Life by YOUR Design

Guided Meditation: Simple Breath Meditation

I've had requests for guided meditations on the podcast. So that is exactly what we are doing today!

This simple breath meditation is around 20 minutes long. Simply turn off notifications, find a quite spot, get comfy and treat yourself.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode.  Find me on Instagram and say hi!

Thinking about leaving your career and want to Build Your Freedom Fund  - find out more here.

My guest is Alex E Lamber who is passionate about raising the consciousness of our planet and uses entrepreneurship to bring this shift into manifestation.

After studying at a prestigious business school in Paris and growing startups in Australia, Alex got a spiritual awakening that motivated him to use his skills to empower other lightworkers, healers, conscious entrepreneurs and heart-centred leaders.

He is the host of “The Lightleaders Podcast” and the author of “The New Wave: Escape 9-5, Do What You Love and Make an Impact”. He organises events around the world such as the Masterminds of Conscious Entrepreneurs.

He also coaches other lightworkers to achieve financial freedom and scale their positive impact in the world.

In this episode we talked about his spiritual awakening triggering leaving his career, morning routines, psychedelics and much more. And Alex’s shares lots of tips and book references to get your started (you’ll find a list at the bottom of the show notes): 

• [2.33] After graduation he did one year in private equity, didn’t excited him. Then he moved to Australia and spend six years growing start-ups including Hello Fresh.
• [3.45] The combination of interest in entrepreneurship and meditation triggered him to create the life he lives now.
• [4.44] Freedom and time from not being in a 9-5 creates a lot of emptiness so there is a need for discipline. 
• [5.08] Alex has a disciplined morning routine. 
• [9.44] Advice for beginning a morning routine.
• [10.28] Alex’s morning routine.
• [12.55] Alex’s spiritual awakening.
• [15.23] Three years ago, he did a weekend with friends with LSD. 
• [16.11]  The mind creates a lot of fears that are in fact irrational. 
• [17.35] What expanding consciousness means: recognising we are more than what we see with our senses and challenging what we have been taught. 
• [20.05] A more professional approach answer to that question. 
• [21.35] When he finds himself in fear and ego. 
• [24.56] Breath work and energy work. 
• [26.02] We are wired to focus not the negative for survival. We rewire with gratitude. It balances the brain ad see things more clearly.
• [28.50] We live at a time when things are very uncertain. Which is why meditation is so important. We have to become uncomfortable with change. “If things change, I’ll learn again with pleasure.”
• [32.20] Alex’s Ayahuasca Experience (see his podcast episode) 
• [35.00] “Living in the world of today without meditating is getting very hard.”
• [36.25] Healy – device emits frequency’s through a micro current, supports wellbeing. 
• [38.15] Network marketing has a bad rep. 
• [43.54] Alex’s tips how to walk away from a career you feel embedded in
• [48.11] What he wished he has known

Alex’s Reading List:

• The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris
• The 7 Habits pf Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• Power of Now, by Erkhart Tolle
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah
• How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

You can follow Alex’s adventures on Instagram and Facebook. Find out more on his website alexelamber.com, including his podcast: The Lightleaders Podcast here.

Thinking about leaving your career and want to Build Your Freedom Fund  - find out more here.

Do you know what to expect when you go under hypnosis? Or what the difference is to meditation?

Monday 4th January 2021 was World Hypnosis Day and I love hypnosis so in today’s episode we are talking all things hypnosis. I’ve giving you a bit of history, how it works, what you can expect, how it’s different to meditation and how it could be useful for you:

