Dr Rupy: Your partner needs to be somebody that you totally trust with your life and more, because it is what you're doing is is building something that if it becomes successful will be all consuming. It will take over every waking hour of your day and night and more. And you know you may well have to mortgage your home and then remortgage the mortgage on it and you know, it it it's a real, you know, committed manoeuvre if you like to to go into entrepreneurship.
Voiceover: Welcome to the Doctor's Kitchen podcast. The show about food, lifestyle, medicine and how to improve your health today.
Dr Rupy: I'm Dr Rupy, your host. I'm a medical doctor, I study nutrition and I'm a firm believer in the power of food and lifestyle as medicine. Join me and my expert guests where we discuss the multiple determinants of what allows you to lead your best life.
Dr Rupy: Liz Earle MBE is my guest today. She is an absolute phenomena. She has 35 books to her name, multiple TV shows, a global beauty brand, a magazine and a hugely engaged and connected community online. Her work in beauty and wellness started way before the trend and her commitment to this area and the rigour that goes behind everything that she has created, whether that be a book or a magazine or even the beauty products, that has built the foundation for a business and a brand that has stood the test of time. And she's also built the business or the foundations behind an industry in this country and beyond that is now valued at over a trillion dollars globally. I'm going to be chatting with Liz about her entrepreneurial journey, her experiences and what she has learned along the way. I want to share not only her story, but her strategies for maintaining personal wellbeing and creating a support system around her, as well as what excites her about the landscape right now. This is quite a personal podcast from both sides, and we share a number of anecdotes which I help will hope you, the listener, understand the journey of an entrepreneur and someone who is trying to make it in this industry. And I hope that for any of you listening to this who want to start your own venture or just want to be inspired by someone else's story, I really hope you you take some tips and you take some information and inspiration from this conversation. So without further ado, this is my conversation with Liz Earle MBE.
Dr Rupy: I'm super excited to to have you on this series because as you know, we're going to be talking to entrepreneurs both in and outside of the wellness space, but I'm fascinated with people's journeys and how they started and how specifically you built this incredible, recognisable brand that is so recognisable across different generations as well. So I would love it for you to just regale your story and take as much time as you want because there's so many elements to it.
Liz Earle: How long have you got? So my journey really began in the world of beauty, gosh, 35 or so years ago, my early 20s, and I worked for a then unknown hairdressing company called Molton Brown. And they went on obviously to become a big toiletries brand. And when I was there, I was actually working my way through paying for my time at college and I had very long hair and I became their house model for these weird fabric hair curlers called Molton Browners. So then when I left college, they they just said, hey, you know, how about coming to work for us and do you want a job? So I said, yeah, okay, fine. So my whole career, I'd love to be able to say that there'd been some designated pathway that I'd very carefully scoped out and but it was really for me, it's always been a question of doors opening and walking through them. And from Molton Brown, I got to talk to journalists who were wanting to write stories about this upcoming little hairdressing beauty company. And for me, that was a kind of a light bulb moment when I was had a journalist on the other end of the phone asking the questions, I suddenly realised I wanted to be that person at the other end of the phone asking the questions. So I managed to get myself a job as a junior on a women's magazine called Woman's Journal, which doesn't exist anymore, but from there I was fortunate, I was mentored by great editors who taught me how to write and encouraged me. And this is really going back in time. So this is when things like nutritional therapy and complementary medicines and naturopaths and all of these sort of, you know, slightly alternative, fringy treatments and real kind of innovations, if you like, were just being discovered. And there was nobody on the magazine who whose department they fitted. So they said, oh, Liz, you're the new girl, you can go off and you can write about all this stuff because, you know, we've got, you know, the knitting editor and we've got the cookery editor, but we don't really have anybody doing all this wellbeing lark. So that's how it started. And I loved writing, I loved interviewing people, researching, finding out more, being very nosy and having the privilege of talking to great brains, academics, people who are at the cutting edge, going behind the scenes, finding out really the truth about all the the studies that were being done. This of course was back in the day before Google, before search engines. Other search engines are available, obviously. And so I used to go and sit in the British library, I used to go and ring up academics and talk to them about their studies, go and see them. And I know my young publishing team, they say to me, you know, how on earth did you manage to write books, you know, without the internet? And I said, well, we did it the old fashioned way, you know, we actually went and spoke to people. It's really weird, isn't it? And what that taught me was actually when you talk to the author of a research study very often, you know, something that's been in the media, and you you you say, and even to this day, you know, I'll actually ring somebody and and they say, well, yeah, that was very interesting, but we didn't actually find that. That was what was reported, but actually what we really showed was this. So it's a really important lesson actually, so to come from that kind of old school area of of journalism. So I I started on my journey. I I left magazines quite quickly because I love research and writing, so I started to write books. The first book I wrote was called Vital Oils and it was really to shine a spotlight on the benefit of fats and oils in the diet because it was at a time when everybody was going low fat or no fat. The problem of course with that, you know, as you know, your body falls apart and you you can't make your hormones properly, your skin falls apart. So that was sort of quite counter culture. And in fact, I very nearly got sued by a leading margarine manufacturer for daring to suggest that the fats in in low fat margarine, sunflower spreads might not be quite as healthy as they were being made out. So it's quite nice to be vindicated all those. Absolutely.
