Profit With Purpose

Speaker 1: [Music] I do an exercise called Rich life which I think is a really interesting one and a lot of people they don't know what their rich life is and for me my definition of rich life is I try and get my clients to basically talk about everything they want in their perfect life but there has to be no limitations on on what it is that they're doing hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the sheb builted experience with Melanie join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech Innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in thank you for joining me Laura you are a personal and business success mindset coach tell us about what you do at how you help others become the best versions of themselves as people and in business thank you very much for having me on I'm a personal and business mindset coach I work with women I actually call myself uh more of a conscious business coach so I like to help women to start and scale What I Call Conscious businesses so those are the kind of businesses that are not just around to make money although that's obviously fantastic and I'm there for whatever figure the client is looking to gain for them M themselves however it's also trying to create a venture that is conscious in terms of How It's structured what it does how it can give back in some way it's looking at how to set it up to make it work for both my client but also for the environment or for local social calls for example and the other side of kind of conscious business for me as well is asking the questions at the very beginning about why you're setting up the company how best to do it and really getting those foundations in the right place the business failure rate is nearing on 60% in the first few years which is hugely high and for me with all the people that I've spoken to and all the clients I've had in the past a lot of that comes down to the fact that we don't really think enough about what it is that we're trying to start people come up with these brilliant ideas and they go oh great I'll just do that and they see it as a way out of the 9 to5 and they just jump straight into it but they don't really think about what is going to entail how they're going to set it up putting systems and processes in place so you'll get people that go oh I want to start a business and be self-employed so I can have more time with my family and then they'll set up something that requires 100 hours a week and because of a limiting belief they have they're not prepared to relinquish any control so then they don't put any systems in place they're not prepared to bring anybody on board train them up and before you know it they're on family holidays with a laptop by the pool and wondering how they managed to get there CU that wasn't the original plan so it's about being really conscious at the very beginning and asking yourself what's your dream life and how do you want to live it and then let's make the business fit around that if we do more of that we're more likely to find ourselves in the successful 40 to 50% rather than the unsuccessful 60% that's so true because we can find ourselves stuck in a business too that is successful but we feel stuck in it if we don't think it through in the very beginning and you believe conscious business is crucial share with us why for a number of reasons really aside from the obvious one being that this is the way that the world is working right now you're seeing so much more pressure put on businesses by consumers to act differently to disclose their supply chain who they're getting things from how they're treating people those kind of things we as consumers are are actually asking for more Consciousness within the business that we're doing but also I think that there's something in it for the women that are starting the businesses I talk a lot about values and purpose and knowing your why and sometimes that's the flouncy bit at the beginning that people forget to do because they're just so desperate to get started and to register domains and get going but the thing with that is that business is tough and when you get to really difficult stages and things aren't going right or a big client turns around and says actually no I don't want to do it or whatever may happen your going to need something that's bigger than yourself to motivate you to move forward and if your motivation is purely money then it's not going to be enough so you need to know it's okay to be motivated by money and it's okay to want nice things you don't have to run a social business and think that you have to sacrifice it's perfectly acceptable to want seven figures and still do some amazing things with your business but if that's where the motivation stops and it's just I want 7 figures or even high sixes then that's not going to be enough when you realize that you hate what you do or there's no other reason for you to do it so having a conscious business and knowing that it's there to do some amazing things and to help some incredible people it's a really powerful psychological motivator to pick you back up when things are getting tough and to push you forward and again that's another thing that can increase chances of success in that rather than you falling short into the sort of pile of people that say oh I tried I gave it a go but maybe entrepreneurship is not for me and I love how you talk about a conscious business in two ways conscious in the way you started like I love she built it I wake up every day I'm just driven to do it but I've seen a lot of people in businesses where they make a lot of money but they're not thrilled to push yourself to get up every day to make it happen and yeah there are days that aren't great but when you love what you do you're happy 90% of the time and if you're happy 90% of the time then that's a success because there are going to be those challenging times but you're also right when I see a business who's giving back to a cause that I care about or imp passionate about or if it's food and they're health conscious it does make you want to buy from that business more than others yeah there was a study done in 2020 that showed that you're four times more likely to recommend a business that has a really powerful why and a purpose and then you're four and a half times more likely to then introduce that business to a friend and actually start recommending it which is brilliant for the business because of course that's organic marketing and then you are six times more likely to defend that business if it ever gets into public scrutiny so there are scientific and statistical facts that sort of back up this as well aside from just it'll be nice to do something good for people it is actually a really powerful thing to do from a business perspective as well and with social media it's interesting when you say defend because it has to happen at times oh absolutely there's a lot of benefit to social media but