In this week's episode of The Best Guest podcast we welcome The Brain Energy Reboot Expert, Moira Newiss.

We talk about:

• Ketogenic & Metabolic Mental Health
• Mitochondria, Brain Energy & Fatigue
• Autoimmune Conditions & the Carnivore Diet

About Moira Newiss

Moira Newiss is a BANT registered nutritional therapist, health coach and accredited ketogenic metabolic therapy expert who specialises in brain energy, one of the recently discovered root causes of many mental health problems.

Moira’s passion for metabolic mental health was sparked after a 20-year career as a senior NHS manager, managing hundreds of staff and multi-million-pound budgets. Following burnout, chronic fatigue and mental illness, she retrained at the Institute for Optimum Nutrition and became fascinated by the link between energy, mood, mental health and metabolic health. 

Moira works with individuals who have conditions including depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, who have often not found a resolution with medication or psychological support alone. Her personalised approach has helped hundreds to improve their symptoms, with some achieving full remission, that means reversal, of their condition.

A regular conference speaker, Moira co-authored the first mental health guidelines for nutritional therapists and published the case report ‘Remission of Schizophrenia Using a Carnivore Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy with Nutritional Therapy Practitioner Support’.

Moira is lucky to live on the beautiful west coast of Scotland where she has a large garden, grows her own fruit and vegetables and has a lovely flock of hens. She also loves adventure, regularly climbing mountains, bike packing and hiking in remote spots on short expeditions.

Key Takeaways

For some people, shifting from glucose to ketone fuel can rapidly improve brain fog, mood, and energy.

Common keto pitfalls include undereating fat and overeating protein

Sleep, morning light, reduced evening blue light, and gentle movement support brain energy and mood.

Short-term carnivore diet can be a powerful elimination protocol to calm inflammation, heal the gut and identify food triggers.

Dairy-free keto is doable - use coconut fats, olive oil, tallow/lard, fatty fish; check labels on “milks” for hidden carbs.

QuoteI had planned to do a hundred kilometre bike ride, and I remember crossing the finishing line thinking—and I was crying ’cause it was just an emotional thing—I just knew I cracked it. I just knew the energy was there. I’d cycled a hundred kilometres with no carbohydrates.Connect with Moira Newiss

Website: https://www.moiranewiss.co.uk/ 

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/moiranewiss 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/moira-newiss/ 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@moiranewiss

Connect with Victoria Bennion

Learn more about us: https://thebestpodcastguest.co.uk/

Download our Podcast Guest Starter Kit: The Podcast Guest Starter Kit gives you a proven plan to find the right shows, craft a winning pitch, and maximise every interview. https://thebestpodcastguest.co.uk/podcast-guest-starter-kit/

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Subscribe to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@victoriabennion

Connect with Victoria on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriabennion/

Transcript

Victoria Bennion: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome. I'm your host, Victoria

Bennion, and the founder of the best podcast guest booking agency. And you're

listening to the best guest, the podcast for business owners, creatives, and

entrepreneurs who want to harness the power of podcasts to grow their platforms

and increase their visibility.

We're here to support you on your journey, bringing you

actionable tips with each episode. Now let's begin.

Today I am joined by Moira Newiss, who is a BANT registered

nutritional therapist, health coach, and accredited ketogenic metabolic therapy

expert who specializes in brain energy, one of the recently discovered root

causes of many mental health problems. Good morning Moira. Welcome to the show.

Moira Newiss:

Morning, Victoria. Thank you for having me.

Victoria Bennion: How

are you today?

Moira Newiss: I'm

good. The sun's shining here, so Yeah, I'm happy and well

Victoria Bennion:

you're very lucky. We have solid rain.

Moira Newiss: I'm

quite lucky it's not always like this on the west coast of Scotland, but [00:01:00] it's lovely today.

Victoria Bennion: Oh,

that's very nice. What a lovely part the world to live in as well.

Moira Newiss: Yeah,

absolutely.

Victoria Bennion:

When did your passion for metabolic mental health begin?

Moira Newiss: It's

been a bit of a journey for me. So this was partly going back through my own

personal health journey when I struggled with mental health and chronic

fatigue. Having been through a period of burnout when I was an NHS senior

manager. And then along the way, I kind of, I didn't know anything about

metabolic mental health to begin with, but I had to find my own way to wellness

again.

I tried various things to start with including things like deep

breathing eating better, spending time in nature, lots of different things. And

I did get a bit better, but it wasn't really until I trialed a ketogenic diet,

when I was actually starting to retrain in nutritional therapy.

That it was just like a light bulb moment. Something just

seemed to work much better. My brain fog cleared and my brain fog had been

really severe. So, you know, and I was really [00:02:00]

struggling with my, mental health. You know, I thought my family would be

better off without me. It was quite a dark place at times.

And when I tried a ketogenic diet, I discovered the power of

ketones, really, which is what happens when you begin to eat a very high fat,

low carbohydrate diet? Your body makes ketone bodies as a fuel and they can

fuel your brain just as effectively as your body. That was really when I first

discovered what I would call metabolic medicine for mental health, and then

I've gone on to specialize, and train more and learn more about it.

I became fascinated really about, about metabolic health.

Victoria Bennion:

Wow, was it hard to switch over to a ketogenic diet?

Moira Newiss: It was

a little bit of a challenge to start with. You've got to to start with, I

wasn't testing my blood, so I was doing it just by calculating what I was

eating, like looking at the macro content of the diet. So how much

carbohydrates, how much fat I was eating. Originally it was a little bit of a

challenge, finding my way through that on my own.

And then afterwards I discovered that, you could do other

things. You could, [00:03:00] you had to take

more account of protein, which I hadn't really understood to begin with. So

really a ketogenic diet is the ratio of fat to carbohydrates and protein

combined. And there are different levels of ketogenic diet, so different

ratios.

So you could be looking. A one-to-one ratio, which would be one

gram of fat for every combined one gram of fat and protein. Or you could be

looking at higher ratio, like a two to one, which is often what we're using in

metabolic mental health. And you can test your blood ketones to get an idea of

where you are actually sitting, which is something I now regularly do with all

my clients.

So I've learned as I went, what would work, what wouldn't work?

And often one of the mistakes people do make is that either they're just not

eating enough fat, because a lot of us are brought up thinking fat's bad for

you. You are worried about things like, is it gonna cause cardiovascular

disease?

So that's a concern. So people often unre the fat when they

drop the carbs, and you don't really have enough energy if you do that because

carbs don't factor your fuels. But also sometimes people overeat protein and

that actually can [00:04:00] end up just

breaking down into glucose. So you're not really using fat as a fuel again.

So there's a few things that I've learned along the way as part

of that process.

Victoria Bennion:

That's really interesting. When you say tests, is that blood tests

Moira Newiss: so, it

is usually blood testing. So usually you get a keto monitor, which will do both

blood glucose and ketones. And it's just like, you know what a diabetic would

do, torick their finger. It takes seconds to do and you get immediate feedback

on where you are in terms of the level of ketones you're producing.

There are actually some companies now beginning to produce,

continuous ketone monitors, a bit like what you see type one diabetics wearing

on their arm, like it continuous glucose monitor. And that's really fascinating

'cause then you can track it for 24 hours and see what's happening. And I've

done that trialing it, going up mountains and things like that, which is

totally fascinating.

Yeah, so, so the technology's changing and we will be getting

probably combined continuous glucose and ketone monitors in it. It, I think

this year probably we know they're being worked on as the new technology.

Victoria Bennion:

Wow, that's fascinating. [00:05:00] How quickly

after changing your diet did you see a difference?

Moira Newiss:

Quickly. Yeah, as soon as I really got into what's called ketosis. So as soon

as I was making the ketones at a reasonable level I noticed the difference. The

challenge was to keep it going because. You know, it takes a while to become

what's called fully keto adapted. So I really wanted to trial that to see what

would happen.

So I decided I would do it for three months, and at the end of

the three month period, it was I think it was, I think I'd started maybe in JI

think it must have been mid-January sometime. And I was doing up to, into

April. And at the end of that I had planned to do a hundred kilometer bike

ride.

And I remember crossing the finishing line thinking and I was

crying 'cause it was just an emotional thing. I just knew I cracked it. I just

knew the energy was there. I'd cycled a hundred kilometers with no

carbohydrates. You know, something that many people think is impossible to do

because of what we've been taught in terms of like carbohydrates are needed.

People eat pasta before they race and things like [00:06:00] this. It's not true. Obviously you can run

on fat. And I just knew I was never going back. That was it. I'd kind of

cracked it. So, so I did kind of experiment a little bit on and off after that,

but I realized pretty quickly that I felt a lot better on a ketogenic diet.

So I've been pretty ketogenic now for six years or more, so

quite a long time.

Victoria Bennion:

What do you tend to eat for meals on a ketogenic diet?

Moira Newiss: I can

tell you what I had for breakfast this morning, which was I had some bacon and

some lummi cheese, and half an avocado, a tomato. And , you can have eggs and

things like that if it's a cooked breakfast, but sometimes I'll have things

like, homemade granola with, you know, high fat coconut yogurt and berries.

For lunch I'll often just have like ham and cheese and salad

and a bit of avocado or something with a bit of extra olive oil on it. Or

sometimes leftover dinner. That's another easy option for lunch. My husband

eats very similar to me. Actually. He has an omelet nearly every day. I'm not

quite as keen on omelets, but he'll do that for lunch.

, Last night for dinner we had chicken breasts [00:07:00] that were coated in ground almonds cooked

in butter and then finished off in the oven. And we had a leak and cream cheese

sort of sauce with it. So. Yeah, with a little bit of broccoli on the side.

Yeah. So that's the kind of stuff I'm eating and probably, like most families,

we, have set things that we have quite regularly.

And some of the rest of the family will add a little bit more

carbs in. But we are quite a low carb family in general. And the odd high fat

snacks like Brazil nuts or beef jerky, cheese, things like that would be my

go-to really. And maybe strawberries and cream.

