Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amUpZsEl5Rs
I look at your skin and I'm going to come over now oh no then I go around here turning Woodall beauty queen of the screen founder and CEO of Trini London one of the fastest growing companies in Europe have a great day I went two phases in my early 20s of not knowing who I was and turning to drugs I went to rehab I hope that you'd been kicked out the first time for playing a porn video Yeah it backfired we had was a huge beginning of the change in my life and I went into a whole new world following a 20-year career in media Tony took a left turn in the makeup industry here we are 250 million dollars later welcome to Trinity London a lot of people have this stigma that you can't start a business at 53 crap are you just just number but you need energy passion perseverance I sold my house hardly earning any money but I thought I'm never going to give up ask yourself how much do you want to be successful what are you prepared to give up you strike me some that's incredibly driven what's the cost very big question probably oddly you had a partner who was unwell yeah and the thing you think will never happen happens he died by Suicide yeah yeah where do you get to in your brain when you are so worried about your children that you can convince yourself that the best thing is that you're not in their life anymore was there anything I could have done stop it I think this is fascinating I looked at the back end of our YouTube channel and it says that since this channel started 69.9 percent of you that watch it frequently haven't yet hit the Subscribe button so I have a favor to ask you if you've ever watched this Channel and enjoyed the content if you're enjoying this episode right now please can I ask a small favor please hit the Subscribe button helps this channel more than I can explain and I promise if you do that to return the favor we will make this show better and better and better and better and better that's the promise I'm willing to make you if you hit the Subscribe button do we have a deal [Music] pretty [Music] you've got a very um distinct Personality yeah
you and you know that you're well aware of that right I know who I am but your personality is very you're very straightforward yeah um and all of these sort of defining traits of your personality and I'm wondering if that was when that personality was formed or when it started to emerge things happen in your life that that begin to you know fine-tune and Define who you're going to be and I went definitely through phases you know I went through phases in my late teens early 20s of of turning to drugs just to not being happy with who I was not not feeling not knowing who I was sometimes people turned to drugs because they just don't know who they are and they want to you know they have an inner lack of confidence and I definitely had an inner lack of confidence and outwardly when I talk to people and I look back at the time they might say you just were this very mesmerizing person and I just remember that internal sense of feeling so lost so profoundly lost and so when I got clean at 26 27 that was a huge beginning of the change in my life I was so relieved that my 20s were over so relieved because it you know it was like that was the beginning of that that's wash that away and that was a big moment for me to begin to work out who I was that was the first moment probably you're um using drugs at 16 I presume was quite a recreational thing yeah I think we all dabbled yeah at that age um when did it when did you realize that it wasn't a recreational thing anymore and that it was an addiction I think I was about 22 and I felt my life didn't have Direction and my my family were very frustrated with me they felt I changed and like any family where they have a child who has addiction they they can if they don't know they just see change and they think why is my child changing you know so I think they saw that and it was a relief to say you know I I use drugs and I remember my dad said well now you've told me you can stop and I remember my
brother saying I think it might be harder than that so I went to rehab and I then left the rehab after a period of time and you left the rehab yeah no I was kicked out the First Rehab but I then went to meetings and there's one thing about recovery is that when you first get in recovery you you need to let go of your old friends who you've been with who are using and you're about to make new friends so that moment is loneliness can take you back to Old habit after about I don't know maybe six months I missed my old friends and I hadn't made enough new ones and I saw them and then you know I relapsed and then I went back to meetings and then you're in this horrible little in-between place when you know about recovery and you continue to use it's not so there's something about an ignorance of recovery you know there's a kind of sense that you don't know there's another way so you don't feel guilty every time you do and so what it brings is it brings guilt every single time I had three really really good friends and we were all using one night and we I said let's all make a pack we'll go to rehab tomorrow and two of them had been and one of them had never been but we made this Pact late night you know that thing we're going to do this we're going to conquer the world and we're going to go to rehab so then the next morning I woke up and I still had that feeling which is rare so I called a therapist that I knew and I said I need to go but I have a window of opportunity which is so small I need to go literally in the next two hours because I am scared of myself that I'll change my mind so he got me in somewhere and stayed there for five months and I sold what I had to pay for it some very tragic thing happens in that time and one of the people died and then one of the people that said they're
going to go to rehab with you yeah and then I went to a halfway house in Western supermarket seven months where you kind of live off eight to ten pounds a week which pays for your [ __ ] and I worked in old people's home and I came back to London a very different person and then in that following year another one and died and then by the end of two years they'd all died so I think I always had this feeling whatever I might do you know I might do many things again but I will not take drugs again and you do that in recovery you do it a day at a time and since that day I have never taken a drug again and that was that that's probably that biggest shift I had at that age to really think now I have the second chance what do I actually want to do with my life you know what not what I feel other people expect me to do if I was a flower on the wall in your life at at your when the addiction had you the most what would I have seen you wouldn't have seen anything that I was feeling inside because that's what I was very good at so outwardly you would kind of think you know I worked in the city I was trading Commodities I was I held down a job you know you would see this person who seemed to be running around doing a lot of stuff you would see that yeah so mine wasn't jacking up in the streets not being able to function on a daily basis um but it was one where appearances were so important compared to you know so that matching your Insight to your outside is probably my biggest Journey you know of how can I what I feel inside is how I share with you now and you know I am 59 and that's where I've got to I have a lot more to do but I it took me a journey to get to a place where I feel very comfortable in that feeling and in that belief matching the inside with the outside so
