Lorna Luxe On Out-Earning her older husband, building an empire through grief, and why ultimate status symbols are a scam

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But I have multiple entrepreneurial businesses on the go, which I document online. How I have got any success, I will never know because I do everything wrong. I am a lastminute.com girly. But my husband died in February and now I am trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. Can you describe your relationship with John? Well, he's 21 years older and he definitely gave me confidence and security that enabled me to try because John's there to catch me. And what I learned very quickly was that you can monetize your hobbies. All of my hobbies have become my paychecks. And it is a really empowering position to be in for anyone. How do you do that? You were ready for that answer. No. If you are a creator, a founder, I think putting yourself on the internet isn't a bad move at the minute. There is this awakening of very, very smart, successful women feeling like I don't know anything about our finances. For you as someone with multiple businesses, would you wish you did things differently? Do you know what? Actually. Hi, angels. Did you know that subscribing to our channel is free? It doesn't cost you anything. And it is the simplest way for you to support HotSmartRich and help us grow so that we can bring you more of the conversations you love. Just hit the subscribe button below and thank you. In case you missed it, you're allowed to be hot, smart, and rich. So let's get into it. Lorna, are you ready to get HotSmartRich? I think I am, yeah. My favorite question I'll ask all day to people is, are you ready to get HotSmartRich? And I totally am. But what that means, I have no idea. Well, for people that don't know who you are, or maybe are hesitant about listening to this conversation, what would you tell them? What would you tell them to get them to stay about what we're going to talk about today, do you think? I am somebody that's completely self-made. I have multiple entrepreneurial businesses on the go, which I document online. And I'm dead normal. And I share that normality. So you'll get a lot of my day-to-day life by following along with me. I can concur after meeting you. I actually don't usually talk to people for as long as we did because I want to save it for the pod. But there is something about you that is like, you are just so drawn in. And I hope that people get to see that today. Oh, that's kind. What do you think people will learn to be able to apply to their life if they listen to this conversation in full? Well, I would hope that a lot of it is about resilience and being able to kind of come through whatever you dealt with and make it into something positive. And that's not just personally, but professionally. And also, it's okay to be not particularly fabulous or particularly the most beautiful person in the room or the smartest. The smartest person in the room. Sometimes it's just about being a nice, good person. And if you're a good person, and you've got a lot of ambition, you'll probably do all right. And all right is good for me. I don't need to be the best. I just want to be happy and successful. How do you measure being the best in the industry that you're in? Well, certainly the best at the industry I'm in, where there's multiple industries, right? So I've got a fashion brand, I've got a beauty brand, and I'm also law nurse and my brand is me. There's way cooler people than me, especially in the UK market. So how I'd measure best, I suppose, would be how rich I am or how many followers on Instagram I might have. And that's not necessarily what I'm bothered about now. So for me, getting into my 40s, I measure my successes based on how many days off can I take? How many sleeps can I squeeze into a day? Because my work-life balance is starting to tip to more a balance. And that is success to me. So that's where I'm at right now. Is that your mission now? It isn't at all. So it will definitely see-saw. And then there will be a year probably where I'm pivoting back into the work mode of like, right, I need to do this. We need to take our brand to the US. We want to do this, that and the other. Very ambitious for my businesses. But what I can see this year where my husband died in February, and I need to take stock a bit and not be so quick to just jump in and do everything and be everything to everyone. So what I am doing right now is going, okay, well, what was working for me when John was alive? What wasn't working for me? And I'm just kind of going with the flow and letting the chips fall. So yeah, it's a weird year for me and you to meet and have this chat because a lot of the guests that you interview are right at the front. They're racing along going into the next thing that they're doing. And that is not what I am doing right now. I am calmly trying to understand the landscape of my businesses and my real life and figure out what works and what doesn't. And that's kind of, yeah, my mindset for most things at the minute. Well, that's why I'm actually happy that we're meeting at this time, if I can be honest, because I think that there's so many sides to people, even if you're not experiencing extreme grief like the way that you are, but to put on this hat and to show people only one side of being an entrepreneur is not real. And I think that this is going to be probably one of the most powerful things that we're going to be able to do in the most real conversations that we are going to have on Hot, Smart, Rich to date, which gets me really excited. But I wanted to start with this, which I actually usually save until the end. And I want you to read this out loud because I asked someone to write you a letter. And it actually was not what I thought was going to be on the letter. Okay. And so I'm happy I read it first because I was expecting it to be just focused on the impact that you made into this person's business. And it was so much more than that. And I think it will really set the stage for that. Yeah. And I think it will really set the stage for what we're going to talk about today. So if you don't mind, can you read the letter out loud? Okay. So this is from Amy. I love Amy. She's a good girl. "Lorna, I've been waiting for you to come on a podcast like Hot, Smart, Rich for so long. Not only are you the kindest, most generous, most fun woman, you're also one of the most hardworking, coolest business owners out there. The willingness you have to turn your passion into multiple businesses, watching the community that you have so carefully built, support, everything you do, and watching you take your friends along for the ride is beyond inspiring. I genuinely think the following and the community you have built so effortlessly needs to be studied. Entitled, of course, the Lorna Luxe Effect. It is unlike any other. Everything you touch turns to gold, and rightfully so. You've earned it. You also never take enough credit for how you changed the trajectory of my business so early on. And I'm eternally grateful. You're pure magic, Lorna, and we all love you. Amy." Oh, flipping heck. I love her. That's so kind of her. Also, it's rubbish. I didn't change the trajectory. I just probably gave it a nudge when it was already on the way up. But she's very kind. She always, can I keep this? She always kind of references that period when we first met. She's very talented. Very talented. Can I tell you what surprised me about that letter? So a lot of business owners are so focused on their business. And when I heard about the story of you really starting to make her brand pop off on social media, I kind of assumed that the letter would start with that. And what surprised me about it was it was about you as a person. And then the end of it was like this small mention about how you don't take enough credit for what you did to her business. We've kept mentioning Amy a few times. So for the people that either don't know the relationship with me and Amy or you and Amy, how did you and Amy first meet and become, is it five-year friends now? Longer, I reckon. Probably. I think it was around lockdown. So a bit of a weird one. I couldn't shoot street style in the UK at the time and I was working with a brand and I had my own fashion collection and we needed to shoot about three collections. So I'd gone to Paris where I could shoot in the street and I'd bought her blazer and we were staying at this beautiful hotel. John had bought me my first ever Hermes Kelly and I was like, I need to wear a really good outfit. We need to get very cute pictures of me in this outfit. So I went with Amy's blazer and my Kelly bag and I stood in the street, got this lovely photo, posted it and because it was such a monumental thing for me to have this beautiful handbag, my community just latched on, they loved it. So there was more reach, more impressions on that piece of content and then that from there spiralled into this kind of me tagging Odd Muse, which is her brand, and then her reaching out, being like, I can't believe it, I love you and I followed you for a while and stuff. And then we never really met up because it was lockdown so you couldn't meet up. So when I finally did meet her, I felt like a proud sister that had watched this journey because that business really just flew. And it was her ability to seize those moments like me wearing the blazer and many other people that supported her at the beginning. She seized them and she knew what to do with it. So it's part luck but a lot of skill and a lot of knowledge about how can I get the best bang for my buck. And I really was inspired by that. Obviously, I didn't have a business at that point. I just had Lorna. She's been somebody that I've definitely looked to when I've done my own businesses. She's great. And from what she's told me, you sold out of that blazer in 30 minutes. Really? Yeah. She never told me that. Good. I'm glad. For a lot of my US listeners, they actually might not know what Amy's talking about with this Lorna Lux effect. How would you describe the Lorna Lux effect? Well, what's been brilliant about my trajectory on Instagram and social media generally is that it's taken me years so I've probably been around about 12 years so my community has grown really really slowly and steadily and I always describe it like an onion with like layer after layer and that community is so tight and so trusting of me and one another that when I do say do you know what that's really shit hot like I rate that you