Misfit Founders
Misfit Founders
Natasha K Richardson on Rewiring Mindsets and Creating Lasting Change
In this episode, Natasha K Richardson, founder of the TLC Method, explores her journey of resilience and passion for change. Natasha shares how her experiences shaped her approach to helping others rewire their thinking and achieve fulfillment, blending science, spirituality, and strategy.
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Let's start with a quick introduction. Who is Natasha and an elevator? I know that that's a very complex question.
Speaker 2:I was going to say how long have we?
Speaker 1:got Han. And well then, let's just start with an elevator pitch of your business. What do you?
Speaker 2:do Richardson and I am the founder of the TLC method, which is a new education model business and that helps people unplug from society and rewire into a new space and a new reality they choose unplug from society.
Speaker 1:I love that. You know, I've, I've seen, I've when you messaged me the other day to to meet up and so on um, I've searched your name a bit and I came across your um Instagram and I've seen a picture with something that was very familiar to me, which was this um horse carrying um stable staple thing that it's an office.
Speaker 2:Yeah is that kim's yeah thing you know, kim was on my podcast no, I had, he was last week. He was on my podcast last week oh my god and we talked about his unlost co, yeah, unlost yeah and we talked about his in the nature office uh renting and I'm like I need that.
Speaker 1:You know as soon as and this is this is advertising for him as soon as I finished that podcast, I went to Nikki and I said this is a great idea.
Speaker 2:We should do it at least once, once a month you really should and I think, yeah, I mean those spaces are incredible.
Speaker 2:I think if you're, even if you're just working a nine-to-five, you don't have to be a founder, right, but just yeah taking yourself out of the traditional office environment and putting yourself bang in nature, but with also equipped with everything that you could possibly ever need, um, and you know, like you and your studio, kim's, put so much love and attention into that space, um, but, yeah, I use that for my tlc life hacks.
Speaker 2:So, basically, taking somebody out of their environment and they've got a few problems that they want to work on. So, whether that's career, whether that's if you could call it career, or work, whether that's life, anything to do with relationships, there's usually a mixture of all. They're like this is the kind of problems that I'm coming up with right now and this is, and I don't really know where to go. I don't really know, um, how to resolve them, how to break through. So I take them away and I go through my process, which is the TLC method, and Kim came up to me and said this is the perfect space, because he could see what I was doing. He was like you're going to be immersed in nature, and it was, and you can just fold the doors down it's incredible.
Speaker 2:We went on walks where it's really good for integration from what you're learning to process in nature. You know conversations side by side. Steve Jobs always said that he'd always take somebody for a walk and have a conversation. Then, just because of the neurobiology is different. But yeah, so that's kind of where I do them. But I also do them within people's homes, on the beach, um, in my studio as well, in my office, and so just dependent where, where that person wants to be, where they feel more comfortable and at ease. But I'll always entice them to come into nature always that's amazing.
Speaker 1:So so they're one-to-ones. And how? How does it work? Do you, does someone come with a challenge to um, to you and you say okay, so let's have one session um? Or how does it work? What's the structure of it?
Speaker 2:so should I tell you a little bit, because it's the same questions that I would ask you if you came to me, um, and you booked in for a chemistry call with me. Yeah, um, I would propose what program you go on of mine through the tlc method.
Speaker 2:Some people they really need a half day immersion, which is a life hack. Some people need a 12 week to six month program with me. So it's very different. But I'm the person almost like the doctor or the engineer of their life to say put your trust in me. You can bounce back and say something else is more suited to your needs. But this is what I propose and this is why, because of what I've heard and observed.
Speaker 2:So the questions I always ask and this is kind of a little bit of an intro into how I gather the information out of people is what are you seeking, what are you suffering with? And also, what are you most afraid of? So you know, sometimes people will be coming to me and they're very, very, very clear on what they're suffering with, and it might be personal. It might be that I've got chronic anxiety and I don't know how to work through it. It might be that they're completely unfulfilled in their job. It might be that they are feeling lost and they don't know why. Or that they are suffering with I don't know anything depression. I've even had people come to me with right. Or it might be that people have gone to the other side, which is the flip of what you're suffering with right.