Victoria Bennion:

Sounds very nice. So now you help people who are struggling with conditions

such as depression, anxiety, bipolar and schizophrenia who haven't found

resolutions with medications alone. Can you talk about how you work with people

and the results that you've seen?

Moira Newiss:

Absolutely. So I now specialize in the area of metabolic mental health. So it

is mostly those conditions you just talked about. So a few more mental health

conditions as well [00:08:00] sometimes. And

yeah, so what I'm doing they're usually coming to me because they know I'm a

ketogenic expert in this area.

So they're coming to me because they're really, you know, often

they've tried. A lot of different medications and psychological therapy and

some things might have worked a little bit, but for whatever reason, it's

either not worked or isn't working sufficiently or well enough for them to

really be getting enough relief.

So they're often not able to hold down the job they want to

hold down or have the kind of job they'd like to have or even work at all or

struggling with relationships, all sorts of things. Not operating as they'd

like to in society, I guess, in the way that they really feel is like optimal

for them.

So they want to come and try a keto gen diet, so I'm really

guiding them as to the best way to do it. So looking at what therapeutic level

of ketosis we're gonna get them into. And that's can be based on a number of

factors, the condition that they're presenting with what they've tried before,

what's worked for them, what hasn't, the medications are on this kind of thing.

So, and what I'm helping them do is work out [00:09:00] how to get to that level of ketosis, which

often people will come and they've tried a little bit sometimes themselves, but

they've not really managed to maximize it. They've not managed to get the

ketone levels up. And what we're trying to do is get them up so that they're

over a certain sort of threshold level on a continu continuous basis, to see

what effect it has.

And people get different effects. So not everybody has a

miracle overnight effect. Sometimes that does happen. Like, you know, as soon

as people get into close, sometimes people simply feel like the light switch

has been turned on again, and they, things clear. Often. It's a few, , a few

weeks of things slowly improving.

And sometimes it takes longer than that as well. , I try and

set expectations at the beginning that , it is not always gonna be that kind

of, some of the stories you hear about that, that , are the best stories, but

they're not always the ones that happen in real life.

Sometimes it takes a little bit longer and a bit more work, and

there are other metabolic strategies that you can kind of bring in. So exercise

would be an obvious one, for example. But also I'm a huge fan of optimizing the

24 hour body clock, the circadian rhythm. But that [00:10:00]

really is very linked or untrained to our metabolism.

So things like, making sure we're sleeping properly, that we're

getting light into our eyes in the morning that we're not being exposed to

bright blue light in the evening, for example. The, these kind of things go

very much hand in hand with the ketogenic diet to optimize things.

So, we're looking at a lifestyle approach, but it's focused on

the ketogenic diet. And you asked about some examples of, what's been achieved.

So I published a case report. Just a few weeks ago that was of complete

remission of schizophrenia in a young man. And he had been hospitalized

previously on several occasions, so it was a serious mental illness and he had

learned a little bit about the ketogenic diet over the preceding few years and

had experimented a little bit but hadn't been able to sustain it or get to a

kind of steady therapeutic level.

So, I worked with him and he got. Fantastic results. And you

know, I think there's a quote in the, in, in the case study that says, that he

would rather stay [00:11:00] eating the food

he's eating now than have to go back into , a mental health institution

effectively. So. And his was a very simple diet.

It was a carnivore style diet, so basically protein and fat. So

eating things like high fat beef mince. Because he was, he didn't have a lot of

money. He was in a slightly socially disadvantaged situation. So that's one

example. And I'm actually just in the process of publishing another case

report, which is a little bit of a different one.

It's a combination of physical and mental health symptoms being

resolved. It was somebody struggling with severe panic attacks, anxiety but

also menopausal symptoms, things like hot flashes and also severe gut. Reflux.

So it was a combination, and again, that was kind of more a carnivore style

approach which often is really effective for people who do have complicated

needs.

And that was a really nice success story again because

everything calmed down. And you know, she was somebody that was doing a lot of

meditation. It was part of her job. She actually said that she experienced a

calm mind for the first time [00:12:00] ever,

really. So it can be really powerful

In this week’s episode of The Best Guest podcast, we welcome Carol Look, psychotherapist, Founding EFT Master, and author of Yes, Thank You - Tapping Into the Superpower of Gratitude. Carol explains how consistent gratitude practices can transform your brain chemistry, reduce stress, and improve sleep and emotional wellbeing. She dives into the science-backed benefits of gratitude, why we subconsciously avoid happiness, and how EFT tapping can remove deep-rooted emotional blocks that hold us back.

About Carol Look

Carol Look is a psychotherapist, Founding EFT Master, best-selling author, international speaker, and creator of The Yes Code, her signature coaching method. She combines her traditional training as a psychotherapist with clinical hypnosis and advanced applications of EFT for unprecedented results with her clients.

Known for her laser-like focus and state-of-the-art approach, Carol has used EFT Tapping for over 25 years to help clients release their limiting beliefs and emotional conflicts so they can enjoy lives of exceptional success and fulfillment.

Carol is a world-renowned EFT workshop presenter who has taught at The Omega Institute, Kripalu, The Eden Energy Fest, and the energy field’s primary teaching conference, ACEP.

Carol has taught workshops in England, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and all over the United States. She is a regularly featured energy medicine expert on leading global telesummits and in the field’s leading documentaries.

Carol authored the energy field’s original book on abundance, Attracting Abundance with EFT. Her book, The Yes Code, became a #1 Amazon bestseller in several categories, solidifying her reputation as a leading voice in personal transformation. She has just released her newest book, Yes Thank You: Tapping Into the Superpower of Gratitude.

When she’s not working, Carol enjoys spending time with her family, listening to music, and walking in nature.

Key Takeaways

• Practicing gratitude consistently can lower stress levels by 28%, improve sleep, and reduce blood pressure.
• Gratitude rewires the brain by reducing cortisol and calming the fight-or-flight response.
• We self-sabotage because it feels safer to stay small. Tapping reveals and clears these subconscious blocks.
• EFT tapping is an evidence-based technique that calms the amygdala and reduces emotional reactivity.
• Consistency and specificity are key to making both gratitude and tapping effective.

Quote“The question is never, is it good for you or not? That’s not the question. The question is, how much joy and happiness can you handle?” Carol LookMentioned in This Episode

Unlock the Yes, Thank You book portal filled with free resources to support your journey. Inside, you’ll find, nine instructional videos showing you exactly how to do tapping along with a detailed PDF guide of all the tapping points and a 30-day gratitude challenge. www.theyescode.com/thankyou

Connect with Carol Look

Website: www.carollook.com

Connect with Victoria Bennion

Learn more about us: https://thebestpodcastguest.co.uk/

Download our Podcast Guest Starter Kit: The Podcast Guest Starter Kit gives you a proven plan to find the right shows, craft a winning pitch, and maximise every interview. https://thebestpodcastguest.co.uk/podcast-guest-starter-kit/

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebestpodcastguest

Join the Best Podcast Guest Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/thebestpodcastguest

Subscribe to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@victoriabennion

Connect with Victoria on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriabennion/

Transcript

Victoria Bennion: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome. I'm your host, Victoria

Bennion, and the founder of the best podcast guest booking agency. And you're

listening to the best guest, the podcast for business owners, creatives, and

entrepreneurs who want to harness the power of podcasts to grow their platforms

and increase their visibility.

Victoria Bennion:

We're here to support you on your journey, bringing you actionable tips with

each episode. Now let's begin.

Victoria Bennion:

Today we're diving into a truly transformative conversation with our client

psychotherapist and world renowned EFT Master Carol. Look, I feel incredibly

lucky to have someone with Carol's level of expertise joining us today, not

only to explain the why behind our emotional blocks, but also to walk us

through how we can move past them.

Victoria Bennion:

Carol shares the science backed benefits of gratitude and why its so many of us

unconsciously resist happiness even when we know what's good for [00:01:00] us. But what makes this episode especially

powerful is that Carol doesn't just talk about the healing potential of EFT

tapping.

Victoria Bennion: She

gives a live demonstration with me right here on the show. And honestly, I can

say I felt a real shift. So whether you've struggled with self-sabotage,

stress, or just want to feel more grounded and joyful, this episode is one

you'll want to bookmark and revisit.

Victoria Bennion:

Hello and welcome to the podcast, Carol.

Carol Look: Thank

you, Victoria. It's great to be with you and see you this way.

Victoria Bennion:

It's really great to have you on the show, and I'm really looking forward to

talking to you about your new book.

Carol Look: Thank

you. I'm excited about it. Thank you for getting me on so many podcasts

already.

Victoria Bennion: Oh,

you are welcome. Could you begin by talking to us a little bit about the

science behind Gratitude?

Carol Look: It's

funny, so I wrote this book about gratitude. So Yes, Thank You. Tapping into

the Superpower of Gratitude, and I knew gratitude was amazing and fun, and

people feel good, but I didn't have all the [00:02:00]

statistics, so I did research. About the statistics physically and mentally and

emotionally. What it does for you when you keep a consistent gratitude

practice.

Carol Look: And it

was amazing. It was incredible. So I knew I was gonna write this book, but to

back it up with the science was really fun. For instance, it lowers your stress

levels by 28%. It lowers your risk of. Serious diseases. It lowers your

hypertension, it improves your ability to sleep, both the duration and the

depth of your sleep. I, all these things that we, I think we take for granted

and people, I think, take a gratitude list for granted, and that's part of why

I was writing the book, because people aren't consistent with it. So the

science just kept, tumbling and tumbling and showing incredible results.

Carol Look: From

people sticking to a consistent gratitude practice in blood pressure, in sleep,

in cortisol levels, it is just really quite [00:03:00]

amazing and quite exciting,

Victoria Bennion: I

never would've guessed that. Can you talk a little bit about how gratitude

rewires our brains?

Carol Look: It

rewires it in the chemicals. So the statistics are showing that what happens is

it calms down your fight or flight response and calms down your cortisol. So

cortisol is the big bad, the big bad hormone that gets triggered under stress

and duress. And when you practice a gratitude list or a gratitude practice

consistently, it starts to rewire your brain because you're sending different

chemicals.

