Life by YOUR Design

Are you unsure of your purpose in life? Do you feel pressure to uncover and define your purpose? 

In this episode I’m going solo to talk about the concept of purpose and how I think we are making things harder for ourselves than we need to. Listen in to hear me share my ideas around:

•  [1.21] Why you don’t need a purpose
• [7.50] How alignment is the answer to feeling happier and finding more meaning
• [15.33] Our uniting purpose – try it on for size!
• [17.41] How we put it all together and what it means for your work life

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 Debbie Cohen, the founder and director of The Style Chapter, a boutique interior styling studio, based in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs.  

Debbie spent the first 10 years of her career in business development across law firms in Perth, London and Sydney.  After feeling ‘stuck’ and unfulfilled in her career for a very long time, it took a case of physical and mental burn out to be the wakeup call she needed.  With absolutely no contingency plan in place she left her job, and took the time to really consider what it was that she wanted to do.   

She enrolled in Design School to become a qualified Interior Decorator, freelanced for various styling companies, and in May this year, launched her own business, The Style Chapter - in the middle of a pandemic with a baby and a toddler in tow!

In this episode we chat the four stages of burnout, going back to school and how she accidentally started her business.

• [8.12] The four stages of burnout
• [10.25] The sign from the universe that made her realise she had to make a change and she found herself saying: “There has to be more than this.” (she took the words out of my mouth!)
• [12.50] The Friday morning it all changed: Screaming on the inside: “I cannot do this anymore.”
• [14.30] With hindsight, the point she realises she should have evaluated.
• [17.28] A book she recommends: What Colour is Your Parachute, by Richard N. Bolles. 
• [18.12] Moving in with her now-husband, merging their belonging, they used an interior decorator. Debs found herself asking: “Is this your job? I didn’t know jobs like this existed.”
• [19.40] Doing work experience at 32 years old and going back to school at Sydney Design School. Getting a part-time job.
• [20.30] Tip to work out what you might want to do: ask the people who know you well: What is it I enjoy, when do you see the sparkle in my eyes?
• [21.00] Walking away from your salary. “I didn’t have a Fuck Off Fund, if I did, I could have left earlier.” She was supported by her now husband and part-time job. 
• [24.39] Deb’s never set out to start her own business, it was just a Covid-19 opportunity that came around. 2016 was a busy year: she retrained, got engaged, married and had a baby! 
• [27.15] Birthing The Style Chapter: named because it’s a new chapter in her life and for her clients it’s a whole other chapter in moving house. 
• [27.55]  Deb’s top tips for refreshing a space: don’t just go with what’s on trend and think about how you use this space.
• [29.17] What Deb’s wishes she had known before leaving her career: I was so worried what people would think. You don’t leave a job without another job. Now I realise people don’t care.  
• [31.55] When I was waiting for my visa, I kept asking myself: “What is the reframe? I can put more money into my Fuck Off Fund and what I am learning?” (Fuck Off Fund: Glorious pot of money to give you the power back to leave your career.)
• [33.00] What Deb’s kept hearing before she quit: “Is it really that bad? Just don’t go in? But it’s really good money.”

Want to follow Debbie’s adventures? Follow her on instagram.

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

My guest today is Stacey, the owner of Stacey Dimitriou Coaching and the founder of Alpha Women Rising, a free Facebook Community celebrating female Strength, Confidence and Resilience.

Stacey previously founded and managed a successful seven figure events business for 13 years with her husband Jim, while juggling their two children. After selling Divine Events, Stacey enjoyed being a stay at home mum for seven years, and then the seven-year business itch hit! She began teaching women how to reclaim their confidence through their courage and saw the immense impact women’s empowerment has on our society as a whole.

In today’s episode we discuss the myths of being an entrepreneur, including getting to the heart of the mindset you need to be successful. We also chatted about how you create confidence and “craughing”, not to be confused with crafting.

• [3.16] Stacey’s superpower: walking away when something doesn’t work for her. I love this because my philosophy is “the happiness is in the leaving”.
• [7.07] Stacey quit and walked away from her graduate programme 20 years ago to start her chair cover business. Stacey’s husband was mortified, he could have passed out.
• [11.16] She couldn’t sew, but she bought 5,000m of fabric and started making 400 chair covers by hand. I’m going to jump into this. 
• [12.17] The trigger to sell the successful events company: They had far exceeded goals; they had two children and sacrificed a lot and when the little one was three Stacey said: “I cannot do this anymore.”
• [16.15] Entrepreneurs feed off risk. A good entrepreneur is addicted to risk.
• [17.50] The myths Stacey wants to squash about being an entrepreneur: The propaganda of how many figures, it matters how much profit you are making. 
• [20.15] Re-adjusting a current position to make it work better. Massive change is not always necessary. Look at all different options to make a change. It’s tweaking sometimes. 
• [26.40] Being an entrepreneur, the first three years, is like an apprenticeship. Being realistic and being ok with not getting it right. Look for the humour in everything.
• [27.35] The “craugh”: half laughing, half crying.
• [28.16] Whether starting a business or a new position, have at the forefront your values and how are they being fulfilled.
• [32.50] Stacey’s tips for building confidence. The small easy to follow equation. Everyone has faced a fear and observed it, looking back is what gives you the confidence to do something similar. Fear + courage = confidence.
• [34.36] Every woman is an Alpha Woman. That makes some people cringe. Someone who stands in her power, who leads. Without Alpha cannot have anything else. Find your genius zone and lead in your own life.
• [38.58] Alpha Women Rising Facebook Group if you want to talk about it and rub shoulders digitally with other Alpha Women. Diverse backgrounds, ages, work places – allowed, if they choose, to be vulnerable. Conversations around topics perhaps we cannot talk about, but in a light-hearted way.
• [40.13] Vulnerability and confidence – you cannot be in a true place of confidence without being vulnerable. Gives us credibility when we are raw and open and vulnerable. The capacity for soft and strong.

