ï»żHey there Resilient Entrepreneurs, welcome back to another episode. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Fiona Anchal, the Founder of Wholesome Bellies, a plant-based cooking school and ready-made meals business. Fiâs love for healthy eating and cooking stems from her upbringing in the hospitality industry, where she was surrounded by incredible cooks, including her head chef mum, and what started as a passion project during the pandemic has now evolved into a thriving business offering free recipes, vegan cooking classes, and even a ready made meals delivery division called Plantz Ready Meals. So whether you're looking to cook up a vegan storm, or get inspired to create a full-fledged business from your passion, Fiâs got you covered. Let's dive in, welcome Fi!
Welcome, thanks for having me. Thank you.
It's a pleasure. Tell us what made you believe that you could run a cooking school and a catering business when you're not actually a chef, because I love this part of your story. Too many times people don't follow their passion because they feel like they're just not qualified enough.
What made me believe, I'm not sure that I still believe, I just continue to show up. Look, it's a funny one because as you mentioned, my background, obviously, my mum and dad being in restaurants, so as a kid that's where I lived most weekends because it's the only way I could see my mum and dad, because they worked all the time. And I spent a good portion of my life, at least 20 or 20 plus years in the corporate world in marketing and PR, because I wanted to move away from the lifestyle that that business provided. So now I find myself teaching people to cook, as you said, with no qualifications.
Hardly, you have a lifetime of qualifications.
I think itâs just listening and calming down the noise and knowing that you have a gift, whether you're trained or not, it doesn't really matter anymore. I mean you don't always need that piece of paper, and I just felt that I needed to share the gift, and when I'm cooking and when I'm eating I feel the most joyous I feel in any area of my life. So it was just this natural, gentle push in that direction and the pandemic did help, because I found myself with six weeks of nothing to do, stuck at home, so the kitchen was where I lived. And it's just really evolved, I say slowly, but it's not slow, but it hasn't been slow.
No! It's only been a couple of years and your business has so many different arms, different revenue streams, itâs very popular. I mean, I think your cooking classes are selling out, within a few days of publishing the next one.
Right? It's been really good.
So can you tell us what happened during the pandemic and how this all began?
During the pandemic, my husband and I had been in business for 20 years, selling and making custom designed corporate uniforms. So when the pandemic hit, nobody was going to work, nobody was buying uniforms, the phones literally stopped, because we didn't know how long this thing was going to last, youâre just showing up on Zoom so you don't really need all the gear. Hotels were a big industry, hospitality, airlines, who wear uniforms, that was us. So we were home for six weeks, there was really wasn't a lot to do. I mean, we fancied up the website, but we weren't sure why because we didn't know who was going to ever show up to work again. And just before the pandemic, I had an idea to run a weekend cooking retreat with some friends. The pandemic put an end to that, so it never went ahead, but my mind was already thinking about, âI'm just going to show some friends how to make some foodâ, and I started with a couple of classes at home, the pandemic hit so they stopped. So I literally spent the six weeks because in Brisbane where I live the lockdown was only six weeks and then we had some small ones. So in those six weeks, I think a lot of people turned to cooking, I mean it was really hard to get flour at Woolworths I know that. And I just spent some time creating and I wrote about four or five courses during that period. So I had some classes to launch and I decided that I was just going to run them as a side hustle, most entrepreneurs have side hustles. I've never had a side hustle until then, so I ran a class at home with three people, then they told their friends, and then a month later, five people came. And then a month later I had six in my home and then they were selling out really quick. So I ran two a month, and I was running it at home about two a week. And that was just through having my Instagram page and a very basic website and just word of mouth, and it just wasn't sustainable. That was like, I can't keep running them at home, my family were getting kicked out every single weekend. I had some weekends about 30 people in my home, so energetically, it started to feel like it wasn't my home, just a lot of, you have been to a class, there's a lot of energy and a lot of people show up very excited, which is great. So, I sat down with my husband and I said, âYou know what, I think that this is what I need to doâ, and he's like, âOkay, how are we going to do that?â I said, âWell, I need to quit first, our business.â And that's what we did. So, we found a location, we completely fitted it out.
