The Biz Bites podcast features business leaders of change talking about topics they’re passionate about, including their personal journeys. Listen as I share the stories behind their story.
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Ellen Tyler
Can Coaching Transform Your Business? | Biz Bites with Ellen Tyler
Business / Life Coach
Join us as we celebrate our 100th episode with a special guest, Ellen Tyler, a renowned coach and mentor. Ellen shares her inspiring journey from the financial services industry to becoming a successful coach.
Discover the transformative power of coaching, the differences between coaching and mentoring, and the importance of personal accountability.
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A business is either growing or dying. There really isn’t a middle ground, but even that’s us as humans in our life. We are either growing or dying. There’s no treading water. The hardest thing as an individual who wants to coach and help people is when somebody says, I’m okay. You’re not really okay. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Biz Bites proudly brought to you by CommTogether, the people behind Podcasts Done For You, because we’re all about exposing other people’s brilliance. Don’t forget to subscribe to Biz Bites and check out Podcasts Done For You as well in the show notes. Now, Let’s get into it. Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of Biz Bites and my guest today. This is one of these wonderful things that happens when you meet people on LinkedIn and you just click immediately. And I think we got into the conversation from the beginning and just said, I’ve got to get you on my podcast. So first and foremost, Ellen, do you want to introduce yourself to to everyone in the audience always? And I think this is a brilliant way of asking, because what I want everyone to understand is we’re just a compilation of our stories. And I spent, and I almost cringe when I say this, but a lot of decades in a different profession. But in that profession in financial services, I gained valuable skills. That I didn’t know I was amassing along the way, which was opening businesses, opening offices, opening regions. I just like talking to people. And I thought when you put me in a place that I get to talk to individuals and in the financial world, it’s to help them know that they’re going to be okay. But in that timeframe, I also worked with a couple of coaches. And it was unusual at the time, but within financial services, they were always doing sales and sales training. And I was so fortunate that somebody took me to a Bob Proctor seminar long before the movie, the secret came out. And personal growth and development exploded, but I’m a really good student and I did everything that he told me to do. And I about an inch shy of tripling my income did that. And I enjoyed great growth in my career, but for most of us, when we get to an inflection point, it’s that something’s not working in the current role and we’re looking for something different. And it happened pre pandemic, but it was right time. Wrong place. And I discovered that I either needed therapy or a coach and Bob had partnered with Sandy. I decided I’m not going to make that mistake a second time. And so I hired them and three months into the relationship, they were growing their coaching division and made an offer to come and be mentored by, at that point, the greatest of all time, Bob Proctor.
And I jumped at the chance. My purpose stayed the same, but I decided I was going to have help more people have the experience that I got to do with Bob. So far, that’s the story. What a great introduction and story is the right word to use there. I wanted to explore that a little bit first. Firstly, the idea of, before we get into Bob, just the idea of coaching. I I think I’m similar to you in that there’s a point in your business career where you have this revelation that you need someone, and is that how it is, do you think for the majority of people? Is that what it needs to be to, for that relationship to be successful? I think so. I think that for each and every person, it might be a frustration or that you start to notice. You’re not doing as well as that, you can be, or you look at somebody else outperforming you and you think they’re no better than you, which is true. We’re all, all even. And I think when you have that, you do start looking for answers and it’s easy then to have a conversation. It’s not quite so easy to always be mentored and coached, but once you understand that they have the knowledge that you’re missing, like driving a car. Your parents, when you were 15, weren’t going to hand over the keys to the car yet. We get out of school and think we have the keys to our life and understand how we’re going to navigate it and get to where we want to be. So if we can just understand that when things aren’t going right, that’s a really great time to start just looking. You know what, I just had a revelation that I hope is not the same. My, with kids, the teenage years I think are amongst the hardest years. We hope you’re enjoying listening to the Biz Bites podcast. Have you ever thought about having your own podcast? One for your business, where your brilliance is exposed to the rest of the world? Come talk to us at Podcasts Done For You. That’s what we’re all about. We even offer a service where I’ll anchor the program for you. So all you have to do is show up for a conversation. But don’t worry about that. We will do everything to design a program that suits you. From the strategy right through to publishing and of course helping you share it. So come talk to us, podcast done for you.com au. Details in the show notes below. Now back to Biz Bites. The teenage years I think are amongst the hardest years and it’s really great when you get to the other side of it. And I’m at the other side of that. I just hope that my, me and my business being in the teenage years right now are not reflecting the same idea where we think we know it all and we think we know what to do but it’s only when we get to 20 that we realize that we have absolutely no idea and we do need to ask people for help. I have. Got it. I have that up for a little while. So hopefully the parallels are not quite the same in the years worth. But it’s an interesting one though. That question, when do people come to you? When do you have people coming to you? Is it, is there a time that they’ve been in business?
Does it need to be from the start? They need to have had a bit of a, Okay. A bit of a attempt at it themselves. Usually they have to have been in business for a bit. Unless, and that’s why it’s always funny, there’s never an absolute. If somebody like me stayed in the corporate world for a really long time, and we get inoculated with this is how business is and this is how it runs. When we decide to go out and start a business, Sometimes we know at that point we need help because all of a sudden you don’t have somebody else doing marketing, sales or advertising. You’re everything. But other than that, it usually is in business for a while because we’ll get as far as we can go on our own skillset. And until we hit that point, We’re not always thinking that there’s somebody who can help us. Yeah, it’s it is interesting, isn’t it? I, my journey was that I enrolled in a particular course and met someone who I really enjoyed what, hey, what they gave in that particular course. Had an opportunity to go back the next year more as a volunteer to help. And for the, I think for the year after as well and enjoyed sessions with the same guy and then just for whatever reason forgot about him and forgot about everything there. And it was only sometime later where I thought, yeah, I need a coach and started looking around and suddenly. He popped up in my feed again and it just was a, it was a natural fit. But I’m interested to you, you talk you’ve interchanged between coach and mentor and that tends to happen. Is there a difference? It more depends on the client and how they view it. It’s almost like the word Kleenex. Coaching right now is such a general term that it does become more specific with how do you help the individual get the end result that they want. And they can hear a mentor a little bit easier even though the main role of a coach is to provide the tools but to keep them accountable. And so some will view those words different. Some use consultant. I tend to think that’s not a most appropriate word because consultants tell people what to do. And as a coach, It’s that, I always tell somebody, I teach you how to study you. I like that. I like that. It’s a, it’s, and it is, I think that’s one of the interesting things in certainly again, in my journey in coaching and is that it is, you can stand in front of a group of people And everyone will hear something different, but not only that, they need to hear something different, don’t they? Because not everybody’s at the same stage. Not everybody has the same background or the same understanding of things. And that’s a difficult thing at times, particularly in those groups. group environments, whether it’s a conference or a, or literally group coaching sessions is recognizing the difference and where people are at and where you’re at and having the confidence to dismiss certain things and go, that’s, I don’t need that bit of information now.
When you go back over and study this, the same thing, because repetition is really how we change. And what is always fun when I get to have somebody notice, because they’ll either read or listen to the same information that we might’ve done three months ago, and they will swear it wasn’t there. And the reason that happens and I actually had to learn this because I love to read. If you look at the bookshelf behind me, that’s not on accident, on purpose. I do love to read, but there’s a difference between reading and just gathering knowledge. and reading and absorbing it and learning how to apply it to you. You’re a different person the next time you read it. And so what you just said is very key. You’re going to pay attention to what the new you has to understand to get to the next level. And you’ll swear it wasn’t there. Yeah. Isn’t that interesting? I, I’m reflecting on a couple of books that I’ve read in the past year and how you reflect on them, even though I haven’t reread them, but As I reflect on them now, having absorbed that knowledge over a period of time, it is a different feeling because it’s it’s when you watch the movie and what’s coming up, you get to celebrate certain scenes and you get to find other nuances that you didn’t see the first time through. And I think that’s one of the joys of it, isn’t it? It’s knowing that you’re progressing towards the next level. And so It’s just fun. That’s absolutely. And it should be, that’s the point, isn’t it? Of business. You shouldn’t be doing it. If it’s not fun. A business is either growing or dying. There really isn’t a middle ground, but even that’s us as humans in our life. We are either growing or dying. There’s no treading water. And the hardest thing as an individual who wants to coach and help people is when somebody says, I’m okay. You’re not really okay. You just gave up. Or you think, Oh, this income is good. I’m just going to stop. You give up so much opportunity to grow. Yes, there’s always something. I think it’s, there’s always another mountain, isn’t there? There’s it’s, you’ve always, you’ve reached a ledge, you think you’re at the top, but there’s always just another mountain. Yeah. Jim Rohn has a great quote, new level, new devil. Yep. I like that. I like that. Talk to me a little bit about, we’ve explored around the coaching bit a little bit, but talk to me about the influence of Baldwin. And in fact, I think perhaps for people in the audience who may not have heard of him and may not have seen the movie, tell me a little bit about him and the and even the movie as well. And I think to understand is that, as an individual, he devoted his life to learning why he had such a dramatic change early in his life. And I always I tell my clients, we should be thankful every day that he went from 4, 000 a year to 150, 000 a year. And we’re talking like 1950s, 1960s. So that’s a huge dramatic jump.
And he could have been fine with that because he also then grew that to a million, but he was very aware that. He didn’t have book knowledge. He didn’t go to school. He didn’t finish school. He dropped out and he just wanted to understand what caused such a dramatic change that He could explain to somebody else. One of his earliest mentors gave him the book Thinking Grow Rich. So he always quoted from that book. But one of the stories is that he would drive around giving that book to everyone and didn’t understand why they didn’t have the same result. Because we don’t do the work. And so he, Just started to do the research and amassed, Dr. Ryan at Duke or Leland Val Vanderal or Dr. Thurman Fleet in Texas, who in the 1930s was a chiropractor. And where all those names, would it make sense to someone else? He was just looking for the pieces of the puzzle that went together for him. And then what really propelled was yes. Then the movie, the secret came out Rhonda Byrne. Put him and John Osroff and Michael Beckwith and Marie Diamond and probably other people I’m forgetting to mention on the map, but personal growth and development and coaching really wasn’t a thing. It was reserved for presidents and CEOs and an average person like myself wouldn’t think that it was possible. And then the next interaction that really propelled Bob into the forefront was the, Sandy Gallagher, who’s now the CEO after Bob’s passing. And what she did, she was the piece of the puzzle that took everything that he had amassed and put it in a logical sequence for anyone to understand and follow. And so you had these two great minds come together. who were still focused on helping everyday people. And that’s really where in my mind, he separates from the rest is that he wanted to make sure that there was a coach in every country in the world. And by 2020, they had attained that so that this could get in their hands because it can change their life.
And the other part that stands out is that he was so humble and so generous. And we lead with value. I will tell a person what to do, whether they work with me or not, because it’s that accountability and he always led with that. Give them the information. Don’t make it a secret. Don’t do, a workshop or a conversation.
And I think that’s what a lot of people don’t know about him. Very generous man, probably the most generous man I’ve ever met. And isn’t that interesting though, that whole philosophy of generosity it’s counterintuitive to a lot of people, isn’t it? Because they so want to hold tight to, everything that they have.
They think if it’s a secret sauce that then somebody needs that. And I just sit here and say, this works for everybody in every place, but it’s because it’s not specific to. One type of industry, one type of person, one age and all of that. And they still need the accountability. I always find it interesting, isn’t it?
Because we often use that phrase that you just slipped in there about the, the secret sauce or secret recipes. And it’s funny because the. Comparison to food is not really relevant. It’s a nice one, but, I know there, you can talk about KFC and people spent years trying to work out what was the, what’s the colonel’s secret herbs and spices that went into it, but does it really matter?
Because the next, this, there’s no point in the next restaurant opening up and selling exactly the same chicken is there. And I think that’s, it’s, the difference is in the human element in any business. And there is no absolute ingredients list of ingredients. That’s going to make one business exactly the same as the next one.
Even if you’re producing the same widgets at the end, there are so many variables that happen in that. I think it, and yet you hear so many times people spending, Oh, I’ve got to find out this. What’s the secret to doing that? And I’ve had many, I’ve had conversations this week with people who are just like I’ve tried to, I’ve looked at a few different things and I’m trying to pull it apart and work it out.
What’s the right, and I’m like, nah, I don’t know if that’s the right way to go about it. I’ll help you a little bit with that because you’re exactly right. It starts with what the person thinks. So if we think the answer is outside of us, we’re always going to be looking. And coming from us, I was in sales, I’m an introverted sales people, which most people think that’s not a possibility.
It just means by the end of the day, I just want to read and have quiet and that, but it’s to understand that it’s the belief in what you’re doing that makes the difference, not. The actual tactic and working in financial services years ago, and they probably still do had a very. not helpful habit of bringing in the sales flavor of the month.
Meaning this is how this person built it. And then the next month, this is how someone else. And even in today with everything that’s out there, it does cause a person to believe that they just haven’t found the right external thing compared to And I always use an example. I worked with a gentleman who during the pandemic was going to do a webinar like this, have a fun conversation.
This mortified him. He didn’t like doing this. He didn’t. And I just said, then it’s not going to work. Oh, no, Ellen, I’ve hired this company that’s well known for this. And I go, you have to believe that the process works. And that’s really what they’re missing. Everything works. Yep. And, that’s, it’s an interesting thing too, because part of that is you talk about the sales process and when you’re being sold into something that if you don’t have an opportunity, and I think it is an opportunity to be able to believe it.
Yep. And because I’ve talked about this in the previous episode of the podcast with a guest. I had George Bryant that some of my listeners may remember, and George talks about the idea of, no trust. But then you’ve gotta move into safety. And if you don’t deliver the safety, that’s when it all falls apart.
And part of the mechanism for getting to safety is not only you as the person selling the product needs to help make the person feel safe and not immediately go and say, oh, you’ve paid for this. but you really need to pay for more. That’s just, destroying that level of safety from the beginning, but it’s also about making sure that the person that’s purchasing from it is feeling safe enough to believe in the product and to believe all the, in this product or service that they’re buying.
And if they don’t believe no matter how Much they’re willing to pay. It’s not going to work. And that’s part of what being, making them feel safe is. And it’s also part of understanding not everyone’s a great fit for your product or service. And a salesperson’s role, and this is where some get uncomfortable, is, as you said, our role is to help them make the best decision for them.
But it’s also for us to recognize you’re not quite ready. There’s probably some things you can do beforehand. But, The saddest thing for a coach is to have somebody decide to hire us and then not do the work. And so it’s our responsibility to make sure that they’re the proper fit. There’s more than enough people in the world.
There’s plenty of people to work with. We do not have to corner everyone. Yes. And that’s interesting too, isn’t it? It’s it’s almost like the coaches need to have that revelation as well, don’t they? Because. There are many out there that believe that everybody should be working with it and should be doing it their way.
And that’s not true. No in any role that a person has with what they’re serving a client with should understand some of the characteristics. And first of all, the question really is, who do you like to work with? I do not want to work with somebody I don’t like. And I always say this and it’s always funny.
It’s not that it’s a questionnaire or anything, but 95 percent of the clients I work with have animals as pets.
It’s okay, but it’s just, it’s a characteristic. Yes. And I think it’s a thing that is people underestimate this whole idea of, values and purpose, because if you relate on that level, then the chances that you’re going to have a successful relationship, whatever that relationship is. Much greater than if you don’t.
And it’s it’s, and it’s funny because you see in, in relationships, people often ask you a cat person or your dog person. And if you’re one or the other, then it may not work. And it’s funny, but it’s. It’s true. It’s, there are some underlying values that need to be need to work from the outset for a relationship to work and whether that is a whether that’s a business relationship or a personal relationship, it doesn’t matter.
Because ultimately if you don’t have some of those underlying values, then it’s just not going to, it’s not going to work. I tell everyone when they start, my job is to kick them in behind, but eventually they’re going, we’re going to be friends. And I have that expectation. Coaches hire coaches and that’s actually one of my first requirements if I’m ever interviewing a coach is to understand that they also recognize like we, we drink our own Kool Aid that we understand that we need to do this.
But I also have the expectation. I’m either going to respect them or become friends with them because I don’t want to be fearful of them. Or not think that they know what they’re doing. And so the natural evolution is to have a friendship.
Yep. And I think that’s it’s actually really interesting when you say that, because I’ve seen that with some way you can see that’s moved into friendship. There’s still there’s still a respect there because you, even as friends, you need to have that respect. Don’t need to be able to kick them along at times still.
Don’t you? Because that’s the difference, isn’t it? Because if you just. Friends and it’s a non work kind of friendship. You don’t tend to give people a real kick unless there’s something that’s, they’ve done something, really stupid and and ridiculous. Most of the time we just go, Oh yeah.
Okay. That’s great. But if it’s but you need to have that level to be able to give them that kick when they need it. I think for me, what was really just eyeopening for me, my very first client is one of my very best friends. Now that should put the fear in most people because when anyone starts a new role or a new profession and to this day, she still asks and I support her.
And sometimes I am kicking her in the rear because for any of us, when we’re in the midst of something and we can’t see our way out of it, it’s just. It’s really just the ability to ask questions and to help somebody see it from a different aspect. And if they didn’t believe that this process has the ability, then they wouldn’t ask.
Yeah. And it’s, and that’s the, that’s. That has to be part of it from the beginning, as you say. And it’s interesting that relationship continues on even beyond the sort of the professional relationship, which is a wonderful thing. And, but by the same token, having that trust, because I think what people forget is that we’re trying to pick up bits and pieces of information, From different sources all the time.
And we’ll, those little things will have an influence in different ways. And that stuff that you can pass on as you interpret it and do it in your own way. Which brings me to the question of saying, you started off with Bob. How much have you, how much of what you do keeps to that original idea?
Or how much have you developed and say I’ve still got that but I’m. Over here now, and it’s not quite the same. I think the best way to describe it is how I evolved as a coach and just how anyone evolves with a coach. And there’s different paths a person can take. And again, not right or wrong.
We’re all serving different people in my world because what Bob and Sandy put together is brilliant and I don’t want to have to go recreate it. is that becomes a cornerstone of what I do. And in the very beginning, what they really have created was the ability for someone to leave a completely different industry and learn how to become a coach.
Because in the very beginning, you’re letting go of that. Bob and Sandy do the coaching and we’re facilitating, easiest way to describe it, but because it’s a world that we love, I sit there and I, that’s the thing about this. I get paid to ask questions. I get paid to listen to podcasts like this.
I get paid to read books because I need to expand my knowledge as how to help them and what other pieces of information will land in a different way. And so it’s the evolution of. Now, utilizing some of the software that has the training that Bob created, and then wrapping around my own style.
And I love that is, is it does have to be bringing your own style and things into the equation. Tell me a little bit about what what do you think or do you, let me rephrase that going into working with people and whether it’s a new person or someone that’s existing, how much is listening versus being prepared that this is what I’m going to give over today?
I’m usually, most of my clients know. It’s not like school. I don’t, I have an idea of where we’re going one because of the work that we do in some of the lessons, but a lot of times it’s intuitive in the sense of somebody needs to hear something and I don’t know who it is. And sometimes I’ll wake up and I’ll decide, Oh no, this is what we have to cover today.
And when it creates that skill level to even get better and better is to be intuitively tied into the energy of the group. But sometimes it’s To cause it to settle with them in a very unsettling way. And so it’s a bit of both. There’s the process of the 12 things we go through. So they know that’s coming, but you can’t just deliver it the same way over and over again.
And it’s, so for example, right now we’re doing a quantum leap challenge for 30 days. And so four mornings of the week, they have to be on the phone with me at 6 45 in the morning. And now part of it is that there’s certain things that we’re following, but then it’s unscripted. All meant to have a quantum leap by one of the best books written, which is U squared by Price Pritchett.
Brilliant. What’s the, what is the what is the brilliance here? It’s easier to have a quantum leap than we all think. And usually you’re in the middle of it. before you even realize it. And it is stop asking how things are going to happen and just start taking little action steps every day towards the goal.
And it’s interesting because I’ve and I’m going to remember that. I think it’s 10 X is better than two Xs. The book. Yeah. And it’s and it’s the same kind of principle, isn’t it? Because, but it’s a different way of thinking. I think that’s the key here is. When you want to double something, you’re thinking quite small, but if you’re really wanting to make that quantum leap, then you have to completely change the way you think about something.
You can’t work harder. That actually was one of the things Bob said early on, is that most people think they have to work a little bit harder to get, And that you have to think differently.
We got where we are by thinking the way we think. Albert Einstein said, You can’t find the solution thinking the same way that caused the problem. I’m paraphrasing that, but that’s essentially what he said, which is true. And it’s that ability to sit back and recognize, How do I unlock thinking differently?
And stop getting in our own way. Yes. And I think that’s the key, isn’t it? It’s it’s, you realize that you are your own obstacle and that’s, and it’s one thing to realize it. It’s another thing to be able to push through it as well. There’s a couple easier ways, but you’re right. We’re the problem, but we’re the solution early on.
