EFR 744: The Biggest Advantages and Disadvantages Facing Female Entrepreneurs, How to Break Gender Bias in Business, and Why the Spiritual Side of Your Work Matters with Danielle Canty

0:06:32 - Speaker 1 Thanks, thanks for having me my pleasure.

0:06:34 - Speaker 2 I want to fire right away with you because you it really like a tour de force when it comes to, I think, thinking creatively, even spiritually, being entrepreneur minded. But especially for the females listening right now would like to kind of kick things off for them, because I'm not one so.

0:06:53 - Speaker 1 I.

0:06:54 - Speaker 2 I don't want to assume anything here. Do you think women currently have an advantage or disadvantage in the entrepreneur space?

0:07:02 - Speaker 1 Great question. I think that's like. I want to answer that two ways, because I think that's whether you're a glass half empty or glass half full person to, I guess, a perspective. But if you were to think about the actual let's say, labeled disadvantages that women have in the entrepreneur space, at first let's talk about those and then we can talk about what are actually advantages that come out of that.

Okay.

So I think some of the disadvantages right now is Still gender bias, like we still see that, like certain women feeling like they have to dress in ways and they're not taken seriously In the boardrooms or whatever that looks like.

I think Entrepreneurship creates a space where you can literally don't have to be answering to maybe some of those people who you know Don't feel like women should be in work, or XY and Z, but there's still. What happens is, unfortunately, the control of capital is still influenced a lot, you know, by the stereotypical males that may not see, and you know we can argue for and against that, but the facts are only 2% or 3% sometimes Well, I got up to 3 in at low. Back down to 2% is deployed to women founded businesses, and so when you see this discrepancy with where the funding is going, it's really hard to argue against, and so I think that you know I, sarah Blakely, told a really classic story when she was trying to raise the Spanx Back in the day. She didn't raise, she ended up bootstrapping it because she ran into so many challenges.

But it was like yeah, exactly, silver lining and all the things out for us, but it was that, hey, I don't know if this is a good company. Let me go and ask my wife, let me go and ask my daughters Would they buy this? And so, if we think about biases, we tend to Like, like what we know. And so, yeah, there's conversations that are going to be hey, man, who's 50, do you want to invest in this period? Focus company. We have these problems as women.

Well, now, you're just taking my word for it versus being able to have first-hand experiences.

So I think, traditionally, we've been in this echo chamber of all, I see these problems like you know men seeing men, like men, seeing the problems that they need to solve in their lives, and Men controlling a lot of the money, and so, therefore, it getting filtered down into that way.

And now, with the change, the advantages right now is that we have change in that we have a lot of Women founded VCs which are particularly deploying their capital to women founders and people of color, particularly because they recognize this. And so now the conversations that are places are still a lot less funding available, but there are places that are like okay, woman, do you want to invest in this company? Because you know firsthand the challenges that we've had in this space or women's health care Well, all these places. So I think traditionally, yes, there have been a lot of challenges and unfortunately, the statistics show it is still really difficult to raise capital. However, if we look at other aspects which is okay, when you know I first started in this space 22% of businesses were founded by women. Now that's at 48% Amazing, so we've got more women inspired to double the how long that was 2018.

Now and that was our survey was done in 2022 has gone to 48% doubled in just a few years. Wow, yeah, I like to think, boss, we've had to do with that?

All right, good a girl.

So we do have this space where, you know, now we're seeing more People that look like us doing more in business, and so that's an advantage. We are having this awareness that's being driven by like, hey, you know what? Investments aren't where they need to be, capital isn't where they need to be in women's businesses, and so let's all shine a light on that and let's bring that to the forefront and have that open conversation and try and change that. It doesn't mean it has changed yet and also that means for a long time that have been markets that have been like left unexplored because people with power and people money didn't see the Need for that, whereas those now have opened up because hang on a minute We've got different people driving different positions and Different avenues for the economy that are now allow that to be seen and explored. So I don't like to say I think whatever you, if you say to yourself as a woman entrepreneur oh, I'm at a disadvantage it's gonna be a self-fulfilling prophecy and you're gonna run into more and more problems.

0:11:25 - Speaker 2 Or if you're like, okay, I see problems or you see solutions, yeah, exactly.

0:11:29 - Speaker 1 It's like oh, I see solutions, let me, if I want to raise, let me go to these areas to raise that money. Or hang on a minute, if I notice that this traditionally has been a really underfunded area and I see a gap in that market, let me go after that. And so you know. I think really I tend to be a glass half full person. I think most entrepreneurs do. I think otherwise you would be absolutely crazy to embark on this journey you wouldn't last long.

0:11:56 - Speaker 2 No, the first venture would flop in your. You have to be optimistic and you have to be willing to pivot.

0:12:02 - Speaker 1 So I personally feel like it's an advantage or a disadvantage. I think it. Everyone is in a position where we get to make of it what we get to make of it, and you know there will definitely be people who would argue, no, it is a disadvantage, and that's why we haven't been able to do x, y and z. But I just don't like to live my life that way. I'd rather see like okay, these are all the channels and the possibilities that we do have, so let's make the most of those and let's create even more for the women that follow us. You know, I always say like I have had so many men and women put like reach their hand towards me and pull me forwards, and so my ethos is like how can I, how can I put my hand behind me and bring another one woman forwards with me? So really just kind of taking on that framework is like how we then create change, and that is why you were here on the show.

0:12:48 - Speaker 2 That is the mentality I look for when I say I'm looking for people to live a life ever, for that is exactly what I'm talking about. To kind of piggyback off that a little bit, I'm curious Do you feel like a lot of the current disadvantages or maybe even all of them, dependent upon your mindset are perceived and not actuality and it's hard to say, all right, but yeah, no, I think there is. But where do you think are the most perceived disadvantages versus actual disadvantages for women in business and entrepreneurship right now, I think comes down to I do think gender is a very important thing.

0:13:26 - Speaker 1 I do think gender bias is a big thing and I I think we also have to be really real. We all have biases. I don't think, like you know, whether you're a woman, whether you are A man, whether you are black, whether you're white, you have biases, and so it's really important to acknowledge those, and biases will always come to play, and we need to be looking at not just equality but equity and how we can create changes that acknowledge our biases or acknowledge the disadvantages that certain groups like I'm sat here as a white woman, like I can't, you know say I have to acknowledge that I have advantages being white. If I don't and that's not, you know, doing other communities of credit and it's doing them a disservice. So I think, like this whole aspect of just really Acknowledging that, yes, there are disadvantages, I think if we say blindly there's not, then that's kind of you know, I can lie, I can say that to myself personally, but I can't speak to other, I can't speak on behalf of other people, and I think that's something that we have to be really careful about.

Um, so I think it's more of a position, a position that you're in I'm also a huge advantage because, you know, I move from the UK to LA like this, so this is a completely different climate and economic climate and culturally different to other places and maybe the USA or other places across the world. So I think it's really about understanding that, wherever you're from, there is different biases, they're distant, different advantages and there's different disadvantages and how, if you have a goal, how can you put yourself in the best position To overcome? That, I think, is really probably the thing that I would say there.

0:15:16 - Speaker 2 Um, share a little personal story with you. Do you by chance see the movie Barbie, the new Barbie movie? So I'm wondering if you can relate. So I went and saw with my wife and At the end of the movie course we're talking about what we thought and she told me that she actually cried three times during the movie and just as an example of the gender bias and awareness or lack of awareness Kind of throw myself under the bus here but it just really made me think about what I'm seeing, what I'm not wearing my biases I go why, like what do you mean? You cried three times. It was like a funny movie. And she goes you just don't know, like you of course you don't see it as a white male you know, kind of seeing what Barbie's having to go through just for equality and equity, like you're talking about. I I couldn't even Pinpoint the times in the movie where I'm like, oh, like, oh, my god, that's like a clear male, female bias going on here.

0:16:10 - Speaker 1 And I think that's like the key to a lot of this is really having, first of all, awareness of your biases. And I really want to be open and like biases are not Not something you can avoid. Like I'm in a mixed race relationship, so my partner's black and so I had biases and he has biases and it's understanding. Oh, we have biases. And because if you don't understand that you have a bias and you can't be willing to acknowledge your biases and how they might be be harmful, then you can't actually overcome them. And I think that's like the biggest thing. And if I just ground that in a neutral conversation, right, as if you have a business and you are, you don't know that you have a Cost of product problem, you will never fix that cost of product, right? That cost of product could be. It's not actually your sales, that problem is the cost of your product, because it's like 90, right? If you don't look at that data and that data be on paper and completely neutral, you can't argue against the numbers, right? Then if you can't, if you can't be first of all willing to look at the black and white of it and look at the what is the data showing us and then Acknowledge your part in that and perhaps go, okay, like I did the best that I could in this period and now I get to do even better by becoming aware. I think that's where we get into a real challenge and a real problem with not moving, you know, communities forwards when we're too scared to admit that maybe we have done things in the past or said things in the past or believed things in the past that now we understand a fresh perspective, we've realized that they are not. They are not correct, and so I think that, for me, is one of the biggest things. I just want to open up the conversation. Like I have been blessed to work with such amazing men and I honestly I am definitely, definitely not here saying like, oh my goodness, men have stopped me getting anywhere. No, they haven't. They've actually really helped me on my way and there's such a huge place for that.