one of the downsides is is that everybody has a voice and that's a good thing but also a bad thing it becomes a little difficult sometimes to get through all the trolls and the people that doing things for for not so good reasons and yeah businesses are having to understand that a lot more now yeah and how to figure out how to navigate through it oh absolutely yeah you just have to embrace it as part of the job unfortunately it's just going to come your way at some point so embrace it and deal with it you advise your clients on having a solid set of Foundations before starting a business how do you help clients achieve this when I first bring a client on I almost ask them to set the business side of B aside and I say look we'll get to that at some point but I'm interested more in you as a person and this is again something that I think is missed a lot when people start businesses because they think how this relevant but if you don't know what your personal values are or what I do an exercise called Rich life which I think is a really interesting one and a lot of people they don't know what their rich life is and for me my definition of rich life is I try and get my clients to basically talk about everything they want in their perfect life but there has to be no limitations on on what it is that they're doing so not oh but I can't afford to do that or I'm not in the right time zone for that or whatever the situation might be the idea is that you have to drop every single limitation you can think of and then put everything down in detail and that's actually harder than you think because we think we're doing it but actually we don't realize that there are certain subconscious limitations that we've had for a while so that's part of my job is to challenge and question that I've had clients before for example that say the retirement age here in the UK is about sort of 65 um it's just gone up unfortunately but 6 67 um and they go I would like to retire by 60 and at the time they're in their 30s and I go okay why 60 and actually they don't know and realistically what they're doing is they're saying Society tells me it's 65 67 and I want to do it early and to me 60 is early and I go okay what if I could show you a way that made you retire by 45 40 and they're like oh okay uh yeah absolutely and suddenly it's okay so actually what you want is to retire even earlier than 60 so then we question everything else as well and I go into huge amounts of detail starting people off by how do you wake up in the morning what do you do are you in a bed are you in a hotel suite and are you drinking a cup of coffee or a cup of tea is someone bringing you that cup of coffee what kind of coffee are you going to work you not going to work what kind of car are you driving into work and really trying to build up a visual image of that it goes on and it gets bigger and we go through values as well and it's surprising how many people actually couldn't name their top three values but knowing all of this information is actually allowing you to be able to start your business saying okay this is what I want to achieve and this is where I want to be in two years five years 10 years and my business has to allow that so then we can work backwards and we can say how much does that life cost you for a lot of the people it's actually less than they think which is quite nice because they're thinking oh my goodness I need seven eight figures to be able to live this incred inedible life and actually they probably need about half of what they think they do but even if it is a big number that's fine but at least it gives us a way of saying okay so if I need to earn that amount I need to do this amount and then how much do I need to charge my clients and it allows you to work your way back so that you can make that business work for you it's so great that you work with people on those foundations because with technology today it's hard to slow down we're at such a pace it's hard to so so slow that you really do set those foundations and also it's hard to look at ourselves sometimes you think what do I want and if you don't have that you think oh that requires change when ultimately it would be the best thing for someone to do because they'll end up in the life that they truly want absolutely I think people a lot of the time so busy running around in the rat race and sometimes even the rat race that they've created I find people that that are out of rat races we know it but they are running their own little Rat Race because most often yeah yeah they've decided this is what I need to do and I just need to work harder and actually maybe that's not what you need to do maybe you just need to take breath step back reanalyze and there'll be a smarter way of doing it and that will actually get you to your goal a lot faster but when people are too busy to take that breath and to step back then that's when you get overwork and overwhelm and burn out and ultimately when you look at it is because you're out of alignment with one of your values somewhere you work with clients to achieve a mindset for success and wealth if someone is evaluating a mindset for excellence how would you suggest they start number one thing that I would say is first of all know that it's very personal to you there's a lot of stuff that that goes around and it's you must do this and you must do this and social media is very easy to get sucked into there is so much information out there and there are thousands of different ways to do things and a lot of them contradict so it's very easy to go on social media and hear this is how to solve your mindset issue you just need to do this but then someone else will say okay but actually you need to do the opposite you need to do this and both of them can show successful ways of doing that and it can get quite overwhelming and frustrating a successful mindset ultimately boils down to knowing what you need and being able to shut off the rest and be able to say okay I know that both A and B work but I'm going to go with b and I'm not going to get overwhelmed and distracted by the shiny pennies and try something else that is a really good start to a successful mindset because it's very difficult sometimes to turn off the noise and it's very difficult to not see all those shiny pennies that are being thrown at us left right and Center all the time and you're ultimately not going to get anywhere with your mindset if you're not sticking at something and that you're not contented with the choice that you've made because I think a lot of mindset realistically comes down to calming your mind in this sea of information and work and pressure and overwhelm and you can't have a calm mind if you're constantly thinking about a thousand other ways that you could be doing things and oh I should be meditating no actually this person says that you should be drinking this particular thing when you wake up in the morning oh no but hang on a minute