If I’m chatting with someone, because again, if they think it has to be industry specific, it doesn’t matter what industry. Because it applies to everything because they’re the problem and they’re the solution. But we also have to recognize that the paradigms that we’re carrying around, those are just a fancy word for, our parents said things to us, our bosses said things to us, and we just accepted this in broad terms, it went into our subconscious.
So you didn’t put it there, but it is your responsibility to get it out. And once somebody lets that settle in, And it really is, it’s a great awareness, is that whatever we were told in school is what we carry forward or what we think about money with how we saw our parents. And one of the greatest ways to ask a question, because we’re trying, everyone’s trying to come up with solutions, is to just, Turn it around and go.
If I did know the answer to how do I find five more clients? What could it look like? Because you’re not asking yourself. How do I, you’ve got guards up again. If I knew how to get five more clients, what would it look like?
I love it. It’s really, it really intrigues me these days how there’s been this bit more of a revelation, I think, in coaching and generally in things about how important language is. The way we speak is often a reflection of the obstacles we’re putting in the way. And it’s the words you don’t speak that are between the ears and your head.
That is the biggest problem. Absolutely. And it’s because here’s the thing, isn’t it? That we all have our skill sets, but if we’re in business, particularly if we’re a, a CEO of a, whether it’s a small business of whether it’s a business of one or it’s a business of many, that there’s lots of skills that you Think you need to learn along the way that you we can talk about outsourcing in a different time, but the whole you get into this whole idea that you have to do everything.
And then you’ve got these obstacles that are in the way and your own, you’re limited by your own beliefs as we talked about before. And suddenly those things that should be achievable or not. I know. Personally, that I’ve had that obstacle, with sales, because being a marketing background person, you you’re taught that marketing and sales don’t talk to one another.
And in your head, marketing and sales don’t talk to one another. And it’s a difficult obstacle to overcome when you’re doing that. And part of it was the, part of it for me, and I think I’ve said this on the podcast once before, is that I was always, people were saying to you, you’ve got to have the sales conversation.
And all I heard was the word sales. And when I suddenly twisted and I went, I’m going to have the conversation that happens to be about sales, but when it’s a conversation, I can do that easily. I can have a conversation with people. We’re having a conversation now, but if you tell me that I’ve got to have us I’ve just got to go into sales mode.
It’s just not me. And I have to, I can’t follow the script of what other people might do. It has to be my own script. Always.
I’ll help you a little bit with that one too. And this came from David Bayer who wrote A Changed Mind. And that’s why I tell I just pull things out because all of a sudden it just is going to help my clients. But our beliefs control our actions. And so when I talk about paradigms, that’s really what we’re working on changing.
And he had such a profound exercise because a belief is a decision. And let’s talk about sales because that’s where everybody’s I’m not good at sales. I don’t like sales, whatever they think about it. So if that’s the thing, if that’s the thought I have I’m bad at sales. I can’t close anything.
I’m not good at this. And so the way that he words it in the beginning is what evidence do I have that my new belief, so that I’m great at sales is true because you take the opposite. If I’m saying I’m bad at sales, it’s no, I’m great at sales, but it’s asking you what evidence do I have that I’m great at sales?
And so you look at your own history and you find what you can pull out. Like I sold a billion dollars at the asset manager. I think I can do this or I sold and got clients enrolled in managing their assets. But if I only have one and I’m really looking for more, I can say Kim, who’s also a coach in Ireland, I Was penniless and now sells 3 million a month.
If she can do it, I can do it. And that’s where you start to bridge. What evidence do I have that this new belief I’m great at sales is true.
I love it. We could talk for a long time about all of these things, but we do have to start wrapping things up, but I guess we we’ve gone around this whole idea of coaching. Tell me. I think, I would suggest that you probably believe that every business owner and CEO should probably have a coach.
And then the question is, and we how did they get to the point of knowing that? And then how do they choose the right one? I’m going to answer it two ways. I’m hoping that by the time somebody is a CEO, that they’ve been coached a couple of times. Cause I have a former client that coached early in his business and a lot of people thought he was like, that’s it.
I’m good. I’m done. I’ve got all the data I need and I can go on. And it was from a podcast like this that he heard and it settled in him finally that I always need a coach because I equated to sports. If somebody played sports or a musical instrument, you don’t just learn a couple of tunes and then stop.
You don’t just learn how to hit a ball once and never stop practicing. If they’re at that level, they hopefully have understood that. And maybe they just need a little nudge that to be a great leader, you had to be a great follower, but you also need to increase your skillset and lead people. And coaching could be, maybe they need to be a better public speaker because they’re not able to encourage their team.
Because coaching is all different avenues. But I think in today’s world, there’s so much evidence out there how coaching works. It’s why I like podcasts like this. I’m a sucker for the, I was penniless and now I’m not stories. If somebody listens to that enough, they’re going to start to understand their skills that they need.
And that a coach will help them. A coach can help in relationships, they can help in money, they can help in health all different avenues.
And finding one? What’s the best way? You’re on the one side where you find it. where you’re coaching a lot of people. And we’ve talked about, the shared values and things that, but that’s when you get into the conversation. But if you think, yeah, I need a coach because I had this struggle when, and it was lucky that I found the person that I’d already had a relationship with previously that I went, Oh, I should go to there.
Not everyone is that lucky. And so how do you, how does someone go? I need a coach, but how do I find the right one? How do I find the one that’s going to have the impact that I need them to have? I’m going to use you as an example. You weren’t lucky. That person was meant to be your coach. It wasn’t just at the right time.
The best information I can give someone is to just start asking themselves, what kind of coach do I think I need? Because You can go to any meeting and they’ll be overrun with coaches, financial advisors, realtors, and insurance people. There’s coaches everywhere. So the most important is for the person to sit and think, because it really is, what do I think I need help with?
Where am I struggling? And then have conversations, but have conversations with purpose and Understand that coaches come from all different walks of life, and it’s to, to ask yourself what’s important. Now, I’m a science math person, so very process driven. It’s not a surprise that the coaches I’ve always worked with were process driven and research backed.
Which most is all of the types of personal development go back to the Bible, thinking, grow rich signs of getting rich. But I have a couple of questions that I tell people I would ask, where’s the coaching come from? What’s the process? And I just say that because I may not be attracted to the person that just got struck by lightning one night and decided to become a coach because they wanted to help in a certain area.
That wouldn’t appeal to me. And then I would also ask them, do they work with coaches? Because I want somebody who bleeds what we do. Just like when I was a financial advisor, I wouldn’t put somebody in an investment I wouldn’t put myself in. So those are my questions. And I think it’s just be aware that it’s an interview on both sides.
And I’ll, one more thing, cause this is really important. Whoever you decide and choose, be the best student you can possibly be.
That is, that a hundred percent is the truth. The is the right thing to finish on in that part of the, that part of things, because I think we’ve all probably experienced where we’ve tried things and we realize in reflection, we just didn’t put what we needed to into it. And and you’re spending money on these things as well.
So it’s not good. Cause you’re getting further behind if you’re not prepared to put in the effort or for one reason or another, you allow things to come up and you don’t put the effort in. So I just want to wrap things up finally with a question I like to ask my guests, which is what is the aha moment that people have when they start working with you that you wish people knew in advance.
So more people are going to come flooding to you. Most people come to coaching to increase their income.
They leave this process understanding. Money is just energy and that they truly can create work and life the way that they want it to be.
I love that. What a terrific way to finish up. Um, there’s so many more things that you can explore and maybe we’ll do that in another episode, but just wanted to say to everyone out there listening in where of course, as we always do going to include all the all the information on how to get in touch with Ellen in the show notes.
But thank you so much for being an amazing guest on, on Biz Bites. I feel like I said, we could talk for hours and hours, but as we speaking now, you’re at the end of your day. I’m at the beginning of my day, so that’s not really going to work. So we’ll have to park that for another time, but thank you for being a part of the program.
Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure. It’s been my pleasure. And to everyone listening in, of course, don’t forget to tune in and of course subscribe so you don’t miss an episode of Biz Bites. Thanks everyone. Hey, thanks for listening to Biz Bites. We hope you enjoyed the program. Don’t forget to hit subscribe so you never miss an episode.
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Julie Bird
A Farmer’s Fashion Dream : Sleepy Merion’s Story
Merino Sleepwear Brand | Merch
In this episode of Biz Bites, we sit down with Julie Bird, the founder of Sleepy Merino. Learn about her entrepreneurial journey, the benefits of Merino wool, and the strategies behind her successful business.
Don’t miss this inspiring conversation with Julie Bird. Tune in to Biz Bites to learn more about her journey and the secrets to her success.
Offer: Visit their website . Use code 20off for 20% off your first order
Just don’t try to compete. Don’t discount. Don’t have, get involved in the race to the bottom. Especially as, times get tough. Like at the moment, the economy is a little bit difficult, but hey, the people that buy my product are still doing well. They’re still going on the overseas trips. where they want to come in and buy some sleeping merino so they can travel in it.
You’ve got to be brave to do it, but it’s actually worthwhile. Setting up your niche, getting a point of difference, and working on the quality that you require to be in that little niche. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Biz Bites proudly brought to you by CommTogether, the people behind podcasts done for free.
For you, because we’re all about exposing other people’s brilliance. Don’t forget to subscribe to Biz Bites and check out podcasts done for you as well in the show notes. Now let’s get into it.
Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of Biz Bites. And the guest that’s joining me today has quite a journey to share. And I think it’s going to be very impactful for people to hear about it. There’s a lot about Businesses that working from the farm to starting to go on a much larger scale outside of the farm.
And there’s a lot of transition. There’s a lot of learnings I think for business owners everywhere to get from this episode. I’ve known my guest for a little while, but we haven’t had a deep conversation for some time. So I’m really looking forward to this. So Julie, welcome to the program. Thanks, Anthony.
Lovely to be here. And just to kick things off as I like to do you want to explain who you are and what your business is? Julie Bird. I’m from Sleepy Merino. What we do is manufacture Merino sleep and lounge wear here in Australia for both men and women. And it’s been quite a journey. Yes, I imagine it has been.
So I guess where’s the starting point that we kick things off on because where did it begin? Where did this little venture begin? It really began right back in the beginning. I always wanted to go farming. It was just in my blood. I think it’s, multi generations of my family have been in grazing.
And we didn’t have a farm. We were living in Sydney. My parents lived in Sydney as I grew up. I went off to ag college and I’ve been in the agriculture space in R& D both in rural areas as well as in Canberra coordinating research for agriculture. Worked and worked. And finally went and bought my property that I’ve been dreaming about forever.
Along with my parents and my brother. A family pastoral company. So we moved up to Inverell, which is in the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales in 2017, late 2017. And put a lot of money in and put. Put some stock on there, bought lots of sheep, a few cows living the dream. And then the worst drought in living memory hit, which was just lovely.
And, oh my God, it was awful. I don’t, I won’t go into it, but in a way I should be thankful to the drought because it got me to think outside the square. And that’s why Sleepy Merino was born. I was aware that there had been research from my past experience in R& D, that there was research by CSIRO and Sydney Uni that it actually helps you to sleep, get to sleep and stay asleep, if you are in wool.
So both in wool bedding, but also wool clothing. So I had been for many years wearing thermals. As pajamas, but they weren’t particularly comfortable. They’re tight and clingy and usually a long sleeve. And I’ve just been toying with this idea of actually designing something that was actually comfortable.
I was also aware that due to my time in life that the hot and cold flushes of women at a certain age it’s really hard to sleep. And Marino is the. best fabric for them. It actually wicks the heat and sweat away from your skin. And then the next minute can warm you. And it’s actually, as I found it’s helping both men and women.
We all have trouble with the hot and cold thing as we sleep. And yeah, so I said about. Designing a range of pajamas made out of pure merino thinking it was going to be relatively easy. Yeah I laugh now. Yeah, there’s so much I’ve learned, but yeah it’s been quite a journey. Oh, I had never designed.
Garments, it was something totally new to me set up the website I was intending to just sell online. And yeah, I found eventually there’s a lot of research and speaking to people, especially when you’re in a regional area, you don’t have the contacts necessarily or the networks.
And especially in a whole new industry like the fashion industry, I had to find where I could get these made. I had designed them. Yeah. They were pretty rough on a piece of paper, they had to then be made into patterns and all the whole thing. So yeah, there was a lot of work.
I did get a lot of support from my. From the wool industry, Australian Wool Innovation in helping me find the right contacts and factories here in Australia. It was always going to be Australian production. And it, I’m glad I made the effort to do that because it’s been a point of difference.
There’s a lot of imported product that isn’t. as good. Both our wool and very similar wool goes into the products. So it’s hopefully next year it’ll be just our wool, but it’s a far superior product to the imported mass produced merino. It’s a longer fibre. It’s much softer. softer feel.
And I had much more control over the fabric itself. We only use organic dyes. It’s pre shrunk before it’s sewn. Yeah, so it, it’s been a bit of a process and I’ve used the wrong factories. I’ve actually even tried to help a regional small factory, but they just couldn’t keep up with the numbers or the quality that are required.
Yeah, so there’s been a lot of mistakes made. But yeah, I’ve learned a hell of a lot. I bet. There’s a, there’s so much to unpack there and we’re going to get to it, but I just want to get one little question out of the way, because the focus is really today about the business journey and everything along that.
And there’s a lot to share around that, but just to pick up on your point, the actual sleepwear that you’re producing now, men and women, all ages and equally good in summer as it is in winter. Absolutely. And it’s been a little bit of a trial before I even sold any, I got various weights of fabric and gave it to all my friends and family.
I got them to wear it and I found the perfect way that will both. CoolU as well as WarmU is 170 gsm of weight and it’s also very good for traveling or hiking or anything like that, for that reason, because you’ll go from hot to cold. And if you wear it next to your skin, it will do that.
It will thermoregulate. And there’s just so many advantages. To us as humans if that can happen it’s also recently being found, with sports with stop, go sports, like cycling, that it actually, you use less energy because the fabric, the wool fabrics actually doing that thermo regulating for you.
Compared to a synthetic garment. So yeah, it’s a wonderful natural product. You couldn’t invent something better than what the sheep have given us. Amazing. And we’ll include lots of details in the show notes, how everyone can make the purchase of this. And as someone who has struggled with sleep I definitely will be following those links myself a little bit later on.
Yeah. There’s a lot to unpack as far as the business journey is concerned. And I guess let’s start back at the beginning, that idea of purchasing a farm, that’s a big decision, even if it is in your blood. And I guess, as you said, you learned the hard way with the drought hitting immediately afterwards.
Did you go in with eyes wide open in the beginning? Did did you really think droughts and floods and all of those weather conditions were potentially going to impact you, or was it just more fixated on the fact that I finally got the farm and it’s going to be all happy days?
I had some background as an agricultural extension officer way back in the day. And as an agronomist, so I started, I wasn’t going into it blind. And at the time, if you had average conditions, which never happens in farming all the numbers added up, I got the right property.
I did a big spreadsheet being me of, cow areas and sheep areas and profitability and everything added up. But, since we’ve bought it, we’ve had not only the drought, worse drought, we’ve had the. mouse plague, which was awful. It was the worst of all of them. We’ve had floods. We’ve had damage from a lot of flooding.
And now we actually have awful prices for both wool and for lambs. So no one could have ever anticipated this. There’s a bit of talk up lately that farmers are doing really well, but Most of us haven’t really recovered from the drought. So it’s been a really difficult time. And the worst of the lot is actually the input costs and the labor costs.
Like most businesses, a lot of industries doing it really tough at the moment. So yeah, we’re doing everything right. Really happy with the sheep that we’ve got, the wool that we’re growing. They’re an easy care sheep that. Yeah, that the shearers they have the wrinkles all over them and and we have a very natural system.
We’re regenerative farmers, so it’s a very natural system. We don’t have to give them a lot of chemicals for drenching, that sort of thing and we’ve got lots of shrubs and that they actually browse on. We don’t, really need many herbicides if any. Yeah, so I’m very happy with how all that’s going, but it’s still really difficult to make money and most farms will actually have another income or another side hustle.
Like this was intended just to be a side hustle because of the variability of farm income. It’s highly variable. You might get one, one payment for your wool each year and maybe one for your lambs, and then there’s the bills coming all the rest of the year. Most of us have a husband or a wife who works in town or another business.
I wasn’t surprised when I had to do that. And I do know that the costs of ag chemicals and all these other things that are just going up and they never really come down but it’s, it is pretty tough for farmers and across the board and especially at the moment for wool growers.
Because of the prices that we have. Yeah. It is tough being in that industry. And it’s interesting though, that, I was lucky enough to travel last year and I was in Scotland and we happened to visit a place or two where they were talking about their wool and that not even knowing that we were Australian, they said, look, ours is okay, but Australian is so much better.
And they were explaining why, and then they found out we were Australian. So it was even more interesting. And I think that’s one of the things is that. You’ve built a business now built on all of those, being locally based using Australia, everything Australian as much as you possibly can.
And I wonder if that’s it, you saying it’s a point of difference in the market. Is it as well respected in the market as perhaps it used to be? Because those Australian made campaigns don’t seem to be as. Obvious as they used to be, maybe 15, 20 years ago. Yes. And even in my short time, Sleeping Marina has been going for about five years now.
There’s been a lot of anti importance Sentiment, especially anti China sentiment. So that’s added to it. And I never even anticipated it’d be that strong. It’s always only a sector of the market who really want and can. pay for Australian made, but they love it. They really do. And when they find that there’s an option that is Australian made, they will happily pay for it.
And that sector of the market is also where my price point is. It’s not luxury. It’s not top end luxury, and it’s not competing with the cheap imports. I just can’t do that with the mass produced market. It’s that next level down from luxury. It’s quality and I’ve had to concentrate on making a really quality product so that it’s sitting there in that little niche.
I had a really good mentor help me with that. He was in Silicon Valley. living here on a very large cattle farm here in Inverel, he said just don’t try to compete, don’t discount, don’t have, get involved in the race to the bottom especially as, times get tough, like at the moment the economy is a little bit Difficult, but Hey, the people that buy my product are still doing well.
They’re still going on the overseas trips where they want to come in and buy some sleeping Marino so they can travel in it. And it’s actually been growing, so you’ve got to be brave to do it, but. It’s actually worthwhile setting up your niche, getting a point of difference and working on the quality that you require to be in that little niche.
It’s a really important point, I think, for a lot of businesses out there because we do tend to think about it’s either got to be High end and expensive, or as you say the race to the bottom, which is a very dangerous place to be in because it’s, first of all, you’re competing constantly on price.
So you’re constantly dropping. And secondly, you’re just producing more and more for less and less gain. And when you walk in and you’ve got to sell a thousand of something, as opposed to selling a hundred of something, it’s a hell of a lot harder, isn’t it? It is. It is. Yeah. And I have actually put my prices up.
Obviously my production has gone up the the factory where I make my products. They’ve had Power price increases the labor is what they say is really put their prices up. So I’ve put my price up, but it hasn’t actually affected my sales. In fact, my sales are getting stronger each year.
But I do realize that by making more MOQ, they call it in, in, in fashion, if I can make more per order. It will bring my prices down a little bit, my costs down. So I’m actually moving to go more into the wholesale so I can actually make larger quantities as well. So I do that as well as the online.
But getting into the little mum and dad retail stores around the country that sell a higher quality sort of product along with the lovely wool jumpers and things that are so simple. Guess these days to find yeah, so moving into that as well. Early days, but so far so good. I think I have to do that as a manufacturer because it’s not just like buying a product from someone and then selling it on it’s.
Not easy. And sometimes there are delays in production. I actually share a factory that also makes products for R. M. Williams and Country Road. And if they need something in a hurry, yeah, of course I’m going to get pushed down the list. That’s just. reality as a small business. So I’ve got to work with that.
I’ve got a few, I’ve been thinking last, week or so about how do I get around that? And I was going to be moving it a little bit more into indent order. So people actually order ahead so I can actually know what my numbers are so I can order well ahead. I’ve had to be very flexible especially as a small business competing in, in the manufacturing space and with the costs.
Yeah, I’ve also moved to having a 3PL to actually distribute my products. And I don’t want too much. Stock in the warehouse because I’m paying for that on a monthly basis as well. So it’s really tricky being a manufacturer and actually distributing the goods. But Hey, I’m learning all the time and I’m getting a lot of help as well.
Both you and I have a lot of help from abundance global with our coaching. And I can get. I have a bit of a mastermind every now and then with people in our group that have been so helpful as other business owners. Just bouncing ideas has been so helpful, especially living in a remote regional area.
I’m here at the moment on my farm. I’m about 30 K’s out of town. I have to cross a creek, four wheel drive only. I often get flooded in and out. It’s thank God for satellite. So I can still talk to you in the middle of nowhere. How good is that? But yeah, you have to be very. It’s so wonderful, Julie, because and it works both ways.
Cause you know, I’m making the move. Out of Sydney as I think I’ve told our listeners before, so not quite as far a field as you, I’m still not but the flexibility that you can have to do that these days is huge because look, I know a fraction about this space. Compared to what you’ve learned in the last few years, but my grandparents, when they came to Australia with absolutely nothing ended up setting up a clothing factory and my grandfather spent most of his time on the road selling to small locations that would on sell their clothing.