I think more it's about okay, amazing, and we are still having some of these challenges about where capital is spent, or that only 2% of women's business get to seven figures. Like, why is that? Like what is happening there? That means that is the case. Is it that we're not communicating the change that needs to happen enough. Is it that we have work-life balance issues where we have default parenting at these pieces, and does that mean you know, how do we feel about paternity pay? Or how do we feel about you know x, y and z? And until we start having those conversations really openly, it becomes difficult to create change. And to me it's really important to you know, not create a space that's like, oh my God, you did something wrong, because then it's very hard to learn when people are on the defense.

I'd much rather it be like oh, wow, like totally did not realize that perspective and now I get to change that and see where I can improve on that. But I think it's really important. Just like you took knowledge, oh, like I had these biases, like, oh, my own biases about other stuff too, like I'm not sat here, you know, innocent, and being like, oh, you know, my, I don't have any biases. We all do, and that's the biggest thing for everyone to acknowledge is that we all have biases. And how can we communicate that? And, from a business setting, understand the biases, understanding how we communicate better and then creating goals that work.

You know, if you are, let's say, in a business and you're like, okay, how can I? Or you are in a community and you might be like, how can I help this? You know, what are my goals here? Where am I spending my capital? Like I, for me, felt like I wanted to create a change for women's businesses, to do better, to have more women's businesses get to 2% Well, there's to some figures, right? So there's a number of ways I can look at that I can think about.

Okay, where am I an investor? Right? So I invested in a company called SoGal which has which favors actually the only investor in women founders and favors people of color and the BIPOC community, so the sorry, the LBGTQ Plus community, right. And so I wanted to make sure that I was support nuts kind of, to put my money where my mouth is, like money speaks. And so I think, well, your intention of why you spend it is really important. And then, like, why are you sharp? Like, okay, do I support women-founded businesses as a woman, am I buying my makeup from big brands that like, let's say, l'oreal own, or am I buying it from, like, okay, my friend has a company called Live Tinted Deeper Cut. Like, let me go support that, because if I spend money with her she can do, you know, she can be part of that change as well. So just being more intentional about where we spend our money, I think is also a big step. When you're acknowledging this, Money always talks right.

0:21:10 - Speaker 2 Yeah, money always talks, for sure. And yeah, by spending it or not spending it, where we're saying something, we're supporting someone or something or not. I love what you're talking about there. I think it's a greater through line is by not addressing problems does not mean they don't exist. It just means one or two things. I think we're either choosing to ignore it in hope that it goes away on its own, or we're just not pausing enough or for long enough to actually look at, like you said, look at the data, to look at the data in business, or just reflect on our life of. Okay, this could be something that I'm overlooking, this could be something that I'm assuming in life and business. It doesn't mean that a problem's not there just because we don't think it exists.

0:21:54 - Speaker 1 Exactly, and I think most people listen to this. Entrepreneurs and I do see one trend with entrepreneurs is we're all learners, we're all like problem solvers and we're all like, okay, well, how can we do better? Like not, this stat is okay, but let's make it better. And I think you know, I personally believe that entrepreneurs have the most power to create change, because most entrepreneurs are not scared of change. Most entrepreneurs are willing to challenge the status quo because, guess what? That's how we open up new markets, that's how we create money, that's how we, you know, evolve and change.

And so I think, if we can start this really an entrepreneurship community is about having this intention. You know, it's much easier for me to have a conversation with you, chase, but okay, well, where are you investing? Where are you spending your money? Versus, let's say, some family members back home who don't really understand how, you know, actually spending some dollars with someone actually create any change whatsoever? They're not in this. So I think entrepreneurship and the community of entrepreneurship really gets to that and create the change that we wanna see.

0:23:01 - Speaker 2 Yes, so well said, so well said, kind of keeping this female focus biz part alive. Do you think women are currently holding other women back? If so, how and why? Like I don't want you to succeed if I'm not succeeding, or maybe not an abundance mentality.

0:23:21 - Speaker 1 Can I ask you a question?

0:23:22 - Speaker 2 Shoot.

0:23:23 - Speaker 1 Have you ever asked a man that?

0:23:26 - Speaker 2 Have I ever asked a man or men holding other men back?

0:23:29 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm just curious, probably not, and maybe I'm coming.

0:23:35 - Speaker 2 A recent conversation with Adam Lane Smith yeah, Maybe, though I can't say for sure.

0:23:41 - Speaker 1 So I think it's the same thing, like I think it applies to personalities, I don't think it's a gender.

0:23:47 - Speaker 2 Is that an example of maybe an unaddressed bias on my end?

0:23:50 - Speaker 1 Maybe potentially, but like I think it's just that. It's like I just think it can happen in anything. I don't think that's a gender piece. Like I don't think women I have just I know that I've been met with the most supportive women who only wanna see other women rise and just like I'm sure you might say that about guys and then you might get to other people in the chair I'm like, oh, men have always thrown my way, they're always jealous about me. You got one other woman, like women hold me back.

0:24:20 - Speaker 2 So I really just think that's like more of a personal you know experience and perhaps going back to, like we were saying earlier you're only looking at, you're only seeing problems or you're only seeing solutions.

0:24:33 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. So and I think that's, you know, the power of what we get to decide for ourselves. There's always going to be like come on, like there's always gonna be someone who doesn't want you to succeed along the way, like there's gonna be people who would chant for a start like a narcissist or they're jealous, or X, y and Z. But that's not gender typical, that's just like personality typical. People like in your life don't want you to do well sometimes and that sounds harsh, but it is the reality and I'm sure every single one of us have experienced people in our lives like that. So I think it's a women holding women back. I think it's also the question I wonder for you it comes from, like that corp.

You think about the age old corporate where it was like, okay, you know, we're on a board, there's one seat available for a woman, like there's nine that have already got men at them, there's one seat available for a woman. And there I think, if you asked a corporate woman, there may be a different experience than I've had. I come from an entrepreneur, I've always been an entrepreneur, so I come from a very different background. But I have heard more conversations in that corporate world and now you know, as we've seen the data show well, hang on a minute when you have women on boards, when you have women co-founders, those businesses tend to do exponentially better than just full male boards. Then actually, now that seat might go to two seats, so I go to three seats, but they're really it's not 50-50 yet, and so there might be narratives or situations that have arisen there, but I'm sure there's still arisen. Still, even though there's nine seats for men, there's still probably 18 men fighting for those seats. So it's kind of like potato, potato, potato.

0:26:14 - Speaker 2 What do you think is the unique value, the secret sauce, the energy, maybe even that comes with filling those seats with more women in the boardrooms of men.

0:26:31 - Speaker 1 Perspective, I think with everything, that as a business, if you are unable to have empathy for other people's situations and circumstances, you cannot create the right products, you cannot create the marketing, you cannot speak to the pain points. So you know, just like that. You know example earlier on. You know I just period sort of example, but it could be anything. But let's see if it's selling cars, if you've got all men sat on a board where that company sells cars, right, are they gonna come up with the pain points of a woman where it's like I feel intimidated walking into the to buy a car, like I feel stupid asking these questions, like I don't know what I'm supposed to negotiate or not negotiate.

0:27:20 - Speaker 2 Like I'm not gonna be taking advantage of.

0:27:21 - Speaker 1 Yeah, like I remember buying my first car when they moved to the US and I was just so intimidated walking in and just like, and they those? If you just have a certain set of perspectives, then you're only gonna create, you know, customers from one set of market, cause are there only people? If we think about what it takes to someone to buy, right, you have to know their pain points, you have to know their limiting beliefs and as you take them through our sales process you have to get them to have gaining beliefs that are gonna support their purchase. And you cannot do that, or you can only do that for one set of customers, if you only have people on that board who are that customer, absolutely. So it takes. It takes diversity and different perspectives and different conversations to really help a business thrive.

I also think there's been my understanding is there's also been research done.

