Hello and welcome to our last my sister, the advice podcast where the cosmic meets the corporate I'm Ellen Hooper, an executive coach, and I'm joined by my sister, Mads Williams, a human design coach. Hello. Hello. Have you had a corporate or a cosmic week? I have had a corporate week, of course but it really hasn't been quite as busy as it normally is. Although yesterday came the closest I've ever been to like day to night wear. I thought you were going to say dating. I was like, what?
Freaky I actually did do speed dating, but not what you think, I will get to that. So. I ran some leadership training in the morning for some management consultants, and then my husband got a promotion last week, so I had drinks at his work, Yes. which is a very professional vibe. So I was kind of like, okay, training to professional, but then I did this really fun thing. So, was a collaboration with the Ready or Not podcast, who were amazing, give you a pregnant or parenting and the memo.
Which is this really cool online store for all things, babies and kids. And they also have a Fitzroy and Armidale store they ran a career night for the mums. So it was really cool to be invited along to be there, work life balance expert, Did you feel like an expert? I always feel like an expert. With your busyness? I know a lot about it. No, they had a really cool setup. So then we did this speed dating.
So I talked to a bunch of amazing women about all kinds of different things, like so much imposter syndrome stuff and confidence and changing jobs and, you Trying to find part time work and I just talked to one awesome woman who was like, I've just gone back to work and I'm giving them six weeks. If they don't impress me in six weeks, I'm out of there, life's too short. God, yeah, I did do some dating, but not what you thought, some speed. Career advice dating.
But yeah, the memo is really cool and I very rarely feel cool in life. But when I posted about doing that event, about five different people reached out to me being like, that's amazing. Wow! Yeah, it was really fun. And it was nice to be considered cool for a nice little 24 hour window. Now I'm back to being a dork. that's on you. You can embrace what you want. Have you had a cosmic week or a corporate week? majority of it has been, I guess, cosmic.
bUt it's like tipped into corporate, which is really nice for like, I haven't had a corporate week for ages. So I kind of went from like, Deep gastro to deep grease. I like literally had gastro country 36 hours and then yeah, got on a flight and was like enveloped by the ocean for a week, so that was amazing and I go on about it quite a lot, but it was quite a similar the water like looked and felt like even the waves at some of the beaches felt quite similar to WA. So I was a happy gal.
But there's that feeling I think when you can more or less, I had a few clients while I was over there, but I wasn't doing any life or work admin, which. You know, is my least favorite thing in the entire world. So I guess I was able to like truly switch off. So then when I got home, just wanted to dive straight into the ideas and the, behind the scenes work of a business. So yeah, it felt like kind of a corporate end. you know, like it's Mercury retrograde.
It will be till the end of August and planets, like when they're moving, they talk about them as being like direct. So that's that notion, like their forward momentum, they're moving in the cycle that they're designed to move in. And then when a planet is retrograde, what that means is it from earth appears like it's. It's moving backwards. So that's why it can like dip in and out of signs. You know, it can kind of like retreat, retract.
And the reason why people have such a hard time with retrogrades is because the momentum isn't as direct and forward as it was, right? So it's asking you to review, it's asking you to look back, reflect what was working, what wasn't. And so I really love them as a really like, amazing opportunity to clean up or just decide what you do want to take forward with you when it does go direct. So then being able to put that into a corporate action or activities is like very rewarding.
And I guess the like classic of why the cosmic corporate like can actually work so well together. Yeah. I love how hard you find it to finish sentences. I I know Every time I begin a voice note, I'm like, Oh no, we got in here for the long game. Okay, do you have a question for your sister? So, I ended up going really slow today. and I had, something I do every two months, which is a lunch with this group of business owners. Really amazing.
we talk a lot about, you know, running business and what that means. And it's very practical and where the practical means the emotional and all that kind of stuff. And I had a realization, so it's a fresh, it's a freshie, To build something new, I probably would have to. Stop something current or, break it or do it differently. And yeah, I was wondering your relationship with endings like? Probably favourite thing in the whole world. There are so many reasons why.
