I'm Lisa Bilyu and I went from housewife to co-founder and billion dollar company Quest Nutrition and now president of Impact Theory. Our mission with this show is empower you and all women to recognise you really can become the hero of your own life. Welcome to Women of Impact. A spoonful of sugar may have helped the medicine go down and send Mary Poppins into a happy song and dance, but today's Women of Impact and my fellow Brit would disagree that it is the antidote for real health and happiness. You see, she began her search for happiness from a very young age after bullying and a challenging relationship with her mother both seemed to have no end. And so while her friends were outpouring, she was training in neurolinguistic programming, working hard to understand human behaviour and the power of hypnosis. She wanted to find ways to fix the internal, mental, emotional and physical stresses she was enduring. And through transcendental meditation and self-development training, she was able to finally begin healing. This was the inspiration for extremely tactical book How Happy Is Your Health. And through her work with the Prince of Wales on his Harmony TV documentary as well as co-writing four films for Algor's life Earth event, she was inspired to look at her environment both in the home, the work and at large. This was the inspiration for extremely tactical book How Happy Is Your Home? How happy Is Your Love Life and How Happy Is Your Marriage?

She continues to spread her message as a well-being brand ambassador for Fortune 500 companies as well as through regular features in publications such as Times, Self and Women's Own. So please, join me in welcoming the founder of the Ward-winning Village Workspace, a luxury-shared office space who services emulated Brutti Cospatality to clients ranging from Shopify to film and TV writers. The woman that once partnered with Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution to raise consciousness about health and happiness. The happiness grew herself, Sophie Keller. Wow, what an intro. Well thank you Lisa. Wow, your four books were so incredible. I had so much fun researching you and I want to go through each book because you just dropped so many nuggets of gold. Thank you. And so I've picked out the ones that I found extremely fascinating. But what I want to start with is why did you start with each book with a quiz? Well, I, at the time, was writing for the Huffington Post. And I had done about 100 articles for the Huffington. And what I was doing, as I was doing those articles, was testing to see which worked. So what were audiences reading? What did they respond to? How much social media was I getting on each particular article, and I found that when I did a quiz, I had an enormous response. So decided that I would do a series of books that would start with a quiz, and depending on how you answered the quiz, it would take you to the tips that you needed the most. So that's really how they came about

and how the quizzes came about.

I love the quizzes because it really made me

think about my own position

before I started diving into the tips.

Right.

It was kind of like putting up a mirror

and like reflecting,

because sometimes I don't think we ask ourselves

the questions that we need to find the answer

to then be able to change it.

Yeah. So I found that really fascinating. I love that. Good. And so I actually want to start with the health one first because I think you actually even said number one step is your health. Yeah. So one of the things you actually said is which I found extremely fascinating. I'm thinking it's all going to be diet related and you do you break down ingredients and send things that healthy which I love. But there are things like let go of anger. Well anger will aid you and keeping anger suppressed in your body really does affect your cells, it affects your stress levels which we know has a huge impact on health. yn ymwch i'r ffodd sy'n ffodd sy'n ffodd sy'n ffodd sy'n ffodd sy'n ffodd sy'n ffodd sy'n ffodd sy'n ffodd sy'n ffodd sy'n ffodd sy'n ffodd sy'n ffodd sy'n ffodd sy'n ffodd sy'n ffodd sy'n ffodd sy'n about my youth and that I spoke to, I was bullied a lot at school and I realized that I had a deep impact on my stress. It affected me emotionally, mentally, spiritually and physically. And after a while I started to get a bit of a bad back. So I really had problems sitting, standing and I just didn't know how to heal this. But when I started to go to therapy which I went at a really young age, I actually started it with transcendental meditation at 14. That's really young. Really young. And the interesting thing is, is that your physical, my mental and emotional state really affected me physically. I felt that my back and the pain that I was having was to do with the stress. Very, very stress-related. I knew it was stress-related. I knew it was stress-related. Okay. And I was struggling at school. I was struggling at home with my mum at the time. Right now, I have a great relationship with my mum and did from 21 onwards. But at that time, we really struggled with each other. So what you're looking at in the health book is where I look at different aspects of health and how your health can be affected, not just by the food that you eat, but by the environment that you're in and the emotions that you're having. Right. Yeah, I so expected to be a guide of eat this, don't eat that, do this, don't do that. But the things like the stress really hit home because I have been dealing with a lot of stress and I'm noticing that it absolutely has become detrimental to my health. But it took me a while to get there. I first of all absolutely thought it was just the things I was eating but once I was able to really like look out at my whole lifestyle it really highlighted that health is way more than just what you put in your body. And one of the other things I like in your book is like just look at the now. And so why do you think that is so good for our health? Instead of always saying like one day or when I, I know that you've mentioned that a lot, like when I do this then I'm going to relax and take care of myself. But people need to start really focusing on the now. I think a great addiction that we have is being in the past or in the future and letting our minds be in those different places rather than present. At the same time I also talk about one of the biggest addictions that we have apart from sugar is worry. So worry you need to be thinking about the past or worrying about the future. And this idea of holding your vision and handling what's in front of you is something that I really do think that it's good to go by because you're holding your vision of what you want in the future and how you would like your life to unfold in one aspect or another, whether it's your home, life, your work, life, your relationships, et cetera. And at the same time to be in the moment and recognize that we're only here for a certain amount of time, Lisa, that the... We often live as if our time is endless on this beautiful planet, and it's not. It's not. It goes quickly. It goes like that. And can I stay in the moment? And yet, move towards what I'm wanting to move towards in terms of what I want to create, how I want to express myself in the world, and how I want to connect with others, which is, as you know, is another really important part of my work. So how do you actually do that? I'm listening to this episode and I'm like, all right, got it, stay in the now, but also like, know what I want and what I'm looking for. How do you know that? What does a day look like? I'm talking about a day looks like. If you want to know where you are, look at your feet. So if you're catching yourself in your head, take a breath and look where your feet are because where your feet are is where you are. Ground yourself, come out of your head. Right, okay. Come out of your head. The other thing is also to look at, you know, how do you think? What are you thinking? What are your internal thoughts? Are they positive or they negative?