And they were very successful for until they retired. And so I got a bit of an understanding of the process that you’re going through in those days. They You know, the thing is that where it was, I can imagine very lonely being on a farm some time ago. Now you can get that virtual support.
Now it’s not quite the same as being in person, but at least it’s some support that is there and expanding your networks. Because I think the important thing is as well, That you’ve now transitioning, aren’t you? It’s been, you’ve gone from farm to online, but now it’s starting to transition further, isn’t it?
Because correct me if I’m wrong, but you had a shop that was basically connected to the township. And and it’s. That you’re moving on from there, aren’t you? That’s right. And it was really successful little shop. So it’s actually a really good stage for the business. So it was a retail store. It was also my warehouse.
So I had a whole heap of old offices behind, which were just filled with. Boxes of sleepy Marino. But I was able to sit there, do my work and do my sales calls, but people came in the front door and bought products while I was doing my work, which is good. It was distracting, but it was good if they’re going to be paying.
often cash, tourists. It was very helpful and it was it was well and truly paying for the costs of rent and all the other expenses. But I was finding that I was tied there. I couldn’t really get away for this next stage of the business, which is getting out to these retail stores and, country department stores and hopefully bigger department stores eventually.
I have to be on the road going forward. Yes, you can do a lot. Over the computer and the phone but it’s, there’s nothing better than meeting people in person. And with my product, it’s feeling the product cause it’s such a soft product that people, it’s very tactile. And that’s another reason I have to get into more stores too, because it just sells so much better.
If people actually can feel and touch the product rather than just hear about it online and, make the big leap themselves Yeah, so I’ve got to be on the road a lot more and this has given me a little bit of freedom. It’s not a lot of freedom because of the sheep as well.
I’ve still got to do that. My brother does help. He looks after them so I can get away. But yeah that’s the next stage. The store was very successful and also getting that feedback on the products. So you can actually find junior products of narrowed down to the range the happiest with.
Which reduces my numbers, my skew numbers for my warehouse much easier and cheaper. So yeah, it’s been part of the process. Yeah, you might think that’s, like three different businesses that I’ve done so far. And in reality it is but it’s like stepping stones in the process and without doing any of those foundation sort of stages of the business, I don’t think I’d be ready.
to do this next, where I’m ramping up into more the wholesale side of things. There’s another side of things as well, which has been the export. I actually had an Austrade grant for a couple of years up until recently. And I was exporting just through the online store just because of the cost it was through, a difficult time with container shipping being so expensive.
But it really did open up my markets all over the world. I actually now have set up a separate website for the Northern Hemisphere so I can have the opposing seasons products. Featured there and also in U. S. dollars and Canadian dollars. They’re my two biggest ones I was concentrating on. But I do sell them all over the world, Scandinavia, Finland loves them in particular, through Asia, because they are so cooling for the Asian population as well.
So there’s been quite a few different steps. To get where I am. And now it’s another big step that I’m going to have to take. But I feel confident and ready to in my production, I’ve got the production. I’ve got the best factory, I think in Australia, the wool mill is able to ramp up production to produce the actual fabric.
Yeah, so I’m ready to get to that next step of actually being in conversations with some big exporters. If one of those comes off, even it would just be huge exponential increase in growth. So I’ll just keep going. Trying and trying. And eventually I’m hoping I get one of those big deals. At the moment there’s some influences in South Korea wearing sleepy Marino their influences don’t have hundreds of thousands of followers.
I have millions. So I just need one of these little things to happen. But yeah, they love Australian made and Australian made is a thing overseas. Another thing overseas is that they appreciate Marino. products even more than Australians. Australians are not that educated to Merino, which is crazy because we produce the best in the world.
So it’s been, I’ve actually also as part of the business done a lot of educating. So a lot of blogs a lot of articles and magazines, things like that, just educating. the public about the properties of Merino and that it does help you sleep, that it is thermoregulating. In Australia, a lot of particularly women think it’s itchy because of the school jumpers they used to wear.
There’s been that aspect of it as well. It’s been a busy time and I can’t do any of it that well because it’s too stretched. It’s quite amazing because as well as the transitions that you’ve been going on and that, and I think you can’t underestimate how much, how difficult it is. To learn something new.
It’s all very well. And we all have these ideas. I think most business leaders have these ideas. And often it’s within a space that they’re, I wouldn’t say completely comfortable with, but there’s a degree of comfort in there. But the interesting thing for you is that just initially starting as you said earlier on having to design, clothing.
That is a whole different skills. One thing to have the idea and go I’ve got the wool. I’ve got a bit of an idea how the wool and that part works. But then to go, I’ve got to design clothing and that’s something that’s got to be ongoing, right? Because it’s not you can’t just say we’ve designed it once and we’re going to keep the same style for the next, whatever years, because.
Yeah. Things change, don’t they? So I imagine that you have to, that part of the business, you have to keep adapting and innovating as just, that’s just the basic part. I’ve had to move out of my comfort zone constantly. And maybe I first did that with the farm. You have to you never know what’s happening tomorrow.
You’re never comfortable in farming. I’d love to be. And I’m good at researching things and getting them all set out and right before you go ahead and do things. But I, you can’t afford to do that sometimes in business. You just have to take the leap. You do a certain amount of research.
You have to, look at what your gut’s telling you as well. You have to have a passion for what you’re wanting to do because that, that will lead you and take you there. But sometimes you just have to take that leap of faith. I’ve, had the support of people around me as well.
But I just have to, now I’ve got another thing I’ve got to learn. I’ve got to set up a new B2B platform for my new wholesale custom. So it’s another thing to learn. You just always. Stepping out of your comfort zone to do something new and sometimes you can’t just go out and pay someone to do it, with the costs in all businesses at the moment, you have to do some of these things yourself.
I’m trying to find out more and more as I go along, but you’ve got to be careful. Let’s see. And it’s interesting how the little businesses develop off the side of these things. And I know that we we spoke a few episodes ago on BizBytes to Susan Loft, who’s known as the laundry lady who basically turned people’s personal laundries.
into an Uber style service. And so people in from their homes are doing their doing laundry for other people. But the interesting thing about that discussion was her business now is as much about the technology that is sitting behind that to make that work as it is about the front facing business.
And I can see that there’s. There’s things going on there because the technology that you need just to manage the warehouse, to manage as you’re starting to get orders, both online and from shops that you’re going out to, and if particularly if you’re starting to sell to to retailers, that, that’s That complexity of that is almost a business on its own as well.
Absolutely. I could sit here in my office and just run that side of the business. Yeah but I’ve tried to keep it as simple as I can. And the whole process is. towards automation. There’s only one of me. And that’s why I’ve gone to the 3PL as well. I was packing, picking and packing all my own orders.
But it just got too much. I’ve got to spend my valuable time on actually growing the business not working in the business. Yeah. Everything integrates. I’ve got the two websites, Northern and Southern Hemisphere, all working so that the inventory is right and also integrating into 3PL so that they can keep the stock right and I’ll be setting up this new B2B platform so that all integrates and there’ll be also orders in dental orders before time as well.
So yeah, it’s all getting a bit complex. And there’s still only one of me really, but when you think about it, I’m growing a team, it’s just that they’re external people, like there’s a fabulous business at the 3PL. The family there have been doing this for a long time, specialize in the fashion industry and do Meyer and the big guys in, in distribution, the factory, same thing.
Fantastic. So I’ve got a team around me. I just don’t actually employ them. So it’s a little bit different. But yeah it’s not as different as I think there are a lot of businesses out there that do exactly the same thing. I know when I founded my business that we initially focused a lot on branding and and general marketing.
And I never, I’ve, I never employed a graphic designer. I had a close association with a, and I still do with a graphic design agency that I’ve worked with for now. I think it’s getting close to 25 years that we’ve worked together and it’s building those relationships, which are vital to keeping businesses running.
So I’m interested in to, because, you said you had a few trials and fails With various businesses that couldn’t keep up with what you needed. So how do you build, how do you find them and how do you build those relationships and that getting in and getting out, all of that stuff is difficult to navigate within itself.
It is. And there’s a lot of trial and error. How I’ve managed to get. Somehow as a very small business into the same factory as R. M. Williams and Country Road here in Australia. And they’re fantastic, the job they do. I think they realize that the business is growing slowly but growing.
But also I make sure that I. pay on time. It’s not easy sometimes, especially if, I’ve just had an order received from Winterstock and it’s, hey, it’s spring now. I just have to suck it up sometimes because I am the smaller business. I have to just look at other ways that I can manage my stock.
And partly that’s, with the Northern atmosphere sort of business side of things as well, so that I can have less less, less sort of variability in season. Yeah it’s there’s just been so many complexities to get around, but yeah that’s, Yeah.
Basically where I’ve been. Yeah. And and I think that it’s growing constantly, which is easy to say for people that they want to scale the business, but actually doing it sometimes is incredibly difficult and you do need those relationships to be able to manage that process. Don’t you?
Because if tomorrow you got a big order in You’ve got now the the, the various suppliers and and factories and things that’s possible to fulfill that. It is. And it would be very easy to actually just do that all from a distance remotely, but I’ve made the effort to actually get down there to Melbourne on a fairly regular basis.
Talk to the people both in the wool mill who are making the fabric. And also at the factory and the 3PL. So they’re all fairly close together. It works really well for me. But yeah, it’s building that relationship over time. And if I’m down there for another reason, I just drop in and say hello and have lunch with them or whatever.
Because yeah they’re my team now. And I think that’s partly why the. Giving me the effort as a small business is because I’m making the effort as well. And I have that relationship with them. But you gotta be flexible for them as well. They’ve got a lot to do. Yeah I try and not to make things difficult.
I keep my products simple in Australia. We just don’t have with the costs, we just can’t make things. Fancy. We kept them simple and that suits my products anyway. With the Merino product, you don’t want zips and buttons and things like that when you’re sleeping anyway, you want it comfy, so simple, high quality it’s the way to go with my team.
And yeah it’s probably why it’s been successful so far. Yeah, they just don’t make mistakes. I’ve had the not so good factories and constant mistakes. Me having to repair things or send them back for repair. But yeah, it’s it’s been worth the effort. I probably pay a bit more and I pay a bit more in trouble to keep these relationships happening.
But yeah, it’s been worth it in the long run. I have a high quality product and I can play, it goes right back to the beginning. I can play in that space where I don’t have to join the race to the bottom. I can have that high quality. High end product that people are happy to pay for I have the it’s unique and it’s a little niche.
And it’s across it’s across wellness. It’s across it’s cross travel. It’s across so many aspects of people’s lives. That it’s, it’s got to work. So I wanted to just, and we’ve got to wrap things up soon, but I just wanted to ask you about, the area that you’re touching on there and you touched on earlier on around the idea of educating the market, because it’s all very well to say, okay we’re, this is where we’re going to sit in the quality space.
You have to educate the market that’s what you. And you also have to educate the market, as you say, to understand the benefits of merino wool, because even for example, myself going, okay, is this a winter product or is this, an all year round product? So how do you. How do you go about doing that?
And what’s the, what are you adding to the story that you’re sharing on a consistent basis to be able to educate the market? It’s so tempting when you have a product like Merino that has a list of, it’s like a list of features just to list the features that does this, it does that. But that’s not really great for selling a product.
We get that all the time, Hey, it didn’t work for Apple either. All their competitors, that’s what they did. Apple made it more about someone’s lifestyle and how they were leading their life. So I try and actually bring it back to how this will make people’s lives better.
And bring the value of the merino in that way. So say there’s a middle aged lady that’s having trouble sleeping cause they’re hot and cold. You market around that factor that, Hey, if you get a better night’s sleep, you’re going to be better at work.
You’re going to have better relationships and Hey, your life’s going to be much better if you’re getting that sleep. So concentrating on that with the marketing side of things. And then you have to have a little bit of education piece in there as well.
Hey, Merino is thermo regulating. It does this. Yes, our Merino is actually pre shrunk. So Shrink like a lot of the ones and we actually make it long and we actually have proper Australian sizes And you just put a little bit of that in there. So you’re not Educating them on a big list of things. I think I used to do that quite a lot Does this and yeah people probably switched off after the first couple or forgot everything, but you just have a bit of an angle.
Every time I do a post or something like that, or an article, this is something that’s really great about our product that, that can make your life better. Yeah, so that’s what I’ve been concentrating on. Yeah. And there’s also the proof with the research you can some people like to go back and actually look at the research, so I’ve got even those aspects in the website that you, if you’re that way inclined, you can actually go and look at the papers if you want to.
And that’s the proof. So it’s not because there’s a lot of greenwashing out there and that sort of thing. But basically. The authenticity of a brand and the story behind this sort of product. I really think that’s why it’s done as well as it has. People like not buying from a multinational with imported mass produced products.
And I think the timing just has worked really beautifully for Sleeping Merino. I noticed that even in, in Varel, people would come in, tourists come from Sydney and say, Oh, isn’t this wonderful? We don’t have to go to the chain stores. You’ve got all these little independent stores in the town.
And and I think if I can get into those stores around Australia too, that will be really good for my brand. It’s funny, people have really switched around. The people that have, The means and spending money, especially they’re in that space. They want something different. They want something unique.
They want something that’s quality and something that works to make their life better. That’s what they’re looking for. Things have changed. And I think COVID has had a fair bit to do with that. The people are after comfort. luxury, affordable luxury. Yeah, it’s been a big change. And there’s a lot of opportunities and it’s been great for I actually was on the buy from the bush platform for a while.
So that was really good. People started to actually look outside the big. Multinationals and now people are aware that there are other options out there, small manufacturers, small businesses in regional areas. And yeah, they love it. They love it. The, my export customers love it as well. That’s what’s so attractive to my South Korean partnership.
I’m working with yeah they love that as well. So big is not always better. No, that’s true. And and again, it’s still talking to the quality. And I think what’s really interesting about what you’re doing as well is you’re building brand advocates and brand indeed brand ambassadors as you’re going along the way, particularly through those areas.
And you’re right. There’s people are looking for something different and in many respects, it’s easier than ever to look for something different because Yes, you can go into the shopping center. Yes, you can see the big manufacturers online, but it is often trying to find, often people are trying to look outside of that because as you say, they want something different and they want the quality and it’s a terrific niche to to be in.
Look, we could talk for so much longer because there are so many things to unpack about your business, but thank you for giving us such a great insight. I just wanted to. Wrap things up in a way of saying, look, people wanting to learn from your experiences and what you’re doing you’re keeping people updated, you’re sharing on podcasts like this, but you’re also regularly, as you say, writing articles and things.
And I guess we’re, the best thing to do is to say to people follow the links in the show notes because you’ll want to follow what Julie’s doing because there’s a lot to learn, I think. Obviously we want people to go out there and buy the product. And if you know anyone who wants to buy lots of the product, even better, but also to learn from what you’ve, what your, the processes you’re going through, because there’s so much for businesses at all stages of growth to understand and learn from.
Absolutely. If I can do it, anyone can do it, but it just takes a bit of grit and determination. And yeah, it’s It’s been a fun journey, really hard, but fun. Now, I always like to wrap up with a question that I ask people, and it’s a little bit different for you. Because normally I say to people, what’s the aha moment they have when they’re working with you, but I’m going to twist that a little bit.
So what’s the aha moment when, what’s the feedback you get from people who are using your products? Because clearly you’re still in business after a few years and it’s growing. So the feedback must be great. And you must be happy. Enjoy getting that feedback. Oh, that, that is the best part of being in this business is that people, once they tried the product, they actually ring me and email me go, Oh my God, this is magic.
I it’s so soft and luxurious and I’m sleeping better and I want more and I’m telling all my friends about it and I’m buying it for all my relatives for their. birthdays. And yeah, the feedback is fabulous. And that’s the word of mouth. It’s the best marketing in the world, of course. And they come back and buy more.
I’ve had a, there’s a lady in France that’s had 23 orders of sleeping Marino, like that’s a lot of jammers. But it’s, most of my customers are loyal. and they come back and back. And that tells the story for me that I’m on a winner. It also they’re very upfront with which products I like and also offering suggestions of new products.
So yeah, it’s been, that’s been the best aspect of this whole thing is the feedback. The love of the products and it’s good for the whole wool industry. Even if it’s not just my sleepy Merino that people are actually learning about wool and they’re wearing wool again, then they’re going to go and buy some wool jumpers and they’re going to buy some wool socks.
And it’s good for the whole industry for the Australian wool industry. Yeah, it’s been, that’s been the aha moment for me is that, Hey, this is actually really working and people love it. So it’s worth all the hard work. effort that I put in every day of the week. You’ll be commended for the journey that you’ve been on.
And I thank you so much for being generous in sharing all of it. And so much more, and I know that we’re going to catch up very soon, but I’m looking forward to watching the journey and having you back again as a guest in the future, as we see the business continue to grow. As I mentioned to everyone, we will have all the details in the show notes of how people can get in contact, how people can purchase from you, whether they’re in the Southern or the Northern hemisphere, we’ll have those links for you to be able to to get ahold of Julie.
So thank you so much for being an amazing guest on the program. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it. And to everyone listening, of course, don’t forget to stay tuned for the next episode of Biz Bytes. Don’t forget to hit subscribe, and we look forward to your company then. Hey, thanks for listening to Biz Bytes.
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Ingeborg Mooiweer
Unlocking the Leader Within : A Chat with Ingeborg
Coaching and Therapy
In this episode, we dive deep into the powerful connection between personal growth and professional success. Ingeborg shares her insights on navigating emotional trauma, breaking through personal limitations, and finding harmony between your personal and professional selves.
Discover how addressing emotional challenges can lead to breakthroughs in your career. Don’t miss this thought-provoking episode on self-awareness, leadership, and the transformative power of personal growth.
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Hardly anyone really knows that they know they maybe have trauma or They experienced things in their life. They obviously have, yeah, pain from that, but they don’t recognize that is the issue now. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Biz Bites, proudly brought to you by CommTogether, the people behind podcasts done for you, because we’re all about exposing other people’s brilliance.
Don’t forget to subscribe to Biz Bites and check out podcast done for you as well in the show notes. Now let’s get into it.
And welcome to another episode of Biz Bites. And I feel like we’re going to be doing something a little bit different today because it’s a little bit more of a look at yourself as a leader. And in Areas that maybe you can improve on personally and see how that is going to have an impact on your business.
But we’re going to explore plenty in this episode. I’ve only just got to know our guest a little bit in a couple of discussions that we’ve had. We were lucky enough to be introduced online. That’s always how these things happen these days. And she’s all the way in the other side of the world. So Ingeborg, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.
I’ve done my best to get your name pronounced right, but I apologize for the Australian, I’m apologizing for the Australian accent, but why don’t you introduce yourself a little bit and tell us, where you’re coming from as well, because I’m in Sydney, but you’re not. No, I’m not. Thank you for having me.
I’m in Holland and apologize for my accent, obviously. But we have one and yeah, I’m in all the way in the Netherlands, totally on the other side and different time zone as well, obviously. So here I am. It makes it all a lot of fun, doesn’t it? That’s the beauty of technology. These days is you can do all of those things.
Let’s get into it. Why don’t you tell me first, firstly, your business is MetaMind Breakthrough. What is the business about? What is it that you actually do? Yeah I call myself a business and personal relationship alchemist. And I use the word alchemist because I use different things to get results for my clients.
I work in the relationship realm at its broadest, and then you can think of For personal, it’s like codependency attachment issues, abandonment issues narcissism, abuse relationship addiction or a combination thereof. And in business, it shows up different, but the issues usually quite the same.
It’s like people trouble managing their team. They want to have a promotion. They pass by all the time. They have trouble. With colleagues or with their boss, things like that. And in the end, it’s all like relationship. And actually it is the core issues. So the core issues and I’ll get to that space with them.
So that’s very short description of what I do. I suppose the starting point is for me is understanding a little bit about firstly, the kind of people that come to you, do they have to be, Are they being sent to you or are they coming to you willingly? Recognizing that they’ve got, do people recognize the issues that they have or they, what’s the starting point?
Yeah some of them do they may not know like the real issue. That’s usually the case, but what they do recognize is that they are stuck. They keep on getting in the same sort of patterns. That’s what they recognize as well. They’re stuck. They want to have a change, but they don’t know how. And that’s usually I don’t know how I want to change.
I don’t know how and then, yeah, what I said, if it’s really personal, they start reading, they reading books, listening to podcasts, things like that. And then they get a sort of feeling, Oh, I might be a codependent because I’ll always say, yeah, trouble saying no trouble setting my boundaries. They recognize that they think that’s the problem.
So it’s usually like the symptoms they come to me with but it’s never symptoms. It’s always something deeper that they don’t know usually. And that’s normal, hardly anyone really knows that. They know they maybe have trauma or they experienced things in their life, they obviously have, yeah, pain from that, but they don’t recognize that is the issue now.
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Hardly anyone really knows that. They know they maybe have trauma or they experienced things in their life, they obviously have, yeah, pain from that, but they don’t recognize that is the issue now.
