and bold branding is a founder learning in real time, how to grow a company while navigating motherhood, lean budgets, imposter syndrome and the ever changing culture of work. Keep listening to [00:01:00] hear how Ella managed her imposter thoughts, how she's turned limited resources into a major visibility, and learning how to prioritize both sales as well as operations without burning out in the process.

Juliet: Thank you so much, Ella, for coming on how to start up today. Before we get into all things inner critic imposter syndrome, would love you to talk a bit about the brand that you've started.

Ella: I'm Ella My background was big corporate marketing, brand management. I studied marketing at university. I went down the big blue chip route. So I learned from some of the very best in the business. And, Yeah, it was as I would sort of call it, classically trained, in that space, much like, you know yourself but I always had this entrepreneurial instinct and itch.

So there was always quite a lot of laughter in every job that I did where it's no one ever quite knew what to do with me. 'cause I was always trying to change things. So I was trying to change a process or challenge it even from very entry level roles by the time I left, I was doing many different things and wearing quite a lot of [00:02:00] different hats.

So I think it was always innate in me to start something on my own or, or, and run businesses. it's also in the blood. My mom, runs a successful business herself So that's me and FATSO is one of my absolute favorites and it's my firstborn child as I call it.

and it was born out of basically sheer frustration that dark chocolate as a food. 'cause I'm also a massive foodie, and I'm very passionate about. But dark chocolate was becoming like boring and. This thing that was healthy and permissible and, a basically a rubbish choice, when you wanted to have some chocolate.

And that's just not what chocolate is meant to be about period. So we, me and my co-founders. All shared this frustration, and decided to stop whinging and maybe we could do something about it with our skill sets, and our backgrounds and our contacts. So off I went, learning a lot more about the weird and wonderful [00:03:00] world of chocolate, which has a lot of darkness in it as well.

Not just, pardon the pun, but, and. FATSO was born just out of a, an idea that chocolate is there to be enjoyed and should be celebrated in whatever form, but it can also be done well and right and ethically and with integrity 

Juliet: Congratulations. Because the brand, and the product are fun, joyful, wonderful, humorous and pleasurable. 

and calling it FATSO, I just think is absolutely fucking brilliant. Where did that name come from?

Ella: We always knew we wanted to be unapologetically us and FATSO was born out of this idea that this is meant to be, you know, it was, it's like a chunky bar of chocolate. None of this thin, apologetic crap. And it was full of inclusions and it was about living life to the fullest and eating, if you wanted to sit and eat a whole bar, that's okay.

Like sometimes that's okay. so FATSO just encompassed a way of life, a rhetoric of life that we believed in 

Yeah, that tongue and cheek, and also [00:04:00] that, chocolate has connotation. People are like, oh, you're eating chocolate, but actually, go for it. Enjoy it.

Juliet: Take that moment. 

Ella: there are much worse things to eat than there is a bar of chocolate, I'll tell you that.

Juliet: And so you started in 2022 with yourself, and how many co-founders were there?

Ella: There's three of us. so 2022 is when we launched. Actually it was a 2020 lockdown idea, you know, in, in that, those weird and wonderful moments that you had. but the, my co's they run other businesses it was our joint idea, but they've been extremely supportive.

And basically it was sort of early 2022, we decided. Actually I'm gonna quit the day job and really push this forward and see what I can do with it and see if we can make it big and brilliant and, everything we think it could be. And, they continued to do their own thing, but they support me whole heartedly.

Given that you have got this beautiful, successful company, I'm sure it wasn't all plain sailing, what would you say were the major challenges that you faced from the idea to through to launch through to today?

Just, I would say we're still in those early days, so [00:05:00] there's challenges every day. And also it's a lot because I've got a small team now, but at the beginning I was pretty much on my own. So you are reliant on lots of external people that helping you pull it together, but you are the center point and.

look, ex colleagues of mine will all tell you, project management is not my skillset.  I am not process driven. I live in this wonderfully chaotic world. I can be organized, but I'm just, I'm not wired that way necessarily.