I really can't explain it in any other way other than a ball, a snowball just gathering momentum and rolling down a hill and getting bigger and bigger, and I just continued to say yes, I just showed up and said yes, I got catering inquiries. I had people say, Can you make me food? I'm like, Yes, I can. Then that's where Plantz Ready Meals came from. I had people say âAre you open for a restaurant for dinner?â, and I'm like, âWe can do that every couple of monthsâ. So we started long table dinners. And I had people say âCan you teach us about the nutrition side?â So I'm like, yes. So we ran free seminars, then we found a dietitian in Brisbane who now runs information and content courses. so we teach people how to transition to plant-based. I just said yes to everything. It was exhausting.
I hear you. It sounds it but it also sounds extremely exciting. It sounds like you went from a business, a successful business, the uniform business to a passion.
Absolutely.
I can hear it in your voice. It's coming through so clearly that this is actually a full-on passion. Why vegan? You could have done any type of food.
I'm plant based. I use the word plant based because âveganâ encapsulates very much a lifestyle and I don't live that lifestyle, I still have a car with leather seats, for example. And I occasionally will eat some cheese, my mum can't cope that I don't have parmesan cheese as an Italian, so it's still pushed in front of me. So I went plant based about 15 years ago, it was a very sudden decision because my father had a heart attack and passed away suddenly. So for me I had a lot of questions around that, I thought we were really healthy. Clearly, something was missing!
And the lovely Tony Robbins at one of his seminars said many things that just made me make some really massive changes in my health and wellness. And the first thing I did was change the way I ate. So that's why I went plant based and my mum is an incredible cook and I learnt to cook just through immersion, I don't remember ever having a lesson. I was just in it every single weekend and at home and my grandparents lived with us. So when I got home from school there was always pasta being made, dinner was being made when I got up for breakfast, I mean, there was always food around. So I went plant based and I really had to teach myself how to change up what I'd learned through my mum. And I spent, I say I'm here and it's been quick, but I think I spent those 15 years in training on my own in the kitchen going, âWell how do I make vegan? How do I make ricotta because I want cannelloni but I don't want to have the ricotta.â It's just trial and error. I was practicing, a lot of food in the bin, a lot of friends coming over and eating well, a lot of them eating not so well. I just practiced and practiced, I didn't really know what I was training for to be honest, I was just trying to figure out âHow do I do this so I can eat the way I want to eatâ. I continue to do plant based because I feel like I don't ever convince anybody to go vegan, that's not my style, and I don't judge anybody for their choices, but I think that we all need help to understand how to make vegetables really taste great and that's pretty much one of my sole motivations. You can make cauliflower taste amazing, I promise you. And that's just where I come from, and if you choose to have that one night and not have the meat, that's a win, I'm winning and you're winning and I don't need to shove that down anybody's throat. Itâs just have some fun and play around and give it a go, because it's great, vegetables are amazing.
They really are as both of us being vegetarian. I think youâve got an audience here for sure, and I think with your meals, it would be quite easy to fool people. I shouldn't say fool people because there's no fake meat involved, but it really surprise meat eaters how delicious meals can be without meat.
And there's a lot of vegan chefs who are using mock meats, and I'm not to say that's not something that I will ever do. But right now my focus is away from the high production type foods, it's really whole foods, plant based. So no mock meats, it's just using what nature has given us to recreate something.
And with your husband being from India. I guess there's that vegetarian element there, and also what an incredible foodie environment in your house.
His mum was a chef most of her life in her own food business, so their cooking is amazing. They're mostly vegetarian as well, so it's been quite easy too. My husband very quickly went, âLet's do this, I'm okay with that.â So, I didn't have to force anybody, and my kids, well they've never had a choice really, they were just born veggies.
So did your husband come with you into this new business and what happened to the uniform business?
So the uniform business is still going, it's doing very well, I occasionally dip my toe back in, I've remained a director and he's a director with me. So we check in with each other, we have monthly meetings where we share each other's strategies and financials just as a support because we worked together for so long, that I miss him. I miss working together, we did it really well together. So that was probably the scariest thing, was actually I felt like we were breaking up. But we did it, we're still together. When we have staff changes or things going on at the moment that's happening, I just jump back in for a little while and support the areas that I was growing with him, and he definitely comes in and supports. But in terms of being involved in the day to day, we've kept it quite separate. We're both too busy to be into businesses. I gave it a go but I couldn't grow my new business unless I detached from the day today.
