Holly and Amelia from Dazed & Engaged
In this exciting episode, Marisa Kamall sits down with Holly and Amelia, the dynamic duo behind Dazed & Engaged. These inspiring entrepreneurs each run their own successful businesses—Holly with the elegant bridal store "You & I Bridal" and Amelia with the vibrant consultancy, "The 555 DXB". However, their shared vision led them to create Dazed & Engaged, filling a niche in the market for classy, sustainable, and fun hen party supplies.
Join us as we delve into their entrepreneurial journey, exploring how they manage their partnership and maintain a go-getter attitude amidst their busy schedules. Holly and Amelia share the unique aspects that set Dazed & Engaged apart and offer valuable insights into running a successful business collaboration. Don’t miss this engaging conversation filled with tips, inspiration, and the story behind their innovative brand!
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Welcome to the VISTAGE podcast. This week I am delighted to be joined by the wonderful Amelia and Holly from Dazed and Engaged. Welcome ladies. Hi. Thank you. Welcome. We're so excited. Yes, yes. Me too. Can't wait. So let's dig in. So you two are a bit of a power duo really and you've come together to form Dazed and Engaged. So let's kick off because you're not just Dazed and Engaged. You've got other elements to your business as well. So let's start with you Holly. Can you give us a bit about your story? Being in the middle east for 11 years. I'm getting married next year. So I'm adding planning a wedding to my list of things to do. It's so funny over the past two years my whole world has been about weddings because I launched a bridal store which is based in Media City, Dubai and I bought seven exclusive designers to the middle east. It was something I actually wanted to launch before Covid but obviously you know we weren't expecting the kind of massive lockdown and the domino effect it had on the economy. So I paused it and I launched last year and it just boomed. It was just so surprising. I basically my first year sold 100 dresses. I covered all my overheads. It was just incredible. So with that in the first year then obviously launched Dazed and Engaged with a media which will dive in a little bit deep on. But it allowed me to start a second business with no investors, no loans, no debts and it's just been an incredible ride. That's amazing to go you know just to have you as you and I bridal isn't it? Media City appointment only. But to have you know that bridal store is so well so quickly like 100 dresses in the first year is crazy. When you think as well you know the price point and what it takes for somebody to get in and choose the perfect dress for their day. Yeah I'm really proud of it because it's something I've done solely by myself like I even clean the store, sell the cut, sell the dresses, do the bookkeeping. Like as any startup does you have to do it from start to finish and I think that's the biggest lesson I've learned because look I've made a lot of mistakes but I've pivoted, I've learned from them, I've rectified it and I've made it better and I think the main thing I've learned is within business it's all about time. Like if something's not working I changed it right away you know I figured it out and when you when it's solely on you and it's like fight or flight you make it work. Yeah amazing. So Amelia can you tell us about your story please? Yeah of course. So I was actually born and raised in Abu Dhabi, lived there till I was about 13-14 and then moved to the UK. My mum's English my dad's Canadian so my mum won on the where do we move from the Middle East to fight and spent some time in the UK, college university, lived in the UK for a while, straight out of uni went straight into advertising so I've been working in advertising agencies for the last sort of 15 years. Well between agencies and brand moved back to the Middle East with my now husband then boyfriend. We have two beautiful children and yeah we moved back about yeah about 11 years ago similar to Holly and I worked in various different ad agencies branding agencies and then most recently in house which was my previous corporate role and I left there in May 2023 with the intention of taking a small break and just spending some time with the kids I had never taken any type of career break and you know I'd found myself with you know some career successes and wanted to owe it to myself and then very very quickly found myself in quite high demand for support against consultancy more specifically in branding which is where like kind of a lot of my roots really really lived and I set up a consultancy called 555-DXP so I've been working through that for the last just shy of a year building a really amazing network of freelance support as well so you know especially during Covid I really found a lot of amazing talent that I knew and had worked with previously had either been laid off from their jobs or you know marketing is one of the first places to get cut and creative unfortunately and a lot of them found a lot of success through it as well and I've built some really amazing relationships and partnerships there as well so a lot of them work exclusively exclusively with me so really focused on building the consultancy side of it out whereas I come in as like the kind of the top line strategic 360 and then I've got my resources around me that can support in terms of final execution so yeah it's really it's really amazing and Holly and I helped yeah thank you and Holly and I had previously worked together in our previous roles actually that's how we met and then we were