the outside I would have seen someone who was very busy and apparently you know professionally successful in the city not feeling it but sort of acting it you know that I mean oh my God we know that one and then make the CV acted you know be kind of big up the job that was actually smaller than it was all of that [ __ ] and then on the inside feeling feeling you know I hate to say the word because I hate I hate labels imposter syndrome is the worst can I just say it's the worst label it's the worst label ever because it what it denotes is that you are an imposter um for how it's used for now so to me imposter syndrome is more that you haven't yet learned enough and if you learn something you won't feel so much of an imposter this is what imposter syndrome is what I'm referring to it's that feeling where you are so different on the inside from what you project on the outside that you are an imposter inside your own body and that to me is what I think imposter syndrome is what's the what's the cost of that that at some stage you can't keep doing it and you have something has to give and something always has to give and and it's whether it's which path you're going to take you know because there'll be a lot of people listening now that are in a job or a situation where they they have that feeling that niggling feeling that we're in the wrong place yeah they might be held there by social groups or expectation from their parents or whatever it might be but something's holding them there yeah maybe fear of uncertainty I would say if somebody is listening to this and they're thinking do I have little bits just ask yourself you know do you love what you do it's a job you're in if we're talking about work do you love what you do do you like this environment of where you work do you feel people make a better contribution than you you know because that's what's making you feel insecure if so what do you feel when people have meetings that you don't know go and [ __ ] learn it Go and learn it
Go and listen to podcasts go read some books just learn it because knowledge is is powerful and when you have knowledge and you walk in a room you automatically think I have so much more to contribute if I answer one of those that I challenge myself and I go I don't like where I'm working and I don't like it yeah and I'm you know a Commodities Trader in the city for example and I just I hate it yeah leave it but have a plan but leave it like if you hate what you do we spent 16 hours a day between commuting or if you're in a higher position thinking about the company working we spend much more of a day working than sleeping so you gotta love it you've got to love it you know I was like in my early 20s I was one woman 64 men on a trading four and I hated it and I dressed in men's clothing and I went to Rosetti and got the men's shoes and I got the tailor to make me a suit or the man would drop their trousers in the on the training floor but I'd go in the ladies room and get you know I'd pretend to have a deep voice I was on the phone selling anglo-american fun so my client thought I was a man I mean you know I did all this stuff I haste it so much Stephen and I would go I would take the tube to Tower Hill we would the World Trade Center in London it has Financial Times on the outside and the Daily Mail on the inside that was my full extent of who I was and you know I left it were you an attention seeker more generally in life because when I heard that you'd been kicked out of rehab the first time for playing a porn video yeah I thought that that was that was a a funny one but not funny in the end um it was a terrible rehab I was with somebody um uh to last night in New York and we were going to this funeral as this friend of mine who was like 43 years sober and um I discovered I've been to the same place with her and um same rehab yeah but at different times and she just said you know it was the most fundamentally shaming place ever
in rehab now are very different but it was a very very shaming place and it will be closed down now it wasn't it didn't have a good way of dealing with things so in that whole scenario there was definitely that feeling that you're you're you're thrown in with people you don't know and you reveal your life and it was a time when you would write down your life story and then in rehabs nowadays because I visit friends in them or whatever you would kind of people help you navigate why you did things in your life but in this one they did the stuff where they would get 20 people to critique how bad your life had been in a room and and judge you for it and it was I mean just like looking back on it now at the time that was the only way recovery worked in rehabs in the UK but it was just it was kind of [ __ ] appalling and she reminded me last night so when you bring up this thing of that of that um porno film and I think it was that sense of let me just do something that people will find funny because we're having such a shitty time here and it backfired and it was just you know I was tucked out what I have been able to pinpoint is the because at least from the outside looking in your life was you know you had a great job you had this um addiction which didn't seem to interfere with your work so you know when I sit here with someone like Macklemore or Russell Brand or even I remember speaking to Stevo they talk about their addictions and you know he was he was on a I don't know four or five day heroin binge and he drove a car he said he's gonna I think he drove a car through a house and then yeah he was threatening to jump out the window yeah when you know he ultimately ended up in rehab but it didn't seem I can't identify the symptoms that drove you to go I can't do this anymore I think we have everyone has a different story externally of I did this and I did this and there's a bit of I did even more than you you know there's this whole thing in that you know addicts maximize their using and alcoholics minimize their drinking
all right and that's why our colleagues can take longer to get into sobriety and and addicts can take shorter because also drugs can kill you quicker um so there are there's that kind of you know and I think also I don't know it's it's different but um maybe I don't talk so much about the crazy things I did oh okay yeah because I think we all do crazy things yeah yeah and um but I I feel that I have a daughter who's 19. sure and I wouldn't talk about crazy things I did yeah okay so we move on from there and then the next sort of 10 15 years of your life you have this media career how aligned were you of this chapter of your life um so when I did TV and writing I really love that I think what was very nice is we developed this these women who found us a breath pressure I love the fact that people would say oh you know I read your book and it's changed how I think about myself or you know and at the time when we look back at What Not to Wear it's a very divisive show at the time it made a lot of women and women that I meet now who watch the show at the time tell me the impact it had on them to think about themselves differently but I enjoyed it I enjoyed traveling around England and making over women and having that journey and over you know over a week you saw the metamorphosis of a person you work with and you saw them at the beginning and at the end and then we kept in touch with many of the women and then you would hear about their marriages and their babies and they're life-changing and and that you knew there was a tiny contribution you'd made to that switch in them turning the switch on to feel different why did it end at the show we'd gone from doing series of thought I see with icba yeah and writing a book a year to doing three or four shows I took on average about 55 flights a year I left London on a Sunday night I came back on a Friday I had a seven-year-old daughter and I had a partner who wasn't always well so it was just at a stage where I thought I need to readjust how my personal life is and I need to think