this person says that you shouldn't be meditating because they you should be doing this and it becomes so much that you're actually doing a disservice to your mindset ironically that's so true and recently I've been thinking through mindset and I've started meditating in the morning and at night and in the morning I can only do five minutes and it works for me you're right you have to do what works for you so I do 5 minutes in the morning and I'll do 10 to 30 before I go to sleep it quiets your mind the other day I had something to do where I had to focus I had ordered groceries and then I kept getting notifications some my phone and I thought if I don't put my phone in another room this is never going to get done it's really saying okay I'm putting my phone in the other room and I'm going to focus on this task until it is complete then I can go get my phone and I know if you're a doctor or some professions can't do that but so helpful when you drown out that noise yeah absolutely and compartmentalizing everything and being able to say there are certain sort of times when you can't leave your phone and you know that it has to be there making a very conscious decision to say this is what I'm doing for the next 30 minutes I'm not going to check this because again if you just slip into the subconscious and you slip into oh the my my phone's pinked let's just see who that is and then you see something and then you go oh that's why I didn't send that invoice okay I'll just do that now and before you know what the original task you doing you come back 25 minutes later and you're like oh yeah I was meant to be doing that wasn't I and you end up achieving very little yeah a lot of this boils down to again being very conscious at the end of the day our mind is 95% subconscious and 5% conscious so it is very easy to slip into not really thinking about what it is that you're doing and before you know it looking back and thinking what did I actually achieve I've been busy but I've not really achieved anything making sure that you are aware of things first I say that with a lot of things when you've got limiting beliefs or anything that you're struggling with Point number one is always being aware of it and bringing it into your consciousness and saying okay I know that I do that and I need to stop that and it might take a little bit of time and it might be uncomfortable to begin with and like you say you check your phone a little bit and you go oh I wasn't meant to do that okay and then you maybe you last a little bit longer next time but eventually you start to build up the habit and it starts to become something that do again subconsciously but it takes that time doesn't it yeah and it's so true because I said I was not going to look at my phone I said I'm not going to look and then the notifications kept coming through and I okay how do I not look at it I put it in the other room it is very tempting you work with clients on impostor syndrome how often do you see this topic come up with your clients and how do you work with them to overcome it oh my goodness all the time especially working with women we tend to get a lot of imposter syndrome especially because we work a lot in a male environment a lot of the time and business up until somewhat more recently if you listen to The Lang around it it's all hustle culture it's all quite masculine and so we feel a lot of pressure but we're also still expected to do a lot of the in inverted commas women's duties so a lot of us have children for example and a lot of us still do a lot of the maintaining around the house we feel a lot of pressure to do all these things and then we get imposter syndrome because we feel like we aren't doing things as well as they should do and we ignore all of the good things that come out of it and we don't really acknowledge the amazing things that we've achieved and we also don't acknowledge that sometimes we're comparing apples and oranges so when you compare yourself to other people even if it is and and I'm not trying to create a battle of the sexes here because men do amazing things too but sometimes you can compare yourself to other women and not realize that you are in a completely different situation to that person and just comparing generally doesn't help and I know again it's very easy to do it especially when it's somebody that you admire so greatly or somebody that you feel is on a very Level Playing Field with yourself it's very then easy to look at that person and think oh they've done more than me this month or they've been to more networking events or got more clients or from that post I can tell that they've been on holiday and managed to get x amount of money in why haven't I done that but it might be entirely different and I had a friend who did exactly this and she really struggled with the Imposter syndrome because she was comparing herself to somebody that ultimately had a different life to her and so was able to achieve very different things so that's something to be aware of and acknowledging that it is imposter syndrome rather than just because again as women we're always tempted to say no I'm not hard on myself but I should have just done this or I I'm not as good as that person and these are the reasons why but acknowledging that it is imposter syndrome and coming out with some whether you believe in them or not mantras or affirmations or things that you can tell yourself and you don't necessarily need to stand in front of the mirror in the morning and hail yourself as the queen for the day or anything please do that if that's your thing but at least understanding that your mind doesn't understand the difference between right and wrong so whatever you tell in your mind it accepts as the truth and so if you're telling yourself I can't do this I'm not good enough for that promotion or I can't be an entrepreneur I can't do this I can't earn a million pound sound I can't Etc you can't because your brain is going oh okay and then it makes that true so if you acknowledge that you are saying these things to yourself and acknowledge that your brain is as powerful as you want to make it then you might not believe it from day one if you start saying to yourself I'm going to earn seven figures or I am going to start this business I am going to whatever social cause may be for example it might be I am going to take x amount of CO2 out of the atmosphere I am going to save this many children from starvation whatever the situation you might think here at the very beginning but just keep saying it to yourself and just take a minute to let it sink in and actually believe for just a second that's true and then ask yourself who do I need to be to make that come true what kind of person achieves that goal and then start acting like that person and again it's going to feel really uncomfortable to begin with because it doesn't feel normal it doesn't feel like you and you go yeah but I'm just little old me but the