One, I have a three in my personality profile. So embracing that evolution and like, Oh fuck, that didn't work. , guess where like changing course is a big part of like how I genuinely just like show up in life. But beyond that. when you have, like, if you were to look at your chart, it's filled with all these different shapes and they're called energy centers and they'll be filled with lots of numbers.
And so if you have like two numbers joining from two energy centers, they join to create a channel. It's like a bridge. They bridge it. And then both get like, both energy centers are lit up and like, those are your consistent energies to work with. most people have like, three to six energy centers defined, colored in. whereas I only have two energy centers defined. I only have one bridge. I only have one channel. And so therefore that energy becomes super, super important. And it's all about.
Beginning, middle and ends. So I really value that. I love it. What I find interesting is, I can try knee jerk out of the plot too early, and then it just keeps cycling back. So I've like tried to leave. Bosses before, you know, and they cycle back or like, I think I can think of three workplaces where I was like, yep, I'm done. I'm out of here. And then I continue to. Be in the vortex. And like, sure.
A little bit of that might be me not being fully ready to like pass a test in terms of, what do I actually want? What am I calling in? What am I letting go of? But I also just think I, I had stuff left to like figure out there. And then like in dating, I find it really hard. Because I'm like, wait , I'm not done with you. Like, I'm like, yeah, you can go eventually. Like, you're not the one, duh. But like, I'm not done yet. So I find that really hard. I want to decide when this ends. Like, yeah.
I'm like, there's more learning. There's more. But like absolutely fine. Things get like taken away from you for the right reasons. But I can like spiral a little bit in my, like, Like we could have done more good learning here. And then I talk about to be magnetic a lot, and that's a tool that's really helping you work out like what's run its course. Why are you just clinging to something?
Cause it was safe, you trying to protect yourself, but really it's like against your authentic self, you know, all those kinds of things. So Love a new beginning. Love a closing door. Love a new chapter. Do I have that channel? No. You have a real impulse for kind of like life altering change and impact. And like knowing that, like when that flicks up or like occurs, like things will never be the same. Like that's kind of the energy at play for you.
But what happens is like, you can be really impatient and want to control that with your mind for when it's happening. But this like particular channel has like a real attachment to like, almost like nature or the natural world. Like. It's kind of beyond your control. It's like about divine timing. So in that downtime, when you're feeling restless, cause it's almost like you can feel it coming on. That's when they say like, get yourself in nature.
Like it has a real audio quality, which is interesting. So it's like lots of music and just knowing it's like, they say it's like a strobe light, you know, like when it flicks, you'll be like someone completely different, but you don't. don't have the control panel for the light. And I think like, that's probably a big part of your human. journey is like learning you're not in control of that Yes, I, that's bullshit, isn't it? I find that to be bullshit.
or it could be a real relief because it's like you're ready to go so when it occurs it's kind of like i don't know like an army who's been in training and then like the bell goes wars upon us and they're ready like that's kind of your inbuilt energy but it's just i think yeah controlling that pressure from the root that's like come on come on come on come on because how much more enjoyable if you were just I guess in trust , question mark Yeah, no comment.
that doesn't mean you do nothing by the way. it's just kind of like, oh, interesting. I, I, now can I identify that's where this pressure is coming from, but trusting I have it for a reason because I am like bringing this innovation and. kind of disruption, right? Like if something's going to be changed for the good, it is disruptive energy. So yeah, like not having to stare at the clock. Or like watch paint dry, you know, that vibe and more like, great, it's inbuilt. So what's my generator.
What's my intuition. What's my authority guiding me to daily. That brings me joy because that's what our sign of alignment is satisfaction and like one step in front of the other means that you're just cultivating. A skill set or a lifestyle or whatever that's like aligned for you. So when that strobe light inevitably goes, cause it will, then you're like, cool. Yep. Ready been building. Can I ask a follow up question? You may Is this the realisation you've been trying to bully me into?