• [1.50] Some people think it’s all pendulums and chicken dances – it’s not. What you’re actually looking at in an incredible re-programming tool for your unconscious mind
• [2.36] I was nervous the first time I had hypnosis, but I love it.
• [3.25] Over the years hypnosis has been used for entertainment, including by Franz Anton Mesmer who used it in the 1750s to entertain the French Aristocracy
• [4.08] In 1950 Dr Milton Erickson revised hypnotherapy, taking it off the stage and made it a respectable therapeutic intervention. He practiced hypnosis daily from 1920-1980 seeing up to 14 people per day
• [4.52] Only 4% of our minds are in our conscious awareness at any time. 96% is our unconscious mind.
• [5.28] Once we have learnt something our brain wants to automate it, so we don’t have to use the precious 4% in our conscious awareness
• [6.41] We have a programme for everything we run in our bodies and everything we do – some are more advantageous than others
• [8.10] In hypnotherapy we are suggesting new programmes that are more advantageous and aligned to what you want to achieve
• [8.40] The more you use a neural pathway the stronger it becomes
• [10.16] You can expect to:
  • Feel deeply relaxed – we are slowing your brain waves
  • Hear your practitioners voice at all times – it’s conscious hypnosis
  • Have complete control – your unconscious mind is more powerful than any hypnotherapist
• [12.55] How is it different to meditation? They look the same and they are both relaxing. There are some key differences:
  • Brain wave states – in meditation you are in alpha and in hypnosis you are in theta
  • Meditation is awareness and hypnosis is about reprogramming
  • Meditation is passive, you are observing, and hypnosis is active, you are reprogramming
• [18.30] Think of hypnosis as an accelerator towards your goals
• [19.36] This time of year, we are setting new year’s resolutions, making visions boards, goal setting or simply daydreaming.
• [19.55] You may think about what you need to do to achieve those goals. I encourage you to consider who you need to be
• [20.10] This is more important as who you need to be, will affect what you need to do to get where you want to go.
• [21.10] Every time you learn something new you reshape your brain.

Want to learn more about hypnosis and see what I am up to? Come follow me on Instagram.

Thinking about leaving your career and want to Build Your Freedom Fund  - find out more here.

My guest today is Anna Kooiman, the creator of Strong Sexy Mammas: a virtual, home fitness for busy mammas.  She is an American TV personality who left a wildly successful career in New York City to move to Sydney to start a family with her Aussie husband. They now have a 2.5-year-old and 6-month-old. Baby Annabel joined us for today’s podcast record – you’ll hear her chiming in!

Anna has a long list of women’s fitness certifications including Pre and Post Natal Corrective Exercise Specialist, Diastasis and Core Consultant. She teaches classes in some of Sydney most sought-after boutique fitness studios. So, you can catch both her Strong Sexy Mammas Video on Demand home fitness classes and live in-person classes around Bondi.

Anna comes from a family of entrepreneurs. She is also a proud board member of the Bondi Beach Chamber of Commerce and loves being a cheerleader for her new community that has been so good to her husband and kids.

In this episode we chatted about changing course with young kids, finding your new identity and pre- and post-natal fitness:

• [2.38] Overwhelming when we have our kids, my skills are not necessarily translating. Exciting to go back to my routes in fitness.
• [3.44] Social media numbers – don’t be fooled, nobody knows what the hell they’re doing!
• [4.14] Anna wanted to be a dolphin trainer, then a physical therapist, then she wanted to do TV (which she did) and now personal training. 
• [6.07] There are four types of learning; Visual, through seeing; auditory through listening; kinaesthetic through doing and auditory digital, learning through facts and figures.
• [6.45] Strong Sexy Mamas is more than simply tightening your tum and booty. 
• [7.28] In pre-natural and post-natal women centre of gravity shifts, booty goes back causes issues like back pain and incontinence. 
• [8.36] Anna is about more than before and after photos. In the Strong Sexy Mamas challenge every Friday they do the Cardio Sculpture Fitness Tracker.
• [11.00] The things about post-natal that are not always talked about: Weeing yourself! 
• [13.08] Pelvic floor is the taboo subject. If you have a well-functioning pelvic floor, who central canister function well. 
• [16.44] Mental health can be something that a lot of mum’s struggle with as we try to find out new identity. Hormones and sleep deprivation.
• [17.00] What feels good to them. Sometimes we make excuses, but sometimes we really are too tired. Then you don’t have to exercise, rest is more important.
• [18.19] Preparing your body before you have your child, Anna’s tip to do this.
• [20.30] Labour training and toddler tantrum training – moderate intensity training. 
• [21.57] Anna’s tips, they want to change their careers but also want to start or grow their family.
• [25.10] The future: Strong Sexy Mamas becomes the go to place for an active, smooth pregnancy and an empowered and speed post-partum recovery. 

You can follow Strong Sexy Mamas’s on Instagram, Facebook, Youtube or on her website.

Thinking about leaving your career and want to Build Your Freedom Fund  - find out more here.

What is the storying you are telling yourself about 2020? What are you planning in your next chapter?