what can I do now because this doesn't work I had a partner that wasn't always well I remember reading a line in your book where you said 99 of the things we worry about don't happen but that one percent happened to us and he said it to me is that what he said to you yeah he would always say it I mean I always remind Lila what did Dada say when she's worried about stuff and he said he's the one that said the 99 of things we were about don't actually happen yeah I had a partner who was unwell unwell in what way addiction he was addicted to yeah yeah and you you met him when you were 35 no no I met him when I got clean I met him when I was 27. oh you got married when you were 35 yeah and he was in recovery oh okay so okay when you're younger you um went through recovery he went through recovery as well but then relapsed he had a motorbike accident and he was very badly hurt and he took painkillers and got addicted to the painkillers what is what is what is that like because people think of painkillers that don't know addiction to painkillers and they think of paracetamol or something my only experience with painkillers is taking a paracetamol maybe four years ago I think when you're in a relationship with somebody who has a form of addiction there's an unpredictability and an inconsistency in how they turn off every day and I think in any times when it's not great you end up to an extent having the crumbs off the table it's like you're so holding on to those moments when everything's good that you try and ignore what isn't working and at the same time I was thinking about well you got married in the year that you were starting your business your tech company it's a lot to deal with if you've got a partner at home that you're married to that is struggling with addiction you're starting a business yeah but they were well at that time okay yeah they were well at that time they had periods
definitely through our through our marriage where they were well really well the relationship breaks down yeah you get divorced yeah you go your Separate Ways you remain close yeah and then Johnny ultimately passes away around the time when you finish before you start Trini London but around the time when you finish What Not to Wear and you separate from Susan yeah I separate from Susanna and I started working on I'd started working on Trinity London yeah but I was still filming abroad I was still doing Telly shows abroad but I was also working on the business and you were close to him yeah still even though you had separated yeah yeah we spoke every day on the phone every day yeah he passes away when you're 50. yeah how does that change things in your life um strangers you become a single parent um the thing you think will never happen happens so it's a wake-up call just for life and how you see life it took me a long time to grieve because he left a mess when he died which I had to kind of deal with it yeah Financial mess just yeah just a mess and so it preoccupies you to not then actually just think about what you miss in somebody you know it just you focus on what you've got to do you go on to autopilot you think of the kind of things you've got to deal with and probably oddly I moved in March and that was the first time I remember Lila went away and it was first time in 35 years I'd been on my own in-house and I grieved for Johnny all those years later did something trigger that no I think it's just you need as long as you need space you need to you know he died there was a mass I then starting the business I was living in a house I couldn't
afford to live in I had to sell it for lots of reasons one of them you know for that reason and there was so much I was so many sort of fires I was dealing with and and then I was you know trying to start the business trying to guide Lila to you know be okay so there was a lot of years of that and then another life change of just deciding I want to live on my own then brought up in a way to be able to just feel some things that I hadn't really let myself feel and I think sometimes in life we know we're not in that part of that strong enough to feel that feeling and move forward and we have to be in the right situation and give ourselves that right breathing space to be able to feel the fullness of that feeling without judgment or guilt or remorse you know because all the other ones are so connected to situations externally and it's very difficult to get to a situation where you're not bringing all the external factors in and you're just feeling how you feel about somebody what was the fullness of that feeling in that moment I think um there was nothing there's nothing better in anyone else than the bestness of Johnny if that makes sense and I missed it the circumstances of his death are particularly complicated because he he didn't die by natural causes he died by Suicide and having sat here and spoken to people who've lost a partner or an ex in such a way um the feelings uh from what I've seen are much more complicated I think anyone dying who dies unexpectedly whether from illness or anything it's somebody is gone you know that's that's the biggest fundamental of anything the circumstances Drive how differently people deal with death so you know some members of his family wanted to believe there was a conspiracy theory some you know you you suddenly have
101 kind of views on things and stuff that really confuses and complicates the fact that somebody has gone you know they've gone nothing is going to bring them back they have gone but it leaves more questions and then you look at your part in something you know and that's every person who has had somebody commit suicide at some stage will say was anything I could have done stop it you know that's the first thing for sure if you love somebody um and the more I have learned about suicide the more that you know that when people when people will talk about wanting to kill themselves I'm not saying it happens less frequently than people who don't but once somebody makes a decision that that's what they're going to do they don't talk about it you know and you'd like to feel you'd pick up on it but I think it's the hardest lesson to learn but when you then come across people where you feel that you now pick up on those not saying things that there's a lot of internalizing going on and should you be reaching out and just talking getting them to talk because people get themselves to a stage where they feel it's the only solution and what's staggering is Johnny had hyper vigilance around his children because he'd been in the Israeli Army and he was paramedic and he had a really it was really tough the situation and he he had from it post traumatic stress disorder which wasn't um acknowledged you know it wasn't diagnosed until about 20 years later but one of the things was hyper vigilance around his children so he had he was always so you know worried for their welfare so you kind of have this thing of where do you get to in your brain
when you are so worried about your children that you can convince yourself the best thing for your children who you love profoundly is that you're not in their life anymore and that is something that is so important that we can help people who get to that situation that they don't get to that final part of that situation and it's understanding what to recognize is understanding you know and it's very hard to recognize you know I didn't recognize and there were lots of details of it which could have really upset me you know of things that were done wrong just were just like police stuff that was done you know lots of things which you could hold on you can hold on to lots of things but you kind of have to let go when I see people who have family who have died and they want to hold on to things or get this thing you know and it's like all those things you might hold on to will prevent you to go through the process of grieving because it will hold you in this place and time and you won't just be sitting with that you know and you won't be able to work through and you know when somebody dies you need to work through these stages and acknowledge these stages but not get stuck in something which eats you up so even though there were all these things that kind of could have eaten me up sort of new and I had a very good there's a wonderful one called Julia Samuel and she wrote this too shall pass and another book called grief works I don't know if you've ever had her on your podcast she's an incredible um grief counselor and I saw her straight away she came to my house when when I knew and I hadn't yet told Lila the first thing is you need to find the words of what to say gee um was a friend of my sister and she gave me words it's like you just feel so like this