Juliet: But then you're leaning into your strengths, you know what you are good at, and it also being honest with what you are not good at, which I think a lot of people, when they start a businesses like I have to be good at everything. It's impossible and it's unrealistic and it's not sustainable. How have you managed that kind of need to be process driven but not being process driven?

Ella: I think because of the experience I'd had before, and obviously just anywhere you are always learning. You learn that the bits that you're not naturally good at, by being aware of them, you then give them more time when you know you need to pull on that string. So that's really important is not [00:06:00] to, to acknowledge your weaknesses.

I don't really like that word. You know what I mean? the things that you're not best at. And if it's really acknowledge that they're important, and if there's no one else there that can support you to do that, then you just have to dig a bit deeper. It's very human to just do the things that you love and to focus on the things that you like doing.

And I say this to my team all the time, but sometimes you just gotta do the stuff you don't wanna do because that's how businesses operate and grow. and ask for help. my partner, Mr. FATSO, not in business, my partner in life, father of my child, he is the opposite. He's extremely organized and very good and process driven.

And so he's been. A great support 'cause he can help me and see my blind spots and you can draw into people around you as well.

Juliet: I love what you said that, but some days you just have to dig a bit deeper. I was talking to our guest on the previous episode about similar thing that yes, you've created this [00:07:00] job for yourself and you've made it up. And friends who are on PAYE working for other businesses, like, oh, you are so lucky.

You've got da, da da, the usual, endless holiday, whatever. but. You can still have a bad day at work when you've created your brand or your business and there's a lot of staring down an abyss of unknown. there's no security. You are doing something that's probably not been done before you are doing it 'cause you're passionate 'cause you're solving a problem that you've identified and there's a gap in the market and you are convinced that it needs to be sold.

But how have you managed that? And some people call it imposter syndrome. It's probably more. While we know that it should be called imposter experience 'cause you can't be diagnosed with a syndrome. It's not, it's a feeling, it's not a diagnosis. but it doesn't make it any less loud in your head and it can pull the rug from underneath you.

So how have you managed your, say confidence through this whole five years?

Ella: I'm quite fortunate 'cause I am, self-aware enough. I'm not, maybe that's not the right word. I am. [00:08:00] Quite comfortable with my feelings, whether they're good or bad. I'm quite comfortable being vulnerable and I'm quite comfortable when I'm feeling secure. I dunno why that comes from. I've grown up in a very open family where we talked about our feelings, which I'm very fortunate to have.

so I think. Being comfortable with vulnerability really helps because you almost. Accept them into the room. It's a bit like, if you are, I don't know, at a party and there's someone that you don't particularly like, or who's spoiling it or whatever, you can let it ruin your night or you can just ignore them.

or you can just acknowledge them, accept that they're there and not let them affect how your experience is. And I think that's almost how I approach those moments of insecurity. I just tell myself, this is how I'm feeling today and I'm gonna, I'll sit with it and I'll let it come and I'll let it do its feeling.

But I [00:09:00] also acknowledge it might not be rational, but if it's there tomorrow, maybe I'll give it a bit more attention. If it's there the next day, maybe I'll talk about it with someone to unpick that and see how, if it is something there and to be honest, I haven't had anything that's gone on longer than the point of talking to someone, which is a good thing. 'cause it means that nine times out of 10 it's something that's just, I'm creating myself, not something that's created out of anything rational or that as the outside world sees it. I'm really lucky that I've got, and I've met some amazing.

Mentors who are both best friends or ex bosses or colleagues who all still I surround myself with. and I draw in their experiences as well.

Juliet: That's a really good point, that support network. Rachel Harris in her episode recently said how lonely it is running a

business. And you look at her Instagram and you're like, she's killing it. It's amazing. She's built this business so quickly. She's got such a. Happy team, and she said, no [00:10:00] one says how the more successful you are, the more lonely it can become.