How are they affecting you? Who's in your head?

Is your mum in your head? Is your dad in your head? All right, let's talk about that. Because I think you're so right. I think us as we're children, we've got a certain perspective that is given to us from our parents. Yeah. OK, well, you're a girl or you're this, and you should be there, so no, you should be playing with dolls.

Like, it is kind of taught to us as we're growing up.

So as we're adults sometimes you almost don't know whose voice it is Have you got any tips on like how you actually identify and then what you do with that? Well, I think that if you listen to the voice you're pretty much know who the voice is if your Dad was gruff with you and you've got a gruff voice in your head, then it's probably your father. If you're feeling insecure about something and or worrying and your mum was a warrior, maybe you got it from your mum. How do you, let's say I've got voices in my head. And now I love the eternal one voice and the voice. I know, I see you. And because I actually do, because I think, you know, there were certain lessons that I learned from my father, certain lessons that I learned from my mother. And then how do you differentiate what other people's voices are compared to what your own voice is? Well, the question is, is if you listen to something in your head and then ask yourself do I really believe that? Is that really true? Yeah. And then if you really think well actually it's not necessarily true. I have this technique that I sometimes teach where if you have something're right-handed, it put it in front of your left eye. If you're left-handed, put it in front of your right vision. And let's say you say something negative inside of yourself, you could put that sentence up, cross it out with a red marker in your mind's eye and think, okay, what would I rather think? Mm, I like that. That's great. So now I wanna move on to your next book, which is The Home and the Workspace. I get asked a lot like, how do you run a business out of your home? And it's really difficult. And in reading your story and how you came about into Feng Shui because I believe you had some immune issues you'd just blout with your boyfriend both of your parents had just been diagnosed with cancer I believe and so you had this just like overwhelming I think load on you and you turn to Feng Shui in order to be able to bring harmony to it so can you talk to me a little about that? Well, at the time that I learnt function very young, and so my first function teacher was in the UK, I was very young at the time. The second time that you were talking about was I was on a show called Gideon's Crossing. After I did Gideon's Crossing, it was really interesting. That was a very pivotal moment on a lot of levels for me. And you're right. What was happening is at time I'd split up with a long-term boyfriend. The show had finished on the show. And my parents had both been diagnosed with cancer at the time, and a lot was going on, so I decided to train in Fengch way. And that was really me trying to get my life back in some way or other. And I found it really fascinating. I used to just testithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio yn gweithio. a'r ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn ymdyn relationships and so the fung, the fung shui aspect as well and incorporated it into work spaces. Could we create a workspace that was based on the lifestyle field and the work that I had done in the past and make something really, really special? And we have companies like SoundCloud, Shopify, Part of Match.com, we have CBS, we have USC, we have Netflix shows, we have Amazon shows, we've had companies, we've had Pinterest in the space, we've had Credit Carmen in the space, we've had a long list of companies that really like the environment. Wasn't the results you've noticed? Like, are they more productive? Like, what is it that is gravitating people to this space in order? Like, because these are big companies. When I wake up in the morning, I need to feel that I'm making a difference. It's really important to me. I know when I walk into the workspace, there are 300 people in one of my spaces who I know are flourishing. They're doing extremely well. I know that they wake up in the morning and they visualize the space they're walking into and they leap out of bed. Not only does it impact themselves, it impacts their family. It impacts their fellow workmates. It impacts their friendships. So it reverberates out. So do you need to be Gandhi? Do you need to be Martin Luther King to feel that you're making a difference? No. I know that those 300 people, those 400 people, those thousands of people, maybe then I've spoken to across television, radio, online, et cetera, a difference is being made to their lives. Maybe it's something that I've said, something that I've done. It doesn't have to be huge because it reverberates out. You can touch one person's life, ten people's lives, 200 people's lives, and you don't know how it's going to affect the people who they're affecting, their lives. So you don't have to do big things. You just need to do what's important for you. Do you need to be making an impact because I'm doing a show called making an impact? Do I need to am I making an impact just by being a well-being expert in well-being and happiness etc? Or is it that I