So you went from one successful business to now two successful businesses in your household? That's pretty amazing, that is pretty cool.
How much of a role do you think your marketing expertise and experience plays in a successful business?
What I learned a very long time ago, is very different to how we market today, but the fundamentals are there, and I think just understanding that, it's like without it, you don't have a business. And just learning how to write, working in PR was great because I can write content for myself, I can understand how to build a web page if I need to. I see a lot of businesses where they've got their gifts, like whether it's cooking or whether it's, they're a physio, but not having that marketing understanding is really important. It's been great for me, I feel like I just know what to do next in the marketing space, I know how to get it out there.
I feel like marketing is that saying, âBehind every great man is a great womanâ. I feel like marketing is that great woman behind a great business.
Yeah, I mean, it's getting harder today to get seen, it's saturated, you try on social media. There's some days where no one sees you, and you put all this effort in, and there's just so much information out there. I've just launched my first YouTube channel, which has been very exciting, so learning to grow that again, that's new in terms of what I had 20 years ago, but I think the principles are the same, you have to get yourself out there, you have to create your story, you have to tell your story, people still want to connect. They want to know who's offering what they're buying, that's marketing as well, and it's really important.
The personal brand, right?
Absolutely. Yeah. And this business is me. I don't know that I ever want it to be anything else, I know I want to grow it but I think it's me. I'll move to online content I think, programming and digital programs but it's me. My other business wasn't me but I know If this is me, and I don't want it to be anybody else at the moment.
What are you doing on YouTube? What kind of content?
Cooking, so teaching people to cook. Turn it on and sit in the kitchen and cook along with me.
What's the handle so everybody can check it out?
It's just Wholesome Bellies, my business name, I managed to score that. That's it, youâll find it very easily.
Fi, tell us about your Tony Robbins experience you just dipped in on that one.
Yeah well, it's big but I'll mention it as briefly as I can. I did Unleash The Power in Sydney, it would have been 15 years ago. So my dad passed, and about three months later I went and did that - three days of Tony Robbins, rah, rah motivation was great, all of it was great. I was in a pretty bad place having lost my dad and had a miscarriage in the same week, and my grandma passing, so I wasn't doing so well. So I think that's what drew me to that, and then the last day was all about health and wellness, like eight hours of it. And everything he said was just, âOhhâ, it was just a light bulb, every moment was, âOh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh.â And his big take home wasn't so much about the weight you carry and how you look, he spoke about vitality, and his big line was âIf you are an entrepreneur, or if you are up to things and you have things you want to do, you need vitality, you want to get out of bed, jumping out of bed every single morning, and I was like, âYes, I want that.â So everything in our backpack that night went in the rubbish, we went not just vegan overnight, we went full blown, no coffee, no sugar, no white food products, it was extreme for six months, and then I've just slowly found my way. That was extreme but I think I needed to do that, to just cleanse whatever was going on for me. And now it's just been 15 years of more training, more Tony Robbins training, Iâve been water fasting, lots of health and wellness, lots of other seminars and just going what actually works for me what makes me feel best. And I've re-introduced a few things, obviously I have some sugar again, and I definitely drink coffee that needed to come back. So yes that was the Tony Robbins experience in one minute.
You can keep going because I'm so fascinated, and we often talk with entrepreneurs we work with and other entrepreneurs we talk to like you on this podcast, about routines, about morning routines, about ways to increase vitality, because that's something we are all always looking for. Do you have any other things that you've added in besides the food into your life?
Meditation is big for me. So it's something that I work towards everyday. I miss some days and the days I miss are never as great as the days where I do that. And the meditation changes from guided to just sitting in stillness. I read so much, I read so many books constantly, Robin Sharma, Gabby Bernstein, I could keep naming the books that I have in my bookshelf. And I'm pretty big on my early morning routine. So I'm up fairly early, about 4:45 usually, and I head straight to the gym and then I go to the Wellness Center after the gym where I sauna and cold plunge and hot sauna, so that's what I do most mornings and I love it, I really love it. I don't love the gym exercise part so much but knowing there's a sauna at the end, and that I get an hour to myself, that really motivates me to get up and do the work, then I've got my reward.
What an incredible routine, so youâre here and we appreciate that sacrifice you've made.
I feel like I needed my beauty sleep.