I'm at a good place with it now and I think that final thing was this the moment I by myself when Lila went off and for a week and I just I thought it came very I'm totally you know this is eight years later but things take time so interesting how the the process of grief that those first sort of eight years where you kind of compartmentalize or it's not the right time to address it yet because there's other things going on and then eight years later how it can show up in a moment of like Solitude and yeah in a moment of space and come out it's interesting because I think there's so many of us whether it's the grief of losing someone or the grief of some other form of trauma that we have it compartmentalized and it might be um impacting our lives in ways we don't we don't understand I hear this a lot when I speak to people about you know their mood or you know they're a slightly different person through that period but until they were able to kind of sit down and confront it and and go through the process of grief they they didn't realize that they'd it changed them in some way eight years later you have your moment 53 years old you start Trini yeah big smile on your face you know starting a business like that at 53 a lot of people have a like a stigma or a stereotype that you can't start a business in midlife you know you shouldn't be doing that at that point or that you know you won't be able to raise you know all of those kind of stigmas around starting a business in midlife crap crap yeah Turtle crap I started a business at 16 called what's my first business Bose unlimited when I was at school I sold hair bows I know um and then I started business at 53 so it's like there's no other way to put it that that age is is a number it is just a [ __ ] number and you can either mention that number endlessly or you can look at what energy do you have at that moment in time to execute on your dream that's all that's that's all you need energy all you need well you need a lot but you know you need to feel that you need
energy passion Drive relentlessness perseverance resilience put yourself off and just get [ __ ] on with it you need all of those things but you need the energy so that you jump out of bed in the morning and you are on it did it take time for you to cultivate that in the process after after Johnny passed was there like a do you know what I mean because I did I did uh ready to before and for that I was you know it did 18-hour days for two and a half years it's like it you know it's it's in me that I've I've been a grafter for quite a long time so you've been mulling this idea for many many many years yeah then um and then you finally put it into action I I heard you say I started pitching in 2014 and it took me three years to launch yeah I started pitching in 2013 I think and what were you pitching I was pitching what was the elevator pitch the elevator pitch was um to create portable cream based personalized makeup for women 35 Plus and how was that pitch received I did 48 pitches before one person fit I must have sent 300 emails what kind of uh negative feedback did you get oh I had lots I had um I had you don't have enough followers fine I had like I think 50 000 followers then um I had your two old starter business I had who's going to really run the business come on oh that's a nice list I love that one you live in this Neverland it's not like it's never going to happen but it's never going to happen but you don't put words to either you sit like this place and I had that feeling I thought are people ever going to get it but I thought I'm never going to give up so they were both sat side by side really starting why didn't you give up because I knew it was a [ __ ] good idea and I knew it would work I just had to find the right people who would get it but even selling you know everyone's telling you to I don't care everyone's telling me no I know and I know enough
and I believe in myself enough to know I know it's a good idea I just know it I just gotta find somebody who has the vision to understand it how did you know it though because I know women because I've made over 5 000 women in my life because I know what women Miss I know the frustration they feel at the beauty counter I know that some of them don't want to admit they don't know how to do a smokey eye I know that some women feel stuck but they don't know how to articulate how do I do it again because I don't want to seem silly in front of my friends I know that some women feel just they could never do that was it expensive to start the business yes what were the personal sacrifices there are phys there are Financial ones and there are friendship ones did you have to sell any tables let's start with the finances no but I sold my house you sold your house yeah I sold my house and I'd kind of why because I couldn't afford to stay in it I had debt I had a big mortgage I had kind of when I separated with Johnny I'd wanted to get this house that I bought that would enable me to walk my daughter to school I just wanted this thing okay like desperately so I bought this house with a really big mortgage and I did alone and I did it from scratch and it was my dream every single little element of this house I built did that make you sad that realization because it seems like the idea that I would have to leave the house was something I thought about every single day for six months and thought what can I do to prevent it because I've worked this hard for so long to have this house I've always wanted to own a house you know but once you let go of it it's just a [ __ ] house and you think there's a bigger picture and the bigger picture maybe you could buy me five houses but the bigger picture is that there is a bigger picture not even to look to the stage where you might be able to buy a nicer house but it's like I was on a mission Stephen I was on a mission I thought I've got to make it happen I can't not do this there was no turning back I couldn't not start the business so then it was what did I have to do start the business because first
of all I sold all my clothes I did the sale and I went on to Emily's List and I EMILY's List is this and I was renting out the house so I didn't care who came my house I had like a thousand people coming in my house buying clothes so I raised in two sales 60 Grand because I used to borrow I used to follow Gary vaynerchuk and Gary was always like what the [ __ ] can you sell in your house you know you can sell your trainers you won't spend a fortune on those people who are saying oh whinging to Gary and Gary saying sell something everyone has something they can sell well how much do you want the business how much do you want to be successful and start the business what are you prepare to give up look at the long-term game was there any doubt even a whisper of doubt I say this in part because I look back on when I started my business I was keeping diary entries yeah um and I was I feel the same as you there was no going back there was definitely not plan B my parents went there's no plan B yeah I'm shoplifting pizzas at this point to pick myself I'm like I can only go forward right yeah I haven't paid my rent in three months my rent is only 150 pounds in rush home yeah um but then I and so I will recount that moment of my life is I I zoom in on the tenacity and the certainty and this conviction yeah but then I look at these diary entries and on this day I'm like doubting myself a little bit it didn't last yeah but there was a there was a day where it was like a rocky for sure you know it's not all like the thing is the overarching theme is I can't go back yeah it shouldn't negate the fact you're going to have doubt you're going to question you know it's like doesn't think somebody will believe in it but there was like another 10 meetings and nobody has you know you think yeah yeah and also at the end of an investor present you when you present to investors the real questioning of your integrity over your idea is how much you decide what was the last meeting they had in the room which they brought that advice to your meeting on a totally different business to kind of talk about the market or I mean the amount of times I've talked about like you know it's about growth
