Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Something to Talk About the Stella Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Lamarquin, your host, and every week I sit
Speaker 1: down with some of the biggest names in the country
Speaker 1: because when Australia's celebrities are ready to talk, they come
Speaker 1: to Something to talk about. With eighteen books to her name,
Speaker 1: a cult beauty brand she sold for big bucks and
Speaker 1: brought back for a steal, not to mention, a household
Speaker 1: featuring two children, a gold Logie winning husband, and a
Speaker 1: couple of Instagram famous cats, the life of Zoe Foster
Speaker 1: Blake is not exactly calm, which is why her new book,
Speaker 1: her first novel in ten years, is called Things Will
Speaker 1: Calm Down Soon, because as anyone who finds themselves saying
Speaker 1: just that several times a week knows chances our things
Speaker 1: almost certainly will not calm down soon. Zoe joins me
Speaker 1: in the Something to Talk About studio today to discuss
Speaker 1: the cost benefit juggle of multi ventures, how going into
Speaker 1: business quote knowing nothing unquote turned out to be everything,
Speaker 1: the reality and importance of failure behind the public success,
Speaker 1: and how her art often imitates her life. Zoe Foster Blake,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Stellar podcast.
Speaker 2: Oh thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: It's lovely to have you here. Congratulations on your new book.
Speaker 1: I have to talk to you about the title. These
Speaker 1: will calm down soon. Okay, So I say this at
Speaker 1: least five times a week. Thank you five times a day? Actually,
Speaker 1: what am I saying? How many times a day do
Speaker 1: you say it? Or you were reformed? Things will calm down?
Speaker 2: So sayer it's my It will be in my gravestone.
Speaker 2: It is the best lie that I reel out all
Speaker 2: the time, to the point where my husband does rolls
Speaker 2: his eyes because of course it will, he goes, Do
Speaker 2: you understand that this is just the life now? This
Speaker 2: is the beat of your life. But particularly when I
Speaker 2: was writing this character and these moments in my life,
Speaker 2: when I was as busy as her, I just had
Speaker 2: to It was almost like I had to keep telling
Speaker 2: myself that just to get through. You kind of get
Speaker 2: into that survivor mentality when you're super super slammed and
Speaker 2: knowing that it will calm down eventually. Is the carrot?
Speaker 2: Isn't it a dangle? But most women I know say
Speaker 2: this on the rig It's just how we live our life,
Speaker 2: not things will come down soon. Things come down soon,
Speaker 2: and I guess what it doesn't.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting what you say because you really do
Speaker 1: believe it.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because what's the alternative is going this is
Speaker 2: how my life will always be. And I think if
Speaker 2: you were in a state of business that was, you know,
Speaker 2: break down adjacent, that would be quite demoralizing. So I
Speaker 2: think you have to tell yourself, oh no, this is
Speaker 2: just a moment in time and it will pass. And
Speaker 2: it does, you know, and for me, especially at ebbs
Speaker 2: and flows, because I have big, big moments where I've
Speaker 2: got four projects in the go and then they're finished,
Speaker 2: and then I do actually have a bit of calm
Speaker 2: and then it will kick off again.
Speaker 1: So it's you know, your character in Things will calm
Speaker 1: down soon. Kit our main protagonist. She's a single mother
Speaker 1: navigating the complexities of establishing a beauty product business while
Speaker 1: managing personal responsibilities. It's your first adult fiction novel in
Speaker 1: a decade? What was it like reentering that world?
Speaker 2: Long overdue? But you have to wait for the good idea,
Speaker 2: the one that really persists, and it's almost like a
Speaker 2: bug in your head. Until you work it and do
Speaker 2: it, it's not going to go away. However, I really hadn't
Speaker 2: had that idea because I'd had young children and I
Speaker 2: was so focused on the business. So I was doing nonfiction,
Speaker 2: which felt a lot easier, and picture books. I've written
Speaker 2: seven in the last five or six years because they're small,
Speaker 2: intense projects, but a big novel is like deep focus
Speaker 2: for a really extended period, and I just didn't have
Speaker 2: that concentration. So it wasn't until my youngest went to
Speaker 2: school last year that I finally had a breather. But
Speaker 2: also the of the book, I had some big business
Speaker 2: moments that really made me feel like, oh, oh, now
Speaker 2: you have your content. Now you have the thing that
Speaker 2: you need to write about. Go do it while it's fresh.
Speaker 1: Because in some of the background notes to the book,
Speaker 1: it talks about how it's quite an authentic portrayal of
Speaker 1: a founder's journey. I have read it and I have
Speaker 1: not founded a business of maybe founding a magazine is
Speaker 1: part of it, but it feels very real but also
Speaker 1: very illuminating to of course those of us that definitely
Speaker 1: haven't had that experience. I imagine in of course your
Speaker 1: nonfiction books, there's a lot of research in fiction, there
Speaker 1: can be a lot of research that authenticity is that
Speaker 1: because that helps you unplug to a way where the
Speaker 1: storytelling flows a bit more naturally. Oh, let's be honest,
Speaker 1: because you are busy, Is it just to cut down
Speaker 1: on the need for research.