In this episode I’m talking about the importance of the story we tell ourselves, how to review and rewrite our stories to support to live the life we want:

• [1.40] How do you want to write your story of 2020? It’s your time to reflect.
• [2.50] Stories are important to us as humans – we use them to communicate, pass on ideas and connect[3.15] How we construct our stories impacts our day-to-day experience – check our episode 8 to learn more about the reticular activating system
• [4.26] Write the story of a pessimist and the story of an optimist – you decide where on the spectrum you want to sit
• [5.40] Check where you use humour in your stories – the unconscious mind is always listening
• [6.46] Carrying other people’s stories – my experience of absorbing the 30-something fertility story
• [9.40] We pick up other people’s rhetoric, from social media and news
• [10.38] How to review and rewrite your story
  • Step 1: Identify the facts
  • Step 2: Notice the meaning you have created from those facts
  • Step 3: Decide the perspective you want to have
  • Step 4: Who are the key characters (who have you given power to)?
  • Step 5: What’s the learning or moral of the story 

I’d love to hear your thoughts o this episode. Email me at [email protected] or follow my adventures on Instagram.

Thinking about leaving your career and want to Build Your Freedom Fund  - find out more here.

Do you want to live as a artist? Listen to this for a goose bump giving description of living in flow!

My guest today is Catherine Hiller. Originally from France, she worked on the business side of advertising and communication in the UK and Australia for 20 years. Painting was always her passion from a young age and she always pursued it outside of work, until six years ago, when she quit my job to become a full-time artist – and have never looked back! 

In today’s episode we talk about how that moment she had to leave came quicker than expected, living a creative life and how not worrying about money brings her more:

• [2.13]  “You’re always told being an artist is not a job, you cannot make money with.” 
• [4.00]  When Catherine went to get an eftpos machine at the bank, there was no box for artist, so she had to tick “painter decorator”, because and artist is not a job. 
• [5.00]  She loved her job for many years and the passion tuned into obligation. Stressful and didn’t enjoy it anymore. The more stressed she got the more she painted. She would paint until midnight. The more she painted, the more reaction she got, she sold more work. The thought came if you’re giving it only a tiny part of your time and energy, what if you gave it 100%?
• [6.37] Conference call with a client. And she thought: “I don’t care what you are saying, it’s not important anymore.” Said to colleague: “I cannot do this anymore.” The colleague said you’ve got to tell them! 
• [8.00] You can always go back – there is never any true risk. It’s not irreversible. If you see it as a life changing decision, it’s a bit scary. But not if you look at it as trying something for six months.
• [9.46] Catherine calls it the Freedom Fund, I call it the Fuck Off Fund – she always had it. 
• [11.25] When you are happy and doing what you love, you don’t need to spend that much. 
• [13.40] There is a lot of freedom when you realise you don’t need much money to live on. The shift in money mindset from 9-5, knowing where it’s coming from. Catherine says just don’t worry about it. She doesn’t worry where money is going to come from. The less you worry about it, the more it comes to you.
• [14.54] Laws of manifestation – you amplify what you focus on. So, if you focus on not having enough money, you attract not having more money.
• [17.38] I said to my boss: “My time is not my own, I don’t have any control over it.” 
• [18.47] Covid: People were at home more, looking at blank walls, not spending money in restaurants and her website traffic went up 267%. She received enquires like she has never had. Art makes people feel happy.
• [20.18] “Prisoner of their own mind”: Catherine’s expression for those people who want to leave their career but don’t. 
• [25.25] Living flow – living from a creative space. Catherine can only paint for 2-3 hours per day, feels like it’s not her painting. 
• [28.14] Catherine’s tips to begin the change: what do you love doing the most. Doesn’t need to be a job. Work back from that. Don’t think about money or status. If I was given $10m tomorrow would I still be doing this job tomorrow? Nothing is irreversible.

You can follow Catherine’s beautiful painting on Instagram or on her website.

Thinking about leaving your career and want to Build Your Freedom Fund  - find out more here.

Do you have the resources in place to overhaul your work and life? Which are you craving the most?

