Your Dream Business

By Teresa Heath-WareingBusiness Entrepreneurship Marketing

Your Dream Business episodes

March 25, 2024Re-defining Productivity and Reducing Overwhelm: Strategies for Success with Louise Miller
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Louise Miller, where we are talking all about a new, human-first definition of productivity, and how business owners who struggle with procrastination and self-sabotage can overcome this to take action in their business.
In this episode, Louise shares some incredibly useful practical tips and advice, including her treehouse analogy, that she passionately believes is your fastest route to success.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
The re-definition of productivity that all business owners need to embrace

How to balance productivity with maintaining self care

Why productivity actually happens before you take any action

Louise is a productivity mentor, the founder of Make It Happen Club and host of the Unfrazzle podcast; and she is on a mission to change the world by helping her clients change the world.
Described by her clients as a soothing balm and a magician, her experience of work-related stress and anxiety led her to develop a slower, more mindful approach to productivity, which she uses to help her clients get the important things done.
If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to iTunes and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Download Louise's 5 Step Guide To Go From Frantic and Frazzled to Focus and Flow
Tune in to Unfrazzled, Louise's podcast
Connect with Louise on LinkedIn
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook

Transcript
Teresa: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. How are you doing this week? I hope you are good. Okay. So this week I have an interview and as I was prepping and reading, when someone comes to an interview with me, I get them to fill in a form. And in that form, They tell me, you know, various things about what's important or what we can talk about, what questions I can ask and all that jazz.
And the way this guest filled out the form and the details she gave does not surprise me one little bit when it comes to what she does, because it was an excellent, it's making my life very easy, which as you will find out in this episode. That is her job and she does it brilliantly. So today I am interviewing Louise Miller and she is on a mission mission to change the world by helping her clients change the world.
She partners with coaches, consultants, and community community builders who have a big exciting vision, helping them land their ideas into reality. She's reaching more people and making a bigger impact whilst take caring of everything they're juggling day to day. Cause as we all know, as business owners, We are not just running our businesses.
If only that's the easy bit and being kind to themselves along the ways. Louise is a productivity mentor and the founder of the make it happen club, and also the host of unfrazzled podcast. Louise has also been working with me for the last month or so. So I am very excited to welcome her to the podcast today. Welcome Louise.
Louise: Thank you for having me, Teresa. And I'm glad that form made your life easier. That's made me very happy as well.
Teresa: Well, do you know what's so funny? And I'm just going to have a look on my Asana form to see when this episode. Okay. So an episode hasn't come out yet by the time yours comes out, but it was with another guest.
And when I said, what questions could I ask you? Because that's one of the form questions. This person said, Question one, why are you so charming and incredibly good looking and modest? As in for me to ask him that question, right? And obviously he was joking, but the thing was, although he's joking, he actually didn't write any questions I'd ask him.
So yes, the way you wrote yours, where you not only said, these are the questions you could ask, but this is, What you're going to be covering for that question was excellent. So thanks.
Louise: You're welcome. Thank you for having me. If I didn't already say that.
Teresa: Well, yeah, I completely digressed as we do. So Louise, we have had a conversation about what you do and we have, and I liked seeing that you put yourself down as a productivity mentor because I do think that's a really good description of what you do.
And we had a conversation about actually how difficult it is to explain what you do and how you do it, but what is even more. I guess interesting at this point is how did you get to do that? So let's talk about how you got to do what you do and what it is that you do today.
Louise: Yeah. Okay. So I'll try and cut a long story short.
Basically back in 2015, I was absolutely run ragged. I was, I was that person, you know, if you need something doing, give it to a busy person. That was me for 15 years. And I got to a point in 2015 where work related stress and anxiety had really got its claws in. And as a result of that, my GP signed me off sick, which was actually the best thing that could have happened because it gave me some space to actually think about what I was going to do next.
And I decided at that point, I wasn't going to just keep bouncing from job to job. I was going to take a step back and figure out what on earth I wanted to do, so I handed in my notice knowing that I wasn't going to get another job and very much excited to strike out on my own. And then I had an existential crisis because what I realized was that my strengths, which are very much around helping people to focus, helping people get stuff done, I'm very naturally organized and efficient, but all of that felt in really deep conflict with my realization that actually there is more to life than getting stuff done.
And I didn't want to feed that narrative that really damaging narrative that made me ill, which is that our self worth is tied up in our productivity because I'd been running around like headless chicken for 15 years, waiting for somebody to lean over and go, it's all right, Louise. You've done everything now.
Yeah. Have a rest. That's never going to happen. So on the one hand, I knew these are my gifts. These are my strengths. This is what I know I can help people with. And on the other hand, I'm going, but I know how damaging that can be. And on the third hand, I also knew that small business owners, particularly people who are really comfortable in their right brain kind of space of creativity and ideas, which is a lot of small business owners, that's why they go into business because there's loads of things they want to do.
They actually needed my left brain to help them to get their work actually out into the world. So it wasn't just forever rattling around in their heads or stuck in notebooks. So I knew that I wanted to support those people, but before I actually felt comfortable doing that, I first needed to change the way that we think about productivity.
And so I redefined it firstly for myself. And then secondly, for everyone else. And I've been sharing this new definition for years now. So in my definition, productivity is not about doing more in less time and cramming more and more in. So that we can just keep doing more doing. For me, productivity is about doing what's important as efficiently as you can, so that you can create space for what you love, not so you can create space to do more doing so that we can actually enjoy the journey.
And, you know, I'm not here for the hustle. I'm here to enjoy the journey, hence the creating space bit, not the cramming more and more doing. So. For me, I know it's not about trying to do all the things, but about doing the things which are going to make the biggest impact. And sometimes the thing that would make the biggest impact is rest or fun.
Yeah. And so, you know, you mentioned earlier about make it happen club, which is a space where we gather together and I guide planning. And a very big part of that is me reminding people to protect space for fun and for rest, because those are the things that are going to keep them moving forward. And the other really key thing, actually, I think particularly working with my private clients is that it's not only about the stuff that they're getting done.
It's about how they're feeling around what they're doing. And one of my clients I'm working with at the moment. The last, the most recent school holidays were the first time in her seven years of running business that she'd been able to completely switch off without feeling guilty, knowing that she'd done everything she wanted to do. And to me and to her, that's a huge win. Yeah.
Teresa: And that's the thing, like, Otherwise, what are you being productive for? Why are you, you know, why are you getting all this work done, hustling in this way, trying to achieve all these things just to then do the next thing? And, and, you know, and I know we can't do that.
We can't live like that. We can't carry on like that. And, and sometimes you need that person to look to. at what you're doing to go, hang on a minute, you need to just slow down or calm down or stop a second or breathe or whatever those things are. So yeah. So did you start your business as this?
Louise: No, no. Great question. No, I started out as a VA. So I knew I wanted a transition that would feel quite easy, which I don't know why I thought that felt easy, but actually I think I was incredibly lucky that when I started, I made a very good contact very early on and I got fully booked very quickly, which actually gave me a full sense of full sense of security.
But I became very fully booked very quickly as a VA, always knowing that wasn't the thing. And I noticed working with as many clients as I did during that time, that they were all struggling with the thing that comes really easily to me, which is the figuring out what to do, what order to do things in, what's most important, what can wait, how much time and energy have you got, how are you going to manage all of that?
So when I realized that the VA thing wasn't what I wanted to be doing, really, I then I created a few courses to teach people productivity. I designed a mentoring program to teach people productivity. And again, very quickly realized, actually, this is not it either, because yes, I can teach you how to manage your time and, you know, all these various things that lots of people out there are teaching people.
But what I realized for me and for my clients, where I give most value is when I'm actually in the trenches with them. So it's not this kind of theoretical, here's a way of managing your diary. It's more of a, okay, what have you gone? Yeah. How are you feeling? Yeah. You know, what's on your plate. Let's figure out how you're going to manage that.
Because I think otherwise with the best will in the world, people just go back to their default patterns. They nod along and learn and listen to what you're saying. And it makes sense, but it's really hard not to just bounce back to your default when you've not got that person on your shoulder.
Teresa: So, and even when you try it and you know, it works and we do know it works like we're not stupid, you know, the, the reason there are all these productivity things out there is because they work when you do them.
But like you said, you know, we have trod a, path in our brain a certain way for a long time. And we are trying to then step off that path and try a new one. And when we do it, you're like, yeah, this works. This is good. Except keeping that up is really hard work. And we will by nature, just drop back onto that other path.
And then we'll beat ourselves up and go, Oh, I can't do it. This is awful. This is, you know, when that isn't the case. Like some people had, I have someone in my world, which actually would be fascinating for you to work with her because she, and she'll know who I'm talking about her, but she used to come to me to every coaching that we did and go, I'm just not organized enough.
I need to get more organized, need to get more organized, need to get more organized. And we, She was physically fighting with herself, trying to get more organized and was beating herself around the head every other minute. Why am I not organized? Can't believe I need to do more. And everything stopped for that.
You know, it was almost like that. This was the dream that if she could get more organized and suddenly the business would be better, this would be different. This would be, you know, she would be different. And it got to a point when I said to her, maybe you're just not organized. Maybe that just isn't you.
So stop trying to fight it. Stop trying to, you know, and you've said yourself, like, you know, left brain and right brain, right? Some people are just way more creative. So don't, and there's that great quote that I put up on Instagram once and Instagram told me it was fake. So deleted it, which was hilarious because I think it's, was it from, I don't know who the hell it was from, but basically it's like, if you, measure the ability of a, Oh God, what is it?
What is it? What is it? What is it?
Louise: Is it the thing about judging a fish by whether it can climb a tree?
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing. That's the point I was trying to get to her. Like if you're, why are you trying to make yourself something you're not? So stop saying it, stop trying to get organized. Just be like, kind to yourself of actually, this is the way I work and this just has to do.
So yeah, so not everybody's like that. I just completely digressed then and pulled us back from somewhere. But so yeah, you started VA, you changed over to this and started doing this. Now, one of the things that we struggled with is how do we describe what you do? Because you, you and I had a call last year.
So this comes out in March 23. We had March 24. We had a call end of the year 23. And you said to me, this is what I do. And I said, I think I've been looking for someone like you, but I was looking for the term coach and we, and when I said to you productivity coach, both of us went, no, don't like it. Like that doesn't sound good, but it trying to find that word.
So talk and I don't mind you using me as an example at all, but tell us what you do for me.
Louise: Yeah. Okay. So I think the reason that the word coach makes us both want to vomit a little bit in this context is because If people are thinking about true coaching, it's the whole asking the questions because you have the answers and I just need to get those answers out of you.
Yes. That is not what I do. What I do is very hands on and very practical. So I will just talk people through what happens in a 90 minute session. I think that's probably the easiest thing. So first thing we do is we celebrate because people don't do that often enough. They don't notice what they've achieved.
therefore spend the whole time feeling like they're behind, failing, haven't done as well as they wanted to. So we have to acknowledge the good things that have happened. So we do that. Then we look back at vision and goals to make sure that we are, you know, the client and me are connected in with that big picture, what it is that you're trying to achieve and how you're going to get there.
And I make sure that that is a proper kind of check in. It's not just a quick, let's glance at it. It's spoken so that we can really embody and feel it really strongly because I think it's quite easy to go, Oh, I know what my vision and my goals are and not fully embody them. So we spend a couple of minutes on that.
Then we'd have a look at capacity. So we'd be like, okay, so what is coming up? What have you got in your diary? How much time do you actually have? How are you feeling?
Teresa: Because the last time we did this, I was like, Oh my God, I haven't got any.
Louise: Yeah. I know you'd be amazed. Well, maybe you wouldn't be amazed how many people do their planning without actually looking at that.
And then they write a big old long list without realizing they actually have very little time. And with that part of the process. You know, I talk about that as checking capacity. Capacity is not just about your time. It's about your energy. And if you can see in your calendar, you've got a really full week with lots of calls and lots of outward facing stuff, and you know, that's going to exhaust you, trying to cram a lot more stuff into that week.
Again, it's not going to end well. So it's a time and energy kind of conversation. And then it's okay. Let's look at the specifics of what it is you're actually going to do this month. So we'll get really into the weeds and into the nitty gritty about these are the goals you've got. Maybe there was some deadline.
So for you, you know, there's the summit and all this kind of stuff that we're in the process of organizing right now. So it's looking at all of the moving parts for those things and going, right, what needs to happen this month? and what kind of order do we need to do those in and then where it feels appropriate.
Okay, so when are you going to do those? And let's see if we can protect some time to make sure you are not finding that that time's being stolen away by something else. Cause if we don't protect the time something else will come and take it away from you. Yeah. And we, we spend 90 minutes on that. And I think that is the key because for a lot of people, if they're doing planning, they'll go, Oh, I just need 10 minutes.
Yeah. Just grab a sheet of paper and go, these are the things I'm going to do, crack on. Yeah. And it's, and then they wonder why it doesn't work out because it does take this time and space. Yeah. And really dive in. Yeah.
Teresa: And without trying to sound rude, cause you definitely know this is not how I mean it, it sounds so incredibly simple and because it sounds so incredibly simple, people will sit there and think.
Why the hell do I need that, right? And take someone like me. So I use my full focus planner. I plan my weeks. I'm very good at that. Like I do a lot of the things. I do the goal setting. I review my goals. I review every week, like I do all of that stuff. But there is something so very different about having someone who isn't you doing the stuff because.
When it's you, you're not just thinking, I've got this thing to do. You've got a million other thoughts going around your head. So even if you do do all those things, which I do and did, I still can't step out of my head to make it all clear. But also someone who can look at your space, your...
46 min
March 18, 2024How to build a business that thrives whilst living with chronic illness
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Nikita Williams, where we are talking all about how to run a successful business whilst living with a chronic illness.
In this episode, Nikita shares her own personal experiences of living with chronic illness and how she found alignment and capacity through business ownership and personal growth.
Nikita shares some incredibly valuable tips and strategies to help anyone else living with a chronic illness to not only manage every day tasks, but also to run a business that thrives.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
How to stay productive when dealing with brain fog