I’m intrigued with this because what’s the balance? Because you call yourself a coach in that sense. What’s the difference between someone going, if they’re recognizing some of those traits, is it first appearing for them in a business sense, which is why they’re coming to you versus, are they, are they going to a psychiatrist or psychologist as well?
How does that balance work between those? Yeah I just to reaffirm, I call myself a coach slash therapist because that’s what it is actually. About 50 50, I would say some of them go to a psychologist or what you say and they don’t get the real help they want, not saying that they’re not good psychologists or whatever, but this is specific kind of work and just talking, talk therapy is not enough.
So you really have to get to the core issue, not only getting the insights, but knowing how to change on the deeper level, like fundamentally, you have to change it, you have to heal. And that sometimes doesn’t work. If you go to psychologist, just talking, that’s having the insights. Yeah, that’s not enough.
So it could be like real and personal. They have a relationship, they have trouble there, or they don’t have a relationship and they want one. Things like that. Or it’s real, like what I said, 50 50 is really someone at work. We’re having the same trouble like either finding a job or that managing their team, taking up their space, being the real leader.
They have trouble doing that and they don’t recognize why it is. They think there’s something wrong with them in a different sense. And it’s it’s always the case that there’s something deeper. Why they don’t allow themselves or are afraid to speak up or afraid to say no, things like that. They have trouble speaking their truth as well.
So it’s a lot of different things. It’s not just one thing and a lot of different things. It’s a lot of like deep inner work, but it’s a lot of mental work as well. Do people see that as being, are people always seeing it in themselves first? Or are they seeing it as maybe they’ve noticed some traits and things in their parents.
And fearing that they’re, that’s, they’re going, is that often a trigger or is it usually quite separate and people just have a self realization and maybe it then goes back to parents and other influences around there. I’m just intrigued as to where it, where that self realization comes from.
That’s, there was almost a 50 50 as well, because I have people, they say, Oh, I had a really nice upbringing. There was nothing wrong there. So I don’t understand why I’m having trouble with ABC or people saying, Oh, I had a really rough upbringing. I’m sure it has to do something with what happened there, but I just, they’re always stuck.
And they don’t know how to move forward. They tried a lot of things. That’s what usually happens as well. They read all the books, what I said, listen to the podcast, they have the insights and they don’t understand why it’s not enough to move forward to change. So it’s the, yeah, 50, 50 as well. Almost.
It’s it’s a typical thing though, isn’t it? That That initial step of realizing that something’s holding you back or something’s interfering with how you want to perform. Yeah. And I always say that the pain has to be big enough to make that step, to make that call, to start looking for someone, because if the pain is not big enough, you’re not going to do the work.
to change because changing is a lot of hard work. And dealing with your feelings and emotions and pain from the past is not nice, but necessary. So the pain has to be big enough. You have to be hold back by it and not making the steps you want to and then people feel and they realize they’re in the same pattern.
Usually keep on doing the same thing, being in the same loop. And then they start realizing, okay, maybe I need some help. Maybe I can’t do it on my own. Maybe all the books and podcasts doesn’t do the trick. And then they start looking. I think it’s worth pointing out to people as well that the caliber of people that you’re working with you’re working with some bigger organizations and people are leading bigger businesses and things as well as some of the smaller ones.
So there’s a range of people that you deal with. In this process. I’m fascinated as well by, what the balance is between the personal and the professional, because that’s where I think you’re very unique in what you’re doing in balancing those two spaces and and where that. Realization is, are the people that are coming to you with that self realization, is it because they recognize that it’s impacting both?
Or is it that the business has tends to be the initial prompt and then it goes into the other? How do you, where do you see that kind of balance? Sometimes it is. Yes. Sometimes they just come in what I said with the examples like managing the team and it’s not working and they are in front of a big, a scale up or things like that.
And there’s something, there’s a hurdle they don’t know what it is. But the thing is with my work, whatever, you start with professional or like personal, it spreads out. Because you’re in it. It’s you who’s changing. So obviously when you change and the work site will change because that’s what you want, you’ll notice it a way in your personal life as well and vice versa.
So because yeah, you can’t be really different. Obviously you’re a bit different at work, but In the end, you’re the same person, so you’ll notice it at home with friends, family, things like that, and at work as well. So there’s never anyone, someone, when the initial question is like from personal sides, there’s nothing off limits for me.
And the other way around as well, because yeah, what I said, you’re in there. Totally. So both sides will be surfaced, so to speak. Yeah, it’s I think that’s a fascinating area that the realization, particularly in a work scenario, that things are not. Translating as you would like them to be, and you’re not on the career path, or you’re not, as you say, not handling team members and other situations.
There’s a pattern there that just in a work sense is a difficult thing to realize, because we all want to think that we’re probably better than what we are in some respect. So I suppose there are plenty of people that think otherwise, that they’re not as good as they think they are, but I guess that’s the question.
At a when you’re talking about people who are leaders in business, at whatever level of business they are, but in some kind of leadership role, is it important for them to just be understanding their own limitations and to be recognizing that is that something that we all should be doing?
I think we should actually, yeah. Yeah, that’s a short answer, but yeah, because when you know yourself you’d be able to relate to other people from an authentic space and maybe that’s a bit of a coach words, we but that’s the thing. People, some people let’s say, don’t realize that a lot of things happening uh, the energy.
What is happening when you relate to another person in the workspace as well. It’s all like subconscious. So when you’re not healed or when you’re not happy with yourself, let’s make use of the normal words, like happy with yourself, what, where you want to go, you relate different to people and you can say here, Oh, no, everything is going well.
But people will pick up on it that it’s not there, so the relationship will be different. You will get trouble and you don’t realize why that is. So I think, yeah, everybody should do that. It will help your work and your life. I think one of the things I’m interested in your take on this because one of the things has definitely changed in the workplace.
The theory used to be that when you come to work, you should leave your personal at the door and just focus on work. Yeah. As I understand it, that idea is a bit of a outdated notion and been, even pushed even further because of the whole COVID situation where everyone, in many countries, we had lockdowns and people started working from home and working from home has become a normal thing.
So that lot, that blurred line between personal and private is blurrier than it’s ever been, isn’t it? Um, yeah, it is. And I think it’s actually good because what people tend to forget as well, we are emotional beings and the end we’re not logical or rational at all. That’s what we try to think.
That’s what we try to do as well. And obviously we have, some logic, but mostly all our decisions and everything are made like from the subconscious mind. So if you use that, you’ll be, you can become a lot stronger and become a better leader. If that’s in harmony, between the head and the heart or the head and the gut or whatever you want to call it.
So I think it’s good because you, how would you do that? Like separate, like you step into your office and then. You are a totally different person. You’re, I think you can use it. You don’t have to share everything, obviously, but share something because that makes the connection better.
And you can’t do business without relationships on any level. And starting with the, sorry, starting with the relationship with yourself. That’s always the beginning. And if that’s okay, and you’re good with yourself, then you can relate to other people much easier and do business better, because that’s what she wants to do.
Yeah it, I find it amazing when people can really think that they can. Put compartmentalize what’s happening in your personal life and not bring it Into the workspace because I think no matter how hard you try it’s very difficult if you’re Things are going on at home To not be in a particular mood, and that could be good and that could be bad, but whatever’s going on to not bring that into the office is actually incredibly difficult to do although I’m interested in your perspective on this as well, because I know there are specialists out there who do, who talk to the idea of building alter egos.
So you’re almost to try and push you through some of those boundaries. So it might be less about the day to day, but more about recognizing that you have some deficiencies in areas. And do you need to put on or build an alter ego in order to be able to push through those? Those boundaries, which also takes a bit of self diagnosis to say I’m a bit deficient in this area.
But maybe if I build an alter ego, maybe I can be someone else. What’s your feeling about that whole idea? Yeah maybe that’s being Dutch as well. So being in, in in this culture might be different, I’ll just put that in. I’m not really a fan of doing that. And actually because I why would you do that?
Why, if you find you’re deficient, what would you say? You have to be acknowledge that first before you can do something about it. But why would you build an alter ego and be something, because I think it takes so much of your energy in doing that. Whilst be easier or better, I would say try to build on the deficiency.
Find someone who can help you with that, and it’s actually easier to focus on the strength you have. And find something which suits that rather than trying to build that the things you can’t really do, try to be better than that. I think they’ve done plenty of studies on that, that it’s better to focus on the things you can do good already.
It makes it better than putting all your energy in things you can’t really do and trying to become better. Whatever you want. So my take would be focus on that, what you can already do really good. I find it fascinating. And when people speak in that area that the examples that they give. Usually are not business examples.
Examples of sports people that do that, that they, when they go onto the when they move onto the to the court or whatever it is that they suddenly in that situation where they’re going, okay, I’m going to pretend that I’m This kind of person or that certainly I’m aware of a musician that I don’t particularly name the person, but was well publicized, suffered from stage fright, built an alter ego around that.
And for many years as they walked on stage, had to think of themselves in that alter ego. I believe they’ve now got to the point where they don’t anymore, that they’ve become integrated, but I don’t know that’s it’s quite a, It’s quite an interesting one, because it’s a bit like in a business, the equivalent in a business sense might be you’re a CEO, for example, of a company, and you’re really great at your knowledge of the company, you’re really great at the knowledge of what they do, you might even be a thought leader in the space that you’re in, does that mean that you can get on stage and speak about it?
Because it is a different, it is a different kind of idea. You might want to but making that leap can actually be a difficult thing. And so I suppose it’s a bit like, is there part of what you’re doing is also realizing your limitations or is it trying to, is it always trying to strive and to break through?
Because in that particular case, do you have to work away that they can be able to do that? Or do you have to say that may not be you. Oh, I always say what, like what you want if I know it’s to be true that if there’s some sort of seed in you that wants to be on stage or that wants to do talks, you have to go elaborate on that and you can help someone get to that space.
Maybe you’re not the most fluent one or the most funny one or whatever. But I’m a strong believer that you can learn almost anything you want if you put your mind to it and if you put your heart in and whatever. And some things you have to do because it’s part of the job. And so you can learn that if someone wants to do that.
And what you said earlier about being that alter ego, maybe if someone thinks that because we can use the mind in very good ways as well, so we can pretend. To be a great speaker do a lot of hours of practicing and everything. And maybe you’ll come to that persona you’ve made up.
But I believe there is already some sort of foundation within you to do and some eagerness and some dreams you have about it. And then you have to do a lot of practicing to get to that point. But I always feel with my clients as well that people don’t have a lot of self esteem or they doubt themselves.
I believe in general that people can do a lot more than what they do. They limit themselves, they hold themselves back and things like that. You can do a lot more if you want. And what I just said, when the seed is planted there for whatever reason, I believe there’s a reason for it.
So you should find it and do something with it because otherwise it’s just a shame not to do I’m not sure who the original quote is from, but there’s that idea of you’re limited by your own set of beliefs. And it’s, it, but understanding. what those limitations are, where you’re at and being able to break through.
That’s the challenge, right? That’s where I come in. Yes. And so let me ask you a double sided question. And on one hand, what? What are there any tips for people to saying? Look something’s holding me back, but I have no idea what it is. Is there anything that some tips to do a bit of a self diagnosis to try and understand a little bit as a stepping stone before they might engage with someone like yourself?
And equally then, once they’ve recognized that, or is there anything that they can do to start down the path of trying to take those initial steps? The thing is, yeah, obviously you can start thinking, but what I said, like in the beginning, there is a limitation because we all have this blind spots and there’s a mechanism within people in general, that if you move towards the pain, which is obviously something what happens or what didn’t happen and you would like it to happen.
You move away. So from pain to pleasure, that’s what happens. That’s what the mind does. That’s like this survival mechanism. So you might realize you have pain. You might realize you’re in that pattern. You might realize you want it to be changed. But then this mechanism starts kicking in and that’s why it’s in this kind of work you need someone being me or someone else but you need someone to make it as we call it like emotionally safe because apparently it’s not safe for you to move to that area to move to that pain.
And that pain is there because of something happened or because lack of things you needed when you were little. So the things, what they can do, yeah, they can read the books and they can read to the podcast and get some sort of insight, some sort of recognition. I think, Oh, that’s what I’m doing. Oh, this is what’s happening with me.
But the how to change in my opinion, you need someone to help you through that. Yes, that is, is the worst tool that exists for someone like you is Google because people like to self diagnose. Yes, they do. And then they start convincing me, that it’s maybe something else things like that.
But that’s normal. That’s normal because we want to have this control as well. And yeah, not being perceived as a silly or whatever. So they, yeah, they tend, and it’s a survival mechanism as well. And I guess the interesting thing about the self diagnosis in that way is, do they usually jump to an extreme and it’s not as bad as what they think it is, or are they, what do you find is the when people come into you?
Sometimes they underestimate it. They think like what the people they say, oh my childhood was really good. There’s nothing there. So I’m not really sure what we’re going to find. They don’t want to know or the other sides, like the other people that said really rough I’m sure it’s from there, which is usually is, but in a different sense of what they think it is.
They say yeah, but it’s such a long time ago. My parents got divorced. It can’t be the problem now. And then ask me, and then we’ll just have to explore. Yeah, that’s really interesting to me as well, because when I’m working in marketing with people, when you talk about they’re trying to find their purpose, their why and you do this kind of exercise where it often does take them back to that.
And it’s amazing how often that it does go back to something that would seem rather incidental in their childhood. Is what’s led them down a complete career path. I’ve, got a number of stories of that, even did that exercise with a friend and he came to me afterwards. He goes, wow, I haven’t thought about that in 40 years and yet it’s the whole reason he does what he does.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The mind is a funny thing in that sense because it’s, it sounds good and a lot of times what I find as well is that people say, Oh, I don’t have any memories. It’s just me, I don’t have any memories. And then when we start working, memories start popping up because there’s movements.
There’s this, you realize, or you create space for them. And it’s a trauma response. Usually where you don’t remember anything, it’s a trauma response. That’s what the mind does. Because it’s too overwhelming. It’s too much. And then, slightly and slowly you get some memories back because now you’ll be able to handle them in a better way, in a different way.
I want to just pinpoint, because we could talk endlessly about so many different points that you’ve raised, but one, one that you raised right at the beginning is as one of the things that that people either they recognize it or it turns out to be is around narcissism. And it’s a term that I think we’ve heard a little bit more in, in recent times for one reason or another.
But I’m fascinated by that. Is that a common trait for a lot of people? A lot of business leaders because is it something that can be it’s almost is it almost essential sometimes for people who are starting business and they’re holding on to things and they want it to be all about them. It is a difficult thing to let go and how much of that is actually a trait that transfers into their personal life.
It’s not just because they’re holding dear to a business that they started. Yeah, like what you said, the term is is more common. In, in, in reality, they’re not that many people like one or 2 percent who are real like narcissist. We do recognize more narcissistic traits especially in leaders as well.
That doesn’t mean they are. And the thing is you have to have some personality traits, which could be like narcissistic as well to be a good leader. But in the end. Your ego is never going to do the job in that sense, because if you are a real good leader, in my opinion, you should be using the people around you or working for you and actually, taking a step back.
And let them do the work and not like being that big ego and see, Oh, I did all the work and everything, because I think that sort of comes back to you after a while. Like a boomerang, that sort of decisions you make and things like that, I don’t believe that’s going to work in the end. Yeah and I’m interested as well.
And again, we could talk for ages about all of these things. So we’re just, tip of the iceberg with some of it. But how many times are there? Traits like narcissism, and there are many others that you’ve mentioned as well, that may actually be the reason why the person has got to a level of success.
And then it’s recognizing that’s now a limitation for it’s going even further, because narcissism might be a great example of that, or some traits of narcissism, that you’re it’s driven you to a certain point, but there’s a point where if you’re not letting go, you’re not gonna be able to scale the business, for example, is one example.
Yeah, because if if it’s a real narcissist, then you make so much trouble on your path to success. So that will come back to you one way or the other and sometimes not, but it’s very rare case what I find actually and what you said there, there’s just a limitation in what you can do and how you can use people.
On your way to success. Yeah you’ll find if someone is not a narcissist, it will catch up on you and you will want to do that different and I think that’s timing as well, when you get more mature, you start realizing there’s more to the world than just you getting all that money and a big car and things like that.
Then they start to realize and they want to do. business different. And sometimes I find that There’s something happening in their life. They’re really successful in the business, but they have trouble getting that partner or keeping a partner. So they realizing that they’re successful in that area, but not so successful in the other.
And when they start working on that part, the business is changing as well. Because it’s what we talked about in the beginning, you can’t really separate. One from the other because you’re in it with your whole self. So you are limiting yourself there, but they don’t realize it’s because of this thing, what’s happening at home or what they want to be hap happening at home.
So when they start working on that business starts. flowering up as well. There’s so many things we can talk about, but I just want to point out to everyone whether you’re watching or listening in at the moment metamindbreakthrough. com is the is the website. We’ll, of course, include all the information in the show notes, including there’s an ebook to download that will provide a link for as well as an opportunity to have a 15 minutes.
Free conversation and dive a little deeper into whatever issues might be potentially holding you back. And I encourage people to take take up that opportunity because I think that if you’re thinking about it, it probably means you need it. Is that the, that’s a good one. Yeah, that’s just a little sheet, what we talked about earlier.
Yeah, we’ve got a few other things that I wanted to explore, but I also wanted to point out to people that we’re going to do a little bit of bonus content for people and giving a little bit of information about resilience and how to follow your own lead and how to set proper boundaries.
So there’ll be a few tips in that, that we’re going to explore in the bonus content, the links to the To how to access that will, of course, be in the show notes, but I just wanted to divert a little bit for a moment as well. I wanted to find out how you actually get into this area. Tell me a little bit about the journey that you’ve been on because I’m well, I guess I’m interested as to whether This, where you are at now was what the vision was when you were in school and looking at, deciding on what to study where was the career path at that point, and how did you get to where you are?
Yeah. I grew up myself with the with a narcissistic mother. So I know from the inside out how that works and what, yeah, what kind of trauma you, you get from that and how it’s holding you back in life and what it took me to get to the point where I’m now. And I actually studied hotel management.
So totally like a broad study. I really liked it. And then I diverted in 2000 because there was something in me with my experience as well, but I wanted to explore the feeling size. As I call it and help people. And I’m fascinated by why people do the things they do or why they don’t do the things they do.
I’m fascinated by the mind and by the subconscious and everything. So I did a lot of studies after that time and it brought me to where I’m now. And I’m using everything I did. I did a lot of mind work, mind studies and from the body and from the soul. So it’s like a combination of so many modalities and it brought me into my own methods, what I use to get people.
What’s my, my my mission actually as you can call it is that I want people not to suffer that long what I had and really teach them how to use their feelings and what’s their, the whole. The whole thing, what you can do with it, how it’s working and how your life is shaped if you work from that place.
So that’s my mission to help more people globally as well, actually. And Yeah, live a better, happier life, get a relationship if you want, things like that. Thank you for sharing all of that and I know we could, again, we could delve a lot deeper and talk a lot more about about all of that and the journey that you’ve been on.
And it’s a challenging, it’s a challenging journey that you’ve been on and at the same time, you’ve used it to empower yourself to move forward. And to help others, which I think is an amazing thing to be able to do. And I love the intersection that you’ve got between business and personal and that those breakthroughs I think are huge for people to be able to have.
And it’s a question that, that I like to ask at the end of the podcast people say. What is it, what is the breakthrough that people tend to have when they’re working with you that you wish more people realized that they were going to have? That’s the connection. From your head to your heart or from your head to your feelings is the most powerful one.
If you really know how to connect with your instincts, with your feelings. Because 99. 99 percent of all the decisions we make. are from the subconscious, are from your feeling side and if you know how to get a grip on that you can move your life in whatever way you want. It’s not, you’re like, you’re waiting when something’s happening and you’re making a list and trying to do everything from your logic minds.
It’s so much easier and you’re in tune with yourself. You’re happy, you’re calm, whatever. And it’s your life. And yeah you better equipped everything is what you want. And it’s just good to realize what both is for. So what your mind is for and what your feeling side is for.
And if you know how to use that, both then you can live the life you want. And that’s because that, and that’s why it’s like with the business and personal as well. That’s because I’m like that as well. I like the analytical side, the mind thing, neuroplasticity and everything. And I like the feeling side and I like them to be together, to use them both in a sense that it helps you in the best way.
That is I think a really powerful way to end the main podcast and just to remind everyone if you want the bonus content, and I know you’re going to want the bonus content to look at resilience and how to follow your own lead and how to set some proper boundaries. Then the links will be in the show notes.
And of course, as I said before, links to how to get in touch, the website booking a free call, ebook, all of those things we’re going to include in the show notes as well. So from the main podcast point of view, thank you so much for being a wonderful guest, exploring so many things. As we said, we just touched on a few key areas and I hope there’s a lot of people that are nodding their heads and thinking I need to take some action as a result of the podcast.
Yeah. Thanks for having me. I really liked it. Yeah. To explore and some really good questions as well. Thank you. And reminded to everyone to click on the link for the bonus content. And of course, stay tuned for the next episode of Biz Bites. Hey, thanks for listening to Biz Bites. We hope you enjoyed the program.