Or is there a different one? Yeah. It's just like space. Like if there's no space, that's the things that are trying to get to, you can't drop. But I just thought everyone knew that. But, you know, Sometimes you can have too much space as well. Like Yeah. How's your space going, Well, like it's been really interesting. Cause I like, while I was away, I realized my relationship with social media has turned really toxic. And so I have implemented a new, like Monday to Friday off grid.
so disclaimer, I've only been doing it for two days, but. I created space. By not being on social media, which was amazing because I got like more meditation done. Like my coursework came out and I finished it in like the afternoon. I had clients that that would, they would have been there anyway, but you know, like I just was in the zone, but in that extra space, I then kept like opening my emails. I then ate way more food than I would normally eat.
Cause I was like, Oh my God, I need the dopamine hit. I'm bored. And just like observing that was so fascinating. And that is what we often do. We like quit the job and then we're like, Oh my God, I'm so uncomfortable. I'm going to feel it. Or like, Oh my God, I broke up with my boyfriend. I'm so uncomfortable. I'm going to go on him straight away. Or I'm going to go back to my like, I got off social media. I was uncomfortable. So I like filled myself with food.
Like we don't often let ourselves be in the neutral or the down of it. So it was such a like cool, cool, cool, like physical example of like, ah, imagine what I could do. Like that day was already more productive without it. So imagine if I can like push through this. threshold and then there's like even more openness for like what actually wants to come. So yeah, I think we all kind of dance with this. It's just like, what's our threshold for the icky.
And that's, I guess you've had that first, uh huh. And like, even the, like, I don't want to look at it yet. It's like, okay, that's fine. And when you will be ready, it's like, how do you then actually protect the space you're creating? Cause that's like the second part of it, I believe. Do you have a question for your sister? I do have a question. Not to be totally influencer about it, but I was thinking this morning about the things people come to me for.
The absolutely not about my business, you know, like, can you remind me which Pilates person you see? Can you remind me which app you talked about? Can you tell me about the meditate, like all the stuff I love. And it made me realize like, Oh, I have a very kind of simplified list of non negotiables or like my people or my toolkit for the week. So I'm curious what's in your non negotiable toolkit for being alive.
I think that they are things that are like way more pared back than the things that you do. So, I have a bulletproof hot chocolate every morning That's the first thing I do in the morning. So like before kids breakfast, before lunch boxes. Because if we're in the middle of the meltdown and then I'm hangry, it's like really bad. So there's that. I have been doing weekly kinesiology coaching and like almost daily check ins. So we did some work on being an energetic match for white space.
So the thing that I'm trying to get non negotiable about is a daily meditation. I went from kind of being back to my meetings, corporate job, no time to myself. And then I went to, I definitely create time for myself, but it's very planned. So I actually exercise like multiple times a week or catch up with friends or go out on date night, but everything's like allocated. I don't have much. Space that's just not, planned. But yeah, it's interesting I don't have that many non negotiables.
that's not true. I have other non negotiables, like I don't work at night. I don't work on the weekends. and it does, it like actually takes quite a lot to hold Well, thank you for sharing. Uh, shall we hear from our sponsor? Shall we hear from our listener? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. So our question today comes from a 29 year old emotional manifesto and she's An employee and a business owner. So she's an employee with a side hustle. And I'm really excited for her question.
the question is, I have a full time corporate job and have been running my creative wellbeing business for four years alongside it. I feel like it's got the potential to be something really special and allow me to live the lifestyle I want, but I need space and rest for the inspiration to come, which I don't feel like I have with a full time job and young family. As a manifester, I'm also trying to understand if I do make the switch, how I can run a business sustainably.
I don't want to be doing all the time and in a constant cycle of burnout. I don't have many friends or family that run their own business, so I feel like a bit of an island sometimes. What would you suggest at what feels like a transitionary time? Help me, sisters. Firstly, congratulations for having been running a side hustle for four years. Like that's actually really incredible. Yeah. That's amazing. But like how cool that her question talks about space.