Carol Look: So

instead of being hyper alert and instead of having your sympathetic nervous

system on all the time. We're tapping into other chemicals, other emotional

states, calming ourselves down, which of course improves sleep, lowers the

stress level, calms down the blood pressure issues and the, the hypertension [00:04:00] issues.

Carol Look: So it

rewires by literally changing the pharmacy. Changing the pharmacy in our brain.

Victoria Bennion: So

with all those benefits, why do you think it is that so many of us avoid a

gratitude practice?

Carol Look: It's so

interesting. That was part of the premise for the book is that even though I

know I didn't know the statistics, but I certainly know what's good for you. I

dabble I was doing it sometimes, not all the time, and I go through my history

personally, and then I go through as a psychotherapist for decades what I have

found that keeps people from being consistent and in my life it was.

Carol Look: My

container was too full of worry, anxiety, focusing on other people's problems,

focusing on my family. A lot was going on. That's the first reason we don't.

The second reason is when you've got a tumultuous upbringing in any way, or a

current marriage, or the kids are acting out or whatever you can develop a low

self-esteem that makes you not wanna do things for yourself.[00:05:00]

Carol Look: So the

question is never, is it good for you or not? That's not the question that has

been answered. The question is, how much joy and happiness can you handle? How

much are you willing to handle? 'cause then the third reason we don't do

something that's good for us consistently is that we sabotage ourselves because

sabotage keeps us safe. So we end up putting a lid on ourselves and our

happiness, because we don't wanna be a target. Or we don't wanna be visible or

we don't, some want someone to be envious or jealous. So we end up, crouching

down and playing small. Because when people really read the research statistics

about gratitude, like you'd be doing it every day, at least once a day.

Carol Look: So you

have to look at underneath that, the why that you're asking. Why wouldn't we?

And that's 'cause we limit ourselves. 'cause we're scared. We are wired for

safety. We're not wired for success and happiness. We're wired as human [00:06:00] beings to keep ourselves safe. So if we

stay small and play small and under the radar, a lot of people, millions and

millions of people feel safer that way.

Carol Look: And if

keeping a gratitude list consistently and really. Getting into gratitude

practices will make you healthier, happier, more joyful. At work, they did a

study about employees and what happens when gratitude, when they're, gratitude

is expressed to them by the boss. And gratitude in relationships.

Carol Look: When you

really feel better and do better and are better in your life and you show up

differently, people notice, people are gonna notice. And sometimes when people

notice your happiness level or your success level, they don't like it.

Victoria Bennion:

That's so interesting. So if you are aware that you are self-sabotaging, what

can you do?

Carol Look: So I

asked the question, my favorite questions that came from the first book that

you know about the Yes code. Ask yourself what could be the upside of [00:07:00] not being happier. So we're looking for

the upside of the problem that you, let's say they come to me as a

psychotherapist. They say, oh, I've got this problem, or, oh, I really, I'm

getting in my own way.

Carol Look: I'm

stuck, I'm procrastinating. So the question is what could be an upside of

staying stuck? People say, oh, there's no upside. There is an upside, or else

we wouldn't do it. And this is where you have to stop criticizing yourself and

just saying, oh, I'm doing this for a reason. I'm protecting myself. And then

the second question, so this is just to get the material to find out what the

real reason is. The second question is, what's the downside of incredible

success and happiness? What's the doubt? What, how does it serve you not to be

that, how does it, how, what would be a negative consequence of you being

really standing tall, feeling better, having a deeper relationship, having a

better relationship at work with your colleagues and your boss your health

improving, losing the [00:08:00] weight, all

those questions.

Carol Look: What

could be a downside to that? Because again, human beings are just about

protecting themselves and staying safe. Then what I do is, the technique that I

use is EFT tapping to reduce all these fears. It's really, it's about your

fears and your beliefs and your behaviors. So the self-sabotage behavior is

very obvious to people.

Carol Look: You do

it. I do. Everybody does it and we see it. The fears are more hidden and the

limiting beliefs are even more hidden. We don't believe we deserve more. We

don't believe that we have what it takes. We don't believe that it'll ever

happen for us, whatever they are. So asking the questions gets to the feelings,

fears, and the beliefs.

Carol Look: Then we

can work with them with a technique to calm you down and help you feel better

about this conflict you have about being happier.

Victoria Bennion:

That's brilliant. How did you come to get into the work of EFT Tapping?

Carol Look: It's so

interesting. So as I said, I'm a traditional [00:09:00]

psychotherapist and then I went into the field of hypnosis, which I love

clinical hypnosis, and someone in my hypnosis class said, you think that's fun?

You've gotta try this weird new tapping technique. This was 1999. I think it

had been around for a while, even back then and 'cause I've been doing it for

25 years.

Carol Look: I took my

first class and I was hooked. It was like watching people change their anxiety,

their fears, their anxiety, their worry, and then what happened with me, I kept

introducing it to people. So the clients who would come to me for hypnosis,

when someone comes to you for hypnosis, they come for quit smoking, weight loss

and anxiety a hundred percent of the time.

Carol Look: So I

would say to them, I, yes, you're coming here for a trance for hypnosis, and

that's a rate. I have this new self-help self, stress relief technique called

tapping called EFT Tapping. And I'd love to show it to you for five minutes,

and if you don't like it, we will never do it again. They'd say, okay.

Carol Look: [00:10:00] And I do it with them at the end. And

they'd say, what did you just, what just happened? What did you just do?

Tapping does the same thing that gratitude does, which is it calms down the

fight or flight response in your brain. So the tapping, the research has come

out now in the last decade. And decade, 15 years, 10, 15 years, and it calms

down the fight or flight response in the amygdala in your brain that goes off

under any duress, any stress, any demand, traffic, the dog barking, dropping

something, anything small or huge.

Carol Look: The fight

or flight response gets triggered and it calms it down in the brain by tapping

on these acupuncture points. So I just kept practicing with it with clients,

and then I accidentally completely changed my insomnia, completely stopped in

an insomnia. I had been in insomnia for so long that I didn't call it a

problem.

Carol Look: It's like

I didn't say, Hey, my name's Carol and I'm an insomniac. It was just part of

me, and suddenly I start not suddenly. After doing [00:11:00]

tapping for a little while, I started sleeping deeply and going, falling

asleep, stopping the monkey mind and the worrying and the anxiety that I had at

night. And I was like oh, this is, oh, this is serious.

Carol Look: This

isn't just a technique. It is a tool, right? This isn't just a technique or a

tool. This is serious anyway, and I kept up. Kept up with a head person, Gary

Craig, who created it and and just kept using it and using it in my practice

and on myself, and just so many things changed that I knew I had to stick with

it.

Victoria Bennion: So

when you start with tapping, do you have to say something as well as tapping?

How does it work?

Carol Look: So you

start with, so the most important thing with tapping is you wanna start by

choosing a very clear target. So someone comes in and says, oh, I have all

these issues, and I ask the questions, what's the upside or what's the

downside? So that we find out what the real conflict is. So then you decide,

you basically make a decision.

Carol Look: What are

we working on? Are we working on the stress that's showing up in your back? Are

we working on your resentment towards your boss? [00:12:00]

Are we working on your frustration that the kids aren't listening to you? What

are we actually working on? Cravings, I do a lot of weight loss and quit

smoking and alcoholism, and so you choose a target, then you start physically

with the tapping and it's the, it's so simple.

Carol Look: The first

part of it you say. Something about your problem. So you and the standard

phrase is, even though I have this, and you, we could say, even though I have

the stress that's showing up in my body, very simple. I deeply and completely

accept myself. People say, why would I say that? Because you're resisting the

problem.

Carol Look: You're

criticizing yourself for the problem, and at some point we have to just

holistically say, I have this problem and I'm okay. Now I work with a lot of

wall Streeters. They do not wanna say I deeply and completely love and accept

myself. It just sounds corny, but there, if the effect is to, ah, take a

breath, calm yourself down.

Carol Look: So we

start there. And then when you're tapping on the specific points that have been

chosen,

In this week's episode of The Best Guest podcast we welcome SEO expert Silvia Del Corso for a deep dive into the evolving landscape of search engine optimisation. Silvia breaks down how SEO has transformed what business owners need to focus on today and why data-driven decision-making is essential. From domain authority to the rise of AI in search, Silvia offers invaluable insights into how to stay competitive online in 2025.

About Silvia Del Corso

Silvia Del Corso is the Founder and Director of PinkSEO Ltd, an award-winning SEO agency based in West London, recognised as Creative Media Business of the Year. With over 13 years of experience in search engine optimisation, she specialises in helping business owners—especially in the medical sector—enhance their online visibility and turn website visitors into patients. Passionate about making SEO accessible, Silvia frequently speaks at industry events, sharing practical, actionable strategies that drive real results.

Key Takeaways

• Conducting an SEO audit can uncover hidden issues, like having six homepages, without the site owner knowing.
• Google trusts websites that have been around longer and have earned reputable backlinks.
• Outdated or irrelevant content can hurt your site - auditing and updating is more powerful than constant publishing.
• Learn how the rise of AI and tools like ChatGPT are reshaping how websites are ranked and how users search.
• Google's latest updates prioritize useful, current, and relevant content, especially in fields like health, finance, and law.

Quote"SEO, everything you do and you choose and you want to prove needs to be backed by a number... So from the search terms, the keywords that you choose to actually proving the results everything needs to be measurable." Silvia Del CorsoMentioned in This Episode

Google Analytics

Connect with Silvia Del Corso

Free SEO Website Audit

Complimentary audit of your site, expert SEO review and a 1-hour consultation https://pinkseo.marketing/free-seo-website-audit/

Free Webinars

Silvia runs regular free webinars to help you with your SEO. Learn more at http://pinkseo.marketing/next-webinar

Website: www.pinkseo.marketing

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/silviadelcorso/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pinkseo.marketing/

Connect with Victoria Bennion

Learn more about us: https://thebestpodcastguest.co.uk/

Download our Podcast Guest Starter Kit: The Podcast Guest Starter Kit gives you a proven plan to find the right shows, craft a winning pitch, and maximise every interview. https://thebestpodcastguest.co.uk/podcast-guest-starter-kit/

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebestpodcastguest

Join the Best Podcast Guest Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/thebestpodcastguest

Subscribe to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@victoriabennion

Connect with Victoria on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriabennion/

Transcript

SEO And What Really Matters in 2025 with Silvia Del Corso

Victoria Bennion: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome. I'm your host, Victoria

Bennion, and the founder of the best podcast guest booking agency. And you're

listening to the best guest, the podcast for business owners, creatives, and

entrepreneurs who want to harness the power of podcasts to grow their platforms

and increase their visibility.