Dr Rupy: So you were really before your time. I mean, that is a proper pioneering move to be talking about fats and oils and the importance of fat in the diet against the the general consensus that fats were the devil.
Liz Earle: I mean, I was so maverick. I mean, it wasn't just me, obviously. I mean, I was reporting from other senior medics and people who I respected and had grown to know and and trust. And also through personal experience, I had very bad eczema all the time. It was, you know, an inherited genetic condition. And I mean, many of my family are generally sort of atopic, so we all have to be quite careful. And I realised that actually by putting decent quality fats back into my diet, I could change my own skin. So I think, you know, like so many entrepreneurs that you talk to, there's very often a personal message and a personal journey that drives you forward, that gives you that little bit of initial propulsion into something.
Dr Rupy: I I know, um, I don't want to digress too much actually, but I'm just fascinated in the process of being a journalist pre internet and how you think the internet has changed journalism today, whether you think it's a good thing or a bad thing or and how would you balance that?
Liz Earle: It's it's amazing to be able to get access to information so quickly and to find people. You know, I don't like Twitter, it's not a safe space, especially for a lone female, but I do use it and I use it to contact academics and to find studies. It's very clickable, it's very shareable. And you know, starting my career without that, things took much, much more time. But of course, there is the other side of that is that things happen so quickly that you're often putting stuff out there or there's a temptation to put stuff out without proper fact checking. And it can be very lazy. I I can't count the number of interviews I've done for people, you know, even reputable national newspapers where they put something out online and it's wrong. I mean, really wrong. And so we contact them and say, actually, you've got this wrong. And and there's almost no sort of real apology. They just, oh, sorry about that. We'll just hop online and change it. Which of course they can do, but of course the main damage is done because the clickbait's already been out there and people have read it. But if you commit something to actual physical print, as you know, with books, with magazines, etc, that can come back and haunt you in 10, 20, 30 years time even and somebody will say, listen, you said here on page 97, you know, and you can't change it. So that for me, when I do the magazine every other month, I'm pressing the print button and it's it's a kind of a heart in mouth moment because every single word that's being printed, you know, I have to stand by and have to say at the time of printing, this is as accurate as we can make it. So I think there's something more trustworthy perhaps about the printed word and we ought to be just take a little bit of caution when reading what's online.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I think that might be why, you know, books are still very important for consumers these days. You know, the the thought of having a a physical cookbook for me when I when I was first asked to do one, I thought, well, that's it's quite outdated. There's recipes all online. I'm publishing recipes all the time. Why do people still want cookbooks? But there's there's a a deeper connection, I think, that we have with physical print. And I think it comes down to the fact that someone has committed for this recipe or this piece of information to be accurate. And if they're putting pen to paper and they can't change it, it is really something you have to stand by.
Liz Earle: Yeah, and the tangible feel of sitting with something that's printed on beautiful quality paper, you know, you're not going to curl up on the sofa with an iPad, are you? You know, where's your tactile experience? It's just not there. But if you've got something that, you know, it's the smell of print and, you know, maybe I'm just too sort of old school, but there is just something really lovely about having a fresh new magazine or a fresh new book to open and flick through.
Dr Rupy: Absolutely. Yeah. No, that really does resonate with me. I I know, um, businesses and successes are not overnight. But were there, was there a particular big break for for you in your career that sort of catapulted your your rise for for your business and your success?
Liz Earle: Definitely, there have been opportunities. I talked about walking through open doors. Um, so when This Morning started, I know that you're a fellow contributor to to This Morning. Uh, well, I was on the launch show, so 32 years ago, I think it was, 30 years ago this November. Um, it launched with Richard and Judy, and I got a call from one of the producers who said, uh, we're starting this new daytime programming. And up until then, there hadn't been any morning programs. You know, if you turned on in the morning, you either had the test card, uh, or you had the racing from New Market if you were lucky. And that that was it. Literally, that was it. And I remember thinking to myself, daytime television, you know, whoever's going to watch that? That's never going to catch on. You know. But don't ask me about trends in broadcasting, clearly not your person. Um, and I remember I had to go to Liverpool because it used to come from the Granada Albert Dock. And, uh, I was really tired. I'd just finished a big project and I thought, well, that's great. I've got four hours on a train. I'll go to sleep. I'll get off at Liverpool Lime Street, go and have this meeting and then come back to London. Didn't really think anything about it at all. Arrived at lunchtime just before one, went to the Granada studios. And if ever you've been to the Albert Dock there where the the Granada news used to come from, it's this huge atrium. It's like a kind of cathedral. It's very imposing and intimidating. And in the middle were a set of cameras where they were doing the the news. And I was met and the producer said, oh, quick, quick, you know, you're just in time. They're just going to finish the news. And, uh, then we can do the screen test. Um, and you know when you get that awful feeling in your stomach that you just think your stomach literally physically turns over. And I said, um, what what screen test would would that be then? And they said, well, you know, you got the brief, didn't you? And I was like, not exactly, no. Uh, so he said, well, we just want you to sit and chat for, you know, five minutes or so about, you know, beauty and fashion and wellbeing and stuff. And I really so clearly remember thinking, oh, insert expletive. This is a disaster. I've been asleep on a train for four hours. I could have been doing something really clever and just writing something that would just knock them out of the water. But