worked on the same team for six years and we were super close Holly was like exceptionally well trusted by me and we got on really well as friends as well so yeah it was it was in June wasn't it of 23 we just met for a casual breakfast and a business idea was very quickly formed yeah hence days and engages and born yeah it's amazing I can't like imagine having two businesses and kids as well like honestly I think until I had Paloma I had no idea what it was like and having had like a long corporate career before and you know new parents coming back to work I just had no appreciation for like what actually happens at home and then and the office and like having this whole other life is just insane it's your it's your well it's my first job that's what I say is I will go back to job number one looking after the kids then you got to make everything else work around me yeah I always think as soon as I wake up I'm like what time did the job start yeah yeah as soon as you open your eyes it was so good I was actually reading that um women with young children are actually the best employees higher because they have to get their work done they have to get home they don't faff around like talking to everyone or like procrastinate they just literally on a mission and they're in and they're out because they're priority of their kids but they get the job done yeah 100% I think I've actually learned to work in like 30 minutes sprints I'm like okay like what's this 30 minutes gonna look like for me and like bam bam bam you know and no way if I was in the office environment again kind of like having like five or six coffees a day that just wouldn't happen it would have done I mean I think it was it was a bit of a nice escape going to the office when you know like kids are at school I'm in the office but then it kind of like the time starts ticking down you're like right next job yeah exactly so I love your kind of like free spirit go getter like energy is this something that comes naturally to you or like how do you fuel it and I would say like myself in a media both very driven people and but it's a sense of fear like you we don't we're not scared if that makes sense I think if you remove fear from anything you can you can complete it you know you can do anything you want um and that's what I learned launching my first business is I remember like you don't actually commit to anything unless you sign a contract or you put money down other other than it's just an idea like when you actually start putting money into it and you're building it and it's like this is really happening that's when it gets the emotions come in and be like you know it's controlling your ego as well you get worried and you have that fear of being like what if I fail well in my head I was like well at least I tried at least I tried and it will figure it out and will make it work yeah it's always good to have that like perspective I think you know like if something fails like it could be worse you know it for me it's like well I wanted to invest $20,000 because I had it okay so I've lost that now it could be worse I mean it's not great but like no so it's a bit of pills to swallow no one no one likes losing money and that's the risk of business but I think myself and Amelia we both have the and you can tell by the growth of days and engaged already we launched April like we're not we know we need to spend to make and that is something we we completely aligned on with our partnership and starting days and engage it is very much when you go into business someone I you know we laugh we say we're basically married we've got a shared bank account you know it's me together actually you know and you have those conversations where you have in a relationship in in a marriage where it's not easy we've had difficult conversations and you know decisions that we've had to make and I think going into it we we had like an open discussion we laid our cards on the table and was like this is especially because we used to work with each other we know how each other work but we had to agree on on that kind of drive and how we see this business going because if I had a mindset of like okay Amelia we need to spend this on PR we need to spend that and then she didn't that it would just naturally it would not work yeah nice and what about you Amelia yeah it's gonna say I think as well and I've actually learned so much more and I feel like I've grown so much more in myself let alone in you know the idea of running a business and learning all the ins and outs of that type of thing and you know going from literally nothing to to start up it's just saying yes to everything is something that Holly and I really spoke about a lot at the beginning it was like just say yes like what's exactly what you were saying now what's the worst case scenario like realistically how how bad can this be and you never know who you're gonna meet you never know how it's going to go and I think it's all about taking that risk and you know there's never a bad idea every like and I think as well with our partnership like we like I said we've known each other for such a long time we've worked so closely together so we know each other's strengths but we also we've sat and we've had ridiculous conversations about silly things then you go oh actually yeah I like that how can make this work in a different way and I think with the nature of data and engage being so fun and exciting and celebratory and being in that kind of female empowerment movement it's just really exciting for us but like there's no real bad ideas and it's there's no real opportunity for us to have to say no to anything I mean yes