Victoria Bennion:

We're here to support you on your journey, bringing you actionable tips with

each episode. Now let's begin.

Victoria Bennion:

Today I'm joined by Silvia Del Corso, a seasoned. SEO expert, with over 15

years of experience helping businesses decode the mysteries of Google, and stay

ahead in the ever changing world of search. In this episode, Silvia breaks down

what SEO really is, why your website might not be ranking

Victoria Bennion: and

how tools like Chat, GPT, and AI are reshaping the future of search. Whether

you are brand new to SEO or you've been working on your site for years, this

conversation is packed with practical [00:01:00]

insights from the power of domain authority. To the importance of data audits

and high quality content, get ready to rethink your digital strategy because

what worked last year won't cut it today.

Victoria Bennion:

Hello and welcome to the podcast, Silvia.

Silvia Del Corso: Hi.

Thank you so much for having me here, Victoria.

Victoria Bennion: Oh,

it's lovely to have you here today.

Victoria Bennion:

Could we begin by talking about your journey? How did you find yourself working

in SEO

Silvia Del Corso:

it's been a long journey 'cause I've been doing this job for now more than 15

years and I was initially doing it in Italy where I'm from. As you can clearly

tell from the accent, I apologize.

Victoria Bennion:

It's a great accent. Don't apologize.

Silvia Del Corso: , I

started back in Tuscany when we used to have the marketing agency and it was

different back then, but out of all the possible marketing. Sciences. That was

the one that I liked the most because it's numbers two and I can understand the

word [00:02:00] better if I see it in numbers.

If you tell me something is good, I need to understand if it's good seven or

79, if I see the number.

Silvia Del Corso: I

understand. SEO, everything you do and you choose and you want to prove needs.

To be backed by a number. So from the search terms, the keywords that you

choose to actually proving the results everything needs to be measurable. And

that's why actually it gives me confidence. 'Cause it's no opinions it's

actually data.

Silvia Del Corso: So

that's how I chose it. And it was the most complicated one at the time. So it

was more of a challenge that I'm driven by challenges. So it wasn't the time,

the one that wasn't. So easy to grasp. And it was something that wasn't usually

made by women. Because I, when I was going to the conference back then in

particular, it was a whole room all full of men.

Silvia Del Corso: And

you could [00:03:00] have to come to your women

attendees and in one hand. So it was quite exciting and new stimulating. And it

has remained. It's it still changes. It changes every day. Been more stable for

a while and now it's changing again crazily. But yeah, it's it's fun. It's

fascinating.

Victoria Bennion:

Excellent. So for anyone listening who's not quite sure what the term SEO

means, would you be able to just talk about that and why it's important?

Silvia Del Corso:

Yeah, it stands for search engine optimization, and it's the type of activities

that you do when you are working on a website to make it more easily readable

and understandable from Google and the value search engines including. AI in

search, so there are lots of. Practical activities that comprehend different

sorts of skills [00:04:00] from coding

technical content strategy and so on.

Silvia Del Corso:

Different things that you do so that your site can rank and when somebody's

searching for something if they find you instead of somebody else. It's

definitely an economic advantage so it can become more business, more clients,

more inquiries. And the nice thing for me was that it was a transferable

science.

Silvia Del Corso: So

the knowledge that I was using in Italy when I moved here to London in 2016,

it's the same 'cause Google doesn't change the way it operates in really

different country databases. Yeah.

Victoria Bennion:

That's really interesting. Okay, so if a business owner is thinking, I think I

need to do something about my SEO, I need to get my website ranking, what are

the top things that they should be looking at?

Silvia Del Corso:

First of all, you need to understand what is the current situation and what are

your goals. So there are tools to analyze a website and. We run it [00:05:00] every day regularly for respecting new

clients or people that we have a conversation with to actually the website or

scan it. It's quite enlightening sometimes 'cause we find things that the web,

the website owners would've never expected.

Silvia Del Corso: The

other day we were. Scanning a website for a friend. And I found out they've got

six home pages and they didn't know. So Yeah. 'cause they, when the site was

published, there was lots of theme content that was things that they weren't

immediately visible and they weren't connected in the navigation manual.

Silvia Del Corso:

They were just hidden. They can be found by Google and the crawl bot. So

sometimes when you do these things, you find something so you would never

expect. And I see the other person that I'm talking to, the. Like that. Trying

to understand how, but yeah, it is enlightening because if you understand

what's going on, it's if your car is making a funny [00:06:00]

noise you can ignore it, but it's better if you actually understand why and you

get it fixed.

Victoria Bennion:

Absolutely, and something I've had. Is your domain authority checking your

domain authority? Is that important?

Silvia Del Corso: It

is, that is basically when you are trusting a business. It's also called domain

trust and Google needs to have it because every second, I think the last number

is seven new websites like created. So if we are counting 1, 2, 3, we got 21

new websites just coming up and Google is.

Silvia Del Corso:

Kind of I opinionated by this amount of content and websites. And now with AI

content creation, it's only become easy and cheap for everybody to just churn

out stuff. So Google needs to understand if something is valid and they do a

little bit like you would do if somebody's recommending you.[00:07:00]

Silvia Del Corso:

Business. For example, if you're looking for an accountant, you would start

asking your friends and you might get some recommendations. And then if some

names end up repeating, like two, three people tell you the same name. If

someone who's important to you is telling you the same name as, I don't know, a

family member or friend, then this name will.

Silvia Del Corso:

Stick to your mind and you want to have a chat. And with Google, it happens the

same with so many websites to choose from. And the final goal is given the best

possible results and user experience to the Google users, then they need to

choose, and all things being equal the domain authority is the left numeric

volume and it changes.

Silvia Del Corso:

It's a kind of a little arbitrary thing because if you use three different

tools domain authority might differ. So there are some famous tools they used

by many people, but sometimes it's different. But it's done [00:08:00] by a combination of factors, which is the

age of existence of this site. Again, a new business coming up as a newcomer,

you wouldn't trust them immediately.

Silvia Del Corso: You

want to see them for a while. And Google does the same with all of these new

websites popping up every minute. They don't know 'cause many are created for

practices. They're black hat as in spamy against the guidelines. They're

created to create fake network of links. It's a spam bid practice.

Silvia Del Corso: So

Google needs to see if a website is a real thing, and at the beginning they

will intentionally keep it a little bit dampened in the ranking. So sandbox to

see are you really doing well? Is there some social signals, is there some

traffic that I can see? See, are you giving good quality? So for a wider,

they're checking you out.

Silvia Del Corso: But

if a domain has been [00:09:00] existing for a

long time then it gets so much easier to rank. After the first year, things

start to become much, much easier. Domain trust, domain authorities given

mainly by these. Time of existence and the number of back links pointing to the

site, which is all the third party websites pointing to your site with a link.

Silvia Del Corso:

It's like the recommendations that people are giving for this accountant

fictional one. So if you have accumulated lots of good quality, not spammy boat

real, I don't know. PR endorsements being featured in places being mentioned,

those backlinks, they accumulate into domain authority together with the age of

existence.

Silvia Del Corso:

Sorry if I.

Victoria Bennion: No

I wasn't aware of that about the a, the length of existence. I didn't know that

was important, so that's really interesting.

Silvia Del Corso:

That's so tricky, for example, for startups because it's [00:10:00] the sort of vicious circle when you start

and you're really eager and you really want to get off the ground. And it's.

Frustrating because these sites are not getting anywhere. 'cause domain trust

is zero and you really want to get something going.

Silvia Del Corso: So

that's one of the reasons why we do the audits is to actually keep people a bit

of realistic expectations, telling them based on what we are seeing, this is

what you to realistic exp expect, realistically expect. Expect, and people are

grateful sometimes because if you're promising them something that won't happen

it's it's a violation of their trust.

Silvia Del Corso:

Instead, even just hearing that this is something that's going to take a while.

SEO might be something they want to consider when the business is a bit more

established. It's been running for a while even because it's not something that

it just. To do and forget by nature, SEO is a sort of ongoing [00:11:00] thing.

Silvia Del Corso:

Because it's data driven. So you do things and then you need to test and

measure and see if it's improving. Otherwise, you need to change the strategy,

the approach a little bit, and then test it again. So it's not something that

you don't forget. It's better than nothing if you do it and forget. But if you

want to actually see the results and climb the, your competitors, then you need

to give it climb.

Silvia Del Corso:

People need to be explained clearly what to expect, what's yeah, realistic.

Victoria Bennion: so

how can you tell if it's beginning to work?

Silvia Del Corso: You

measure things, as I was saying, it is so important to have, even if not

everybody is as excited by numbers and as I am it, there are things that you

need to measure and usually they get. Very excited by the conversions. As in, I

don't know, we work a lot with medical [00:12:00]

practices, private medical practice owners, consultants, and so on.

Silvia Del Corso: In

that case, it's patient food fall into the clinic or if you've got an

e-commerce, it's. Safe through the site, or it can be inquiries through the

website. So that is what excites business owners usually because it's revenue

but they don't understand that it's the final step of a series of stepping

stones, and you don't get that.

Silvia Del Corso: If

you don't have the prerequisite steps, so you don't get inquiries if you

haven't generated traffic on the website. And even if you have generated

traffic on the website you cannot for tell that they will become conversions.

Because it's like when you say you can bring somebody to the you cannot make

them drink.