more you tell yourself I am this person and you start showing up as that person there comes a point where you just are that person and you don't have to tell yourself anymore that's what you need to do and it's the little steps day by day that will get you ultimately out of that imposter syndrome and believing in yourself that little bit more step by step it's not a thing that's you snap and your fingers and sudden it's oh I just I've just realized I'm I'm actually brilliant unfortunately we'd love it if that were the case it's more of a day byday thing and taking it one step at a time and keep saying these mantras to yourself and keep telling yourself that you can do this and that you are amazing because ultimately you are and even though you don't believe it from day one there will be a day one day where you wake up and you go no I actually am thank you for that reminder and the mind is such a powerful thing and speaking of social causes your ultimate dream is running your own social Enterprise with the aim of eliminating homelessness in the UK I love that tell us about this yeah this is something I don't know really where it came from for me but I always say to my clients whatever social CA you pick it's got to mean something to you and there's always been something about homelessness my previous career was in property and I sold my property company about a year and a half ago and so I just I love property and I love houses and I love renovating them it just doesn't sit right with me that there are still people in the 2023 For Heaven's Sake and there are people that don't have a home not that they can't afford a fancy home they just simply don't have a home and that doesn't make sense it's a big thing for me to want to deal with that and there are lots of different ways that I'm considering doing it there's I'm setting up my social enter PR as we speak but there are a couple of people that already do this far much far better than than I do at the moment and I love the idea of doing it through a cafe there's one up in Scotland it's just actually expanded and moved down to London they ultimately run a cafe and all the employees within the cafe are ex-homeless people so they've all been taken off the streets they've been given the care and support that they need they've been given training place to stay and a fair wage and and they are helping to grow the cafe and obviously in that it's also spreading the word and telling people about this amazing course that's quite important because the image of homelessness a lot of people either avoid homeless people or they assume that they are alcoholics or they are on drugs and that's not always the case changing that perception of people on the streets and encouraging people to help but not just by checking a quid here or there as a homeless person on the street but actually by encouraging the cafe and by encouraging people to work there and encouraging people to to buy there and then there's other things you can do with that too there are multiple different ways and you can buy two coffees and only take one of them away so then you end up leaving a coffee there for somebody who can't afford one the same can be done for meals in the cafe as well and then opening the cafe up later in the evening for adult education classes and things like that so that people who are on the streets and can't afford places to live maybe it's because they don't have the right training maybe it's because they need counseling maybe it's because they need community and providing that space after the cafe has closed again encourages people to to be supported in a safe environment one that I'm referring to up in Scotland they actually then expanded to actually building temporary homes and they actually created a village of their own and a bit of land ultimately wasn't being used for anything else which allowed them to build some temporary homes and some safe spaces for homeless people and of case it it all came from profit from the cafe so it's a profitable Venture and it still is run as a business it's not a charity but it just does amazing things at the end of the day if you're going to have you're going to have to employ staff in a cafe anyway why not give that job to somebody who ultimately is just not going to be offered a job elsewhere it gives a sense of Pride to be able to go and and have a good day of work and start earning again and I love that abut such a great concept absolutely magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what do you do to make sure that you find and live your joy each day I love that for me one of my top three values is fun for me that's beyond going having a glass of wine at the end of the day or playing with my kids or anything like that for me it's fun has to be part of the job as well and I only work with clients that I really actually love spending time with and that I think fit me and that's obviously a privilege and I know that and I understand that but that's what I I want I want to make sure that I work with people that are on the same sort of level as myself in terms of their values what they want to do that's why I work with conscious businesses the advice that I give and the coaching that I could do would work for anybody but I love to cherry pick and work with the clients that bring me joy ultimately and there is something so much more fulfilling to me to work with people that are ambitious and want to create their dream life and I love hearing about people's dream lives and I love encouraging people to think bigger about that but also somebody that has a even bigger goal and somebody that like I say wants to run a business that that does something amazing and there's just something really inspiring to hear about all the ideas that people come up with and these incredible business bus that are going to take shape and all the amazing things that they're going to do and knowing that everything that I'm doing is not just helping people become richer it's also helping the world to become better um and that in itself is just definition of joy for me thank you for joining us today you have taught us so much and thank you for challenging us to think bigger can you please share with us how and where we can find you yeah absolutely I'm on Instagram Instagram handle is I am Laura PA with a couple of dots in between so I am. Laur I'm also on LinkedIn and then I do have a conscious business community group on Facebook so if you give us a search on Facebook then you can always go into the conscious business community group and yeah you'll find me there so any of the above I'm more than happy to connect I always love meeting new people thank you for joining us today I'd love to hear from you reach out to me at hello sheet.com on our shetit website or at she builted on social thank you to my editor Rich draino who always makes us sound good until next time let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that you crave