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

Do you want to negotiate flexible and remote working into the future? Have you wondered what it’s really like going out on your own – and then Covid-19 hits?

My guest today is Liam Pietzka, the founder and director of Brightbox Consulting, a recruitment agency with a focus on the Digital space, specifically Digital Creative, Digital Marketing and Digital Technology. After 6 years as General Manager of Aquent he took the leap to start his own business.

In this episode learn Liam’s tricks for negotiating flexible working arrangements with your current or future employers, Liam’s mantra to manage his mindset and how he believes empathy and human connection is what will keep driving success. 

• [4.18] Originally an actor in the West End, after missing Cardiff and “falling into” recruitment he moving across the world to Sydney. 
• [8.00] Why Liam always wanted to start his own business.
• [8.40] “Champagne and razor blades”: that’s what some people describe the recruitment industry. Liam’s doing it different, moving from transactional conversations to real consultation.
• [11.00] Work life integration and being able to design work life to spend more time with family is driving Liam’s choices.
• [12.00] Conversations between candidates and employers are changing. Flexibility used to be number four or five on most people’s lists of desires. Now it’s number one.
• [13.35] Cultural elements such as collaboration are being discussed and businesses realise, they need to manage people by outputs if they are not already.
• [16.00] Flexibility policies are now one of the first things asked about in the recruitment process. But flexibility should not be a policy, the approach itself needs flexibility as it’s different for everyone. 
• [17.30] Liam’s tips to negotiate on-going or more flexibility: focus on output and delivery. It’s a negotiation not a dictation. Aim for an open conversation.
• [19.50] Things change: you open a business, build a strategy, stick to your guns, be consistent. And then out of nowhere the world changes. How Liam has pivoted his conversations, because the problem he is solving has changed.
• [23.13] Running a company at the start of Covid-19 lockdown: it makes you learn about yourself, including your resilience and creativity.
• [23.45] Liam meditates more now than he ever has before! Mindset management: understand the triggers, recognise it and change the situation to change his perspective. It’s confronting, but we choose our experience.
• [25.52] Liam’s mantra: “You can’t try to manage the things you can’t control and if you can’t control it you need to let it go.”
• [26.40] The ideas Liam loves from Dr. Brené Brown: we have a history of making up our own stories, our own internal dialogue. That reflects how we see each ourselves as a person. We need to recognise the story to change its path. You’re the only person who can change the direction.
• [27.27] Liam’s tips for creating a work life you love:
• [29.42] We all have an individual impact. Human centred designers are building products on their own to solve specific problems linked to Covid-19. 
• [31.29] As we look to the future, employers are going to have to listen to employees more and empathy and human connection are the most important things we need. Vulnerability is one of the most powerful tools we have.

Want to follow Liam’s adventures. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

Thinking about leaving your career? Explore Build Your Freedom Fund here.

In this episode my guest is Dee Behan, a founder and creative director. Hailing from Dublin, Ireland she now calls Sydney home which she shares with her 3-year old son, Max and her husband, Paul. I think Dee is totally mastering the “portfolio career”, with fingers in lot of pies she is passionate about! She’s half of the creative duo behind Frankly Co, Make It Free, and Syster Design Studio. She’s also been appointed co-creative and experience director of sustainable fashion start-up AirRobe. Today we talk all about living an aligned life and how that doesn’t mean you are happy all the time. Creating the space you need to redesign your work life into something you really want to wake up to: Dee was working at fashion brand Camilla while creating space to spend time with her son Max and create her businesses. And we talk about Make it Free, the campaign for free childcare in Australia.

Welcome to the WEL Podcast! I’m thrilled to start sharing stories from people who have created work lives they love! In this episode I interview Pippa Corry, founder of philo & co, a circular economy consultancy. She works with design agencies and brands to help them rethink how we design and transition towards more regenerative ways of working. We talk what you do vs. how you do it. Pippa has evolved how she does it having been an employee, a freelancer and now an entrepreneur. Each of these ways of working can right depending on how much stability and variety you need at any given time. We also talk the circular economy; Exxpedition an all-female sailing voyage and even periods.