How to approach decision making whilst managing flares

The power of finding strength in accepting life with chronic illness

Nikita is an award-winning Business and Mindset coach, Certified Professional Aromatherapist, speaker, and host of the top-ranking global podcast Crafted to Thrive.
She aims to help all entrepreneur women - especially those with chronic illnesses - share their stories and empower them to use those stories as fuel so they can be successful, create the life they deserve, and, most importantly, thrive.
If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to iTunes and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Nikita on Instagram
Listen to Nikita's podcast, Crafted to Thrive
Find out more about working with Nikita
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook
Transcript
Teresa: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. I hope you are doing well. So, this week I have an interview with the very lovely Nikita Williams, who is an award-winning business and mindset coach, certified professional, aromatherapist, speaker, and host of Top ranked Global podcast, Crafted to Thrive, which I've been a guest on a long time ago.
She's been featured on Rising Title and the Jasmine Star Show, which I'd just picked her brain to find out how. And she was diagnosed with endometriosis back in 2009. Fibromyalgia in 2010. These diagnoses inspired her to use her previous entrepreneur, community and corporate experience to jumpstart her career as a business coach.
She aims to help entrepreneurial women, women. I am terrible at reading these things. You know, I am a lovely listener, especially those in chronic illnesses. I think I must've had something when I was a kid, like someone must've scared me when reading out loud because I do not like it and she shares their stories and empower them to use their stories.
So, as fuel so they can be successful, create a life they deserve, and most importantly, thrive. Well, I've done a terrible job of doing her bio. The interview will be so much better. Nikita, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?
Nikita: I am doing great, Teresa. It's okay. I am the same way.
Teresa: I hate reading. Like I know some business owners and some podcasters Literally script their podcast. Mm. Could you imagine?
Nikita: I can't. I can't do it. I have clients that do the same and I think it, it's a miracle that they can, I would lose my head.
Teresa: Literally no idea. As you saw, I literally had a very well written bio to read and I couldn't even read that. So. Can you imagine an entire podcast of me trying to read?
But anyway, anyway, anyway, Nikita do a much better job than I have done. And please introduce yourself. We always start by you sharing how you got to do what you're doing today.
Nikita: Thank you so much for having me on, Teresa. So I've been living with chronic illness for now 15 and a half years. And over those 15 and a half years, endometriosis and fibromyalgia were my first like, diagnoses, but there's more ever since then.
And most women who live with chronic illness know that you usually don't just have one. The average is three or more. And let's just say we're, we're kind of over that number, but I have come to this world of finding alignment and capacity through living with chronic illness. It has been a huge part of my life.
Thriving for me, living and enjoying life. When you have a constant fear and challenge of uncertainty, you find reasons to find as much alignment in your life so that you can enjoy it and, you know, have those beautiful moments. And that's definitely been my journey as a business owner as well as just a human being.
So that is in its nutshell that that began, honestly, with my podcast. When I had my podcast, I started my podcast literally after having a hysterectomy and having some complications afterwards. And I started that healing journey to finding more alignment in my life by embracing what I love, which was people and helping them.
Teresa: I, this is such a great topic for today because this has been coming up in my world just very recently and the universe has done its thing and brought you to me at the right time because I was having a conversation with someone earlier about, well, in fact, two conversations happened today. One happened this morning that was very much along the lines of someone who was letting things get in their way that really shouldn't get in their way.
And they were already going, Oh, I can't do that because of this. And, Oh, I can't do that because this is coming up almost like, you know, self fulfilling prophecy. And then the second person I spoke to had some really big, massive stuff in their world. And we're like, Am I just making excuses? Should I just keep pushing forward?
Like, why does this stuff, how do I run a business when this stuff seems to be coming up all the time? So I'm really, really kind of excited to get into this conversation because I think I tend to. I'm on the side of, I just crack on. Okay. Which is not always the best thing to do. And I've had to learn how to slow down and stop a bit and, and just do the bare minimum.
And that this like a million questions, I haven't even given you one, but in my head, like it's like this conversation, we'll just stop. But first off, how do you create a business that enables you to give yourself the time and space that you need without being inconsistent, letting people down, not showing up?
Nikita: Yeah, great question. And also those three things you just mentioned are the things that are constantly holding people from living with chronic illness, from even doing the thing, right? Like they don't have an answer to those questions. So to me, it's embracing first, the mindset that everybody is trying to figure out how to do this.
And in their, in their world, whatever life hurdles, you can have chronic illness, or you could just have a really busy life. You can have a really unpredictable life. Maybe you're a caretaker. There's just so many different levels of where running a business while living with life can affect consistency, can affect your capacity, can affect, you know, whether or not you can decide to set up systems and process in your life for being Casey emergencies, the what ifs, all of those different things.
Right. And so I like to answer the question around what you're asking around, like, do you know, What is your baseline?
Teresa: Mm-Hmm.
Nikita: what's your filter? Like? Where are you filtering saying yes and no to things? And oftentimes as chronic illness warriors, we tend to overcompensate. Right? Overcompensate. Do more plan to do more over, deliver over, over, over.
And not leave enough space. And so, because I know that's kind of also I'm a high achiever, I'm also like, put my mind to it and like do the thing that's definitely how my brain works. I had to really think about what do I want? What do I want this business to do for me and to serve my life versus like I'm just trying to just grind this out.
And for me, it really came down to two things, capacity and freedom. I feel like You need capacity to decide, you need to know what your capacity is to decide how freedom will look like for you. For me, my business really needed to have space, lots of space, lots of calendar space, lots of ability to move and flow.
Teresa: Mm hmm.
Nikita: And my calendar, if you look at my calendar, my clients are like, how do you do any of what you do with all of the space in your calendar? And it's intentional because I need the space. And so the first thing I say that helps you is creating a schedule or routine that takes into account your reality of life.
Your reality of uncertainty because the thing about uncertainty when you're living with chronic illness is that you're certain that your chronic illness is going to show up someday.
And you're bedridden at some, at some point. Right. And so for me, it really has been embracing and accepting. I'm going to have a flare up.
I was just telling Teresa before the show, I've had death in my family. I've also got COVID for the first time. Can't believe it. And. All of that was happening, but my business was still running because of this point of building a business that is within the capacity of understanding that life and crap happen.
And so that's how you show up consistently is just embracing that fact and being okay with that imperfect action.
Teresa: And I think firstly, when you said space in your diary, I was like, Oh yes, I looked at next week today and I was like, I can't wait for next week because there's hardly anything in it. And I am so excited about that.
And it's not that I don't love what I do. Of course I do. I adore what I do, but just seeing space in my calendar makes me feel like makes me feel like I run my business, you know, and, and that I've created something that I love. Whereas the last few weeks running up to us recording this podcast, I have been so busy that I have literally had back to back to back to back.
And that doesn't feel good to me. Like I can do it, but it doesn't feel good. So I think. Almost the word I want to use there is expectations. You've almost set your expectations straight from the get go saying, I will not be able to do X, Y, Z. Is that right?
Nikita: Yeah. And I, I think when I think about expectations is that we often have these boundless thoughts of what we think it should be based on what society has told us it needs to look like to quote unquote be successful.
And I had just learned that when it comes to expectation is that I get to set it. No one else gets to set that for me. And so if I look at my calendar, to your point, even when it's a busier season, I still know my expectation is that I'm going to see space because I planned it that way.
I'm going, I'm, I have to, like it's, I have to, and it's also a choosing to and expectation of thinking.
I need to do or complete so many different things in a given moment of time feels extremely triggering to me, like to my body. My body does not like looking at a calendar and seeing I don't have space. Like I literally might go into a little bit of a panic attack. Like it might literally go through that because my expectation is set that I am always giving myself space.
Regardless. Like I was just having this conversation with my mom and I was telling her, I was telling her something and she's like, yeah, but I'm your mom. I'm like, yeah, I love you. But I also have this boundary around what I expect of myself and what I can give. And I love you. And I know you mean this from the best place, but this is for me and your business honestly is for you and other people that you serve.
Right. And so you just give yourself that permission.
Teresa: So again, you said another word there that I think is key with this is boundary. And how do you do that then? So obviously from what you're saying, you start your, your business life with great intentions of This is how I, what I need. This is how I need to show up.
So I guess you're setting those boundaries from day one. Did you know them from day one or no? Good. That's a good space.
Nikita: That's funny Teresa.
Teresa: You've got it all together, right? Okay. So how did you discover them and how did you then set them?
Nikita: I feel like the first thing that I discovered and I've always leaned into is my strengths.
And to me, my strengths always set up the expectation and it always set up like what I'm capable of, right? There's a part of me that felt that my strengths weren't really strengths, right? And so over the years, have I learned, okay, I can depend on me here. I can depend on me here. And those things have helped me create those boundaries.
Those things have helped me create understanding what my expectations are. That's where I tell everyone to start. Start with what you feel good about doing, what you feel aligned doing, what fills your cup, and make those the bigger, you know, balls in your jar, if you will, first, right? And so that's where you start if you have no clue, if you have no clue, start with what you do.
Teresa: How did you then, so you have the podcast. And you consistently put the podcast out and that is hard work. How did you, and how do you manage looking after yourself, being considerate to yourself and still showing up doing that?
Nikita: I love that question because it's hard, but it's not hard. Like to me, it wasn't hard.
Like I said, I started my show in 2017, right after hysterectomy complications being in the hospital, and I needed two things. I needed to grow my business and I need people like those are my strengths. I'm a very, I'm an extrovert person. I love connecting. I love networking. And at the time. I was like, I'm not going out anywhere.
I'm not going to go to networking events. I was literally bedridden. I was like, none of that happened. And so I leaned into the thing that was my strength, which was connecting with people. And so with my podcast, when I started that, I didn't know how to do it technically, but that's what YouTube is for.
And that was what, what, you know, Google is for, and I didn't put any expectation that I was going to be like Oprah interviewing everybody in the first 10 episodes. I didn't put my expectation of like, this is going to be number one from the get. I had no expectations in that regard. The only expectation was I knew I could connect with people.
That's it. What happened from there, I was okay with. I was open with learning. And that's where I gave myself permission around, you know, the expectation of being like, just show up for what you do know, and then you'll learn the rest. And then over the years, I've just kind of It's been easy. I've added people into my team to do certain things, systems, processes to kind of automate some of it.
And thanks to AI now these days, there's, I mean, me doing a podcast now versus 2019, 2020 is like a whole different experience, but it's easy. And it's easy because it lives in a zone that I know I'm good at.
Teresa: And that is such a crucial thing. I think there's so many things in our business that we need to do.
And so many of them we feel we have to do. And it's like actually just asking yourself the question of, do I want to, do I need to, is this important? You said earlier that, you know, if you're in a busy season, so I guess you almost allow yourself to go, this is a busy season, I'm going to get through this and then I'm going to give myself some space or how do you do it?
Nikita: So as living with chronic illness, a busy season, to me, it used to me pushed through. It used to be to me, like, I just know I have to push through. But what I've learned and what I see with my clients is that that creates, the worst season after. So what I mean by that is a lot of us are triggered by our flare ups and our pains and symptoms with our chronic illness during seasons of high push, extremely busy, busy times.
And we can do it, definitely can do it, but it's the after effect that is the, the consequence that leads to the inconsistent actions. And so what I personally do and the thing that I work with my clients to do is like, even in the busy time, we actually account for more space. in smaller increments over time because that gives us some recovery time so that when that busy season is done, we have actually given ourself enough space to, to allow for maybe a week or two to like really chill for a moment and get back.
But we don't need two or three months. We're not going to be triggered into a flare up because we were pushing and doing everything back to back. We can't afford that for consistency sake.
Teresa: And so in terms of like making money, then what are your thoughts on that? Because there are points where, you know, I've got a summit coming up, you know, you're going to be at the summit.
Like there are points in our lives where we have to work really hard, like, and sometimes like people would use the reason of not making money because they haven't been able to work as hard or because they haven't been able to show up as much. What, what are your thoughts around the. And I'm not even talking like the hustle culture because I think we're past that.
But there's still an element. Well, if you want to earn money, you are, you have actually got to work, you know? So how, what's your thoughts around that?
Nikita: So when I think about, so funny when I think about making money and being sick, because really that's what we're talking about. Chronically sick and making money.
That's, yeah. Those two things don't seem like they work.
Teresa: Definitely not.
Nikita: It is about intentionality. I know it sounds so frou frou. It sounds so like, blub blub. It sounds dreamy even. But when you design a business that is going to serve you in the seasons where you are absolutely sick and cannot do, right, it can still be creating the, the, the leads and the sales in the back end.
And so this is why I find for chronic illness warriors who are starting a business, starting, they think they don't need these systems in place until they've reached a certain dollar amount.
And in actuality for us, we need them at the, at the beginning. Right. And so that if you are doing like a talk or if you are growing a list, or if you are offering a new service, you need processes and system that give you the flexibility to offer that Solution and a different ways, especially service providers.
If you're a service provider living with chronic illness, you need to be able to deliver what you're doing. And
45 min
March 11, 2024How To Avoid Burnout and Prioritise Your Health As A Hyper-Achiever
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Ailish Lucas, where we are talking all about why the old way of working through and hustling till you burnout doesn't work.
In this episode, Ailish shares her personal experiences of burnout and the strategies she now uses to prioritise her health, whilst still building a successful business.
Ailish is a Mindset + Business Coach who has extensive experience helping female entrepreneurs + high achievers train their brain to change their life, transform their business and make a life not just a living without getting burnout.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
How to identify the signs of burnout and prevent it from happening