I don't wanna speak too much to this cause I cannot remember it like line by line but about women and their risk tolerance and what that looks like and how that can balance sometimes and how that can be Like. Generally a woman tends to be a little bit this is very stereotypical but tends to be a little bit less risk adverse in some of those conversations the men and sometimes that actually really helps balance the company cause. Then they have both perspectives. So I think there's all these different parts of it, but to me it's not really about oh, we should have more women on a board. The conversation is we should have a different variety of people on the board with different skillsets, and we should invite different varieties of people to conversations. And this is one thing that really scares me about social media now is we have algorithms that serve us more of the things that we want to see. So as a society we are losing being able to go to a conversation and not necessarily agree with that person, and that'd be okay.

0:29:15 - Speaker 2 We're losing the random potential.

0:29:17 - Speaker 1 Yeah or that. Oh, hang on a minute, they see something different to me. Oh, let me listen, let me learn. Oh, actually, maybe I've got that wrong. Oh, okay, cool. Well, hang on a minute. No, they, maybe they were wrong and I've educated them on that. And I think it's just really scary that we're wanting to see more people agree with us continuously and now, all of a sudden, different perspectives, different ideas have become a bad thing, I think because of the full extremism that we're having right now in politics too. But I think there's a place in the middle where actually bringing different ideas to the table and having conversations and figuring out what's best is always gonna be a good thing.

0:30:03 - Speaker 2 I've brought this up, I think once or twice before on the show. This reminds me. Have you seen the movie World War Z?

0:30:09 - Speaker 1 Oh.

0:30:09 - Speaker 2 Kind of a older-ish Brad Pitt zombie apocalypse movie.

0:30:13 - Speaker 1 Oh yeah, no, that's not for me, Okay all right.

0:30:15 - Speaker 2 There's this really unique part in the movie where there's this part of this world I believe it's Jerusalem, somewhere over the, I think, middle East and people hear that there's this area where no one's affected or infected, I should say, and they go there to figure out why. And what they did was this organization, the government has this longstanding rule that I think it was 11, I think 12 people on this board that they decide everything for the country. And if they ever reached a point on any decision where it was unanimous, every L12 people said yes or no. It was a rule one person was always allocated to do the opposite. So it was what if we're all so in alignment and we agree to do something? But what if we're all wrong? So what they did was this one guy who thought, okay, we're gonna do the opposite, even though he agreed. He created this kind of like sanctuary wall facility and luckily it worked out because everybody was safe inside, even though he agreed to do something else. It was a policy to think differently and to act differently.

0:31:16 - Speaker 1 And I think that's what, and that's why I said right at the beginning and that's where the power of entrepreneurship is because that's what we do on the daily basis.

We're like, okay, so the sales page is converting at this, but could we do better? What else? What other ideas have we got? What else could we do to change this? Or hang on a minute, let's see if this product is going to. Let's give ourselves this amount of test it and let's see if that actually helps us create more product or adds in another revenue stream to what we're creating. And so I like that perspective of, like the ability to always be open to challenge and change, and for good or bad, but either way that we know, and then we can deviate accordingly.

0:31:59 - Speaker 2 How do you challenge your own business, your own life, your own systems of this is working. But what if we did this? Do you have like a rule? Do you have like, is it a timeline or is it just a team? How do you kind of go about those challenges?

0:32:13 - Speaker 1 Well, it's really funny because I'm very much like science-based. I always said, like this was take, you guys don't have this here, but we have a level. So, like 16 to 18, we do these, you. You pick four core subjects and I picked two arts and two sciences.

0:32:31 - Speaker 2 And is this in England? No, this is school, just regular school.

0:32:34 - Speaker 1 Yeah, you don't go to university or college until, like, you're 18, okay, and so I picked two arts and two sciences, and I would say that's exactly how my brain works. I love the creative creativity, but then I always like to anchor in data, so I will. I think my process is to try anything once Within a data limit, so I was called I always call it let's map out the playground. We can go anywhere in this playground. I love that, but what about limits?

Yeah and so First of all we map that out. Then we have that creative process. Let's say we're launching a product Like okay, what do we actually want to achieve from it? What is the pain point that we're trying to overcome? What is the you know messaging, etc. What is the price point? What's the profit? All these pieces. Now we get to play with it and so we have this period of time to play. We can risk this much money. If it doesn't work, we pull it. If it works great, will double down on it.

But we're always anchoring back in to the data, and I see it a little bit like the conversation between masculine and feminine energy. You know we all have masculine family energy within us, and masculine is like the container and the feminine is the creativity Inside that container. So I see it that way. I think the best businesses are, you know, half driven by data and half driven by gut and creativity. Like you have to have both, because otherwise, if you're too data, you never explore, you never go outside the box, you play it too safe and if you're too creative, you can't actually go back and look at things and go hang on a minute. Those three ideas sucked, but this one is smashing it. So what if we double down our whole business onto this one product? We could probably scale this really, really far, and I was actually watching. I don't know if you've read Blitzkilling.

0:34:19 - Speaker 2 No, not familiar.

0:34:21 - Speaker 1 So Blitzkilling as a book, I think like five or six years old, and it was based on Read, who founded LinkedIn, and it spoke about, basically if you launch a product that you're proud of, you launch it too late, mmm, and the whole concept being that you can't. You can't think so much that you're gonna know everything that the way that the market demands, and so you have to launch something and then listen to the market, which basically means looking at that data. So you have to first follow a gut instinct and a creative instinct around creating this, be ready to face criticism too.

0:34:58 - Speaker 2 Probably, yeah, exactly. Very painful for entrepreneurs.

0:35:01 - Speaker 1 Definitely, and so then. So you have to launch this product in that creative zone. It not really being polished, it not being like hang on, I'm going on hunches, I'm seeing this in market. I think this will work. Launch it and then resort back to the data. Be like hang on a minute, users are using it. And this way let's tweak it. Like, if you think about how Instagram started, that's exactly what they did, though I thought people gonna use it in one way. It wasn't that way. Or even Airbnb. They had to tweak. They were like hang on a minute, we thought people would care about this. No, actually it's the professional photos in this bit. That's really helping it die.

0:35:31 - Speaker 2 I know it's where an accident.

0:35:32 - Speaker 1 Yeah, the guy who invented was trying to make something entirely different some other paper product exactly so if you don't look at the data aspect of you, don't have part and part, like I think that's where the problems break down. So for me, that's what I always come to like I always have spreadsheets in my business but I don't look at them every single day, like I'll go periods or I don't look at them because I know we just need to follow our gut and we need to. Let's tweak this like we think this is gonna work, we think this might be it, let's test it. Oh yeah, that is or that isn't, because the data is telling us. I think if you're not looking at the data and your business and collecting that a general, you know, in a uniform, in a consistent manner, you're doing something really wrong and like that should be correct, absolutely, it's corrected now. But outside of that, you also don't want every single decision to be made on data, because I think it slows you down and I also think that you, you like, stump your creativity.

0:36:30 - Speaker 2 One more question and kind of this female entrepreneurship area of the conversation when right now we're summer 2023, as we're talking here, where right now Do you see a niche, a niche Audience, offer, product service or unique opportunity to female entrepreneurs right now that you would really advise them to Look into, to double down on, or just you personally think it has a lot of potential?

0:36:57 - Speaker 1 Oh gosh, so many. There's actually so many right now. I think the things are really changing and moving. This is what I would say to anybody, right? So I think the number one to ask, the number one question to ask yourself first, is Actually, like, what do you want to achieve? I think really, if you have, you have to find if you had a Ikei guy.

0:37:20 - Speaker 2 Yes, that concept around like what a?

0:37:22 - Speaker 1 what do I love doing, what am I good at, what can I get paid for? And like where is growing in the market? Right? So if you looked at those four things, I actually think there's always opportunity, but the hat it has to be in the middle of that, where those four things overlap. So I think my advice to anyone who is thinking about this is like what's the next thing that's gonna blow up? What is the you know progress here? It doesn't really matter. Like AI is literally, you know, taking the world by storm. Am I gonna start an AI company? No, because I don't give a shit about that. For me personally, I'm not passionate about it. Like that's not what's gonna lie.

0:38:00 - Speaker 2 But you can recognize it as a thing and potential. But it's just you also gonna recognize more about you, which I think is even more exactly so I combined.