Silvia Del Corso: You

can make them thirsty, but you cannot make them drink. So that's it. User

experience, then kind of consideration that gets into the conversion fine.

Step, [00:13:00] but if you don't have that

traffic, it will never happen. And to get that traffic, you need another

prerequisite step, which is ranking for those keywords.

Silvia Del Corso: So

if somebody's searching for something and they can find you, you're on page.

Five. Nobody ever goes. There is a c says, if you want the safest place to hide

at dead body, it's page two or two ago. Because nobody ever goes there. But now

it's getting like first page end of the page. 'cause AI overviews, everything

is being blurted down.

Silvia Del Corso: If

you are not ranking. You can't generate that traffic at least organically from

search engine. So that's the other prerequisite steps. So you need to get your

rankings and then your traffic and then the conversions will appear. But these

are all things that you can track and measure and you need, I would say you

need to be able to become a little bit more converse, something, knowing your

numbers and tracking if you have a business, at least a little [00:14:00] bit of familiarity with your numbers is.

Silvia Del Corso:

Necessary checking. For example, Google Analytics, which is a free resource

that every website owner can have, and you just connect it to the site and it

starts tracking. And the sooner you connect it, the sooner you can start

actually accumulating historic data. It's like when you used to have the DHS

recorders, I know I sound very old.

Silvia Del Corso: If

you didn't press play, you weren't recording it, you would've lost it 'cause

you couldn't get it back on demand. You need to start...

In this week's episode we welcome transformational speaker, facilitator and author, Suzanne Roberts, to the podcast:

We talk about:

• Polarity System Design and the Essence of Energy
• Healing from Trauma through Inner Connection
• Cultivating a Neutral Mind and Accessing Self-Renewing Energy

About Suzanne Roberts

Suzanne Roberts is the Founder of UnifyingSolutions and a transformational speaker, facilitator and author with over four decades of experience guiding leaders and organizations toward sustainable, systemic change. She is the creator of Polarity System Design™- a methodology that empowers individuals and teams to reclaim their inner capacity, lead with clarity, and design cultures rooted in purpose, equity, and lasting impact.

Suzanne creates spaces where people can thrive and contribute with clarity and purpose. Her book and documentary, It’s Deeper Than That: Pathway to a Vibrant, Purposeful, Life, will premiere October, 2025.

Key Takeaways

• Your soul is the source of your life force and energy; learning to connect with it can transform how you feel and act in the world.
• We often seek outside ourselves to fix feelings of emptiness, but true fulfillment is found within.
• Trauma can be healed when we learn to hold it from a place of wholeness rather than identify with it.
• The mind is meant to be a neutral observer - developing curiosity and awareness can help it become your best friend.
• Leading from your soul can create a more humane, equitable world.

Quote“We are already whole and we're already holy, so we don't have to design it. It's already in us. We just get to return to it.” Suzanne RobertsConnect with Suzanne Roberts

Learn More About Suzanne’s Book: It’s Deeper Than That

Book a complimentary coaching call with Suzanne here

Website: unifyingsolutions.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SuzanneRobertsPolarity 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suzanneroberts3550

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanne-roberts-24273b3/

Purpose for Life Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/purpose-for-life/id1817484248

Connect with Victoria Bennion

Learn more about us: https://thebestpodcastguest.co.uk/

Download our Podcast Guest Starter Kit: The Podcast Guest Starter Kit gives you a proven plan to find the right shows, craft a winning pitch, and maximise every interview. https://thebestpodcastguest.co.uk/podcast-guest-starter-kit/

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebestpodcastguest

Join the Best Podcast Guest Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/thebestpodcastguest

Subscribe to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@victoriabennion

Connect with Victoria on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriabennion/

In this week's episode of The Best Guest Victoria Bennion chats with Andrea Isaacs, founder of the Isaacs Method of Emotional and Life Mastery. They explore ways to embody confidence, master emotions, and live purposefully.

About Andrea Isaacs

Andrea Isaacs is called a Master of Change and a Spiritual Teacher Extraordinaire. She has a passion to bring more joy to motivated, conscious, hard-working leaders who are changing the world. She is an international speaker, empowering facilitator and transformational coach.

After transforming her own painful shyness into confidence, she recognized that change CAN be easy. From shy and speechless, she became the host of her own radio show, and is now a magnetic, engaging and inspiring speaker, on stages in front of hundreds of people. Her own personal transformation taught her that she can guide others through their transformations. She has uncanny insight into what will aid each unique shift with the greatest ease for the greatest outcome. She has now changed the lives of thousands of people in over 25 countries.

Key Takeaways

Discover the Enneagram in Action – Learn how this ancient personality system can help you identify emotional patterns and unlock new strengths.

Master Your Mindset – Understand how your emotions shape your mindset—and how shifting both can improve relationships, business success, and overall life satisfaction.

Uncover Your Emotional Blueprint – Find out how Andrea’s EQ quiz reveals your personal gifts and challenges—and why knowing these can change how you show up every day.

Build Unshakeable Confidence – Learn why confidence isn’t about trying harder, but about healing old messages and rewiring your emotional responses.

The First Domino Effect – Discover how changing one key emotional habit can create a ripple effect that transforms everything from decision-making to productivity.

Embodiment Tools You Can Use – Hear how Andrea combines movement, language, and neuroscience to help clients embody their goals and purpose.

Quote"Confidence is essential in our lives. No matter who you are, no matter what you do, you're a human being on planet Earth. If you don't believe in yourself, if you don't have the confidence to speak up for yourself, you won't have the relationships, the business, the life that you want."- Andrea IsaacsMentioned in This Episode

Emotional Mastery Toolkit & EQ Quiz https://andrea-isaacs.com/eqtoolkit/

Masterclass: 3 Keys to Unshakeable Confidence: Stop Shrinking and Start Shining – Saturday, June 28th - https://go.andrea-isaacs.com/event-optin-unshakeable

Connect with Andrea Isaacs

https://andrea-isaacs.com/

Connect with Victoria Bennion

Learn more about us: https://thebestpodcastguest.co.uk/

Download our Podcast Guest Starter Kit: The Podcast Guest Starter Kit gives you a proven plan to find the right shows, craft a winning pitch, and maximise every interview. https://thebestpodcastguest.co.uk/podcast-guest-starter-kit/

Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thebestpodcastguest

Join the Best Podcast Guest Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/thebestpodcastguest

Subscribe to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@victoriabennion

Connect with Victoria on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriabennion/

Transcript

Victoria Bennion: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome. I'm your host, Victoria

Bennion, and the founder of the best podcast guest booking agency. And you're

listening to the best guest, the podcast for business owners, creatives, and

entrepreneurs who want to harness the power of podcasts to grow their platforms

and increase their visibility.

Victoria Bennion:

Hello and welcome to the podcast. Andrea, how are you today?

Andrea Isaacs: Hi,

Victoria. I'm great, thanks. How are you?

Victoria Bennion: I'm

well, thank you. It's lovely to have the chance to chat with you again. You are

the founder of the Isaacs Method of Emotional and Life Mastery. I wondered if

you could talk a little bit about your method to begin with.

Andrea Isaacs: Yeah.

Well, thank you. So I. Was a professional dancer for 25 years, and one of the

things I loved to do was to choreograph dances about people and their emotions.

And I, um, I wanted my dancers to be authentic and powerful on stage, and when

they could embody these range of [00:01:00]

emotions they were, and fast forward many years, I came across a personality

system called the Enneagram, and I wanted to learn it experientially because I

am an experiential learner.

Andrea Isaacs: And I

learned I'm not the only one. And so I used my background of embodying emotion

in order to learn the system. But what happened next really surprised me

because I had been painfully shy for my whole life, and suddenly confidence

became a part of me. And confidence is essential in our lives. No matter who

you are, no matter what you do, you're a human being.

Andrea Isaacs: I'm

planet Earth. If you don't believe in yourself, if you don't have the

confidence to speak up for yourself, you won't have the relationships, the

business, the life that you want. And my journey, the, the journey I offer

people when they wanna work with me is we'd start with emotional mastery and

then relational mastery, and then life mastery.

Andrea Isaacs: But I

realized, you know what it is about emotions. Yes. But our emotions determine

our mindset. And our mindset determines everything from the mood we're in when

we wake up in the morning. The decisions we [00:02:00]

make throughout the day and the ones we don't make, the actions we take. And

the ones we don't take the quality of everything and the mood we're in when we

put our head down at the pillow on our pillow at the end of the day.

Andrea Isaacs: And so

the work really is about having the life that you want and that is life

mastery.

Victoria Bennion: I

love that. Terms of your journey, so you were a dancer, did you become injured?

Did I read?

Andrea Isaacs: Yes. I

had a career ending injury. I fell really hard. I was, I had, I was up in the

air and I landed really hard on my tailbone and I could hardly walk for three

months and that was pretty much the end of my career. I hung in there, uh,

teaching. I couldn't perform anymore, and I realized I've gotta do something

different.

Andrea Isaacs: And,

you know, I know what it's like. Not to have a life purpose, because what had

been my purpose was taken away. It was gone. The friends I had were all in that

world. My world was all designed around the fact that I was a professional

dancer and went to every dance concert and I've traveled to see dance concerts.

Andrea Isaacs: My [00:03:00] friends were in that world. I mean, it was

my world and. It. There's just, it's not, I mean, it is hard to describe, but

anyone who's gone through it knows it's not just depressing. It's like, well,

what am I here for? What's the meaning of life? And I know what that's like. So

when I came across the Enneagram and this change happened for me, I realized,

oh.

Andrea Isaacs: It, it

didn't dawn on me. It took a while for me to realize that this is my new

purpose. It's like I want people to have, uh, to speak up for themselves, to

take a stand for who they are. To know that what you want, what you need

matters. Your gifts matter, and I believe everyone. Has a purpose no matter

what you do, who you are, what stage of life you're in.

Andrea Isaacs: Even

people who are retired, I believe they have a purpose, whether it's to be with

their grandchildren, to speak up for who they are and what they want to have

that kind of confidence. We talked about a moment ago, the way, who do you

wanna be in your day? What's your intention for how you wanna be throughout

your day?