Using Positive Intelligence to reduce burnout and improve well-being

How to manage personal and business challenges with a positive mindset

If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to iTunes and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Ailish on Instagram
Check out Ailish's website
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook
Transcript
Teresa: Hello and welcome to your dream business podcast. How are you doing? I am good, except I've just messed up about four takes of this episode, which is funny because I'm normally pretty good. I mean, you would think after 330, I think this is going to be 335 that I would actually know how to start a podcast, but apparently not. We're all learning.
Today. I have a lovely, lovely friend with me and I am so grateful that she's decided to join us on the podcast. Her name is Ailish Lucas. If you've been in my world, you'll know I talk about Ailish and she is a mindset and business coach who works with female entrepreneurs. She helps them to train their brain, change their life, transform their business and make a life not just for living, but without getting burnt out.
So today we're going to be talking about the key things about burning out. What is it? How do we know we're doing it? And how more importantly, do we stop it? Because apparently, She's written, when we are happy, we perform 13 percent better and when we are coached, our productivity increased by 66%. Is that true? Amazing. Welcome to the podcast, Ailish.
Ailish: Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Teresa: Thanks for putting up with my terrible starts to the vodka. Uh, you know, we've been here for about five minutes trying to start this podcast, but we're here now. We're doing it. And I am really glad to have you here.
Ailish: Oh, I'm so excited to be here. I love chatting with you.
Teresa: And well, this was the problem because we got on this call about 20 minutes ago and we just started chatting and then we're like, Oh God, I've got a podcast to record. But yes, Ailish has been in my life for some time and I'm very, very blessed to have Ailish as a friend. Because, When you are a coach, and Ailish knows this because she's a coach too, you, I spend so much of my time being the coach and being the expert.
And everybody needs not just a coach, but a peer group in which you can be honest. And Ailish is one of those for me, BizPaul's another one, Roseanna's another one. Like, I need that peer group that I can go, what am I doing? My life is falling apart. So that we don't do it when we're out in the world to the people we coach.
So I'm so grateful that I get to do that with you, Ailish. So let's kick off by, I just want to go back just a little bit and talk about what you not used to do, cause you still kind of do it, but like you didn't start off life as a coach for female entrepreneurs. So let's go back and start when you started your business.
Ailish: Yeah. So I have had quite a few iterations of my business. I would almost say I've looked multi passionate entrepreneur. I've had a theme throughout it, which has been the beauty industry. And I started off. Being a natural and organic beauty blogger, probably like 10 years ago, probably more than that actually.
And then I moved into doing and running online summits. Before the world and his wife decided to run online summit and know how to do it. And then I moved into my business, which was helping indie beauty brands to learn marketing and social media so they could grow their e commerce businesses.
And I've done that for like the past few years. And I've had some great successes with it, it was a successful business, it won loads of awards, some sponsored by Google, where they were the judge on it. And what I found throughout a lot of that was, I can give you all the marketing strategy in the world, but if your mindset isn't right, then you will never get the stuff done.
And what transpired through that was that I loved coaching one on one with my clients. I could help them with the marketing strategy, but that was like 20 percent of it. The most amount of time that I would spend with them would be on the mindset work, in terms of working through those limiting beliefs, dealing with any burnout that they had, dealing with any issues that would come up for them.
And I fell in love with that part of it because I think it was Tony Robbins or somebody very famously said, success is 80 percent mindset and 20 percent strategy. And I really fundamentally believe that. So what I did was then I went and retrained whilst I was still doing my business. So I could get the best skills that I could possibly find and then be able to coach really effectively.
And what then transpired was my new business, which is coaching female entrepreneurs. It's not necessarily new, it's, it's definitely a few years old, but fully stepping into that role. now help incredible women to be able to break through those limiting beliefs and to be able to fulfill that true potential for success and happiness without burning out.
And that's where I feel my true calling is. And I'm just really excited to do it now. The reason burnout is in that is because it's really common for female entrepreneurs to burn out. I had a very sustained period of burnout because I had lots of personal things going on, as well as like trying to run my business, as well as all of that through COVID.
And it's, it's just really common for that to happen. I want to make sure that my clients can have this sustained success and that sustained growth without the burnout. It's really, really important to me and to them.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. So let's just touch on the burnout thing, because I think, and obviously I've known you throughout that whole time.
And I, like, I think in the early days, there was a few, few things that you were like, maybe I'm burning out, maybe this is happening, but I think lots of people don't realize, A, what burnout is and B, that they're in it when they're in it. So talk a bit about what is burnout, because it's a term that everyone uses, but, and I think people are, yeah, I'm burning, I think I'll burn out, I've got to be careful, but I don't think anybody knows what they actually mean by it.
Ailish: Yeah, yeah, it's so true. And there's a, there's a very big difference between needing a bit of a rest where people are like, Oh, I'm burnt out. Going for a walk or having a couple of days off like mental health days or having a good sleep will cure so then you're back to your bright bubbly self the next day.
Burnout is a lot deeper than that and it can be a physical type of burnout, it can be a mental type of burnout, it can be a spiritual type of burnout, it can be an emotional type of burnout, so there's four different types really. And what that means is you tend to be, depending on what area you feel most burnt out in, say for example it's physical, that means that you've got no energy in your body consistently over a period of time compared to what you previously did.
Like if you think back to the time when you were happy, happiest with your most energy and then compare it to now and how long have you been feeling that for, then you can start to gauge a little bit where you're at. Say for example, with, uh, burnout from a mental perspective, if you've got your business and you've had lots of success with it in the past, and now you're looking at taking that next step up into a, a, another level to push it, but you don't have that excitement, you don't have that energy to go right, okay.
Like this, these strategies worked in the past and I know if I just double down on them, I can go a bit further. But you're just like, oh, you're finding the negatives in it rather than remembering all the positives. But consistently, because we know that entrepreneurship is a complete roller coaster all the time.
Teresa: This is what something I was going to say and thinking about, like, sometimes we just, I'm not going to say can't be bothered because it's deeper than that. But sometimes we're just like, no, I haven't got the energy for this. I don't want to do it. And how do we know when we need to kick up the ass? And how do we know when We genuinely need to go "Now I need to take that rest." Like this morning I was telling Ailish that I was so proud I did yoga again. And, and in fact, this is the first time I've shared that I was doing yoga and only because by the time this comes out, I don't know whether I'll still be doing it. I really hope so, but I've done it for 10 days in a row and I didn't want to do it this morning.
And in, as I sat in bed, like, cause I'd already done my meditation. And the next thing is I get up and I go and put my face in ice water. not entirely sure why, but I'm doing it. There are reasons. But anyway, and then I do yoga and I was like, I think I'm tired. I think I need to listen to my body today. And my body is telling me, because there's that kind of intuitive bit of listening to ourselves and being kind to ourselves.
But then sometimes we just need to go stop your excuse, just get on and do it. And that, I think that's a hard thing to know which one of those things you do.
Ailish: Yeah, it is. Because. The narrative that we have heard previously in the online space has been hustle until you die, then, and then hustle some more. And then the reaction to that was, no, actually you need to stop and listen to your body and so you don't get burnt out.
And now what we're having is this confusion between, well, we know if we want a successful business, we have to work. We've got to put that work in, but also we don't want to do it to the level where we have nothing left for our personal life. We have nothing left for our relationships, for our kids, for fun, for creativity, for health, because health underpins everything.
So where is that balance for us? And I think this is about checking in with ourselves and There's, there's a training that I've done and I coach my clients through called positive intelligence, which T, I know you've trained them as well. Yeah, and what that tends to do is talk about your saboteurs. And we have these different types, we have 10 different types of saboteurs, like everybody has varying degrees of some.
And on the flip side of that, we have our SAGE responses. Now, with our saboteurs, just to give you an example, we have different ones like, say, People Pleaser, or Hyper Achiever, or Victim, or Avoider. And if we say we choose Hyper Achiever, because I know T, you and I are both in that category, and a lot of entrepreneurs are.
We tend to flip flop between I have to hustle or die, and I'm going to work really, really hard, and I'm going to put in all the hours until I'm then so exhausted that I then need to stop for a couple of weeks and my motivation goes down, or we're, or then we end up flipping to the other side, which is like, I'm just not going to do anything.
It's about just checking in with ourselves going, okay, and I, again, I'll draw from another therapy called internal family systems, which I'm very, very passionate about and positive intelligence has with severe and it's all quite similar. Now, when we are on this entrepreneurial journey in this roller coaster, what tends to happen is particularly we say with hyper achievers, we go all in and we, we believe our success is dependent on how hard we work.
And, and whilst it is, in a certain respect, like don't get me wrong, you do have to work hard. It's also about, not identifying that our self worth is connected not only with our net worth, but also with how hard we work. And so in that moment, if we're like, I, I have to be really busy.
I have to do all of these things. And otherwise I am not going to be successful. It's like, okay, well, let's just break this down. There's a little part of me that says this thing. But then there's also a, there's also another part of me that can say, yes, we're going to work really hard and we're also going to enjoy our life whilst we do it.
And it's about asking yourself those better questions. Now I know that's sometimes a little bit of a cliche, but when we can ask ourselves better questions, we get better answers. We can be more consistent with how we show up in the world. Therefore, our results start to improve because of our consistency.
Now, I do have funny thing with consistency and discipline. I think they are two words that are very, very steeped in patriarchy. So I tend to flip them and use the word devotion instead. So it's like, because when we start to use the word devotion, it's like, okay, I'm devoted to myself and my health, but then I'm also devoted to my mission and my business.
So how am I going to show up for those people? Because let's not make it about me all the time. We're, we're making it about those people that we can help. Cause that's why we're in business in the first place. If you're If you're not in it to make a quick buck, which I know most of your audience are.
Teresa: Then like, you know, I think we'd all love to, that'd be ace if we could just get rich quick.
However, we're all pretty much sussed that this isn't going to happen. And it does take a bit of work. And I think that's the thing, like, it's like when we talk about the seasons of life, some seasons in your business, you are going to have to work your bum off, like, there's no doubt about it. I am in a season of my business at the moment from January 24 to March, probably into April 24.
I am stacked like I am trying to achieve some huge things. I'm trying to do some very exciting projects, but that's the thing. And as I just said, the word, I know I'm working my bum off at the moment and it is taking a lot of work. However, I am very excited about what I'm doing. And I know this is a season that I'm in come April, May, June, That will start to quieten down maybe, or maybe I won't feel like it.
Maybe I'll just keep going and be like, where's the next big project? So I think it's, I think sometimes because there, the use of the word hustle has been associated with a, like, you've gotta kill yourself and everyone's got the same 24 hours in the day and Beyonce does this, this, this, like. you know, and like Tony Robbins has talked for an, and I go in and out of liking and not liking Tony if I'm honest.
There are some things that I really do like, and I do think he's really motivating about and other things I think, Ooh, like just jars with me a little bit, but like, I remember hearing his story and he's like, I used to have four hours sleep. I would do this now do this. And almost to the point of, if you're not doing that, then you don't deserve that success in that business.
So I think. I think sometimes because we're so anti the word hustle or so what's been attached to the word hustle, we almost then go, Oh no, if I'm not taking every afternoon off to meditate and do yoga or lunch with the girls, like, no, no, sometimes we do have to work hard.
Ailish: Yeah, and I'd like to also preface that with, let's just nip back there for a second.
You say, I don't know whether this is on the podcast or just before, but you wake up at 6am, you do your meditation, you've also been doing, you're on your yoga journey, and those are the things that are balancing them working really hard, because What if you don't have your health, you don't have anything.
Let's just start with that. Like, I feel like a lot of us tend to particularly hyperachievers tend to work really, really hard, particularly, say, for example, like we're in a season of working really hard, or you might just carry on. It's like if we don't then pay attention to what's going on with our health first and foremost, then you might be able to get a really successful business.
But at what cost? Yes, and this is where I'm not saying that you need to like meditate for two hours and then exercise for two hours and make sure you're only ever eating vegetables and that's it, but we do need to look at our health because otherwise we then spend like I'll take myself for an example.
I hyper achieved in my business. I was providing an immense amount of support personally, uh, and in my personal lives, uh, with a particularly challenging situation over a consistent period of time. And what then happened was, I think it was January 2022, I was like, I can't do this anymore. And it took me a year to be able to, probably a little bit over that, to then be able to go, actually, I feel like my normal self again.
And I had to go back to basics. Like I went to a functional medicine practitioner. I had to go back to all of the basic practices, like the yoga, like meditation, like the journaling therapy, as well as coaching to see what was going to work for me so I could then feel better. And the, the result is I'm, I'm back there again.
But if, if you're that hyper-achiever and you keep going and going and going, then you might end up having like a year, a year and a half where you're like, I can't do it anymore. I mean, you're missing out on that year and a half. Whereas if you just put some intention into it, where you're like, actually. I, I want to work hard because I enjoy it and I love it, but also I need to pay attention to my health and I need to pay attention to all the other pieces of the pie because they are what make life interesting.
Yeah. And they, and that's where you fulfill your true potential, because if you pour all the water into one cup and the rest of them are empty, then by the time you come out the other side and realize actually all of my water's in this one cup, everything and everything else is like awful, then you're, you, again, you've just missed out on the, the fruit of life.
Teresa: But so we had Roseanna on, who is another dear friend of ours, a few weeks ago and, and obviously talked a lot about her health and the journey that she...
51 min
March 04, 2024Unleashing Grit: The Key To Success in Life and in Business
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Danielle Cobo, where we are talking all about how to overcome challenges and achieve your goals.
In this episode, Danielle shares her own personal experiences of this, as well as some wonderful tips and advice on how to break through the roadblocks that are stopping you from achieving your goals.
Danielle is the best-selling author of Unstoppable Grit: Break Through the 7 Roadblocks Standing Between You and Achieving Your Goals, hosts the globally top-rated podcast, Unstoppable Grit Podcast with Danielle Cobo, and creator of the Attract Your Dream Job Master course.
As an international keynote speaker, best-selling author, and podcast host, Danielle channels her expertise into her passionate mission: igniting transformation in others and helping them develop the grit and resilience to succeed professionally and personally.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
Why having a personal definition of success is key to overcoming perfectionism

Why it is important to focus on progress rather than just the end goal

The importance of aligning personal and professional aspirations for a fulfilling life

If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to iTunes and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Danielle on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or TikTok
Listen to the Unstoppable Grit Podcast on YouTube, Spotify or Apple
Buy the Unstoppable Grit Book
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook
Transcript
Teresa: Hello and wWelcome back to another episode of the Your Dream Business podcast. How are you doing this week? So this week I have a really good conversation for you. I'm excited to talk to the very lovely Danielle and talk through her new book and how she overcame some of her challenges and how she achieves her goals.
So Danielle, please welcome to the podcast.
Danielle: I am excited to be here. Thanks for having me on the podcast.
Teresa: I am excited about our conversation. I've been doing my research, having a look at everything, and I'm excited to see where it goes. I always leave these conversations very fluid and just let's see what happens.
So I'm excited about that, but let's start by always by just explaining. How you got to where you are today?
Danielle: Well, I, how I started in, I guess my life was, I was raised by a single mom. So I was raised by a mom who really embodied grit and determination and tenacity. She was, when I was younger, she was a single mom.
I was, she was going to school full time and she was also, and then also Working as a server at night as well. So the combination between the three and she went from, we really went from nothing. We were in a one bedroom apartment. My bed was in the living room of our one bedroom apartment. We most of my clothes were on that thrift stores and they were on layaway.
And I saw her go from nothing to rising in the corporate ladder working for one of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies in the world. And she was a region manager in the 1990s for, so for a female to be a region manager and leading a team in the 1990s. With non as prominent as it is now. So, we've made a lot of progress but she really embodied grit and that was somebody that was a big role model for me and my life. Then I ended up falling in her footsteps. I spent 15 years in medical sales.
I was an individual contributor role before stepping into a region manager role where I spent the past seven years leading a team for a fortune 500 company before breaking out into my own and doing speaking and coaching and. And writing a book full time.
Teresa: Amazing. So that like I came from corporate as well, and I never had any intention of having my own business.
Had it ever crossed your mind?
Danielle: Absolutely not. I had no intention of starting a business. It's an interesting story because I, in 2020 was a very pivotal year for me and I believe it was for many of us. It was the great resignation is what that year was coined as. So in 2020, my husband had just returned home from serving a year deployment in Iraq.
My, our twins at the time, our twin boys were two and a half years old when he came home and we were trying to navigate through this new life that we had. I had become very independent when he was gone. I was making all the sole parenting decisions, which as a parent, you know, we each have our own approaches to parenting.
He had just come home from war, so there's, you know, some exposure to things that most of us don't, aren't exposed to. And so we kind of, it was a little challenging in the beginning with us trying to find a way to reconnect in a way for us to come together as a united family unit. And right as we started to find our rhythm.
March 8th, I lost my mom and I lost her to suicide. And that moment when I heard the news, I remember collapsing to the ground and tears flooded my eyes and started to fall down my cheeks and my cheeks became flushed. And I just couldn't believe that my mom was in so much pain that she believed her only option was to take her life.
Yeah. And as I'm trying to cope and even try to comprehend and understand what had taken place, March 13th, the pandemic, the global pandemic happened and the world shut down. So I wasn't even able to go home to go care to her things, to take care of anything, to be part of that healing process. And then.
Lastly, I was working for an organization that I had been with for seven years and had just been acquired by a larger pharmaceutical company and it became a very toxic work environment. I had been with the company for seven years and I ended up deciding to leave. So all of this happened within a six month period and I felt lost, confused.
I was having panic attacks on a consistent basis. I would just walk into the room and just start bursting out in tears because I had tied my identity to a paycheck to a title to this lifestyle that I had created and I'm going, what now? I don't know what's going on with the pandemic. Are we going to go into a recession?
I don't have a job. My husband's come back from deployment. We're still navigating through that. And I ended up saying, well, I need to rebrand myself. If I'm going to be pursuing a job, I actually need to be more active on LinkedIn. And so I started to rebrand myself and people ended up reaching out to me and saying, I started to talk about career development and leadership and people started reaching out to me and saying, Hey, you know, I want to pursue this job, but I need help with writing my resume or interview coaching.
And can I hire you as a career coach? I'm like, what is a career coach? I don't even know what one is. I wish I would have known what a career coach was back when I started my career. It would have been.
Teresa: Yeah, maybe could have done one.
Danielle: Yeah. I mean, it, well, it would have been really nice. I probably would have, you know, it would have been kind of helpful to have somebody to help navigate through the career when I started when I was 23 years old.
So it evolved into eventually building this brand on LinkedIn where people started to reach out to me for coaching and speaking engagements and to work in their organization. And so that's how I started speaking. I had no intention. I, I basically went into LinkedIn thinking that I was going to really develop my brand so that I can position myself as a hireable asset to an organization.
And I ended up being a hireable asset to many organizations.
Teresa: I love that. Like that. I'm just trying to think about that time in your life. Any one of those things is life changing, you know, going through the pandemic was life changing for all of us to lose your your mom. I lost my mom during the pandemic.
She didn't die of COVID. She died of cancer. But, you know, it's one of those cases where we didn't see it coming because we weren't seeing her. And And then obviously when she did pass away, there was rules around who could be at a funeral, how many, there was like nine of us and, and just even losing, and I specifically think a mum, for me anyway, and, and, you know, in, in my, I guess where we live, but.
Losing a mum full stop is really, really hard. Losing a mum the way you lost that mum, I just, I've interviewed someone before whose mum, you know, took her own life and, and it, I feel like that is a whole nother level of something to have to think about and deal with.
Danielle: There's a lot of questions that go in.
So, and my mom and I had a very interesting, there was a lot of beauty, but there was also a lot of brokenness between my mom and I's relationship. My mom actually, I didn't find this out until later on in life, but my mom kidnapped me from my dad when I was two years old. So I grew up thinking that he had chosen another family, that he had left us.
But in all reality, my mom one day packed up all our things, moved, and said, you can't see her anymore, you know, and so I didn't meet him until I was 15. So in many ways, my mom was a role model and I, I looked up to my mom, but then also my mom did suffer from mental health and, and there were a lot of brokenness from, from her as well in what she was experiencing.
And so we did have an estranged relationship for some time, but she was still my mom. She was still somebody that I cared about and I loved about, and I loved, and I do believe that when you become a parent. It really shifts your perspective on on empathy for our parents because when we're young, we hold our parents to such a high level of standard.
And we expect so much of them. And then when we become a parent, my least from my experience, I realized my mom was just human. She was just trying to do the best that she could. And I understand that. I don't agree with a lot of the decisions that she made, but she also did make some great decisions and, and really shaped me into the person that I am today.
So it was, yeah, I think a lot of people will ask me. If there was one person, cause I do have a podcast, Unstoppable Grit, and they said, if there's one person that you would interview, who would it be? And I say, my mom, cause I've got so many questions that are just unanswered and I can't ask her.
Teresa: Yeah. I can't imagine.
So, so you have these massive things happen and you start to go down this different route in life. What were your thoughts of like starting the business? Showing up in that way, doing this, like what was going through your head as you were going through those processes of, oh my goodness, this is where I'm at now and like this is happening.
Danielle: I was terrified. . I was absolutely terrified because I was used to a six figure salary and a company car and stock options and consistency and I had been in my career for 15 years, so I knew. I kind of had a rhythm going, and so there was many times where I would apply for a job, and for a particular reason, maybe the pay wasn't what I was looking for, or maybe the position wasn't available in my backyard, or they hired an internal candidate.
And as soon as I would get kind of a door would close on me getting a new job, a door would open to starting a business. It was like, it was so strange. I would go for an interview and then maybe it wouldn't work out. And then the next day somebody would reach out to me on LinkedIn and say, would you consider doing career coaching?
I am a believer, so I do believe that really God had a plan for me, and, and I believe that a lot of times he'll close doors to redirect us to something greater, and that's exactly what happened. If it wasn't through that series of events that happened in my life, I would have never started a podcast. I would have never written in a book.
I would have never been where I'm at today if it weren't for so many doors shutting all of a sudden, at once, being like, okay. You're going a completely new direction.
Teresa: Giving you no choice.
Danielle: Exactly that.
But it was also, I look back and I go, wow, I was really meant for so much more, but I didn't know that because I was living in this bubble of going, I'm just going to climb the corporate ladder.
Teresa: Yeah. So one of the things you talk about is obviously things around your passion and going for your goals and that sort of thing. So how long did it take you to Kind of, I was going to say reframe, but I'm not sure that's the right word, but kind of go, Oh, okay. Well, this is no longer my path. This is. And then how quick was, was it that you got so clear on, this is the direction I want to go.
This is what I'm after. And then started going for it. i.e. the book, the podcast, all of that.
Danielle: I think it took some time because when I left the organization, I took a few months off of work for the first time in my life. I started working full time when I was 16 years old, worked two jobs in college.
I've never gone more than one week without a job. And then mainly because I had been with companies for a long period of time. So when that time came for me to not where I didn't have a job, I was in no position to apply. I was very broken and I was very, I was having panic attacks all the time. And I remember my husband looking at me and saying, I think it's time for you to just take a break for a little bit.
I've gotcha. And let's just. Have, let's kind of like process what just happened and let's, let's take, let's kind of find what you want to do in the future. And so for a couple months I hung out with my kids. I really got into my creative flow, which is a healing. It's creative flow as a way of healing through finding something you're passionate about, but not having a specific tie to an outcome.
And so I started painting Christmas decorations. And I look back, which is really funny because my first business was when I was seven years old. I used to go to the trees. I would cut down mistletoe and I would sell mistletoe outside the grocery store during the holidays. That's how I raised money for my mom eventually got remarried and I had stepbrothers.
So that's how we paid for our Christmas gifts for each other. So it's interesting, like all kind of circle back. I ended up starting my first business when I was seven, but no, it was, it was a journey and, and I didn't know immediately. And there was a lot of self doubt in the beginning and questioning.
And sometimes I experienced it today. You know, I look at go, well, I'm not achieving the particular results that I may want at this particular time in my life. Number one, I have really high expectations for myself. So I have this vision of what I think I should be achieving by a particular milestone without really looking at everything that I had accomplished that's leading up to that.
And that's common. I see all the time. People will be comparing their step 12 to somebody's, I mean, they'll be comparing their step 3 to somebody's step 12. Yeah. I do that. And, and so the, the pivotal moment for me was I was, applying for a position. I was on the phone with a recruiter and I was telling her what I was doing.
And she says, Danielle, I have a position for you, but I see what you're doing on LinkedIn. I see, I can hear in your voice how passionate you are about coaching people. And Yeah. And. I'd love to place you in this position, but I really think that you should pursue this speaking and coaching full time. And I did, and I haven't looked back.
Teresa: Yeah, that's so good.
Danielle: Maybe a little. Maybe sometimes a little, I look back at that paycheck, but it'll be there.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's swings and roundabouts to everything, isn't there? Like, I say that, like, getting a job would be the worst thing in the world I'd have to do. Like, I would hate it. You know, I've been in business now, Almost 10 years, and I could not imagine having to turn up somewhere when they tell me to will be available to people or like, there's just no way it would just be awful.
However, you know, there are other things like paid holidays and salaries and benefits and other things that are nice, you know, so tell me about the book because You know what was interesting today? I was, when I get ready in the morning, I often either play a podcast or a book or this morning I was, I saw a reel, I don't, I try really hard not to get distracted by stuff like this, but I saw a reel and it recommended like seven Ted talks that will change your life.
And I watched them. That's what I did this morning. And one of them was called grit and it was talking about. Basically, when they look at what will make someone successful or what will make kids successful, it's not down to IQ. It's not down to these other things. It's down to grit. And then she likened it back to Carol Dweck's research on having a growth mindset.
So, so it's so fascinating that that literally came up today. And then I'm interviewing you later on, you know, the universe has its plan, but tell us about the book. Tell us about the, the name and behind and the concept of it.
Danielle: So you must have been watching Angela Duckworth's TED talk on grit and her definition of grit is passion and perseverance towards long term goals.
And I remember when I was first, when I had first left corporate and I was feeling so lost and confused, I remember going on Facebook and in a very vulnerable moment, I had posted on Facebook and I said, if there's three words you can use to describe me, what would it be? What would it be? And the comments started to flood in and it was driven, motivated, empowering, inspiring, grit, tenacity, all these words that were describing me and I said, wow, this is what people are seeing in me, but I'm not seeing it in myself.
At that moment, I didn't because I...
34 min
February 26, 2024Unlock the Secrets to Scaling Your Business: Ryan Deiss Shares his Expert Advice
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Ryan Deiss, where we are talking all about how to scale your business for true freedom and growth.
Ryan kindly shares his very honest stories of scaling his own businesses to achieve huge success, how he had to get out of his own way, and the conflicts he experienced between building a business and sacrificing family time.
Ryan Deiss is a serial entrepreneur, author, and investor, and according to Shark Tank star Daymond John, “His companies practically own the internet.” He is the Founder and CEO of The Scalable Company (Scalable.co), DigitalMarketer.com, and a Founding Partner at Scalable Equity, LLC, an equity accelerator that builds, acquires, and invests inB2B media, services, and software brands.
Ryan is also the founder and host of the Traffic & Conversion Summit, the largest digital marketing conference in North America. He also quite literally wrote the book on modern marketing, Digital Marketing For Dummies (Wiley), which is now in its second edition.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
The evolution of online marketing and adapting to changing times