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Ellen Tyler
Can Coaching Transform Your Business? | Biz Bites with Ellen Tyler
Business / Life Coach
Join us as we celebrate our 100th episode with a special guest, Ellen Tyler, a renowned coach and mentor. Ellen shares her inspiring journey from the financial services industry to becoming a successful coach.
Discover the transformative power of coaching, the differences between coaching and mentoring, and the importance of personal accountability.
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A business is either growing or dying. There really isn’t a middle ground, but even that’s us as humans in our life. We are either growing or dying. There’s no treading water. The hardest thing as an individual who wants to coach and help people is when somebody says, I’m okay. You’re not really okay. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Biz Bites proudly brought to you by CommTogether, the people behind Podcasts Done For You, because we’re all about exposing other people’s brilliance. Don’t forget to subscribe to Biz Bites and check out Podcasts Done For You as well in the show notes. Now, Let’s get into it. Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of Biz Bites and my guest today. This is one of these wonderful things that happens when you meet people on LinkedIn and you just click immediately. And I think we got into the conversation from the beginning and just said, I’ve got to get you on my podcast. So first and foremost, Ellen, do you want to introduce yourself to to everyone in the audience always? And I think this is a brilliant way of asking, because what I want everyone to understand is we’re just a compilation of our stories. And I spent, and I almost cringe when I say this, but a lot of decades in a different profession. But in that profession in financial services, I gained valuable skills. That I didn’t know I was amassing along the way, which was opening businesses, opening offices, opening regions. I just like talking to people. And I thought when you put me in a place that I get to talk to individuals and in the financial world, it’s to help them know that they’re going to be okay. But in that timeframe, I also worked with a couple of coaches. And it was unusual at the time, but within financial services, they were always doing sales and sales training. And I was so fortunate that somebody took me to a Bob Proctor seminar long before the movie, the secret came out. And personal growth and development exploded, but I’m a really good student and I did everything that he told me to do. And I about an inch shy of tripling my income did that. And I enjoyed great growth in my career, but for most of us, when we get to an inflection point, it’s that something’s not working in the current role and we’re looking for something different. And it happened pre pandemic, but it was right time. Wrong place. And I discovered that I either needed therapy or a coach and Bob had partnered with Sandy. I decided I’m not going to make that mistake a second time. And so I hired them and three months into the relationship, they were growing their coaching division and made an offer to come and be mentored by, at that point, the greatest of all time, Bob Proctor.
And I jumped at the chance. My purpose stayed the same, but I decided I was going to have help more people have the experience that I got to do with Bob. So far, that’s the story. What a great introduction and story is the right word to use there. I wanted to explore that a little bit first. Firstly, the idea of, before we get into Bob, just the idea of coaching. I I think I’m similar to you in that there’s a point in your business career where you have this revelation that you need someone, and is that how it is, do you think for the majority of people? Is that what it needs to be to, for that relationship to be successful? I think so. I think that for each and every person, it might be a frustration or that you start to notice. You’re not doing as well as that, you can be, or you look at somebody else outperforming you and you think they’re no better than you, which is true. We’re all, all even. And I think when you have that, you do start looking for answers and it’s easy then to have a conversation. It’s not quite so easy to always be mentored and coached, but once you understand that they have the knowledge that you’re missing, like driving a car. Your parents, when you were 15, weren’t going to hand over the keys to the car yet. We get out of school and think we have the keys to our life and understand how we’re going to navigate it and get to where we want to be. So if we can just understand that when things aren’t going right, that’s a really great time to start just looking. You know what, I just had a revelation that I hope is not the same. My, with kids, the teenage years I think are amongst the hardest years. We hope you’re enjoying listening to the Biz Bites podcast. Have you ever thought about having your own podcast? One for your business, where your brilliance is exposed to the rest of the world? Come talk to us at Podcasts Done For You. That’s what we’re all about. We even offer a service where I’ll anchor the program for you. So all you have to do is show up for a conversation. But don’t worry about that. We will do everything to design a program that suits you. From the strategy right through to publishing and of course helping you share it. So come talk to us, podcast done for you.com au. Details in the show notes below. Now back to Biz Bites. The teenage years I think are amongst the hardest years and it’s really great when you get to the other side of it. And I’m at the other side of that. I just hope that my, me and my business being in the teenage years right now are not reflecting the same idea where we think we know it all and we think we know what to do but it’s only when we get to 20 that we realize that we have absolutely no idea and we do need to ask people for help. I have. Got it. I have that up for a little while. So hopefully the parallels are not quite the same in the years worth. But it’s an interesting one though. That question, when do people come to you? When do you have people coming to you? Is it, is there a time that they’ve been in business?
Does it need to be from the start? They need to have had a bit of a, Okay. A bit of a attempt at it themselves. Usually they have to have been in business for a bit. Unless, and that’s why it’s always funny, there’s never an absolute. If somebody like me stayed in the corporate world for a really long time, and we get inoculated with this is how business is and this is how it runs. When we decide to go out and start a business, Sometimes we know at that point we need help because all of a sudden you don’t have somebody else doing marketing, sales or advertising. You’re everything. But other than that, it usually is in business for a while because we’ll get as far as we can go on our own skillset. And until we hit that point, We’re not always thinking that there’s somebody who can help us. Yeah, it’s it is interesting, isn’t it? I, my journey was that I enrolled in a particular course and met someone who I really enjoyed what, hey, what they gave in that particular course. Had an opportunity to go back the next year more as a volunteer to help. And for the, I think for the year after as well and enjoyed sessions with the same guy and then just for whatever reason forgot about him and forgot about everything there. And it was only sometime later where I thought, yeah, I need a coach and started looking around and suddenly. He popped up in my feed again and it just was a, it was a natural fit. But I’m interested to you, you talk you’ve interchanged between coach and mentor and that tends to happen. Is there a difference? It more depends on the client and how they view it. It’s almost like the word Kleenex. Coaching right now is such a general term that it does become more specific with how do you help the individual get the end result that they want. And they can hear a mentor a little bit easier even though the main role of a coach is to provide the tools but to keep them accountable. And so some will view those words different. Some use consultant. I tend to think that’s not a most appropriate word because consultants tell people what to do. And as a coach, It’s that, I always tell somebody, I teach you how to study you. I like that. I like that. It’s a, it’s, and it is, I think that’s one of the interesting things in certainly again, in my journey in coaching and is that it is, you can stand in front of a group of people And everyone will hear something different, but not only that, they need to hear something different, don’t they? Because not everybody’s at the same stage. Not everybody has the same background or the same understanding of things. And that’s a difficult thing at times, particularly in those groups. group environments, whether it’s a conference or a, or literally group coaching sessions is recognizing the difference and where people are at and where you’re at and having the confidence to dismiss certain things and go, that’s, I don’t need that bit of information now.
When you go back over and study this, the same thing, because repetition is really how we change. And what is always fun when I get to have somebody notice, because they’ll either read or listen to the same information that we might’ve done three months ago, and they will swear it wasn’t there. And the reason that happens and I actually had to learn this because I love to read. If you look at the bookshelf behind me, that’s not on accident, on purpose. I do love to read, but there’s a difference between reading and just gathering knowledge. and reading and absorbing it and learning how to apply it to you. You’re a different person the next time you read it. And so what you just said is very key. You’re going to pay attention to what the new you has to understand to get to the next level. And you’ll swear it wasn’t there. Yeah. Isn’t that interesting? I, I’m reflecting on a couple of books that I’ve read in the past year and how you reflect on them, even though I haven’t reread them, but As I reflect on them now, having absorbed that knowledge over a period of time, it is a different feeling because it’s it’s when you watch the movie and what’s coming up, you get to celebrate certain scenes and you get to find other nuances that you didn’t see the first time through. And I think that’s one of the joys of it, isn’t it? It’s knowing that you’re progressing towards the next level. And so It’s just fun. That’s absolutely. And it should be, that’s the point, isn’t it? Of business. You shouldn’t be doing it. If it’s not fun. A business is either growing or dying. There really isn’t a middle ground, but even that’s us as humans in our life. We are either growing or dying. There’s no treading water. And the hardest thing as an individual who wants to coach and help people is when somebody says, I’m okay. You’re not really okay. You just gave up. Or you think, Oh, this income is good. I’m just going to stop. You give up so much opportunity to grow. Yes, there’s always something. I think it’s, there’s always another mountain, isn’t there? There’s it’s, you’ve always, you’ve reached a ledge, you think you’re at the top, but there’s always just another mountain. Yeah. Jim Rohn has a great quote, new level, new devil. Yep. I like that. I like that. Talk to me a little bit about, we’ve explored around the coaching bit a little bit, but talk to me about the influence of Baldwin. And in fact, I think perhaps for people in the audience who may not have heard of him and may not have seen the movie, tell me a little bit about him and the and even the movie as well. And I think to understand is that, as an individual, he devoted his life to learning why he had such a dramatic change early in his life. And I always I tell my clients, we should be thankful every day that he went from 4, 000 a year to 150, 000 a year. And we’re talking like 1950s, 1960s. So that’s a huge dramatic jump.
And he could have been fine with that because he also then grew that to a million, but he was very aware that. He didn’t have book knowledge. He didn’t go to school. He didn’t finish school. He dropped out and he just wanted to understand what caused such a dramatic change that He could explain to somebody else. One of his earliest mentors gave him the book Thinking Grow Rich. So he always quoted from that book. But one of the stories is that he would drive around giving that book to everyone and didn’t understand why they didn’t have the same result. Because we don’t do the work. And so he, Just started to do the research and amassed, Dr. Ryan at Duke or Leland Val Vanderal or Dr. Thurman Fleet in Texas, who in the 1930s was a chiropractor. And where all those names, would it make sense to someone else? He was just looking for the pieces of the puzzle that went together for him. And then what really propelled was yes. Then the movie, the secret came out Rhonda Byrne. Put him and John Osroff and Michael Beckwith and Marie Diamond and probably other people I’m forgetting to mention on the map, but personal growth and development and coaching really wasn’t a thing. It was reserved for presidents and CEOs and an average person like myself wouldn’t think that it was possible. And then the next interaction that really propelled Bob into the forefront was the, Sandy Gallagher, who’s now the CEO after Bob’s passing. And what she did, she was the piece of the puzzle that took everything that he had amassed and put it in a logical sequence for anyone to understand and follow. And so you had these two great minds come together. who were still focused on helping everyday people. And that’s really where in my mind, he separates from the rest is that he wanted to make sure that there was a coach in every country in the world. And by 2020, they had attained that so that this could get in their hands because it can change their life.
And the other part that stands out is that he was so humble and so generous. And we lead with value. I will tell a person what to do, whether they work with me or not, because it’s that accountability and he always led with that. Give them the information. Don’t make it a secret. Don’t do, a workshop or a conversation.
And I think that’s what a lot of people don’t know about him. Very generous man, probably the most generous man I’ve ever met. And isn’t that interesting though, that whole philosophy of generosity it’s counterintuitive to a lot of people, isn’t it? Because they so want to hold tight to, everything that they have.
They think if it’s a secret sauce that then somebody needs that. And I just sit here and say, this works for everybody in every place, but it’s because it’s not specific to. One type of industry, one type of person, one age and all of that. And they still need the accountability. I always find it interesting, isn’t it?
Because we often use that phrase that you just slipped in there about the, the secret sauce or secret recipes. And it’s funny because the. Comparison to food is not really relevant. It’s a nice one, but, I know there, you can talk about KFC and people spent years trying to work out what was the, what’s the colonel’s secret herbs and spices that went into it, but does it really matter?
Because the next, this, there’s no point in the next restaurant opening up and selling exactly the same chicken is there. And I think that’s, it’s, the difference is in the human element in any business. And there is no absolute ingredients list of ingredients. That’s going to make one business exactly the same as the next one.
Even if you’re producing the same widgets at the end, there are so many variables that happen in that. I think it, and yet you hear so many times people spending, Oh, I’ve got to find out this. What’s the secret to doing that? And I’ve had many, I’ve had conversations this week with people who are just like I’ve tried to, I’ve looked at a few different things and I’m trying to pull it apart and work it out.
What’s the right, and I’m like, nah, I don’t know if that’s the right way to go about it. I’ll help you a little bit with that because you’re exactly right. It starts with what the person thinks. So if we think the answer is outside of us, we’re always going to be looking. And coming from us, I was in sales, I’m an introverted sales people, which most people think that’s not a possibility.
It just means by the end of the day, I just want to read and have quiet and that, but it’s to understand that it’s the belief in what you’re doing that makes the difference, not. The actual tactic and working in financial services years ago, and they probably still do had a very. not helpful habit of bringing in the sales flavor of the month.
Meaning this is how this person built it. And then the next month, this is how someone else. And even in today with everything that’s out there, it does cause a person to believe that they just haven’t found the right external thing compared to And I always use an example. I worked with a gentleman who during the pandemic was going to do a webinar like this, have a fun conversation.
This mortified him. He didn’t like doing this. He didn’t. And I just said, then it’s not going to work. Oh, no, Ellen, I’ve hired this company that’s well known for this. And I go, you have to believe that the process works. And that’s really what they’re missing. Everything works. Yep. And, that’s, it’s an interesting thing too, because part of that is you talk about the sales process and when you’re being sold into something that if you don’t have an opportunity, and I think it is an opportunity to be able to believe it.
Yep. And because I’ve talked about this in the previous episode of the podcast with a guest. I had George Bryant that some of my listeners may remember, and George talks about the idea of, no trust. But then you’ve gotta move into safety. And if you don’t deliver the safety, that’s when it all falls apart.
And part of the mechanism for getting to safety is not only you as the person selling the product needs to help make the person feel safe and not immediately go and say, oh, you’ve paid for this. but you really need to pay for more. That’s just, destroying that level of safety from the beginning, but it’s also about making sure that the person that’s purchasing from it is feeling safe enough to believe in the product and to believe all the, in this product or service that they’re buying.
And if they don’t believe no matter how Much they’re willing to pay. It’s not going to work. And that’s part of what being, making them feel safe is. And it’s also part of understanding not everyone’s a great fit for your product or service. And a salesperson’s role, and this is where some get uncomfortable, is, as you said, our role is to help them make the best decision for them.
But it’s also for us to recognize you’re not quite ready. There’s probably some things you can do beforehand. But, The saddest thing for a coach is to have somebody decide to hire us and then not do the work. And so it’s our responsibility to make sure that they’re the proper fit. There’s more than enough people in the world.
There’s plenty of people to work with. We do not have to corner everyone. Yes. And that’s interesting too, isn’t it? It’s it’s almost like the coaches need to have that revelation as well, don’t they? Because. There are many out there that believe that everybody should be working with it and should be doing it their way.
And that’s not true. No in any role that a person has with what they’re serving a client with should understand some of the characteristics. And first of all, the question really is, who do you like to work with? I do not want to work with somebody I don’t like. And I always say this and it’s always funny.
It’s not that it’s a questionnaire or anything, but 95 percent of the clients I work with have animals as pets.
It’s okay, but it’s just, it’s a characteristic. Yes. And I think it’s a thing that is people underestimate this whole idea of, values and purpose, because if you relate on that level, then the chances that you’re going to have a successful relationship, whatever that relationship is. Much greater than if you don’t.
And it’s it’s, and it’s funny because you see in, in relationships, people often ask you a cat person or your dog person. And if you’re one or the other, then it may not work. And it’s funny, but it’s. It’s true. It’s, there are some underlying values that need to be need to work from the outset for a relationship to work and whether that is a whether that’s a business relationship or a personal relationship, it doesn’t matter.
Because ultimately if you don’t have some of those underlying values, then it’s just not going to, it’s not going to work. I tell everyone when they start, my job is to kick them in behind, but eventually they’re going, we’re going to be friends. And I have that expectation. Coaches hire coaches and that’s actually one of my first requirements if I’m ever interviewing a coach is to understand that they also recognize like we, we drink our own Kool Aid that we understand that we need to do this.
But I also have the expectation. I’m either going to respect them or become friends with them because I don’t want to be fearful of them. Or not think that they know what they’re doing. And so the natural evolution is to have a friendship.
Yep. And I think that’s it’s actually really interesting when you say that, because I’ve seen that with some way you can see that’s moved into friendship. There’s still there’s still a respect there because you, even as friends, you need to have that respect. Don’t need to be able to kick them along at times still.
Don’t you? Because that’s the difference, isn’t it? Because if you just. Friends and it’s a non work kind of friendship. You don’t tend to give people a real kick unless there’s something that’s, they’ve done something, really stupid and and ridiculous. Most of the time we just go, Oh yeah.
Okay. That’s great. But if it’s but you need to have that level to be able to give them that kick when they need it. I think for me, what was really just eyeopening for me, my very first client is one of my very best friends. Now that should put the fear in most people because when anyone starts a new role or a new profession and to this day, she still asks and I support her.
And sometimes I am kicking her in the rear because for any of us, when we’re in the midst of something and we can’t see our way out of it, it’s just. It’s really just the ability to ask questions and to help somebody see it from a different aspect. And if they didn’t believe that this process has the ability, then they wouldn’t ask.
Yeah. And it’s, and that’s the, that’s. That has to be part of it from the beginning, as you say. And it’s interesting that relationship continues on even beyond the sort of the professional relationship, which is a wonderful thing. And, but by the same token, having that trust, because I think what people forget is that we’re trying to pick up bits and pieces of information, From different sources all the time.
And we’ll, those little things will have an influence in different ways. And that stuff that you can pass on as you interpret it and do it in your own way. Which brings me to the question of saying, you started off with Bob. How much have you, how much of what you do keeps to that original idea?
Or how much have you developed and say I’ve still got that but I’m. Over here now, and it’s not quite the same. I think the best way to describe it is how I evolved as a coach and just how anyone evolves with a coach. And there’s different paths a person can take. And again, not right or wrong.
We’re all serving different people in my world because what Bob and Sandy put together is brilliant and I don’t want to have to go recreate it. is that becomes a cornerstone of what I do. And in the very beginning, what they really have created was the ability for someone to leave a completely different industry and learn how to become a coach.
Because in the very beginning, you’re letting go of that. Bob and Sandy do the coaching and we’re facilitating, easiest way to describe it, but because it’s a world that we love, I sit there and I, that’s the thing about this. I get paid to ask questions. I get paid to listen to podcasts like this.
I get paid to read books because I need to expand my knowledge as how to help them and what other pieces of information will land in a different way. And so it’s the evolution of. Now, utilizing some of the software that has the training that Bob created, and then wrapping around my own style.
And I love that is, is it does have to be bringing your own style and things into the equation. Tell me a little bit about what what do you think or do you, let me rephrase that going into working with people and whether it’s a new person or someone that’s existing, how much is listening versus being prepared that this is what I’m going to give over today?
I’m usually, most of my clients know. It’s not like school. I don’t, I have an idea of where we’re going one because of the work that we do in some of the lessons, but a lot of times it’s intuitive in the sense of somebody needs to hear something and I don’t know who it is. And sometimes I’ll wake up and I’ll decide, Oh no, this is what we have to cover today.
And when it creates that skill level to even get better and better is to be intuitively tied into the energy of the group. But sometimes it’s To cause it to settle with them in a very unsettling way. And so it’s a bit of both. There’s the process of the 12 things we go through. So they know that’s coming, but you can’t just deliver it the same way over and over again.
And it’s, so for example, right now we’re doing a quantum leap challenge for 30 days. And so four mornings of the week, they have to be on the phone with me at 6 45 in the morning. And now part of it is that there’s certain things that we’re following, but then it’s unscripted. All meant to have a quantum leap by one of the best books written, which is U squared by Price Pritchett.
Brilliant. What’s the, what is the what is the brilliance here? It’s easier to have a quantum leap than we all think. And usually you’re in the middle of it. before you even realize it. And it is stop asking how things are going to happen and just start taking little action steps every day towards the goal.
And it’s interesting because I’ve and I’m going to remember that. I think it’s 10 X is better than two Xs. The book. Yeah. And it’s and it’s the same kind of principle, isn’t it? Because, but it’s a different way of thinking. I think that’s the key here is. When you want to double something, you’re thinking quite small, but if you’re really wanting to make that quantum leap, then you have to completely change the way you think about something.
You can’t work harder. That actually was one of the things Bob said early on, is that most people think they have to work a little bit harder to get, And that you have to think differently.
We got where we are by thinking the way we think. Albert Einstein said, You can’t find the solution thinking the same way that caused the problem. I’m paraphrasing that, but that’s essentially what he said, which is true. And it’s that ability to sit back and recognize, How do I unlock thinking differently?
And stop getting in our own way. Yes. And I think that’s the key, isn’t it? It’s it’s, you realize that you are your own obstacle and that’s, and it’s one thing to realize it. It’s another thing to be able to push through it as well. There’s a couple easier ways, but you’re right. We’re the problem, but we’re the solution early on.