As long as you have a coffee beside you, we'll get through this. You didn't gloss over Fi, some pretty tragic circumstances that you went through just before the Tony Robbins experience. Just I wanted to just tap into that if we can, because we call these Resilient Entrepreneurs and it's true that as exciting as life can be and following our passion and seeing our dreams being realised, there's always that flip side to the coin. So how do you describe resilience? And how is that applied in your life?
I think resilience is just showing up and I said that earlier, there's crappy things that happen all the time. Life's gonna throw them at you, right? And I think before my dad passed away, I'd have to say I lived a fairly naive life, I hadn't really experienced a lot of adversity, some teasing at school and I did see my parents go through a recession and almost lose everything, but that wasn't happening to me. So I think losing my dad was probably the first real, âOh, my gosh, something really bad happened.â I didn't think, I didn't know if I was resilient but I definitely am, because I got through that, and so much happened in that week. Within seven days as I mentioned, dad, I lost a baby, and my grandmother. So I just kept going, I just showed up every day, and I just told myself that today I would do something different. And I think Covid was another area where I felt quite dragged down again, once I got myself going, but the initial Covid period it felt like I'd been kicked in the face again. You feel like things are going great, and then it's, âOh, my Godâ. I think it brings me back to those tragic times where something happens and you get triggered, right? So maybe the thing that's happening isn't so big, but something else that happened that was big, is unresolved. So it triggers that.
And my husband at the time bought me this bracelet, itâs very hard to see but it says âThis too shall passâ, and that's been something that I've held very close to my heart, in any circumstance, even in amazing times where things are great, this too shall pass, meaning enjoy it, don't keep looking for something new because this great momentâs gonna go away as well, and then you don't know what's coming next. So I think resilience is showing up, self talk and just keep moving, even if it's a baby step, I'm just gonna take one baby step today and move through it because it will pass, it does pass. That's my big learning.
Yeah, that is a big learning. Has there ever been a time when you nearly quit?
Oh my God, so many times, I guess in the early part of my business, probably not in the last few years in this business, because I just feel a lot stronger and I think getting closer to 50, I think something happens when you get closer to 50, you just stop caring what other people think. So I in the last two years I've haven't had periods where I wanted to quit this business. I've had periods that have felt hard, and, âWhy is this not selling? And why is it not happening the way I want it to be happening?â But probably that's a control thing, that's not quitting, it's me just wanting everything to be amazing all the time. But I think when we started our business 20 years ago I was all of 27 and I just got married and we kicked off straight away. We started as retailers, we had a retail store, we sold clothing, and our first year and a half we were booming. It was âOh my god, who starts a business like this?â, but the reality was, it wasn't sustainable like that. We had to keep doing things, and there were many nights where, we had a storage unit and we had to go there every night after work and top up our stock and it was exhausting. And then the online space came in, and we just didn't jump on that quick enough so we struggled in retail. Online was growing and we just weren't playing there and we almost lost it all. We ended up closing all of our retail stores and we lost a lot of money to then move to corporate. So we've had to pivot a lot in business and we've lost a lot of money, we've had to put money back in and that's hard, that hurts. That's when you want to quit because you're like, oh my god with 10 years of working our butts off, and now I've got to put in a couple of 100,000 just to keep going, in my mind that doesn't make sense. Like, I'm just gonna go and get a job, it's gonna be easier. So yeah, moments of that for sure, where I borrowed money from family members because we didn't even have our own money. So that sucked, that's when you want to quit. I was with my husband, so when one of us was down the other one was like, come on, babe, we've got this, we've got this. So I don't know if I was on my own if I would have pulled through in the same way in those moments.
Yeah, there's nothing like a partner to help you through when you're down and they can be the ones to help lift you up. That's amazing, I love that for you. That's really great. Of course, like you were just saying a lot of success comes with some failures along the way. So what's your mindset around failure? What does it mean to you?