should probably buy that my community will get on board and get behind it and I think that would be for me what the Lana Lux effect is it's the community that we've built together it's not a one and done it's not about me really I'm just the voice piece and I talk to all of my community every day I'm always on my phone so I'm always in my dms and as well as it being great market research for stuff that I want to bring out and work on it's also just a really good gauge of like what people care about and what they're interested in and all I do is give that a voice and a platform so whatever my community are interested in whether it's skincare beauty hair loss I've got hair loss I'll talk about it in as honest a way as I can and and it's a shared kind of storytelling really and that's what I do every day do you think it's a secret magic that some people have or they don't because I think a lot of people listening to you are going to be like I want to do that and I'm speaking to my community so authentically and honestly and that I don't have the same effect yeah do you think that that's something that you are just born with like there's that it factor or do you think that there are tangible things that you do that is different than what other people do one thing I think I definitely do differently is that I'm not talking to a collective right so I'm not hi guys I'm not talking to an audience people when I come on every morning and chat to stories I'm talking to one person the same as I've been talking to one person from when I had one follower so I still always envisage I'm talking to my mate and it's a conversation between me and my mate I might be it's like a FaceTime so I would say that's quite different and I can see other creators now latching on to that and they should that is the way to do it because when you're watching so many people online at the minute to get intimacy with somebody is a really special thing and I think that's something I've been able to kind of attach myself to very quickly and roll with it and I really like that now because then I don't have to put on this performative speech and preach I can just be dead ordinary and normal and it doesn't matter what I say I know I'm in a safe space because the community that follow me are invested they know all the you know all the bits going on in the background they know about John they know about things that have gone wrong they know about gone wrong my dodgy fake tan my hair falling out so I'm not having to put on a show and I think people quite like that so I feel like in some ways the key to my success has been that retaining that ordinary normality I'm your mate and hopefully I'll keep on to that I think that you I mean I've followed you for years like you were one of the OG like back in the day yeah and following people's journey is so interesting because I feel like some creators are afraid to even evolve or to pivot or to do different things and I love what Amy said like the Lorna Lux effect needs to be studied because I'm a nerd and I have to ask you if you were to be speaking at Harvard or at a university what do you think you would want the people to walk away from that class understanding that you might not see on the surface level about you probably that I am a businesswoman fundamentally so I really care about my businesses and what I learned very quickly was that people buy from people right so I grew up on a little council estate in the north of England and my nana had a catalogue and she would go around the whole estate and she was dead friendly and dead nice and they would buy bits from her catalogue and I just kind of do that at scale right so I share things that are available to buy and people trust my my taste on it and that's kind of how I've built my business and then from then I've obviously gone off and done other stuff but I do genuinely love being a sales person I love being customer service these are like things I genuinely love and I've heard a lot of people online recently in this business world of saying you shouldn't not that you shouldn't follow your passion as your career but I I'm proof that that works because I flipping love all the facets of my career it's like all my hobbies coming together and colliding so makeup hair I love talking to people I'm nosy so I like watching what the people are doing and I think that that is the takeaway in that you can you can monetize your hobbies and make them into something which is I I know there's a divide between some particularly my friends that are in the industry that would say that's not what you should do you should have separate hobbies that you don't fund or get any money from but all of my hobbies have become my paychecks so I want to talk about my business and I'm going to talk about my business and I'm going to talk about my industry in general because I think influencing and creators get such an interesting reputation when really it is like to help people what being a both business owner and a creator drives you nuts about the current state of this industry probably people being scared to be themselves because I think the more awkward you are the more strange you are the more interesting you are and I think we when specifically when we're talking about the When Instagram launched and it was all about perfection, wasn't it? And filters and hiding behind a lens. And I did it as well. I was as bad as the rest. And I think there was probably a bit of a ka-ching moment for me where I was like, do you know what? Actually, I'd probably do better if I'd just be me. And I would love to see more of that. I would really enjoy it. And I find myself drawn to creators and people in the space that are like that. I get a buzz out of seeing them. And that's exciting for me. But, you know, your vibe attracts your tribe, right? So it's not strange for me that you got Amy to write that. You know, you've got people that are in my orbit because we're all quite similar, really. We're all quite oversharers. And we're all very aware of our vulnerabilities. And we share them quite openly. And there's power in that. There's power in being vulnerable. And I would love to see more vulnerability. And I'm not talking like crying and moaning on the internet every day. I'm talking about those raw moments where you go, do you know what? This is it. This isn't really working out. And like, shit, what are we going to do now? I love that because that's where we learn. And I think as women, we're not encouraged to maybe be as vulnerable. We need to be more masculine and more alpha. And I don't feel like I need to do that. I feel like brand founders that are listening to this are going to be thinking to themselves, is it still possible to have that type of organic relationship with the creator? That ends up featuring their brand, right? Because even Instagram six years ago was completely different than Instagram today. Yeah, I like that. And there's so much confusion over like, who actually converts and who's going to do a great job? Who do you gift to? Who do you know what to send your product to? Do you believe that it is still possible to have that type of organic moment from a creator relationship if you are a brand founder? It absolutely is. But are you going to rely on that? You know, are you just going to be hoping that a law owner or such and such is going to, you know, wear your stuff? Or are you going to make it as, you know, as physically possible to get your stuff on as many people? I'm coming at it from a very different position, right? So I have the luxury of being in the creator space. So I know a lot of these girls. I know who converts and who doesn't. They know who converts and who doesn't. So for me, I know I'm not going to not waste my time, but I'm not going to put all of my endeavors into somebody that I know probably isn't going to shift volume. But I'm a big relationship person. And just because someone doesn't sell, actual product doesn't mean that they're not great for positioning of the brand. Doesn't mean that they're not great for their network. So everyone has value. That's the reality of it. And I think that if you're a new founder, getting yourself out there, if you can get yourself out there, can't afford a you know a PR publicist getting yourself out there and just meet people is the way to do it like be that girl that messages and I'm shameless for this by the way so I will forge relationships with people that I really want to know and they're probably thinking why does this girl keep messaging me and it's like as soon as you put yourself out there some people will take the back they'll buy it won't they and that is what you've got to do but relying on specific creators to you know where your brand your product whatever that could be a little bit short-sighted I think there's more you need to do more I'm so curious for you what were you like as a child I'm my only child so I was on my own a lot but I think my childhood was a bit of a dreamer and quite ambitious and quite curious I think curiosity is really missing now in a lot of what I come across on the internet and I I like that like be curious about other people I think we're so busy talking about ourselves that we forget to be interested in what other people are up to unless we want to copy them or try and emulate what they're doing and it's like why not just be curious for curious sake without the need to be going at it for replication or for some things aren't always valuable they just inspire you or they just make you think outside of your own box I quite like that I like learning so yeah that's what I was like as a kid did you have a lot of entrepreneurs around you none and actually nobody in my family had their own business they've always worked for the people and even John always worked for HSBC and was very fearful of working for himself and it took a lot of persuasion on my part for him to not just get behind the idea that I would have a business that would make profit but also fully depart from his own career to jump on and work with me that took a bit of convincing and I wish I'd convinced him sooner because we would have had longer doing that together because there's something quite fun about working with a spouse I would say I don't know um how anyone else is feeling about this but from my perspective I really liked working with someone that had my back and wanted me to be the star I liked that now I'm just doing it on my own it's not quite as fun yeah I don't think we can go any further in their conversation until people really