Are you familiar with the Work Evolution Roadmap? If you are not you can grab it for FREE here. This is the exact roadmap that I used to leave my career and work out what’s next and it’s the roadmap my clients use to guide their journey. In this episode I'm digging into the second pillar of the roadmap: Resources:

•  [2.11] The journey to discovering what’s next, like all healing is not linear, it’s a spiral where you revisit similar ideas but from different prospects and through different lenses.
• [5.10] The six pillars of the roadmap: Revaluate, Resources, Rebalance, Reconnect, Reprogramme, Reignite.
• [7.00] Resource 1: Space - this is all about the space to explore and rediscover yourself. There are four types of space and we all need different amounts of each.
• [8.48] Mental space - you know you don’t have enough when you can never quiet your thoughts and your head is constantly busy. If you have a demanding job, or very cerebral job you may not have very much mental space.
• [10.32] Emotion space - if the mental spaces is about your thoughts, things of emotional space as your heart. Are you emotions very heightened, so that it’s hard to cut through to listen to what you really want? Lack of emotional space does not only come from work.
• [11.45] Physical space - this is space for peace and contemplate and an environment that stimulates you in a positive sense. 
• [12.52] Spiritual space - whether you identify as spiritual, religious or neither this is relevant. It’s all about the awareness to understand you are not the external expression you put out into the world.
• [14.22] Resource 2: Support - do you have the right support around you? The key element here is you don’t want to deepen limiting beliefs about why you should not explore a different life. If you cannot change the opinions of those closest to you, rebalance their opinions by introducing more supportive people into your life
• [17.15] Resource 3: Inspiration - this journey is about creating space, shifting beliefs and perspectives, this creates more space! You can fill that inspiration to being in new energy, ideas and help you creatively discover what you want to do next.  
• [19.49] Resource 4: Money - our world is constructed around money so we need it. However, it’s interesting because so many people get caught up on this resource, when unlike others such as time which we cannot create more of, money is infinite and we can always create more. Money is key whether you walk away from your career and want time off. Reduce your hours, increase child care. get a cleaner. Or retrain or take a course just for the fun of it. I call this pot of money the Fuck Off Fund. Everyone considering a work evolution needs one. Want to learn how to build your Fuck Off Fund? Pre-register for my FREE Masterclass in January 2021 here.

Join me and Stacey Dimitriou for our Facebook Live - Work Life Rebalance. We'll be discussing tips, tricks and ideas of now to design your work life in 2021 for even more balance. We’ll be going live at 11am AEST Thursday 10th December. Join us here.

I’d love to hear your thoughts o this episode. Email me at [email protected] or follow my adventures on Instagram.

Thinking about leaving your career and want to Build Your Freedom Fund  - find out more here.

My guest today is Bini Noble. 

A writer-producer, motivational speaker, author and intuitive transformational coach, Bini has produced nine short films, line produced a feature film for Television, and worked on at least 27 more. Her shorts have all played at various festivals around the world, including TIFF, AFI, Palm Springs, Austin, Berlin, Melbourne and many more. 

She was also recently one among 25 transformational women to co-author the 3rd Edition of Change Makers, published by Change Maker Press, which went on to become an Amazon Best Seller in multiple categories in the US, UK, Australia, and Germany.

In this episode we chatted all about finding fulfilment, stepping into the unknown and her newest passion: numerology:

• [8.00] How we give ourselves to different parts of our life. Most of us don’t answer the question of fulfilment in our lives. We give so much importance to pleasing our family and teachers. We are conditioned to accept without asking. And we end up being co-dependent. Walking through life pleasing friends, colleagues and bosses.
• [13.44] Whenever Bini steps into her authenticity, into the unknown, she evolves as a person. The old Bini has died, she is gone. Each phase has a clear demarcation. She cannot any longer identify with the old version of Bini.
• [15.23] For the new version to evolve, the old version must die. She got her butterfly tattoo at the brink of a big transformation – at the time she didn’t know why.
• [16.47] If you want to graduate from one part of life to the next, you have to learn lessons, just like school. 
• [23.11] Making choices: leaving a secure world and high pay. Take all of that and put it into a master’s education to start from scratch. Financially, emotionally, spiritually, physically. I didn’t want to sit inside the glass container looking out. Moving into film was the first big shift. 
• [36.18] Arithmancy from Harry Potter is in fact numerology!
• [37.00] Pythagorean system of numerology is followed in most of the world. It’s the spiritual blueprint to life. Life a blueprint for a home, to show you where you might need more space. Gives you guidance how your life is building, what are your gifts and talents and key events. Personality tests give you a one-sided view, in a box, numerology gives you more of a 3D view. 
• [42.20] How to get started with numerology: core numbers. Every number has a vibration. There is no bad or good number. But every number has a low (unresourceful) and high (resourceful) expression of that number. Start with your birth name and date of birth. Calculate your Life Path, by adding all the numbers in your birth date. Calculate your Destiny, by adding up your birth name (how you go about achieving that life purpose).
• [48.33] Bini’s advice for anyone who may be feeling stuck: go be still, it’s not a luxury, it’s a need. Ask yourself: what is that makes me happy. What kind of job would you do if you had enough money – what would you do just for the sake of doing it. Work is just work. You don’t have to give it as much power as you do. 