And for you, you say you've surround yourself with mentors in the support network. How have you gone out and appointed those? Is it a proactive decision that all of you just woken up and gone, God, I'm really lucky I've got these people in my life.

Ella: It is definitely not been a conscious thing, but I think being naturally an extrovert actually works in my favor because I get my energy from people in conversation, 

Juliet: Yeah, you're talking to someone that started a podcast at the same time as a business, so I'm with you.

Ella: Yeah, exactly. and I don't,take that extroverted side of me for granted because it just means that I've naturally built that network. Probably very unconsciously, but when I've got a challenge or if there's something on my mind, my instinct is to talk about it, not internalize it.

So inherently I'll pick up the phone, be like, oh, that person was telling me about that thing, and so they might be able to help me with that. Or that person's now in that position at [00:11:00] that company, which seems like they'd have very similar challenges or so I can pick, because I'm basically just a chatterbox.

Juliet: Well, a problem shared is a problem halved. Like you never regret a conversation. and hence why I did start the podcast. 'cause I wanted to learn from other founders what to do now, next, or never. 'cause I was like, I don't know what to do. But same thing, I find if I work from home too much, I start. Going a little bit into my head and the minute I go to a coworking office and you have a chat with someone, and even it's just a kind of Dutch of flavor towards that problem. It's just shared and it takes the sting out of it. It takes the weight out of it, and it can dispel it going. Actually, that's not a problem after all, it's

Ella: Or it sparks new ideas or other ways to solve it. I think that the art in it though, and probably something I have really learned is, it's a fine balance between gaining and the support network information ideas. Just sharing the problem, but then not doing that so much on one single thing, where you then [00:12:00] are like, whoa, too many options.

Now. I dunno what to do in your sort of like deer in headlights now I don't. Now I can't move. So it's learning to sit with your problem. And that's why I say you do the kind of. is it there? Day one, sit with it. If it's there day two, maybe you'll talk about it and going on a bit of a journey with something that's on your mind, because otherwise you're just asking too many people.

But if you've had a moment to sit with it, you'll think about who is the right person to share this with, who might bring the most value back to that.

Juliet: And it's almost like therapy with mentors because you've got the answer already inside you. You just need someone to help bring it out of you. And often the conversation's like, ah, light bulb. And I think that's where entrepreneurship is so interesting and that you identified in yourself so early that it was probably inevitable you were gonna do your own business because you are constantly unpicking things and picking up pebbles and reforming things and changing stuff. There's no better environment to do that than in your own business where you have to start everything from [00:13:00] scratch and question everything and ask so many questions. And I, this is a hard question to ask you as an extrovert, but what would you advise an introvert to do if they're not an extrovert in terms of that support network?

Ella: I think understand, as an introvert, it, because introverts naturally, I think, get energy from, taking time on their own and sitting with things, and just being able to process themselves. They don't, so draw necessarily the same energy. So I would just advise anybody, introvert or extrovert to maybe dig in a little bit as to where they find value from outside and then lean in to that.

so for an introvert, it might just be one mentor that they find. It doesn't have to be lots of different people. It might just be someone that. Is really good at listening because there are very few people that are really good at listening. So finding that one person in your life that. Actively listens, [00:14:00] digests, processes, what you've said, and then can bring genuine value for you to then process digest.

You know, you might even find another introvert that might be more helpful

Juliet: because they will be able to process in a similar way to you, whereas extroverts wouldn't. yeah. since you've launched the brand, you've navigated early motherhood having a baby a year ago, 14 months

ago. Can you talk about what it's been really like to build the business and run one with no maternity leave and that mum guilt along the way?

Ella: If I'm really honest, when I just had Harper, I wasn't really building when I was building a child. I was, growing him, keeping him alive, but there was a slowdown in momentum and that's natural. I had a, I have a really wonderful team, but when you are a small team and you are the person driving everything things do, when you take that person out, things inevitably peter out.

