Episode description

Holly Louise Ditchfield found out she was pregnant at thirty-seven weeks. Not a missed period, not a hunch - thirty-seven weeks, with three left to go, after she'd poured water on the test hoping it would lie for her too.

Eight years later she built a business, Lash Lounge, from her bedroom, fitting clients around school pick-ups. And in 2024, at twenty-nine, she went on Married at First Sight and became the woman a lot of the country remembers for remembering who she was as she wrote 'Leave'.

In this conversation, Holly talks about what was really happening behind that decision, what the show didn't show, and the six months between filming ending and it airing, when no one around her knew where she'd been.

Holly also shares something she's never spoken about publicly before - a loss, and what happened on the exact same day one year later.

Now engaged to Aaron, training to be a midwife, and expecting twins, Holly talks about the difference between chasing fame and choosing yourself.

Show notes

Holly Ditchfield became a mum at sixteen with no warning at all, built a beauty business from her bedroom as a young single mother, and later became known nationally through Married at First Sight - a process she says she'd never repeat.

This conversation moves from a Greater Manchester and Yorkshire childhood through the relationship she left at twenty-one, the years spent building Lash Lounge from nothing, the reality of what happens once the cameras stop rolling, and a loss she's never spoken about publicly before - up to where she is now, expecting twins and training to become a midwife.

Themes:

• Becoming a mother with no run-up, and what it costs to grow up in public
• Building a business alone, and the "mum guilt" nobody warns you about
• What reality TV is actually like once the cameras are off
• Remembering who you are under public pressure and public opinion
• Loss, timing, and choosing to try again

If this one landed, send it to a woman who's ever had to remember who she was before she could move forward. Leave a review, or send us a message and tell us what stuck with you. And if you're new here, hit follow - Notes from the Not There Yet is out every two weeks.

Key takeaways

• Losing yourself in a relationship or a role doesn't mean you can't find your way back - it might just take one decision, made quickly.
• "Great in a crisis" isn't the same as okay - the strength people see from the outside is often the least of the story.
• You don't need qualifications or permission to build something; a passion will push you through the hours nobody sees.
• Public opinion is built on an edit, not on you — the people forming it don't know what you know about your own life.
• Not every loss needs to be shared right away. It's allowed to wait until you're somewhere safe enough to say it.

Find Holly Ditchfield

• ⁠Instagram⁠
• TikTok

Find the The Not There Yet Project:

• Website⁠
• ⁠Instagram⁠
• ⁠LinkedIn⁠
• ⁠Substack

Episode description

Faye Roddy is a strategic business coach who built one of the UK's biggest cleaning franchises from nothing and sold it in a single thirty-minute meeting. But the version of Faye people see today didn't start in a boardroom. It started on market stalls in Salford, counting pennies for her mum at ten years old.

In this conversation, we go back to the decision that shaped everything, leaving school at fifteen, and the year that nearly broke her: becoming a mum at twenty-two, a medical emergency with her baby son that changed how she saw the world, and walking away from her marriage with £10,000 and nothing else. We talk about the fourteen years she spent building a flagship franchise business while quietly carrying a cancer diagnosis she kept from her own children. And we talk about the "ice queen" mask - what it costs to be the strong one, and what happens when you finally put yourself on the list.

Faye Roddy went from waiting tables in her mum's café at eight years old to building one of the UK's largest franchise businesses - and then walking away from it, twice: once when it was sold out from under her, and once by choice, on her own terms. This conversation moves from a Salford childhood built on graft and independence, through single motherhood and a secret cancer diagnosis, to the moment she handed her life's work to her team in a thirty-minute meeting - and what she's building now, for herself and for other women.

Themes:

• Growing up "old-headed" - independence as both a gift and an armour
• Becoming a mother, and nearly losing a child, at twenty-two
• Rebuilding a life from a £10,000 car sale and nothing else
• Building a flagship business while carrying a cancer diagnosis in secret
• The "ice queen" mask, and what it costs to always be the strong one
• Choosing to sell, choosing to develop others, and choosing freedom

If you've ever been the one everyone else leans on, send this to someone who needs to hear it. Leave a review, or send us a message and tell us what stuck with you. And if you're new here, hit follow. Notes from the Not There Yet is out every two weeks.

Key takeaways

• Being independent from a young age can be both the reason you succeed and the reason you struggle to let people in.
• You can hold a business together while your personal world is falling apart — but it has a cost, and it's worth naming.
• Selling something you built isn't a single ending. Sometimes you have to let it go twice.
• Developing other people's confidence can be the thing that finally sets you free.
• Freedom isn't the reward at the end. It's a decision you make on the way there.
  

Find Faye Roddy

• Website
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
  

Find the The Not There Yet Project:

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Substack

Not lost, not arrived, just not there yet.