Speaker 2: I'm not a researcher, hand on heart, like it's it's
Speaker 2: not my wheelhouse. I'm very good at creating worlds and
Speaker 2: characters and stories, and fiction is for me really fun
Speaker 2: and liberating and playful. When I get tied down to research,
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm back at UNI and it feels
Speaker 2: like a big, arduous task. So I really the essence
Speaker 2: of this book was that I went through a really
Speaker 2: big thing when I sold half of my business, and
Speaker 2: that world of mergers and acquisitions and selling and all
Speaker 2: of these this business world that I hadn't known about
Speaker 2: or been part of, was sort of thrown at me,
Speaker 2: and I had to really get my shit together very quickly.
Speaker 2: And I learned so much because of the brilliant people
Speaker 2: around me, advising and lawyers and my chairperson and my team,
Speaker 2: that I felt almost like it was my duty to
Speaker 2: pay that forward and pay it on because I went
Speaker 2: in knowing nothing. I was a creative and a writer
Speaker 2: and an author who started a business because I wanted
Speaker 2: to write copy and make good things in correct community.
Speaker 2: And then suddenly I'm in a room seriously fifteen men
Speaker 2: in suits selling and defending my business against people who
Speaker 2: are hardwired and trained to cut you down and NEGGI
Speaker 2: because they want a better price, for example. So I
Speaker 2: had to I had to grow very quickly and learn
Speaker 2: a lot. And I thought, if I knew the things
Speaker 2: I knew now, like I'm twelve years into business, if
Speaker 2: I could share that with young founders or new founders.
Speaker 2: I feel like that would be a generous thing to do.
Speaker 2: But I did want to write a business book because
Speaker 2: there are a lot of business books out there and
Speaker 2: they're really great. I have the privilege and luck to
Speaker 2: be able to write fiction, so why not create a
Speaker 2: fictional world that you can if you're interested and if
Speaker 2: you're in that world of founding And I'm ef when
Speaker 2: they're looking at my friendship group, I reckon maybe eighty
Speaker 2: percent of them have their own business. And that could
Speaker 2: be they have an osteo business, or they're selling clothes
Speaker 2: or whatever it may be. But a lot of them
Speaker 2: are in this world where they're like, oh, I was
Speaker 2: thinking about taking investment, but should I don't know how,
Speaker 2: And so from the whole gamut of startup right through
Speaker 2: to exit, I feel like there's something you can take
Speaker 2: from it. But if that's not of interest, you still
Speaker 2: get a good story.
Speaker 1: When you're writing, do you filter or preempt what some
Speaker 1: of the reaction will be, because I imagine, of course every write,
Speaker 1: every creative deals with that. But then you're also very
Speaker 1: high profile, so you know that there'll be people thinking, well,
Speaker 1: is this memoir?
Speaker 2: Is this kit your character?
Speaker 1: Or is this Zoe? And then you know there's people
Speaker 1: in media. I mean, you're the sort of person where
Speaker 1: if you post something on social it could be like
Speaker 1: a clickbait story two minutes later. It's a question for
Speaker 1: every writer, of course, but everyone brings their own story
Speaker 1: and their own profile to it, and you've got a
Speaker 1: very complicated part to work through there in terms of reception.
Speaker 1: How much of that do you let in or lock
Speaker 1: out during the process?
Speaker 2: A great question, and it's really really at the forefront
Speaker 2: of my mind, and that is exactly where I write fiction,
Speaker 2: because fiction gives you the chance to really go for
Speaker 2: it and take maybe character essences or you know, a
Speaker 2: lot of the people in the book are the amalgamation
Speaker 2: of five or six people. And that's my favorite part
Speaker 2: about fiction is becoming a magpie for the two years
Speaker 2: writing and writing down little notes or idiosyncrasies from people
Speaker 2: or conversations, and you know, being in those boardrooms with
Speaker 2: private equity, just sort of taking notes on what they're wearing,
Speaker 2: what they say, and how they behave. So it is
Speaker 2: hand on heart fiction. However, lived experience obviously informed the project,
Speaker 2: and there is that through line of wisdom and business
Speaker 2: acumen that I wanted to impart. But yeah, I feel
Speaker 2: like it's a pretty safe book in terms of I'm not,
Speaker 2: you know, going out there with any strongly held views.
Speaker 2: It's a one person's trajectory and it's not mine. It's
Speaker 2: not how my business life went. But there are a
Speaker 2: lot of similar experiences, so yeah, my family can read
Speaker 2: it and go, that's not us, for example. You know,
Speaker 2: it's that sort of thing that you're like, no one's
Speaker 2: reading that, going, oh, yeah, I know, that is what's.