The key differences between growing your business and scaling your business

How to define your target audience for effective marketing

If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to iTunes and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Buy Ryan's Book, 'Get Scalable: The Operating System Your Business Needs To Run and Scale Without You'
Connect with Ryan on Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn
Connect with Scalable.co through their website, Instagram or Facebook
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook

Transcript
Teresa: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. I hope you're doing well. So this week I have another interview and I'm very excited and honored to do this week's episode. It's always lovely when I get asked to interview someone when I've not reached out to them and their name is pretty big and I know it and I'm like, Oh wow, they're asking to come on my show.
And this week's guest is exactly that type of person. This week I'm interviewing the amazing Ryan Deiss. Ryan Deiss is a serial entrepreneur, author, investor, and according to the Shark Tank star, Damon John, his company practically owns the internet. Ryan is the founder and CEO of scalable company, digitalmarketer. com.
That's probably where you know his name from. And the founding partner of Scalable Equity LLC, which is an equity accelerator that builds, acquires, and invests in B2B media services and software brands. Ryan is also the founder and host of Traffic and Conversion Summit, which I've attended and seen him speak at.
The largest marketing conference, digital marketing conference in North America. He's also quite literally wrote the book on modern marketing, digital marketing for dummies, and which is now in its second edition. He is a sought after speaker. Ryan has shared the stage with top business leaders and celebrities like Sir Richard Branson, Gary Vaynerchuk, Sarah Blakely, Martha Stewart, Tim Ferriss, Damon John, and Dave Ramsey.
I mean, that is a hell of a like bio. So I am super excited that this week I get to bring to the podcast, the amazing Ryan Deiss. I am so very delighted to welcome to the podcast, Ryan Deiss. Ryan, how are you doing?
Ryan: I am doing amazingly well. Thank you so much for having me.
Teresa: I am very pleased. I was just saying that in the intro that it's so lovely when I get, I get lots of requests to come on the podcast, which is awesome.
And then when I see a name that I'm like, Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. No, this person is definitely coming on. So it was great to speak to your team and get you on. It's been, it's been something that I'm really, really pleased about. So I'm excited about today's conversation.
Ryan: Yeah. Likewise. And it's an honor to be here.
So thank you.
Teresa: So I want to start with where people, certainly where I know you from. So I know you from digital marketer, trafficking conversion, but I want to go back a bit because I'm not sure that I've ever really looked into or found out how you got to do that. And then we can talk about what we're doing today.
Ryan: Aha, it's not a story I tell very often, actually, and not because it's like a bad story. It's just I've been doing this now for 25 years. It just winds up becoming a long story. So I'm going to try to give you the short, short version if that's okay. But let's go all the way back to 1999. I was a freshman at the University of Texas.
In Austin, so my 1st year at university and and the Internet was brand new and that year I met the spring semester. I was always entrepreneurial. I always wanted to make money. I didn't have any of it, but I was in college. You're supposed to be broke. It's fine. You know, it wasn't that big a deal, but kind of towards the end of my 1st semester, I met a girl.
And I, I knew in my heart of hearts, this is the woman that I'm going to marry. I like to say I didn't tell her that because I knew that that was creepy, but I just knew I really did. And, and so in that moment, I was like, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm broken. That's bad. I need to figure out a way to make some money. And, you know, at the university of Texas, people told stories about Michael Dell.
Who started Dell computer out of his dorm room, which was literally his dorm room was across the street from my dorm room. And so I'm like, I could be the next Michael Dell. I'm going to start a business. And I had no idea what I was going to do, but I figured I could teach myself web design. So my actually, my very 1st company was a web design company.
I was terrible at web design. Absolutely completely terrible, but I had, a student version of Adobe go live and Microsoft front page. People now have no idea what those even were, but that was how websites were built 100 years ago. And I marketed myself as a web designer, and the only client I got, and this is a bit funny, was a lactation consultant.
Now, I have 4 kids. And my wife, you know, nurse breastfed all of our, all of our kids. So I have nothing but love for lactation consultants. I can tell you at 19 years old and building a website for a lactation consultant was a bit awkward. But built a website and it was, you know, it was going okay. And but unfortunately her husband wound up losing her job.
We had a bit of a recession, husband lost, lost his job. She had to go back to work. She had to. You know, shutter her lactation consulting business, and she no longer had a need for a website, and she no longer had the ability to pay me. But this one was really, really sharp. Because she did something that I bet a lot of your other listeners have done.
She wrote an ebook. She was smart. She realized as a lactation consultant, her clients, if she did her job, were eventually not going to need her. You know, they were going to figure it out on your own, then eventually the kids would wean. And so she actually said, I don't want to just be about lactation consulting.
I want to expand my niche into overall childhood nutrition. Really, really smart, right? Incredibly smart. So she wrote this ebook on how to make your own baby food. And because she couldn't pay me, she said, look, I've got this ebook on how to make your own baby food. I want you to have it. Maybe you can sell it and make some money since I can't afford to pay you.
And I'm thinking at the time, the heck am I going to do with like a 38 page PDF on how to make your own baby food? But again, back then, 1999, the, the cop, there was no Amazon. Google is a science fair project. And I did some research and I found, you know, there's actually a lot of people searching for how to make your own baby food and there's nothing out there on it.
So my very first business was selling an ebook on my very first online business was selling an ebook on how to make your own baby food from a simple one page website. I charged $17 for it, which, and I remember I came up with the price because. It was basically less than 0. 50 per page. And I marketed that and for me, for whatever reason, that seemed like a deal.
But a few years later, everybody told me you can never sell an ebook online for $17. Nobody will ever buy it. Thankfully, by the time people were telling me I couldn't do it, I've been doing it for years and making, you know, good money off of it. But that began what started off as kind of my entrepreneurial journey.
I had this one ebook. It sold a couple of copies a day, which was enough for me to, you know, make some extra money. I thought, what if I had 10 of these and so I did and and my goal was just if I can make 10, 000 to buy this girl, I met a ring saving up some money. That'd be great. Fast forward a couple years and got the ring, got the girl and a little side hustle turned into a real publishing company.
And that that truly is where it all began.
Teresa: That's amazing. I think there are some people, and I do not class myself as one of them, that entrepreneurship is just inbuilt in them. Like, like you said, straight off the bat, what can I do? How can I earn money? And I don't, do you think that's down to, were your parents?
Business owners, do you, were you surrounded by business owners? Was that a thing that you saw and then thought I can replicate that? Or do you just have that switch in your head?
Ryan: You know, funny, it wasn't my mom was a school teacher. My dad was an electrician, you know, came from a family of farmers, which I guess there's some entrepreneurial grit there maybe, but, but no, I didn't see entrepreneurs and I, and I, I remember going to college, I remember going to university and finding people who were majoring in business.
And I, and I asked him, I was like, what is that? Like, what, how does one major in business, like business is a, is a thing. Like I don't, I don't even know how you do that. I, so I don't know where it comes from. I do believe that entrepreneurial, like entrepreneurship is a calling. I think that there are some people who they are just willing to put in that extra work and that extra risk for that extra outcome.
And I think a lot of this. Probably comes from a degree of like trauma and brokenness, you know, where it's like, you can't tell me what to do kind of thing. Yeah. But, you know, I think it's there and it's funny. I've got four kids and I look at my own kids and I, I'm not trying to push my kids into being entrepreneurs.
Cause I know how hard it is. And I just want them to find their calling. I want them to find kind of their place and I want them to feel like, you know, pressure to quote unquote, following my footsteps. But it's obvious like some of my kids are more entrepreneurial than others and we'll see where that comes from.
So no, I didn't really see an example. I'll tell you what I did have though. My parents got divorced when I was three years old. Okay. Not a big sob story by the way. They were very mature about it. Got along great. I'd spend two weeks at my mom's house, two weeks at my dad's house. They agreed to live close.
So, you know, Same school, you know, same friend group, all that other stuff. But when I stayed at my dad's house, he would drop me off at my mom's house at just the crack of dawn. He had to be at work at 6. 30am, 6. 30 in the morning. So he dropped me off very early at my mom's house so I could catch the bus.
But what's the only thing on? I don't know if this is the case in the, you know, in the UK and around the world, but certainly in the States, certainly back in the, you know, 80s and 90s, the only thing on at the crack of dawn is infomercials. And so I grew up watching infomercials every single morning. So while I don't think I necessarily got a education or I got to witness entrepreneurialism, I definitely got to witness a good, solid, direct response marketing.
Teresa: Yeah. I just think about this woman who had the like. The foresight to go, here's an ebook. Like I can speak to people now who still wouldn't know what that is. And I'm sure, you know, when you're not in your world, it's the same. Cause I do think the, sometimes I don't even try and explain that I have a membership or I sell courses online, or I speak online, or I teach to people who are not in the same country as me.
Even now they don't get it. So to have that thought and to give it you and go see what you can do with it and for you to take it in a subject and this where, you know, anybody listening to this, like I love that when people have a passion about something and when it's their thing that they adore and then they sell it, I love that.
But you took something that was so far from your comfort zone and still found a way to sell it and still find a way to make money with it, which. blows my mind. That's just amazing.
Ryan: Yeah. I want to, I want to speak to that because I think there's a point there that, that, that your listeners need to hear, but I just got to say, one of my biggest regrets in life is that I forgot this woman's name, my client, my first client's name. I can't remember her name. I've actually tried to Google and research of like, cause I always felt like if I, you know, if I remember and recognize it, even after, you know, our kids were born, I was like Googling lactation consultants in Austin, trying to see if I could find her to come full circle and to tell her.
You know, she was my first business mentor, right? She was truly the probably the first real entrepreneur I ever saw. And what I saw was somebody who failed. Right. Her business, she had to shut her business down. So by the normal world standards, she failed. But she, she didn't look at it as like a personal failure.
She just saw it as like, these are my circumstances right now. I'll come back and try it again. And there was just so much wisdom, so much insight, so much strength there. And I owe that woman, more than I owe, well, just about every mentor that I've probably paid tens, and in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars too.
So I just wanted to make sure that was said for posterity's sake. Maybe 1 day, she'll hear this and remember hiring some, you know, stupid idiot kid at 19 years old to build a website and a connection will be made. So I'm just putting it out there.
Teresa: Maybe she'll find you. Maybe she'll go. Oh, my God. Look at what happened to that guy.
That is insane.
Ryan: Keep waiting for it. Like, so far, and again, that was what almost 25 years ago. So, so far. Not so good. Oh, okay. The point though about taking a book that you know nothing about and selling it. We have a term for that. That's called publishing. And, and I think this is really, really important for, you know, for your listeners, keep in mind, if you identify as an expert, you know, or as an author, That's wonderful, right?
That's good. I always chose to identify as a publisher because as a publisher, I choose to publish my own stuff, but I can also choose to publish other people's stuff. And I think a lot of times we limit ourselves and our ability to, scalar companies to launch new companies because we put ourselves in the box of us.
Everything we do is limited to what we can do to what we know. And if you think about it, you go, no, no, no, like I'm a publisher. I know some stuff, but so to other people, the publishers make more money than the authors in general, you know, the owners of sports clubs make more money than the players. So I think it's worth just being really thoughtful about how you identify in this business.
Teresa: Yeah. And, and that shows with what you then went on to create the fact that you, and I guess, unlike most of the digital entrepreneurs, online businesses, we sell what we're good at and we sell what we're passionate about. But then that limits us to us as the business, whereas you took that and, and sold that.
And then like, look at the businesses you've grown, like digital markets the traffic conversion summit, like these are huge businesses. So I guess. In my head, I was going to ask the question, you know, did you envisage that you would grow things to that size? But part of me, as I say, it is like, well, you started off selling something that wasn't yours kind of.
So if you carried on doing it, then presumably that's why you grew and how you grew.
Ryan: I'll tell you, I never in a million years. Could have imagined building a business at the scale that we are at today. So the last, you know, in 2023 combined, our portfolio companies did in excess of $200 million in revenue, right?
That's pretty big. Now, keep in mind, we've sold a lot of businesses. So in 2018 and 2019, I sold the vast majority of the companies that I owned. So picking back up on the, you know, on the story, I had all these different businesses. You know, when I graduated and got married, my wife and I, we. I did, like I said, I got the ring.
I got the girl. We dated throughout college, you know, got engaged our junior year, got married the weekend after we graduated from, from university and, you know, started our, started our life together. And I just kept doing what I was doing. And those businesses just kind of, they would change and they would morph and obviously models change and new technology happened, new ad platforms.
But all I was doing was starting businesses based on there's a need out there in the marketplace that is currently unmet. I don't have to be the person to meet it. I just need to be the person who's willing to connect the experts with the people who need the information. Right? That is kind of basic commerce.
That that was my that was my business. And I just I decided that I was going to start an email newsletter. To talk about what I was doing and the only reason I did that is I was invited to speak at a marketing event and I was the only person this marketing event. I had no idea how to market. I should have this event.
I'd never been to 1, but it turned out that the way marketing events worked at least back then is a speaker would come up. They would give 30
46 min
February 19, 2024Why 2023 was a bad year for my business, and why I’m ok with it!
Today’s episode of the podcast is a personal account of the honest and sometimes uncomfortable struggles that I faced last year, that resulted in 2023 being a complete flop for my business.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
What happened to me in 2023 and the transformation that followed

The one goal I am so proud to have achieved last year

Why I am starting a new podcast, that launches today

I would like to thank you in advance for listening to this podcast, and for your continued kindness.