Speaker 2:So it's the polar opposite of what you're seeking and one feeds the other, so people might be more aware of what they're seeking and so I can usually see when they send me either an email, a voice note, um, or you know, or they want to pick up the phone and speak to me, I always offer my clients and my proposed my potential client sorry, um the opportunity to create the first initial dialogue with me in a way that feels comfortable for them. So some people are really good at talking, some people are more comfortable writing um. Some people, if they're local or even in London, will say do you know what? Can I meet up with you and have a coffee and I'm like fine, that's great.
Speaker 2:So, or we, and then we jump on a zoom call and that's where they tell me all of these things. Um, lots of people get stuck on what they're most afraid of that you know.
Speaker 1:That's what I wanted to ask, because these questions, unless you do, unless you do soul searching and you spend some time, uh, baking, right, it's it. It's quite daunting to answer them in, maybe in a longer workshop. So how do do they have to answer this up front, or so it's the initial call, right.
Speaker 2:So we'll have a call and, like I said, if it's local, we'll meet up. Um, but this is where I ask them I go. I ask them on reflection when they've booked a chemistry call with me. So this is the prelude to any kind of program, whether it's a tlc life hack, whether it's a clarity call, which I do sometimes between one and three hours, or the program which is kind of my signature. I used to have three programs, I now have one.
Speaker 2:So, um, you know, I will then ask them to relay what they have reflected over when they've got that email on receipt of booking a chemistry call with me, and those questions will be there and then we'll book in the actual call where we discuss it and obviously, talking to me and me hearing and observing and being able to probe kind of more out of them will give me a really beautiful space to really understand the complexities and the depths of actually what's going on as well, even though it's a short amount of time. But this is my superpower. I'm, I know, through the six years of doing this and even before that, I'm able to witness and see somebody and maybe what they're suffering, what they're seeking where they're coming out with words that maybe only scratch the surface right where did, where did that superpower come from?
Speaker 1:how does it?
Speaker 2:don't ask me that I think it's funny.
Speaker 1:I I get this question all the time I must have at least hypothesis, right, like yeah, like, maybe this right. I think it's very hard for us to be kind of like self analyzing on what gives us, because we're talking about superpower, we're not talking about a skill, because a skill is kind of like easier to trace. Oh, I've gotten to this by learning this and this. But when you have that, yeah, that yeah, that ability, that superpower, that talent in something is harder to figure out where it's coming from.
Speaker 2:I think, you know, I have done a lot of reflection and self-inquiry in my life, um, just because of my upbringing, of the way I was raised, um, of what I did have and what I didn't have. And if I look back and if I reflect, I can really feel, you know, I can feel memories and sensations and feelings of when I was six years old. There are really there are two really strong memories that I have. Number one we didn't have much at all. I was raised single-handedly by my mum, never knew my dad and we didn't have much at all. I was raised single-handedly by my mum, never knew my dad and we didn't have much. And so at the school I was at my primary school we used to collect boxes and we used to put stuff into shoe boxes to give out to children in Romania and Eastern Europe at Christmas did you know I'm from Romania yeah, I know oh, that's why.
Speaker 1:No, it's no, it's not okay.
Speaker 2:That's what we did, right okay so we'd put in like gloves, hats, gifts, um. I came from a church of england primary school and it was just that was just the thing that we did every christmas and I remember I really wanted this globe, um, and I wanted this like kind of like shake.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it's what's it called, that shaker globe do you know what I know, and it made a sound and I remember my mum giving it to me and I remember shaking it like a couple of times and putting it in the box and she said, no, no, this is your Christmas present. Like this is all you're gonna get, and I was like no, no, no, I've had my time with it. I now want to want to give that on. That was when I was super young, that was like six, six, seven. I really remember that.
Speaker 2:I also remember when I was a teenager being so frustrated with the way that the world was and seeing news on our little tiny box tv of just like problem after problem after war, after suffering, and I was like why, I don't understand, why can we experience, you know, the peace and knowing that? You know we had a flat and we had a beautiful garden, um, but really materially we didn't have much. But I was so happy because I had unconditional love, definitely from my mum, and and the support that you need as a child, but there was so much that I was witnessing the world that didn't come from that or didn't have that or um, and it was just. It frustrated me and so I think I've always been really interested in how to create positive change. My partner says he's like you're an engineer. Recently I was like, maybe I am. He's like, no, you definitely are, you'd have loved engineering. And I like systems change, right, I like it's just that my focus is on the human, it's humanistic, system change. I like to see, you know the consulence and the convergence of a lot of different things.