0:38:08 - Speaker 1 This is where the arts and sciences, so I do the Ikei guy and Look at those aspects. Then what I do is go to things like trend litics or the trend hunter and I will go and look into Reports that are collected Across and you'll learn this one we should. I don't like answering questions that I've not done research on, in the sense of like I am not the best, but don't listen to me, I'm like what's gonna be like I'm just like one girl sat in LA like what do I know about?

heart the rest of the world, right. So I'm like go, I go hunt these things out, like I literally was on trend hunter early on today. Like, okay, what is what are the changes? Like okay, like this is what's happening in food and beverages or this is what's happening in software shitting, so we're heading into a recession right now. What companies do well? Like, okay, marketing agencies tend to do well, but these types of companies don't do well. Like you know All these different aspects.

Like I always suggest going and looking the data and then marry it with your side. I'm what are you passionate about? What are you good at? What are you positioned to do? Like, what is your company? If you have a company already, what is it in the best position to do? And I do believe if your company is like charging ahead and you found all those things and you're really happy with growth, amazing, keep going on that trajectory, because you don't want to be steered off. It's better to have blinkers at point when you've started hitting that growth curve. Like, go, go, go, ride it out. But if you don't, you're like we, my company, is that down on last year or stagnated the last three years. Then going through this process around. Okay, what is this company good at? Like what is, and it could go for you, but it can also go for the company that you're building because, assuming by this point you're passionate about your company Like, really start cross-referencing those things with what's happening in trends, what's happening in.

You know where the economy is going, you know it's in a huge boom in the creator industry. We've seen a huge boom and, like I say, like AI aspects and community aspects. Like you asked me one thing I would say like a trend that I've seen, particularly as we used to do a lot of B2B business. So let's say, you know Joe down the road has a Tool shop right or sells tools online. He would have traditionally done that via Facebook ads or Instagram ads. Right now, those are much more expensive to choir. So what you might want to be seeing is B2C, which isn't necessarily consumers all the time. It's actually business to community. You want to penetrate. If you have a product-based business, I really think you should be thinking about the power of communities and penetrating other people's communities who already have them built.

I think we went through this craze of everyone thinking that they need to be a content creator and this craze around thinking, hang on a minute, I'm only good in business if I know how to create content.

No, that's BS. If you're not good at creating content, don't create content, but guess what? You're gonna know how to work with content creators. You got to work out how to get you know max over there to recommend Joe's tools so that Joe doesn't need to worry about building he's in a community but now he's getting exactly so if you're, you know that is not necessarily a niche. But if I think about Generally marketing strategy and one thing that I'm seeing is like really something for lots of people to think about, is how you can Penetrate other people's communities and not always, always feel like and actually spend ad revenue on emails and ad revenue on, you know, affiliates and ad revenue on that aspect, versus always going into Facebook or Instagram where traditionally, over the last year and a half, two years you know, the cost for acquiring customers dramatically increased guys, I want you to go back like rewind, listen to that again.

0:41:41 - Speaker 2 That was just like a mini masterclass, that was so good. And again it's things that I'm nodding my head and like being so reminded of, like oh yes, yes, yes, like we know these to be true. So why are more people not doing this stuff? It's like it's powerful for a reason.

0:41:56 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it gets overwhelming.

I think you know one thing other thing I would say too, just to add that point, is, if you're asking me right at the beginning, like, what do I say as niches or industries, sometimes, again, just after everything I've said, like, okay, like, think about what you're passionate about. See what's we get, marrying with data, marry that up. Then think about how you can get that in front of communities. The other thing I would say is don't try and spread your energy too far, like I think what we've also been in this era with lots of we hit. We went from being able to Google something if we needed to find the answer.

Let's say 2018, right, 2017, we were googling, we're like finding out, maybe we're in the odd book. Right Then, as the shift as we got into the crate economy from between 2018 to now, now Everyone is a crater, everyone knows best, everyone's trying to sell me something, everyone's maybe teaching the next best thing or a course or whatever that is, and now I'm like we should. I do emails, should I do SEO, should I do ads? But I should be doing all of these things, and what happens is a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck in this procrastination loop or they end up trying to do all these things, but the facts are, you don't have enough hours in the day for you and your team to do all the things.

0:43:12 - Speaker 2 You're lucky if you half-ass all of them.

0:43:13 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and half-ass is not gonna get you. There's a great illustration by Greg McEwen here at the book essentialism. And if you pitch like a Sun and like all the rays coming out, if you like, try and do all the things, you'll probably get like an inch down on each ray right. Versus I haven't explained this without an image Versus, if you have that Sun and it's like a lightning bolt, that energy goes into one direction. You are gonna get like 10 times, 20 times as far, which is gonna help you create more customers, is gonna help you add on your more revenue. So, versus trying to do all the things badly, try and do one maximum, two things really well. Double down on that, go as far as you can with it. Get that plane up in the sky, get the energy, get it on cruise control, then start on your next plane like the most energy that it takes to get anything off the ground. It's like if you think about playing, takes the most energy to get it and take off right, it gets cruise control.

0:44:09 - Speaker 2 They burns what like 80% of their fuel just to get out of the atmosphere, just to like, get off the ground but most probably most often, entrepreneurs are.

0:44:21 - Speaker 1 You've ever done any a gram?

0:44:23 - Speaker 2 Long time ago. Yeah, I think I'm a 7 the night, okay, I think this is hit my literally.

0:44:27 - Speaker 1 There's like normally Entrepreneurs. So, guys, if you don't know that, any a gram is like this. The nine numbers on like how you show up, and there's like a peacemaker. I Can't remember them all, but the three ones that are most common to be entrepreneurs are an achiever, which is number three, so they are incentivized by hitting goals. The Seven, which is the enthusiast Okay, so you want to like get in the weeds of everything. It's like oh my god, there's a new project. Let me get into this right.

Yeah challenger number eight, like how dare this be true? I'm gonna prove everyone wrong. And so the nature of entrepreneurs is that we like to either go after goals or to face challenges, or we just generally like being enthusiastic about stuff.

But the dark side of that is we get distracted easily and so we get bored easily and so the biggest killer to being a good entrepreneur Isn't actually not trying new things, it's getting bored and losing interest in the things that are actually working, not going. I've been doing this business for five years now. I'm kind of bored, I want to start a new business and or hang on a minute like we've been doing this for a little while. I'm not really seeing traction. But actually you were just that tipping point of when it's gonna start moving and it's like you want to just be really mindful around them the amazing traits that we all have being entrepreneurs. But also what are our dark sides like? Our dark sides are shiny object syndrome quite often, or?

0:45:55 - Speaker 2 losing interest or any shadow work, I love it.

0:46:00 - Speaker 1 Gotta be aware of it.

0:46:01 - Speaker 2 You and I have something in common I believe I was listening to an interview with you and Danette May, actually and I'm also I'm also a manifesting generator. Oh, cool design, so it speaks. These are really cool tests for everybody to run through, I think, but especially if you're a small business owner, entrepreneur, or even just if you think you have an ounce of creativity and a side hustler in you, it can really shine a light on Validation, for this is kind of how I naturally feel, but also maybe an area to, like you know, double down here, pause over here, yeah it's pretty cool.

0:46:32 - Speaker 1 I love doing personality tests and and doing it on people I work with, because I think it allows you to know more about Yourself. Oh yeah and the more you know, okay, like this is how I behave in these sense and like situations, the more you can overcome Like the darker side to those things you know the love languages.

0:46:52 - Speaker 2 Having anybody and everybody in your team run through the five love languages Just it helps you interact so much better, more efficiently. It all comes down to that, I think. Whether you're a customer or a client or whatever, understanding how you need to give and receive love, you can translate that into the transaction and also I'm like I don't know how I remember statistics like a, just they just stay in my brain.

0:47:12 - Speaker 1 So a happy employee is 40% more productive than unhappy employee, at least. So if you think about love language aspect, it's not about you know anything like we wear, it's about look, people want to feel happy with where they work with. They want to feel inspired, they want to feel like they are working towards something. And if you can't reward that, if you can't reward them in the way that they receive it, like just because you think you saying oh yeah, you did a great job, is you've rewarded them, if they don't receive that so I'm not part of their love languages and they're they're actually love languages Gift then you might have to send them flowers for them to really go, oh yeah, like I'm really recognized at work and I feel really valued at work. So it's just, you know, self-awareness, like we spoke about at the beginning, and then awareness of the people around you, like you know, it's really important.

One of my partners, like his, is like quality time. I that's like low on mine. I don't need your time, I just need you to words of affirmation and acts of service. That's what I need.

0:48:17 - Speaker 2 There's nothing wrong with that. That's like the bitter pill to swallow here when we're talking about this stuff and I'm laughing because my wife and I went through this years ago, even before we got engaged, and it really solved a lot of problems. Not even that, it showed us when we were making problems Unnecessarily and it really just came like in business and in life, just better communication, not in just what you say, but how you say it, when you say it. The delivery, the environment, the surrounding, especially in any kind of transaction, a gift and at a boy, a Quality time, love, touch all that stuff. It matters, but you need to know the person, you need to know the delivery method and Listen more than you speak.