at the same time thinking, well, listen, I'm here. I'm just going to make a real fool of myself and go away. So I sat and I chatted and I can't remember. It was really intimidating. Cameras in front of me, no sign of any producers. They were all back in the gallery. And afterwards, uh, he came out and he said, wow, he said, that was really cool. That was so natural, like you hadn't kind of prepared anything. And that's exactly what we want for this new form of programming, this new daytime TV. We want people who will just chat like you're chatting to your friend on the sofa in the sitting room. And that's how I got the job. So, you know, had I, had it not happened in that way, you know, had I gone there with like a news reader type script saying, well, I think this and, um, so I ended up being there for about four years and and then I with Richard and Judy, I loved it, doing everything. I love live television. It's very real. Nobody can re-edit what you say, nobody can change inference or, you know, mess about with stuff and re-edit. Always loved doing live TV. Then I went to the BBC and and did a first ever program on beauty called Beauty Wise, then I ended up at GMTV, then I had my own show in the afternoon called Liz Earle's Lifestyle. And then, while I was writing books and I was doing TV and all of that, um, and then a girlfriend of mine called me up, uh, and she said, you know, Liz, you know about skin and you know about ingredients and you're always talking about nutrients and things, you should really have your own skincare line. And I said, don't be ridiculous. You know, I'm a broadcaster, I write books, you know, I don't make products. And she said, no, no, no, no, you know, it'll be cool, it'll be a sideline. It'll be a little sideline. We'll do it between us, just the two of us. I can do all the producty bit and you know, you just sort of sort out what's got to go on and and talk about it, um, and the formulations. And so I said, well, okay, fine. So that became the Liz Earle Beauty Company, which Kim Buckland and I built, you know, literally from scratch from her idea to what became one of Britain's biggest independent beauty brands. And and it was an extraordinary rollercoaster of 15 years of deep dive into products, logistics, legal, supply chains, marketing, everything. And because of that, everything else I've been doing really up until then kind of had to be sidelined. So my TV work stopped, my book writing, I managed a couple of books, but not many. Uh, so when the beauty company was sold back in 2010, it was for me, it was a liberation because I was able to go back to my original passion. I feel that I've gone back to who I really am and back into wellbeing and writing about all these things, which of course have now become front of mind for so many. I mean, like you, so lucky to be working in an area that is what a five trillion dollar industry and growing and this real focus, never more so than now on on staying well.
Dr Rupy: I I mean, it's phenomenal, not only how pioneering you were and and how everything that you've done is sort of coalesced into the business and you're going back to what you really love doing, but it's just quite incredible how you almost took a big leap of faith by stopping the broadcasting stuff and starting a business from scratch. I mean, can you just give me some some timelines as to how long you were on TV and doing the broadcasting stuff to to when you decided to almost pack that on and then start on a whim with your friend. And I'm assuming you didn't have any like, you know, knowledge of of building product before or, you know, formulation or legal.
Liz Earle: She did, but I didn't. So the the expertise that I had there, I knew about the ingredients, what worked on the skin, you know, having worked as a beauty editor and writer, I knew the sort of textures of products and efficacy and all of those sorts of things. And I've been behind the scenes of most of the major beauty companies in their R&D labs, etc. So so that was what, so what, that was what I knew. I didn't know anything about building brands or or building businesses. And what I've said to people in the past, and I used to do mentoring, for example, for the Prince's Trust and and look at younger entrepreneurs who are building and and have ideas. And if it's very hard to do it on your own, it's really helpful to have a great partner. Your partner needs to be somebody that you totally trust with your life and more, because it is what you're doing is is building something that if it becomes successful will be all consuming. It will take over every waking hour of your day and night and more. And you know, you may well have to mortgage your home and then remortgage the mortgage on it. And you know, it it it's a real, you know, committed manoeuvre, if you like, to to go into entrepreneurship and and it's not without risk. And you need to have people around you that you totally trust and rely on. And in fact, when we came to sell the brand, the lawyers asked us for our contracts and for our shareholders agreements and all of those things. And we stood at each other and we said, well, we don't have any. And they said, well, how how can you have worked together for 15 years without a contract? And they said, well, we we just trust each other. And if she says she's going to do it, then I know she's going to do it and vice versa. So and then of course, the lawyers get on and and they, you know, start actually causing more problems because they create scenarios. They say, yes, but what if? You know, what if this person happens or that scenario happens? And it's really hard to legislate against everything. So fundamentals work with people you trust. And work with people who have different skills. I remember mentoring a couple of young jewelry designers and they came and chatted to me for a while and they they said, you know, we we we're both incredible designers and we both have these, you know, this extraordinary passion. I said, yes, but only one of you needs that. The other one needs to be able to, you know, read a balance sheet and, you know, go and talk to the lawyers about IP and build your website and have, you know, IT skills. You know, you you need people around you. So I think one of the reasons that Kim and I worked so well together was we were very complementary. I was always front of house, you know, it was my name on the pack and she was, you know, back of house. In fact, people used to think she was my PA, which was really annoying. Realising that we were actually equal partners in the business. It must have really made her very fed up.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. I I want to touch on that actually because um the the brand and the business was your name. And so intuitively there is there is a a deep connection with you and and and leaving that and and selling that, that must have had some effect on you, right?