it's not about retention it's about 70 new customers 30 retention and I was always saying no it's 60 retention 40 growth but saying this when Casper mattresses was going high-fly was like nobody wants listen I know how then why they didn't invest because their whole thing was growth retention [ __ ] you know and it's like retention is everything you've got to download grow you've got to have new customers but if you don't have the Bedrock of retention the kind of classic you know like companies that don't do any publicity like um Five Guys or some companies that haven't done much publicity they're relying on the customer loving it they're relying on getting new customers from their customers you know they're relying on the most classic Word of Mouth moment but you've got to build a company on cement and I felt at the time these guys looking around they're building it on quicksand you've got to then leave that investor meeting and think what do I take away that's good advice so the advice I took away to myself was if I'm in a room of predominantly man I want to go in and a female trait to me as you want to paint the entire picture you want to bring somebody into your universe and you want to show them everything so they don't have one thing they can hone in on to make sense of your business and join the dots you don't give them the dot Joiner so therefore the thing I learned was to go in and say look we're starting with this and from this I'm going to give you this and then we'll get to that and they're like okay and it's not many slow and women are faster it's like there is a fundamental difference in how people need information delivered to them so they can absorb it go yeah that ticks my box and then be ready to listen to the next bit of information and that I didn't know I didn't know into the 10th pitch and then in the 10th pitch or whatever halfway through my pitching I kind of thought actually what am I not doing right here to convey because if I believe this is a good idea if I believe it has legs what am I not getting through to them that I need to and that's the vision of
the future kind of it's a bit the vision of the future it's like there's a real classic that if you are a woman generally men if it's predominantly males they will ask how do you protect your downside and if I'm a man sitting here they will say how do you maximize your upside it's a classic all right so when then so just to explain for people that don't understand um downside is basically like how do you how do you negate your risk yeah so so you know how do you protect your risk you know what happens if you have a problem with the product what happens if you can't find a customer what happens if blah blah blah and maximizing the upside is how you're going to scale how you're going to make that business bigger so I thought I was like okay so then when they would start to get to that little thing I would say you know what these three ways like any business is what I'll be doing now let us focus on how I'm going to maximize the upside and just kind of gently not insultingly sometimes I was a little bit you know so you became aware of their Prejudice and would counteract it before they kind of had a chance to use that as a way to yeah you kind of want to bring in conversation well but it took me a while Stephen it took me because I had never gone to you know when I did investor presentations in 99 I did five and I got it you know in those two of them invested it was a very different time and pitching a concept how did you counteract the prejudice that you knew was existing in those pitch boardrooms or did you how did you deal with it because there's a part of me that thought like I went to one and he said I love the idea but it will only be successful if you do it for Millennials or gen Z because they're the only people who are going to buy like that because women of of your age don't know how to buy makeup online okay and at the time 26 of people bought Beauty Online all right and of that 26 maybe 15 were in the demographic that I said but I said I'm providing personalization that will make a woman and I will talk to women in a way of a language they
understand to think actually maybe if I went online I'd be better diagnosed than if I went in store because she has this personalization and and then when it launched and those very first few people who had never shopped for makeup online did it and thought this is better than me going to Peach Jones it was like spread the word spread the word and it built on itself but at that time when the man from this uh VC was saying that and I was like I left the room and I thought I actually would not want this person to invest in my business anyway so there is that maturity you can get of thinking because you've got to also you know when you're going for money you very much feel the powers in their hands and there's got to be something you're bringing through and where you think do I want these people to invest in my business and to get to a stage where you're the one in a way on the back foot because you're wanting the cash how can you then say to yourself turn it around you know do I want these people in the business have they got something to contribute and asking them questions like what will you contribute what do you do for your other VCS I've spoken to a few you know you have this big thing saying that you get the CMOS together and whatever but do you actually do that and how does that happen to you and how much is this business worth in your perspective don't give out valuations oh I read 180 million online it's doing well though yeah what can you tell me about the scale of the business to give just to give us an inclination we've you know grown over 100 a year probably over five years yeah we did 50 something Million last year um we uh we sell 180 countries we started skincare year and a half goats now 38 of my Revenue so it's growing quite quickly it has the highest retention so when I look at the business and I look at retention of product for me the value of the business and look at what product bases there are so that to me is an exciting place a business is going to
um we're localizing in different countries so there's one thing to be sold internationally but then when you localize it takes a lot of um personalization across yeah it does and so we we did it when we're about 50 in the UK and then we're about 23 in Australia with 10 in America that is a fantastic business yeah and I would like to invest well when you think about your character traits and what you bring to the business what what is that and how has that led the business to become successful because I think in Founders we talked earlier about focusing on the thing you're good at yeah what is the thing that Trinny is good at in this business I think I'm good at understanding how women react to things and what they want and how you speak to somebody so they can hear it I think that's probably what I know better than anyone else in the company how do you speak to someone so that they hear it well years ago I did Oprah an Oprah taught me a lot and she was she is an amazing woman but when I used to do her shows we would tell her stuff because we'd just done a book and it'll become a number one time bestseller in America and it was like she helped us do that but she would tell them stuff I'd said and then she would repeat it three times within that half an hour you just repeat it repeat it and I said afterwards over you you always repeat she said because it registers they get reminded they remember so that sense of you say something and you say it three times in maybe three different ways so that by the end of that conversation somebody walks away with a new thought in their head so there is that and I don't consciously do that anymore I think at the beginning I probably did because I remember what she said and then it got into a habit but and it's also remembering who you speak to because when you speak when I do my contribution to to Trinity London of on social