0:48:58 - Speaker 1 That's my been my biggest learning too. Like sometimes we're all of us. We can get completely the wrong end of the stick or we can be so caught up in what we believe is the answer or what we believe is the narrative, and you know, just like taking this full circle, how we start out this conversation with our biases, recognizing that you know, listen so you can understand your biases, because they happen at home and they happen outside the home, and so when we understand that you might even have biases and work like, okay, well, I'm except, I'm paying you this amount, I expect this. You know this to me is what a good.

For ourselves, to ourselves, percent yeah definitely, but like, if you're hiring someone and you know you're, another way to just keep it super neutral is like you might be paying someone, you know you bring them on to a certain job and Maybe there have been biases that are not in the job description, but you believe, because they are at that level or because they're being paid that amount, you're assuming that they should know or do X, y and Z and that unspoken biases or unspoken tendencies that actually then can break down a working relationship versus being like, hey, well, let's get on the same page, go through job description. But also, you know, what else do we feel is like you doing? How do you feel like you are doing a good job? Like, what do you feel is like you doing a job could succeed in this role? Okay, it's this amazing. Oh, actually, can I add in this this to me is really important that you fulfill on. Okay, great, yeah, I like. Nine times out of seven I'm like oh, yeah, I can do that as well, amazing.

So when we're occasions everything it really is.

0:50:36 - Speaker 2 So we kind of already started hitting on it. But I would love to get into, because I know this is a big part of your world as well.

I'm just gonna call this section, the conversation, the woo okay spirituality, your spiritual health, just Detaching from the grind, detaching from what your mind and your body are telling you that you need to do, should to do, or what we are telling our minds and bodies we need to do in order to be productive, to be successful, and just separating and just letting our soul speak and listening to our heart. What role does spirituality play in your work and life? How much of an influence is it, I should say, you know, in your, in your business side of things?

0:51:14 - Speaker 1 Let me just take it back a second because you I wanna just shout a little bit about where I'm from, from the middle of the UK. We don't talk about emotions there. No one's doing therapy, it's very American, we would say. Who's going to therapy?

0:51:29 - Speaker 2 I know you guys don't see it's American talk, but that's like I think from like the TV things you know.

0:51:35 - Speaker 1 It's like the stuff up a lip, Like you're not speaking about anything. And I also come from you know, a little village.

0:51:42 - Speaker 2 You had more sheep than people, right? Yeah, yeah, like five farms in the village.

0:51:46 - Speaker 1 I can relate.

0:51:48 - Speaker 2 I had more vegetables than I did neighbors in my garden. Yeah, it sounds more useful than the sheep, though, to be honest.

0:51:56 - Speaker 1 So I came from that aspect and I would have said I didn't even know. I didn't even know the word spirituality. And I remember, in 2017, someone I went on. I went on vacation to see my cousin in Dubai. She was living with this girl. They were in their 20s and someone had given her this book the Secret.

0:52:19 - Speaker 2 Ooh, there we go.

0:52:21 - Speaker 1 And she was like oh my God, Danielle, I just got a random check through the door. You have to read this book, the Secret, and actually it wasn't 2017 at all. I'm telling you a lie there. It must have been about 2008, 2009.

0:52:35 - Speaker 2 Because I was like the 17th. It was already on the scene.

0:52:38 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it was like it was early. My days might be slightly off, but I know that I was literally like 20 years old.

0:52:48 - Speaker 2 Okay.

0:52:49 - Speaker 1 And when I first heard about this book and I bought the book, I never read it, obviously, because I did that a lot.

you know, like I hope I buy books and they miraculously go into my head and you know, I just learned that by the being on my bookshelf, and so I stopped my book for years and I think I actually gifted it to my auntie, like I didn't read it at all, like it lost relevance to me.

I was like studying at university, all these things, and again, spirituality was not a conversation.

Then I would say, spirituality really entered my world when I started on my entrepreneurial journey Because I started having more conversations and people listening to books, and I'm going to put all of these down under the same thing, because for me they are, but for other people they're completely separate. But for me, spirituality is about understanding the power of the mind and understanding the power of one's vibration, like how we think, how, like what we emit and therefore what comes into us, and also the power of relinquishing control to some things. That is what spirituality means to me and it literally. I think spirituality also holds the pace. For it to be unlike religion, I felt spirituality can be defined for the individual is my experience with it. Absolutely, I'm with you, yeah, and so for me, that's where my journey really started and I started listening to books and you wouldn't say they're spiritual books, but they started opening up to me this possibility and it's like sequence minds of a millionaire right, which was like two like-.

0:54:22 - Speaker 2 I think most people would not put that in spirituality.

0:54:24 - Speaker 1 No, it's not at all, but it's like that thought process, but it opened up your spirituality.

Of speaking to yourself, like in that book. It was like telling yourself like how, like a millionaire thinks around like abundance and a millionaire is thinking not in scarcity and all these pieces. Or then, like I read another book which was like the Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, Again not a spiritual book, but it was like, hey, you can look at things in these way, you can choose to look at it this way, or you could choose to look at it this way. And so for me, over the years, it's evolved, but it started out as just being positivity. My spirituality started just being like oh, let's look at the positive side of things. I didn't come from that world.

0:55:05 - Speaker 2 I came from a world of like it's so refreshing.

0:55:07 - Speaker 1 You know, like people are against you rich people are bad or, like you know, just not darkness, but just not like not light at the end of the tunnel. It was just like life was going to be hard and I felt like as I enter this personal development space which I would say then kind of led me more into the spirituality and I've understood more of that as that time's gone on, allowed me to really start thinking differently about it and now I allow spirituality to my spirituality, to evolve to support me Like I don't I've realized I don't like being confined to a box, like I don't like being told oh, you have to think this way or this way is the right way, this way is the wrong way. With me it's like how do I create a belief system for myself that works for me, my mission and those who are close to me?

0:55:59 - Speaker 2 Like the true entrepreneur's creed right there. Yeah, put that up on the admission state mode.

0:56:03 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and so that's you know now. And so, if you asked me, what does my spirituality practice look like now? It's more around how I support my mindset and how I stay to keep that glass half full in all those times and understand, like, the power of being positive, like I have literally done. Let's see what I've done. I did Joe Dispensis six day workshop, which literally talks about the physics behind like positivity. I've been to numerous conferences along the way and I've even been to, like Hoffman, which actually talks about you know your different sides to you, and it talks about a spiritual guide and all these aspects.

And so over time, I've evolved it to work for me. Does it mean that I meditate every single day? No, it doesn't. Does it mean that I have mental practices that I do every single day? Yes, it does. Does it mean that when the going gets tough and I feel like I just want to give up, but I'm like, how am I going to get through this, Does it mean that I actually have tools and resources to pull on which I would class as spirituality? Yes, absolutely. So. I think that it's evolves for each and every single individual and that's how I've set it up to work for me.

0:57:25 - Speaker 2 When the going gets tough and you're up against a wall, what do you do?

0:57:31 - Speaker 1 Sometimes cry first. I actually used to have this Like I used to feel so much shame when I would like let out emotion, like I would just be, like this is weak of me, like I would. I got brought up, you got sent to your room to cry, like if you were crying, go to your room, come outside, come downstairs when you're like okay again, and so I had in my head that that was not a good thing and I did some therapy back in 2020. Yeah, 2020. And she was like no, crying is just energy, emotion, emotion, like that's all it is, and so you have to go through that process. So I really allowed myself to like let it out, because I feel like if I can't let it out, I can't actually address the problem.

So, going back to the whole, like I cannot actually address my own problem If I don't acknowledge first of all my problem. So I say normally like a cry or feeling sorry for myself, but like that literally cannot go beyond a day, like you just cannot keep saying in that motion because it's not good for you, and then it goes down to okay, well, what is it that I want to achieve? Like, how do I, if I think about my why, if I think about where I want to go, and relinquish the how, let's like recalibrate into that vision again?

I'm a huge believer in having visions and then being. Once you have a vision, you see opportunity differently. And I don't think that spirituality, I just think that's what happens with your brain.

0:58:55 - Speaker 2 Am I hearing you correctly? Are you saying having a vision or creating our own?

0:58:58 - Speaker 1 vision? No, if you have a vision, you see opportunities and paths to get there more easily.

0:59:04 - Speaker 2 So if you don't have a vision, so not visualizing, but like I had a vision, this idea in my head, kind of thing.

0:59:11 - Speaker 1 No, no visualizing though.