Liz Earle: It's a really interesting question. I think, you know, I I'm friends with other entrepreneurs and brand builders like Jo Malone, for example. And I think for Jo, uh, you know, speaking out of turn perhaps, but you know, for her, what I see is that, you know, she's an amazing perfumer. And she's gone back to create another perfume company. And you know, that's almost as if she's competing against her former self, which must be, you know, quite an interesting position. For me, I never set out in life to become a big skincare entrepreneur. So it's I'm very proud of what we did and very happy to have done it, but I'm equally so thrilled to go back to my original me, if you like, my original passions. So leaving it hasn't been a problem. And as a mother, watching my children grow up and leave home, you know, my eldest daughter is married and that's, you know, she's still my daughter. I still helped bring her into the world, but she has her own life and she needs to go and go off into the wide world and do her thing. And I'm incredibly proud of her, but she is her own entity. And that's what happens with brands. They become their own, if they're successful, they become this entity of their own. They become a corporation in many cases that it's no longer, you're not controlling it, you know, it's and it's all controlled with regulation and laws and other people and committees and all of that anyway. So when I see it now, you know, in a shop window, I'm, you know, I'll give it a little wave and and I'm I'm proud of its heritage. I'm proud of having helped to to bring it into the world, but I'm equally happy to see it go off and and thrive on a global platform, which frankly was way beyond me. I'm I'm not a global um, you know, business leader and I'm I'm very happy to be back with my research and my writing and broadcasting and doing things that, you know, like this that when I started on this morning, you had to rely on on broadcasters and commissioning editors deciding to give you some airtime. Now we all have our own channels on YouTube or wherever and it's just so incredibly liberating to have that.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, it really is exciting. And and that's what I I always tell tell people who have a niche or they they believe they have a niche. Actually, that could be hugely uh valuable for other people and you're sharing that value with what you believe to be quite nuanced. Actually, you know, could uh be a lifeline for you. It could be your source of income. It could be, you know, how you actually live a life of passion where you're just doing something you can't wake up to wake up in the morning because, you know, it's it's what you do every single day. So, yeah, I I think there's there's definitely something in that. I I want to ask you specifically actually about the um when you chose to leave the business or or sell the business, um what was what was the um the thought process behind selling to a bigger corporation? Uh was it to maintain the quality of the brand or to to scale it to beyond where you thought where you didn't think you were able to?
Liz Earle: I think for us in particular, and it'll be different for for other people and and different scenarios, we had grown so quickly and we, you know, the the logistics of that and supplying internationally, you know, working in America, working in Asia, working in Europe, it it becomes a whole different ball game. And you need for the brand to thrive, we needed to have an organization with international infrastructure or or lose it or just become very, you know, low key again. Um, and we were employing a lot of people and it was really important to us that those people, their jobs were protected. And actually, if you go back to 2010, there was a massive crash. Yeah. A lot of a lot of businesses went under, a lot of unemployment. So we were really keen to work with somebody that, you know, had deep pockets that could take everybody on and uh and grow the brand, you know, with global expertise because that's what we'd started and we really wanted that was kind of beyond our our capabilities really. We wanted to hand over to um to broader hands, to better support it. So that's why we went big.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. Um, I I I'm interested in and this is probably for a lot of selfish reasons for me as well because I'm personally interested in the support strategies um that you used to support yourself during the the business itself. As you as you mentioned, you know, it becomes everything that you do, all consuming. Uh you wake up thinking about it, you go to sleep thinking about it, you're working with someone else as well who you have to trust implicitly. What if you reflect on it now, maybe you didn't have any support strategies, but were there any things that you did to support your well-being in the knowledge that um you know, of all the things that you talked about earlier?
Liz Earle: Not as much as I should have done. Definitely. Um, and you know, looking back now, I think I could have definitely better supported myself. I mean, I feel fitter, stronger, happier, you know, I'm in better shape in my 50s than I was in my 40s, no question. And that's happened through learning so many strategies, you know, things, you know, I know that you talk about prioritizing sleep, making sure that I've got the right nutrients, sorting out my hormones, sorting out my my mental health and my fitness and discovering hit and you know, all these these different things that I just wasn't aware of. I think because I was working so hard in a kind of almost corporate level. And now going back and and still having to work really hard. I mean, I went back into startup mode. I went from, you know, employing, you know, hundreds, um, you know, many hundreds of of people and having a big organization with lots of tears into, you know, me and three others on a kitchen table, you know, going back into publishing. So, you know, I think it's still a question of having to prioritize how you how you protect yourself and and having that support network is really important. I don't think I had enough of it at the time. And I think I probably went through a bit of a, you know, a mini health crisis in my mid 40s. I mean, looking back, I now know that that was perimenopause, which, you know, nobody back then was even talking about. I mean, I'd never even heard the term. Didn't even talk about menopause, let alone perimenopause. Um, and I, you know, I wish that I'd known a bit more about um about all of that at that time because I think it would have been very helpful.