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Listen to my new podcast, 'Losing Part Of Me', right now
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook

Transcript
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. Okay. I feel very nervous today about what I'm going to talk about. I feel like I've ridiculously teased it and built it up, maybe for you guys, but a lot in my own head. But I, and I've written no script.
I've written, not that I script my podcast, because you know, I can't read things in public. But I normally have a few notes about what I'm going to talk about, whereas today I have nothing. So I really hope to goodness, this is not the first episode you're finding from me because otherwise it's going to be quite an unusual one.
I have started a new podcast and the reason I've started a new podcast is because last year my business and my life did not go how I expected. In fact, it was probably financially one of the worst years in my business, but I'm not at all concerned or bothered by that because I did something so ginormous that nothing else could have been dealt with in my world apart from me dealing with this one thing.
So basically, Last year in 2023, I spent the year getting sober and I have decided that I want to start a podcast, which is only going to be one season at this point. I don't know whether it will be more ever or not, but it's one season of a podcast and the podcast is called losing part of me. Because getting sober wasn't just a nice thing for me to do and it wasn't just a I would feel so much better if I didn't drink scenario.
I had an addiction to alcohol. I choose not to use the term alcoholic. I don't like it and I don't find it helpful for me. I'm sure there's people out there who find it helpful for them, but not for me. But the truth is I had an addiction to alcohol. And I have decided to share this with the world, which now I'm regretting slightly, but I have decided to share this with the world for a couple of reasons.
The first reason is From a business point of view and from a you listening to this podcast point of view, I pride myself on being authentic, on being vulnerable, being honest. And that is one area of my life that I've not been, not even to myself. And it's really hard for me to go through something so massive in my world and not share it with you lot and not share it with the people who are in my world, which is you listening to this podcast.
I know that obviously. I do share lots. I do share lots about me. And I said before many times that my aim is to share the scar and not the wound. So when I was in it last year, literally fighting to get through every single day, I wasn't in a place where I could share it with you. But now I am. So that was one of the reasons I wanted to tell people and wanted to share it on this podcast and create a new podcast.
But the other reason I've done it, there are a few different reasons, but another reason I've done it is because in the years running up to me finally stopping alcohol and the year of me getting sober. And obviously I'm still getting sober. I'm still sober. But in the last sort of four ish years, I have consumed no end of books and podcasts and information and even workshops and masterclasses and webinars about alcohol.
And one of the things that made the biggest difference for me was understanding that I wasn't on my own. And I wasn't broke, that there were many reasons why I had this addiction and many reasons why I should be kind to myself and not fill myself with shame every time I had another drink. I am so, so flipping proud to say that I am now one year and 24 days sober at the point of recording this episode.
By the time you hear, I'll be more sober than that. Because This wasn't a decision of it would just be better for me. This was almost verging on the, I would have ended up killing myself. And I don't mean committing suicide. I mean, I would have drank myself into an early grave. I'm sure of it. And I know.
If you guys have been following me for a while and listening for a while, hopefully you won't have known and you won't have realized and you won't have thought, Oh, I think she's got a problem or she's struggling with this. And I showed up most days and I ran my business and I made money and I had a successful business.
I have a successful business, but deep down, everything was a mess because I was a mess because I couldn't get through a day or two without drinking and it was getting worse and worse and worse. So, like I said, I wanted to be honest on this podcast. I wanted to, I wanted to share it as well for the reason of, you know, how we always set goals or I'm a big goal setting fan and, and last year I set a load of goals for 2023.
And I did none of them. And I'm laughing because There is not an ounce of me that is sorry about that because the one thing I did to get sober has changed my life. So I'm not sorry that my business didn't make as much money as it normally makes. I'm not sorry that I didn't launch the new things that I said I was going to launch.
I'm not sorry that I literally spent half the year sat on the sofa watching Grey's Anatomy. And by half the year, I mean, I spent all year doing it, but it probably equated to about half of my working year. I literally did that. For most of last year, and I'm not sorry one little bit. I'm not at all concerned that that's what I did because I did something ginormous.
I changed something in my world that I never thought for one second I could change. If you'd asked me 18 months ago, do you think you'll ever stop drinking? I would have a hundred percent said, There's no way I could. I never thought for one second, I didn't want to, I didn't want to stop drinking. I didn't want to not have alcohol in my life.
I didn't not want to be able to drink the copious drinks of gin and wine. And it was part of me. It's part of my brand. If you are listening to this and if you follow me. You know, I used to do G and T with T. I'd go live on a Thursday with a gin and tonic. I have so many photos in my photo shoots that is me holding glasses and there's not fake drinks in those glasses that I'm holding.
Like they're genuine drinks and I am genuinely drinking them. is so part of who I am, is so part of my persona and my brand and my business, that that was another reason why I felt like I had no choice but to share that I have gone through this. The other reason I decided to share it, and I had a friend who spoke to me and he He's actually, his company has edited my podcast, the Losing Part of Me podcast, the new one.
And he said to me, you know, you don't have to do a podcast. You know, you don't have to share it with the world. You could just say I don't drink anymore. But there was a part of me that was scared and not, I'm not as scared now, but there was a part of me that was scared that if I didn't share with people how hard it's been for me to stop, how, how much I've had to fight to break this addiction, if someone offered me a drink, or if I was in a position where no one knew that I didn't drink, back in the day, I wouldn't have been able to trust myself.
Now I trust myself completely, but it's just easier if people know that I don't want to drink and I don't drink because I can't, because if I have one, I won't stop. And believe me, I know that for a fact, because I have tried everything prior to stopping. I wanted to be one of those people who would just have one and then could have no more.
And that is not me. And that is not how it works for me. And if you are one of those people, then I am in awe of you, because that's not how my brain works. And I wish it did, because that means I could still drink, but. Even saying that means that's the reason why I shouldn't be drinking. So, what I have decided to do is I've just put this one episode together for this main podcast for my podcast because I know I've got lovely listeners like you that listen all the time and I couldn't not share that I'd been through this.
What I didn't want to do is get caught up in all the details over here on this podcast, because this podcast is about me supporting you grow your business and creating the life and business that you dream of, which luckily, I have been able to do while drinking, but now I feel like I'm on fire. I feel like nothing can stop me.
There is nothing in the world I can't achieve. I honestly feel like I can take on the world right now and I am excited to see what I achieve for other people and what I can help other people with. And I am ready to do it. So I'm very lucky that I've managed to keep my business going and my life going and nothing too disastrous ever happened, but it wouldn't have been long before something started to really slip in my life if I hadn't stopped.
So, like I said, I wanted to do this one and only episode over here to let you know that this has happened in my world. It feels a little bit like getting naked in front of you, if I'm honest, but not half as naked as if you go and listen to the other podcast, because on the other podcast, I am sharing everything.
And as much as that makes me want to vomit on a regular basis, again, I know there are some people out there who are going to need to hear some of the stuff that I'm going to say, they're going to appreciate that I was able to show up in the way I was run my business, be the, and I want to use the word success in inverted commas here.
Like, because I wasn't a success. Yes. I achieved amazing things while drinking, but I didn't feel a success. I feel a success now having had the worst year in my business that I've just had. However, Having achieved what I've achieved, I feel like a huge success. So, so I want people to, to be able to go and dive deeper into this story, but not on this podcast, because I didn't want to spend, I don't know, 10, 15 episodes talking you through all of the things, because that's not what you're here for.
However, if you do listen to this podcast, and you think either it. You might get some benefit out of listening to the other podcast, or you just want to go and listen to what a hell of a few years I've been through and how I'm out the other side and how my life has changed. And also, I'm interviewing some cool people over there.
I have some really cool conversations, but it is a, it is not a easygoing, fun, laffy podcast because it's a really hard thing to talk about. And I talk about things that are probably not for little ears. I swear over there as well. Which if you listen to this podcast, you might think I don't swear, but I do.
And I do over there because it's a very emotive subject. So yeah. So I wanted to come and say that. This has happened to me and last year did not go as planned, but I am absolutely fine with that because the work I did on myself has changed me and my business and my life for ever. And I am so flipping proud of that.
And even though I feel very nervous sharing with you that this is something I've been through and there's a lot of stigma attached to it. I think that's another reason why I'm not keen on the word alcoholic, because I think when you think of that, you get an image in your head, which hopefully is nothing like I look, but, but that's the truth.
It is exactly what I look like. And it's exactly like other people look, but. We don't talk about it that way. So anyway, so like I said, the other podcast is called Losing Part of Me. It's available now. There are a number of episodes out at this point and it's going to be for a season. So there'll be a chunk of episodes coming out and then it'll be stopped.
If for whatever reason, something makes me continue and do some more seasons, then I might do that. But at this point, I am just putting it out there and seeing what's happened or what happens with it. I would appreciate greatly. If you would be so kind as to go over to that podcast and if you would give it a listen and give it a review, I would be so very grateful. Because the more people and the more action that podcast gets, the more people it's going to be put in front of and there are some people like me out there who need to hear the stuff I've got to say because I needed to hear it.
I needed to hear those stories to hear those conversations. help me start my recovery. And like I said, I am so grateful to be where I am right now. And the shame has pretty much all but gone, which is why I feel comfortable to share this stuff with you guys. So yeah. So like I said, this is a very odd episode.
It feels a very, vulnerable episode. But if you head over to losing part of me, that's what it's called. If you are in our show notes for this podcast, teresaheathwareing.com/ the number of this podcast, which I should know off the top of my head. I had to check it's three, three, four. So number three, three, four.
If you head over there, you'll find the show notes and that will give you a link to the new podcast. But like I said, wherever you're listening to this, if you just go to the search bar and put in losing part of me. then hopefully you should find the new podcast. Like I said, I do go into a lot of detail over there.
It's a very vulnerable podcast and it might not be for little ears because obviously we're talking about some very grown up stuff over there. So anyway, I would like to thank you for listening to this podcast. I'd like to thank you in advance if you're going to head over and have a listen to that podcast.
Obviously I talk about. you know, what I drank, how much I drank, what happened, all the stories, which again, feels like I'm standing naked, in front of you all, but. I am doing it for hopefully the greater good and that it will help someone else out there that needs to hear it. So thank you for your kindness in advance in this.
I am praying to goodness that no one says anything mean about all this. It makes me very worried being so vulnerable, but it's so very important that we talk about these things because there is no shame. I was not well and I managed to recover. So I feel really proud of that. Okay. I'm going to leave you to it.
Have a really cool rest of your week. I will be back next week with a normal interview, a normal episode until then have a fab week.
18 min
February 12, 2024Turning Dreams into Reality: Building a Successful Online Business
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Becci Hollis, where we are talking all about how she stopped trading her time for money and created an online business that has meant she now has the freedom to be able to work from anywhere in the world.
In this episode, Becci shares her story so far, what was necessary to have in place to create the online business she has today, as well as some invaluable insights and tips for people who want to work more passively.
Becci is a nail technician, beauty educator and the owner of Blossom Academy. She started in the beauty industry just over 9 years ago and built her business from doing clients in between and after university lectures, to being fully booked and completely self employed. She became an educator so that she could pass on her knowledge and passion to help others to create their own successful beauty business.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
The importance of passion, hard work and being willing to invest, if you want to succeed

The lessons Becci has learned and the key behind being able to scale an online business