I could be speaking to many different women I could be speaking to a nurse on 18 Grand a year who saves up every month to buy one thing and I could be speaking to somebody who could buy 10 things and choose to spy us okay so it's quite a broad remit but they all realize because of what I was talking about the importance of actually buying things that really work for your skin and not wasting your money and and not putting things on that are bad for your skin I don't mean bad like green I mean like don't do anything for your skin or just understanding what you should use is not what your best friend should use and because I've I had very bad acne I mean like when you talked about your turning off the light okay I used to decide what restaurant do I go into like if I was going out and as an 18 year old and I had this lighting I would literally say can we go to another restaurant because you would see my acne postures um coming down and I would go like I'd literally I'd be like this for dinner so that obsession with my skin and the effect it gave all my confidence and put was a lot of what I put into when we look at what ingredients are we going to use and how are we going to use them and we have a lab in England you know I'm proud the fact we have a lab we make things from scratch we're not like hey let's put a label on here and say Trini London you know are you proud of the business very are you proud of yourself um yes I am when I remembered I mean I get when I remember to be no like you've crossed your arms look at the body language no I am I don't it's very easy to well I never get to a place conceit um many people are proud for me and I sometimes find that challenging it's like I want to move the conversation on why I don't know I don't I can't answer it and it's just a thing you know but I'll have good friends of mine who've known me a long time who will just say you know very lovely things about having grown the business I I often I'm gonna happen how do you feel and so on because we got
it together because we must go through it I'm asking questions but I I but you also okay so give me your feedback well when someone gives me a big compliment at the same time they're also reminding me of everything I could lose and so I think my natural way of dealing with things is as you've kind of described is that forward motion that void Motion makes me feel stable yeah so whenever someone comes to me gives me a compliment about something I've achieved it's it's um I always say like Chaos's stability and stability is chaos it's a moment of stability that I don't like like just the idea of of accomplishment yeah creates a stability that I don't like I want chaos I need that forward motion to feel stable it's a weird one because it's like a lot of people would disagree with what you're saying in terms in terms of you know sort of a self-worth guru who's saying you've got to you've got to you know take a step to a lot of friends who Satan you need to take a moment to acknowledge how far you've come and I think what you're saying is I'm just trying to grasp exactly your thing of the chaos and stability and I think I can explain it better yeah okay so when when Olympians go to the Olympics they come back even if they've won a gold medal and they fall into a depression I think they call it gold medal depression the stats around that are alarming I've read one article that's where it said up to 80 of Olympians post um the Olympics feel that way um I think that humans most of us anyway maybe that's why we're in these buildings with these amazing technology have it within us to need to to it goes back to what I said before we start recording about progress yeah we need a sense of Forward Motion we don't the opposite of um what we don't want is completed goals abundant resources and nothing to strive for so maybe because I'm particularly I was particularly insecure as a child I need I get my worth from the sense of forward motion and accomplishment the thought of stopping yeah and being done is a form of psychological chaos it's a form of purposelessness and so I think stability is actually the forward motion the chaos uncompleted goals the striving that's
one I feel most stable okay and when you remove that something to strive for I feel I feel which people would call stability I feel chaos yeah um but also I think for me and you there is something um where our work is I know it for me anyway is inherently linked at deep deep level to our sense of self-worth yeah and so um yeah it's quite I feel deeply uncomfortable when I get a compliment about um the work we do or um when people say that to me I'll use your pause for a second and just think about how far you've come yeah it's robbing me of something yeah it's like it is um when will enough be enough I don't know if enough should never ever be enough you should always have a little bit because you see you live in chaos so I ask you that question when will enough be enough when will enough I will never be sad as far I always think about that um well I go back to what I said as I I hope I hope there's no such thing as enough in my mind yeah because so when well enough answer your question when will enough be enough it will never be because enough is always going to mean forward motion so and progress enough I know because success to me is forward motion and progress so success can't therefore possibly be any destination it is it is challenge it is autonomy it is a meaningful goal to strive towards and it's doing it with people I love yeah that's success for me okay and and so I need challenge I need forward motion with people I love High degree of self-control yeah it's your life breath yeah as I'm doing it yeah yeah it is life breath yeah it really is as you know Zoe are a sponsor of this podcast and I'm a big investor in the company you guys know I'm really sitting still because that's just the nature of my life so whether I'm in a business meeting with my investments or I'm recording this podcast I'm always running from A to B but the one promise that I made to myself is to fuel my body sufficiently and Zoe has been really the
key part of me succeeding in that mission for those of you that don't know I've been a Zoe member for about a few months now ever since I had Zoe's scientific co-founder Professor Tim Spector on this podcast Zoe helps me to understand how to make better food choices for my long-term health and it's all personalized to me eating the right food is essential for me to keep me going because some of my meetings are often later in the day and so I need to ensure that I keep my energy levels up and Zoe allows me to understand which foods work for me and which foods don't eating the Zoe way I don't get that dreaded afternoon crash and I feel great so to get started with Zoe go to zoe.com Steven and use my exclusive code ceo10 for 10 off so many of you have been asking me for a discount code here it is ceo10 go to zoe.com Steven and use my exclusive code ceo10 for 10 off and if you already use Zoe send me a DM and let me know how you're getting on what is success to you these days like what is what does success mean for you people ask me that all the time as well but I mean it's such a you know when you hear that question I think oh [ __ ] so make it specific like it's too generalistic so what's if if I let's look look at the next decade of your life okay if I say if we meet again in 10 years time and I say and you say to me that was a successful decade all right well that's a good way okay next 10 years success Rebecca um the one thing this is the only thing where I will bring age into it right is I am 59. so when I'm 69 do I want to be working so hard that I sort of Miss friends birthdays and don't get to you know take part in life of things outside my work because that's a big one like when you're in your 20s and 30s you can kind of like all your friends are doing that too you know and in that same space so it doesn't matter if you say look in a month we'll get together we'll all go for a weekend somewhere because you're all doing it so it's like you're on this thing together but when you're me probably of my friends maybe 80 of them their life is slightly different from what I'm doing right now so