Speaker 1: Your actual day to day writing process about if I
Speaker 1: can ask about that, because you explained why you thought
Speaker 1: maybe the timing was right the youngest had gone to school,
Speaker 1: but you do as we've just touched upon you've got
Speaker 1: an awful lot going on, do you sit down and
Speaker 1: do you have that being of setting a timer like
Speaker 1: I tried to set the tim up before we started chatting.
Speaker 1: And if so, I hope you're a lot more a debt.
Speaker 1: So at using a time in the meat or is
Speaker 1: it something that you do late at night? Is it daily? No?
Speaker 2: No, I'm not a night bird at all. The biggest
Speaker 2: hurdle I had was that I finished our first deal,
Speaker 2: which was selling half of the company, and then signed
Speaker 2: the book deal and I was like, great, you know,
Speaker 2: it's all fresh, I can write it now, I've got time.
Speaker 2: And then, unfortunately the people we sold it to and
Speaker 2: into administration last year, so very quickly, I went from
Speaker 2: writing about a deal to being back in a deal
Speaker 2: at a time when I really hadn't allowed the bandwidth
Speaker 2: to be back on phone calls and zooms and in meetings,
Speaker 2: you know, every week a week, So that certainly added
Speaker 2: a complication. It was helpful because I was back in
Speaker 2: the language and back in those boardrooms, but also it
Speaker 2: was confusing because I was trying to write a fictional
Speaker 2: deal while work out what I was going to do
Speaker 2: in my real life deal and it was too much.
Speaker 2: It was really confusing and hard and having those two
Speaker 2: streams running at once. But the way I would write,
Speaker 2: and the way I've always written well since having kids,
Speaker 2: is that fresh in the morning with coffee, that's the
Speaker 2: only way it's going to get done, because as soon
Speaker 2: as I start doubling an email and or even going
Speaker 2: for a walk, my brain just changes and it's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: we're doing the day now. So even if it's only
Speaker 2: forty minutes, ideally it's ninety, you know, an hour and
Speaker 2: a half, two hours. I feel like I get more
Speaker 2: done in those first furious hours than if I sat
Speaker 2: at my computer and said, I'm going to write till
Speaker 2: three o'clock pickup, and I'm going to get so much done,
Speaker 2: Because I know my brain. It gets bored, it gets
Speaker 2: distracted then. And that's partly why I run a business.
Speaker 2: I write books in various veins, is because I like
Speaker 2: switching between projects. That's when I met my best I think.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine that you could have created the life
Speaker 1: and the career that you've had if you weren't good
Speaker 1: at that, because of course there would be a bit
Speaker 1: of a learned skill and time management and wearing different hats,
Speaker 1: which is something I wanted to ask you about. Is
Speaker 1: something that you can hone, but there must be a
Speaker 1: very strong, innate part of you that is able to
Speaker 1: compartmentalize and set yourself sort of achievable bite sized goals
Speaker 1: if you like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true, and this is a big one like this.
Speaker 2: I came in at about one hundred and thirty words,
Speaker 2: which was thirty thousand too many, but those wondering, But
Speaker 2: it does flow from me. When I'm writing. I write
Speaker 2: too much, and I'd rather have too much and trim
Speaker 2: it down find the gems, rather than not have enough
Speaker 2: and be squished squeezing and pushing and trying to find
Speaker 2: something else. So I'm an overwriter. I'm a waffler even
Speaker 2: when I speak. And so I have a brilliant copy
Speaker 2: editor and team and publisher who helped me get it
Speaker 2: really tight and good. So yeah, for me, writing is
Speaker 2: actually a joy, and it gets towards the end when
Speaker 2: I have to start writing four or five hours a
Speaker 2: day to get it to meet deadlines, and then I feel,
Speaker 2: like I've always said, it's like I have an illicit
Speaker 2: boyfriend in the office and I keep sneaking away to
Speaker 2: hang out with him, because I just I'm like, put
Speaker 2: the kids in and down in the next snake up
Speaker 2: and just do ten minutes more and it becomes obsessive.
Speaker 2: Almost even the edit is like that. So yeah, it
Speaker 2: doesn't feel like work. It's a true joy and I
Speaker 2: can't wait to start again.
Speaker 1: Honestly really, So yeah, you're already thinking a little bit
Speaker 1: about maybe the next fiction project.
Speaker 2: I am, and I'm actively telling myself to stop because
Speaker 2: I have to, you know, I want to promote this
Speaker 2: one properly and give it everything. I have a children's
Speaker 2: book out as well at the moment, and go To
Speaker 2: is on their verge of some really big and fun things.
Speaker 2: So I've got to just stop and not undertaking new
Speaker 2: project as yet. But a good novel idea part of
Speaker 2: the job, and so much of it actually is the
Speaker 2: marinating of the idea, and that can take my life months.
