Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, renames lifestyle brand to ‘As Ever’
As she began promoting her new Netflix show titled “With Love, Meghan,” the Duchess of Sussex took to Instagram on Tuesday to share a video filmed by her husband, Prince Harry.
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Duchess Meghan has debuted a new podcast.
“Confessions of a Female Founder” launched Tuesday through Lemonada Media, with its first episode featuring Meghan’s close friend and Bumble CEO and founder Whitney Wolfe Herd.
But in the first episode, Meghan, 43, revealed both she and Wolfe Herd shared a frightening and rare health scare.
The duchess said both she and the Tinder co-founder had postpartum preeclampsia, saying the experience was “so rare and so scary.” Postpartum preeclampsia occurs when you have high blood pressure and excess protein in your urine within days of childbirth, according to the Mayo Clinic. Left untreated, it can cause seizures and other serious complications, and its causes aren’t well understood.
Meghan reflected on going through the medical issue in secret, saying, “You’re still trying to juggle all of these things, and the world doesn’t know what’s happening quietly. And in the quiet, you’re still trying to show up for people – mostly for your children — but those things are huge medical scares.”
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Duchess Meghan reflects on ‘overwhelming’ experience launching business
The pair discussed feeling overworked and overwhelmed as business owners.
“Launching a business, it can be so overwhelming,” says the As Ever founder, discussing at one point becoming hyperfocused on product packaging, down to the box size and placement of stickers. “Even with the best of teams, it will keep you up at night, because every single decision – every microdetail – in that moment, it feels monumental.”
Wolfe Herd offered a bit of advice. “Don’t take this route to the top of Everest. The view is not worth it. Don’t do it because the one thing you can never get back is your precious time,” she says. “And the amount of time, Meg, that I wasted on being stressed, being miserable, being overwhelmed, being paranoid about what shoe was going to drop. I actually think I would have been more successful had I not been like that.”
Duchess Meghan on being a working mom: ‘I don’t want to miss those moments’
Meghan reflected on working while raising her own young family – Princess Lilibet, 3, and Prince Archie, 5, with husband Prince Harry – and how important it is for her to be present at work and home.
“We became moms in the pandemic, post-pandemic culture where there is so much working from home … I don’t leave the house to go to an office, my office is here (at home),” says Meghan. “(Lilibet) only has a half day in preschool. She knows where to find me, even if my door is closed to the office. She’ll be sitting there on my lap during one of these meetings with a grid of all the executives … I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
She continues: “I don’t want to miss those moments. I don’t want to miss pickup if I don’t have to. I don’t want to miss drop-off.”
The “With Love, Meghan” star said there are benefits to having young children as a business founder.
“What I do love the most about having young kids, in this chapter while I’m building (my business), is the perspective that it brings, because you’re building something while your child’s going through potty training. And both are just as important,” she says.
“It’s like, ‘Great, OK, where’s the Cheerios? Well done,” she adds, congratulating herself on the small victory. “And then you’re championing your team 10 minutes later about something that is really high value for the world. In your own world, that’s super high value. And in (Lilibet’s) world, that’s super high value.”
How to listen to Meghan’s podcast, ‘Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan’
“Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan” will be released on Tuesdays on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music, highlighting conversations between Meghan and other women in business as they discuss their struggles and triumphs on the way to success. It comes after the launch of As Ever, a lifestyle brand and product line that is currently sold out.
The series is from Lemonada Media, which also distributed “Archetypes,” Meghan’s first podcast venture, which ran for eight episodes in 2022, initially on Spotify.
Contributing: Anna Kaufman
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