know who John is and understand the dynamics of it and I think that's a really good point of your relationship but before we do I just wanted to say I'm so sorry for your loss um I know it's like the worst thing to cry when someone's experienced it but I think when I watch your guys's relationship it actually reminds me so much of of mine and like my husband made sense of my world that like didn't make sense before and I had all these amazing pieces and he just kind of brought it together and I feel like that's what I've witnessed between the two of you so for the people that don't know me I just want to say I'm so sorry for your loss I don't know who John is can you describe your relationship with John so my husband John was a protector an alpha male an all-around great guy but was so confident in himself that he was happy for me to flourish and he was a great champion of everything I did whether it was joining the gym or cooking a meal or building a business everything that I did he just got behind with gusto and I do believe that the age gap helped that because I think he'd had his moment in his career he'd done all those things he was you know I met him when he was 46 by the time my business was really cooking with gas he was in his late 50s he didn't need that you know constant attention so he was able to just fully get behind mine and he really loved it and he's proud of it and I really like that age gap dynamic and actually I do think could I be in a relationship with anyone right now specifically someone my age probably not because if they're going at things the way I'm going to be going at things not right now but in the next year or two I think that would hold me back I think we'd clash and I do think you need one person at a time to be doing you know that career moment it must be absolute challenging if you've got two career minded folk they must butt heads and we never butted heads so yeah that would be my take on John I just posted a video saying that and it was very controversial because I said like you know I'm in this era where it's like I have a mission I have a team I've gotten people behind me it's like we are on this train and we are going to try to empower women to literally live their best lives never settle and my husband is exactly what you just described like is supporting that and a lot of people were like oh well I don't want to glamorize this Maggie because you actually had a sense of self before you met your husband and you had a little success before him and so I was so interested to see such a pushback of the age gap relationship because for me I would a thousand percent agree with you Lorna okay good I am so curious who was Lorna right before you met John in terms of like knowing who you are feeling like you had this idea or did he really help you get to where you are now bit of both he always said you're a different woman to the woman I met in Utah because he met me when I was 25 and it wasn't even that I wasn't ambitious I just didn't know it existed the only ambitions I'd ever experienced were when I was cabin crew and I saw rich people getting on sitting in upper class and I always used to think I wonder how they can afford that but how did they get there and of course nobody tells you right so I had to kind of figure that out for myself and when I got with him I think a lot of people in my friendship circle thought well he's 21 years older yeah he's a good looking guy but like what's the draw here maybe it's because he's got a bit of cash but actually he didn't have any cash he just had two divorces he was pretty much as skint as I was he just had good credit he had a good credit line so he could buy me a lot of things and treat me and take me on holidays and stuff and he never really admitted it at the beginning that he was actually like broke so what that really taught me very quickly was actually we've been living a bit of um not a fake life because we didn't live a fake life but we've been living on borrowed time and I need to now step up and contribute and that was what my 30s were about were about finding my own person like my own independence and my own ambitions finding my own hobbies and turning them into something of value and he was able to just go with it what's great what was great about our relationship is that wherever I was he just followed along so the waves just you know up down whatever I was going with he just stayed with me like a steady ship and that's what makes a great relationship and I think that definitely helped me no doubt about it would I be sat here today if I'd not met John absolutely no chance I would have had a completely different life he definitely gave me confidence and security that enabled me to feel really secure that I can try that because if it goes wrong I'm gonna be all right because John's there to catch me and that feeling of being able to jump and someone catch you gives you bravery to do big big steps and make even bigger like leaps and do more bold and brave and exciting things and that's what I see with my friends right so the friends that are maybe not having those experiences are probably because of their relationship basically if you marry someone you gotta marry smart the person you marry is going to probably affect not just your personal life but your professional life so you've got to choose them wisely it's my opinion on that it's why I talk so much about relationships on the show because I'm going to be able to be successful in the future if your relationship is the most important part of that absolutely there are so many women that are listening to this Lorna that are questioning if he is the one and I hate to give blanket advice but mine is always if it's not a fuck yes it is a fuck no for you after what you've been through with John and finding the one and seeing your life be something that it never would have been in your words before you met him I think that's where John what would you say to that girl that is questioning her relationship right now if you're questioning it it's probably not the one but that doesn't mean it doesn't it can't not be the one for now right so you can have the one for now you know that reason season and all that jazz you know some people do come into your life and they make you feel good for a couple of years or they teach you a lesson that you didn't really know you needed to learn and then you go on to do something else I think that where my independence is now having to really work it's like overtime because I'm on my own would I be leaping into a relationship with someone that I didn't think was a hundred percent unreal amazing oh my god this is the most amazing person ever no chance but I've got the luxury of I've got a bit of cash in the bank now I've got security so I understand that specifically women in their 20s and 30s with we're we're thrown so many curveballs there's so much pressure on us to have a career and a relationship and have kids and do all these things I get why so many women feel the pressure to marry someone that maybe isn't a hundred percent in the same way that I get why some men don't always marry the one they just marry the one that was the right time right so timing is key did I meet John at the right time probably so timing was good for me because he met me at a point where I was a bit like floundering and he gave me a bit of I don't know he just gave me a foundation for all the things that I ended up doing but that's obviously not why I married him and yeah are you brave brave enough as anyone listening to this are you brave enough to go do you know what you're not where I needed to be so I'm not gonna put a ring on it I'm not gonna commit all the way that should be more common right it should be more popular maybe that should be the new thing where we just all live independently and have like friendships I must admit though it's gonna be weird for me we were just chatting in the green room how's anyone gonna top John it's not gonna happen so I am really looking at my future now through the lens of independence and being on my own I can't really envisage someone doing what John was able to do he's quite a hard act to follow which is a shame is that something you think about a lot it's not really I think I'm thinking about it now because I'm thinking about people that are listening who are maybe about to dive into the biggest relationship of their life and knowing what I know now about how I had a great husband I wouldn't want anyone to have less than me because of I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know just how brilliant it was so I would want anyone listening to have what I had so yeah I think you've got to choose wisely I've said it before and I'm gonna say it again this is one of the best times in history to build something of your own if you have an idea for a business I want you to pick up your phone right now because genuinely you just need to start now entrepreneurship is far from easy but if it's a product business there's infrastructure like our sponsor Shopify that can get you up and running almost overnight the storefront the payments the orders all built in and for women especially there are so many gatekeepers we just don't have to deal with in the same way anymore the bank the landlord all those people who used to decide whether you got a shot there's a reason Shopify stock jumped 17 recently there's also a reason that I applied to Shopify 11 times they are the backbone of entrepreneurship you may never feel completely ready but you've never had more of an opportunity to start there is no better feeling than having something that is truly yours find out what it's like to say that's my business at shopify.com slash hsr that's shopify.com slash hsr this was the first brand I heard about when I moved to Los Angeles almost eight years ago oh see ya now this brand I remember hearing about because when I moved to LA and it was dry AF someone told me about this underia algae body oil I started using it and fell in love with the ritual of taking care of my skin it's wild to me that eight years later multiple careers later they are now a show sponsor their underia algae body oil is one of the most popular products in the United States and it's one of the most popular products in the United States and it's one of the most popular products in the United States and it's one of the most popular products in the United States and it's one of the most 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terms and conditions apply hiring now then this is a job for