Andrea Isaacs: That

is a good purpose. That's sufficient. So I like to say there's no judgment.

About how big or small your [00:04:00] purpose

is. Sometimes someone who has a big dream, this was told to me, oh, that's too

much. You can't do that. Who do you think you are? Boy, that deflated me. Or

there's no judgment about how small your dream is.

Andrea Isaacs: It's

like, if that's what you want, let's make that happen.

Victoria Bennion:

Brilliant. Can you talk a little bit about the Enneagram?

Andrea Isaacs: Yes.

Uh, any means nine in Greek and Gram is a diagram or, or drawing, and it is a

diagram that has three symbols, a circle, a triangle, and a six pointed star.

And each point on that star, it has a personality system associated, a

personality style associated with it, and each one has predictable gifts.

Andrea Isaacs: And

challenges, and so it's useful to know your core type, which is, which really

determines your motivation for why you are the way you are, and it determines

the way what comes easily and naturally to you and the challenges that you

have. When I discovered, especially when I created my EQ quiz, which is part of

the emotional mastery toolkit that we'll talk about later when I created my

quiz though, I realized, you know what?

Andrea Isaacs: It's [00:05:00] not just about your type because we can

see your gifts and challenges in all these nine areas. Gifts and challenges is

two, nine types is nine times two 18 areas of emotion. I can see how you show

up in this whole realm of emotion and you know, we were never taught the

language of emotion and our education.

Andrea Isaacs: And

the Enneagram, I believe, is a great introduction to the language of emotion.

And because of my background as a dancer and how I brought embodiment to the

Enneagram, there's something about the language of the body. When it's brought

together with a language of emotion, you start to know how to choose your

emotions, which as I said earlier, determines your mindset and that really

brings you to emotional mastery.

Andrea Isaacs: But

anyway, so with, um, the Enneagram. We, in my work, we embody the gifts of each

type and that gives you an expanded emotional range, expanded capacity so that

you don't have to just be a confident, decisive. You can also be the peacemaker

who takes in all points of view. You can also be a real [00:06:00] powerful caregiver.

Andrea Isaacs: And

being here of service, I could go on around, uh, the gifts and challenges of

all the types, but, uh, let me put it this way. We all need all of it. And when

we have our core type, that's not the end of learning. Because to be our best

and highest selves, which is my personal goal in life, to be my best and

highest self, no matter what happens, we need it all.

Andrea Isaacs: And to

have more of the gifts. So we expand our possible options of how we respond

when life throws us, throws us a curve ball or someone pushes our buttons. And

also to know under to understand, know, and experience the shadow. Side of each

type and there's value in the shadow because we all have one.

Andrea Isaacs: And

when we do, when we step into our shadow deliberately, and then we step out of

it, we learned that what next time it arises, oh, I have the flexibility. I

don't have to live like this. I don't have to suffer. We learned that we have

the flexibility to shift out of it, and it also applies [00:07:00] to other people when we have stepped into their shadow.

Andrea Isaacs: What I

like to call a ritual container where there are no real life consequences. When

other people are in their shadow, we know that it's their shadow. It's not

about me, it's about them being their shadow. We have a, we have better tools

for responding to other people when their shadows arise. So in terms of what

the Enneagram is, it's a great tool for understanding ourselves and others, and

it also is a doorway to our emotional mastery.

Victoria Bennion:

Hmm. Do you see more of one type of number than another with clients you work

with? Or is it like an even spread? I.

Andrea Isaacs: Uh,

not, well, it depends. Uh, when I go to the, uh, international Enneagram

conferences, I've had programs worth of 65 to a hundred people attend, and the

numbers are pretty evenly. Spread because sometimes I'll put them into type

groups and we have exercises that we do in the type groups. So sometimes the

numbers are evenly spread.

Andrea Isaacs: In

smaller programs, there are some types that don't show up as often. I could say

that sometimes types type [00:08:00] three,

which is called the achiever, they have, one of their challenges is they're

really focused on their image, how they come across. So they wanna be seen as

successful. Why do I need, why do I need to work on myself?

Andrea Isaacs: I'm

already done. Growing. I'm like, a, I've got this. And they do, they are

successful, but I believe we all have some room for growth. So sometimes they

don't show up as much. Um, some people, some types are more withdrawn, although

I would say type nine, those who know the Enneagram, know what I mean? Type

nine, who's the peacemaker?

Andrea Isaacs: They

can get along with all kind types of people. They want inner peace no matter

what. And so they'll put aside. Any conflict, any differences, any any wants or

needs because what if I, what I want or need is different than what you want or

what if you don't wanna be, do that for me. So they put it all aside, which

helps the peace between them and the other person.

Andrea Isaacs: And it

also helps going with the flow. So there's a benefit to that and they

compromise to go with the flow, and there's a benefit to that. But when they

compromise again and again, and again, and again, and again and again, they

start to feel like no one cares what I [00:09:00]

want. It's like no one even cares what I think or what I feel, and no one cares

what I want or need.

Andrea Isaacs: And

it's like I'm invisible. Like I'm not even here. So their challenge is to, um,

to learn how to embody the truth of who they are, which is that you want and

your needs matter.

Andrea Isaacs: So

actually I get a lot of them showing up in my program.

Andrea Isaacs: And

also at the end of it, when working with me, they know that their needs matter.

They can take a stand. I, I have kind of a lot of energy. Maybe you've seen

that already. Um, sometimes they're intimidated by that.

Andrea Isaacs: They

start to back off because I come across maybe like strong or powerful. I don't

know. I don't always feel that inside, but it intimidates them because they're

afraid of it. know, that brings to mind an interesting topic, which is about

power. A lot of people don't step into their power. Because they had been

exposed to power, used in a wrong or bad way, maybe even an abusive use of

power.

Andrea Isaacs: In

fact, I remember being around a lot of anger. Anger when I was young and [00:10:00] power used for the wrong way. And I

remember saying, I'll never be like that. And we have this saying, you know, we

throw the baby out with the bath water. What does that mean? It's like, well, I

threw out my confidence in favor of not being angry ever.

Andrea Isaacs: Well,

did I ever get angry? You bet I did. But I kept it down. And anybody who's ever

done that, you felt anger and you just pushed it down. I can't feel angry or

I'm a spiritual person. I don't get angry. I'm peaceful inside. Deep inside

there is anger, and the challenge of anger and power is we have to experience

it.

Andrea Isaacs: The

wrong use of it in order to know the energy of it so that we can learn how to

choose to use it in a healthy way, which is what I like to call unshakeable

confidence. And that is powerful. It's not power over, it's the power to be all

that you are. The power to be you, to be all you. That like lights me up and

that is, uh, it, it lights up your life and that is a beautiful and a right [00:11:00] use of power.

Victoria Bennion: How

can we get to the point where we have unshakeable confidence?

Andrea Isaacs: Oh, I

love that. I love that question. I love talking about it. In fact, I'm doing a

masterclass about it called the Three Keys to Unshakeable Confidence, stop

Shrinking and Start Shining. So when I look at someone's blueprint, which is

the result of your EQ quiz, I can see a combination, a unique combination of

gifts that points to your life purpose, and also a unique combination of

challenges.

Andrea Isaacs: That

have held you back from clarity about it or living it. And when we see those

blocks, we can unblock them and we there, I can talk more about that. We can

unblock them and then unshakeable confidence arises. You can't just start with,

oh, just be confident. When I was a kid, my mom said, I can't tell you how many

times.

Andrea Isaacs: Just

be confident, Andy. Just be confident. I knew in my head I wanted to be, I

certainly knew in my heart I wanted to be. But I couldn't, I didn't know how I

tried, but I just, I grew [00:12:00] tall

really early and I, people looked at me because I stood out. I was heads...

In this episode, Victoria Bennion welcomes Ciara Stockeland, speaker, author, Ironman athlete, and fractional CFO for inventory-based businesses. Ciara shares the story of how she launched her first business at 13, built and sold a subscription box company in under two years, and now empowers entrepreneurs to make sense of their numbers and reclaim financial freedom. She breaks down the most common mistakes inventory-based business owners make, how to prepare your business for exit, and why understanding your finances is the real path to freedom.

About Ciara

Ciara Stockeland, is a speaker, author, 4x Ironman and Fractional CFO for inventory based businesses.

Ciara has owned and operated a business since her early teens. As a serial entrepreneur, her business mindset and tenacity led her to opening her first store in 2006 which she then franchised. Her vast experience in both retail and wholesale industries led her to launch the first to market wholesale subscription box for boutique retailers, which she built and sold within 18 months. Most recently Ciara has launched the Inventory Genius, a consulting program for inventory-based business owners.

She has twice had the opportunity to testify before two U.S. Senate Committees regarding the “joint employer” standard for businesses and its effect on small businesses and franchises. Additionally, in 2015 she represented small businesses at a White House Summit on Worker Voice and again in 2018 for a Summit on Economics.

Ciara has been recognized as a Small Business Champion through SCORE, has held a seat on the United States Chamber of Commerce Small Business Council and is a Profit First Certified Coach. Through her consulting program, Ciara gives business owners the confidence and tools to build profitability and peace of mind in their inventory-based businesses.

In her free time Ciara enjoys training for endurance races and most recently completed her fourth Ironman at the Ironman World Championships in Kona, 2023.

She currently resides in Tennessee with her husband Jim and her Great Pyrenees Bentley.

Key Takeaways

Profit is the Priority

Building a big business doesn’t mean you’re building a profitable one. Entrepreneurs should focus on margins and cash flow not just top-line sales.

Know Your Five Numbers

Success hinges on understanding five core areas: sales, cost of goods sold, gross margin, expenses, and net profit. Mastering these leads to control and confidence.

Adaptability is Strength

Listening to your customers and pivoting from your original business idea can open unexpected doors to scalable success.

Plan to Exit Before You Want Out

The time to prepare your business for sale is not when you're ready to leave but well before, while you still have the clarity and control to make it valuable to someone else.

Tell Your Story Loudly

Whether testifying before Congress or launching a business, Ciara emphasizes the power of sharing your personal experience to drive change and connect with others.