And that's what we were talking about earlier. Like actually sometimes. That is what you're fighting for first, because it feels counterintuitive. It's like what even the doing, like I have to do, I have to do, I have to do to bring in the thing, but there literally is no extra space. It can't really land anyway. And a potential forecast of an ending over here.
I think it's actually really cool that you don't have many friends or families that run their own business, because honestly, entrepreneur culture and business owner culture is kind of a bit toxic. like the amount of times I've heard like, we just can't take holidays if you run a business or you just can't do this or, Oh, I left my nine to five job so that I could work 24 hours a day. Like there's just so much Ego. yeah.
Yeah, there's a really weird culture around self employment, which is so funny because my goal for self employment has always been to work less. And I know, I know you make fun of me about my diary and my no white space, but I am working significantly less and with significantly less stress than when I have worked in corporate jobs. And I'm also making more money. So hopefully that's a nice little like expander possibility for our listener.
there's this idea in startup culture about a lifestyle business. So a lifestyle business is like not one that you're trying to become the next Uber or Google, you know, not trying to scale it and get capital investors and kind of get a huge payout. It's just a business that kind of fund the lifestyles of like one person or a couple of people. And it's funny because in startup culture, that's like. It's really offensive, I think, to tell someone that they've only, only got a lifestyle business.
But, um, I like, I've never really aspired to anything more than a lifestyle business. And the great thing about a lifestyle business is that you can build the whole business around how you want to live your life. And so that's what I would be starting with. I'd be getting really clear.
You know, do you need to replace your salary exactly, if you didn't do that exactly, how much do you really need to feel well regulated, not stressed to be able to kind of do the things that you want to do and that you can do now. And then, yeah, what would it look like to design a business that really met your needs? What do you reckon, what, for the, particularly for the manifestos? Yeah, I kind of want to tackle this in two ways.
So I definitely want to talk about what that looks like for a manifesto in terms of the sustainability, but what's your advice then for creating the space and the rest now when she feels like that's just so far out of reach? Because that's probably a closer reality to you than to me. I think there's a few different strategies. So one is, can you take some leave from your current job? Can be a really safe thing to do.
And that might be paid or unpaid, but sometimes people just feel really supported by the fact that they've got a job to go back to. I think we've talked about this before, but I've heard lots of people have a strategy about, all right, I'm going to give this business a crack and I'm going to give it X period of time or X number of dollars.
So that might look like, okay, I'm going to try for three months or, until, I've got a 10, 000 debt or until we've got 60, 000 in our bank account, like whatever that looks like. So those are those are kind of like bigger strategies to just jump, but jump in a way that feels supported. If that feels unachievable or not the right time or too scary. Then I think it's about trying to find space in the day to day.
And I think the best tip I've heard for that is what's your most productive time and give that to yourself. So then we start to think about our employer as like a patron or an investor. And so there's a lot of mindset shifts about giving yourself and that business the best of you. And what does it look like to kind of give 80%.
To your job as opposed to 120 percent because a lot of us are kind of going above and beyond and often in a way that hasn't been asked for and sometimes in a way that others might not really notice if we kind of took the foot off the pedal a bit. I also think it's really worth investigating this four year project or business and what has stopped you from jumping off the cliff? What is the hesitation? is it the narrative that, Oh, I just haven't seen it done. I don't know if it's possible.
I don't have the time. Like, is it all of that on loop or actually if you were to do some digging, would it be Would it be, I'm afraid of failure, or I'm not good enough, or I'm afraid to be seen. You know, all those kinds of deeper wounds that, We've often picked up from childhood and they're very universal, they feel like the, the worst thing in the world, but we kind of all have our brand of it. And I recently did some digging myself and there's a narrative I've had for a long time.
I've known it for years and in terms of manifestation work, like I did this program that was like, but what's like the block underneath the story. And it's just been such a game changer because I'm like, Oh, that's what I'm scared of happening. So now when I'm like faced with decisions or moving my business forward, I can kind of run it through the lens of like, Well, who's in the driver's seat.