indeed sponsored jobs now at kroger your points add up to more ways to save every trip use them your way to take dollars off groceries at checkout or save at the pump you can even save up to 35 on your next fill up same points more choices and with low prices on fresh quality food plus digital and personalized offers tailored to how you shop your dollar goes further redeem your points online or in the app kroger fresh for everyone restrictions apply c-site or store for details see two divorces probably paying some version of alimony no he didn't he just kind of paid and bounced but also he didn't have much cat like for a man in his mid-40s you'd think he'd have you know like a while away in the in the divorces so he was definitely starting from scratch so you guys meet where are you at in your career and how does this birth the business partners and co-founders of lorna so when he met me i was cabin crew i was doing long call cabin crew which meant i was out the country three days a week which i thought was very healthy for our relationship in the early days because that yearning is always a great foundation for a relationship missing each other not being too attached from day to day so i was doing long call cabin crew which meant i was out the country one you really look forward to seeing each other and i can't wait to get back from wherever i was but also really looking forward to being with my friends and having that that gap and then for those three or four years uh when we got married and settled down i was still flying i'm still crew so we had that i can't wait to see you that excitement never really left and then i left virgin and i got i was quite unwell i'd battled anorexia and bulimia for most of my twenties and it'd really taken hold by my early 30s and i knew i needed to get well and at that point he was working and i wasn't and that was a new dynamic for us because i'd gone from being a very exciting woman that wasn't at home half the week to being permanently under his feet with no chat because i wasn't going anywhere didn't want to go out for food dinners or anything so it wasn't much fun and it was actually him that said to me you've got really boring like you need to sort yourself out because you're not you're no fun anymore you just sat at home not doing anything you need a job and he was like the the catalyst for me to get a little job and i did get a small job in customer service and i believe that my virgin training which was very customer service focused coupled with this new office job where i was actually working with steady people day to day i'm quickly understanding that actually my i'm a bit self-focused here i've always made everything about me and now i'm in an office full of women and they have all got their own really interesting lives and problems and like maybe the like the world doesn't revolve around me another catching moment but i suddenly realized that actually life is is about community and about people not about little lorna who's like an only child playing with the dolls on her own you've got to bring other people in to play the dolls with you so that was good time for me because i kind of got a bit confidence back and i remember around that same period of working in customer service i'd started my instagram and my instagram grew quite quickly in the early days because i love pretty things i never went out and i had the time to sit at home on my phone and engage with people so my community was growing quite rapidly but also because i was so engaged with the dms at the time instagram would reward people that were being on the app so i was becoming my reach was better which is crazy right and then yeah i feel as though that was the that would became the beginning of lorna lux and that instagram moment and john loved it because he's like wow you've got this interest that isn't about food like you've got something that you love doing that's got nothing to do with how you control your eating and at the time on instagram i joined um an instagram group and it was called we love to brunch and it was a group of 20 like instagram people all from different walks of life and we'd meet once a week and we'd go to a little coffee shop and we'd take very aesthetic photos and then we'd go for a walk around london and we'd take very aesthetic photos and well i had to eat didn't i because i've got to be like part of the gang so it was really bringing me my therapy was my early social media development and i was meeting other instagrammers and we were sharing hacks and like so how do you grow and i should do that and i really wanted to be good at something and i was i'm going to be good at this instagram if it if i do anything else and so that was the birth of my business i mean i didn't monetize my instagram probably for about five years i think it was about five years and i was like i'm going to be good at this instagram i think my first paid partnership on instagram i had about half a million followers so for the first 500k of community i built there was no desire to make money from it it was pure sharing stuff because i loved it maybe spending a bit of money on john's credit card so i could show my community what i'd got my new handbag my new clothes and john just funded it because in his head she's getting better whatever it takes i'm gonna make this happen so it was probably one of the most expensive therapy i've ever had really but it was brilliant fun and i've still got a lot of those handbags and i've kept all the friends from we love to brunch and some of them have got massive followings now on social it makes me giggle because i think i remember us taking flat lays in a coffee shop you know 12 years ago but those communities i built in the early days i've kept so it's been really lovely to see actually i think that's what a big part of it is like the money wasn't there initially right no money i think that it's from of like finding something that you genuinely loved where were you at financially at that time where like you didn't have to think about the monetization because you were like I don't actually need to worry about monetizing so I didn't think it was possible to monetize and that's the difference it was gatekeeping at its best in the early days no one was telling you I didn't even understand how ads and revenue I just didn't understand it because no one ever taught me I went I went to uni and did music I had no idea about business I say it to my mom now I've got no idea about business and my mom's always like of course you have you literally do it every day you're learning on the job and you hire people that do the bits that you don't know and I thought very early on I could see the value in it I just didn't know what the value was at the time whether it would be cash or experience remember I had to come from a cabin crew background so travel was alluring to me so where you know I went on a trip with Prince Harry to Palm Beach for a centre ballet polo match like that's valuable to me what an experience to be flown out because I'm an Instagrammer so those were for me what was the draw of and the gifting because back then gifting was a big thing I remember getting my Daniel Wellington watch and my triangle bikini and like in our community of influencers it's like who got sent the triangle bikini versus who didn't and so those it it sounds really naive now right but back then that's what it was about it was more about the growing of the community than it ever was about the monetizing of it but I knew the value was in the community still to this day there's no no one could make me do anything even I don't care how much it would cost if it would jeopardize the relationship I've got with my community that's the most valuable asset I have as a founder of a business and as Lorna just in everything I do I think through the lens of what would my community want me to do they are the most important I know lots of people probably feel differently about me saying that and some would disagree but I just yeah it was it's been an interesting journey it's been really fun to grow our business because of having these you know luxuries now which is the community I've got they're the most powerful asset I can relate to that a lot because even with hot smart rich like people still I think now a big change with Instagram is that the follower out doesn't necessarily equate to the monetization or the power of the community for so long I felt guilty monetizing it because I was like but this is for the community and it's so mission driven and I'm so curious for you like was there a moment where you either realized you had to start monetizing it as a business or the opportunity and the door got opened where you were like wait I can start to make money from this it was very much that the door got opened the opportunity came and I took it with both hands and I ran. As fast as I could but what I always looked at was well hang on if you're going to pay me for this what are we getting out of it because it was always a we right so I was like it's not it's no good just paying me like how's everyone that's on in following me and supporting me how they're going to benefit so very quickly I was that girl that was always like I want a discount code I want a deal I want a free gift with purchase I still to this day push for codes on pretty much every partnership I do and it makes my management laugh because sometimes they're like no they're not going to give you a discount code. And I'm like well why not why can't we have something because value is about what value obviously I'm an entertainer right so I'm like content creation is entertainment but I do think there is that element of if you if you've got a position of authority or power in some way you've got to give it back you have to give it back. I remember the worst was in lockdown where I was probably earning quite a lot more money than I probably would do now because everyone had a captive audience we're all glued to our phones couldn't leave our house and so. I was getting these very lucrative partnerships and we're talking we're going from a girl that was earning nine grand a year at Virgin to being offered you know 50 grand for one partnership this was like big ticket stuff for me and I just remember thinking how can I said to John I've got guilt here I feel a bit uncomfortable about this I don't this isn't sitting right with me and I don't know what to do and so John was like oh why don't you do some giveaways and I started doing these like a thousand pounds are a giveaway or I used