If I’m chatting with someone, because again, if they think it has to be industry specific, it doesn’t matter what industry. Because it applies to everything because they’re the problem and they’re the solution. But we also have to recognize that the paradigms that we’re carrying around, those are just a fancy word for, our parents said things to us, our bosses said things to us, and we just accepted this in broad terms, it went into our subconscious.
So you didn’t put it there, but it is your responsibility to get it out. And once somebody lets that settle in, And it really is, it’s a great awareness, is that whatever we were told in school is what we carry forward or what we think about money with how we saw our parents. And one of the greatest ways to ask a question, because we’re trying, everyone’s trying to come up with solutions, is to just, Turn it around and go.
If I did know the answer to how do I find five more clients? What could it look like? Because you’re not asking yourself. How do I, you’ve got guards up again. If I knew how to get five more clients, what would it look like?
I love it. It’s really, it really intrigues me these days how there’s been this bit more of a revelation, I think, in coaching and generally in things about how important language is. The way we speak is often a reflection of the obstacles we’re putting in the way. And it’s the words you don’t speak that are between the ears and your head.
That is the biggest problem. Absolutely. And it’s because here’s the thing, isn’t it? That we all have our skill sets, but if we’re in business, particularly if we’re a, a CEO of a, whether it’s a small business of whether it’s a business of one or it’s a business of many, that there’s lots of skills that you Think you need to learn along the way that you we can talk about outsourcing in a different time, but the whole you get into this whole idea that you have to do everything.
And then you’ve got these obstacles that are in the way and your own, you’re limited by your own beliefs as we talked about before. And suddenly those things that should be achievable or not. I know. Personally, that I’ve had that obstacle, with sales, because being a marketing background person, you you’re taught that marketing and sales don’t talk to one another.
And in your head, marketing and sales don’t talk to one another. And it’s a difficult obstacle to overcome when you’re doing that. And part of it was the, part of it for me, and I think I’ve said this on the podcast once before, is that I was always, people were saying to you, you’ve got to have the sales conversation.
And all I heard was the word sales. And when I suddenly twisted and I went, I’m going to have the conversation that happens to be about sales, but when it’s a conversation, I can do that easily. I can have a conversation with people. We’re having a conversation now, but if you tell me that I’ve got to have us I’ve just got to go into sales mode.
It’s just not me. And I have to, I can’t follow the script of what other people might do. It has to be my own script. Always.
I’ll help you a little bit with that one too. And this came from David Bayer who wrote A Changed Mind. And that’s why I tell I just pull things out because all of a sudden it just is going to help my clients. But our beliefs control our actions. And so when I talk about paradigms, that’s really what we’re working on changing.
And he had such a profound exercise because a belief is a decision. And let’s talk about sales because that’s where everybody’s I’m not good at sales. I don’t like sales, whatever they think about it. So if that’s the thing, if that’s the thought I have I’m bad at sales. I can’t close anything.
I’m not good at this. And so the way that he words it in the beginning is what evidence do I have that my new belief, so that I’m great at sales is true because you take the opposite. If I’m saying I’m bad at sales, it’s no, I’m great at sales, but it’s asking you what evidence do I have that I’m great at sales?
And so you look at your own history and you find what you can pull out. Like I sold a billion dollars at the asset manager. I think I can do this or I sold and got clients enrolled in managing their assets. But if I only have one and I’m really looking for more, I can say Kim, who’s also a coach in Ireland, I Was penniless and now sells 3 million a month.
If she can do it, I can do it. And that’s where you start to bridge. What evidence do I have that this new belief I’m great at sales is true.
I love it. We could talk for a long time about all of these things, but we do have to start wrapping things up, but I guess we we’ve gone around this whole idea of coaching. Tell me. I think, I would suggest that you probably believe that every business owner and CEO should probably have a coach.
And then the question is, and we how did they get to the point of knowing that? And then how do they choose the right one? I’m going to answer it two ways. I’m hoping that by the time somebody is a CEO, that they’ve been coached a couple of times. Cause I have a former client that coached early in his business and a lot of people thought he was like, that’s it.
I’m good. I’m done. I’ve got all the data I need and I can go on. And it was from a podcast like this that he heard and it settled in him finally that I always need a coach because I equated to sports. If somebody played sports or a musical instrument, you don’t just learn a couple of tunes and then stop.
You don’t just learn how to hit a ball once and never stop practicing. If they’re at that level, they hopefully have understood that. And maybe they just need a little nudge that to be a great leader, you had to be a great follower, but you also need to increase your skillset and lead people. And coaching could be, maybe they need to be a better public speaker because they’re not able to encourage their team.
Because coaching is all different avenues. But I think in today’s world, there’s so much evidence out there how coaching works. It’s why I like podcasts like this. I’m a sucker for the, I was penniless and now I’m not stories. If somebody listens to that enough, they’re going to start to understand their skills that they need.
And that a coach will help them. A coach can help in relationships, they can help in money, they can help in health all different avenues.
And finding one? What’s the best way? You’re on the one side where you find it. where you’re coaching a lot of people. And we’ve talked about, the shared values and things that, but that’s when you get into the conversation. But if you think, yeah, I need a coach because I had this struggle when, and it was lucky that I found the person that I’d already had a relationship with previously that I went, Oh, I should go to there.
Not everyone is that lucky. And so how do you, how does someone go? I need a coach, but how do I find the right one? How do I find the one that’s going to have the impact that I need them to have? I’m going to use you as an example. You weren’t lucky. That person was meant to be your coach. It wasn’t just at the right time.
The best information I can give someone is to just start asking themselves, what kind of coach do I think I need? Because You can go to any meeting and they’ll be overrun with coaches, financial advisors, realtors, and insurance people. There’s coaches everywhere. So the most important is for the person to sit and think, because it really is, what do I think I need help with?
Where am I struggling? And then have conversations, but have conversations with purpose and Understand that coaches come from all different walks of life, and it’s to, to ask yourself what’s important. Now, I’m a science math person, so very process driven. It’s not a surprise that the coaches I’ve always worked with were process driven and research backed.
Which most is all of the types of personal development go back to the Bible, thinking, grow rich signs of getting rich. But I have a couple of questions that I tell people I would ask, where’s the coaching come from? What’s the process? And I just say that because I may not be attracted to the person that just got struck by lightning one night and decided to become a coach because they wanted to help in a certain area.
That wouldn’t appeal to me. And then I would also ask them, do they work with coaches? Because I want somebody who bleeds what we do. Just like when I was a financial advisor, I wouldn’t put somebody in an investment I wouldn’t put myself in. So those are my questions. And I think it’s just be aware that it’s an interview on both sides.
And I’ll, one more thing, cause this is really important. Whoever you decide and choose, be the best student you can possibly be.
That is, that a hundred percent is the truth. The is the right thing to finish on in that part of the, that part of things, because I think we’ve all probably experienced where we’ve tried things and we realize in reflection, we just didn’t put what we needed to into it. And and you’re spending money on these things as well.
So it’s not good. Cause you’re getting further behind if you’re not prepared to put in the effort or for one reason or another, you allow things to come up and you don’t put the effort in. So I just want to wrap things up finally with a question I like to ask my guests, which is what is the aha moment that people have when they start working with you that you wish people knew in advance.
So more people are going to come flooding to you. Most people come to coaching to increase their income.
They leave this process understanding. Money is just energy and that they truly can create work and life the way that they want it to be.
I love that. What a terrific way to finish up. Um, there’s so many more things that you can explore and maybe we’ll do that in another episode, but just wanted to say to everyone out there listening in where of course, as we always do going to include all the all the information on how to get in touch with Ellen in the show notes.
But thank you so much for being an amazing guest on, on Biz Bites. I feel like I said, we could talk for hours and hours, but as we speaking now, you’re at the end of your day. I’m at the beginning of my day, so that’s not really going to work. So we’ll have to park that for another time, but thank you for being a part of the program.
Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure. It’s been my pleasure. And to everyone listening in, of course, don’t forget to tune in and of course subscribe so you don’t miss an episode of Biz Bites. Thanks everyone. Hey, thanks for listening to Biz Bites. We hope you enjoyed the program. Don’t forget to hit subscribe so you never miss an episode.
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Julie Bird
A Farmer’s Fashion Dream : Sleepy Merion’s Story
Merino Sleepwear Brand | Merch
In this episode of Biz Bites, we sit down with Julie Bird, the founder of Sleepy Merino. Learn about her entrepreneurial journey, the benefits of Merino wool, and the strategies behind her successful business.
Don’t miss this inspiring conversation with Julie Bird. Tune in to Biz Bites to learn more about her journey and the secrets to her success.
Offer: Visit their website . Use code 20off for 20% off your first order
Just don’t try to compete. Don’t discount. Don’t have, get involved in the race to the bottom. Especially as, times get tough. Like at the moment, the economy is a little bit difficult, but hey, the people that buy my product are still doing well. They’re still going on the overseas trips. where they want to come in and buy some sleeping merino so they can travel in it.
You’ve got to be brave to do it, but it’s actually worthwhile. Setting up your niche, getting a point of difference, and working on the quality that you require to be in that little niche. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Biz Bites proudly brought to you by CommTogether, the people behind podcasts done for free.
For you, because we’re all about exposing other people’s brilliance. Don’t forget to subscribe to Biz Bites and check out podcasts done for you as well in the show notes. Now let’s get into it.
Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of Biz Bites. And the guest that’s joining me today has quite a journey to share. And I think it’s going to be very impactful for people to hear about it. There’s a lot about Businesses that working from the farm to starting to go on a much larger scale outside of the farm.
And there’s a lot of transition. There’s a lot of learnings I think for business owners everywhere to get from this episode. I’ve known my guest for a little while, but we haven’t had a deep conversation for some time. So I’m really looking forward to this. So Julie, welcome to the program. Thanks, Anthony.
Lovely to be here. And just to kick things off as I like to do you want to explain who you are and what your business is? Julie Bird. I’m from Sleepy Merino. What we do is manufacture Merino sleep and lounge wear here in Australia for both men and women. And it’s been quite a journey. Yes, I imagine it has been.
So I guess where’s the starting point that we kick things off on because where did it begin? Where did this little venture begin? It really began right back in the beginning. I always wanted to go farming. It was just in my blood. I think it’s, multi generations of my family have been in grazing.
And we didn’t have a farm. We were living in Sydney. My parents lived in Sydney as I grew up. I went off to ag college and I’ve been in the agriculture space in R& D both in rural areas as well as in Canberra coordinating research for agriculture. Worked and worked. And finally went and bought my property that I’ve been dreaming about forever.
Along with my parents and my brother. A family pastoral company. So we moved up to Inverell, which is in the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales in 2017, late 2017. And put a lot of money in and put. Put some stock on there, bought lots of sheep, a few cows living the dream. And then the worst drought in living memory hit, which was just lovely.
And, oh my God, it was awful. I don’t, I won’t go into it, but in a way I should be thankful to the drought because it got me to think outside the square. And that’s why Sleepy Merino was born. I was aware that there had been research from my past experience in R& D, that there was research by CSIRO and Sydney Uni that it actually helps you to sleep, get to sleep and stay asleep, if you are in wool.
So both in wool bedding, but also wool clothing. So I had been for many years wearing thermals. As pajamas, but they weren’t particularly comfortable. They’re tight and clingy and usually a long sleeve. And I’ve just been toying with this idea of actually designing something that was actually comfortable.
I was also aware that due to my time in life that the hot and cold flushes of women at a certain age it’s really hard to sleep. And Marino is the. best fabric for them. It actually wicks the heat and sweat away from your skin. And then the next minute can warm you. And it’s actually, as I found it’s helping both men and women.
We all have trouble with the hot and cold thing as we sleep. And yeah, so I said about. Designing a range of pajamas made out of pure merino thinking it was going to be relatively easy. Yeah I laugh now. Yeah, there’s so much I’ve learned, but yeah it’s been quite a journey. Oh, I had never designed.
Garments, it was something totally new to me set up the website I was intending to just sell online. And yeah, I found eventually there’s a lot of research and speaking to people, especially when you’re in a regional area, you don’t have the contacts necessarily or the networks.
And especially in a whole new industry like the fashion industry, I had to find where I could get these made. I had designed them. Yeah. They were pretty rough on a piece of paper, they had to then be made into patterns and all the whole thing. So yeah, there was a lot of work.
I did get a lot of support from my. From the wool industry, Australian Wool Innovation in helping me find the right contacts and factories here in Australia. It was always going to be Australian production. And it, I’m glad I made the effort to do that because it’s been a point of difference.
There’s a lot of imported product that isn’t. as good. Both our wool and very similar wool goes into the products. So it’s hopefully next year it’ll be just our wool, but it’s a far superior product to the imported mass produced merino. It’s a longer fibre. It’s much softer. softer feel.
And I had much more control over the fabric itself. We only use organic dyes. It’s pre shrunk before it’s sewn. Yeah, so it, it’s been a bit of a process and I’ve used the wrong factories. I’ve actually even tried to help a regional small factory, but they just couldn’t keep up with the numbers or the quality that are required.
Yeah, so there’s been a lot of mistakes made. But yeah, I’ve learned a hell of a lot. I bet. There’s a, there’s so much to unpack there and we’re going to get to it, but I just want to get one little question out of the way, because the focus is really today about the business journey and everything along that.
And there’s a lot to share around that, but just to pick up on your point, the actual sleepwear that you’re producing now, men and women, all ages and equally good in summer as it is in winter. Absolutely. And it’s been a little bit of a trial before I even sold any, I got various weights of fabric and gave it to all my friends and family.
I got them to wear it and I found the perfect way that will both. CoolU as well as WarmU is 170 gsm of weight and it’s also very good for traveling or hiking or anything like that, for that reason, because you’ll go from hot to cold. And if you wear it next to your skin, it will do that.
It will thermoregulate. And there’s just so many advantages. To us as humans if that can happen it’s also recently being found, with sports with stop, go sports, like cycling, that it actually, you use less energy because the fabric, the wool fabrics actually doing that thermo regulating for you.
Compared to a synthetic garment. So yeah, it’s a wonderful natural product. You couldn’t invent something better than what the sheep have given us. Amazing. And we’ll include lots of details in the show notes, how everyone can make the purchase of this. And as someone who has struggled with sleep I definitely will be following those links myself a little bit later on.
Yeah. There’s a lot to unpack as far as the business journey is concerned. And I guess let’s start back at the beginning, that idea of purchasing a farm, that’s a big decision, even if it is in your blood. And I guess, as you said, you learned the hard way with the drought hitting immediately afterwards.
Did you go in with eyes wide open in the beginning? Did did you really think droughts and floods and all of those weather conditions were potentially going to impact you, or was it just more fixated on the fact that I finally got the farm and it’s going to be all happy days?
I had some background as an agricultural extension officer way back in the day. And as an agronomist, so I started, I wasn’t going into it blind. And at the time, if you had average conditions, which never happens in farming all the numbers added up, I got the right property.
I did a big spreadsheet being me of, cow areas and sheep areas and profitability and everything added up. But, since we’ve bought it, we’ve had not only the drought, worse drought, we’ve had the. mouse plague, which was awful. It was the worst of all of them. We’ve had floods. We’ve had damage from a lot of flooding.
And now we actually have awful prices for both wool and for lambs. So no one could have ever anticipated this. There’s a bit of talk up lately that farmers are doing really well, but Most of us haven’t really recovered from the drought. So it’s been a really difficult time. And the worst of the lot is actually the input costs and the labor costs.
Like most businesses, a lot of industries doing it really tough at the moment. So yeah, we’re doing everything right. Really happy with the sheep that we’ve got, the wool that we’re growing. They’re an easy care sheep that. Yeah, that the shearers they have the wrinkles all over them and and we have a very natural system.
We’re regenerative farmers, so it’s a very natural system. We don’t have to give them a lot of chemicals for drenching, that sort of thing and we’ve got lots of shrubs and that they actually browse on. We don’t, really need many herbicides if any. Yeah, so I’m very happy with how all that’s going, but it’s still really difficult to make money and most farms will actually have another income or another side hustle.
Like this was intended just to be a side hustle because of the variability of farm income. It’s highly variable. You might get one, one payment for your wool each year and maybe one for your lambs, and then there’s the bills coming all the rest of the year. Most of us have a husband or a wife who works in town or another business.
I wasn’t surprised when I had to do that. And I do know that the costs of ag chemicals and all these other things that are just going up and they never really come down but it’s, it is pretty tough for farmers and across the board and especially at the moment for wool growers.
Because of the prices that we have. Yeah. It is tough being in that industry. And it’s interesting though, that, I was lucky enough to travel last year and I was in Scotland and we happened to visit a place or two where they were talking about their wool and that not even knowing that we were Australian, they said, look, ours is okay, but Australian is so much better.
And they were explaining why, and then they found out we were Australian. So it was even more interesting. And I think that’s one of the things is that. You’ve built a business now built on all of those, being locally based using Australia, everything Australian as much as you possibly can.
And I wonder if that’s it, you saying it’s a point of difference in the market. Is it as well respected in the market as perhaps it used to be? Because those Australian made campaigns don’t seem to be as. Obvious as they used to be, maybe 15, 20 years ago. Yes. And even in my short time, Sleeping Marina has been going for about five years now.
There’s been a lot of anti importance Sentiment, especially anti China sentiment. So that’s added to it. And I never even anticipated it’d be that strong. It’s always only a sector of the market who really want and can. pay for Australian made, but they love it. They really do. And when they find that there’s an option that is Australian made, they will happily pay for it.
And that sector of the market is also where my price point is. It’s not luxury. It’s not top end luxury, and it’s not competing with the cheap imports. I just can’t do that with the mass produced market. It’s that next level down from luxury. It’s quality and I’ve had to concentrate on making a really quality product so that it’s sitting there in that little niche.
I had a really good mentor help me with that. He was in Silicon Valley. living here on a very large cattle farm here in Inverel, he said just don’t try to compete, don’t discount, don’t have, get involved in the race to the bottom especially as, times get tough, like at the moment the economy is a little bit Difficult, but Hey, the people that buy my product are still doing well.
They’re still going on the overseas trips where they want to come in and buy some sleeping Marino so they can travel in it. And it’s actually been growing, so you’ve got to be brave to do it, but. It’s actually worthwhile setting up your niche, getting a point of difference and working on the quality that you require to be in that little niche.
It’s a really important point, I think, for a lot of businesses out there because we do tend to think about it’s either got to be High end and expensive, or as you say the race to the bottom, which is a very dangerous place to be in because it’s, first of all, you’re competing constantly on price.
So you’re constantly dropping. And secondly, you’re just producing more and more for less and less gain. And when you walk in and you’ve got to sell a thousand of something, as opposed to selling a hundred of something, it’s a hell of a lot harder, isn’t it? It is. It is. Yeah. And I have actually put my prices up.
Obviously my production has gone up the the factory where I make my products. They’ve had Power price increases the labor is what they say is really put their prices up. So I’ve put my price up, but it hasn’t actually affected my sales. In fact, my sales are getting stronger each year.
But I do realize that by making more MOQ, they call it in, in, in fashion, if I can make more per order. It will bring my prices down a little bit, my costs down. So I’m actually moving to go more into the wholesale so I can actually make larger quantities as well. So I do that as well as the online.
But getting into the little mum and dad retail stores around the country that sell a higher quality sort of product along with the lovely wool jumpers and things that are so simple. Guess these days to find yeah, so moving into that as well. Early days, but so far so good. I think I have to do that as a manufacturer because it’s not just like buying a product from someone and then selling it on it’s.
Not easy. And sometimes there are delays in production. I actually share a factory that also makes products for R. M. Williams and Country Road. And if they need something in a hurry, yeah, of course I’m going to get pushed down the list. That’s just. reality as a small business. So I’ve got to work with that.
I’ve got a few, I’ve been thinking last, week or so about how do I get around that? And I was going to be moving it a little bit more into indent order. So people actually order ahead so I can actually know what my numbers are so I can order well ahead. I’ve had to be very flexible especially as a small business competing in, in the manufacturing space and with the costs.
Yeah, I’ve also moved to having a 3PL to actually distribute my products. And I don’t want too much. Stock in the warehouse because I’m paying for that on a monthly basis as well. So it’s really tricky being a manufacturer and actually distributing the goods. But Hey, I’m learning all the time and I’m getting a lot of help as well.
Both you and I have a lot of help from abundance global with our coaching. And I can get. I have a bit of a mastermind every now and then with people in our group that have been so helpful as other business owners. Just bouncing ideas has been so helpful, especially living in a remote regional area.
I’m here at the moment on my farm. I’m about 30 K’s out of town. I have to cross a creek, four wheel drive only. I often get flooded in and out. It’s thank God for satellite. So I can still talk to you in the middle of nowhere. How good is that? But yeah, you have to be very. It’s so wonderful, Julie, because and it works both ways.
Cause you know, I’m making the move. Out of Sydney as I think I’ve told our listeners before, so not quite as far a field as you, I’m still not but the flexibility that you can have to do that these days is huge because look, I know a fraction about this space. Compared to what you’ve learned in the last few years, but my grandparents, when they came to Australia with absolutely nothing ended up setting up a clothing factory and my grandfather spent most of his time on the road selling to small locations that would on sell their clothing.