So they kept the lights on and they did a brilliant [00:15:00] job, but it wasn't. growing at the speed or there wasn't a lot of momentum behind things and there wasn't a lot of structure. 

Juliet: Well as the founder, you are irreplaceable in that sense as well. It's not like you could have got mat cover in.

Ella: no, exactly. even if I'd wanted to, we couldn't have afforded to. So,the honest answer is I didn't really, it was just chaos. But that's part of the fun of it. I just saw it as another challenge and, it was a wonderful thing having him. I definitely have moments of guilt and, you know, we had to do things like we had someone, like a nanny that.

Who's amazing and wonderful and I love her to bits, but she had to come in and help 'cause I couldn't have done it otherwise. I couldn't have gone to work. But leaving your six month old with someone that isn't his mother or father is hard. But you do it. And I think he will be a better, more rounded, inspired, I hope, for it.

Juliet: It's really hard. I've interviewed a lot of female founders who say this. It's like you cannot be in two [00:16:00] places at once. It's physically impossible and you are only gonna burn yourself out. So being honest and vulnerable about that as well, I think is so, so crucial for your. Success. And if, you go down the whole, everything goes down. So you have to look after yourself really well.

you've achieved a great deal on such a small budget, how do you approach making the maximum impact of the minimal spend? ' cause everything comes down to cashflow and then revenue.

Ella: Oh yeah, I know. I think a lot of it, is in relationships, and drawing on the relationships that you've nurtured before, during, and could potentially nurture moving forward. for me it's about finding the right people to partner with. So even if it's a big, oh, I dunno, take an example. Working with a small.

Creative agency on something, I dunno, packaging design or whatever it might be. And it's about going okay well, being really upfront, I don't have any money, but you [00:17:00] obviously, if you like the brand and you are into it and you share in this ambition, this idea, if you can do something or we can do something together and we can figure out how we can make the most out of what the limited amount I do have actually, if they make that sort of investment, then.

We'll grow together because then if that works or, you know, and as the business grows, which we are, then there'll be a little bit more, in the future. So I think you just find people that kind of wanna grow with you and see you do well. I'm getting. You see a lot, and maybe the world is changing.

I hope the world is changing, but it's just not always about grabbing, like making more money.  We didn't start FATSO to make loads and loads of money. we don't have our conversations. Solely because, there's the managing, the p and l keep making sure that you are running a sustainable business and you can grow it for the benefit of the people within it and so we can get more chocolate and mouth and all of that stuff.

But it's just not always about,

Juliet: It has to [00:18:00] be more than just the bottom line 

Ella: and, and then so many, particularly in retail. sort of makes me sad when, it's like, yeah, we love the brand and we think it'd be a great fit and dah, dah, dah, or, but either way I need like a 55% margin. And I'm like, but why? Like, why do you need that? you've set this sort of mark and what that means is you're just, you are only squeezing other people for that. That's all that's happening. and you know, we're actually having quite a lot of conversation about that internally at the moment. I'm trying to encourage our little, our sales team, it's okay to walk away.

It's okay to have a walk away point because we don't wanna work with people that ultimately will see your business offer for the benefit of theirs. That's not the business. 

Juliet: Absolutely, it's managing a small budget. 'cause coming on the other side of the fence, you are in a brand-based business. I'm in a service-based business. The number of times we've come down to budget and money and people are like, oh, but we really wanna work with you, but we have no money. And I find that kind of like, but I'm running a business and It's the thing [00:19:00] that sort of not angers me the most, but it's what are we having a conversation for? And if they're not prepared to offer equity, or there's got to be some return, there's got to be some incentive. And we have a pro bono budget for time for clients. We're B-Corp. We want to give back, but we still have to have our own cash flow to survive. So like when you say work together with say, a creative agency, what does that look like?

Ella: it, it would just be, I that, yeah. It's not to say that they would invest or undercut or not make any money. It's more just okay, I'm always really upfront with people, so I would never lead a conversation down the garden path. And then they say, okay, yeah, we'd love to do all that and that's gonna cost you, a hundred grand.