and that element of that friendship and this connection with people is fundamentally crucial to our feeding ourselves you know and there's always that you know guy who not had American Express but he's like you know will I be remembered for how hard I worked you know on the grapes and there's that classic corny thing of like well they remember how hard you know it's like they won't but whenever I read that I think but they just had a nine-to-five job and this is a passion you know I always say that I think this is so different because this is because if I if it was just a job I'd probably say you know I should slow down a bit whatever but I travel the world I help a lot of people around the world I meet a lot I was in Birmingham um what about work-life balance yes but this is the thing it's like I don't see my job as a job and then there's work-life balance because there's areas of my job which should be sociable things so I I meet people I have conversations women every day you know on this you know social media thing which is now a few few million people I have these women who know me really well it's so interesting how you think oh but I haven't seen you know I have my friends who have known me since I've been my teens but I have these women who are part of the Trinity tribe they could be anywhere in the world but they know me so well that like I might do a little live and they'll DM me say Trinny sense this this morning are you okay do you need to take a breath you know and then when I sh I shared this you know that John had died and um and so you know they were you know they sent thousands of messages and I read I read everything people sent because if people make the effort to write a message and on my Instagram I respond to everything you know I we have a team of 11 people who we had like 12 000 comments a week between London stuff but I do all my Instagram because that's the Beating Heart of the women in my life and the feeling people are feeling you know whenever you have a business you need to
understand what is the feeling people are feeling so in England we have a big cost of living crisis I still want to give people quality products that are premium so with all these things going on how do I sense check this thing how do I adapt the conversation so that it still is relevant to their life and they're just so going back to work like balance like they helped me to sit for a second and like one of them sent this message three days I said Trini you have to remember to feel what you're going through right now because you don't usually you just rusher it and you need to do it this woman I've never met before ever okay but they're just incredible women and so my when you when you talk about a business all right and you talk about starting a business my business is this passion for these women to feel great and and are sort of you know you always have these what's your vision board and what's your mission of the company but it's literally to leave a woman feeling better about herself than before she came into contact with me with Fearless with the podcast with Trinity London with whatever so that's my mission I am here for a mission I know that sounds like whatever but I am I know I am you know I know I am I know that when like I know that during covert when there were people feeling in a full family of people fundamentally so alone as women I knew how important it was that we should get up and we should chat to each other I knew it was just to like really chat really like share the [ __ ] share the feelings so they could go me too me too you know so it's 69 then you're saying that you're going to slow down and retire and have pina coladas on the beach no I didn't say that at all did I ever say that so 69. no so you just said to me in the next 10 years so the next thing what's success look like it's that this community grows because the more women who feel like this would tell more women and I would like at the moment maybe we have a million women and I would like that to be in the next 10 years 15 million women actually so that I'm going to put that number out there
I'm going to now remember it I'd like that many women because if you can get to that many women but then how are you gonna I said that because you talked about changing the balance a little bit so you could be there for your social connections a bit more yeah your friends yeah if you've got a goal of 15 million women so how am I growing this business where I have people in place who can do things that I can do better than me so that you can go and do so I can do even more of what only I can do yeah in the business because at the moment I did this thing the other day and I did this thing with my co and a board member and I did like 365 days a year all right and we divided up because we need to like see because people it's very difficult to get meetings in with it so he's like okay there are six full days a year I do board meetings there are 12 days a year I do investor stuff so we had a little laugh or whatever and then add up to more more than the days of the year okay because I haven't taken that much holiday so Jane says to me lovely Jane she goes Trini this we have to change so she said okay what do you not have to do you know how could we move to a place slowly where you don't do this you do this and you do this so much about it's like you must talk to tons of people about when you have your best ideas all right we have our best ideas when we are not further removed from the chaos because you love this chaos but we're we're removed enough that things have the room to Bubble to the top so I do Michael's car map every morning all right and I just started doing this other one on the the one with the half Bowl in or something you know that really good one and there's this guy David G and it was discussed at Massachusetts state hospital they did some research that you listen to his meditation for 59 days and it changes your neural Pathways like ketamine might okay it's really I'm anywhere I'm day 43 okay quite into it but when I give myself that little space the really good ideas for the business come up and the more I'm just doing running the business running the business the less we're going to have of those
and I need to give the business the best of me so it's 69 do you think you're gonna be working less differently differently more space for more creativity yeah and you know traditional just saying yeah I'll take a Friday off and go and go for a weekend somewhere and things like that yeah because you know do you be able to go for a weekend without thinking about the business yeah I did actually can I just tell you for the first time in five years I went away for five days two weeks ago and I only did like eight emails which was just great you wrote this wonderful book Fearless it's really really surprising it's surprising did you read any of it yet yes I went through it but you did and I read the entire section on life the other sections about beauty and star were a little bit more tricky but I read everything in the live section about that's where I got some of those quotes from and uh the stuff about imposter syndrome and self-belief and all of those things it is a a life advice book it is a beauty advice book it is a style advice book um and it's just a gorgeous coffee table style the thing is this is me okay yeah because I hate looking at pictures of myself so the whole point of doing this book was to say you hate looking at pictures of yourself I hate [ __ ] hungry is I just do so this is the book you'll have on your coffee table can you see so nice like just it will make you pick it up more because it's biased to have my face on the front this is not bias ah no that is beautiful and it's a nice little message as well yeah to have a statement about yourself like yeah you know what's funny when I'm when people come on the show and they have a product I I often try and spend some time um talking about their products and stuff but the thing the thing in this case is having got to understand you yeah and what drives you and having felt how authentic and deep your passion is there is no need that all the products are just a byproduct of exactly that what we've just experienced so it's