Dr Rupy: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I I know I hate this question because I get it asked a lot, but if there were one or two things that you would say that you've found pivotal in terms of uh a health strategy that supports your well-being now and perhaps something that could have helped you during uh the time when you were building such a huge business, what would those, what would those things be?
Liz Earle: I think for me, fundamentally, uh as a mid-life woman, estrogen. You know, I I view menopause and that whole perimenopause time, and for many women it happens early, you know, it's can happen in your 20s and your 30s. It is really for to my mind, a a question of being estrogen insufficiency. I think we're going to look back on this time and realise that this is an estrogen insufficiency syndrome or disorder or whatever you like to call it. And that by simply replacing lost estrogen with body identical, safe, transdermal estrogen makes a massive difference. I mean, not only to physical wellbeing, I'm not really talking about hot flushes, although that's obviously an issue for a lot of women, but basic things like anxiety, you know, filling in our estrogen receptors in our brains and never more so needed than now, you know, let's keep our heads. Uh for me, the big issue was insomnia. I started to wake up at 4:00 in the morning, not be able to sleep, not really understanding it. I I got really bad headaches, not migraines exactly, but enough to put me to bed for a day and have to wait for them to pass. And I just wish that somebody had said, oh, but if you just replace your estrogen, you'll feel so much better. So I'm absolutely flying since since topping up my estrogen and for me, that would be you will have to prize it out of my dying hand. That is that is all I can say about that. I knew you've done a fantastic series of podcasts on this very subject on your podcast with Dr. Hannah Shaw and um uh I I I've done one with Lisa Mosconi as well, which is fantastic and it talks about how estrogen. It's talking about Alzheimer's. Yeah, dementia. You know, I think we are going to be finding and now of course with with COVID, the link between the immune system and estrogen and looking at the, you know, the number of women or lack of women going into intensive care who are actually replacing estrogen and the protective qualities. You know, I I was unaware of just how immune protective estrogen is. I mean, so much so they're even treating some male patients now with estrogen patches. They're they're trialing that in in COVID wards. So it's it's a really interesting area. So fundamentally, um estrogen for me is is kind of top of top of the list. Uh I think fairly quickly followed by gut health. You know, I am never knowingly under-kefired, basically. I I have it in everywhere I go. I travel with sachets of powdered kefir so I can make it when I get to my destination. Uh I buy lots of different varieties so I'm getting lots of different beneficial bacterial strains. Um I make grains, I make water kefir, uh I give it to my kids, you know, you walk through my front door if you're allowed to come in, you'll be given a glass of kefir. It it's kind of it's a non-negotiable. And again, researching through a a book that I did on gut health, looking at the production of serotonin in the gut and how important that is and you know, looking after our dopamine and our serotonin levels and helping with anxiety, um you know, as well as all the the good things like having, you know, bone building calcium and protein and all the other bits and pieces. Uh and all the gut health issues as well. I mean, let's not, you know, forget all the IBS and acid reflux and all the other things that that come from looking after our gut. So, yeah, I think um gut health and hormone health are the two two big keys for me.
Dr Rupy: Absolutely. And they're inherently related as well. You know, there's no more um interesting an area, I believe, than gut health right now. And I think we're going to learn so much more about it going forward. And I I I would mirror that. I think, you know, if I knew a bit more about my gut health during medical school, I probably would have, you know, had a lot more plants and less burgers and that kind of stuff. Uh and that would have put me in good stead, but oh well. Um, I want to know a little bit about your support system outside of um your diet and your lifestyle in terms of the people that you surround yourself with. I think it's never been more important to think about community and how we nurture our communities um than right now during the pandemic and what we've had to go through. Um what kind of support system do you keep around you and how do you nurture that particularly given the present circumstances?