You can connect with Bini on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or her website.

Thinking about leaving your career and want to Build Your Freedom Fund  - find out more here.

Do you want to know how to change your experience moment to moment? Do you wish you had more power over your reality?

In this episode I’m explaining that there is no reality, how we are creating the one we experience and how we can shift our experience . It’s powerful stuff:

•  [1.47] How we construct our reality through our senses
• [2.43] The 138 bits of information we are consciously aware of every moment
• [6.40] How we filter our sensory information
• [12.35] How we use the that information to create our experience
• [14.50] Something only has the meaning we give it!
• [17.05]  The two key interventions points to re-shape our experience
• [18.05] How to change your focus with gratitude, affirmations and expanding your awareness
• {20.20] How to change what you feel by noticing the meaning you give a piece of information 
• [22.00] Use your physiology to change your emotion at any time

I’d love to hear your thoughts o this episode. Email me at [email protected] or follow my adventures on Instagram.

Thinking about leaving your career and want to Build Your Freedom Fund  - find out more here.

How is your mental health? Did you know regenerative farming takes carbon out the sky?

My guest today is Jim A. Barker. He moved to Sydney a decade ago to start a career in public relations, but after several years of successfully working on some of the biggest names in tech and gaming found himself quite bummed at the idea of pushing words around for someone else. 

Thankfully, he'd picked up a camera a few years beforehand and was learning more about himself behind the lens than he'd ever learned behind a keyboard. So, after a couple of years languishing in agency land, wondering how to make it work, he just...made the jump, starting a photography business: Twelve Points Photography. But it's not just portraits Jim enjoys, he's also a passionate gardener and is taking steps to learn how he can reverse climate change [big call!] through farming. Nowadays Jim keeps himself busy with a variety of jobs, constantly pushing to learn new things to make himself, and the world around him, better. 

Today we chatted openly about his mental health, his Doortraits projects and how he is creating a full work life evolution:

• [04.50] How he splits his time between photography, publicity and farming. 
• [07.10] When Jim picked up a camera few years ago, it gave him the impetus to explore his creative side. 
• [09.08] The trigger to leave? Simple: mental health.
• [11.00] Twilight years in PR: stressed, shuffling his feet, moving and talking slowly, walk home and cry behind his sunglasses. 
• [12.33] The financials – Lived off his final pay check and got as many eyeballs on his photography business Twelve Points Photography. 
• [15.09] Back to university for the third time. “My HECS debt is screaming at me.” 
• [16.43] The system we have of education is great at choking creativity out of us. Learn better by doing and making mistakes. 
• [18.39] Twelve Points Photography and Jim’s Doortraits project. During the pandemic, photographing Sydneysiders outside their homes.
• [22.55] Jim pitched his photos to news organisations: The Guardian Australia ran a massive gallery, Channel 7 News ,Australian Photographer Magazine and ABC all covered it. See his Doortraits here:
• [24.28] Lifeline saw the initial push from media and they came onboard and knowing lockdown was a challenge for mental health, Lifeline and Jim cobranded the initiative and Jim photographed Lifeline staff.  You can still donate here:  
• [27.14] Jim’s work evolution is really a life evolution – it’s all about nature. How Jim is curating his life. 
• [29.29] Jim’s in love with the idea of regenerate farming: a method of farming where you make the soil better. Documentary 2040 speaks to how you can pull carbon out of the sky and put it in the soil. 
• [33.30]  My mental health is the best it’s ever been.
• [34.55] It’s cliché but “kicking myself for not doing it sooner.” Just do it.

 Follow Jim and his chicken’s adventures on instagram 

Thinking about leaving your career and want to Build Your Freedom Fund  - find out more here.