0:59:12 - Speaker 2 Okay, visualizing.

0:59:13 - Speaker 1 So I would say, let's say, for example, going gets. So we were talking about going gets tough, right? So if I'm like, right, taking a let's just take a random business example so I'm like, okay, I need to make a million dollars in the next two months, like I have to do this, like pay was counting on it, all these things, right, I'm gonna make a million dollars in the next two months, my back's up against the wall, I feel stressed about it. I don't know how to do it. Yada, yada, yada. Okay, cool, I'm gonna have a little cry first. First I'm gonna get my emotion down, or I'm gonna, you know whatever I need to do to be like, okay, why am I upset? Then I'm like what is the problem? But where do I wanna go? So what does that million look like? How am I gonna do that? What are the ways that I could possibly do that?

Brainstorming that then what tends to happen is when you have a visualization around like this is where I'm going, it's much easier for the brain to start seeing paths of how to get there. If you don't know that you need to or want to make that million dollars in that next two months, the chances are you're probably not gonna make it unless you already have a system in place for it anyway, right? So science has proven that we are 30% more likely to achieve a goal if we write it down. Even just by writing it down and setting the intention, like I'm doing this, get everyone rowing in the boat. Data shows you're more likely to hit it. So really just kind of going okay, well, what does that look like Then? See, allowing myself to see opportunities to get there.

1:00:34 - Speaker 2 I then start systemizing it. That's what. Yes, I echo that a million percent. That's one of the biggest shifts that I've noticed in doing that. Yeah.

1:00:42 - Speaker 1 Because it just I equate it also if you're setting out in your car, we're in LA now, If we don't decide we want to go to New York, we're probably not gonna end up in New York, we're not gonna get that. Whereas if we decide to go to New York, okay cool, we don't know the route. But guess what? We know that we're on the West Coast and we need to head to the East Coast. So chances are, if we keep heading East, we're gonna get there eventually. Right, Just keep coming back to East.

1:01:08 - Speaker 2 Technically she's not wrong everybody. Well, don't question me on.

1:01:11 - Speaker 1 American geography. But the North and South ratio, of that I'm not quite sure and I think it's just really really grounding and really rooting into some deep principles around. You know this I really believe that things happen for me and not to me. I genuinely believe that everything that happens is not a sack of bag, it's a learning, and that I'm always on the right path. Like I don't feel like I'm ever not on the right path. Like I'm always. I'm always. Whether it's a deviation or not, it doesn't matter. Sometimes if I head South by accident, like I know, I'm always gonna find my way.

1:01:54 - Speaker 2 You're always exactly what you're supposed to be.

1:01:56 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I think spirituality has allowed me to have peace in there, like, oh, I know it's gonna be fine, this is gonna figure itself out. If it doesn't figure itself out, I'll figure it out. You know, I'll give it a little chance to figure it out, If not, I'll get my like a type personality hat back on, and then you know, do it myself.

1:02:12 - Speaker 2 The universe has taken its sweetest time. You know, I'll just step in, we'll do some stuff. Yeah, exactly.

1:02:16 - Speaker 1 But I think you know everyone has and we mentioned Danette earlier. She's one of my close friends and she has a completely different level of spirituality. She'll talk about, you know, downloads and stuff like that. I don't get downloads, I get gut feelings and like I've really also had to start understanding like, hey, what's my gut on this and you know. But for me the beauty of it is that spirituality isn't a box and it's actually like what you get to define what being spiritual means to you. My boyfriend will have a completely different label around what spirituality means for him, and that's fine.

1:02:50 - Speaker 2 I kind of think that's the point right.

1:02:51 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm just like. I think it's about being positive.

1:02:55 - Speaker 2 Speaking of listening to your gut, you are going through some business changes right now and just in getting to know you a little bit more over the last few months, as this has kind of come about and now you know seeing it go public and everything, I know that this is a decision that you absolutely did not take lightly and I know that this is something that you didn't choose it. You acknowledged it.

It was already there, it was you know, this was pulling you as much as it was my words are not your words as much as it was the pull to create it. Yeah, walk us through why you have such clarity in leaving Boss Babe.

1:03:35 - Speaker 1 I really believe so. For those who don't know, boss Babe was founded those two of us, me and Natalie- Right, and so excuse me, I haven't really addressed that.

1:03:45 - Speaker 2 No, no, you're good, I'm here, for I can address that.

1:03:47 - Speaker 1 So, yeah, I found it in 2018 with my business partner at the time, Natalie, and at that time in our lives we had very similar visions. You know, we were both.

1:03:58 - Speaker 2 There's a V word again, everybody.

1:04:00 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and we had visions for our lives of similar and we had visions for the company that's similar. You know we were both married at the time. You know neither of us had kids, et cetera, so we had a lot of you know. When you're talking actually we don't talk about earlier around polarity and different like diversity in a relationship Natalie and I never had that much diversity in our relationship. We were very similar in the sense that we were different people, but we had we're both in the UK, she lived in America, I had moved to America A lot of overlap.

Yeah, a lot of overlap, which made it really easy for us to grow that business very quickly because we saw exactly the same thing. But then fast forward to more like 2020, to 2023, we just had started having different life experiences and things. You know, different visions for the company, different ways that we wanted to have a vision for the company where we felt like it should go, and then also a different vision for you know our personal lives and so for me, we've never been shy and sharing this. Like for me, I really felt like Boss Babe should be a brand for the people, like for the women, and I didn't want it to be a personal brand. And Natalie saw things a little bit differently and that's cool and that's fine. And so I was like you know, and also we'd had to finish bonuses. She went on to have a child, I went on to have a divorce, like you know, various things.

1:05:32 - Speaker 2 Some big life changes there. Yeah, she moved to Texas.

1:05:34 - Speaker 1 I stayed in LA and it just became like you can't have you can't have two different visions to the same company, and so one thing I've always been really really clear on is that change is okay. I think lots of people get really really stuck in this whole thing with, oh my goodness, I can't possibly change something. But I think that's the beauty of life we get to create changes, and I see my life as a book. It's not one long chapter, but it's multiple chapters. Goodness knows, I must be on, like you know. Maybe I'm on chapter how old am I right now? 34. Like, maybe I'm on chapter 34 right now, I don't know. Maybe I'm just on chapter 20 and maybe sometimes years blend into each other. Well, maybe I'm on chapter 64. I don't know. But the point is we have chapters that end Maybe. Hey, we have volumes to books. We have, like you know, a trilogy.

1:06:25 - Speaker 2 A chapter ending is not the end to your story. It's not the end to your book. No, Exactly.

1:06:28 - Speaker 1 But I do think it's really important that we give ourselves permission to see, you know what, like this isn't in the best interest of the company anymore.

Like we always treat it, boss, baby, like our baby, like that was our baby together, and how can we bring up the baby and how can we send the baby on the best way possible. And we just decided, you know what, like it's different. It's time for it to take a different path than one of us just to be at the helm of that. And you know as, fortunate enough, there's like lots of other ideas and lots of other things I've been working on. Like I'm building a community product right now called Member Up with some people I met via Boss Babe. Like there's like lots of other aspects. I'm also really, really passionate about doing more with women entrepreneurs and helping more businesses and having newsletter that I started the 2%, which is because, like I said, only 2% of women's businesses again, some figures like how I could really accomplish that by gaming lots of free marketing advice and these aspects, and so for me I was just like you know what?

This is an amazing journey. The best chapter ever, and it's okay that it now gets so close and it becomes, goes on to its next chapter and I get to go on to my next chapter. So how exciting that is. And you know I always think about Did you have the yellow pages here?

1:07:44 - Speaker 2 The phone book. Yeah right, yeah, yeah.

1:07:46 - Speaker 1 I always think yellow pages is a great example of a business not evolving with the times. You know, absolutely.

1:07:52 - Speaker 2 Do they still make them?

1:07:53 - Speaker 1 No, because no, who needs it?

I mean they transfer to yellow, but I felt like it was like so late in the game. They were trying to keep yellow pages alive for like so so long, and I think that it's just really important to acknowledge that. Times change, you change, and when we look at the Ickei guy, I was like, hey, is this really aligning with our IIMAT right now? Is this really aligning with what I am seeing happening with the market right now, like yada, yada, yada, all these pieces and getting to make that decision with confidence that you get to take all the learnings. The one thing I will say, too, is we didn't share this part, but lots of you guys won't know, but I was actually a chiropractor and then went into online education.

1:08:32 - Speaker 2 Is Dr Daniela right?

