Episode description

Emma Wren is a female founder of Revor Vintage who worked for the police, in construction recruitment and in prison education before she became a full-time vintage founder. Along the way she ran a vintage fashion side hustle, then counted her customers, handed in her notice and built Revor Vintage into a community-focused business that now has its own appointment-only studio.

Emma talks to Bethany Wright about growing up in Middlesbrough, a first job at 14 and watching her mum retrain as a teacher at 35, and why a Notting Hill bedroom, a two-hour walk home and a £15 coat in a Romanian thrift store shaped everything that came next. She shares what it really takes to build a brand rather than just resell vintage clothing, why she'd rather have a loyal "crew" than a big following, the big financial leap behind her Trophy Jacket collection, and the behind-the-scenes graft nobody sees behind a beautiful feed.

Show notes

This is a conversation about building something slowly, loudly and on your own terms. And about what changes when you stop treating a passion as a hobby. Emma and Beth talk work ethic, community over algorithms, how a career in the police and prisons taught her to meet people where they are, and why she says consistency is the only advice she keeps giving.

Themes: female founder story, side hustles and leaving a full-time job, building a community building business, women in business and women supporting women, building a brand rather than reselling, vintage fashion, consistency and showing up, affordability in vintage, and learning to appreciate how far you've come while still wanting more.

If you've ever had an idea you keep talking yourself out of, this one's for you.

Key takeaways

• A side hustle becomes a business when you can count real, loyal customers - Emma's test was a hundred.
• Build a quality audience, not just a big one. Emma says the algorithm never worried her because she had her crew.
• Consistency beats motivation: post, show up and keep going even on the days you don't feel it.
• Act while the idea is warm. Emma doesn't build mood boards for her business - she just does it.
• You can want more and still appreciate how far you've come.

Find Emma Wren

• Website
• Instagram
• Facebook

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Podcast Editor: Charlotte Gunnell

Episode Description

Plum Ruffles spent most of her life being told, one way or another, that she was too loud, too emotional, too opinionated and somehow, at the same time, not enough. Diagnosed with ADHD at 41, after two children, a lifetime of masking and a family that's neurodivergent from top to bottom, she's now the founder of Not Too Much, a community that's grown from one honest Christmas Day Instagram post to nearly 30,000 followers in months.

Plum grew up in Kuwait, including through the Gulf War at age eight, before moving to the UK at 13 into a schooling system and a level of bullying that nearly cost her everything. She talks to Beth about what her nervous system learned from that childhood, the diagnosis that finally gave her a framework for who she is, what happens when ADHD, autism, postnatal depression, perimenopause and PMDD all collide at once, and why she believes community - not another self-help book - is what actually helps neurodivergent women survive motherhood.

Show notes

This is a conversation about being handed a label late in life and discovering it isn't a life sentence. It's a manual, albeit an incomplete one. Plum Ruffles and Bethany Wright talk about childhood environments that hold a neurodivergent brain together (and the ones that don't), the grief that comes with a late diagnosis, and what it actually takes to build a life, and a motherhood, with enough room in it.

Themes: ADHD and autism diagnosed in adulthood, neurodivergent motherhood, PMDD and perimenopause, masking and burnout, bullying and mental health, and building community around honesty rather than performance.

If you've ever felt like you were too much in one breath and not enough in the next, this one's for you.

Key takeaways

• The environment you grow up in can hold a neurodivergent brain together or let it fall apart — the brain doesn't change, the surroundings do.
• A late diagnosis brings relief, grief, disbelief and anger, often all at once, and often not in that order.
• Masking protects you as a child but exhausts you as an adult — and self-compassion has to come before anything else can heal.
• Community with other neurodivergent women isn't a nice-to-have — Plum calls it "the medicine" for a lifetime of feeling like the odd one out.

Find Plum Ruffles

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plum.ruffles/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/plum-ruffles/

• Not Too Much (community): https://www.instagram.com/wearenottoomuch/

More from Notes from the Not There Yet

• Website: https://notthereyetproject.co.uk
• Substack (The Not Yets): https://thenotthereyetproject.substack.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notthereyetproject/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-not-there-yet-project/
• Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NotThereYetProject
• Listen on Spotify: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/bethany-wright6/

Podcast EditorCharlotte Gunnellhttps://charlottegunnell.com/

Episode description

Samantha Alice Leigh had hyperemesis gravidarum through two pregnancies. Sickness so severe she couldn't eat, couldn't leave her bed for months, and couldn't bring herself to celebrate either baby until she was 20 weeks along. This episode is about what that illness actually felt like, and what it took from her identity, twice over.

Sam grew up in Oldham, the eldest of three, learning early to hold things together. She spent over a decade building a life in Australia with her partner Paul before moving home to the UK where for a second time, hyperemesis gravidarum and new motherhood stripped her sense of self back to almost nothing - first it was physical, then, the second time, mental. She talks to Bethany Wright about dimming her light at school, the redundancy that reshaped her twenties, becoming a mum in a country far from family, and why she eventually decided to talk about all of it publicly and honestly on Instagram, as Motherhood Diaries.

Show notes

This is a conversation about the identities motherhood takes from us and the ones we have to rebuild in its place - sometimes gradually, sometimes all at once. Sam and Bethany talk through two decades of friendship and one very honest account of what hyperemesis gravidarum actually costs, physically and mentally, and what's left of you on the other side of it.

Themes:

• Hyperemesis gravidarum
• Identity and motherhood
• Isolation in early parenting
• Long-distance friendship
• Building a life abroad
• Learning to be "not there yet" without a deadline attached.

If you've ever lost your sense of who you are inside new motherhood, or wished someone had warned you what pregnancy could actually feel like, this one's for you.

Key takeaways

• Hyperemesis gravidarum is far more than "bad morning sickness" and the lack of awareness around it leaves women feeling like they're failing at something that's actually a medical illness.
• Identity loss in motherhood isn't a failure of resilience - it's a near-universal experience most people just don't say out loud.
• Community with people in the same season of life isn't a nice-to-have when you're isolated - it's often the thing that gets you through.
• "Quality over quantity" applies to more than content - Sam's approach to slow, honest growth on Instagram is really a philosophy about not performing a version of yourself you don't recognise.

Find Samantha Alice

• Instagram
• LinkedIn

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Podcast editor

⁠Charlotte Gunnell⁠