Well back in the day I thought failure was, I'm bad, I've done something wrong, I'm not good enough, I've let people down, that was my big thing. Now I teach my kids what probably my parents taught me, and I just didn't listen. I don't see it as failures anymore, they're actually gifts. So when something I try and create, so in Wholesome Bellies I'm constantly trying new things. If a course I create doesn't sell, initially I go to âOh I failedâ. That's just normal, it's an initial and then I just sit in that and feel that and then I go, âNo, there's an opportunity to just pivot, maybe it's not exactly what people want. Maybe I just marketed it incorrectlyâ, so I just be kind to myself and stop bashing myself up about messing something up that I gave a go. It's just like, okay Fi, how else can we look at that? And it always present a gift, always. If you look at it as a gift, there's always a gift in everything that didn't work. It's not a failure. I don't look at it, I don't like to use that word even anymore. It just didn't work out that way, and then we just mixed things up a bit.
That's sage advice. What advice do you wish somebody might have given you early in your journey?
Look I had pretty good role models with my mum and dad, they lost so many restaurants and my dad especially just kept, he just kept going and building. He just, I wish my dad and mum had talked to me a bit more about how they were navigating things. It wasn't really a conversation at our dinner table. Dad was just, I'm just going to go and fix stuff, I'm going to make this better, and mum was always there supporting. So I wish my dad was around today, because he passed away when I was quite young, I was only three or four years in our business journey. I think if he was around today I probably would be having more conversations with him and ask him because I didn't ask a lot. I didn't think I'd ever have my own business because to be honest, the thought of it, I saw mum and dad struggle, and I saw how hard they worked and that I noticed how lonely I felt as a child because they weren't around. And I just thought that that is what business was, that if you have a business that's how it's going to be because that's what I saw. So I didn't really ask for a lot of advice so I didn't really receive it. I wish I had asked more questions to be honest, I wish I'd been a bit more open, rather than I'm just going to go to uni and get a job and be amazing that way, that's going to be good for me.
I'd imagine parents to try to protect their kids a little bit. They don't want you to know the struggle because you'd then worry that they couldn't provide so I think that's a natural parental instinct.
Most of my advice has come later in my years when I've actually been in business, and I knew which questions to ask, I don't think I knew what to ask people. When you know better, you ask better questions, you do better. I just was like, I'm going to uni, and that's it, and I went to uni for five years and just kept studying because I felt that was the way I could get away from business, but here I am, clearly I didn't get away from it.
It was always in your blood, you cannot escape. What did you study at uni?
I did an Art Degree, I did a double major in Japanese. I thought I'd be an interpreter or a journalist, I don't speak a word of Japanese by the way so thereâs failure right there, eight years. My kids come home in grade five with Japanese, and I'm like, I don't know what you're saying darling and theyâre like mum, and I'm like, yeah, I don't know.
It was fun, right?
I just had a good time, and then I went on to do a Masters and I did Business and Comms and moved into PR, and that's where the marketing came from, I had a great time.
So it's interesting that has come full cycle, you were running away from something only to end up back in it and with such passion, and it's such inspiration. I think the audience listening to this certainly with me listening to you talk, and I love our conversations, it's always so inspiring and uplifting and invigorating. You embody the excitement that business and being an entrepreneur can be. Are you able to articulate what you love most about being an entrepreneur?
What I love most, I love that my time is my time, I have so much freedom. Having had children about 10 years ago has allowed me to run a business and be there every single morning, I don't have to rush off, and I'm there every single afternoon, and that is the most valuable gift, I won't have that⊠I'm gonna get very emotional, sorry, I won't have that for much longer because they're growing, and I just see so many parents living the grind and the hustle and they're up super early, and they're rushing to work and their kids are in after school and before school care, and that would break my heart. So time, I can jump back online tonight, I can be here with you this morning while they're asleep, I'm with them every single day, and that's more than anything to me. Oh, gosh sorry.
No, I relate and you're kind of making me emotional too because it's exactly how I feel too, that is the greatest joy, the greatest gift you can give your children, itâs time. It's just time and you didnât have that time with your parents.
Yeah, I didn't have it. So I had to be at work with them to have them. I didn't have them after school, they were just never there. So I guess that's probably been one of my biggest learnings is having the life that I had, I kind of knew I wanted to make some changes.
What were those changes Fi? What's different between what your parents were doing, because they were hustling and working hard and you felt like you didn't have time with them, whereas you're now also hustling and working hard, but obviously in a different way, and your kids have you when they want to.