Quote“It's not super attractive to fill out your spreadsheet and to look at your financials. It's very attractive when you have financial freedom, you write yourself a paycheck… That is what we can all get up in the morning for.” — Ciara StockelandMentioned in This Episode

Inventory Genius Book

Ciara Stockeland's Inventory Genius Method has helped hundreds of inventory based business owners create more profit and keep more cash. Get your free copy here

Connect with Ciara

Website

LinkedIn

Instagram

Facebook

YouTube

Podcast

Connect with Victoria Bennion

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Transcript

Victoria Bennion:

Hello and welcome. I'm your host, Victoria Bennion, and the founder of the best

podcast guest booking agency. And you're listening to the best guest, the

podcast for business owners, creatives, and entrepreneurs who want to harness

the power of podcasts to grow their platforms and increase their visibility.

Today, we welcome to the podcast Ciara Stockeland who is a

speaker, author, full-time Iron Man and fractional CFO for inventory based

businesses. Sierra has owned and operated a business since her early teens as a

serial entrepreneur. Her business mindset and tenacity led her to opening her

first store in 2006, which she then franchised.

Her vast experience in both retail and wholesale industries led

her to launch the first to market wholesale subscription box for boutique

retailers, which he built and [00:01:00] sold

within 18 months.

Most recently, Ciara's launched the Inventory Genius, a

consulting program for inventory based business owners.

Welcome to the podcast, Ciara. It's really great to have the

chance to chat with you today.

You started your first business as a teenager? I believe. I.

And you opened your first store in 2006, which you then franchised. Could you

talk about what attracted you to working in this space and, the lessons you

learned,

Ciara Stockeland:

Yeah, so I started my first. Formal business, if you will, when I was 13, I

hadn't set out to start a business with it, but I was from a small business

family, so it was very common in our family to find value in things or solve

problems create solutions through business. And so I. Built a theater company

for homeschool students.

I was homeschooled at the time just for fun at first, but then

started having other people come and ask if their children could be involved.

And so I built that and grew it into a formal theater [00:02:00]

acting company. We put on full length productions all through my time of.

Elementary, junior high school, college, and even into being married.

So I did that for over a decade. It was great. Learning

experience, how to balance a checkbook and how to market things and how to

provide a service. And then after I decided I was done with that business I got

married, had a couple kids, and was ready to move on. I decided that I would

like to start a retail store, so I had never worked any retail in my life but I

thought it would be a great idea to open a store, and I wanted to build a

brand.

I knew from the beginning that my idea was not to build myself

a hobby or to create a job for myself, but I really wanted to build a brand.

And so my first concept was a high-end maternity baby boutique. It was when it

was getting very popular to dress really cute when you're pregnant. The

celebrities were all buying beautiful things and so we had nothing available in

North Dakota, which is where I was from for that.

And so I opened this boutique and then, as typically happens to

small [00:03:00] business and entrepreneurs,

you start one way, but then you find your journey really weaving and winding.

And that's what happened with me as well. I opened that store six months later,

had the opportunity to open a second concept to help someone that I knew sell a

bunch of off, overpriced and off price product.

And that concept took off. Everybody loved getting a deal, and

it appealed to the masses where I was finding my maternity store, something I

hadn't thought of. That customer was a very short term customer. Because once

they had their baby, they were gone. They move on. And so I decided to merge

the two ideas and bring the outlet store into a boutique environment.

And then that's the concept that I franchised. The first lesson

I always love to share with entrepreneurs is to really listen to your customers

and don't get so set on. What you dreamed this concept or this business would

look like. 'cause often what we think is going to work is not what resonates

with the customer.

And if we stay very stubborn in like wanting it to be exactly

how we had planned, we can miss out on a lot of opportunity. [00:04:00] I.

Victoria Bennion:

That's good advice. You've also run a subscription box business, and you scaled

that very quickly and sold it.

Ciara Stockeland: So,

had the retail concept franchise that, so I had touched a lot of inventory. And

I, because I was a boutique owner, I had often gone to market. As is very

typical. You go to market as a boutique owner you shop, you buy ahead. But the

landscape of how people were buying for their small retail stores was really

changing because the internet was very popular.

Social media was coming about, everyone had online stores. And

so when I sold the franchise concept, I sold my brand to one of my franchisees

and I decided, okay, I'm going to start a new business. I'm going to do it

differently this time. There's some really hard lessons that I learned with

that first business, some of which I use all the time for my clients now,

focusing on profit, really defining your own success.

So there was these lessons I had learned, and I wanted to try

to build a new business with those lessons and build it more successfully. [00:05:00] Solve a problem, but I knew that I wanted

to sell it. I didn't want to, own and operate and build a seven figure

subscription box. I just wanted to solve a problem.

And because buying was changing and subscription box like Fab,

fit, fun, and Stitch Fix were really coming into play. I thought, what if I

could create a subscription box where I would match together wholesalers and

retailers so wholesalers could send samples to a boutique owner's doorstep. And

so instead of having to travel to market, you could find new products.

And so that's the subscription box I built. Grew that

profitably from day one built it and grew it and sold it within 18 months.

Victoria Bennion: So

with all your experience, I know you've touched on this a little bit, but what

mistakes do you see inventory based business owners making?

Ciara Stockeland:

Yeah, I think really the mistakes that I made I see happen over and over in

inventory based businesses, and the main ones being there's no focus on the

numbers. We hear a lot that we should know your numbers as a business [00:06:00] owner, but what does that actually mean?

So most business owners are very creative, right?

We can cast a vision, we can solve a problem, we can probably

sell to anyone, right? We're good at sales, but we're often not good at the

science part of our business, which is numbers, data, facts, and a lot of it's

very intimidating, right? It doesn't come naturally to us most often, and we

don't find it enjoyable.

And so what we tend to do when something is intimidating,

confusing, or not enjoyable, is we push it aside. And so what small business

owners do, which is what I did. We just keep focusing on selling and growing.

'cause that's where we're comfortable. And we think if we can sell more, we'll

solve our problems.

And then we find ourselves in debt or cashflow overwhelm,

financial stress. And so our solution to that is sell more stuff. And so we

just keep selling more and adding complexity instead of focusing on what the

numbers are actually telling us. So for all business owners, this tends to be,

a main, issue. And then for inventory based businesses in particular, if you [00:07:00] don't focus on the numbers, you really can

run into cash flow issues quickly because your inventory is such a big part of

your business. So if you don't know the numbers and you don't know how to buy

accurately and watch those inventory numbers, you can really fall into a lot of

financial stress very quickly.

I

Victoria Bennion: can

imagine. What's the biggest transformation that you see when somebody decides

to take charge of their numbers?

Ciara Stockeland:

Yeah. Oh, it's so exciting. I just love what I do. I have so many amazing

success stories, people that have worked with me. I've created a framework that

we really, we walk through with everyone, whether they make $10,000 a year or

$10 million a year.

The framework is the same, and it's to really start with

focusing on five main areas in your business. Of course the sales, but then

also our cost of goods sold. The gross margin, of course, we watch our expenses

and then we really keep an eye on our net profit. And when business owners say,

okay, I'm willing to commit to understanding what's happening with the sales, [00:08:00] to really get a handle on my margin, to

understand my expenses, and to really build for profitability, it just opens a

wide world to them.

So they might come to me with a lot of debt. And if we can get

those five things. Figured out under control and really put together in a very

simple and cohesive way, we can start to make progress going forward because

now we have something to focus on.

Victoria Bennion: And

having control of your numbers is really important if you are building a

business that you want to sell.

Ciara Stockeland:

Yes, absolutely.

Victoria Bennion: How

do you determine when is the right time to exit a business?

Ciara Stockeland:

Yeah. It's funny 'cause a lot of people, most people that come are very

financially stressed. And so if I could just close my business, if I could just

walk away, like they're just tired of their business, they're overwhelmed,

they're very resentful, they haven't been taking a paycheck.

And so the idea is I just wanna close shop and walk away, but

I'm stuck. I can't. And so as we look at those five areas our sales are, gross

margin, cost of goods sold, all of those things I just talked through [00:09:00] and start to create a plan for

profitability. It gives us the opportunity then to say maybe we will grow and

scale.

Maybe we will close some of our locations, or maybe we will

sell. I think if you're interested in selling your business you want to make

sure that your numbers are in order, that you have good clean financials, and

that you're as profitable as can be starting today. So if you're looking at,

Hey, five years from now I'd love to be able to sell this, then start working

on the financials today.

If you're feeling like you're really overwhelmed, in fact, I

had a client I just talked to yesterday. She said, I'd love to just be done.

I'm so stressed, I wanna just be done. And so she put her business up for sale.

No one's interested, no one's been biting. So she's I'm stuck now. I wanna sell

it.

There's no one interested. I can't just walk away 'cause I have

a lease. What should I do? I don't know the numbers. Should I even invest in

that? And I said, here's the thing, whether you sell it or whether you keep it,

we still need to get that foundation correct. So I said, let's start today. [00:10:00] Focusing on getting those numbers cleaned

up.

And if someone comes along and is ready to and willing to buy

it, your business is gonna look even better. Or you might find that once your

finances are under control, it's actually not as burdensome as you're thinking

it is, and you might wanna just keep it. And so either way, we wanna focus on

the financials.

Victoria Bennion: Are

there clients that you tend to work with? Do they have physical stores on the

whole, ?

Ciara Stockeland:

Yeah, so when I started this work, it was really with a lot of physical stores

and a lot of boutiques. But now I work with all inventory based businesses. I

just had someone sign up that has a pet store.

I have a food retailer and wholesaler a jewelry maker, a

skincare distributor and then a lot of brick and mortar. So it's really all

over. There's makers, there's designers, wholesalers, e-comm stores, and

there's brick and mortars. It's just a vast array of anyone and everyone that

sells items.

, It's

Victoria Bennion: the

same kind of principles that. You are applying with either what kind of stage

are business owners at usually [00:11:00] when

they come to you? You mentioned some are done.