to do a Christmas show and I used to do a Chanel bag giveaway the girls at Chanel I'm sure they hated me because they knew I wasn't buying that bag for myself and I would buy Chanel bag each Christmas and it would be a giveaway and it was just really I don't know it appeased my guilt and I think that guilt maybe it's a British thing I maybe don't see that so much in the States but certainly this kind of female brought up on a council estate you shouldn't you shouldn't be doing too well you're allowed to be successful you can't be too successful. And so that is how I appeased it I don't do it so much now because I don't have the same thoughts and feelings around that but I've definitely had to workshop that I haven't had therapy on it but I would love to unpick why I felt so guilty because I wasn't doing anything particularly wrong I was doing everything right and that's why I was I was getting paid so well but it didn't feel fair in its own strange way I don't know. What did you guys have to reach collectively as a couple from a financial perspective for John to be able to be like I'm going to leave a steady job at HSBC to leave and do this? We got to a point where I said to him I earn in a month what you earn in a year I could earn double in a month what you earn a year if you were available to take my pictures come on the trip do the thing so you're I actually used the psychology of well you're actually holding me back and we know John doesn't want to do that John is like the softest most you know so he was like really I'm holding you back that was his fear and that was the moment he went right I'm gonna get myself I'm gonna exit this business also he didn't want to leave a 30 he'd been in the bank 30 years he did not want to leave that job by just walking out and going hi guys I'm going now see you tomorrow we'll meet for a drink next next year he wanted to get a redundancy or have a proper exit strategy so it took him about a year and a half which was painful to me. And my most frustrating thing is that he retired in the December he got diagnosed with cancer in the January so we literally had three weeks of normalcy where he'd retired and wasn't having to go to HSBC three four days a week and I was like why didn't we do that sooner because then obviously you know anyone will know who's been through cancer the treatments that we never really got that you know retirement that he was looking for we never got it. And I think that his last three years before he died were a bit like him going right we haven't got longer we need to really put some welly into this and that is why I believe I launched two businesses because the reality is I should have probably launched one put more energy into that before I launched the second one but we kind of were racing together because I wanted him to see them I wanted him to see these visions that we've had on our manifestation board that we've talked about for years he needed to see it. So yeah it's um yeah I don't know I don't know why we didn't do it sooner that was his decision but yeah he never really got to enjoy it. So he was not officially in the business for actually as long as I thought he was. No but he was my business partner because he took all my photos he helped me create my content he drove me up to London at four in the morning so we could get the street before no one arrived he did all the things he was. It's just and everything yeah I used to steam my clothes on we traveled a lot together which I'm really missing now I really liked that one thing about me and I don't know I don't see this with other founders so maybe I'm doing it wrong but I like to play I like holidays and I like fun and my mum always says what I love about you is that you always make fun out of whatever you're doing you will not find me doing anything if I'm not enjoying myself I'll walk out I don't care I will not put myself in a room where I'm not having a good time so that is that a luxury of the business that I've built probably but I think it's been fundamentally quite important to me as a person as well because what happens when I'm not happy I had an eating disorder that took you know took me out for a few years so my mental health is really dependent on how good I'm feeling and nothing functions if I'm not feeling good my business goes to pot I can't create I can't I can't come on online and talk to people when I'm feeling like crap I just want to go to bed so it was it was very important that when we were building our business we were also building lots of playtime and so that was really what we did from probably 2016 lots of travel lots of giggles if he drove me into London we'd always go for a wine afterwards you know there was always a promise of a wine and a bit of shopping and I think that's quite important for me and I'm not ashamed to admit that this is actually something I've seen online only recently I actually love this creator do you know Valeria Lipovetsky has she do okay so her husband Gary who we love as a couple um he just made a video saying that when my wife is happy who is in a similar dynamic actually like she is the creator and actually the business owner like I know Valeria very well and she is extremely smart she is an investor she is a business owner but this video was her husband's video and I was like oh my god she's so smart she's so smart she's so smart husband being like, if my wife is not happy, the business does terribly. And you just said the exact same thing. thing like how do you balance that with needing to know certain details about business that is not always going to be fun like having to fire people having to talk about bills that are needing to get paid um all of the things that are actually the worst parts of building a business because for me i can tell you like i love to know those things but i can't really know them until 5 p.m because i need to be able to get through the day and then deal with the shitty things at the end of the day or my whole mood is killed for you what have you noticed about balancing having to wear that business entrepreneurial hat and then having to be the creator and have that play during the day i think i'm probably very good at compartmentalizing my life because i wear a lot different hats anyway and i have i have a mindset that is always do things at the last minute so if i've got a job coming up in a week's time i've got the product i maybe need to do piece of content you bet your bottom dollar i'm going to film it this morning and it's got to be handed in today that's just how i approach things i'm the worst person for the job that i do how i have got any success i will never know because i do everything wrong so i am a lastminute.com girly i'm not always face up to things um a bit of a hide under the blanket and hope it goes away but i do always get away with it i think because everyone in my orbit in my business world at least i am on good terms with so they know my weaknesses my flaws my frailties but they also know my strengths and they know that i'm a great leader i'm not a great manager my team who are watching this will attest to but i'm a good leader and i know what leadership is about and it's about inspiring people and building them up and giving them opportunities to grow in their own way and giving them freedom and flexibility so when i need it back they give it me back in spades and i need it because i am not somebody that is getting up at 5 a.m and having two cups of coffee and emails and this and that i'm not i like to wake up about 10 ish and i want snuggles with the dog but i'm also awake at two in the morning replying to my dms and check you know checking on my community so listen you've got to make it work for you and because i am self-employed i use that luxury of making it work for me in the way that makes it work for me but how i operate isn't a benchmark for how i'm going to make it work for me so i'm not a good leader i'm not a good leader how i'd expect anyone else to it just suits me i don't have kids like valerie i don't have a lot of people relying on me for day-to-day stuff but then i do have people relying on me to pay their you know bills so i have that responsibility and i respect it and an awful amount so i would never drop the ball is what i'm trying to say but i am a juggler of the ball and i sometimes i'm a bit naughty and i don't always have my homework in on time but i do think that i'm forgiven because i'm a pretty decent person and yeah that seems to be how i've got away with it so far when john was the co-founder in the business day today was he doing a lot of that typical stuff yes we did everything he did all of our admin all the emails all the dealing with people all the finances and i think what's been really challenging this year is that where i've had to take all that on board which i think i'm doing pretty good okay at bite-sized chunks each day i handle a little bit of everything and i think that's what's been really challenging this year another thing i've noticed there's things that weren't done correctly baby decisions that shouldn't have been made in the way they were because i think his last year where he had brain tumor and there was a lot going on he was in chemo and he was very unwell he probably wasn't making the smartest decisions and i'm kind of having to like figure that out for myself now and i'm like why are we doing that how much is that costing why are we paying that for that we don't even need it and so yeah i should have taken more responsibility off him sooner and i'm you know ashamed i didn't and i think he was very worried about me in fact the days before he died he was panicked about that he was like you're not going to be able to cope i'm really worried about you well i am coping so i am proof that you know any if i can cope anyone can cope because i am daft as a brush and i am not the sharpest tool in the box but what i am good at is uh delegating i'm i can spot a great person from a mile off so my team are shit hot and i think that is my probably my saving grace as a business owner that i've got good people around me in every aspect as well not just the people that work for me but the people that i work with the friends that i associate with the founders that i like hang out with i'm i've been really lucky in that sense and i'm so curious for you as someone who can really speak to this now having to take all of that on is like would you wish you did things differently to understand it a bit more so that you weren't in the place where you're now having to figure it