And they were very successful for until they retired. And so I got a bit of an understanding of the process that you’re going through in those days. They You know, the thing is that where it was, I can imagine very lonely being on a farm some time ago. Now you can get that virtual support.
Now it’s not quite the same as being in person, but at least it’s some support that is there and expanding your networks. Because I think the important thing is as well, That you’ve now transitioning, aren’t you? It’s been, you’ve gone from farm to online, but now it’s starting to transition further, isn’t it?
Because correct me if I’m wrong, but you had a shop that was basically connected to the township. And and it’s. That you’re moving on from there, aren’t you? That’s right. And it was really successful little shop. So it’s actually a really good stage for the business. So it was a retail store. It was also my warehouse.
So I had a whole heap of old offices behind, which were just filled with. Boxes of sleepy Marino. But I was able to sit there, do my work and do my sales calls, but people came in the front door and bought products while I was doing my work, which is good. It was distracting, but it was good if they’re going to be paying.
often cash, tourists. It was very helpful and it was it was well and truly paying for the costs of rent and all the other expenses. But I was finding that I was tied there. I couldn’t really get away for this next stage of the business, which is getting out to these retail stores and, country department stores and hopefully bigger department stores eventually.
I have to be on the road going forward. Yes, you can do a lot. Over the computer and the phone but it’s, there’s nothing better than meeting people in person. And with my product, it’s feeling the product cause it’s such a soft product that people, it’s very tactile. And that’s another reason I have to get into more stores too, because it just sells so much better.
If people actually can feel and touch the product rather than just hear about it online and, make the big leap themselves Yeah, so I’ve got to be on the road a lot more and this has given me a little bit of freedom. It’s not a lot of freedom because of the sheep as well.
I’ve still got to do that. My brother does help. He looks after them so I can get away. But yeah that’s the next stage. The store was very successful and also getting that feedback on the products. So you can actually find junior products of narrowed down to the range the happiest with.
Which reduces my numbers, my skew numbers for my warehouse much easier and cheaper. So yeah, it’s been part of the process. Yeah, you might think that’s, like three different businesses that I’ve done so far. And in reality it is but it’s like stepping stones in the process and without doing any of those foundation sort of stages of the business, I don’t think I’d be ready.
to do this next, where I’m ramping up into more the wholesale side of things. There’s another side of things as well, which has been the export. I actually had an Austrade grant for a couple of years up until recently. And I was exporting just through the online store just because of the cost it was through, a difficult time with container shipping being so expensive.
But it really did open up my markets all over the world. I actually now have set up a separate website for the Northern Hemisphere so I can have the opposing seasons products. Featured there and also in U. S. dollars and Canadian dollars. They’re my two biggest ones I was concentrating on. But I do sell them all over the world, Scandinavia, Finland loves them in particular, through Asia, because they are so cooling for the Asian population as well.
So there’s been quite a few different steps. To get where I am. And now it’s another big step that I’m going to have to take. But I feel confident and ready to in my production, I’ve got the production. I’ve got the best factory, I think in Australia, the wool mill is able to ramp up production to produce the actual fabric.
Yeah, so I’m ready to get to that next step of actually being in conversations with some big exporters. If one of those comes off, even it would just be huge exponential increase in growth. So I’ll just keep going. Trying and trying. And eventually I’m hoping I get one of those big deals. At the moment there’s some influences in South Korea wearing sleepy Marino their influences don’t have hundreds of thousands of followers.
I have millions. So I just need one of these little things to happen. But yeah, they love Australian made and Australian made is a thing overseas. Another thing overseas is that they appreciate Marino. products even more than Australians. Australians are not that educated to Merino, which is crazy because we produce the best in the world.
So it’s been, I’ve actually also as part of the business done a lot of educating. So a lot of blogs a lot of articles and magazines, things like that, just educating. the public about the properties of Merino and that it does help you sleep, that it is thermoregulating. In Australia, a lot of particularly women think it’s itchy because of the school jumpers they used to wear.
There’s been that aspect of it as well. It’s been a busy time and I can’t do any of it that well because it’s too stretched. It’s quite amazing because as well as the transitions that you’ve been going on and that, and I think you can’t underestimate how much, how difficult it is. To learn something new.
It’s all very well. And we all have these ideas. I think most business leaders have these ideas. And often it’s within a space that they’re, I wouldn’t say completely comfortable with, but there’s a degree of comfort in there. But the interesting thing for you is that just initially starting as you said earlier on having to design, clothing.
That is a whole different skills. One thing to have the idea and go I’ve got the wool. I’ve got a bit of an idea how the wool and that part works. But then to go, I’ve got to design clothing and that’s something that’s got to be ongoing, right? Because it’s not you can’t just say we’ve designed it once and we’re going to keep the same style for the next, whatever years, because.
Yeah. Things change, don’t they? So I imagine that you have to, that part of the business, you have to keep adapting and innovating as just, that’s just the basic part. I’ve had to move out of my comfort zone constantly. And maybe I first did that with the farm. You have to you never know what’s happening tomorrow.
You’re never comfortable in farming. I’d love to be. And I’m good at researching things and getting them all set out and right before you go ahead and do things. But I, you can’t afford to do that sometimes in business. You just have to take the leap. You do a certain amount of research.
You have to, look at what your gut’s telling you as well. You have to have a passion for what you’re wanting to do because that, that will lead you and take you there. But sometimes you just have to take that leap of faith. I’ve, had the support of people around me as well.
But I just have to, now I’ve got another thing I’ve got to learn. I’ve got to set up a new B2B platform for my new wholesale custom. So it’s another thing to learn. You just always. Stepping out of your comfort zone to do something new and sometimes you can’t just go out and pay someone to do it, with the costs in all businesses at the moment, you have to do some of these things yourself.
I’m trying to find out more and more as I go along, but you’ve got to be careful. Let’s see. And it’s interesting how the little businesses develop off the side of these things. And I know that we we spoke a few episodes ago on BizBytes to Susan Loft, who’s known as the laundry lady who basically turned people’s personal laundries.
into an Uber style service. And so people in from their homes are doing their doing laundry for other people. But the interesting thing about that discussion was her business now is as much about the technology that is sitting behind that to make that work as it is about the front facing business.
And I can see that there’s. There’s things going on there because the technology that you need just to manage the warehouse, to manage as you’re starting to get orders, both online and from shops that you’re going out to, and if particularly if you’re starting to sell to to retailers, that, that’s That complexity of that is almost a business on its own as well.
Absolutely. I could sit here in my office and just run that side of the business. Yeah but I’ve tried to keep it as simple as I can. And the whole process is. towards automation. There’s only one of me. And that’s why I’ve gone to the 3PL as well. I was packing, picking and packing all my own orders.
But it just got too much. I’ve got to spend my valuable time on actually growing the business not working in the business. Yeah. Everything integrates. I’ve got the two websites, Northern and Southern Hemisphere, all working so that the inventory is right and also integrating into 3PL so that they can keep the stock right and I’ll be setting up this new B2B platform so that all integrates and there’ll be also orders in dental orders before time as well.
So yeah, it’s all getting a bit complex. And there’s still only one of me really, but when you think about it, I’m growing a team, it’s just that they’re external people, like there’s a fabulous business at the 3PL. The family there have been doing this for a long time, specialize in the fashion industry and do Meyer and the big guys in, in distribution, the factory, same thing.
Fantastic. So I’ve got a team around me. I just don’t actually employ them. So it’s a little bit different. But yeah it’s not as different as I think there are a lot of businesses out there that do exactly the same thing. I know when I founded my business that we initially focused a lot on branding and and general marketing.
And I never, I’ve, I never employed a graphic designer. I had a close association with a, and I still do with a graphic design agency that I’ve worked with for now. I think it’s getting close to 25 years that we’ve worked together and it’s building those relationships, which are vital to keeping businesses running.
So I’m interested in to, because, you said you had a few trials and fails With various businesses that couldn’t keep up with what you needed. So how do you build, how do you find them and how do you build those relationships and that getting in and getting out, all of that stuff is difficult to navigate within itself.
It is. And there’s a lot of trial and error. How I’ve managed to get. Somehow as a very small business into the same factory as R. M. Williams and Country Road here in Australia. And they’re fantastic, the job they do. I think they realize that the business is growing slowly but growing.
But also I make sure that I. pay on time. It’s not easy sometimes, especially if, I’ve just had an order received from Winterstock and it’s, hey, it’s spring now. I just have to suck it up sometimes because I am the smaller business. I have to just look at other ways that I can manage my stock.
And partly that’s, with the Northern atmosphere sort of business side of things as well, so that I can have less less, less sort of variability in season. Yeah it’s there’s just been so many complexities to get around, but yeah that’s, Yeah.
Basically where I’ve been. Yeah. And and I think that it’s growing constantly, which is easy to say for people that they want to scale the business, but actually doing it sometimes is incredibly difficult and you do need those relationships to be able to manage that process. Don’t you?
Because if tomorrow you got a big order in You’ve got now the the, the various suppliers and and factories and things that’s possible to fulfill that. It is. And it would be very easy to actually just do that all from a distance remotely, but I’ve made the effort to actually get down there to Melbourne on a fairly regular basis.
Talk to the people both in the wool mill who are making the fabric. And also at the factory and the 3PL. So they’re all fairly close together. It works really well for me. But yeah, it’s building that relationship over time. And if I’m down there for another reason, I just drop in and say hello and have lunch with them or whatever.
Because yeah they’re my team now. And I think that’s partly why the. Giving me the effort as a small business is because I’m making the effort as well. And I have that relationship with them. But you gotta be flexible for them as well. They’ve got a lot to do. Yeah I try and not to make things difficult.
I keep my products simple in Australia. We just don’t have with the costs, we just can’t make things. Fancy. We kept them simple and that suits my products anyway. With the Merino product, you don’t want zips and buttons and things like that when you’re sleeping anyway, you want it comfy, so simple, high quality it’s the way to go with my team.
And yeah it’s probably why it’s been successful so far. Yeah, they just don’t make mistakes. I’ve had the not so good factories and constant mistakes. Me having to repair things or send them back for repair. But yeah, it’s it’s been worth the effort. I probably pay a bit more and I pay a bit more in trouble to keep these relationships happening.
But yeah, it’s been worth it in the long run. I have a high quality product and I can play, it goes right back to the beginning. I can play in that space where I don’t have to join the race to the bottom. I can have that high quality. High end product that people are happy to pay for I have the it’s unique and it’s a little niche.
And it’s across it’s across wellness. It’s across it’s cross travel. It’s across so many aspects of people’s lives. That it’s, it’s got to work. So I wanted to just, and we’ve got to wrap things up soon, but I just wanted to ask you about, the area that you’re touching on there and you touched on earlier on around the idea of educating the market, because it’s all very well to say, okay we’re, this is where we’re going to sit in the quality space.
You have to educate the market that’s what you. And you also have to educate the market, as you say, to understand the benefits of merino wool, because even for example, myself going, okay, is this a winter product or is this, an all year round product? So how do you. How do you go about doing that?
And what’s the, what are you adding to the story that you’re sharing on a consistent basis to be able to educate the market? It’s so tempting when you have a product like Merino that has a list of, it’s like a list of features just to list the features that does this, it does that. But that’s not really great for selling a product.
We get that all the time, Hey, it didn’t work for Apple either. All their competitors, that’s what they did. Apple made it more about someone’s lifestyle and how they were leading their life. So I try and actually bring it back to how this will make people’s lives better.
And bring the value of the merino in that way. So say there’s a middle aged lady that’s having trouble sleeping cause they’re hot and cold. You market around that factor that, Hey, if you get a better night’s sleep, you’re going to be better at work.
You’re going to have better relationships and Hey, your life’s going to be much better if you’re getting that sleep. So concentrating on that with the marketing side of things. And then you have to have a little bit of education piece in there as well.
Hey, Merino is thermo regulating. It does this. Yes, our Merino is actually pre shrunk. So Shrink like a lot of the ones and we actually make it long and we actually have proper Australian sizes And you just put a little bit of that in there. So you’re not Educating them on a big list of things. I think I used to do that quite a lot Does this and yeah people probably switched off after the first couple or forgot everything, but you just have a bit of an angle.
Every time I do a post or something like that, or an article, this is something that’s really great about our product that, that can make your life better. Yeah, so that’s what I’ve been concentrating on. Yeah. And there’s also the proof with the research you can some people like to go back and actually look at the research, so I’ve got even those aspects in the website that you, if you’re that way inclined, you can actually go and look at the papers if you want to.
And that’s the proof. So it’s not because there’s a lot of greenwashing out there and that sort of thing. But basically. The authenticity of a brand and the story behind this sort of product. I really think that’s why it’s done as well as it has. People like not buying from a multinational with imported mass produced products.
And I think the timing just has worked really beautifully for Sleeping Merino. I noticed that even in, in Varel, people would come in, tourists come from Sydney and say, Oh, isn’t this wonderful? We don’t have to go to the chain stores. You’ve got all these little independent stores in the town.
And and I think if I can get into those stores around Australia too, that will be really good for my brand. It’s funny, people have really switched around. The people that have, The means and spending money, especially they’re in that space. They want something different. They want something unique.
They want something that’s quality and something that works to make their life better. That’s what they’re looking for. Things have changed. And I think COVID has had a fair bit to do with that. The people are after comfort. luxury, affordable luxury. Yeah, it’s been a big change. And there’s a lot of opportunities and it’s been great for I actually was on the buy from the bush platform for a while.
So that was really good. People started to actually look outside the big. Multinationals and now people are aware that there are other options out there, small manufacturers, small businesses in regional areas. And yeah, they love it. They love it. The, my export customers love it as well. That’s what’s so attractive to my South Korean partnership.
I’m working with yeah they love that as well. So big is not always better. No, that’s true. And and again, it’s still talking to the quality. And I think what’s really interesting about what you’re doing as well is you’re building brand advocates and brand indeed brand ambassadors as you’re going along the way, particularly through those areas.
And you’re right. There’s people are looking for something different and in many respects, it’s easier than ever to look for something different because Yes, you can go into the shopping center. Yes, you can see the big manufacturers online, but it is often trying to find, often people are trying to look outside of that because as you say, they want something different and they want the quality and it’s a terrific niche to to be in.
Look, we could talk for so much longer because there are so many things to unpack about your business, but thank you for giving us such a great insight. I just wanted to. Wrap things up in a way of saying, look, people wanting to learn from your experiences and what you’re doing you’re keeping people updated, you’re sharing on podcasts like this, but you’re also regularly, as you say, writing articles and things.
And I guess we’re, the best thing to do is to say to people follow the links in the show notes because you’ll want to follow what Julie’s doing because there’s a lot to learn, I think. Obviously we want people to go out there and buy the product. And if you know anyone who wants to buy lots of the product, even better, but also to learn from what you’ve, what your, the processes you’re going through, because there’s so much for businesses at all stages of growth to understand and learn from.
Absolutely. If I can do it, anyone can do it, but it just takes a bit of grit and determination. And yeah, it’s It’s been a fun journey, really hard, but fun. Now, I always like to wrap up with a question that I ask people, and it’s a little bit different for you. Because normally I say to people, what’s the aha moment they have when they’re working with you, but I’m going to twist that a little bit.
So what’s the aha moment when, what’s the feedback you get from people who are using your products? Because clearly you’re still in business after a few years and it’s growing. So the feedback must be great. And you must be happy. Enjoy getting that feedback. Oh, that, that is the best part of being in this business is that people, once they tried the product, they actually ring me and email me go, Oh my God, this is magic.
I it’s so soft and luxurious and I’m sleeping better and I want more and I’m telling all my friends about it and I’m buying it for all my relatives for their. birthdays. And yeah, the feedback is fabulous. And that’s the word of mouth. It’s the best marketing in the world, of course. And they come back and buy more.
I’ve had a, there’s a lady in France that’s had 23 orders of sleeping Marino, like that’s a lot of jammers. But it’s, most of my customers are loyal. and they come back and back. And that tells the story for me that I’m on a winner. It also they’re very upfront with which products I like and also offering suggestions of new products.
So yeah, it’s been, that’s been the best aspect of this whole thing is the feedback. The love of the products and it’s good for the whole wool industry. Even if it’s not just my sleepy Merino that people are actually learning about wool and they’re wearing wool again, then they’re going to go and buy some wool jumpers and they’re going to buy some wool socks.
And it’s good for the whole industry for the Australian wool industry. Yeah, it’s been, that’s been the aha moment for me is that, Hey, this is actually really working and people love it. So it’s worth all the hard work. effort that I put in every day of the week. You’ll be commended for the journey that you’ve been on.
And I thank you so much for being generous in sharing all of it. And so much more, and I know that we’re going to catch up very soon, but I’m looking forward to watching the journey and having you back again as a guest in the future, as we see the business continue to grow. As I mentioned to everyone, we will have all the details in the show notes of how people can get in contact, how people can purchase from you, whether they’re in the Southern or the Northern hemisphere, we’ll have those links for you to be able to to get ahold of Julie.
So thank you so much for being an amazing guest on the program. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it. And to everyone listening, of course, don’t forget to stay tuned for the next episode of Biz Bytes. Don’t forget to hit subscribe, and we look forward to your company then. Hey, thanks for listening to Biz Bytes.
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Ingeborg Mooiweer
Unlocking the Leader Within : A Chat with Ingeborg
Coaching and Therapy
In this episode, we dive deep into the powerful connection between personal growth and professional success. Ingeborg shares her insights on navigating emotional trauma, breaking through personal limitations, and finding harmony between your personal and professional selves.
Discover how addressing emotional challenges can lead to breakthroughs in your career. Don’t miss this thought-provoking episode on self-awareness, leadership, and the transformative power of personal growth.
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Hardly anyone really knows that they know they maybe have trauma or They experienced things in their life. They obviously have, yeah, pain from that, but they don’t recognize that is the issue now. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Biz Bites, proudly brought to you by CommTogether, the people behind podcasts done for you, because we’re all about exposing other people’s brilliance.
Don’t forget to subscribe to Biz Bites and check out podcast done for you as well in the show notes. Now let’s get into it.
And welcome to another episode of Biz Bites. And I feel like we’re going to be doing something a little bit different today because it’s a little bit more of a look at yourself as a leader. And in Areas that maybe you can improve on personally and see how that is going to have an impact on your business.
But we’re going to explore plenty in this episode. I’ve only just got to know our guest a little bit in a couple of discussions that we’ve had. We were lucky enough to be introduced online. That’s always how these things happen these days. And she’s all the way in the other side of the world. So Ingeborg, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.
I’ve done my best to get your name pronounced right, but I apologize for the Australian, I’m apologizing for the Australian accent, but why don’t you introduce yourself a little bit and tell us, where you’re coming from as well, because I’m in Sydney, but you’re not. No, I’m not. Thank you for having me.
I’m in Holland and apologize for my accent, obviously. But we have one and yeah, I’m in all the way in the Netherlands, totally on the other side and different time zone as well, obviously. So here I am. It makes it all a lot of fun, doesn’t it? That’s the beauty of technology. These days is you can do all of those things.
Let’s get into it. Why don’t you tell me first, firstly, your business is MetaMind Breakthrough. What is the business about? What is it that you actually do? Yeah I call myself a business and personal relationship alchemist. And I use the word alchemist because I use different things to get results for my clients.
I work in the relationship realm at its broadest, and then you can think of For personal, it’s like codependency attachment issues, abandonment issues narcissism, abuse relationship addiction or a combination thereof. And in business, it shows up different, but the issues usually quite the same.
It’s like people trouble managing their team. They want to have a promotion. They pass by all the time. They have trouble. With colleagues or with their boss, things like that. And in the end, it’s all like relationship. And actually it is the core issues. So the core issues and I’ll get to that space with them.
So that’s very short description of what I do. I suppose the starting point is for me is understanding a little bit about firstly, the kind of people that come to you, do they have to be, Are they being sent to you or are they coming to you willingly? Recognizing that they’ve got, do people recognize the issues that they have or they, what’s the starting point?
Yeah some of them do they may not know like the real issue. That’s usually the case, but what they do recognize is that they are stuck. They keep on getting in the same sort of patterns. That’s what they recognize as well. They’re stuck. They want to have a change, but they don’t know how. And that’s usually I don’t know how I want to change.
I don’t know how and then, yeah, what I said, if it’s really personal, they start reading, they reading books, listening to podcasts, things like that. And then they get a sort of feeling, Oh, I might be a codependent because I’ll always say, yeah, trouble saying no trouble setting my boundaries. They recognize that they think that’s the problem.
So it’s usually like the symptoms they come to me with but it’s never symptoms. It’s always something deeper that they don’t know usually. And that’s normal, hardly anyone really knows that. They know they maybe have trauma or they experienced things in their life, they obviously have, yeah, pain from that, but they don’t recognize that is the issue now.
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Hardly anyone really knows that. They know they maybe have trauma or they experienced things in their life, they obviously have, yeah, pain from that, but they don’t recognize that is the issue now.