you get down to the nitty gritty of maybe financial but etc etc but at the same time it's like you know we have a bit of an open field here and it's like how do we want to play it and let's have fun with it because if you're not enjoying yourself then what's the point yeah and I love that and your website just looks so playful and fun and edgy and cool like it's not too feminine you know it's quite like it has like a quite a masculine but strong female like energy to it very editorial yeah yeah editorial that's the one I'm looking for so you've touched on this already in terms of partnerships obviously they can be like really challenging and if they're not with the right person then it can be even harder but how do you manage that between you I think no well for my side knowing each other's strengths and weaknesses you just need to come to the terms that you are not good at everything and that's okay this is where like our egos come in and you want to be and it's amazing like put yourself out there learn a new skill like there's things the media's taught me I've taught media for sure but vice versa this is what makes us I call us the powerhouse we you know and you need to have that kind of confidence and say that about yourself because you know we divide and conquer a lot yeah and there's no point us working on the same thing obviously we're aligned and we're on the same mission but for the scale of our business alone by running by two people you know we have a warehouse as well we have a huge logistics side behind it we have the branding piece where you know we're pushing it on social media every pockets of a business that you can think of top line we oversee and we do ourselves so divide and conquer and knowing each other's strengths and weaknesses and it's okay to literally we say okay I mean you do this we have a note we have a tracker well I mean you do this you'll kill this you'll be amazing at this holly I do this and that's what how we've kind of got in the rhythm of working yeah and also like we had a really great meeting last week we've been open two and a half months now and you know we looked at our data we looked at our sales we looked at like what's learning we listened to what our customers are saying and we set ourselves KPIs you know and that's okay to to do that and you should do that within yourself even if you were just solo a one-man band you have a consultancy business or you're just you know whatever you do even if you manage 15 people you have to have KPIs and set those goals and we've set ourselves goals what we're we want to see the business we need to up our you know our basket margin by X amount we want to do X Y and Z and what how do we get there and that having those conversations everything else all the nitty gritty bits just fall into place yeah I completely agree I think especially because we work together for such a long time on the same team literally day in day out and you know even like when I was on maternity leave for example it was like right Holly run with it like I'm not gonna be around and you know you did such a fantastic job you know taking the reins and everything and I think that like exactly as you said our skill sets were really clear so like when something comes in like say for example we need to do a certain job or there's something that needs to have action it's we know already now it's like right Amelia that's a you job that's a holly job like it's and we'll always make sure that we oversee each other's kind of you know if it's something collaborative that we obviously want to make sure the other one sees what we're up to or what we're writing if it's like an article or something like that you know blog posts social media etc like we're really close with everything but it's very much and we know each other skill sets exceptionally well and I know where Holly's going to have input and it's vice versa yeah yeah amazing trust is so important isn't it sounds like you guys clearly have that in bundles and from a kpi perspective I always find if you have that it makes those more challenging conversations so much easier because it's like this is what we said we were going to do we're falling short and this is what we're going to do about it rather than like quite kind of generic conversations make it so much harder and it feels more person when it's like that as well rather than yeah tell and I think as well like you need to remember one thing I've learned people digest information in so many different ways I originally when I first launched my first business I had an amazing marketing lady who's so creative but she couldn't digest information when I was so we were having these meetings we were coming up with these ideas and I'm like why is it not done like what you know like I was getting like a little bit frustrated and then I was like but it was the way I was communicating the information is in like she digest like she's visual so she needed to see everything written down so like we have so many meetings in a day and so much information get lost but if you set those key goals which we've gotten black and white it's just like it just locks it in and I think by not having control as well like you need to there's being a perfectionist but then there's just being a control freak and when you are a control freak that's when you just burn out and you're just you're gonna hold yourself and your other business partner back yeah and from a values perspective I know that you're both very aligned on this and there's things you know around like fast fashion and stuff that I feel very much against as well can you talk about your shared values yeah yeah for