can be a plumber? And make an impact? Is it that I'm a chef and making an impact? It doesn't have to be in any particular way. It has to be in a way that is meaningful to you. You could be an accountant. You could be doing anything. It's where you come from in what you're doing. So it is not the state of doing. It's your state of being. I love that so much. That's awesome. I always want to say, drop mic but I don't want you to drop it x because there's still so much to talk about. So I want to go over to your book Love Now. I love the thing that you say about like stop bringing your past into the current relationship and I've been married now for 16 years so it's been quite a long time since I've ever really thought about doing it, but I know people who absolutely struggle with that. What advice can you give there? Because I think it holds a lot of us back from having a beautiful relationship. Well there's a number of aspects to look at when you're dating, right? Firstly, who are you choosing? Are you choosing people who are like your mum or your dad or a guardian? Whoever has looked after you, right? Now, are you choosing somebody who's got their good features or they're not so, their challenging features? So it's really important to look at who are you attracting for a start? Who are you attracting? Are you attracting the same person over and over again? And once you've come out of that relationship, let's say you're dating like you said, and you've dated for a number of months or a couple of years, you really need to write down for yourself, well, what did I love about that relationship? What worked for me? What didn't work? What worked about how I behaved? What didn't work about how I behaved? What worked about how he or she behaved and what didn't work? So you need to really analyse what it is afterwards, is working and not working. And if you start to look at your past relationships, you might see a bit of a pattern of who you're attracting. For example, let's say you're attracting emotionally unavailable men or women. Now, is it that their 55 and never been married? Are they withholding sex from you? Are they dating loads of other people? You need to look at who you're attracting and how come, and how do you shift that? Because the goal is, is that you're in a long-term relationship, right? That's people's goals in dating, most people, not everybody. And so, sustaining it is a completely different conversation, but looking at who you're attracting, why you're attracting them, and do you want to attract somebody different. And what does that mean? That probably means that you need to shift first inside of yourself. A good question to ask yourself is, what does your male side think of your female side? What do you mean by that? So if you just asked and said, okay, you spoke to yourself and you said, okay, my male side thinks my female side and you just, whatever comes out, you can write it down. Oh, she's weak, she's pathetic, she can get aggressive, etc. What does is my male side, female side, think of my male side? He's a bully. He withdraws. So there you're starting to go, OK, my number one thing before you're going to be in a great relationship is usually, can you create harmony inside of yourself, inside that male and female side of you, can they mold together, can they love each other? And then it's about going about how can I heal that for myself? Can we mold this internal relationship together in order to create a really harmonious, external relationship in the feet now and into the future. And that's the question, because if you can, then you're much more likely to magnetize and attract someone who's perfect for you. All right, so let's talk about perfection. Yeah. Because you actually say there is no perfect person. Yeah. How do we let go of that? Well just think of your top five personality characteristics that you need. Start with ten and then put them in order and then break down to five, then break down to three, those top three ones you've got to have. You'll never get everything. I really wanted to marry an athlete. If you really wanted to. Or somebody who was really athletic. But I had other qualities that were at the top. For me, they had to be kind. They needed to be loving. I wanted them to be warm. And lots of other important aspects. And athletic was probably number 9 or 10, or whatever it was. Loyal that I trusted them. So, the... o'r ddod yn ymwch i'r ddod yn ymwch i'r ddod yn ymwch i'r ddod yn ymwch i'r ddod yn ymwch i'r ddod yn ymwch i'r ddod yn ymwch i'r ddod yn ymwch i'r ddod yn ymwch i'r ddod yn ymwch i'r ddod yn ymwch i'r ddod And also, you don't want someone to be damaged in the same way that you are. Now, I know you're going to ask a question about that. So you need to have aspects of you that need healing that are different to the other person, so they can help you heal those. That's really interesting. I never thought about that before. Part of me kind of thought, like, oh, well, if you're going through someone and someone understands because they're going through it too, actually would help, but you're right. That's amazing. Alright, so people are going to, let's say, on dates, what are red flags? I don't really have a lot of opinions about for our states, but I do think it's important to understand if you're going out with a guy, what's this relationship like with his mum?

