Season 2 #1 Holly Tucker

How To Be Sad with Helen Russell

Holly Tucker MBE is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and UK Ambassador for Creative Small Businesses. She’s the founder of notonthehighstreet.com and Holly & Co, a small business advice and inspiration platform and she’s also a podcaster and co-author of two best-selling business books as well as the brand new Do What You Love. Holly is a famously positive, colourful, fabulous force of nature, but life wasn’t always so sunny - and a future in business was far from a shoo-in. She got an E in business studies at school, was divorced aged 23, battled a brain tumour, endured a near break down, and has found herself on the brink financially more than once. But now, Holly says: ‘these moments have taught me everything - and I’m sure that my future is built on the scaffolding of these failures.’

In this episode, Holly and Helen talk about:

• ‘Hurricaine Holly’ and the highs and lows of living at full pelt
• Divorce and a brain tumour diagnosis in her 20s
• Building a different relationship the next time around
• How a vegetable wreath saved her life
• Parenting and guilt
• Burnout versus the philosophy of Francis Bacon
• Pulling on the handbrake
• Trying to smell the roses (and go to Ibiza)
• Scars, vulnerability and the upside of imposter syndrome
• Why financial education is a feminist issue

Follow Holly on Instagram @hollytucker, on Twitter @notonthehighst or Facebook @hollytuckerandco and find out more about Do What You Love

Follow Helen on social media @MsHelenRussell How To Be Sad, the book, is out now. Thanks to Joel Grove for production and to Matt Clacher at HarperCollins for making this podcast happen.