sure I think when we first came together the the the number one thing that we discussed was like what is the problem that we're going to be solving if we're going to be talking about setting up a business we don't want to be going into a business where we feel like we're just going to be another person doing the same thing that someone else is doing and are we going to be doing it justice you know we really did our research and we really have had this alignment from day one you know and it wasn't necessarily that we went in and we said we want to launch a hindu accessories company that that's not how it kind of came about it wasn't like oh I've got this idea Holly let's do it and you know we we really looked at kind of like the market where could we go look left field we might not necessarily know too much about it but where is the gap and what problem could we be solving and we kind of both very quickly aligned on this idea of days and engaged but one of the biggest things behind it was you know we we both we're here for a short time not well we're here for a good time not a long time and I was thinking like how does that go again like short time but you know we love the idea of the celebration and like we were talking about even just with Holly's you know one of the reasons why she sort of created you and I bridles like being part of that moment and that celebration it was like actually that makes a lot of sense and you can transfer that into the hindu you know we're all about that kind of sisterhood and bringing the girls together like yeah it's amazing that you're in a position to be getting married and you know having that amazing moment with the love of your life but you know the bridesmaids came first yeah they were they were there they've been through it all with you so why not celebrate that moment and really holding on that and I think with the with the girls the business itself we're very much key folk like we've always been kind of key focus on women in business really supporting other women in business women empowerment and owning that kind of moment in that celebration and living your best life and just you know throwing everything throwing all caution to the wind and just being like you know what does this look like and how could it grow and I think from our own business values but also personal values you know bringing that back into you know our partnership is that you know Holly has such an amazing respect for the fact that I've got children Holly doesn't have children yet but you know having so much respect for that side of my life and you know knowing when it's bedtime knowing when it's playtime you know if my daughter runs in in the middle of a call or if like we're packing boxes literally this morning and it's like you know my daughter's downstairs going I want to play with your party stuff you know it's it's it's a really amazing kind of balance there and in terms of like understanding where we want to go with the business and how far we want to push it as well and what time and energy we have to invest in it I think is also really important yeah and we're proud that we are based in the UAE yeah we are a startup we're a small business and look we're going to be very honest myself in the media we've done competitive analysis when we looked into this business like we are we're number scales as well we're but business level headed like there is a financial side to business where we needed to be smart and we looked at all these big big chain retailers like yeah Amazon you know your your team who all these party spies websites and we were like you know what we're not going to be intimidated we're not going to be scared we're going to take them on and we are you know slightly higher in price but we are ethically sourced like all our products are shipped out from Dubai like you know you can get delivery in four hours you know it's convenient and it's we're not scared to actually take on that challenge and that's what makes our business so high risk but as I said before it's going to be fight or flight and so far it's going so well touch wood oh it's awesome and when you look at your products as well you look at your site although you know it's geared up for Hindus this like you'd use the stuff again you know it's not like disposable and throw away it's all classy and yeah stuff that you can reuse it's amazing and where do you see yourselves in the next five years I know five years always feels like quite far out but what do you see we're gonna blink and it's gonna come yeah exactly this year is gone so quick already um I think one of the things that we've always aligned on is like we want to be the go-to destination for Hindus and it's not necessarily from a planning perspective but we want we really wanted to bring in an air of convenience but we also wanted to bring an air of you know being proud to wear our products being proud to be a part of the days engaged community um you know which we've you know in built such a amazing community in such a short space of time as well you know we've got some amazing brides amazing support and you know even just you know collaborators that have been coming forwards and wanting to work with us and it's it's super exciting and we want to be that one stop shop and it's not just gonna be regional it's not just gonna be the buy base we want this to be global we want to be that one stop shop offering where you can come to us for anything that you need from a Hindu perspective and it's not just like you know an audio respect to those who have these different blogs but it's like we want to be the execution so it's like we're giving you this product