And then I say, I've got two. I would always say, this is what I've got. What can you do for that? And then it's about,

Juliet: Exactly, you're being frank and transparent. I think

when we've, come a cropper, it's, we share the deck with the outline and the spectrum of our pricing. People are like, yeah, sure. We still wanna have a conversation, dah da. We do send a questionnaire [00:20:00] and then they come back, oh yeah, no, we actually don't have any money at all.

It's like, well, why? You are wasting your time as well as ours. But if you are. Being upfront about what budget you do have. And I think that's such good advice for founders. go in with a very tight brief and a budget.

I think I put something on LinkedIn recently saying, no budget, no problem. We'll just charge you for the initial calls that we have.

'cause if you can't tell me how much you've got, it probably means you don't have any at all. And therefore we'd love to have a conversation with you. But unless you've got actual skin in the game, it's so tricky, especially when you are. Starting a business because budgets are so tight and they're really precious and you want to externalize money in the right places.

Ella: I have come across though quite often, they're particularly founders that have had. Backgrounds in big companies or corporates. I mean, this is quite a few years ago, but I remember talking to a founder who had, yeah, worked in big corporates in marketing and then had this idea for, I think it was a skincare brand.

and she had a pot of money that she had [00:21:00] put towards launching it. But she was spending an absolute fortune on briefing big agencies who were doing favors. They weren't charging top dollar. But there were so many things that I was there. I was like, but why don't you do that yourself.

that's such a sort of mindset of, I used to sit in the chair where I just wrote briefs and put out to lots of different agencies to come back on the creative. but actually, if I put my mind to it, what can you do for yourself? for example, if the, with a creative agency, if the value is in help us come to a really great idea, then take the idea, but go and execute it yourself.

It doesn't matter if it's not super slick John Lewis level ad polish because that's not what you are about. You're not there yet. Just do what you can. Shoot on iPhone. I mean, apple built their business on being able to shoot everything on iPhone. So do that, 

Juliet: and don't be so I was gonna say precious about it. That's not the right word, but you cannot be perfect to start with. You have to just start and get going and iterate and then learn as you go and you test [00:22:00] and learn and work out what works and what doesn't . For you, when you are looking at building this brand, obviously you need to sell the chocolate. How have you, in those early days, how did you know when to focus on sales versus operations?

Ella: I actually learned that in a different business. I was,consulting for a small before, just before we went all in on facto. I was getting like more of a consultative role for SME and. That business focused a lot on operations, and ultimately it did, you know it, it should have been focusing on sales and it was really hard to shift the mindset from ops and manufacturing and getting the product absolutely everything.

tip top versus sales, all the investment, all the salaries seemed to go into ops. So when we. started, building out the team. It was absolutely sales first. So it was our first hire, our second hire. Then our third then was in like brand content with a bit of e-commerce.

so sales always wins [00:23:00] because ops. Even finance, that they're all extraordinarily important, but my rule is basically we can also do those bits. I can be doing the ops, but everyone should be a salesperson. in some form.

So for example, in our weekly meetings, our team meetings, every week everyone has to bring a new stockist idea, with a contact detail and a bit of information as to why they think it could be a good fit. Just so everyone's always in that mindset that we are here to sell chocolate, like more chocolate in mouths.

That is our mission. 

Juliet: And without sales, you don't need an ops team if you have no sales.

Ella: Exactly. They're support functions and they support the delivery of sales. so I don't have an ops person. I am the ops person. 

Juliet: How did you learn to sell? Or how'd you teach your team how to sell?

Ella: it's something I always say. I was like, oh, I'm not very good at selling. But then my sales team's like, well, but you do, because you are

Juliet: Look what you've achieved.

Ella: I think it's maybe different as [00:24:00] a founder, co-founder because you are selling without thinking really because you are just talking passionately about your business.