out i think financially i'd be in a lot stronger position had i done that and learned more about the business two three four years ago even simple stuff like you say like paying bills and stuff but what's been really good for me is that from since february i've been on a bit of a crash course of learning and it's given me a lot of confidence and it's kept me distracted so actually i probably needed it and i'm really empowered by the fact that i know exactly where all my money is even if i haven't got any at least i know where it isn't and i feel very uh secure in making decisions about my financial commitments over the next year because i know exactly where everything is because i'm in charge of it now and it is a really empowering position to be in for anyone regardless of what you're up to to feel fully across your own finances and your own decision making that's flipping exciting this makes me feel like i could do anything because what's going to hold me back because john's told me i can do anything i dream and believe in i can make happen now it's just a case of getting from a to b right and i'm going to enjoy the journey because i have to enjoy myself when i'm doing it so that's got like i say i'm taking stock at the minute i'm i'm reading the room i'm figuring out where i want to like jump in where i want to hold back i'm ditching friends that aren't valuable to me so it's actually made me assess other elements of my life so it's actually made me assess other so what started out as a bit of a financial shit show is now it's almost kind of eclipsing everything and i'm like well hang on if i don't if i can change that about my finances maybe i can i don't really like that person that i'm friends with maybe i need to ditch them or that person that works for me isn't actually very good at their job so maybe i need to not work with them again and it's just all of these elements of my life that i'm starting to reassess that and the oprah that had said like 44 was like her best year and i'm like yeah maybe this is like the year where i actually you know get my get a new lease of what i'm doing and become more in charge of my destiny i hope so anyway i think it's actually the reality of like when you and this is why this show exists is like financial literacy is so different than financial freedom and it's sexy when you actually understand things and like you're in the numbers for me i find really real enjoyment out of like checking my bank account in the morning checking my credit cards like i spotted fraud on my credit card the other day with like two dollar facebook charges and there was like 12 of them and i was like i don't think i'm doing two dollar and i investigated and it ends up being fraud and even that small win of like just feeling like oh my god i just i did something even though i didn't do anything at all it made me feel so in control of things and so i would ask you for someone that's feeling so confused and lost what is your words of wisdom to them of like what it feels like when you are in control and you actually have awareness about what is going on with your financial situation well certainly like you just said it's a control isn't it and i'm someone big on control right because all of my 20s my mental health was about trying to take control so imagine the elations i get like you when i know where everything is and what's going on and actually i think if i look back when i first joined instagram i was really fascinated by the back end so i used to study the growth and i used to study the reach and the likes and the impressions and i was really titillated by that information and now i look at it and i'm like actually that was the precursor to what i'm doing now just it's shopify back end it's you know my businesses it's how many sales what's the average you know spend per basket and actually it's the same same kind of journey just like you say this literacy it's really empowering it's not boring this is what i was always taught oh it's boring that you don't want to do that john used to say it to me oh don't you worry about that it's boring you'll be bored by that okay then if it's boring i won't do it now i'd have a choice no one else is going to do it for me and it's not boring it's quite interesting and it galvanizes me in ways that nothing else really will it gets me out of bed in the morning i don't i'm sure you're the same but i look at yeah sometimes look at my bank account i'm like well that's not going to do we have to sort something out and um yeah it's making me quite ambitious in a different way so i think financial literacy for anyone is really important and a bit of financial independence i don't think i would share my banking or anything with anyone again but that's a luxury right that i've got and i'd quite like to not have a mortgage with someone again and just be in charge of my own gaff and keep it separate but again that is a luxury that i afforded because of my marriage with john i was going to ask is that because you don't think that anyone would be like a john in the future or is it because of just a learning experience of like you even didn't like having it all tied together with someone i just don't think i'll meet another john i really don't i think they kind of break the mold with him i just think it'd be really i don't see how anyone's going to match up to that in terms of how he provided for me as such a robust loving you know unashamedly so you know he wore his heart in his sleeve but he was just like i love this one with all my heart i'm gonna do whatever it takes whatever she needs i'm gonna give it to her and i just don't see many people doing that so the chances of me meeting one and then falling in love with me and me falling in love with them as well feels like a big ask whereas what i can take charge of i'm pretty much guarantee are running my businesses and building my empire like i can i can concentrate on that and i can see the journey that it's going to take and how it's going to fulfill me so i'm hoping i get a lot of fulfillment from my career over the next few years angels you already know that the founder life is not for the weak we're powering away through periods perimenopause motherhood pregnancy in addition to running the business it is literally exhausting so you need great sleep so when i heard about the pod by eight sleep i was immediately interested and now they sponsor hsr it is a fully connected sleep system that adapts to your life and your needs so i'm hoping i get a lot of fulfillment from my career over the next few years it fits onto any bed and it comes with female focused features that are actually useful i love that you can individually control temperature on each side of the bed perfect if you have a partner and you sleep either hotter or colder than them plus it comes with special pregnancy and rapid cooling modes so you can still sleep soundly when your hormones are having a little fit and they're very up and down having an eight sleep has completely changed the way that i sleep and therefore how i can function throughout the day try it for yourself at eight sleep.com slash hsr and use code hsr for 350 off your order you get 30 nights to try it at home with the option to return it if you don't love it but i promise you if you are an hsr girly you're gonna love it i'm obsessed with it so give it a shot i need a matcha so we're gonna take a little break and make one with our show sponsor peak they have my favorite sun goddess matcha i use this all the time especially when i'm traveling but also because it's just the best ingredients and it's ceremonial grade organic made from the highest quality tea leaves and the added oxidants don't hurt either now we're gonna add a little bit of hot water first i'm an iced matcha girl but i'm also a latte girl and to be able to do this the best at home i use peak carrara marine collagen which turns my matcha into a latte today we're gonna do two scoops because it's that good sourced from japan with biotin and coconut cream to support radiant skin stronger hair nails joint health and happy aging within if you want to try my recipe at home yourself visit peaklife.com slash hsr and for a limited time get 15 off peak for life with my link i this episode is brought to you by indeed you're ready to level up your business but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load it boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast cut through the chaos with indeed sponsored jobs get a 75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com slash podcast terms and conditions apply hiring now then this is a job for indeed sponsored jobs now at kroger your points add up to more ways to save every trip use them your way to take dollars off groceries at checkout or save at the pump you can even save up to thirty five dollars on your next fill up same points more choices and with low price prices on fresh quality food plus digital and personalized offers tailored to how you shop your dollar goes further redeem your points online or in the app kroger fresh for everyone restrictions apply c-site or store for details feel like this will help so many people by asking you about this but a lot of people are afraid to ask hard questions right what would you say to someone that doesn't like to have hard conversations and would prefer to put the more than one way to get that information out of someone isn't there because you can always talk about it in terms of like what you think they're doing does that make would you do it like that but certainly with john and i there was never uncomfortable conversations we're just not that people we could talk about anything and we did and so i think facing things head on like death we didn't want to talk about it so we were like we know it's going to happen but let's just not chat about that and it was only very close to the end where he said to me i think he said some like how long do you think i've got and i was like well how long do you think you've got and he was like i think i've got a few months and i knew he had maybe two weeks he had he actually had a week and a half in that and i said yeah i think you're right and i think that all i knew about john was that he wanted me there with him to the end and we didn't need to talk about anything else i wish we talked about more finances stuff i didn't even have access to our bank account when he died i had to ring up lloyd's tsb and be like how do i get my money who were incredible by the way but the point is we didn't have those uncomfortable