or this service to be able to make your Hindu the best it can be support you with your planning support you with how you're gonna look creating that entire 360 of your Hindu through our community our branding you know our values but then also through the products and the services that we offer yeah we have like little minds like little things I want to envision and I always have this where I want to be like sitting at an airport or like sitting at a beach club and there's girls like wearing our products and they're just like it's people's like changing people's mindsets is so powerful and it's that's what we're challenging like to do like like we can give you everything you need on our site it's convenient we've laid it all out we've built out a hen party directory we're advisors we want to be the leaders on trends and I think in five years time I want people to be like to know just that instant gut of like where do they go to get get hen parties accessories stays engaged yeah you know like just having that instant like reaction I don't think it'll be long before you know when the beach clubs open again in Dubai or like you can bear the heat I don't think it'll be long before you see people in your stuff I wonder like you'll be sat there she'll like go over or what was that well we still have a century vote like we get tagged a lot with people you know because exactly like no one no one's gonna tag like our like big chains where it's super cheap like no one tags that they don't want to shout out about that but because we're quite a lifestyle brand you know as as we are our people tag us and we see people on their hen parties and it's we get excited to see it it's coming to life yeah I'd have loved you guys to be around when I had my hen do especially with the like the little black book and the directory you're talking about is so helpful yeah it's such a nice way I think we've been really listening to our community and really hearing what they're saying like where do we go have you gotten the advice like you know what type of things could we do like do you have an itinerary and it's like well actually how can we how can we actually take these questions from these different consumers and our community and provide them with something and you know we're all about the experience everything that we want to be able to do and achieve is all about you know having that moment having that amazing experience with your friends and your family and it's a life moment like I remember my hen do you're definitely going to remember yours which we're planning now I was going to ask actually my final questions so I'll save it carry on and it's such a big life moment and like you remember what you wore you remember how like where you went and you know with the little black book we really wanted to provide some type of added value or experience to your day or weekend week however long you want it to be and that's exactly what we've done so like throughout the little black book you know and it is going to be expanding throughout the year as well and and onwards but you know it's the bride can go free but then your entire group gets an upgraded package to you know champagne package you get a sparkler show and you get priority seating and you get treated that with that VIP treatment which is what you want to really have on that moment and like one of the things that we found as well as like sometimes when you there is a little bit of a taboo maybe with some kind of venues when you call them up and you're like oh we're doing a hen new they're like oh wow okay there you come no you know we were like no that's the whole point is to create this really amazing atmosphere in this experience and we've had some amazing partnerships with the venues that we've been working with so far like to sprinkle throughout the little black book and you know they've really kind of come to the table and be like how can we add value to this and how can we make this the most amazing day and they they really believe in the concept and the vision that we've got with the brand yeah and it's something very like we're extremely proud of because from a business standpoint as media said we listened to our customers and we never launched days engaged to do another avenue of a hen party directory we honestly when we were building out our business plan it never was part of that and it just shows when you listen to your customers and you see something and have an opportunity we were like we've just got to do it and we've invested financially a lot in building this technology this hen party directory and it was a huge risk for us but within one and a half months we got 20 venues signed up we created bespoke experiences with them but the reason why we wanted to do it as well is from a business standpoint is we wanted that partnership and that storytelling and that marketing collateral because we were noticing that so many people were tagging in us this was like free publicity for us if that makes sense and it was a place where people will go to us and when we launched on our first day we were looking at the stats our website was up by 420 percent well no by the end of the day it was nearly i think 800 percent the website visits just in just in day one of launching wow that's amazing incredible yeah which is absolutely insane you think about how much money you would have to plummet into seo and and so much content to get that ranking so it's doing amazingly and we have a it's you know the worlds are always true with it yeah yeah well done girls so talking about the challenging side and you can talk about your experience in your other businesses as well