Liz Earle: It's really hard, actually. Um, I mean, I actually went through a divorce during the the first lockdown, so you know, that that was really bad timing. Yeah, yeah, wow. Uh, uh, but I think, you know, thank heavens for online communities. Um, I started doing Instagram lives for the first time ever at the beginning of the the pandemic. I just went onto my social media just to say hello to everybody. And ended up doing a daily live for 16 weeks. Um, and this extraordinary, you know, feedback that that came back. And for me, it was almost like my therapy because you know what it's like when you're broadcasting, you are totally focused on that. You know, everything else can be happening around you and you it doesn't come into your your mind because you're really focused on the task in hand. I imagine, you know, much like being a doctor, you're you're completely focused on the patient and where you are in that moment. So for me, it was getting up, finding something nice to wear, making sure my hair looked nice, putting on a bit of makeup, and then talking and responding, um, which, you know, in hindsight, I think was as much my therapy as it was hopefully helpful for everybody that that I was talking to. So that was, that's one thing and that's obviously continued. I now don't do every day, I only do three days a week, but it's still very much that two-way thing that that we get out of. And I think I've learned to share a bit more. I'm actually very private person. And so opening up, I don't know how you find it, but I find sharing things, I mean even here just sitting here saying the word divorce is is quite a big thing because it's not something I I have ever talked about and don't feel comfortable doing. But I think when you're in a community that you know of like-minded people, and of course they're going to be some rotten apples in there that are going to want to chuck the odd rock, but you have to basically assume that most of humanity is good and and kind. And I think maybe through all of these bad times, it has taught us a little bit to be kinder because we don't know what other people are going through. My eldest daughter has a a chronic long-term illness, autoimmune disorder, and she's only recently started talking about hidden disability. And that's really true. You just don't know. You know, why is that person not wearing a mask? Well, do you know why? You know, is it maybe not because they've chosen not to, it maybe because they can't for whatever reason. So, you know, we must be very careful not to judge. And then I guess having having my kids and I've got really supportive parents and friends and just surrounding myself with with people who who make me laugh, try and see the lighter side of life because I I've got a a tendency, I think, to be too too serious. I don't know how you find it, but when you're working in the world of wellbeing and medicine and that inevitably brings up the subjects of diseases and death and gloom, it's quite easy, I think, to be become quite tunnelled into that and and I do try and find, I seek out people who have a lightness about them. Yeah. who can lift me up out of it.
Dr Rupy: Definitely. I it's a really interesting topic I find because um I think I'm naturally introvert, not that my social media probably paints that picture at all. Like I I can't think of anything better than sitting at home uh you know, with my little puppy and my partner and and you know, or you know, on Zoom with my parents and something like that, then going out. And actually, I kind of enjoyed the um the permission to not go out and not feel like I'm missing out actually during the lockdown. Obviously, there's tragedies with um uh health, businesses and and and people with uh job insecurity. But uh I I and that aspect I can I can definitely deal with. And the whole sharing online as well, I have a love-hate relationship with it because sometimes I feel like I don't want to give everything away, but I but other times I value that community feedback so much and it's really, it's not just validating, it's it's just it's enjoyable to be sharing stories with people that I've never met before and I might not ever meet face-to-face. Um certainly not right now, but you know, it it is uh really enjoyable. And I think social media has got a real bad rap, but there are ways in which to balance it, I think, that can actually be beneficial for everyone.
Liz Earle: Definitely. And I think, you know, podcasts have played a huge part in that. And I know many people who have massively benefited from listening, for example, you know, the counterbalance to all the the myth-making and media scaremongering about the safety of HRT, for example. You know, I'm I'm a a warrior on that and I I I feel very strongly. I I support many charities and work with social justice issues and I feel that there is a gender discriminatory healthcare uh that is it is discriminating mid-life women from and I don't think, you know, mid-life men would would get the same rap at all. I mean, the there are so many documentaries that, you know, maybe one day I'll be able to to make about this because it's it's beyond belief really. And I think it does give you the opportunity to to get good information out there. I mean, there was a a study out recently that was wrongly reported in the BMJ. So I contacted the lead researcher and I said, hey, you know, do you fancy recording a podcast on this this afternoon? I'll just put it out as a news flash. And we did it. And then it got picked up and it got retweeted and it hopefully it reached the right people. So I think, you know, that's that's the good side, isn't it? of social media. On the other side, you know, there is the trolling and the the bots and the misinformation and you've got to be quite strong and I'm I'm not that strong. I think, you know, lone women, you know, particularly do feel vulnerable on social media if you if you stick your head up, you're going to get something chucked at it.
Dr Rupy: Absolutely. Yeah, and you know, you being so uh courageous and being seen as a maverick years before has probably given you a lot more um sort of armor against that. Or not that, you know, you you might still be uh still feel uh vulnerable when you do get those sorts of negative comments and stuff. I I had to enjoy some negativity from colleagues about a year and a half ago and I think that was again plaguing myself with self-doubt and it definitely plays into how I am today. But I think you have to remind yourself about when people troll or when people are negative online, there is something much deeper that has uh encouraged them to react and behave in that way because that to your point is not human nature. We are inherently kind. Um so there has got to be something deeper to their story that is making them almost react in a certain way. And when you get to that point, then instead of feeling angry towards that person, you feel empathy and you almost feel quite sorry and and perhaps even you might want to help. Um and I just having that sort of attitude, I think has really helped um a lot of my colleagues as well who are online and stuff. and it's not just for people who have large followings, whatever that is, it's just for people who are online per se.