Is it my fear and my block on that old belief, or is it the one I'm creating and the one I want to move forward with? And again, it's a practice like, you can absolutely do the kind of subconscious work and the meditations or see the hypnotist or like whatever your brand of like healing is, but also you have to just actively walk through it. And I find that very, very, very helpful to To know, as I like move ahead. So I just like invite some investigation there.
And then the other thing is like, are like the ones that get the party started. Like they literally do create worlds. They are the ones who take thought and put it into action and speak things into existence. And so actually where uh, You I want to say blocking your own energy, but that sounds like quite aggressive. Like I'm, I mean, more in the sense that is there a fear at play here as well?
Because what's interesting, I love that you talk about sustainability and doing, cause already you're identifying, like, Your energy levels when you're out of alignment, you know, like you've probably felt times before where you've had to override your natural energy. And that probably feels like absolute shit. So then you, it's like, well, how do I do that in my business, if I'm the boss. And the thing is like manifestors go in like peaks and troughs.
So there will be times where you have all the energy in the world. And like, that's when you like might come out with a service or come out with the workshops or, you know, you go really, really hard. And then there'll be times that you retreat. And a few things pop up for that either, you know, you could like Ellen was saying, like run the numbers or what does your business look like? And you could even like.
, look for a generator who loves the job, whose battery life is going to sustain your vision and like go into that traditional dynamic of like do a visionary partnership. Or I had a beautiful reading with my friend, Alex, who does my psychic readings, and she talks so much about, when you own your own business, it becomes less about salary. And so there will just be times when you're maybe bringing in more or times when there's you're living off like that huge month you had.
So Actually that kind of support the manifesto energy as well. So it's not thinking about every month having to be the same, but if you looked at your life over the year or your business over the year, and then you looked at that over five years, like, you know, you might find that actually, Working with your energy means like you are supported. It's just not in the traditional linear expectation that we have for life and life isn't either. Right.
That's why the, like the funny thing of middle beginning end is so simple, but actually we go up and we go down and it's all over the place. But I think right now, What's really important is getting to dance with and learn your own energy. So if you don't have like the full space for the rest right now, can you at least be like monitoring it? Like what does it feel like when you are at 200% and you really wanna be out in the world? What does it feel like when you're more at that 20?
Where can you honor that more? And what are your urges communicating? Because that's like, you know, in the way that I have this like magnetic gut that's drawn towards something, manifestors have this like childlike, like, Oh, I don't know where this came from, but I've got to go and act on it. And actually you might find when you are like fully in your business era, like you just get to dance with your urges.
You get to live them out and you could have the same level of success by just like following an urge really quickly and going like all in, in a short burst. And then pulling back than someone who is like consistently day in day out showing up. So it's just that that notion again of like, we're getting out of comparison lane. And as Ellen said, like, maybe it's amazing you don't have that around you right now because your energy will already communicate what's right for you.
those were the two things I would go to too, which is, well, if you don't want to be doing all of the doing, like, partner with someone who does and also the other thing for not doing all the doing is exactly as Mad said, like, building a business model that Peak launches. So where you do have like your income maybe comes in like four times a year. I can just think of one entrepreneur I've seen who, who does that?
Like she does these really big program intakes and we'll get kind of like 400 people in and she'll do that twice a year. what that comes back to for me is pricing. And that made me think of something which is. We've immediately gone to, okay, what does it look like to take the big leap and um, leave your job and work in your business? But there is a different option, which is you could stay in your job.
If you think through the business model, which is that you've got the great idea, And you've priced it at an appropriate price so that someone else can execute on it. So that could be a way that felt really sustainable and safe because you could actually be testing how could the business run without you actually doing any of the doing. And that's actually, if you're, if you trial that while you're still in your full time job, it holds you really accountable to not kind of jumping in.
And that could be just a nice way to test if the model makes sense for you. I also before just like got a real hit to go and check the Incarnation Cross. This is your life theme. This is like, what is your purpose? And yeah, it's like, why are you here? What are you channeling? What's the energy you channel into what you do? sometimes they can come across like the most head scratching like sentence that we have to decipher, but I absolutely love this one.