what would you say have been your biggest challenges as CEOs and founders um i would say sales honestly speaking i think there's such a just to the point you need to remember everyone loves to buy but no one loves to be sold that is it we have every it's buying something as a drug like you know i go shopping and if i go on a shopping spree you feel amazing but when someone's trying to sell it to you it's no one you know when you're walking in a store and someone comes up to you and be like how can i help you immediately be like get away from me no i don't want to help i need help i don't want you to help me um and that is literally like how we are as as humans so i i think the most challenging thing is like converting those sales and understanding that pathway because i have a shot so i'm face-to-face i can read someone's body language i can listen and i can understand what they want and i can ask the questions i need to help me close that sale okay that's that's challenging as a whole that's a different type of sale but then you've got e-commerce sale which is a completely different beast and everyone is moving to e-commerce especially since covid and look at like when you're it's literally on social media alone i'm pretty sure if we will sit here for five minutes and scroll we'll have an average three to four ads pop up on our feed someone trying to sell our stuff so for us we were all about the customer journey what do our customers want we are middle eastern based people like convenience that was our main thing and we'll never ever lose that and that's why we pay a premium rent we have our we have our stock literally in the heart of divine so we can get it to you same day delivery and what people want they want quality pen parties are like for for us to say they're sometimes same on par as a wedding like people go to mikonos now they fly to vegas they go everywhere they're expensive so you want that luxury feel of product so when we were building that site we were like how do we show that luxury feel and we the way we photographed it and the way we campaigned it and the what our story telling like we've given all our products names so we're not it's not a bridal straw hat it's the Olivia hat because you relate to that it's a personal it's luxury so a lot of our branding is based around that kind of sales standpoint and and to justify why you would buy from us if that makes sense hmm yeah it does and you've got a handbag after you have a user clutch yeah holly catch we both the holly and the Amelia yeah oh nice i i completely agree with holly i think the branding aspect of it and what making sure that the brand the look and feel the communication the tone of voice everything within that element you know it's something i do that within my consultancy as well it's like you know when you're building someone's brand it's so unbelievably personal but you obviously need to be taking into consideration the market the growth of the business where you want to go and staying true to that kind of vision and mission and really understanding it so you know from a branding point of view it's not just a logo it's it's creating an entire brand identity and making sure that that's going to have longevity and you're going to stand true to that based off your own kind of values within the business as well and it's a challenge and it's you know it's something that you know we've we've had different ideas and we're like well how does that fit within our brand does that make sense within the brand how do you want to kind of communicate that and most of the ideas we've come up with and different kind of conversations we've had generally forward in that but there have been a few that we've had to park and we'll all we look at it and we pivot and we say how can we actually make this fit within the brand love the idea of the concept but it doesn't quite work right now and it's you know that kind of brand building piece it's that took a really really long time for us and that that i wouldn't say it was challenging it was actually really exciting and it was we loved working on it but you know it took us a while to land with the the existing kind of brand ethos and the positioning as to where we are in the market because we were really specific in particular but bringing that to life has been quite challenging and then naturally again rolling into that like from this converting sales and really honing in on the emotive which is where where we kind of really focus our kind of key KPIs as well it's like making sure that everything we do leads all the way back to you know the celebratory element and you know having that moment and like creating those life moments it's not just a hat it's not just a bow it's about the aesthetic that you had on that day and it's something that you could like give to your kids like my daughter's obsessed with everything that we've got mainly because it's all glittery um i'm pretty i want to all of it but i think from yeah from yours what you're saying as well is from justifying it is pricing as well with a huge challenge for us that that we spent hours and hours we had an excel sheet which literally could crack the morse code i'm not joking it was an excel sheet of excel sheet you know it was looking you know you've got your pillars of like you ask yourself one how much would i pay for that removing emotion right because no one sees you working till three o'clock in the morning no one sees you paying your invoices paying your staff paying your supplies no one understands sometimes what goes into a price of a business and so when you remove emotion from it you're like well how much would we