Speaker 2: You write down little notes and you start to conju
Speaker 2: the idea, and you meet different people and you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: that could be a good character, or that you hear
Speaker 2: a little bit of gossip and you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: that would be good. And then to the point when
Speaker 2: I start writing next year, I will just be like, Okay,
Speaker 2: most of it's there, just spit it out.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's amazing, isn't it. I'm sure a lot of
Speaker 1: people relate to that whatever project they might be working on,
Speaker 1: even if some of us discover that when we're at
Speaker 1: school or university or haven't started, haven't started. Sometimes the
Speaker 1: sensible professor or best friend will say, I think you've
Speaker 1: got more of it in your head than you know.
Speaker 1: You're just sort of circulating it around.
Speaker 2: Very generous way of looking at it. There is actually
Speaker 2: a name for it. I can't think of the name,
Speaker 2: but it's this idea of like it's not too much
Speaker 2: procrastinating for a lot of creatives, where the artists, musicians, writers,
Speaker 2: it's actually a huge part of the process is building
Speaker 2: the idea mentally to the point where you get down
Speaker 2: to your tools and it just comes because sitting there
Speaker 2: like I can't really work without a deadline, A bit useless.
Speaker 2: I always say, I'm not getting a deadline in this project.
Speaker 2: I just want to write when I want to write.
Speaker 2: But if no one's over me, I won't do it well.
Speaker 1: One of your, of course, first professional incarnations, was as
Speaker 1: a beauty editor on a magazine, and anyone that works
Speaker 1: in media knows deadline is incarnate. And I remember one
Speaker 1: of my first editors saying to me, it's like all
Speaker 1: the kids that were at high school and left their
Speaker 1: homework until the very very last minute, all sort of
Speaker 1: meet again in the newsroom. So magazines or whatever it
Speaker 1: is that is like a deadline operated industry.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm absolutely useless without a deadline. My team
Speaker 2: at go Too knows that all too well, and I
Speaker 2: asked them to give me fake deadlines too, So I'm like,
Speaker 2: when do you really need it? And I'm like, lie
Speaker 2: to me, tell me it's a week earlier.
Speaker 1: Does that work though, because you're a smart woman, so
Speaker 1: do your brain well.
Speaker 2: Then I forget about that. And I also set my
Speaker 2: watch a little bit off too, so that I've always
Speaker 2: got a fake deadline there because I need that extra
Speaker 2: ten minutes.
Speaker 1: I find also sometimes as a parent, it's always interesting
Speaker 1: seeing different characteristics manifesting in your children. What it despite
Speaker 1: often your best intentions to steer them in another direction
Speaker 1: and at the risk of boring the listeners with homework
Speaker 1: stories from my fascinating household, but I will just say
Speaker 1: that my son had an assignment due the other week,
Speaker 1: and I actually knew about it a week in advance,
Speaker 1: and I was doing that reminding sort of it's coming,
Speaker 1: nagging thing every night, and of course it wasn't going
Speaker 1: to happen. And in the end he's just turned thirteen.
Speaker 1: He actually said, I just can't do it until the
Speaker 1: very last minute, Mum. That's when I crack it. And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that's happening again. Another one by.
Speaker 2: We can't judge right because we're like, we're exactly the same.
Speaker 1: That's why I wanted a different part. But I'm like,
Speaker 1: I just don't know if I can fight nature with
Speaker 1: nurture in this instant.
Speaker 2: Because Hamish and I are exactly the same. We laugh
Speaker 2: about how we've had a month to do it, and
Speaker 2: then we do it in the last twenty four hours.
Speaker 2: It's terrible. So I've set this thing up with our
Speaker 2: kids homework. I'm like, it's you know, eminem Monday. So
Speaker 2: on Monday after school we get home and we try
Speaker 2: and get all the homework done in that one or
Speaker 2: two hours, and I give him treats to get them
Speaker 2: through because I don't want to be the nager for
Speaker 2: the rest of the week. And I know they'll do
Speaker 2: it Thursday night if they've give them the chance. So
Speaker 2: I try and instill that in them that get it
Speaker 2: done early. Then you can chill it's not really working.
Speaker 1: And coming up the mental load of being Zoe Foster Blake.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about specifically with the fiction that
Speaker 1: you've written over the course of your career and the
Speaker 1: different chapters of your life, if you'll forgive the pun
Speaker 1: that you've drawn on at different points, Zoe. So, your
Speaker 1: first novel, for instance, Air Kisses was about a magazine
Speaker 1: beauty editor, funnily enough, working as a beauty editor at Cosmopolitan,
Speaker 1: and of course, as we've talked about and things will
Speaker 1: come down soon, it's about the founder of a beauty company.
Speaker 1: We've talked a little bit about unpacking the fact and
Speaker 1: fiction and how much you draw from your own life.
Speaker 1: What I've probably not going to give away what the
Speaker 1: next book is about, but do you foresee what possibly
Speaker 1: future chapter of your life could inspire another novel.