funny because I hear you how deeply passionate and obsessed you are about your mission as you call it and I just believe the product because I know where it's coming from and that's the most important thing it's coming from a deep sense of mission that is so unbelievably authentic that starts sounds like in your childhood with a battle with your own skin issues and acne um in the byproduct of that authentic mission is these wonderful products which are taking the World by storm what what have I got in front of me here okay so every part to say I'm just giving you I'm going to give you the quick headlight so you can go back to your girlfriend and and you can have knowledge let's just close off on this the book is available in September yes Fab so everyone can go pre-order that now yeah wonderful now right so highly recommend everybody goes in pre-orders it because it's a beautiful book thank you very much so fundamental skincare whatever age you are or skin color you are or anything is you should clean your skin properly okay you should wear SPF okay every day whatever your melanin levels yep cancer being the primary cause but other ascetics as well um you should do something that regenerates your skin and retinoids can do that and exfoliants can exfoliate your skin and you should keep your skin even so vitamin C okay so those kind of me are the showstoppers in a routine well what if I don't because I'm guilty as charged to all of us if you don't genes might make you think I don't need to I'm fine but I look at your skin and I'm going to come over now oh no don't call me oh [ __ ] do this look at me and I close my eyes because I need to feel your skin without judging you by looking at you okay so what I do is I just have a feel and I feel so first thing I feel immediately is the congestion you have here right in the center a lot of people like women will have congestion here because they don't like to get their hair wet when they wash their face you have congestion here sure it's not muscle or something it's not muscle at all I know the difference darling
um and this is not like that's beer you see but this is congestion under the skin because you have an oily skin so you have a sebaceous gland that can sometimes get blocked Under the Skin it doesn't become a spot but it's congested so that's there all right so exfoliant you're going to use I do get a lot of spots there okay well then you're going to use find your balance in fact we've got to get your final Advance then I go around here then I feel your lymph whenever you're feeling blocked doing this tiny movement here releases your lymph nodes and you go around the back she's massaging my face for anyone that's listening on audio it feels really good round your ears agree to disagree okay and then you go down and you want to kind of go down to your clavicum release this is all like a channel for all your lymph so if you ever get a blocked face or you get dark circles you do this kind of getting it down like Ah that's why women always do that thing on Instagram with the yeah with the stone so your oilier here thank you you've got a slight Dark Circle yeah it's unslapped yeah and you've got hydrated skin but block Skin So for me the best thing you would do for your skin is you exfoliate your skin because you need to slosh off dead skin cells and you need to clarify your skin you need to get your pores get the congestion out so that means drinking water it means having an exfoliant a liquid exfoliant so that's exfoliant we sell tiptoe in though you don't have sensitive skin so you would use one called find your balance which I'm going to give you okay okay and then afterwards use a moisturizer called niacinamide it's called energize me it has something called sacinic acid in it sacinic acid is like it's an ingredient that goes into your cell and goes like this so when you put that on your skin will wake up you'll feel an alertness to your skin and then you'll feel you get off a flight and you'd feel I don't look tired because you haven't looked you need to touch your face a lot of people just don't touch their face enough you need to get the oxygen to your face you know you go to the gym and the oxygen goes around your body and your lymph system works
and you get this feeling of aliveness but we just leave our face alone so you do this you don't do it with me just do it with me get yourself get your fingers like this yeah like that so it's like you've got a scissor and do friction like this up down up down then go left and right up down like that okay and then you want to get your hands here yeah and you want to lift your cheekbones like this fast one two three feel the energy okay just let go now do you feel this movement or rush in your face yeah that's your lymph your lymph is like your hose pipe around your face and if you put a sort of foot on the houseplate it stops you need this to move around if it's moving around it's releasing the talks and taking them down here at the moment it's leaving them on your skin under your skin so it's Cleaning Out My Face yes you want it to be moving so there's just three things then so tell me tell me this so if you had three things you would use yeah three products I would use and then sort of three principles towards skin good skin care okay you use better off which is a cleansing one you go in the shower yeah and you put this on your face yeah it's on Aha and PHA it's got gentle exfoliating acids okay okay then find your balance which is an exfoliant which is not there what are you going to get for you I don't know we'll get out for you and energize me which you don't have those three things is what you're going to use okay your girlfriend we're using longer routine I don't know what she looks like on skin tone but she'll probably have the retinols and she'll have the vitamin C's and a few other things but you just need three things so that's the products and then in terms of the personal routines you said drink water sleep sleep and then like massage my face yeah got it okay I'm looking forward to I'm looking forward to it I I've always kind of procrastinated on like skincare routine I know but if it's easy if it's really easy if it's by this thing called pick it up yeah okay well you would just like we'll cement it down with blue tag cool
okay okay so we have a tradition where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest and not knowing who they're going to be leaving it for yeah the question left for you is what's the one thing that gives you the most healthy pleasure in life and how can you commit to harness more of it going down a skinny slope at 83 kilometers an hour but the thing is I just feel a responsibility now that I can't do that anymore why because it's very dangerous you know it's like a but it is it's a guilty plan because I love it I love the speed I love the like I'm just in control went through my hair you know it's the only sport I know how to do I'm [ __ ] every other sport sounds like the way you live life yeah probably in control high speed yeah win through your arm probably because I can't leave one somebody else now yeah thank you thank you so much thank you for the inspiration you truly are an inspiration uh tremendously tremendously so and I'm gonna make you feel uncomfortable you should be so proud of how far you've come you must be so proud take some time to just breathe it in and enjoy it training you're gonna regret it shout out now I appreciate you so much thank you for being here thank you for coming and doing this and thank you for creating a real business that's um inspiring so many people just through its existence but also inspiring them to be better and to feel better about themselves through the wonderful products that you've made and I highly recommend that everyone goes and gets this book it's more of Trinity the Trinity that I'm sure you've loved in this conversation and these products I mean they speak from themselves because as I said you know exactly where they've come from so thank you oh as you may know this podcast is sponsored by huel if you're living under a rock you might have missed that and he all has such a wide range of products now but there is a great way to try all of them this is the huel best seller bundle perfectly curated so that you can try all of the favorite products and decide which ones are your favorites the best seller bundle has a range of meals
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