Meghan Markle isn’t afraid of getting messy — and she thinks more people should be okay “getting your hands dirty.”
In the May 6 episode of her podcast “Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan” (a Lemonada Media production), the Duchess of Sussex, 43, sat down with FIGS founder Heather Hasson, who has changed the medical apparel industry.
“It can get messy and the best founders are not afraid to get their hands dirty,” Meghan said of entrepreneurs who start their own business. “And I don’t mean play dirty. I mean, when it’s ‘clean up on aisle five’ time, you are the first person there with a mop.”
Meghan also credited Hasson with being exactly that type of person.
During the episode Meghan asked Hasson, “The whole point for me, and you’ll probably speak to this too, is when you see something that is an easy solve in the everyday, that’s not complicated, that’s not fussy, how do you get your hands involved?”
“I see vegetables and I see takeout — because I don’t have time to cook every day — and I go, ‘Alright, but how do I still make this flattering and beautiful and present well and something that people find appetizing?’’ she added.
Hasson answered, “I think when you take something so simple in your everyday life and you elevate it and you make it elegant, I think that’s what makes it so special.”
Meghan also shared that her experience in theatre helped prepare her for life as a founder of a company, something she might not have seen coming at the time.
“I was a theater major and part of the program was that you couldn’t just do the acting,” she explained. “You had to do soup-to-nuts every part of what a production would entail, which I actually think is incredible training for when you’re running a team, because you appreciate what the sound person does and what the lighting person does.”
That kind of intrepid spirit is a hallmark of Meghan’s work across the board, whether it’s her Netflix series With Love, Meghan or her lifestyle brand As Ever. With Love, Meghan takes viewers to Montecito, California, where Meghan lives with her husband Prince Harry and the pair’s two children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, and allows the Duchess the opportunity to share a more personal side of herself with her well-wishers.
In the series, Meghan makes it clear that taking care of others is a core value she holds, and that’s something she also emphasized in her conversation with Hasson.
“All that stuff happens at the beginning,” she said on the podcast of putting care into each step of the process of As Ever. “I mean, the types of minutiae that at a certain point — as a founder — at the onset, you kind of have to be across every single granular detail. For me, I don’t know how to not have love in the details.”