Speaker 2: I think I'm in that stage where I have a
Speaker 2: lot of really great mum friends. So from my kids,
Speaker 2: you know, in whatever year they're in, the parents that
Speaker 2: are around that, and then I've got some friends of
Speaker 2: mine who are a bit further down the track, and
Speaker 2: the difference in the mums and dads at Kinney versus
Speaker 2: you know, year twelve where like more than fifty percent
Speaker 2: of divorced, and you know, it's such a different area.
Speaker 2: So I'm quite fascinated, always have been with relationships and
Speaker 2: relationship dynamics, but also friendships. And I think female friendships
Speaker 2: and the sisterhood is really compelling to me and really
Speaker 2: valuable as a person as well. So I read this
Speaker 2: thing the other day where apparently seventy percent of what
Speaker 2: gen Z are choosing in terms of movies and streamers
Speaker 2: and books are about friendships rather than romantic relationships, because
Speaker 2: that's everything to them. So I really feel like that's
Speaker 2: an area of interest for me, that real love of friendship,
Speaker 2: not just and through all of my books often the
Speaker 2: romance is very very much second or third to the
Speaker 2: career story and the friendship story, which is what I like.
Speaker 1: It's so true, isn't it. And I think so much
Speaker 1: of the culture that women have resonated with, whether it's
Speaker 1: some of the most iconic novels of our time through
Speaker 1: to even really iconic pieces of work such as you know,
Speaker 1: Sex and the City, just for a very like sort
Speaker 1: of a media example, is about the beauty, the complexity,
Speaker 1: the grief, the loyalty that's so unique to friendship, and
Speaker 1: particularly female friendship. It's very strangely outside of a lot
Speaker 1: of these examples, it's not something that we still celebrate
Speaker 1: and it's still a little bit of that fairy tale
Speaker 1: ever after, like there's one sort of journey quote unquote
Speaker 1: for a woman.
Speaker 2: And as we all know, it's really not like that
Speaker 2: in real life, and life is so much more complicated
Speaker 2: and challenging and fabulous and varied. But I love female
Speaker 2: friendships and I'm fascinated by them, particularly when you get
Speaker 2: to an age where you've seen your friends go through
Speaker 2: horrific grief, as you say, whether it's miscarriages or infertility,
Speaker 2: or divorce or losing their parents. And I think that
Speaker 2: area is really fascinating to play. How they support each other.
Speaker 2: And of course your partner is number one in family
Speaker 2: is a whole other level. But what you can offer
Speaker 2: as a friend, and I love that, And again it's
Speaker 2: that empathy and just girls are great, women are amazing.
Speaker 1: You mentioned in your own friendship circle, like about eighty
Speaker 1: percent have possibly founded a business. I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit. We've discussed your very successful business go
Speaker 1: To and the role and the insight that founding a
Speaker 1: business plays. Things will calm down soon, and I just
Speaker 1: wanted to chat a little bit about that because it
Speaker 1: has been Zoe a phenomenal success story. Go To, as
Speaker 1: you say, gone through very extreme highs and lows with
Speaker 1: selling and then reselling and things that, to be honest,
Speaker 1: someone like me that has to be talked very carefully
Speaker 1: through a spreadsheet wouldn't understand. But that's part of what
Speaker 1: I really wanted to talk to a.
Speaker 2: Little bit about.
Speaker 1: When did you discover, if that's the right word, that
Speaker 1: you actually have this incredible business acumen because you're the
Speaker 1: origins of your career on paper, I'm guessing wouldn't scream
Speaker 1: it working as a beauty editor, and as you said,
Speaker 1: even very recently, you're still in boardrooms where you may
Speaker 1: be the only woman at the table.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Very often, I still feel silly when I'm asked
Speaker 2: to speak at business conferences or on business podcasts because
Speaker 2: it's I do feel like a bit of a fraud
Speaker 2: in that field. I've in my stripes. I'm aware of that,
Speaker 2: but it still feels like I'm a creative, I'm a writer.
Speaker 2: I you know, I don't do that stuff. I've done that.
Speaker 2: I can do it. We can all do it. There
Speaker 2: was a really distinct moment actually after I finished breastfeeding
Speaker 2: my second child, and because i'd launched go to and
Speaker 2: I had one month old baby on another way around
Speaker 2: it did launched a month and then I had Sonny,
Speaker 2: and then I was pretty much in a pattern of babies, birth, pregnancy,
Speaker 2: breastfeeding for about four or five years, and I finally,
Speaker 2: you know, when you come out of it after the
Speaker 2: baby's too or so, I was like, what's going on?
Speaker 2: Like I need to get my shit together? And I
Speaker 2: actually think I say this in the book. It's like
Speaker 2: I sat around in one of our board meetings and went,
Speaker 2: you know, classically, i'd be like, oh, numbers, Oh this
Speaker 2: is where there's always lines out, and I would just start,
Speaker 2: you know, wrapping away my iPad and I was like,
Speaker 2: this is not cute anymore. It's really actually it's not
Speaker 2: respectful of the business, the work that's going into it.