Liz Earle: I think that is a really, really interesting point and you're absolutely right. There are a lot of, you know, very sad individuals out there. I mean, you know, a few sick ones as well in in every sense. But you can, you can make good connections and you know, turn bad things into into positivity. And I think it's hard too because nobody's perfect. And on social media, there's this real temptation to try and paint yourself as perfect. And that's never going to happen. You know, it you're doomed to failure. It's like, you know, fighting the aging process. It's like turning back the sea, King Canute, you know, it ain't going to happen. So let's just do the best we can and accept that we're all fallible, we all make mistakes. And then you just try and put them right and and you you do the best you can and maybe with social media with there is a possibility or a chance to be a bit more honest. You know, and and to reach out to brands. And I think brands actually, you know, I know this podcast is about entrepreneurship. I think brands find it very difficult because you're you're often with a big company, you're ruling by a massive committee. Uh and you know, the director of communication may want to put out an urgent tweet or message about something, but they've got to get it past, you know, 19 other board members. And by which time the moment has passed. And in the old days, if you had a problem with something with a company, you'd write a letter and you'd post it and you'd wait two weeks for your reply. And if you didn't get a reply, you'd write another letter. Now, you you know, you hop on to Twitter and if that person hasn't replied within nine minutes, you're going, well, why haven't you replied? What have you got to hide? What's going on? You know, this is a conspiracy. Everything is speeded up and then you get the knee jerk reaction which leads to to issues and problems. And you know, it's really important to take a step back. And I've learned to say no a lot more often. I used to respond to everything. And when people wanted things really quickly and I hadn't had a chance to think about them, and I'll often say to my team, if something really urgent comes in, and I'll say, do you know what? And they kind of repeat it back to me. They say, yeah, we know, if it has to be now, then it has to be no. And I said, yeah, absolutely, because I need to think about it. Okay? Let me think about it and then I'll tell you whether it's a yes or a no.
Dr Rupy: I'm definitely going to borrow that. I I say yes to way too many things because I'm your classic people pleaser. Um and I I hate turning people down. I hate, you know, not being liked per se, but sometimes you have to be comfortable with, you know, someone thinking not the best of you and and actually giving yourself the space to say no to things is actually going to be better for other people around you as well because you're going to be less stressed. Um and on that rat race, so, yeah. Uh I I'm definitely going to use that. That's brilliant. So, um what uh what things are you most excited about now? Um obviously, since the sale of your business and uh you're still carrying on with the magazine and everything. What what sorts of things are you excited about in this present moment?
Liz Earle: Um, I am excited for the magazine. You know, at the beginning of lockdown, we had to take the really difficult business decision to come out of retail because nobody was A allowed to go to shops. It wasn't a magazine is not an essential thing. So, you know, we we pulped tens of thousands of issues and you know, for a small business, that was really hard. But I didn't want to stop. So we became subscription only and you know, touch wood, you know, we're nearly there, we're nearly at the kind of break even point that we can continue. So I'm excited for that. I'm excited that that we continue. I'm excited that people continue to read books and and want print because that's that's always a good thing. You know, print is not dead for sure. And you know, building more social media channels. I think over the last few months, I've become more emboldened if you like about opening up, you know, doing Instagram lives, doing, you know, actually putting stuff on YouTube, which I've never done before. Uh and then and then getting a a good reaction from it and thinking, well, actually maybe maybe this is something, you know, maybe I'm not too old, maybe it's not too irrelevant. And being, I think, working in wellbeing in in the broader sense, there are some amazing developments. And I I'm sure that you've been looking at um nutrigenetics, for example. And the drilling down of our DNA to see, you know, with the whole impact of epigenetics and you know, it's not just certain nutrients that you get from your diet or not. It's, you know, I recently found out, for example, that I don't convert beta carotene to retinol. So I have a genetic snip there. So, you know, for me, if if I was purely relying on plants, then I would be in trouble because I wouldn't be getting my my vitamin A. So, um, you know, and and it's all it's that targeted nutrition and that targeted profiling, understanding about hormone changes, histamine intolerance, methylation, it's fascinating. I can't wait to do, you know, have a bit more time to to dive deeper into these subjects because they are fundamental, aren't they for all of us?
Dr Rupy: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think the more we learn about that, the better we are equipped as medical practitioners as well. So what I think you're referring to is the FADS2 gene, um or the snip rather. And what's interesting about that is that those from European ancestry are more likely to have that snip. And so if they were to go on a vegan diet or purely plant-based diet, um you might be more at risk of those issues with vitamin A, which is beta carotene to retinol. Whereas, um my background, we are less prone to have that snip. So those who have been subsiding on plants only for a longer period of time may have developed those kind of evolutionary benefits of of of that snip. So it's I just think it's fascinating. And that's why it's like this whole idea around one diet fits all just doesn't just doesn't make any sense. And we are going to learn a lot more about how we can combine wearables with data from genomics, from metabolomics, from simple blood tests and personalize what we should be eating and how we should be living according to, you know, the the best research that we have. So I definitely that's fascinating. And um, you know, someone who's been.
Liz Earle: Is this going to be a a concern do you think for for big pharma? Because, you know, if if you're going to be able to resolve various issues simply by saying, well, actually you need a bit more B12 or, you know, you're not absorbing copper very well and and sort this out. You know, I have a friend who was screened recently who's been suffering from anxiety for for such a long time and she her pathway wasn't converting into dopamine and she was having issues with GABA and all of that. And since having a few, you know, higher doses of vitamin D3 and having some John's wart and I think then B12 as well, transformed, absolutely transformed, you know, no need for antidepressants off, you know, medication, therapy treatments, counselors, not needed, all of that, you know, just with a few vitamins. Very targeted, very specific.