I have created Wholesome Bellies so that I'm not working hospitality hours, that's the first thing. I do work on a Saturday morning, but I'm really comfortable with that. I don't do Friday nights often. I have other teachers that can teach the days I don't want to teach, so that was a really big thing. Plantz Ready Meals function during the day so I've removed the hospitality hours that don't work with the family, that's the first thing. The second thing is, I outsource the crap out of my life. So back in my parents' age they did everything. So they were immigrants, they probably didn't have the education that I've been privileged to have, so they just hustled and they did everything, they worked all day, all night. So I outsource a lot of what I do I have a VA (virtual assistant), I outsource all of my YouTube marketing, I outsource a lot of my content, my SEO blog writing, blah, blah, blah, the list goes on. I just focus on what lights me up and what brings me joy, and the rest of it, I've learned to find people that can do that better than me probably, so that gives me time. So a lot of people say oh my god you're doing so much, but I'm not doing as much as it appears, other people are helping. My parents did it all, they just did it all, and they didn't stop, they worked so hard, and then mum had to come home and work at home and wash and clean and feed everybody and I donât do that.
You outsource some of the home stuff as well.
Well, we have the cleaner who helps and when they're not around it's a sh*t fight, it's terrible, because I hate cleaning, didn't take after my mother there. I just want time. I try and finish work by three, and I don't work in the afternoon. I might jump on at night just for 20 minutes to just check some important emails from the afternoon, but other than that, I am pretty diligent in sticking in my nine-to-three type hours so that I have the space and I do work Saturdays and occasional nights.
Even when you're not working, weâre working, you're thinking, we know the entrepreneur never really ever turns off, but you've got the dream there. I mean, that's, you figured it out. Here's the playbook, everybody listening, this is the playbook right here. Fi has given us the playbook for how to entrepreneur, the best way possible. Figuring out and really, finding your passion, I think is the number one thing because it is so clear how you have found your passion, you're fully living in it and you're embracing that, and outsourcing the rest and have the time to do the important things like family.
I think when you love what you do, I think it's Gabby Bernstein has a quote where she says, âYou work hard, but you never work hardâ, and I get what she means by that, So I work hard and I don't work hard, I don't feel like I work hard and I think that happens when you work in areas where it lights you up and where there is joy. So there's no denying we still work hard, but it's not really hard. I don't know if that makes sense.
It makes a lot of sense, It's not really hard and actually doesn't even feel like work. When you're doing something that you love, you're doing it because you enjoy it.
We're still working hard in that sense, people still see the hours you put in and they go, Oh, you work hard. I work hard, but it's not hard work.
It gives you energy rather than takes your energy.
Absolutely.
So you mentioned that you have time, you make time to read books, and I think what you've described is an intentional lifestyle business, you've created your business in a way that suits your lifestyle rather than having to fit your life into your business. Anyway back to the books, do you have a favourite or one that's top of mind, a go-to that you could recommend to our audience.
I really love Think Like a Monk by Robin Sharma, and I read during Covid the three books, Conversations with God. It's not a religious book by Neil Diamond Walsh, I think he is the author, they were incredible. There's so many. I'm reading some of Gabby Bernstein's work at the moment, and I've got the latest Robin Sharma book on the go, but Robin Sharma is great. He's got some great business stuff, there's so many.
Thank you.
Untethered Soul. Excellent.
Oh, that's deep, that's a deep one, a lot of personal development.
Like, what is going on?
Say that again. Sorry.
I said, I went quite deep in my reading in Covid, because I was like, what is happening? I can't go to work, I never thought in my life that I'd be told you are not allowed to go to work in your own office, you can't go there today.
Wild to think about it, going back itâs wild to think about it but it's a good thing to pour yourself into, maybe distract yourself with a little, digging deep into some good books, there's nothing like it.
It was a good time, to be honest, when you reflect back it was fine. It was good.
My kids loved it, they loved it. They had uninterrupted mom time, they loved it. They had a great time.
Well Fi, this has been an amazing conversation. I'm so glad you joined us today on Resilient Entrepreneurs because you are clearly a very resilient entrepreneur and this has been nothing but inspiration and wisdom, and like I said before, the playbook, the playbook for creating a beautiful lifestyle business that works for you, and who knows where it's gonna be in five years, 10 years, but we're gonna check back in and stay in touch and keep the conversation going, because I'm very excited for your business. It sounds phenomenal, exciting, and I hope this inspires lots of other entrepreneurs.
Yeah, thank you.
Thanks so much.