1:08:33 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, you know, but you could have said, hey, what does a chiropractor know about building an online company? Right, but there's always transferable skills. There's always like, hang on a minute. I had really really good because I had such huge empathy and I was used to understanding people's pain points Like that really helped me transfer into team. That really helped me transfer into marketing. This I was really. I was managing clinics. That helped me transfer. I was good at P&Ls, like all these different aspects, and so, just for anyone listening, if you're feeling like a change is gonna be right for you, if you're feeling like a change is on the horizon, don't shy away from that. I don't think it's something that should be like oh, my goodness, I might need to change this. I spoke to someone in my mastermind the other day. She came on crying and she was like Danielle, I felt like I've built this business and I don't like it and I'm like that's okay, we'll get to change it.

She's like, oh my God, I think I need to like burn it to the ground. Essentially, I was like no, we just need to tweak some of your products and then we just set up a plan and show like keep growing it this year. Like we catastrophize things so much in our brain sometimes, versus being like you know well, okay, this is the chips, or doubt, how can we like work them into the best hand possible and let's go again, let's roll the dice again. So I just you have so many skills that you get to take with you and it's exciting, I'm gonna tell I probably have some seven and make some, okay, cool.

1:09:57 - Speaker 2 I wanna ask you what comes to mind as maybe the most transferable skill you're taking with you from this previous engagement to whatever you're doing next.

1:10:08 - Speaker 1 I think my biggest I you know what. I have found this so hard to ever acknowledge myself for things I'm good at, Like I just find it so uncomfortable. I'm like, oh my God, I don't wanna seem like I'm bragging, but I've also realized it's really important, because when you tell people what you're good at, you can also tell them what you're not good at, like I'm. Really I should do a dyslexic task because I can hardly spell at all.

They really need to take the test and like there's so many things I'm really not good at, but one of the things I'm really really good at is, I think, my naturally being an empath. I really understand people and so that means I'm a really great leader in building teams.

1:10:46 - Speaker 2 That's a superpower.

1:10:47 - Speaker 1 And I'm really good at marketing because I understand messaging Like I understand what people need to the transformation people need to go through to buy. And I'm not an emotional buyer, I'm a logical buyer. So it also helps me like, oh, hang on a minute, we've not hit all these logical aspects that someone would need to go to. So and now I relate that back to my chiropractic Like I had all those skillsets then. I just didn't know how they transitioned and how to articulate them into, initially, other aspects. So for me those are pieces and that's why the software I'm working on is called member up and that is a community based software, because I really feel like this.

I feel like we got so big with social media that we actually created more distance between people and now people are like where are my core people? Like, where are people that are like me and having similar problems? So, whether it's a community on tools or a community on finances or a community on, like I don't know whatever that is fishing, there's all kinds of communities out there. Like you can build them off the back of everything, because people want to find people who have, like my interests. And then for marketing, I think, as an entrepreneur, the biggest gift you can give yourself is to understand marketing, cause then you always are able to control your revenue, you're always able to contribute, even if you're not great at every single bit of marketing.

It doesn't mean you have to be a wizard social media or wizard ads or a wizard copy, but you have to understand what is good copy, what is the formula that creates a good average? I have to understand my ROAS, I have to understand my CPA. Or hang on a minute Like what is a funnel? What is the best practices in a funnel? You don't need to be able to build the funnel, you don't need to be able to write the funnel, but you have to understand all the skeletons which go into every aspect of marketing. And I think if you can invest time in doing that, it's really, really powerful. And that's why I created my newsletter, because I was like it took me so long to learn all that stuff and there was so much like bad advice there. I was like, oh my God, let me just save you with time. I just put it into a newsletter each week and like what's working, what's not in the marketplace?

1:12:46 - Speaker 2 What a hero. What a hero. Thank you for that. Yeah, knowing what you knowing, or would you knowing that this venture would end? Would you go back five years and still start it anyway?

1:13:00 - Speaker 1 Oh my God, hell, yes, you kidding me. I have one rule in my life and I don't have regrets. I would do not, like there's no point, because if I didn't start that, there's no way I would be here, I would not be living in a. Well, I don't know how I would be living in LA. I don't know how, like I mean, I would have gone onto another path. But no, I love every single good thing that's happened. I love every single bad thing that's happened because it shaped me and it's allowed me to learn.

Like people ask me, like, yeah, would you? I have a new partner now? But like, oh, would you have still got married? Yeah, I would have got married. Like my first husband taught me so many things, like so many lessons, and I would not have gone on to create or do some of the things that I would have done if I hadn't have met him and gone on that journey. So I and I see that in like relationships that you have, or even if they've been toxic, or even if they've been good, there's still learnings, that character building for you. But the biggest thing you can do is like learn from them, like that is the biggest gift that you can have is, if you do feel like you've made any mistakes, what are you not going to do again? And I can hand on my heart to you like one of the mistakes I made in my first marriage was not being a good communicator with him. I didn't tell him I felt like I was being a better wife by not complaining or not saying how I truly felt about something.

And so I buried a lot of my own feelings to keep the peace, because I thought that like you know, arguing it was a bad thing.

And that actually turned out not to be the right thing, because it just meant that I was once I was done. I was done and beyond repair because like it had gone too far for me Do you know what I mean? Like it was I'd swept under the rug for too long, that then I couldn't go back from it, versus if we'd spoken about it. Like you know, I don't think we were the right match either, or anyway. But what I'm trying to say is like I won't make that mistake again. Now, every single morning, darius and I, we have a white board on our fridge and we write our numbers down Like how are you feeling? We have naught to 10. 10 is like on top of the world naught is like feeling terrible.

1:15:11 - Speaker 2 Leave me alone. And, yeah, I need to make sure love.

1:15:14 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and it's like you know, if he has a five on the board and I'm like and A, I know it's my job to hold space for him and to make sure like he's okay that day and say to him hey, like you won't like what you know, is there anything that I can do that helps bring you up from a five? And being open and communicating that and saying like, hey, this actually upsets me when you do this thing. I perceive it in this way. I'm sure you don't mean it in this way, but this is how I receive it and likewise. So, just, I think the biggest thing that I've learned is over communicating. Now, I think for a long time I would always put other people's emotions before mine, but I don't think that has been, you know, hasn't set me up for then longstanding relationships and just being more open when I'm not happy or when I am upset. That's what I've taken through with me in this next relationship.

1:16:06 - Speaker 2 All right, all right, Beautifully said. Thank you for sharing that. Hypothetically speaking, let's say in another five years what your next venture is gonna come time to move on from that. Speak now to five years in the future. Daniel, what are you most hopeful for her walking away from this next experience with?

1:16:26 - Speaker 1 Oh, good question. I don't know if it'll be five years, it might be a decade, let's say. But for me, what's really on my heart is I wanna think about I. Always my goal is to try and leave the world a better place than I found it, and building a business is about creating positive change for me. So the next business I'm building, I really want it to have a really strong philanthropic side to it right from the get-go and build that into it. I didn't do that with Boss Babe, when we would do charity stuff and give away stuff and I think generally the impact of Boss Babe was really strong and we, like mentioned some of the statistics that we changed. But this time I wanted to be a little bit more calculated in doing that from the get-go. Like, what are things I'm passionate about in business?

1:17:17 - Speaker 2 More intentional from the start?

1:17:18 - Speaker 1 Yeah, more intentional, like what are other things that I wanna see a change in society and how can I be part of that change? It's really important for me. And then another aspect is I want to build business. I see I'm gonna think I'm gonna end up building multiple businesses at this point. I have a way I'm gonna be doing it.

1:17:43 - Speaker 2 I'm gonna get turned into reality.

1:17:45 - Speaker 1 Yeah, they're gonna. It's all gonna be under one. There's really a few things going on. I got some things in the works, but really everything that I do is coming back to am I leaving the place better than I found it? And do I feel like this business is actually for like good? Do I think like hang on a minute? And fortunately, up until this point, everything they've done is that way? But to me it's really important to have a moral compass, like matching, not driven by material things, like I don't have fancy watches, fancy jewelry. Like the thing that drives me is like like a nice home is probably my material thing. And then peace, like I really had to.

I was thinking about what business I'm gonna be doing and had these some huge ideas and I'm like, okay, these ones could be amazing, but they'll need to be venture backed. And I'm like, is venture back the life that I want? Does that feel like that will bring me peace?

It's your baby, but still having to kind of report to people or actually report on figures that and then make decisions for the business based on finances versus what I think is best for the business in my heart and my gut and where I think we're going and I'm like that's not actually the life that I want, and so anyone that's listening I think it's really, really important to be understand when you're building businesses, what are sacrifices that you're willing to make. I would rather sacrifice money than my decision making power in those situations Like I'm really clear on that, and when you understand that it becomes a lot easier to decide what those next avenues are. So for now I'm doing member up and my newsletter just free.