Speaker 2: I need to be as a founder, not just the
Speaker 2: creative and the person setting that jectory for products and
Speaker 2: marketing and so on. But I need to be able
Speaker 2: to understand what's going on in the business, even the
Speaker 2: boring stuff. And so from then on and moving into
Speaker 2: our process to sell, it became quite the baptism of fire.
Speaker 2: But it was all due to the advisors around me
Speaker 2: and even my executive team and my other shareholders. They
Speaker 2: were no no man's plainning. Everyone was just I just
Speaker 2: asked all the stupid questions. And I really encourage that
Speaker 2: because don't pretend you know, you'll never learn that way.
Speaker 2: The acronyms I still couldn't figure out, like ibita, like
Speaker 2: what does But I don't care because I'm like, that's
Speaker 2: how I'm going to learn. And look, I'm pretty much
Speaker 2: a vessel. It's coming gone. It's like, that's why to
Speaker 2: write the book cook, because I'm like, this is not
Speaker 2: going to stay in my brain. I've got space for
Speaker 2: nineties R and B lyrics, not this stuff. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I felt like I had to learn it. I wanted
Speaker 2: to learn it, and I wanted to be a respectable
Speaker 2: and respectful founder and do the right thing by the
Speaker 2: business and the customer and the staff and the team,
Speaker 2: shareholders and everybody.
Speaker 1: And it's not fair for me or anyone in the
Speaker 1: media to ask or to expect a woman to carry
Speaker 1: the pressure of representation and being a role model. But
Speaker 1: I think every time where you are still pioneering and
Speaker 1: if one of the first, and there's still an expectation
Speaker 1: that you are helping to debunk and be inspiring, because
Speaker 1: as we always hear, you know you can't be what
Speaker 1: you can't see, and you've certainly helped. I would say
Speaker 1: women in Australia, particularly potential business founders, current business founders,
Speaker 1: to possibly help be because now they could see how
Speaker 1: is that sat on you? And again has that been
Speaker 1: a little bit of a gradual thing, because I don't
Speaker 1: imagine again that you woke up thoughing great, this has
Speaker 1: all been fabulous. But now not only do I want
Speaker 1: to go and launch a business and for it to
Speaker 1: be successful, but I want to also be inspiring. And
Speaker 1: even if I'm doubting myself when I'm asked to speak
Speaker 1: at business conferences, I still know that that will have
Speaker 1: a lot of important in terms of what it says.
Speaker 2: Visibility great question because it still feels a bit foreign
Speaker 2: and silly to put myself in the expert position there
Speaker 2: because I'm just still learning as I go, and I've
Speaker 2: only had one experience. You know, there are people who
Speaker 2: have had four or five businesses and they're a lot
Speaker 2: more informed and have a lot more experience. What I
Speaker 2: do like, though, is that we had very little money
Speaker 2: growing up. I grew up in a small town in
Speaker 2: the Southern Highlands. We're all sort of creatives, musicians, artists,
Speaker 2: and I have somehow found myself in a successful business position.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't because I did a business degree or
Speaker 2: an MBA or had a clue about commerce. It was
Speaker 2: because I learned as I went. And I think generally speaking,
Speaker 2: a lot of founders come in creatively. They see a
Speaker 2: gap and they went to fill it and they have
Speaker 2: great ideas and that gets you so far. And then
Speaker 2: my advice is always bring in the people that can
Speaker 2: do the things you can't. Early. A lot of the
Speaker 2: tendencies to go, oh, hire some juniors to help me out,
Speaker 2: but I would say, hi, seniors, because that's really going
Speaker 2: to help you a lot faster, and invest in that.
Speaker 2: So it's bringing the people with the skill sets that
Speaker 2: you don't have and they'll help you and everyone benefits
Speaker 2: from that. But I do like when young women and founders.
Speaker 2: Anyone is like, I took a risk and I believed
Speaker 2: in this, and that feeling is really the thing that
Speaker 2: will take you through just to go I can do it,
Speaker 2: she can do it. I can do it. You know,
Speaker 2: how hard can it be? It can be hard. It
Speaker 2: can be hard. But it's often a time when people
Speaker 2: have got to a level in their career where they're
Speaker 2: feeling like I've done everything now, or I'm feeling restless. I,
Speaker 2: for example, in beauty, had written a blog, I'd written
Speaker 2: a book, I'd been a beauty journalist for ten years.
Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, what's next. I'd consulted to brands,
Speaker 2: and so starting my own brand sort of organically felt
Speaker 2: correct for me. But I think starting a business is
Speaker 2: not the kind of thing where you can go, I'm ready,
Speaker 2: I have the skill set, you have the idea, and
Speaker 2: you just go for it yourself and bootstrap it if
Speaker 2: you can, and don't give up your day job. I
Speaker 2: would say, until it's flying. But yeah, I think you
Speaker 2: got to back yourself. I like it. I'm not a
Speaker 2: verst to risk. I think you got to take a
Speaker 2: few risks.