pay for that if that makes sense and then we're looking at competitors and how much we need charge to make a profit um and it was it was so challenging because as we said we don't want to win we can't be too cheap because we sourced ethically luxury like high quality party supplies which in this region normally people just think it's cheap but it's not and we didn't want to do that and we we didn't want to lower our values on that so i think that as well as being and i think that is a challenge for that's been a challenge across all my businesses like what people will spend versus what's not yeah and sometimes we want everyone to be our customers but sometimes you're gonna get the people who won't want to spend that and that's okay you know you just need to remember your worth and you need to remember your mission and stick with that exactly thank you so both of you are clearly role models um but i'd love to hear who your role models are in this space oh do you want to go first sure um i mean i don't know if cliche is the right word but for me 100 it has to be my dad um so my dad um you know he's he's always been a grafter he's always worked hard but he's always lived and you know drilled in to me i should say i'm my sister the ethos of um i don't confuse effort with result you know you have to just because you've worked really hard on something doesn't mean you have you've worked smart on it you know have you have you achieved the result that you were looking for have you been able to get to that kind of stage and i think the way that my dad has approached business and businesses that he's owned and you know flipped and worked on and failed on and but also the way that he's lived his life i think that the way that my kind of outlook on what success looks like to me has changed so much over the years i think originally you know what he kind of fresh out of uni like i'm gonna go get this big corporate job and i'm gonna go make a ton of money and drive this fancy car and i think you know having kids and like as i get a little bit older and as i've got a little bit older i should say my value of success or what value success is is more about you know having that quality time working on a business and businesses that i really love and i enjoy and they bring me joy and it makes me feel fulfilled at the end of the day when i've achieved x amount of key points which i think you know if i even five six years ago i probably would have been like oh i have not done enough or whatever that kind of narrative might have been for myself and i find him really inspiring that he's traveled the world he's really lived his life and he's everything from him it was like he focused on kids but also working hard and enjoying what he's been doing and i think that for me it's also instilling this belief and i think that i try my best to do that with my kids but also instilling this belief of like really living each day to its best and like living in the present is a really hard thing to do especially with business and like having so many kind of forecast and future adventures and things that you want to be able to be doing but you have to also be living in the present and really enjoying your time at that time because otherwise for me i don't value that as a happy life i love that one it's nice to hear you say your dad i always panic in this situation i'm like Martin Luther King there's so many so i'm really inspired by a lot of people i think there's a ton of different people that i really looked at for aspiration but like in terms of role model yeah for sure yeah awesome thank you and you i would say right now i took my head Stephen Bartlett um i listened to his podcast a lot but i've done a lot of research into kind of him as a background and what i actually like about him is and he emits it he has i think i found out that he is like 26 people alone hired to work on his own personal brand day and that he's like a master a master of like his own brand and he always changes he changes things up like he's not i'd mind anyone who doesn't have fear if that makes sense he's not scared to fail as he he's not scared to fail he's not scared to try anything new like he constantly has one person don't know if this is rumor but having someone like change his reels his thumbnails on his social media so it's like he learns and he listens to what people want and i think his success story has been amazing and what he's turned his business into and he's taken that wealth and that knowledge and he's built his own personal brand and i think that is really the future of where we see a lot of people going is you people want to buy from you and he's just master that yeah i love the fact as well he has like people from all walks of life on his podcast and he's unable to like hold the space and have conversations with people where he probably knows nothing about it either you know and because it's completely random but he's able to just listen and ask like the poignant questions yeah i think to that point as well it's like it's not not just necessarily in his podcast but i think he's had sorry i'm like jumping on you but i love it well i actually yeah i agree um but he's he's done he's got his fingers in so many pies like so many different entities like within his business i remember listening to something recently that how you know there's this like five a m club and all the rest of it and i just assumed he'd probably be a part of that you know getting up at four a.m and doing all these different things it's like no we go to the gym at three o'clock in the morning and then he DJ's afterwards for a bit of fun and i'm like what do you do until