Because this relationship with his mum is a really big aspect of a man's psyche and of their upbringing. And so you need to look at their relationships with their mum and their dad. And you'll get a lot of clues from that.

You really will get a lot of clues of who that person is very early on. If their relationship with their mum is good, you know that's good. Same with the guy if you feel that the person that you're with has a great relationship with their dad and and if they have brothers as well, that's a really good indication. They're probably pretty good with men, and they probably understand men quite well. So these are sort of things that early on you can have signs and signals. I'm not saying that don't go out with someone who, you know, their dad wasn't there or their mum wasn't there or anything like that. I'm just saying you sort of start to know what you're getting yourself into. I love what you said of like, I think you even have like the whole chapter it's called, every selling your body needs to scream yes. Well before you get married. Right. Yeah. Not one cell needs to doubt her.

Right. Because I find that a lot of people, at least from what I get asked, or it's like, all right, but I really love him, but you know what? I just don't like this. Or, you know, I'm not actually keen. I don't have that massive sexual spark, but they're so good to me. like I hear that a lot and when I read that in your book it's like I think that really is a problem

that people struggle with. Well, it does issue fit. It's a bit like Cinderella and the ugly sisters, trying to make the shoe fit, because you want to get married. You want to have kids potentially or not, as the case may be. And the idea is, well, this is my goal, and I need to make something fit for that goal. It becomes a problem because down the line, you're marrying or in a long time relationship with somebody who isn't quite right for you. And why? Once the grass isn't greener when you're married, you have a whole different set of things that you're negotiating with one person. So why be in a hurry to get there when actually dating is great as well? And I say to friends of mine who don't have kids, it's great not to have kids as well. Don't think it's greener. It's great to have them. It's great to not have them. Is it better to have one, two, or three, or none, or four? Who knows? They all come with their own set of issues that you're going to need to look at. The grass isn't greener wherever you are. I love that. It's just you are where you are. And that is that and you have what you have. And each moment, we're going back to this idea of each moment is precious because we can't keep living as if we are here forever. Yeah. Yeah, talking about kids, that brings me to your last book, Marriage. So you put in something and I wanted to stand up and just give you a standing ovation when I read it Where's like your partner comes before your kids? Now I don't have kids But Tom and I have been married for 16 years We've spoken many times about do we want kids or do we not and we always said that if we decided to that they need to be Second in our relationship and that he will always be my number one and I will always be here and I felt badly saying that out loud for a while because I think people just like all yourselfish. But when I read it in your book and the way you explain it makes so much sense, so can you talk to me a little about that and did you do that in your own life? Like did you go talk about putting each other first? Well, why I put that tip in was because I saw my parents do that and they've been married for 55 years. So they always put each other first and we were second. Now as a kid when you're seeing your backbone which is your parents, strong and stable. You grow up, I grew up stable and I believe my brothers did as well because we saw two people who were fused together regardless. They were always singing from the same song sheet. So if one One said something, even if the other didn't believe in it, they backed them up. Now, was that sometimes to our detriment maybe? However, in the long term, you as a couple are end up the kitchen table staring at each other because your kids have gone off to college and they've gone to live their own lives and the fact is they're going to leave home and you're staring at each other without the children involved. I love the fact that you do things together and one of the chapters in your book where you say is like you need to fly separately and together. Talk to me about that because that's one thing that I get asked a lot on. How do you stay your own woman when you're married and married to someone that is extremely alpha and wants to, you know, has that energy and it's a dance for me but it is important that I always stay myself but always working together. And I love that you put that, talk to me about like how you actually do that. Well I'm doing a podcast at the moment called How to Work with Your Spouse without killing them. Really amazing. And so that's you know I look at couples and how they work together and how they do well together or not so well together. And I like the idea of working well with your partner. And my fascination with the podcast, for instance, is well, how do people work together?

What are the tips if you want to work together?

...