Dr Rupy: Exactly. Yeah. And I think, you know, big pharma in a lot of ways like other big industries will they will change. They will definitely pivot. They will acquire companies that are doing exactly that so they can still maintain a a position. And we definitely need to work alongside industry and also invest in R&D. I was having a conversation actually um uh with Dame Sally Davies about um antibiotic resistance and how actually because they're not profitable to pharmaceutical companies and they haven't been for the last two or three decades, we haven't had any new antibiotics. And that's going to massively impact the medicine that we can uh practice as um as as medics. So, you know, there's definitely we definitely have to work alongside them, but they're going to they're they're already they're probably already looking at shifting their practices.
Liz Earle: They're way ahead. I'm sure. Teams of them, way ahead. Yeah, you're quite right.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. I mean, it's it's great to know about what you're excited about and um if if there is someone listening to this who wants to start up in the wellness industry, whether that be, you know, um skin, whether that be beauty and and and in clean beauty, I know that's a term now, or or food or or whatever it is, what sorts of advice would you would you give them?
Liz Earle: I think you have to be completely passionate. You know, you can't do it half-heartedly because if it goes well, it will consume your life. And you've not got to just quite want to do it. It's got to be a case of I can't not do this. And then you need to do your research like you have never researched anything before. You need to go in there upside down, back to front, back again, 98,000 times. It's not enough to rely on the universal of Google. It you know, you really, really need because there's so much misinformation out there and I I get sent this all the time from, you know, customers or readers who say, oh, but I read this and and you go, yes, and it's not true. Okay? So, you know, and and if you're going to put your name on something and you're really going to build a brand on it, you need to be absolutely 110% sure that what you're saying is absolutely right. And I think, you know, it is the age old thing of of look for gaps. You know, I was always looking for for gaps on my shelf and to see, you know, what am I having to go out and buy that actually, you know, I would quite like to be making. Um, and the same with the magazine, we always look, you know, what are what are people not talking about? What what's not being read? What's not being out there? Um, to to make yourself to have a brand that is is valuable and and people actually want to engage with because they realise that you're bringing something that's different and a bit special. And I think really now people are very much aware that that they want to invest their money because there's less money going around and and never more so for the future as as we come out of this economic crisis as well, is there has to be a good reason, I think, to to choose which companies you want to support. So companies that are seen to be doing well, that are putting back, that have social justice issues, that support their local community, the wider supply chain, that are involved in whether it's regenerative agriculture or sustainability or um plastic waste, you know, whatever it is, you need to be sure that actually there is something going on and that your money is being used wisely or your money is used to, you know, so that somebody's business does well, but also does good at the same time.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, absolutely. I I think more than ever, the consumer uh is more educated and passionate about the the right things. And, you know, we I mean, as someone who's changed their shopping habits over the last three years since learning a bit more about regenerative agriculture, the impact of clothing and not using second-hand clothing and landfill and all these different things, you know, I'm just like the tip of the iceberg. There's this huge population of us that have yet to be educated on this and that's going to massively change the landscape for businesses. So being passionate about something, being researched as well, um and and actually having the energy to put in all the effort and work uh as you know and and I'm learning at the moment is super, super important.
Liz Earle: Oh, it has to be totally the the fire inside you. You know, I think, you know, for me, wellbeing, you know, particularly for mid-life women, you know, if you cut me in half, you would find it written through like a stick of rock. You know, I don't feel in some ways that I do a day's work in my life, although I do work incredibly hard most days, because it is such a passion and a pleasure to be, you know, to be able to talk to experts, to be able to talk to people like you, to be able to have access to world-class academics or to be able to engage with incredibly brilliant writers or photographers or creatives. I mean, what a joy. You know, that makes you want to spring out of bed every day. But of course, there are the trials and stresses of real life that that go on as well. So trying to to balance it all together. And I think remember as a brand builder, as an entrepreneur, it's very often, especially in the early days, down to you and your resources. And that means your physical resources as well. So one of the most important physical resources is prioritizing your sleep. Sleep is a business asset. And you must write it into your diary. You must have a meeting with yourself in your bedroom by 11 o'clock every night. Um, and you know, if that doesn't happen, then you must find ways to to reschedule for the next day and not just play continual catch up. Looking after your, you know, your gut health, having simple strategies that that keep your show on the road because if if you if you go off, then, you know, your brand and business will will crumble with you. So I think personal investing in yourself as a as an individual is really important.
Dr Rupy: Liz, I think that's a fantastic way to end this conversation. I I've pulled out some absolute nuggets myself as well. So I'm definitely going to be practicing a lot of what you've been talking about. Uh and I just can't thank you enough for for making the time to jump on the podcast and talk about your story.
Liz Earle: It's been a real pleasure, Rupy. Thank you for having me.
Dr Rupy: Thank you so much for listening. You can find out more about Liz, click on the show notes, thedoctorskitchen.com/podcast. You can find out lots of more information about the magazine and the other many attributes that I didn't have time to talk about, uh, because she's just done so many different things. Um, and it's absolutely fantastic and I'm I'm so privileged to call her a friend and a colleague now. Uh, and I will see you here next week.