1:19:23 - Speaker 2 But I'm just doing it too. We'll have power in the months. We'll have time to share with everybody here. Yeah, share that.

1:19:28 - Speaker 1 And then the other things think oh, that was 2024, you'll start seeing this.

1:19:32 - Speaker 2 All right, all right, all right. I also know this about you and you talked about, you know community being very important for you in terms of for you, but also in the work that you do.

I also know that your community I'll say your tribe of mentors, is very important for you because you know, I see you out there, I see you with the people at your level, you know, supporting other people in your space. I see you being a mentor and teacher to other people and I see you keeping mentees in your life. How do you navigate which type of mentors to keep in your life? How do you know, when this is a connection that you have, that, yes, I can learn from them. Yes, I can teach them. Yes, I need this tribe, kind of like right here at my level, to serve me where I'm at.

1:20:13 - Speaker 1 I think, picking mentors. I always say one thing whenever you're picking mentors mentors are amazing, but don't give your power away to mentors.

1:20:23 - Speaker 2 Oh, I like that yeah.

1:20:24 - Speaker 1 Because and I say this to people in my mastermind here I need to be their mentors. I'm like you know your business better than you, right, I am gonna give you advice on what I say, but don't take that as gospel. Feel free to argue that back to me and like let's have that discussion point around what you're seeing that I'm not seeing X, y and Z. But don't give your power away. Don't think that someone ever knows your business better than you do.

1:20:48 - Speaker 2 Or else just go get a job again and have a boss say yes or no.

1:20:51 - Speaker 1 Right, Exactly, and I think that's the biggest mistake that I see people make. I would also say I would have multiple. Never choose mentors who have not been where you want to go, so they have to have had like a really similar business to you. I think is really important. I should take advice from people who don't. You might be taking the wrong advice.

And then, thirdly this is one I don't think I've spoken about is do they have the same moral compass as you? Do they have the same value system as you? So I just shared, for me, like money is not the be all and end all, like I literally came from, like literally a village, like I've far surpassed any of my financial aspirations that I ever had and I don't want to lose faith in that. I don't want to compromise who I am as a person. I do not want to try. I don't want to do business at the cost of my reputation or my.

My parents didn't bring me up particularly ridder, just, but they taught me to treat people that I'd want to be treated and I don't want to ever compromise that. I don't want to be around people who compromise that and I don't want to be put in positions that compromise that. So make sure you pick mentors who are also aligned with that. They're not may either suggesting that you do things that you're not morally happy with. The end of the day, you have to live with your decisions and you want people around you who are supportive of those things. I think when you start getting mentors that are very, very, very money hungry and all they see is like there's so much more to life, like I want to be happy on this journey. I'm not happy when cause let me tell you now if you say, oh, my God, I'm going to be happy when I sell my business for $10 million, guess what you might say. Business was $10 million and you're like, oh, I'll probably be happy when I sell my next one for $10 million, I'll be happy.

1:22:34 - Speaker 2 when is one of the worst lines we can put into our minds.

1:22:38 - Speaker 1 So, like, remember yourself as a kid, like you remember, like what your aspirations, your dreams were then they probably were not to sell a business for like a hundred million or $10 million. It's like, okay, I want to be happy, I want to have friends, I want to do this. Like sure, none of us want financial worries, that's great, but financial worries and this, like you just have to work out Like what is the happy medium for you.

1:23:01 - Speaker 2 And I think when you do that hey, jay, we just lost the background, please hold.

1:23:15 - Speaker 1 Tell me about what's up there we are, you got your spot?

1:23:19 - Speaker 2 You don't want to lose your upbringing kind of personal integrity.

1:23:24 - Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

1:23:26 - Speaker 2 SpongeBob Shh. This should be a. We'll see if the audience pay attention, we'll put SpongeBob in the background. Just cut two Must be a timeout thing. I think it's a beautiful.

1:23:45 - Speaker 1 Thank you, thank you sir. Okay, yeah, pick up If you. I wanted to say love of integrity. Yeah, I'm not exactly where I got to, though. I was trying so hard to remember. Now I forgot the last one.

1:24:03 - Speaker 2 I was like I said you know, I'll be happy when it's kind of the worst lines we could ever tell ourselves, and I think you were kind of wrapping up. I'll be happy when I sell my company for 10 million.

1:24:12 - Speaker 1 So I think it's like don't lose sight of where you started. And I think sometimes as you kind of make your way up that totem pole it becomes, you know, you forget to look back at how far you've come and be in gratitude for that, and I think that's just really important to acknowledge and to live your life that way. And then I honestly, I know so many people that I'm very fortunate. I know so many people who are extremely wealthy. I know some people who really are not wealthy at all and there really isn't actually that much. The wealthy people are not even the happy people at the time. So I'm not saying that like don't chase it or anything Like sure, like I have my own aspirations and I want to be doing these things, but I am very clear on what I will and will not compromise on and for me. And so when you're looking for a mentor, I think this is something that I hadn't really thought about until. You know, as I've gone on my journey, I've seen like different sides to people.

1:25:09 - Speaker 2 I'm like, oh, I don't, I don't, I like, I like why A little bit more of this, less of that, and you kind of just make it your own.

1:25:14 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm just like, oh, I'm surprised that's, that's what was like, what was actually the root of who they are. So I think it's just being mindful of that and taking advice from people that you feel are really aligned with you. But I think mentors are great and I definitely think it's a shortcut and I think it's cool to move around mentors and get different perspectives and have advisors in your business or however you want to do it, or pay for mentorship or whatever that looks like. But also never, never, give away the power to your business. You know, and I wouldn't mean it as a decision power.

1:25:48 - Speaker 2 All right. So here's our chance for for you to be our direct mentor. I want to bring it home to the final question and you've definitely you invited it. I even mentioned the beginning of the show. Kind of my vetting process for the show, you know, is people that are really, you know, mentors in a way in my life, from a distance, from getting to know them from their books, from social media, from a lot of different ways, but really I'm looking for people that do what they say and have this little way of all. Right, you know what this shit might suck right now, but there's a way through it and I'm gonna figure it out to move forward, to keep moving ever forward. So to kind of bring it home, when you hear those two words, daniel, how do you live a life ever forward? What does that mean to you?

1:26:33 - Speaker 1 Oh, okay, I would say no regrets ever, because that means you're looking back. So I'd say I have no regrets on anything I've ever done, only learning. So you only learn from stuff. And I would say glass half full. Or another way of saying that is always see the positive. I always choose to see there is positivity in this, always Like we're surrounded by so much love and positivity and then actually that's just why I'm here. The one thing we have a rule at home, it's just like lead with love, Like everything you do lead with love.

If someone is behaving in a way you can't understand, lean into love and try and understand from an empathetic way. Or if things aren't going your way, come back to love. Joe just spends and talks about love being the highest vibration possible, and just coming back to that. So I would say those things.

1:27:30 - Speaker 2 Never a right or wrong answer. I appreciate your interpretation. This has been so great. Thank you so much for making time for me, and EverFord Radio audience Can't wait to see what you do next. I know it's going to be amazing and I know that because you're a very heart centered person and you're leaning into a pole. This isn't just another whim, another grasping out of straw. That's just not how you operate and that's not how you keep success and happiness in your life. More importantly, that's not how you help others achieve the same thing. So you can't go wrong.

1:27:59 - Speaker 1 Well, I appreciate you and thank you for having me on here today.

1:28:02 - Speaker 2 My pleasure. Where can they go to connect with you more, to learn more about what you got going on? Of course we'll have everything linked for everybody down on the show notes, but is there like a website, social media?

1:28:11 - Speaker 1 Yeah, and most active on Instagram, so just Danielle Canty, so you find me there. Always drop me DMs. I don't have anyone doing my DMs at all, so it's me so message me and I read every single one of them.

1:28:23 - Speaker 2 Real life, human being on the other side.

1:28:24 - Speaker 1 Exactly. And then I would say my newsletter, which is Danielle dash cantycom forward slash newsletter. You can also get it from my bio on Instagram. That's where I share the 2%, like I saw, like every Tuesday, friday, wednesday, wednesday, wednesday, friday All marketing advice.

1:28:44 - Speaker 2 No fluff, no BS I just give pure content. Amazing, just like my labor of love right now. All right, well, we'll make sure to plug all that. You guys definitely want to connect with Danielle and what she has to offer, um, wealth of information and just good vibes to good vibes.

1:28:55 - Speaker 1 Great thing Likewise, thank you. Thanks for spending this time with me.