Speaker 1: And then what about having that self doubt or overcoming
Speaker 1: a failure, because I think that's also really encouraging and
Speaker 1: inspiring to hear that from other people, because I would say,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that you are being a bit presumptuous
Speaker 1: that you would recoil at this, BUTIFI, which is sort
Speaker 1: of characterizes, say, it looks like Zoe Foster Blake, everything
Speaker 1: you've touched has turned to gold, and you have turned
Speaker 1: your hand at all these different things, and it's this
Speaker 1: huge success story.
Speaker 2: You know, of course that's orchestrated, right, That's all been
Speaker 2: carefully channeled to you to appear that way. And this
Speaker 2: is the whole thing of social media. We choose a
Speaker 2: highlights reel to show you what we're doing. I mean,
Speaker 2: I usually I just pretty much want to use it
Speaker 2: for work now my cats. But I think there's this
Speaker 2: very dangerous idea of perfection and every failure is a
Speaker 2: lesson and yeah, to the point where I actually don't
Speaker 2: even think of them as failures but just a lesson
Speaker 2: and how to quickly regroup and move on and get
Speaker 2: past it. And as a creative I really enjoy the
Speaker 2: challenge of something going wrong in some ways because you're like, Okay,
Speaker 2: how are we going to quickly fix this, and who
Speaker 2: on our team is best equipped for this, and how
Speaker 2: are we going to use everything we've done in the
Speaker 2: past to get to a better position. And sometimes I
Speaker 2: think they're thrown at you to really test you and
Speaker 2: see if you really mean it. So of course there
Speaker 2: have been failures. You're never going to see them, are you,
Speaker 2: unless it's a big public foil. And unfortunately I am
Speaker 2: in a position where that could happen. But even then,
Speaker 2: I think we're all human, we're all fallible. It happens,
Speaker 2: going to happen again. You know, that's life. It's how
Speaker 2: you get back up. It's not the failure.
Speaker 1: I really Also, I love that idea of being a
Speaker 1: little bit excited or motivated by something going wrong, because
Speaker 1: it just helps you reframe it a little bit, as
Speaker 1: in oh no, to oh, this could be a bit
Speaker 1: of an opportunity here.
Speaker 2: This is what I tell my children when they're big
Speaker 2: lego structure breaks. I'm like, the second time is always better.
Speaker 2: You know, the first draft of a book is terrible,
Speaker 2: but each time you get better and better and better
Speaker 2: at it, and it's all it's all meant to be
Speaker 2: the way it is.
Speaker 1: Before we finish up I just wanted to go back
Speaker 1: to the title of the book and everything that it
Speaker 1: conjures up, which is again a little bit of this
Speaker 1: notion of the juggle. And I mean we all know
Speaker 1: that the whole balance thing. We're sort of, I think
Speaker 1: retired that that will come down exactly. I think so
Speaker 1: really thinks will come down. I think by next Friday,
Speaker 1: everything's going to be cool. I personally, as an interviewer,
Speaker 1: have never really had to really squelch that thing of
Speaker 1: particularly saying I think to women, particularly to working mothers,
Speaker 1: how do you juggle it all? And I think fortunately
Speaker 1: we as a media industry are starting to second guess
Speaker 1: that instinct a little bit. But of course it is
Speaker 1: something that all of us, whether you are someone that
Speaker 1: has a cat or aging parents, everyone's got their own
Speaker 1: thing going on.
Speaker 2: You won't see half of it. You don't see half
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 1: And what do you think over the course of your career,
Speaker 1: because you've stared down a lot of gender tropes the
Speaker 1: way that you've been had to, like every successful woman,
Speaker 1: I think there's been stereotypes and assumptions as you really
Speaker 1: have stared down, whether it's in that boardroom or somebody
Speaker 1: trying to characterize a successful woman a certain way in
Speaker 1: mainstream media on social media. How do you think we're
Speaker 1: getting as a society on the home front in that
Speaker 1: are we starting to unravel a little bit of the
Speaker 1: expectation that it's all a woman's work.
Speaker 2: I really hope so. And maybe it's just my algorithm,
Speaker 2: but I feel like there are a lot of content
Speaker 2: creators now, and there's a lot of awareness about the
Speaker 2: mental load, which was something we didn't even have a
Speaker 2: name for, and the admin load and being overstimulated, and
Speaker 2: I honestly go, oh, I'm not a bitch. I'm just overstimulated,
Speaker 2: you know, in the fan from the ovens on, and
Speaker 2: the kids are yelling, and you know, there's just too
Speaker 2: much going on. So I think awareness of who we
Speaker 2: are and how we are and what we're doing is
Speaker 2: so critical because it makes me feel more human and
Speaker 2: we are all incredibly human. But I think it always
Speaker 2: comes back to empathy. Asking someone how they're juggling it
Speaker 2: all is interesting, and I think women, often like my
Speaker 2: own friends, will text me and say another book, how
Speaker 2: did you do it? How are you doing it all?