It's like, has this energy of like people who have like been there, done that, know it, I've already lived it. I've walked it and off I go. And the thing about this, that's like so cool. And it also talks about being really up for change and always like ready to explore something new. So even that, right. Again, going back to the investigating this four years, like, what is the thing stopping you from the change? , Is there something massive there?
Because actually your life theme like is supposed to be bled into every part of your life. So again, like, do we just need to unleash you? And , I talk about that because the manifesto has this huge aura, like, They can often like place small or people please because it didn't feel safe to take up that much space even that question, implies like, well, I don't have the space. Like, what have you just informed that you're taking it? , who is the tribe around you?
Can you inform, like, this is your designated time. And because there's so much gorgeous energy here, not only the fact that you're a manifesto, but you have so much energy coming from your throat and like this stunning, stunning, stunning energy that like literally drops down from source, it's like that, you know, like middle of your third eye, like, Oh, and it like comes all the way down to your identity center.
So you just, uh, I imagine a very connected to spirit, like probably have Like very clear visions about what this could actually be and where you want it to go. beyond that, like, we want to hear your voice, like we want to hear your lived experience.
And so bringing more of that into where you're at, even like, I can imagine you being someone that like talks to your community about The fact you're trying to make this change, like bringing people along on the journey and like wellness is so fascinating because that's what we're all like really striving for is to be well is to feel well and we can get this notion that like, Oh my God, I have to present the perfect outcome, but like, actually we're all on our own hero journey.
We're all like on the journey. So instead of creating so much space or like looking for something that doesn't exist, what's already there and can you let people in on that as like a commitment to being more in the business, you know, if you're already thinking about it, you're already doing it, you already have it.
Instead of having to completely like carve out more time, more opportunities, what can you be using your strategy about as a manifester, informing us about what you're already up to, how you're feeling, what you're thinking, what you're doing, being there, done that, you know, next, we want to hear it. I think there's like an undertone that Moving from the job into the business is going to be hard, that it requires lots of hard work that it needs to take a kind of arduous path.
I just would say like, what if it wasn't, what if it was really easy? What's the easiest version of it? Particularly when you do have priorities around choosing to spend time with like little people and, um, making space for that. that's kind of like the main, philosophy behind human design. Right. That like, when you are actually doing things that are correct to your design, you do get more momentum and flow. And so it is more ease filled.
And so actually if you're having like massive amounts of resistance, I would often be like, okay, is this self imposed? Like, is there a block? Is this a limiting belief? Or is this me out of alignment? Like what do I need to clean up or shift or change? Because. when we're in our natural energy flow, life is mirroring that back. That's my experience from it. And it doesn't mean that like life is perfect or easy. Like I just though now like use the challenges.
as an opportunity to reflect like what it might be trying to like encourage me to tweak or like what I'm, what am I missing? And again, like from a fun way, not a self punishing way. Okay. Well, we hope that was helpful. Keep us updated. Shall we hear from our moon cards? Yep. Let's do it Okay. Today we have waning moon. What do you need to release? It's safe to let go and move on, is attuned to the moon. Move forward with as little resistance as possible.
releasing emotional baggage is recommended now. Soon you will see what lies ahead. the waning moon points to what's falling away. Life goes in cycles and sometimes we need downtime or to let go. No matter when in the moon cycle you pulled this card, it's a sign that the situation has peaked for better or worse and it's time for you to go easier. So what do you need to release? Almost certainly something from the situation you're asking about.
This card can be very positive, but it can still be gently suggesting that you let something go and stop trying so hard. Whoa. That one's crazy. Ellen needed to hear that. hard. Hmm, I do say that a lot to myself. Like, well, I don't, but I'm trying to. Law of least effort. Law of least effort. You know? interesting. That's awesome. Hmm. Okay, thanks for playing with me. Thanks for showing up. I will talk love you. you. Bye.