conversations and i think that's where i'm learning i'm not perfect because i should have had those chats with him but we didn't want to have them and i think he was the same i think he just thought you know it won't happen so yeah i haven't got any good advice for that because i never took it i think there is the advice like you sharing that and just being honest about it so that other people can learn from your experience is actually the advice and i think that like it's just so funny like i can just tell people i like fucking love when they come and sit down in the seat because they're just so themselves and i think one of the things everyone said about you as i was prepping for this is that they were like lorna is so luxury and so chic and so beautiful she's so relatable and she's so down to earth and i think even just in the way that you're sharing it is so evident that is just who you are and that is a hard thing to have in this space when you do have beautiful things and you like i watched the video of your house the ghost house and i'm like to be able to be aspirational and to be relatable is actually a very hard balance that i don't think people do well and you do exceptionally well so even though you're sharing something that you're not you're still sharing something that you're maybe you wish you had done differently there's a lot of things that i think like make you who you are and actually is like very motivating even for me picking yourself back up starting over like having to almost rebuild your life now yeah how do you think about that well i don't take it lightly because it is a big thing that i've got to do but i don't look at it as like a long time i've got to get from there to there so it's kind of a daily struggle and i'll tell you what really caught me out probably the first two months after john died i think grief hadn't hit me quite the same as i thought it would and i thought i'm doing all right like you know i'm sad i'm really missing john but you know i'm getting up i'm putting my slap on i'm getting out there i'm making decisions and you know we're selling dresses and it's all going and i'm gonna be fine and then i went to a friend's wedding with a pal of mine and this day was just not horrendous it was the most beautiful wedding ever but it was like horrendous because i was like watching all these people have a life that i'm mine's collapsed right and i'm watching the dad's speech and they're you know they've just got married they've got the whole life ahead of them and i'm like my life's absolutely gone to pot and they're just starting their beautiful journey and mine's just been taken away from me and i felt incredibly guilty because i thought i shouldn't be feeling these feelings and i should be just you know excited for them and like it's not fair that i should be having this me you know feeling sorry for myself but i couldn't snap out of it and it really set a bit of a i'd say for the two weeks after that it really like slowed me down me down to the point where i had to do some filming and i was like i can't do this i'm sorry i can't and i messaged my manager i was like i'm really sorry but i have got no interest in coming online and flogging a moisturizer all i want to do is go to bed and eat carbs and she said to me i think that's what you need to do and i did and i just took each day bite-sized chunks and my mom would be like do you know what you should do today i think you should order some nice food on deliveroo and that's like your job for the day done and so i was like childlike you know trying to function and that's what grief does it like knocks you out it's like being punched in the gut but you don't know when it's coming so you can't quite prepare for it and my life now is about building some kind of armor to manage it so that when i get punched i can handle it and isn't that kind of what i've been doing in my whole career getting you know knockdowns rejections you can't do this you can't do that i'm just getting back up and carrying on so i've got i know i've got it in me i just need to get stronger at it so i'm gonna have to build that from scratch but it's just yeah it takes you out and it's like i love being in control so i'm like i don't want to feel out of control i don't want to feel like this it's so frustrating because it's really quite debilitating and i don't see many people online talking about that element of grief I'm not confident enough yet to be able to go online and give advice. about it but I'm certainly like watching how it's impacting me and thinking flipping heck didn't see that coming so what are we in now five five and a half months since the last job so coming up to that six months and yeah I'm just um up and down still in every element of my my life I think that's one of the things that I I always think about when I'm doing an interview is like how can we really help people with this and I think that people will experience grief as they are building these businesses and I can't give advice I've never experienced grief like this and my question to you would be you have multiple businesses you are a business yourself you have a fashion brand that you invested six hundred thousand pounds into and the rest um you have a beauty brand how do you manage a business and manage people when you are experiencing extreme grief like losing your husband I mean the it really was a a group of about 10 people that took the reins and really stepped up to the plate and I think they could see that I needed it before I not I realized I needed it so I am although I have multiple businesses and I'm like the face of those businesses no way would my businesses still be going if I didn't have the team that I have around me and how they were able to function and operate without me being present what was a learning curve was that with LAS I was very much the face of the brand still am very much the face of the brand with 98 beauty you probably won't see my face on that on that website you hardly ever see it on social I am not the face of 98 people who if you know you know that I am you know one of the core investors in it I'm not the face of 98 people who if you know you know that I am you know one of the core investors in it but fundamentally I am not it's not relying on me to generate sales the day-to-day does not rely on me and I think that's been a really important learning curve because what that does is it gives me freedom in terms of time and perspective and it frees up for me to do other things whereas with LAS I'm so part of it that it's either gonna have to change and pivot and that's something that I'm assessing now right in my assessment period or it's gonna have to fold which I don't really want to do or we're just gonna have to really think hard about what that looks like for me and how much commitment I'm willing to give that business to make it the success I want it to be but one thing about me I don't like failure it doesn't sit well with me that I don't like it I don't I don't enjoy it I'm such a Leo as well like I don't know if you're into horoscopes I am I am such a Leo and I only like doing things I'm good at and I need to be ego stroked and told that I'm doing great and I am the first person to jump out when I can spot that something's gonna go wrong so yeah I'm definitely learning a lot about my businesses and how different they operate and the pros and cons of doing both you know all this kind of founder led content we see at the minute so many brand founders are like face as we spoke about this at the beginning is that necessarily the be all and end all will it obviously speed up your business in the early days yet because people buy from people but fundamentally how willing are you to be committed in that to that degree because when you want to extricate yourself from it the more front of house you are the harder it is and yeah it's been quite enjoyable actually doing 98 and not having to be the face really enjoyed that you said earlier that you launched two businesses probably at a similar time because you wanted john to see those yeah quicker we're already moving out of our fulfillment 98 into a bigger fulfillment that las is still in the original one so that's the kind of difference in scale we're talking about and i think there's a passion and a yearning with 98 that because of my hair loss and my alopecia journey i really feel quite passionate about it and i really care about developing products that i couldn't buy we can all buy clothes right so then it's the las brand is about my taste and about what i love and i'm wearing las today and i love it and i'm girly girl with 98 there's more it feels more like i'm on a bit of a journey here to do something groundbreaking which is keeping me really interested and i get excited about it i get excited thinking about it i think before we started filming i said to you like i said to one of the girls i want to take this brand global i want to be in america i want this i want our hydro bond mass to be the mask that everyone uses like the one one is sold a minute globally and everyone loves it because it's so flipping good and um that's going to take a lot of welly from my from me and the team we're getting there we are we are working hard at the minute fundamentally i also just love beauty because it's like a habitual product that you have to use and buy all the time away from it what do you think it takes to just get through this season that you're in because it is so fresh grit and uh a lot of self-care quite a few bottles of sauvignon blanc um i stopped reading as well which is awful for me because i love reading that is my hobby and i just stopped i'm always on my kindle and then about maybe only a week or so ago i picked my kindle up again and i gave an i gave a book recommendation on stories and i got all these messages oh my god thank god i've been waiting for you to recommend a book i've not had a good spicy read in months and i was like yeah i used to do that a lot you know i used to do that a lot and i was like yeah i used to do that a lot i used to recommend all these books that i loved reading and again i'm taking a hobby into a monetization because i'm writing a spicy novel don't know when that's going to launch but that's another another element of me turning a hobby into something i can make cash out of but i'm not doing it for that i'm just doing it because i really want to do it and i think i'll be quite good at it but yeah those are the the minute where i'm in this grieving process i'm just trying to claw