The marketing strategy behind Becci's success

If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to iTunes and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Becci on Instagram
Find out more about Blossom Academy
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook
Transcript
Teresa: Hello and welcome back to the Your Dream Business Podcast. How are you doing this week? I hope you're good. So this week I have another interview and I have a very dear friend who I have known for a very long time. I was like, I said this the other day actually on an episode that I've been just interviewing people that I love, which is awesome because I just have conversations and like, I'd love to know what you lot think.
Cause I think it makes a better. A better, I can't speak a better interview because we're just having a chat and I enjoy it more anyway. So today I am interviewing the very lovely Becci Hollis, who is a nail technician and beauty educator and the owner of Blossom Academy. She started in the beauty industry over nine years ago and has built her business from doing clients in between and after university lectures and now is fully booked and completely self employed.
She then became an educator Educator. I hate reading as you well know everybody. So she could pass on her knowledge and her passion to help others and create their own successful beauty businesses. Becci Hollis, welcome to the podcast.
Becci: Hello. Thank you for having me.
Teresa: I am very happy to have you Becci. Not only am I happy because this is the last podcast I'm recording today, which as much as I love them, what I've done a lot.
I'm happy about that. But because to have you on, because like, you're Becci Hollis, like, and people who are in my world and have been in the club will know Becci Hollis, but the, the story of how we've kept coming into each other's world is just amazing. So let's take us back to when you first reach out to me.
Cause like that was a million years ago. So let's start the story there, Becci.
Becci: Yeah. A lot's happened since then, hasn't it?
Teresa: Boy has a lot happened.
Becci: So how long ago would it have been? I mean, I was at university, I was doing my dissertation and my mum told me about this marketing lady that she'd heard of.
And because my degree was in marketing. I needed an expert to interview. So I went onto your website, I think, and submitted a contact form or something like that. I don't even remember how it was now. And yeah, basically I interviewed you for my dissertation. You were my expert that I interviewed.
Teresa: And I remember sitting at ADCA where my daughter used to go to school in the car park waiting to pick her up.
And I'd booked this call with you and I was on my phone because we had an actual phone call. We didn't have a zoom back in those days. And, and I remember you interviewed me and I remember you said, would I like to see your finished dissertation? So I said, yes, that would be lovely. It was awesome. It was really, really good.
You've done this whole like gamification thing to do with clothes and I can't remember the full details, but it was very good, Becci.
Becci: Oh, thank you. I enjoyed doing it, actually.
Teresa: So, so that was the first time. Well, what we thought was the first time we met. And then you had finished uni. And was that then when you said, could you come and do some work for free and come and just do some work experience with me?
Becci: Yeah. Yeah, so I was just trying to get some experience because obviously, you know what it's like when you first graduate, nobody wants to actually give you that initial experience. You have the degree, but no experience. So yeah, you very kindly had me for, was it a week?
Teresa: Yeah, maybe a week or two, I think.
And then you came back into my world again because you worked for, you actually, and this is kind of the irony of it all, you worked for a company that taught beauty industry people, didn't you?
Becci: Yeah. Yes, I did. Yeah. So I was doing their marketing, but then also used to help out on the courses as well. And I think that's when I sort of first started to realize how much I loved the beauty industry.
Yeah. And yeah, we reached out to you for help with the marketing, didn't we?
Teresa: Yeah. So I came and did some training or some consultancy or something. And then, and then the next time. You were working somewhere else in a completely different industry and
Becci: I've tried a few things.
Teresa: Yeah, well, you've got to, and you were young, like you were, like, how old are you now, Becci? You're 24, 25? Oh
Becci: 27.
Teresa: Oh, I've still, you're stuck in that age with me. But like, so you were pretty young then and you still are pretty young, much younger than I am, but then you worked for another company and. They reached out to me before you knew, and I rocked up and there's Becci Hollis working at this place.
We were like, and then we did, I did some more training there and I did some consultancy there. And then you got in contact with me cause you were not very happy in that role. And as we later discovered Becci, just as like me, wouldn't be happy working for anybody. We are good working for ourselves. And then you did some more work experience with me.
Becci: So, yeah, I was like, I just want to work for you again for free.
Teresa: Which I was like, yeah, sure, go on. And then we got to the point where you then started working properly for me, didn't you? So you had set up. doing. So the nail thing you'd always done, you'd always done nails, like from, like you said, at university, that was how you made money go through uni, wasn't it?
And when I say nails, in case someone isn't sure, explain to them what you mean by you do nails.
Becci: Yeah. So I make people's nails pretty. So I do basically all types of gel nails and yeah, I can enhance them. I can do it on the natural nails. Yeah. Basically just make them pretty. Isn't it?
Teresa: Yeah. So like, yeah.
Not like fake, fake nails, but like, yeah, the gel thing. So, so you went back to doing a bit of that, to doing a marketing thing and part of doing the marketing thing was working for me in my team, which you did for, how long did you work in my team for?
Becci: I reckon it was maybe 18 months to two years, because my role kind of kept on expanding, didn't it?
I started with just a very small part, but then, yeah, it expanded.
Teresa: Basically became my right arm. So obviously all this time, Becci keeps coming back into my world, back into my world, back into my world, and you're trying out things. So let's, let's take it from there then. So you have got three businesses at this point, no, technically two.
Because you hadn't got the academy yet, had you?
Becci: No, not quite.
Teresa: Okay, so you were working as a nail technician, doing nails, and then working as a marketing person. Doing marketing for me and others, and then tell us what happened.
Becci: So lockdown happened and obviously I then couldn't do any nails. That side of my business was completely closed.
I panicked because I had a mortgage to pay and bills to pay. So, yeah, I was like, right. Well, the only thing I can do is ramp up the marketing, which luckily I had some good connections and good contacts. And once I sort of put it out there and that this is what I'm doing, I luckily gained a lot of clients and yeah, it literally went from there.
I think it was the end of 2020 that I then decided to become an educator whilst we were still in lockdown because I could train online and that's when I kind of, when I reopened the beauty business, when we could finally work again. Mm-Hmm. , I was then into more of the teaching, but obviously my marketing, I still did up until sort of early this year, 2023.
Teresa: You. When you talked about the education, you first started educating in person, didn't you? That was how your business looked in the beginning.
Becci: Yeah. So at that point I then had three things that I was doing because I still had all my marketing clients. I still had nail clients and then I was teaching courses.
So it was a lot.
Teresa: But You just did the in person, you weren't doing the online stuff at that point, were you? Then remind me, because obviously the other thing that was always very exciting about your story was that you created a business that meant you could go traveling. So how much of the online stuff had you got sorted before you left to go to Australia?
Becci: It was all, it was all up and running.
Teresa: Up and running by then, yeah, I thought it was.
Becci: Because we went in 2022. So I'd had two years of educating and in that time I'd created all the online versions of the courses. So then when I went to Australia to live, I could still run that business even though I wasn't teaching in person.
Teresa: And the good news about that was you pretty much stopped most of your marketing clients, especially the big ones like me. So for someone like me, Becci was my right hand, which meant we spoke all the time. We had like, you know, a lot of calls. She was constantly back and forth with me and obviously going to Australia.
Initially we were going to make it work, weren't we? And then luckily when, do you know what, I'm not going to be able to relax. And that was my big concern that you would just wouldn't switch off and you wouldn't like take that time and that's the whole point of you going. So then were you able, so let's go back a bit.
So let's talk about the shift to opening the online and how long was it? Well, how did those early days go? Those first few months, first year, when was it that you went, Oh no, this is working?
Becci: I mean, I was pretty busy with the in person training. I mean, I wasn't charging enough at all for those in person courses because I was charging for a one to one course because I didn't have, like, all the kit and everything to be able to do the group courses.
So, I was charging what I charge now for a group course as a one to one. So, the people who trained in the beginning had to That's a good deal there, but it was great because it was all good experience. So it got me to this point now. But when I was doing the training nails and marketing, it did become quite apparent that, you know, my head was always in three different places.
And as well, I mean, you know me, like I. Have a tendency to burn myself out before I then take a step back and go, hang on, we can't sustain this. So I was just continually doing this burnout cycle, but I loved all three things. So I didn't really want to sort of give any of them up. And yeah, I think.
Conversation that we had probably maybe six months down the line, six, yeah, six, 12 months down the line where I just said, you know, I am at capacity. I can't physically take on any more nail clients. I can't do any more marketing hours. And, you know, I want to do these courses more, but my time is just completely taken by everything else.
So then we started to have a conversation of, right, how can I sort of make it more online and more scalable and stop sort of trading my time for money all the time? And that was what sort of initially sparked the, the idea of the online courses. And then I just kind of ran with it from there, didn't I?
Teresa: Yeah. And I think, so this, you are like the perfect example of how an online business should look because you had a passion and an expertise in an area that you loved. You never came in and bearing in mind, you knew the online world because you were working with me and I was all online, but you never came in and went, how can I create an online business and get rich?
Like, it was never that, was it? It was like, You loved doing the courses. You loved doing the education side. You loved helping other technicians and people in the beauty industry. And it was like the online aspect was just another part of that. It wasn't like, Oh, now I want to get rich being online. It's like, this is my expertise.
That's just a medium as to how I can do that. So, so yeah, what point did you think? This is working. Did it work pretty quickly? Obviously, I know, but for, you know, the, the people listening, like, how long was it before you went, Oh, hang on, like, this is going to make me money.
Becci: Well, I remember when we first, when I first started it and I was on a coaching call with you and you sort of said, you know, what's the goal.
And I think I remember saying to you, if I can just sell one course a week, I'll be happy. And. It was like that for probably the first six months, I would say. It was kind of like a tumbleweed, but you know, I'd spent hours and hours and a lot of money putting these courses together, paying for all the website, the editing, everything.
And I didn't get a return on it for a long time because I didn't have my SEO sorted and, you know, I'd built an audience before I'd launched them, but once they'd kind of all purchased that, that was it. And I didn't know how to continue that momentum. I think the real shift was probably. I would say a year later, I, all of a sudden it wasn't all of a sudden, but I started to gain a lot more momentum on my social media.
I started to sort of create a bit more of a platform for myself. And then we started looking at things like SEO and paid ads and, you know, driving that traffic. And that definitely came with the help of other people as well. That wasn't my expertise at all. So I would say the, you know, the real turning point was once I started to be able to then hire other people to do those things for me, because at first, you know, yes, I'd created the product.
I knew the product was good, but I couldn't get enough people to kind of see it. And yeah, to just get on the website and then obviously to purchase. So yeah, I would say actually, when I went to Australia, Which is so ironic. I had my best year ever when I was actually not even in the country, which is so weird.
Teresa: Yeah, but you were technically traveling, having a gap year, but that was when it worked. But then that, and this is the thing, like, there's so many things to talk about with you, because that is almost like people's dream, that they can get on with their life and a business can just run and make money. But one thing I want to say before we get to that, and actually what it has meant for you, You worked your backside off, right?
And this is the bit that people don't always want to do. Now, what happens when people start an online business? Right, so the few things that led, I think, to your success, right? Obviously, working with me was a me No, I'm joking. Obviously, because I was in your world. No, I am teasing. Because Becci works really flippin hard.
So, the first thing is, right, when people move to the online thing, thing, like if I was to kind of list out what made you successful, one was this was your passion. It was your thing. So tick, right. You're not just in it for the online thing. You're not just in it for the money. You love this stuff.
The second thing I think that was really worked for you was the fact that you worked so incredibly hard while setting that up. Now, there's two things people can do here. You had money coming in from the marketing side of your business. You had money coming through the nail side of your business. And even when you're to Australia, you still did nails, didn't you?
Because That was actually a really lovely way for you to meet people, to get to know people and stuff. And your partner at the time, he was, because you both have to work when you do that kind of traveling thing. And I only know all this because of Becci going, but, but he had to do a job that took him away for like the week.
So you were on your own in another country. And I know Becci and Becci is a real home bird and she had, and I remember talking to you really early doors because it was hard. It was, you know, it's not what I imagine. I think people like, Oh my God, you're so lucky you get trouble. And I don't ever think that you might be out there going, I'm not sure I want to be here, but you had built a really lovely life.
You were successful. You were earning money. You had your life exactly as you wanted it. You know, you were going to the gym and you were with your friends and like. And then you upheaved all that to go to Australia. So it was a big, big, and that was a massive and in fact, if I think about it. That changed you a lot when I think about the Becci who's back, like that, that trip and that having to go through something quite tough, which like I said, most people wouldn't look at it and go, well, that's tough taking a year out and whatever, going traveling, but, but you were away from your family.
You were away from your friends. You were in a country that was brand new. Your partner at the time wasn't even with you most of the time because he was having to go away to work. It was massive. So, so yeah, so you kept earning money in other places, which then enabled...
45 min
February 05, 2024Social Media Made Simple: How To Market Your Business Without The Overwhelm
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Becci McEvoy, where we are talking all about her Boss Your Socials Framework, that was designed to help you simplify your content, show up and be heard on your socials.
In this episode, Becci shares lots of simple, actionable tips and advice, that you can go away and implement straight away to help you create consistent and engaging content.
Becci is an award winning Social Media Marketer who specialises in Content Strategy and Organic Growth. Her mission is to cut through the noise of 'experts' to make social media marketing accessible and easy to understand for businesses that can't afford to outsource, or who don't have the teams required to implement most of the advice given to them.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
How Becci's journey of self discovery has helped her to grow the business she has today

How to know which boundaries you need for your business to thrive on social media

How to optimise your social media content to encourage more engagement

If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to iTunes and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Becci on Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook
Check out the Boss Your Socials Club
Read Becci's blog on 'The Mindset Shift You Need For Instagram Success'
Sign up to receive Becci's emails
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook

Transcription
Teresa: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. How are you doing? So this week I have another interview for you, which as always, I'm very excited about all the guests at the moment are awesome and brilliant. And lots of them I know personally, which is always lovely, but this one is extra special because not only is this guest a member of my team.
Also a member of the exec club, the mastermind that I have, but she's also a very dear friend. So today I'm speaking to the lovely Becci McEvoy. Now here's how I read a bio, which I mess it up normally. So let's give it a go. Becci is an award winning social media marketer who specializes in content strategy an organic growth.
As she's an international speaker. She's passionate about helping women owned businesses to simplify using social media to build their business so that they feel less overwhelmed and can stop feeling like a slave to it. Her mission is to cut through the noise of experts. I won't take it personally to make social media marketing accessible and easy to understand for businesses that can't afford to outsource or who don't have the team required to implement most of the advice given to them.
Welcome to the podcast, Becci McEvoy. Becci, how are you doing?
Becci: I'm good. Thank you. Thank you very much for having me.
Teresa: My pleasure. Like, I've just about got through it. I, I don't know what's wrong with me at the moment. I keep messing up. Like, this is, it took me two attempts this time. The other day when I did another interview, it took me about four, but you would think after all these episodes, I would be all right with this.
But, Alas, no, it appears I've lost my stride. Anyway, Becci, I've done your brief intro, because quite honestly, there's no way I could have read any more than that, because it would have been an absolute disaster. But let's start by you sharing how you got to do what you do today.
Becci: Yeah. So, as you said, I'm a social media marketer and I've been doing that for about four years now.
I think I'm Yeah, about four and a half years. And if I'm completely honest, I kind of fell into it by accident. Although I think a lot of people sort of start their businesses a little bit like that. But yeah, I had a previous career for about 13 years in higher education policy, engagement and campaigning, and I'd worked my way up to, sorry, say that again?
Natural fit. Yeah, exactly. But the thing was I did, because I went to quite a small organization, it's one of those things where you're quite hands on with a lot of things. So, you know, you did a bit of marketing, everybody sort of knew what they were doing. So, yeah, so I was doing that, did it for about 13 years.
I loved it. And then I had my children and I still loved it, but it just became very, very hard to juggle the juggle. And cutting the long story short, I basically walked out of my job without another one to go to because I was like, no, I've had enough of this. This is too much. I don't know what I want to do, but I need to suss out what I want to do.
And I took about six months off. I was very lucky to be able to do so. To be a stay at home mum with my little girl and my little boy who had just started school. And yeah, I, one of my friends was running her own business and she was looking for some help. And I was like, I can help you if you want. And she only wanted some admin help, but it was with her social media.
So I started doing bits and pieces of it, and when, I laughed earlier when you said about the natural fit, because I wouldn't have said it was a natural fit, but because of the previous job that I'd had, she only wanted me to do the admin, but I started to say, well, you could do this, and you could do that, and actually, if we started doing this, we could do this, and, you know, around campaigns, engagement, whatever.
Anyway, we started doing it all and I absolutely loved it and it was just, you know, a bit of a side hustle. But other local businesses started to notice that her social media had massively improved and they were like, Oh my God, what have you done? She started speaking to them about me and she was like, can I recommend you out?
And I was like, Oh my God, like, it's turning into something. I was like, we better take this seriously. So yeah, that's kind of how it started. And then six months later, no, I don't even think it was six months later, but we went into lockdown, the first lockdown of the many, and it kind of fell by the wayside again because obviously I was homeschooling and I think it was around that time, well it was as we were coming out of the first lockdown that I started to think, right, I need to actually start to get some things in place and I started to invest in things which I'd never done before.
And that's when I came into your world. And it was like never after. It was, and it's kind of one of those where it's like, As they say, the rest is history. It's kind of grown over that time. I don't do as much done for you stuff now. I now have a membership. I do much more coaching and strategy stuff with the support of an amazing business coach.
So yeah, that's kind of been a, yeah, and it's kind of been a bit of a rapid growth, really, in a lot of ways. But I absolutely love it. And I love working, as you said, at the beginning, just with women owned businesses. I love helping them cut through the noise because so much of the advice is so inaccessible.
And I love using the skills that I didn't know I had from my 13, 14 years working in campaign and engagement policy. I didn't know, I guess I knew I had the skills, but didn't know how transferable they were into running a business. And yeah, now I am where I am today.
Teresa: Amazing. And one of the things that. I love about what you've created is that you, when you came into my world, you'd been in a world where after the work, where basically it was like, you should be charging this, you should be doing this, you should be doing the other.
And Becci is a very strong character anyway. So she was always going to like, but up against those ideals, which lots of people don't. Lots of people take them as read and go, Oh God, I'm doing it all wrong. Whereas you didn't do that. However, that has been present throughout your entire journey in terms of, no, what is important to me?
What do I want? Even literally up until a couple of weeks back when you wanted to make a decision and everybody else is like, no, no, don't make that decision. And you're like, no, actually I'm listening to me and this is the right decision. So I really love that. That's been In the forefront of you and your business, but also that you created something and there have been times, obviously, when it hasn't worked, but you have generally created something where you've got your children.
Becci is like one of the best moms I know, like, I'm not and I don't say that flippantly. You make it work around your children. And that was the whole point. You having a business, wasn't it?
Becci: Yeah, 100%. And I think just learning, I was stopping myself then going, when you said she's the best mum I know, I go, no, I'm not.
Teresa: No, honestly.
Becci: Thank you.
Teresa: Yes, just say thank you. That's what we're learning. Thank you.
Becci: But it is, and it does sound very cliche to say, oh, I do it all for my children. And I mean, those that know me that I do do it all for my children, but it's also about the life that, that I want as well. And I think one of my biggest sort of, Learning curves since I left my job, probably when I've done a lot of work on myself is that actually I can make a decision.
And if a month later, that decision isn't working to me, I can make another decision. So it's not always about. Like you said, like, it's, I will stand up and sort of make the decisions based about what I want and regularly kind of check in with myself to go, actually, do I still want that? And that's why I love working with you, because sometimes I can, well, as everyone can go a bit flippantly, I don't want this anymore, but actually
Teresa: Becci, every other day
Becci: Oh no, that's just a bad day, but it's
Teresa: But sometimes those bad days are bad, do you know what I mean? What's the reason you feel like that?
Becci: Yeah, no, definitely. But I do, I do feel, well, I've used the word lucky earlier and you well know that I don't like the word lucky. I do feel very blessed to be in a position where I have been able to use my skills. I have been able to set up this thing that I want and I have got the support around me because, you know, you say a lot that I'm very kind in the credit I give to you in terms of where I've got to today because I know that I need to have done the work.
It wouldn't have if I hadn't done the work. But also I do feel very blessed that like that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't invested in sort of the support and the help and the community and all of those different things. So, yeah, I just, I do just feel incredibly blessed to have been able to create the business that I want.
And like you said, even up to a couple of weeks ago, go, no, I'm changing that again. Yeah. Yeah.
And I think in my life there's a, it's interesting because everything we say always has kind of two sides and, and sometimes making. And I'm going to use the word rash decisions, although it wasn't a rash decision, but making a decision of no, I don't want to do that on.
Teresa: Yeah. I'm want to do this, or I'm going to change over to here. I'm going to do this thing. Like the difference when Becci does it is she brings her back herself to herself and goes, is this fitting with everything? It's not just like chasing a shiny object. It's not just doing something new or saying something.
No, because actually you can't be bothered. Like it, it always comes back to. Is this aligned with me? Is this where I want to be? Is this fitting with my goals? Do I genuinely want this? And that is in itself is a task to do that because lots of us just travel through this speed of business. And I did for years of like, yeah, fine.
Yeah, no, do this, do that. And then end up with something that we hate. Whereas you've been really purposeful, which is awesome, you know, regardless of the outcome. And that's given you confidence when. when you talk about the business that you've created, because the business you've created is not one that maybe someone else would want, you know, but you are really strong and powerful about being able to say, but this is what I want.
Becci: Yeah. And I think I often find as well, as much as my decisions, and I've learned this actually probably in the last six months or so, they seem like they're impulsive, but actually. They've been brewing for a while because, for example, like, we'll have done half day sessions or whatever, where something's been triggered, sometimes even in my subconscious, probably, without me realising.
It's a bit like with the membership I launched last year and we laughed that, like, I had an idea and then two weeks, well, the following day, I literally something up.
Teresa: And to make matters even more interesting is I wasn't even in the country and I'm like waking up every morning and there's this whole and I'm like what the what the what the like is going on
Becci: what are you doing it's but actually realistically with that I've been thinking for a while I wanted to free myself up to give more myself more time do less done for you work I like the idea of a membership I like the idea of helping more people I just couldn't get what that looked like like it just wasn't quite Like I couldn't get what that membership looked like and then it was, it was because I was on a co working session with other people from Exec Club, and we'd had a coaching call like a few days before where you'd said something to me actually about my framework and all of a sudden it just sort of fell into place and then I did it very rapidly.
So I think often to other people it can seem like I do think, you know, like I'm a real action taker, really impulsive, but often it's come from a stream of thoughts, whether it's through working with you or just conversations I've had like elsewhere. But that's the joy of having your own business, isn't it? That, like.
Teresa: It is. Yeah. Like, and you're the one who's going to have to have the responsibility of that as in like, you know, it's like the whole, you make your bed, you lie in it like that. And when we've had conversations and we literally just had a conversation a matter of like days ago in terms of this recent change, it was a case of like, as long as you're doing it and it took us ages to find the word, didn't it?
Because neither of us could think what it was, but it was like, as long as you're doing it consciously, you're not just doing it from a gut reaction. Although gut. is sometimes something we need to listen to, but you're not just doing it because you're not in a great mood that day or you don't feel very happy that day or something's great that day.
So suddenly it's like, well, now I'm going to do this. Like it wasn't coming from that. It was coming from a conscious decision to go, but it had consequences and you have to weigh those consequences up because you're the only one who's going to have to deal with that. You know, Everyone can give their opinion, everyone can give their thought, but actually if you, you're the one who's got to do it, like if you decide, I don't want to work with that person, I'm not going to take that money, then you're the one who's either going to find the money or be okay without the money, or if someone goes, I am going to work with that person, I am going to do that, that's cool, great, you've earned that money, but this is how your life will look, and I think we don't talk enough about that. We see the shiny headlines of six figures or I do this or I do that like we see all that.
It's like I sometimes Joe could feel a bit smug about my morning routine, but I get up at six a. m. to do it. I could stay in bed till easily 8-9 most days because I don't often have calls that early.
But I could, but I don't. I make the decision to do that. So everything, every decision we make, yes, it's great to have people to have a sounding board, but we've always got to come back to ourselves and we've got to, we've just got to kind of be okay with whatever those consequences might be either way.
Becci: Yeah, and I think that that's why I hate the word lucky so much, because we're not lucky. We've made, we have, we absolutely have lots of different privileges, but more often than not, the people that are calling me lucky are also have the same privileges.
Teresa: Yes, yeah, they, yeah, exactly.
Becci: But we, we work hard and we make choices and sometimes we make really hard choices.
And like you said earlier, sometimes those choices don't go to plan and you learn from it. But you know, like I made a choice to invest in myself a couple of years ago by joining Your World by doing various different other things. And I think one of the reasons I find it easier to make those decisions now is because I know my values.
I know my North Star and I know them really, really well because we've done them four or five times and gone back and revisited them and gone. Actually, no, I don't want that in there anymore. This is changing, but yeah, I know my values. I know my North Star. I know my purpose. I know my personal mission statement and all these things that people sort of see as luxuries, but actually.
Well, I think it was last year at some point we both sort of said, like, as a family, I, because I'm not a decisive person. And that's what I didn't have before I came into the world. It was a lot of like the mindset side of it, which obviously you talk a lot, but it's like, actually, I can make that because when I was trying to make that decision the other day, I looked, I actually looked at my personal mission statement when that's what you want.
Like, that's why you're doing this. And yeah, it's going to be really hard to make this choice and face the consequences that go with it. Yeah. But you're taking yourself towards or further towards what you want. So, so, yeah, that is why and that and that is why I give so much credit to you because yes, I had to do the work.
I actually had to create the values and create the personal mission statement, but that was missing, I think, from anything I'd ever done before. Like all the experience I had in management, strategy, engagement. Et cetera. I could do that with my eyes
59 min
January 29, 2024From Self Doubt to Success: 5 Ways You Self Silence And How To Overcome It
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Fifi Mason, where we are talking all about what self-silencing is and how it can impact you in business
In this episode, Fifi shares some amazing insights into the reasons you might be self-silencing, as well as her top tips to move past self-silencing, so that you can show up for those you want to serve.
Fifi Mason is a Personal Brand & Visibility Coach, her mission and purpose is to help individuals with quieter voices show up authentically, amplify their impact and create the change they wish to see in the world.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
Reasons you might be self silencing and the impact it has on your business