Speaker 2: And I think there's a genuine curiosity, and my genuine
Speaker 2: answer is at great cost, like to my mental health,
Speaker 2: to my time with my family, to my physical health.
Speaker 2: Like the things that got pulled aside for me to
Speaker 2: be able to finish this project and do it well
Speaker 2: are quite enormous. That's why they can only be short bursts.
Speaker 2: And so my focus as I grow older and I
Speaker 2: have the ability and the immense privilege to be able
Speaker 2: to pick and chose the projects I do, which is
Speaker 2: books and go to and family. So what we prioritize
Speaker 2: becomes where all of our time goes. And I know,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm heading into a phase and I can
Speaker 2: see into the future where yes, aging parents, tricky teenagers,
Speaker 2: health issues, whatever it may be. But the support of
Speaker 2: those friendship circles, the support of family. I have an
Speaker 2: amazingly supportive husband, and that is I feel that's the
Speaker 2: thing I'm happiest about, is that that support. We all
Speaker 2: need support, and if you're not getting even someone else,
Speaker 2: give it to yourself. And self care is another term
Speaker 2: that I think we've all sort of purpued because it
Speaker 2: just sounded so like you just think of a bath, right,
Speaker 2: It's not a bath, it's going for a walk in
Speaker 2: the sunshine, it's having a coffee with a friend, it's
Speaker 2: eating chocolate and watching your favorite Emily in Paris. It's
Speaker 2: whatever it might be to look after yourself and have
Speaker 2: some downtime. So I think the term balance is interesting
Speaker 2: because if you think about balance, it's always it's never
Speaker 2: just clean. You never got all your ducks in the room.
Speaker 2: And I laugh because I have kit days, as I
Speaker 2: call them, all the time I had on this morning,
Speaker 2: I was ready to walk out the door and I
Speaker 2: dropped a massive sledge of makeup on my top and
Speaker 2: then the cat pissed on the bed, and that's that's
Speaker 2: kind of morning. I'm like, I need to go, and
Speaker 2: then you know, I hadn't done the kids lunch order.
Speaker 2: And this is every day for every person, every working mother.
Speaker 2: It's a tricky day. But I'm also proud of myself,
Speaker 2: and that's part of growth, is going hey, hey, hey,
Speaker 2: be kind to yourself. You're doing really well. And that's
Speaker 2: just taken a long time to get to that point
Speaker 2: because I am very tough on myself, and I don't
Speaker 2: think you can kind of get to a stage of
Speaker 2: outpush that I seem to be doing without, you know,
Speaker 2: being quite disciplined and hard on yourself, but you have
Speaker 2: to be kind to yourself as well.
Speaker 1: I love that answer. Thank you so much, and so
Speaker 1: we thank you for coming in today. I know that
Speaker 1: you are such a well known person, but you're not
Speaker 1: somebody that enjoys speaking about yourself. Oh you are, so
Speaker 1: I do thank you for that, because you know, some
Speaker 1: people are really happy to be quite front facing, and
Speaker 1: you know, despite your profile, you're not one of them.
Speaker 1: So thank you for coming in.
Speaker 2: Answered the other day, She's like, it's such a weird
Speaker 2: thing to be closed off in your traxit pants with
Speaker 2: your cats, writing a book for a long period of time,
Speaker 2: and then suddenly you expected to come out and be
Speaker 2: this dazzling peacock. And I am an introvert. I'm highly
Speaker 2: social skilled, but I am an introvert, so things like
Speaker 2: you know, tours and stuff take a lot out of me.
Speaker 2: But he's so worth it because that connection, after you've
Speaker 2: created a piece of work and seeing how people are
Speaker 2: enjoying it and reading it and what they're interested in,
Speaker 2: that's kind of the cherry on top.
Speaker 1: Well, congratulations again on the book Things Will Come Down
Speaker 1: Soon by Zoe Foster Blake, will be available on October one.
Speaker 1: We will have a link to that in our show notes. Zoe,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, thanks for having and I'm sure
Speaker 1: things will really come down soon. Tell ourselves out that
Speaker 1: final lie before we leave the studio today. Thank you, Sarah, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming in to talk to
Speaker 1: me today. Zoe Foster Blake's new novel, Things Will Come
Speaker 1: Down Soon, will be available through Atlantic Books Australia on
Speaker 1: first of October. You can find more information via Zoe's Instagram.
Speaker 1: Will have a link in our show notes. If you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed this episode, then make sure you're following us because
Speaker 1: we'll be back with another exclusive guest on Stella's Something
Speaker 1: to Talk About next week. See you then,