how do you sleep like how do you make this work you know i think he's yeah he's really cool actually good chat on him yeah people that are able to build habits like that are amazing you know i was reflecting on this yesterday actually in a group and i was like i really wish i was one of those people i am in the five a.m club but it's because like it's the only time to go to the gym and then the work doesn't start to like excuse me until like the 10 a.m club so yeah i've been five a.m club because of my kids yeah exactly not because i want to be yeah we actually started the five a.m club between me and my husband for a while and then Paloma just started waking up at five thirty and i was like the five a.m club isn't the same with her in it she's not supposed to be here yeah she got a fight though she wanted to join me yeah so then it just stopped okay uh so one of the last questions um do you have any advice for your 18 year old self amelia off yes lot um the first piece of advice is surround yourself with like-minded people who are going to lift you up and build you up i think that they throughout my many years i not come super old but throughout my many years i've had a lot of different friendships and a lot of different groups where you know i've been a part of and not necessarily bad people but just not necessarily aligned with my vision and where i saw my life going all my morals or things like that and i think there's been such a shift and a change i think in my as i've got a little bit older especially in the last i'd say two to three years in particular with regards to who i spend my most quality time with and being in a position of being around like-minded people just it completely can change your outlook on how you want to move forwards in life you know i do believe it like if you're surrounded by people who just want to go out partying all the time then you'll probably end up doing that if you're surrounded by people who are really hunkered down on business and you know want to achieve something slightly different you know you you follow from your peers and you learn from your peers as well um yeah help each other out and i think as well um don't be scared to take the risk um i think that changing the expression of what if it fails into what if it succeeds i think is something that was also a bit of a mind shift for me it was like you know i you have that kind of doubt and that narrative that kind of comes in especially from a business and building two businesses it's like well what if it doesn't work and what if this investment doesn't pay off and you know what if the stock doesn't arrive it's like okay what if it does and what if it doesn't but it's actually okay you know i think that there's also a lot of opportunity to take risk and really you know own it and dive deep into it and learn from it and see where it can take you in life i like that that's a good one let's go on um oh hindsight if my mum always says if if we all had hindsight we'll be millionaires um i think i have i have two things um well the other one's very similar to Amelia um quality over quantity but the one thing i would say is i look back and i i sometimes wish i i use my time wisely um you know i i look at these people being my being my husband watching tv and it was a real estate company and they built this real estate company on social media in the pandemic and i was like genius why did i do that so i think using time wisely and that goes back to the people you have around you finding time for yourself um and as cliche as it sounds i wish i listened to my parents a little bit more safe for that rainy day say but i look back at the mollies like you know i'm good with my finances but you look back at it and be like i actually had a a life lesson um wanted to buy like my first property and i done it and i i was proud done it by myself but you always are short of that little amount of what you want and what you're trying to get to and you're like oh if i just say that little bit more i would have got it and that was just something i learned and it's something which um i wish i kind of done hindsight looking back oh my dad being a banker i was never allowed to do that otherwise an auditor i used to get audited on a yearly basis oh my god it's good though it's so good so it's so good um you know and my parents were the same they were always like say for a rainy day and i did don't get me wrong i did but then uh you know you always kind of go off the beaten track when you're younger right yeah don't i'm a like ex-banker and i'm the worst with money i never check anything like i'd rather just not know i don't think it was on time i'm like absolutely terrible so i was never meant it was never meant to be yeah one final question and maybe this is more for you um Amelia than Holly but like so can we have a sneak on what the hen do is going to be like for Holly next year oh you're in the heart seat um oh no i'm really scared what could i say i mean there's going to be a lot of days an engaged product i'm like she's been she's completely under well we're under embargo i should say um it may or may not be in Dubai there's a group chat and i'm not in it yeah she's not in it and there is a lot of bold techs being like do not tell me definitely don't release it on the podcast yeah it's gonna be it's gonna be amazing i am very important yeah it's good good well have the best time um and thank you so much for joining me on this podcast it's been absolute pleasure um i wish you all the luck in the world with days and engaged um you're smashing it already and i'm sure you'll continue to so thank you thank - Thank you so much.