 How did you identify your first hire as a good salesperson to support FATSO? What qualities did they have that stood out to you?

just energy and passion for the brand. and I do role plays in my interviews, 

so they, they have to do a role playing where they'll

basically pitch to a new potential customer, and then they might have a challenge, which is oh, this customer ordered from us more than six months ago. They've not been responding. They have a problem with price points. So I do a bit of an objection handle test as well. So you get quite a decent read on obviously how prepared they've come, how much research they've done.

I don't expect them to be absolute experts, but I expect 'em to have read enough on the website and be able to talk about the brand. So yeah,it's that really, it's how they show up. I dunno, it's a very gut instinct for me, hiring.

Juliet: I A lot of founders have said [00:25:00] this, that can do all the groundwork and all the maths and all the spreadsheets, but actually your intuition in your gut feeling is so crucial for making decisions. and I was gonna ask from a startup perspective, it's quite hard for new brands to attract top talent. How did you get the right people into your business, given that you might not have been a proven success story at that stage?

Ella: Lots of people glamorize startup. So actually easier than you think because, you get a lot of people saying, oh yeah, I wanna work in startup. You know how great. No. and that's the first thing when people say that to me, I'm like, why? what do you think working for a startup is like?

And that is a big read on the question because.

If it's just, oh, I just wanna be able to influence and make decisions and I want to be part of, creating and just being my own bot, all this sort of stuff. I'm like, Uhhuh. And what about all on the other side where actually you're coming in as a sales role, but you also have to process orders.

[00:26:00] You have to tell me where stock is at. You have to, follow down orders that haven't been delivered. You have to. Oh, order the toilet roll for the office. 'cause we've run out, all of these things that, and the non-glamorous bits and don't just happen around you. it's actually picking out the ones that genuinely are built for startup.

That is the hard bit.

 I did the last, three hires. I have used, a recruiter who specializes in recruiting for challenger brands. so they have a lower, a slightly lower fee. so it's more accessible for small businesses and they target people that have been from startup to scale up.

So they've got a really nice pool of people that kind of have had experience in that sort of startup space or scaled up space rather than big -

Juliet: So they're not coming in green and being like, I know you said I had to get my hands dirty, but this dirty.

It's that when I used to work at Chanel, people. People are like, oh my goodness, you work at Chanel? I'm like, I pack boxes. I'm in [00:27:00] PR for a beauty brand. I pack a lot of boxes and I'm in a warehouse half the time.

but it's Chanel like, no, no, no. people don't like the bubble being burst, which is what's quite funny about the startup world as well. 'cause everyone thinks it's this wonderful, oh, it's all VCs and funding and dah la. I'm like, whatever. so for something that we do is have a question from our.

Previous guest for our next guest and the previous guest was Candace who founded 88. It was a Pilates studio in Birmingham and she, is celebrating her first birthday in November and has opened to her second studio six months later and has very much been running with, I didn't realize it was gonna be the successful and it's wonderful to see.

but her question for you was, given what you know now, what would you have done differently if you had to start it all over

Ella: I'm losing.

The thing is I try and live life a little bit. no regrets. I don't like having regrets. I don't like, to. reflect on things and think, oh, I would've done that differently. Because I think, if you had done it differently, you wouldn't have had the learning that you've had [00:28:00] having done it that way.

you know, I'm a real believer in that no one is ever an expert. 

 So I guess my answer to that question is nothing because I wouldn't want not to have learned anything, that I have, 

and what would your question be for the next guest?

Ella: Oh, so I have to give a little bit of context on this. My worst habit is, like I'm quite a busy person, so I thrive and I get the most shit done when I'm in a bit of free for chaos and I've got too much to do, even though there's probably things on that list that I've got to do now that I could have done a week ago when I didn't have all the other things to do.

 So I call it my best, worst habit. So my question to the next person is, what's your best, worst habit and how has it helped you in your business?

If you'd like to contact Ella, you can find all her details in the show notes along with a recap of the advice that she has so kindly shared. 

Ella: [00:29:00]