Practical ways to overcome self silencing

The mindset shift that takes you from self doubt to serving your audience

If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to iTunes and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Buy Fifi's mini book 'Stop Self Silencing'
Connect with Fifi Mason
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook
Transcript
Teresa: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Dream Business Podcast. How are you doing? So we have another interview this week, which I am really looking forward to, for lots of reasons. I very much admire this woman. One of the main reasons is because she's put on one of the best summits I've ever been to as a speaker.
And it's almost like. She quietly just gets on with things and they are all amazing, which is awesome. I love it. So this week we have the very lovely Fifi Mason. She is a personal brand and visibility coach and her mission and purpose is to help. I knew I'd get that messed up. I do this all the time, people, you know, I don't like reading.
I shouldn't read on the podcast. So I will just go back because whenever I read a bio, I hate it. You know, that someone was talking to me just as like digression the other day about they're getting a new teleprompter. And I was like, could you even imagine if I had to read a teleprompter? I'd be a nightmare.
So. I'm going to start again. Fifi Mason is a personal brand and visibility coach. Her mission and purpose is to help individuals with quieter voices show up authentically, amplify their impact and create the change they wish to see in the world. Fifi, welcome to the podcast.
Fifi: Thank you so much for having me. And it's interesting that you're struggling with that because I find it much easier to just read.
So, which
Teresa: completely offers it . Yeah. And I do know that by some people, some people script their entire podcast. Mm-Hmm. I lit. Could you imagine? I literal have to read like a sentence. . I I, it would be an absolute disaster. So for me, I am so much better off the cuff the same. If someone wants something prerecorded, I treat it like it's live.
So if I slightly mess up, I start again or not start again. I just keep going. Yeah. 'cause if I try to do it perfectly, I will mess it up massively. So apart from being an amazing summit host, which you are, and Fifi is very kindly giving me some of her time, because as you've heard me maybe mention on the podcast, but only very briefly, I am planning a summit in March, which now gives me even more respect for Fifi because it's a ton of work.
But Fifi, just tell us a bit about a bit more about who you are and what you do.
Fifi: Yes, of course I can do that. So, as you said, I'm Fifi Mason and I am a personal brand invisibility coach and I work specifically with quiet impact makers and quiet coaches, helping them to Show up in a way that feels more natural, aligned with who they are, their personality, and really just start putting themselves out there in a way that feels comfortable to them, without having to be the loudest in the room, the one that's Shouting the loudest in their kind of marketing message, they can still embrace their quiet nature and, and put themselves out there in that way and find a way that works for them.
So that's predominantly who I help and how I do it. So.
Teresa: And people would find this hard to understand because I am an extrovert and I don't mind putting myself out there, but even I sometimes get intimidated by some of the people who have the loudest voices and often the people who have the loudest voices tend to be the ones who get the business, which Even I find frustrating, so I can't imagine who someone who wouldn't maybe class themselves as extroverted as I am, how frustrating that must be for them, and also how disheartening and how almost what's the point, like, how do you get over that whole, actually I can still create what I want without having to try and match what they're doing, because it just wouldn't be authentic, would it?
Fifi: Yeah, and that's the goal really to, to be authentically you. And I think, I think there is a shift going on where people aren't just going for the loudest person in the room anymore. They are going for those who are genuine, authentic and being themselves. And you can see that in the way that people are connecting and the changes in people's.
Decisions in their buying decisions, because they're not just going for those that are out there and, and don't, they don't align with, they're going with the people that they do, that they like, that they get on with, who, who have the same values as them, who are just being authentically themselves. But that is often a struggle for a lot of people as well, just to have that freedom and the.
And feel comfortable being themselves in front of people. And that's predominantly why I help my clients with really getting clear on who they are, what they stand for, and how they're going to communicate that in a way that feels authentic and aligned and start moving past some of the struggles that they might have, which.
which is around, often around self silencing.
Teresa: So what do you mean by the term self silencing?
Fifi: So, self silencing at its core is when we, when we hold back our thoughts, our ideas, our opinions, and even sharing our story and our experiences for the fear of Mostly potential consequences or mostly perceived consequences, things that we think are going to happen, but tend not to happen.
And so it's the struggle of just, just being yourself and really talking about the things that you think about the thing, the ideas that you have, the, the experiences you've had in your life, you find it really difficult to. To express them, to talk about them out loud in the world on social media. Um, and it can, it can really impact the connection that you make with those clients and, and really impact how they perceive you if you're not being your true self.
Um, so this is a quite a, quite a big problem that I find. That a lot of, a lot of people face, but predominantly the quieter, more introverted types struggle with this a lot
Teresa: more. What do they think? You know, this must be something that, that comes up a lot and I have some thoughts of my own on this, but like, like you said, people aren't doing it because there's a fear.
So what is it that they're fearing? What do they think is going to happen if they use their voice, if they show up authentically, if they give an opinion on something?
Fifi: Well, it really starts in in this 5 different reasons that I've identified that make. But that kind of show up will help us to see how it shows up.
So, so the five reasons, the core reasons we might be self silencing for each one, they, they have different things, different, different scenarios that, that could potentially be holding you back. So, so I can go through those. That'd be great. Yeah. One by one. So the first one is that you worry that those you care about the most.
We'll see you differently and judge you differently and this one specific, this one is specifically because it's specifically your close friends and family because they're, they're the ones that we hold or their opinion. We hold that dear to us, so we going to be more fearful of what they think, what they, what their opinion is all of us, then, then someone that we don't know in the world.
And I see this show up a lot with those that are definitely new to business when they're doing something new in their business, and they're, they're worried that maybe. Close friends and family, colleagues or ex colleagues, maybe peers in their industry will judge them for what they're doing, what they're putting out there on.
If they're, if they're just suddenly showing up on social media, if they, if they. Saying things that, that people have just never heard them say before, who, who know them. They're going to be surprised and start questioning, well, why are you all of a sudden doing this? This, this is not something you've ever done before.
Teresa: And I don't think that ever changes. Like even for me, where the people who bother me the most are the people that know me, like, you know, I'm putting something out soon where. It will be really vulnerable and I'll be really open about, you know, something that's happened with me and I'm not concerned about my community knowing I'm concerned about my ex husband seeing it.
I'm concerned about my ex mother in law seeing it. I'm concerned about my family potentially seeing it and not knowing those things about me because for some reason my community feels like a much safer space than going and having those conversations. So I think that is something to to bear in mind that actually that That happens to lots of people in lots of ways and, and even when I have been so open and so, you know, vulnerable and authentic in the past, it still feels uncomfortable.
So what would your thought be then if someone is feeling that? What would your thought be or how would you talk to them about getting over that? In the nicest sense of the word.
Fifi: It's a good point you made just then that this is, this is often comes up in different stages of business as well. So all, all of the things that I go through today, they, they could happen at any stage.
They, they often happen a lot earlier on if you really do have a struggle with, with some of these things. But I see, especially those who once they have established or have a really established. Following, they are more hesitant to start changing things and doing things because they don't want to lose people.
Teresa: Yeah. So there's. And you got more to lose at that point. Whereas I think when people get started, they're like terrified of putting something out there and you're like, well, you're lucky if someone will see it. Like it's when you have a following and when you have people that you think, Oh no, people are definitely going to see this, that it gets even more scary.
Fifi: It does. So yeah, a lot of these challenges can come up at any stage, but. With this one specifically, what I find helps the most is to, is to just, instead of just all of a sudden going out there and, and expressing these things to the world, it's to, it's to take little steps to be more open and honest in your day to day interactions with family and friends and just talk to them about stuff.
So it could just be Even if it's, you've, you've changed your opinion on something in society, in, in the world, and you want to start expressing that, but you, you don't want to just put it out there. So you would just go to, to your partner, maybe the first person you would talk to about it. Express it to them and then maybe it's a family member and then maybe it's a close friend and, and it's just taking those gradual steps so that you are not just all of a sudden out there in the whole world saying these things for the first time.
And even so, that can be kind of daunting as well to, to take those steps, so.
Teresa: Yeah, I was going to say that because in some ways. Like the people who have been in my world the longest are the people that know me the least because they've not moved with me. Like one thing that I talk about and I've talked about in therapy is the fact that people don't like you moving positions.
They like the status quo. Okay. So they like the, the person, the box that you fit in and have fitted in for years. And if you start stepping out that box or especially my. you know, for me, the minute I started stepping out of that box and going, but I'm not like that anymore, or that's not how I want to show up anymore.
Actually, I don't want to play that role anymore. Those people closest to me are the ones that are struggling with it the most. And it's almost easier for me to show up fully authentically in my business and publicly. And And for them, for me to think in the background, they might look at this going, you know, whatever.
And it's like, actually, you couldn't accept me moving on or you couldn't accept me changing or tweaking or showing up in a different way. And that problems with, you know, like, you know, so it's really fascinating that, you know, it's not just as clear cut as showing yourself to the world. There are different people in different times of your life and different, you know, sort of relationships that you will go, that's tricky or that's hard.
What's fascinating about my relationship with my husband is he never watches my stuff, never listens to my stuff, never reads my stuff. So I joke that I've divorced him like three times on my podcast and he wouldn't have a clue because he doesn't pay any attention. So like, you know, he's funny, but also what's funny as well is like, I, I've got family members who aren't on social media at all.
And it's like, how do they know what's going on in my world without me actually having to go and tell them? Because they don't see it. Like, and I know that sounds ridiculous, but we are so used to that world that actually, and actually that one to one conversation is so much harder than me just going, Hey world, this thing now, or.
I did this like, like, so for instance, my podcast hit number one in the marketing charts in the UK on Apple. And I was obviously so flipping proud, like so, so happy about it. And I posted it on social and I shared it and I sent it in an email and they did all that stuff. And yet some of my closest family don't know, and I don't know how to tell them.
I don't know how to go to them and go. Hey, listen, like this thing happened to me because I don't want to look like a big head or I don't want to, like, how do I bring it up in a conversation? Like, so it is really fascinating that actually maybe if the fear is you're concerned about what those people say because you've had a bad experience doesn't mean Actually, the, the people not in your immediate thing might, you might find it way easier to do than your immediate family.
So yeah, it's so fascinating, isn't it?
Fifi: Yeah, it is. And actually, that is going to lead on to the next one. Awesome. Just want to, yeah, the, the flip side to this is that you might struggle more like talking to your closer friends and family about things because. you've already built your tribe who know you, trust you, all of that.
Like, and that's the dream, isn't it? To be able to do that and have those, have that community and have those people. So, so building that and being the authentic self to do that is, is the perfect solution. But if you do struggle with expressing things to closer friends and family, The other thing that you could start doing is, is really just, I find I write about things a lot and get clear on how I want to express it and then you can then approach it.
But yes, this ties into the next one, which is you feel responsible for other people's feelings.
Teresa: Oh, that's a good one.
Fifi: And this, this actually, it does tie into what you were saying there, because I often find that When you're, when you take on the responsibility over the people's feelings, it means that you're less likely to share certain things, like maybe that you've been successful in something, that you've accomplished something, because you don't want to feel like you're bragging, you don't want to show off.
You don't want to put them down all of those things. So it's kind of comes from that perspective and this also shows up when we might be being more salesy in, in our content as well. So. Worrying that when we're putting out those offers and, and actually telling people about our services, that they're going to get upset or angry or frustrated or irritated because we're being too much, we're sharing it too much when often it's the complete opposite and we're not doing it half as much as we should be.
Teresa: And again, that one was, that's so good. So I think as a rule of life, knowing that you can't be responsible for someone else's feelings, and, and this is where this falls into the whole boundaries thing as well in terms of like, so, You might put up with something. So let's say, you know, I've talked about this before on the podcast where I had a friend that we used to go and see.
And every time I went to see that friend, they would start some debate with me and would make it really uncomfortable. And I didn't want to rock the boat. I didn't want to, you know, cause anything. So I just kept quiet, which I know some of you will find very hard to believe, but I did. And actually what I was doing was I was putting no boundaries in place.
I was devaluing me and my feelings. So I was going, it's okay for me to feel like this as I don't want to risk them being feeling in a certain way, which meant they just carried on and I put up with it, which ultimately And then I resented it. And then, you know, now I finally put the stop in and went, No, I'm not dealing with this anymore, but you can't be responsible for someone's feelings.
You can put something out how they choose to take it is entirely up to them. And you're not saying that they're wrong for feeling that way. You're just saying it's not your responsibility. So, so yeah, I love that one Fifi. That's a really good one.
Fifi: Exactly. And so not a solution, but a way around this is just knowing what you are responsible for.
Yeah. And that is the delivery, the word choice that you might. You might actually choose to express yourself and doing your research as well is one of those things that you can do if you've got a strong opinion that you want to share on something, make sure you, you've done your research and you know that your stance is something that you truly believe is true.
And so just being clear on what you're responsible for, I mean, You can, yeah,...
46 min
January 22, 2024Awakened Living: A Story of Healing, Self-Discovery, and Pivoting in Business
Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Roseanna Croft, where she talks openly about her forced spiritual awakening, by way of cancer diagnosis, and her journey through to remission.
Roseanna is a Jungian Life Coach and meditation master who helps women create a life they truly love living, in alignment with their truth. Her passion for spirituality and self-discovery helped her completely turn her life around and she now helps many others do the same.
Roseanna is also an author, speaker and YouTuber on the topics of spiritual growth and personal development.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
Roseanna's journey from cancer diagnosis to being cancer free