I’m intrigued with this because what’s the balance? Because you call yourself a coach in that sense. What’s the difference between someone going, if they’re recognizing some of those traits, is it first appearing for them in a business sense, which is why they’re coming to you versus, are they, are they going to a psychiatrist or psychologist as well?
How does that balance work between those? Yeah I just to reaffirm, I call myself a coach slash therapist because that’s what it is actually. About 50 50, I would say some of them go to a psychologist or what you say and they don’t get the real help they want, not saying that they’re not good psychologists or whatever, but this is specific kind of work and just talking, talk therapy is not enough.
So you really have to get to the core issue, not only getting the insights, but knowing how to change on the deeper level, like fundamentally, you have to change it, you have to heal. And that sometimes doesn’t work. If you go to psychologist, just talking, that’s having the insights. Yeah, that’s not enough.
So it could be like real and personal. They have a relationship, they have trouble there, or they don’t have a relationship and they want one. Things like that. Or it’s real, like what I said, 50 50 is really someone at work. We’re having the same trouble like either finding a job or that managing their team, taking up their space, being the real leader.
They have trouble doing that and they don’t recognize why it is. They think there’s something wrong with them in a different sense. And it’s it’s always the case that there’s something deeper. Why they don’t allow themselves or are afraid to speak up or afraid to say no, things like that. They have trouble speaking their truth as well.
So it’s a lot of different things. It’s not just one thing and a lot of different things. It’s a lot of like deep inner work, but it’s a lot of mental work as well. Do people see that as being, are people always seeing it in themselves first? Or are they seeing it as maybe they’ve noticed some traits and things in their parents.
And fearing that they’re, that’s, they’re going, is that often a trigger or is it usually quite separate and people just have a self realization and maybe it then goes back to parents and other influences around there. I’m just intrigued as to where it, where that self realization comes from.
That’s, there was almost a 50 50 as well, because I have people, they say, Oh, I had a really nice upbringing. There was nothing wrong there. So I don’t understand why I’m having trouble with ABC or people saying, Oh, I had a really rough upbringing. I’m sure it has to do something with what happened there, but I just, they’re always stuck.
And they don’t know how to move forward. They tried a lot of things. That’s what usually happens as well. They read all the books, what I said, listen to the podcast, they have the insights and they don’t understand why it’s not enough to move forward to change. So it’s the, yeah, 50, 50 as well. Almost.
It’s it’s a typical thing though, isn’t it? That That initial step of realizing that something’s holding you back or something’s interfering with how you want to perform. Yeah. And I always say that the pain has to be big enough to make that step, to make that call, to start looking for someone, because if the pain is not big enough, you’re not going to do the work.
to change because changing is a lot of hard work. And dealing with your feelings and emotions and pain from the past is not nice, but necessary. So the pain has to be big enough. You have to be hold back by it and not making the steps you want to and then people feel and they realize they’re in the same pattern.
Usually keep on doing the same thing, being in the same loop. And then they start realizing, okay, maybe I need some help. Maybe I can’t do it on my own. Maybe all the books and podcasts doesn’t do the trick. And then they start looking. I think it’s worth pointing out to people as well that the caliber of people that you’re working with you’re working with some bigger organizations and people are leading bigger businesses and things as well as some of the smaller ones.
So there’s a range of people that you deal with. In this process. I’m fascinated as well by, what the balance is between the personal and the professional, because that’s where I think you’re very unique in what you’re doing in balancing those two spaces and and where that. Realization is, are the people that are coming to you with that self realization, is it because they recognize that it’s impacting both?
Or is it that the business has tends to be the initial prompt and then it goes into the other? How do you, where do you see that kind of balance? Sometimes it is. Yes. Sometimes they just come in what I said with the examples like managing the team and it’s not working and they are in front of a big, a scale up or things like that.
And there’s something, there’s a hurdle they don’t know what it is. But the thing is with my work, whatever, you start with professional or like personal, it spreads out. Because you’re in it. It’s you who’s changing. So obviously when you change and the work site will change because that’s what you want, you’ll notice it a way in your personal life as well and vice versa.
So because yeah, you can’t be really different. Obviously you’re a bit different at work, but In the end, you’re the same person, so you’ll notice it at home with friends, family, things like that, and at work as well. So there’s never anyone, someone, when the initial question is like from personal sides, there’s nothing off limits for me.
And the other way around as well, because yeah, what I said, you’re in there. Totally. So both sides will be surfaced, so to speak. Yeah, it’s I think that’s a fascinating area that the realization, particularly in a work scenario, that things are not. Translating as you would like them to be, and you’re not on the career path, or you’re not, as you say, not handling team members and other situations.
There’s a pattern there that just in a work sense is a difficult thing to realize, because we all want to think that we’re probably better than what we are in some respect. So I suppose there are plenty of people that think otherwise, that they’re not as good as they think they are, but I guess that’s the question.
At a when you’re talking about people who are leaders in business, at whatever level of business they are, but in some kind of leadership role, is it important for them to just be understanding their own limitations and to be recognizing that is that something that we all should be doing?
I think we should actually, yeah. Yeah, that’s a short answer, but yeah, because when you know yourself you’d be able to relate to other people from an authentic space and maybe that’s a bit of a coach words, we but that’s the thing. People, some people let’s say, don’t realize that a lot of things happening uh, the energy.
What is happening when you relate to another person in the workspace as well. It’s all like subconscious. So when you’re not healed or when you’re not happy with yourself, let’s make use of the normal words, like happy with yourself, what, where you want to go, you relate different to people and you can say here, Oh, no, everything is going well.
But people will pick up on it that it’s not there, so the relationship will be different. You will get trouble and you don’t realize why that is. So I think, yeah, everybody should do that. It will help your work and your life. I think one of the things I’m interested in your take on this because one of the things has definitely changed in the workplace.
The theory used to be that when you come to work, you should leave your personal at the door and just focus on work. Yeah. As I understand it, that idea is a bit of a outdated notion and been, even pushed even further because of the whole COVID situation where everyone, in many countries, we had lockdowns and people started working from home and working from home has become a normal thing.
So that lot, that blurred line between personal and private is blurrier than it’s ever been, isn’t it? Um, yeah, it is. And I think it’s actually good because what people tend to forget as well, we are emotional beings and the end we’re not logical or rational at all. That’s what we try to think.
That’s what we try to do as well. And obviously we have, some logic, but mostly all our decisions and everything are made like from the subconscious mind. So if you use that, you’ll be, you can become a lot stronger and become a better leader. If that’s in harmony, between the head and the heart or the head and the gut or whatever you want to call it.
So I think it’s good because you, how would you do that? Like separate, like you step into your office and then. You are a totally different person. You’re, I think you can use it. You don’t have to share everything, obviously, but share something because that makes the connection better.
And you can’t do business without relationships on any level. And starting with the, sorry, starting with the relationship with yourself. That’s always the beginning. And if that’s okay, and you’re good with yourself, then you can relate to other people much easier and do business better, because that’s what she wants to do.
Yeah it, I find it amazing when people can really think that they can. Put compartmentalize what’s happening in your personal life and not bring it Into the workspace because I think no matter how hard you try it’s very difficult if you’re Things are going on at home To not be in a particular mood, and that could be good and that could be bad, but whatever’s going on to not bring that into the office is actually incredibly difficult to do although I’m interested in your perspective on this as well, because I know there are specialists out there who do, who talk to the idea of building alter egos.
So you’re almost to try and push you through some of those boundaries. So it might be less about the day to day, but more about recognizing that you have some deficiencies in areas. And do you need to put on or build an alter ego in order to be able to push through those? Those boundaries, which also takes a bit of self diagnosis to say I’m a bit deficient in this area.
But maybe if I build an alter ego, maybe I can be someone else. What’s your feeling about that whole idea? Yeah maybe that’s being Dutch as well. So being in, in in this culture might be different, I’ll just put that in. I’m not really a fan of doing that. And actually because I why would you do that?
Why, if you find you’re deficient, what would you say? You have to be acknowledge that first before you can do something about it. But why would you build an alter ego and be something, because I think it takes so much of your energy in doing that. Whilst be easier or better, I would say try to build on the deficiency.
Find someone who can help you with that, and it’s actually easier to focus on the strength you have. And find something which suits that rather than trying to build that the things you can’t really do, try to be better than that. I think they’ve done plenty of studies on that, that it’s better to focus on the things you can do good already.
It makes it better than putting all your energy in things you can’t really do and trying to become better. Whatever you want. So my take would be focus on that, what you can already do really good. I find it fascinating. And when people speak in that area that the examples that they give. Usually are not business examples.
Examples of sports people that do that, that they, when they go onto the when they move onto the to the court or whatever it is that they suddenly in that situation where they’re going, okay, I’m going to pretend that I’m This kind of person or that certainly I’m aware of a musician that I don’t particularly name the person, but was well publicized, suffered from stage fright, built an alter ego around that.
And for many years as they walked on stage, had to think of themselves in that alter ego. I believe they’ve now got to the point where they don’t anymore, that they’ve become integrated, but I don’t know that’s it’s quite a, It’s quite an interesting one, because it’s a bit like in a business, the equivalent in a business sense might be you’re a CEO, for example, of a company, and you’re really great at your knowledge of the company, you’re really great at the knowledge of what they do, you might even be a thought leader in the space that you’re in, does that mean that you can get on stage and speak about it?
Because it is a different, it is a different kind of idea. You might want to but making that leap can actually be a difficult thing. And so I suppose it’s a bit like, is there part of what you’re doing is also realizing your limitations or is it trying to, is it always trying to strive and to break through?
Because in that particular case, do you have to work away that they can be able to do that? Or do you have to say that may not be you. Oh, I always say what, like what you want if I know it’s to be true that if there’s some sort of seed in you that wants to be on stage or that wants to do talks, you have to go elaborate on that and you can help someone get to that space.
Maybe you’re not the most fluent one or the most funny one or whatever. But I’m a strong believer that you can learn almost anything you want if you put your mind to it and if you put your heart in and whatever. And some things you have to do because it’s part of the job. And so you can learn that if someone wants to do that.
And what you said earlier about being that alter ego, maybe if someone thinks that because we can use the mind in very good ways as well, so we can pretend. To be a great speaker do a lot of hours of practicing and everything. And maybe you’ll come to that persona you’ve made up.
But I believe there is already some sort of foundation within you to do and some eagerness and some dreams you have about it. And then you have to do a lot of practicing to get to that point. But I always feel with my clients as well that people don’t have a lot of self esteem or they doubt themselves.
I believe in general that people can do a lot more than what they do. They limit themselves, they hold themselves back and things like that. You can do a lot more if you want. And what I just said, when the seed is planted there for whatever reason, I believe there’s a reason for it.
So you should find it and do something with it because otherwise it’s just a shame not to do I’m not sure who the original quote is from, but there’s that idea of you’re limited by your own set of beliefs. And it’s, it, but understanding. what those limitations are, where you’re at and being able to break through.
That’s the challenge, right? That’s where I come in. Yes. And so let me ask you a double sided question. And on one hand, what? What are there any tips for people to saying? Look something’s holding me back, but I have no idea what it is. Is there anything that some tips to do a bit of a self diagnosis to try and understand a little bit as a stepping stone before they might engage with someone like yourself?
And equally then, once they’ve recognized that, or is there anything that they can do to start down the path of trying to take those initial steps? The thing is, yeah, obviously you can start thinking, but what I said, like in the beginning, there is a limitation because we all have this blind spots and there’s a mechanism within people in general, that if you move towards the pain, which is obviously something what happens or what didn’t happen and you would like it to happen.
You move away. So from pain to pleasure, that’s what happens. That’s what the mind does. That’s like this survival mechanism. So you might realize you have pain. You might realize you’re in that pattern. You might realize you want it to be changed. But then this mechanism starts kicking in and that’s why it’s in this kind of work you need someone being me or someone else but you need someone to make it as we call it like emotionally safe because apparently it’s not safe for you to move to that area to move to that pain.
And that pain is there because of something happened or because lack of things you needed when you were little. So the things, what they can do, yeah, they can read the books and they can read to the podcast and get some sort of insight, some sort of recognition. I think, Oh, that’s what I’m doing. Oh, this is what’s happening with me.
But the how to change in my opinion, you need someone to help you through that. Yes, that is, is the worst tool that exists for someone like you is Google because people like to self diagnose. Yes, they do. And then they start convincing me, that it’s maybe something else things like that.
But that’s normal. That’s normal because we want to have this control as well. And yeah, not being perceived as a silly or whatever. So they, yeah, they tend, and it’s a survival mechanism as well. And I guess the interesting thing about the self diagnosis in that way is, do they usually jump to an extreme and it’s not as bad as what they think it is, or are they, what do you find is the when people come into you?
Sometimes they underestimate it. They think like what the people they say, oh my childhood was really good. There’s nothing there. So I’m not really sure what we’re going to find. They don’t want to know or the other sides, like the other people that said really rough I’m sure it’s from there, which is usually is, but in a different sense of what they think it is.
They say yeah, but it’s such a long time ago. My parents got divorced. It can’t be the problem now. And then ask me, and then we’ll just have to explore. Yeah, that’s really interesting to me as well, because when I’m working in marketing with people, when you talk about they’re trying to find their purpose, their why and you do this kind of exercise where it often does take them back to that.
And it’s amazing how often that it does go back to something that would seem rather incidental in their childhood. Is what’s led them down a complete career path. I’ve, got a number of stories of that, even did that exercise with a friend and he came to me afterwards. He goes, wow, I haven’t thought about that in 40 years and yet it’s the whole reason he does what he does.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The mind is a funny thing in that sense because it’s, it sounds good and a lot of times what I find as well is that people say, Oh, I don’t have any memories. It’s just me, I don’t have any memories. And then when we start working, memories start popping up because there’s movements.
There’s this, you realize, or you create space for them. And it’s a trauma response. Usually where you don’t remember anything, it’s a trauma response. That’s what the mind does. Because it’s too overwhelming. It’s too much. And then, slightly and slowly you get some memories back because now you’ll be able to handle them in a better way, in a different way.
I want to just pinpoint, because we could talk endlessly about so many different points that you’ve raised, but one, one that you raised right at the beginning is as one of the things that that people either they recognize it or it turns out to be is around narcissism. And it’s a term that I think we’ve heard a little bit more in, in recent times for one reason or another.
But I’m fascinated by that. Is that a common trait for a lot of people? A lot of business leaders because is it something that can be it’s almost is it almost essential sometimes for people who are starting business and they’re holding on to things and they want it to be all about them. It is a difficult thing to let go and how much of that is actually a trait that transfers into their personal life.
It’s not just because they’re holding dear to a business that they started. Yeah, like what you said, the term is is more common. In, in, in reality, they’re not that many people like one or 2 percent who are real like narcissist. We do recognize more narcissistic traits especially in leaders as well.
That doesn’t mean they are. And the thing is you have to have some personality traits, which could be like narcissistic as well to be a good leader. But in the end. Your ego is never going to do the job in that sense, because if you are a real good leader, in my opinion, you should be using the people around you or working for you and actually, taking a step back.
And let them do the work and not like being that big ego and see, Oh, I did all the work and everything, because I think that sort of comes back to you after a while. Like a boomerang, that sort of decisions you make and things like that, I don’t believe that’s going to work in the end. Yeah and I’m interested as well.
And again, we could talk for ages about all of these things. So we’re just, tip of the iceberg with some of it. But how many times are there? Traits like narcissism, and there are many others that you’ve mentioned as well, that may actually be the reason why the person has got to a level of success.
And then it’s recognizing that’s now a limitation for it’s going even further, because narcissism might be a great example of that, or some traits of narcissism, that you’re it’s driven you to a certain point, but there’s a point where if you’re not letting go, you’re not gonna be able to scale the business, for example, is one example.
Yeah, because if if it’s a real narcissist, then you make so much trouble on your path to success. So that will come back to you one way or the other and sometimes not, but it’s very rare case what I find actually and what you said there, there’s just a limitation in what you can do and how you can use people.
On your way to success. Yeah you’ll find if someone is not a narcissist, it will catch up on you and you will want to do that different and I think that’s timing as well, when you get more mature, you start realizing there’s more to the world than just you getting all that money and a big car and things like that.
Then they start to realize and they want to do. business different. And sometimes I find that There’s something happening in their life. They’re really successful in the business, but they have trouble getting that partner or keeping a partner. So they realizing that they’re successful in that area, but not so successful in the other.
And when they start working on that part, the business is changing as well. Because it’s what we talked about in the beginning, you can’t really separate. One from the other because you’re in it with your whole self. So you are limiting yourself there, but they don’t realize it’s because of this thing, what’s happening at home or what they want to be hap happening at home.
So when they start working on that business starts. flowering up as well. There’s so many things we can talk about, but I just want to point out to everyone whether you’re watching or listening in at the moment metamindbreakthrough. com is the is the website. We’ll, of course, include all the information in the show notes, including there’s an ebook to download that will provide a link for as well as an opportunity to have a 15 minutes.
Free conversation and dive a little deeper into whatever issues might be potentially holding you back. And I encourage people to take take up that opportunity because I think that if you’re thinking about it, it probably means you need it. Is that the, that’s a good one. Yeah, that’s just a little sheet, what we talked about earlier.
Yeah, we’ve got a few other things that I wanted to explore, but I also wanted to point out to people that we’re going to do a little bit of bonus content for people and giving a little bit of information about resilience and how to follow your own lead and how to set proper boundaries.
So there’ll be a few tips in that, that we’re going to explore in the bonus content, the links to the To how to access that will, of course, be in the show notes, but I just wanted to divert a little bit for a moment as well. I wanted to find out how you actually get into this area. Tell me a little bit about the journey that you’ve been on because I’m well, I guess I’m interested as to whether This, where you are at now was what the vision was when you were in school and looking at, deciding on what to study where was the career path at that point, and how did you get to where you are?
Yeah. I grew up myself with the with a narcissistic mother. So I know from the inside out how that works and what, yeah, what kind of trauma you, you get from that and how it’s holding you back in life and what it took me to get to the point where I’m now. And I actually studied hotel management.
So totally like a broad study. I really liked it. And then I diverted in 2000 because there was something in me with my experience as well, but I wanted to explore the feeling size. As I call it and help people. And I’m fascinated by why people do the things they do or why they don’t do the things they do.
I’m fascinated by the mind and by the subconscious and everything. So I did a lot of studies after that time and it brought me to where I’m now. And I’m using everything I did. I did a lot of mind work, mind studies and from the body and from the soul. So it’s like a combination of so many modalities and it brought me into my own methods, what I use to get people.
What’s my, my my mission actually as you can call it is that I want people not to suffer that long what I had and really teach them how to use their feelings and what’s their, the whole. The whole thing, what you can do with it, how it’s working and how your life is shaped if you work from that place.
So that’s my mission to help more people globally as well, actually. And Yeah, live a better, happier life, get a relationship if you want, things like that. Thank you for sharing all of that and I know we could, again, we could delve a lot deeper and talk a lot more about about all of that and the journey that you’ve been on.
And it’s a challenging, it’s a challenging journey that you’ve been on and at the same time, you’ve used it to empower yourself to move forward. And to help others, which I think is an amazing thing to be able to do. And I love the intersection that you’ve got between business and personal and that those breakthroughs I think are huge for people to be able to have.
And it’s a question that, that I like to ask at the end of the podcast people say. What is it, what is the breakthrough that people tend to have when they’re working with you that you wish more people realized that they were going to have? That’s the connection. From your head to your heart or from your head to your feelings is the most powerful one.
If you really know how to connect with your instincts, with your feelings. Because 99. 99 percent of all the decisions we make. are from the subconscious, are from your feeling side and if you know how to get a grip on that you can move your life in whatever way you want. It’s not, you’re like, you’re waiting when something’s happening and you’re making a list and trying to do everything from your logic minds.
It’s so much easier and you’re in tune with yourself. You’re happy, you’re calm, whatever. And it’s your life. And yeah you better equipped everything is what you want. And it’s just good to realize what both is for. So what your mind is for and what your feeling side is for.
And if you know how to use that, both then you can live the life you want. And that’s because that, and that’s why it’s like with the business and personal as well. That’s because I’m like that as well. I like the analytical side, the mind thing, neuroplasticity and everything. And I like the feeling side and I like them to be together, to use them both in a sense that it helps you in the best way.
That is I think a really powerful way to end the main podcast and just to remind everyone if you want the bonus content, and I know you’re going to want the bonus content to look at resilience and how to follow your own lead and how to set some proper boundaries. Then the links will be in the show notes.
And of course, as I said before, links to how to get in touch, the website booking a free call, ebook, all of those things we’re going to include in the show notes as well. So from the main podcast point of view, thank you so much for being a wonderful guest, exploring so many things. As we said, we just touched on a few key areas and I hope there’s a lot of people that are nodding their heads and thinking I need to take some action as a result of the podcast.
Yeah. Thanks for having me. I really liked it. Yeah. To explore and some really good questions as well. Thank you. And reminded to everyone to click on the link for the bonus content. And of course, stay tuned for the next episode of Biz Bites. Hey, thanks for listening to Biz Bites. We hope you enjoyed the program.
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