back all the things that make me happy and so yeah reading is one of the those and seeing my mates and travel i've not been really away very much since john died so making plans to travel again and that's really what the plan is it's not really businessy at the minute i mean we are robust in our business plans but it's not just me right so there's a whole team of people working on it i'm not fully 100 back at work yet i actually think that's like what people need to hear though because business is not always going to go the way you want it to and i always say it's like you have to take a step back and you have to take a step back and you have to take 10 steps forward and that feels so scary because especially when your family your livelihood everything relies on you it can feel horrible to just sit and be still how does it actually feel when you're in those moments are you even thinking about the livelihood aspect of it always always thinking about that because there's other people that rely on me to pay the bills i quite like sitting still i recently went to a panel talk and a photographer said we don't the creativity comes when we're bored we don't get bored enough and i didn't ever get bored but probably the month after john died i didn't really leave the house didn't really do anything didn't do my makeup or hair didn't film any content and i got a bit bored but it got my juices flowing and i did start to think when i go back to work i'd really like to do that and i might have a go at this i need to explore that so i think with those moments you need to sit in them and all almost like luxuriating them and force them we're so consumed by there's so much stuff going on isn't there the noise and actually sitting still is probably where you make your best decisions so yeah it's important to me that at the minute how has grief changed your relationship with money in general to things and stuff i know i don't really care about stuff in the same way that's so true so like uh my house i'm moving back to my house right and all i care about now is me we've got an office and i want to turn it into a bedroom because i want more people to come and visit the old me would have been thinking about any spare cash i had i'm going to buy a new handbag and buy some new clothes whereas now i'm like no if i've just got enough cash set aside i can probably build a nice little bedroom there and then i reckon i can like host you know i can do things so it's making me think more about emotional connections rather than stuff and not wanting to do anything else and i've been thinking about that a lot and i think it's important to hold on to stuff and all of my diamonds i was you know i have massive big rocks on my both my hands they're all in safety deposit But I don't feel safe wearing that kind of stuff anymore. I'm a bit of a sitting duck, really, in that I've got a big house that everyone knows about. They know where I am. Granted, it's like Fort Knox. But if someone really wanted to have a bash at stealing my diamonds and my Birkins, they know where I am. So I don't have the same yearnings to have those things anymore because I don't feel particularly safe having them. So I'm luxuriating now in my emotional attachments, my friends, the things that people can't steal from me. I was never, ever thinking about this word before I met my husband, and he seems to be obsessed with it. And I'm so curious for you. Legacy, right? Like you build these things, and all you have, my husband calls them, is your eulogy virtues, things that people will say about you or the legacy that you leave behind. Whereas resume virtues are things where it's like I wanted to work at Goldman Sachs or I wanted to do this or I wanted to earn this much money. And. I'm very curious for you as you start this new path of starting over and taking a second and then thinking about ambition and thinking about how you feel. What does that word legacy now mean to you? To be honest, it's always meant the same to me, which was that I, my legacy and John's legacy was all about how do we make people feel? How, what were the things we enjoyed doing? Because we are, we, we were very social animals. So my legacy. As much as I'd like to say to you and for the internet to think that I'm this, like, you know, very ambitious woman and I've got big brand that's global success. I would like to build my big brand that's a global success to sell it and then probably disappear from the internet with enough cash to fund lots of brilliant parties and holidays. And that would be my legacy where people that know me in real life would go. Yeah, that was, she was, she was good fun. I enjoyed her company. Red or white. X, Y, and Z. What is life for if it's not for living fully and fun? I don't want to be a workaholic forever. I don't mind doing the graft, but I do not want that to be, I'm not going to be a Kris Jenner. I'm not going to be working into my seventies. I want to have fun. And this bit is the bit that's going to get me there. I love that. Okay, Lorna, are you ready for some fun rapid fire? I am, yeah. I'm a bit nervous about this, but I've seen other people. I'm like, I don't know what I'd go for, but we'll see how we get on. Okay. Lorna, what is the last thing you put on your credit card? I don't have a credit card. Were you, you were ready for that answer. No, I don't. I genuinely, I was just, I don't have one. So how do you. Well, the last thing I bought. Yes. Was a four poster bed yesterday. Oh, I saw this in your stories. Because I've got, I've got three bedrooms, but only two beds. And I was like, if I'm going to make that a third bedroom. I'm going to need a bed for the third room. But that can be an old one because I want a new one. So I've got a new bedstead coming. Taking six months though to build. But I'll have it by Christmas. And is that the most expensive last thing that you just bought? Yeah, it was a lot. You can only pick one for the rest of your life. Running a personal brand or a beauty brand. Oh, that's really hard. I would say where I am right now, I'm more successful at running a personal brand. But the goal is to run a beauty brand. A beauty brand. Love that. Why? Can't wear it anywhere. And the other ones all got stolen. So I've got one left. And I look at it with contempt. Because it's this thing that I've got that I can't really wear. And it cost me a fortune. And it'll probably get robbed. And it's just stressful. What is the luxury experience that is worth every penny? Holidays. I love a good holiday. Like any luxury hotel. What's the best luxury hotel you've ever been to? I mean, I could sit and talk about this till the cows come home. I would say some of the best luxury hotels I've been to have been in Italy. Particularly on the Amalfi Coast. I love Santa Caterina. There's a Belmond in Ravella that's pretty shit hot. Italians just get it right. The food, the weather, the vibes. The chat, the hot waiters. It's just all going on. If you had to live in a city in America, what would it be? But it cannot be Los Angeles or New York City. So I have obviously traveled a lot in America with being cabin crew. And I really like Chicago. I liked the energy of Chicago. But it's very windy. And I really liked San Francisco. But it's very hilly. But over the wind and the hills, I'd probably go for the hills. Because the climate's a bit better in San Fran. I love that. That is not what I. You, like, had that answer right away. Yeah, I just love America a lot. I'd love to live in America. I actually had a tarot reading say that I'm going to live in California. And this was a long time ago. And I'm kind of thinking it might actually happen now. Not this year, though. Wow. Okay. What do you believe every woman needs to have in place financially before she needs it? I'd love to be the girl that says a pension. But I don't actually have a pension. Although I am about to have one. Okay. So I'd like. But I would like to say pension, really. And I wish I'd started that 20-odd years ago when I first started working. Okay. So two other questions that we ask everyone. You probably know this if you listen. If you could tell yourself one HSR love note for the rest of your life, which is basically an affirmation, what would it be? Probably. Going back to what we said at the very beginning about the fact that I can get through anything. I'm a survivor, right? So it would probably be something around that kind of survival. Like, you can do this. You are going to be okay. You're going to be okay. And I've needed other people to say that to me a lot recently. So it's quite an important thing for me. And if you had to title this season of your life, Laurenette, what would it be called? This season? Mm-hmm. Probably The Shit Show. It's what I would call it. It's been tough. Well, thank you so much for coming on and talking about it. I know it's going to help so many people. And I'm obsessed with you. I was before. And everyone that came on my show was like, Lorna, Lorna, Lorna. And I was just like, oh, my God, I need to meet this woman. So thank you for everything. And where can people find you? And how can HSR help you right now? Yeah, so if you're looking for me, I'm now Lorna, because I was Lorna Lux. So I'm just Lorna now on Instagram and TikTok. And my brands are 98beauty. If you're in the market for a really good hair mask, I'm your gal. And then LAS. Which is my fashion brand. I'm wearing it today. It's beautiful. And I did have a wine as well, but it sold out. And because we did it with John, I don't think we're going to do it again. But yeah, I did have a rose. Because I love wine. We didn't really talk about that today. No. But that's like. Tonight we'll have a glass of wine. Yeah, that's my other passion is drinking wine. And how can HSR help you? Oh, what in terms of? People say random stuff. Like what? Someone said, buy a coffee. For a stranger today. Oh, that's cute. I like that. I've done that before as well. Okay. When I'm coming out of prep. Yeah, buy someone a hot chocolate. People love a hot chocolate. It's underrated. It's better than coffee. Yeah, it's underrated. And it's like a bit more like, oh, I didn't realize. I forgot how much these, how good these are. It gives you childhood vibes. Yeah, I really like that. Lorna, thank you so much for coming on. We love you. No, thank you. Y'all know I love a mood board. So everything that relates to the creative, the name, the brand, the website, the vision board. They're a one-stop shop for founders. 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