The importance of getting aligned with your version of success

The alignment between your goals and your likelihood of achieving them

Disclaimer: neither Teresa or Roseanna are experts in cancer or treatment for disease and illness and this episode is not intended to advise anyone on how to treat their own cancer or diagnose an illness. This is purely an account of Roseanna's personal experience including some spiritual and some scientific backed practices that she used throughout her journey. If you are facing your own cancer journey then please do speak to medical professionals and conduct your own thorough research, and choose what is right for you.
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Roseanna on Instagram
Find Roseanna on YouTube
Listen to Teresa's episode on Roseanna's podcast, The Mandala Effect
Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook

Transcript
Teresa: Welcome to the Your Dream Business Podcast. I'm your host, Teresa Heath Wareing. An international bestselling author, award winning speaker, TEDx speaker, certified coach, and the host of this number one ranked podcast. I am so excited to guide you on the journey of creating a business and life that you not only love, but one that perfectly aligns with you and the season of life that you're in.
In each episode I'll share with you easy, actionable, and insightful strategies to grow your online business. Plus we'll be diving into some mindset tools and strategies that keep you focused, motivated, and are going to stop you from getting in your own way. So if you're a course creator, membership owner, or coach, you are in the right place. Let's get started.
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Your Dream Business podcast. And as always, I'm your host Teresa Heath-Wareing. How the Devil Are You Doing? So this week we have an interview and I'm very excited about this interview because I'm having so much fun actually with these interviews because I'm just interviewing people I know and love, which is ace.
And it was almost like when I first started the podcast or when I go back all that time ago and think about who I interviewed then it was like, It was almost my ego going and actually this is a perfect thing to talk about today, given who I've got on, but it was almost my ego going, you should have this person or you should have this person and that almost, and I'm not, I think I wasn't even open to the idea of actually interviewing people that I know and love because I was too busy thinking, oh, I need this type of person or I need this type of person.
So when I bought the interviews back at the kind of end of last year. I just bought them back with like, I'm going to do this person. I'd love to chat to this person. I'd love to chat to that. And I think as time goes on as listener of this podcast, you will start to see some interviews that might be a bit different to the some of stuff we've done just because I find stuff fascinating.
So anyway, today I have the very amazing Roseanna Croft on the podcast. Roseanna is a Jung, I think that's like, that is Jung. Thanks. Okay, . So this is how bad I am at intro people. Do you know, so she's a young life coach and meditation master who helps 'em create a life that they truly love living in alignment with their truth.
So I'm gonna, that's all I'm gonna do about a bio. 'cause her story is part of what we're gonna talk about and that's what I would read. But the young word is written funny, just in case you're thinking she can't read the word young. It's written. J-U-N-G-I -A-N because it's Carl Jung.
Roseanna: Carl Jung yeah. Yeah.
Teresa: Yeah. So anyway, welcome to the podcast, Roseanna Croft. Welcome.
Roseanna: Thank you so much for having me. This is exciting.
Teresa: I'm excited because your story is kind of amazing. I want to just start by how we met. How many years ago do you reckon now? Five. Gotta be.
Roseanna: Got to be.
Teresa: Easily. So we met at a membership meetup. So it was, we were both in a female entrepreneur association and they had a Christmas meetup and we met and then just became friends ever since.
And then obviously the pandemic stopped us seeing each other in person. And then your life took a real turn. And then we managed to get back on track, which is amazing. Cause I'm so grateful. That's the short version. Now let's dive into the long version. So let's start by saying, I want us to go right back. Actually.
Normally I go, you know, who are you and how you got to how you are today, but let's start. So when I first met you, you were Roseanna Croft Jewelry.
Roseanna: Yes.
Teresa: Tell us about that business.
Roseanna: Okay, cool. So, when we met, I was the owner of Roseanna Croft Jewelry, which was a fine jewelry company, and I would design bespoke engagement rings, and I would redesign heirlooms, and I did it all from my shop in rural Derbyshire.
And I had a workshop and I was seeing private clients and it was amazing. And I was building this business that was at the time deeply ingrained in my heart. It was my passion and, and I loved it. And I was going to take over the world. I was going to rival Cartier and Tiffany and I had all of these incredible dreams and I was creating collections to help women fall in love with themselves.
And I was.
Teresa: Yes, I remember.
Roseanna: I had all of these amazing dreams and plans. And then we had the pandemic and I closed the shop and I moved to London and I pivoted. So as everybody had to in the pandemic, I pivoted to offer solely online. But then I would see private clients in London as well. So I kind of, in a way, even though I closed the bricks and mortar store, I expanded, or that's what my ego told me I was doing.
Teresa: It's a bit funny, this stuff that we're like, Oh, this is what this means.
Roseanna: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Teresa: Let's just go with that.
Roseanna: Well, as you were saying about your podcast, I was like, yeah, that's what, that's what I did, I need these names up, but yeah, so then I moved to London and, in a pandemic and, and my business was the most successful it had ever been.
I was attracting clients all over the world. Yeah, just really living my dream in one sense and in another sense I didn't stop to smell the roses. I was extremely anxious, very stressed and deeply unhappy, which at the time I probably didn't realize.
Teresa: And also at the time Your brand and your business fitted perfectly with how Roseanna showed up. Like, champagne, VIP, fine life, like, it all fits perfectly.
Roseanna: Only the best, darling.
Teresa: Yeah, well, aren't we both? But like, and it fitted that. And it almost like And obviously we'll get to the transformation, we'll get to like where we are today, but it's almost like they are two ends of a spectrum. Like we started off luxury, fine jewelry, expensive stuff, like I said, you know, private clients, drinking champagne, going to the best hotels, meeting the fanciest people.
And on the surface that looks like everything that everybody wants, but you weren't happy.
Roseanna: No, no, I wasn't happy because I was always chasing more and always chasing what other people told me would make, would like society tells you will make you happy. Because when I started my business, I was 24. So I opened my shop when I was 24 years old.
Teresa: Which quite honestly, but.
Roseanna: I had no idea what goal was. I, I just wanted to open a shop and I just, I was so naive and innocent and I just wanted to open a shop and I wanted to have this, I wanted to recreate the job that I had when I was living in Australia. We had amazing clients. We sold amazing jewelry and I wanted to make that for myself back in the UK.
And then I learned what goals were. And then I learned that like joined memberships like the Female Entrepreneur Association. And I learned that. I could have anything that I wanted, but hold on. What did I want? Yeah. I wanted, I didn't know what I wanted. So I, I then latched onto what society told me success was.
And that wasn't my version of success. So that made me unhappy. That made me miserable. That made me stressed. It made me always chase this idea of more so that I could make myself in some way, feel good enough to have the things I had.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So all was going well. All was good. You, and there was a couple of things that actually about your story and where you started kind of blows my mind.
One, you're young, like you're much younger than me, but you started your business really young. And actually I remember when we first met or the first few visits we had, cause we used to go for lunch. We were even back in the day, we were ladies that woo woo because we loved a bit of woo woo. But like it never seemed like you were that young.
You had a very mature head for someone who was so young. So not only did you create this business when, when you were the age you were, but also you created like a proper business, like, and they say that jokingly, but like, and I say this all the time that, you know, people have bricks and mortar businesses.
I'm like, You've got a real business now. I joke people. I don't think, I genuinely think we have real businesses, but, but there is something about having a business with equipment. And also, I didn't realize you did the thing. So Roseanna was the one that only designed the jewelry. She made the jewelry she could make like, and it blew my mind.
So that was all crazy. So. On the surface of it, you were going along, life is wonderful, treating you really, really well, and then what?
Roseanna: Well, if we just forget that little thing that stopped the whole world.
Teresa: Yeah, small pandemic, move on.
Roseanna: Small pandemic, 18 months. So, we came, we were just coming out of the pandemic, and I started to realize that I was anxious and that I was unhappy, and I started to address it, you know, in the way that we do address it, and I was watching some personal development stuff, I was reading more books about personal development, I started doing things like changing my relationship, upping, not just like swapping my relationship, sorry, I ended up relationship.
Teresa: You're out, you're in. That's why we didn't see each other for a while. Yeah. I didn't mean to cut.
Roseanna: And then I started up in my health routine and I, I was a runner, so I used to run before the pandemic. The pandemic stopped like any form of exercise for me, really, unless it was to run to drink a can of beer by the river or whatever.
And then, so I started up in my health routine and I noticed that I couldn't, I had a pain in my breast. So I was like, Oh my God, I can't, this is real inconvenience, real inconvenience, but I suppose I should go to the GP because I'd had some cysts previously on my ovaries that had burst and caused me loads of pain, ended up in A& E, that kind of stuff.
So I knew that I had to pay attention to my body. And I went to the GP, basically was kind of ushered through the, the motions of checks and biopsies. And I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer. I'd just turned 30 and I was like, this is going to be my year. I was seeing more success in my business than I ever had.
I'd just come out of a relationship. I'd just moved into my dream apartment on one of the fanciest streets in Fulham. My ego loves that part of the story. Like, oh, it's doing so well.
Teresa: Do you see my apartment? It must be doing so well.
Roseanna: There's a Michelin star restaurant on the end of my street.
Teresa: I mean, how fancy is that?
Roseanna: Yeah, but then on the other end of the street, there's a chicken shop that's also like a drug den.
Teresa: Yeah, but we don't talk about that. That's not what we show on Instagram. I love it.
Roseanna: So, yeah, so then I was diagnosed with, I was six days of having moved into this apartment and I was diagnosed with cancer four.
Teresa: Like I can't even think like age 30, getting that diagnosis.
Just explain the what you mean by, did you say triple negative?
Roseanna: Triple negative breast cancer. So it is a rare type of breast cancer. And it's, it's caused by the genetic mutation of BRCA1. So, Angel this is what Angelina Jolie has, that's kind of what made this BRCA thing famous, because then she had a preventative mastectomy, so then she wouldn't get breast cancer.
And if anybody's watched The Bold Type on Netflix or Amazon Prime, which is Great show and they talk about it in there, but otherwise it's quite rare. Nobody really knows anything about it. So it's a genetic mutation and it means that most breast cancers are hormone receptive, they're hormone positive.
So estrogen positive, and this isn't, it's like totally genetic. So the normal treatments can't treat it so like she would do nothing for it. So it was, I was then faced with five months of chemotherapy and a double mastectomy and reconstruction or if I wanted that, which I did, to, like, it was, it was intensive chemotherapy that was apparently the only way that was going to get rid of it.
Teresa: Wow. So is it as simple as saying Okay, my business goes on hold.
Roseanna: No.
Teresa: What was going through your head?
Roseanna: So this, the first person I ran with was my coach at the time. And I said, It's, I've been diagnosed because we've kind of had some conversation, I've been, I've been diagnosed and he said to me, you have all of the tools that you need to get through this, like, this is what you have been training for, because we knew that things were changing in my life.
We didn't know what the clues were there. And I'd been into personal development for years, I'd read the books, I kind of knew what was going on, so I switched on warrior mode, and I think this is what happens when most people are faced with a challenge or a transformation, they switch on warrior mode to get through it. So I switched on warrior mode, and, and I just went, right, okay, so this is This is how I'm gonna deal with this.
And the, to be honest, the first three weeks were total scans. I like, egg freezing type stuff. And then I started chemotherapy. But I knew throughout that I was going to keep on running my business because it was doing so well. Mm-hmm. And being a self-employed person living in London. And I say that, you know, I kind of joke about the fancy street thing, but, but it's not, it's not cheap.
Even, I mean, it got a very good deal coming off the back of COVID. But it's not cheap to live in London as a single woman running a business. Now, previous, like prior to cancer, fine. Yeah. Being diagnosed and then thinking, okay, so what now? My cut, I tell myself, like the only option I really had was to keep on working.
And I did. And I actually had some of the most successful months financially, but it wasn't sustainable. It was, I needed rest, I needed to stop, and it wasn't sustainable.
Teresa: If you were, if you could have gone back to yourself then, what would you have said now?
Roseanna: I'd stop working.
Teresa: Yeah.
Roseanna: I would have put it on hold, I would have stopped everything, I would have, and it makes it quite complicated because finances, right?
Like, I didn't have A, a bed. Like I didn't have a sa, I didn't have a savings account.
Teresa: Well, I think most business owners don't. Most people don't.
Roseanna: No. No, because we put everything back into it. Yeah. Especially for the first few years. Like I was on year six or seven of business and I did have savings, but it was at a cost to take them out.
So they're in. You know, all of these like ices and stuff, so you lose a lot of it if you take it out. So, I didn't really have a financial option. Universal credit doesn't scratch the surface. So, I actually, when looking back, I didn't have another option. Really, unless I could have moved home, but even actually I couldn't because my parents had just sold the house and we're living in a caravan.
Teresa: So no, that's not ideal either, especially when you're recovering.
Roseanna: And I was like fate as fate would have it. My synchronicity, my flat was a five minute Uber ride from a breast cancer specialist hospital. I had one of the best surgeons and oncology teams in the UK. I had friends around me who would drive me to the hospital.
Like I was in such a fortunate position, but you know, business, it was a really tricky one and to be honest, actually, it's some, it did give me some real joys having the work I designed. I had a client come over from New York and he was flying his fiancee over for her surprise 30th birthday party. I'd just had like chemo the day before Rawson's in and he, I met, they came around to my house and I showed them like a selection of yellow diamonds that this was all a surprise to her.
And I showed them this selection of yellow diamonds. We were going to create this necklace for her and we did. And it was amazing. And that was one of the highlights of that time for me. I got to. It was still a positive because I loved it so much. It was still a positive, but the stress and the strain of thinking, well, how am I going to keep a business running whilst surviving physically is challenging.
Teresa:...
44 min

About Your Dream Business

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Hi! I’m Teresa if you are a business owner who is striving to build a business and life you dream of on your own terms and doing something you love then this is the podcast for you!