Ciara Stockeland:

Yes. Ready to be done. Or feeling like that's their only option?

I really work with. Businesses typically that are doing between

500 and let's say 1.5 million in top line revenue. That tends to be the sweet

spot for when they are ready to really dig in and do the work. A lot of times

before we hit that proof of concept we're just trying a lot of things, but when

you get to that place where, okay, I'm making half a million a year. I have a

couple loans. I have a lease. This is serious. I have to figure it out.

Typically, someone of that size might have one or two people working for them.

So you're starting to build a, build your team. But I have worked before with

people that are just starting out, and I have one client that's been in

business for 29 years.

So she doesn't have any debt. She just wants to understand her

numbers better, right? Because business is getting more and more expensive to

run and operate. Payroll costs are crazy. The cost of inventory's crazy. And so

she said,...

In this week's episode of The Best Guest podcast we welcome presentation coach and Head of Ideas on Stage UK, Andrea Pacini.

We talk about:

• The #1 communication mistake
• The SCORE method for creating memorable presentations
• Simple design tips to avoid “Death by PowerPoint”
• How to use AI without losing your authentic voice

About Andrea Pacini

Andrea Pacini is the author of the highly commended book ‘Confident Presenter’, a presentation coach and Head of Ideas on Stage UK. He specialises in working with business owners, leaders and their teams who want to become more confident presenters. Since 2010 Ideas on Stage has worked with thousands of clients around the world, including organisations like Microsoft, Spotify, eBay, The World Bank and over 500 TEDx speakers. In 2024 Ideas on Stage was named Best Presentation Skills Training Specialist in the UK by Corporate Vision. Andrea himself has also been awarded Best Virtual Speaker 2024 in The Speaker Awards. Andrea is on a mission to stop great ideas from failing just because of the way they are presented. His vision is to help hundreds of thousands of business leaders inspire their audiences, increase their influence, and make a positive impact in the world.

Key Takeaways

• The best presenters rehearse out loud not just in their heads
• Effective communication is all about your audience, not you
• Slides should support your message, not be your message
• Use simple language to increase credibility and connection
• The goal isn’t to eliminate nerves, it’s to get comfortable with them
• Aim for the best authentic version of yourself not for perfection
• Use AI as a support tool, not a replacement for human connection

Quote“Your journey towards becoming the most comfortable and most confident presenter you can be is a journey of a thousand presentations.” – Andrea PaciniConnect with Andrea Pacini

Website

LinkedIn

Learn more about the Confident Presenter book: https://amzn.eu/d/bKswMEe

To make the most of the book, take the Confident Presenter Scorecard to assess you presentation skills in less than 3 minutes, for free: https://ideasonstage.com/score

Attend the next Ideas on Stage web class here: https://www.ideasonstage.com/uk/masterclass

Connect with Victoria Bennion

Learn more about us: https://thebestpodcastguest.co.uk/

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In this week's episode of The Best Guest Podcast, we welcome Ryan Lisk, founder of Hybrid Legal. Ryan shares his journey from launching a law firm in his early twenties to revolutionising legal services with a subscription model.

We talk about:

• The importance of having clear business contracts and avoiding common legal pitfalls
• How AI is impacting business operations and the legal risks you need to be aware of
• Key legal considerations when hiring freelancers and protecting intellectual property

This episode will equip you with essential legal knowledge to protect your business.

About Ryan Lisk

At just 21 years old Ryan Lisk took the leap and founded his own law firm, determined to make legal services more accessible, transparent, and business-friendly. Now, as the founder of Hybrid Legal, he helps UK businesses navigate complex legal challenges with practical, cost-effective solutions.

As a law student helping a startup with legal issues Ryan quickly realised how inaccessible legal support was for small businesses. Instead of following the traditional law firm model, he founded Hybrid Legal to focus on clear, fixed-fee pricing and straightforward legal advice - no jargon, no hidden costs with a flexible subscription model.

Ryan has worked with startups, growing businesses, and well-known brands to protect their interests and simplify legal complexities. Through founding his own law firm, Ryan has experienced the highs and lows of running a business and knows what it takes to start a business from scratch and scale it to 7 figures.

When he’s not at work, Ryan can be found running around after his 1 year old daughter and crazy Hungarian Vizsla. He’s also learning the martial art of 8 limbs, Muay Thai, where he is constantly humbled by teenagers in the class.

Key Takeaways

• A handshake isn’t enough - formal contracts protect both parties and prevent costly disputes.
• AI is transforming business, but it also brings legal risks - understand how your data is being used.
• Subscription-based legal services provide cost-effective and transparent solutions for businesses.
• Website compliance matters - ensure your privacy policies and terms of use align with GDPR.
• Hiring freelancers? Secure intellectual property rights and confidentiality agreements in writing.
• Shareholders’ agreements are essential for business stability - plan for future challenges now.

Quote"Go careful with putting intellectual property into AI and relying on what comes out of it to be your own IP. That’s murky ground at the moment."Connect with Ryan Lisk

Learn more about Hybrid Legal: https://www.hybridlegal.co.uk

Connect with Ryan Lisk on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlisk

Sign up to the Hybrid Legal Loop for free legal insights.

Connect with Victoria Bennion

Learn more about us: https://thebestpodcastguest.co.uk/

Download our checklist: How to be an Excellent Podcast Guest https://thebestpodcastguest.co.uk/checklist/

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Connect with Victoria on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriabennion/

In this week's episode of The Best Guest podcast we welcome 5x Bestselling author and the founder of Thought Leader Academy, Sara Connell.

We talk about:

• The doors a book can open—media, speaking, TEDx, and more
• The confidence gap and how it holds women back financially
• How visibility and thought leadership are shifting in 2025—and what you need to do now

About Sara

Sara Connell is a 5x Bestselling author and the founder of Thought Leader Academy where she helps coaches, experts and entrepreneurs scale impact + create 6-7 figures by becoming bestselling authors and in demand/TEDx speakers. 

She has been featured on/in Oprah, The New York Times, Good Morning America, TODAY, Forbes, Entrepreneur and TEDx. Her books have been nominated for a National Book Award and Elle Magazine book of the year.

Key Takeaways

• A book isn’t just about book sales—it’s a credibility multiplier that makes you the go-to expert in your field.
• Trust is the currency of 2025—and writing a book builds instant authority in just 1.8 seconds.
• Podcast hosts and event organizers prioritize authors—having a book increases your chances of being booked by 80%.
• High-ticket offers (coaching, courses, speaking) are the key to turning a book into a profitable business.
• Visibility is more important than ever—showing up in multiple places consistently builds trust and drives business growth.
• If you don’t already have the financial success you want, there’s likely a subconscious money block—and you can rewrite that mindset.

Quote"The desire to write a book is the permission slip—you don’t need anyone to tell you you’re allowed. That book will open doors, build trust, and change lives—including your own."Mentioned in This Episode

Holy Hunger by Margaret Bullitt-Jonas – the book that changed Sara’s life

Simon Sinek’s TED Talk: Start with Why

The concept of ZMOT (Zero Moment of Truth) – why people buy from those they see consistently

Connect with Sara

Website: https://www.saraconnell.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saraconnellauthorspeakercoach/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saraconnell/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/saracconnellauthor

Connect with Victoria Bennion

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In this episode of The Best Guest, I talk to seasoned sales strategist Becky Davidson about mastering the art of selling. Becky shares her five-phase framework for moving prospects from awareness to decision, the importance of emotional and logical selling, and how entrepreneurs can boost their close rates.

We talk about:

• The five phases every prospect goes through in sales.
• How to build trust and create a buying atmosphere.
• Why mastering sales is essential for entrepreneurs.

About Becky Davidson

Becky Davidson is a seasoned sales strategist with over 40 years and 80,000+ hours of experience in the art of selling. As the creator of the K.I.S.S. Strategy (Keep It Simple Sales), she has distilled her expertise into a powerful system that doubles close rates.

A graduate of the Dale Carnegie Course, where she was selected as a Graduate Assistant Trainer, Becky has honed her skills in leading conversations towards decisions.

With two decades of coaching experience, Becky has developed a comprehensive roadmap for taking prospects from cold to sold. Her approach focuses on creating genuine interest, qualifying opportunities, building trust, and facilitating natural, resistance-free closes. Becky's training philosophy emphasizes simplicity and equips professionals with tactical skills for unshakable confidence.

Through private coaching and group intensives, Becky partners with solopreneurs and sales professionals to shatter income plateaus. Her clients consistently report surges in close rates and increased sales confidence. Becky's K.I.S.S. method has led to remarkable success stories, including a struggling rep who achieved a 100% close rate after implementation.

Key Takeaways

• The Five Phases of Sales: Awareness, Interest, Conviction, Desire, and Decision—understanding these helps guide prospects from cold to sold.
• Building Trust: Establishing credibility through stories, experience, and showcasing expertise helps prospects feel confident in their decision.
• Creating a Buying Atmosphere: Setting expectations at the start of a conversation can make closing a deal much smoother.
• Sales is a Learnable Skill: Many entrepreneurs struggle with sales because they’ve never been formally trained—investing in sales training can transform results.
• Selling is Serving: If you can’t sell, you can’t serve—developing strong sales skills helps you help more people.
• The Power of Questions: Asking the right questions at the right time helps guide prospects to their own decision.
• Marketing vs. Sales: Marketing generates leads, but it's the sales process that converts them into paying clients.
• Entrepreneurs Need Sales Skills: Even if you’re great at what you do, without sales skills, your business won’t thrive.

Quote"If you can't sell, you can't serve." – Becky DavidsonConnect with Becky Davidson

Website

Connect on LinkedIn

Free Resource: Becky offers a free guide with 50+ ways to attract leads, plus a complimentary 45-minute sales strategy session Join Becky's Facebook Group to access the resource.

Connect with Victoria Bennion

Learn more about us: https://thebestpodcastguest.co.uk/

Download our checklist: How to be an Excellent Podcast Guest https://thebestpodcastguest.co.uk/checklist/

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Join the Best Podcast Guest Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/thebestpodcastguest

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