Speaker 2:I'm fascinated by looking at science, looking at science, looking at spirituality, looking at strategy, and this is, you know, my method. That's the three pillars of my method. I'm really seeing how they all layer and marry together in order to create more happiness, more freedom, more fulfillment in people's lives. And I think you can look at that and you can apply that in many arenas. And there's, you know, from the years I've been working and doing this, but also just my experiences in life of how I've observed, because my observation didn't change when I started the TLC method. I always had the same observation through the same eyes. My eyes haven't changed. What I've learned has changed, um, but I have been witnessing the world in a very similar way. I've just become wiser and I think through that, my levels of experience and observation, through my own experience and then observing other people within my community and wider community family paradigm as well. Just, my brain is constantly observing and I'm witnessing, maybe, fault lines of suffering, listening to what people are desiring and understanding okay, why can you get there and why can you not? And that is what has really, really, I think, fed the depth of um awareness that people feel when they're with me and work with me, because it isn't like I just you know, we'll probably go on to this, but it isn't that I decided to to literally go. I'm going to create a method and it's going to be this.
Speaker 2:It literally was came to me by me being in a position where I couldn't not work for the people that were asking me Natasha, I have a counselor, I have a therapist.
Speaker 2:I've worked with you in a very natural environment I'll probably tell you about this when I was flying all over the world on work contracts and I was meeting these people in board shorts and whatever, like bikinis, not knowing who the hell they were, and they had had a dinner with me and we'd have a really in-depth conversation for about three hours, four hours, or they'd come to a yoga class with me and one of my yoga classes or they have booked into a one-to-one session with me, and they were in their two-week holiday, really feeling the transformation that I was living, eating and breathing.
Speaker 2:That was the TLC method, because I was my own guinea pig. I I have always been practicing and playing with modalities that create more happiness and fulfillment and purpose and, I'd say, human optimization within my life, and so they were like, if it works for you, I can feel your energy, I can see what you're doing and I've heard your story how the hell do I do that? And I was like, well, this is what I've been doing, I can, I can share it with you, and that's really how the method was born. So I was literally put in places where, like, I'm not going to turn, I'm not, I don't want you to say no.
Speaker 1:Basically, so I want to get to how you got here right um in this seat or well, it's kind of like abstract, but yes, let's, let's call it like that, um.
Speaker 1:but before that, so going back to what you said, which because I'm quite fascinated by by a couple of things, actually one about you saying that you were born. You think you were born with this desire to help and to give right, because that's what it seems, yeah, um, from you know, just like giving away a globe that you actually quite enjoy it, but you you're like, I've had my time with it, someone else needs to enjoy it. And such it's interesting when I hear someone saying I was born with it. To me it kind of signals something. But I just want to figure out if that's the case or not.
Speaker 1:Because why do you think that, rather than saying my family, my parents, like something was instilled in me, the way my family treated me and educated me and helped me grow into this specific individual, and I know that I've got a lot of traits from my parents, but I also know that there's things that I have no idea where they're coming from, because my parents never signaled or instilled any of those traits in me, right, um, do you feel like your um, your parents, helped with that kind of attitude of like you have to give back because honestly parent number one parent, oh sorry, that's okay um because you're talking about, uh, giving away things, gifts and so on, and and um clothes to Romania and other places and so on.
Speaker 1:Um to me, that signal that that's something that helped you with. You know your desire to give back, to help and so on. That could be an example in my eyes and such. But again, I kind of want to hear from you if you're okay with talking about it, yeah, of course you think that your upbringing helped with this, or is it simply? Uh, you know they say a god-giving gift in a sense, yeah, interesting I think.
Speaker 2:Sorry, I'm diving quite no, I love it. This is me. Welcome to my world, and and sorry about that.
Speaker 1:Like you know, I'm used to um parents and so on. I don't know everyone's situation.
Speaker 2:In a sense, it's absolutely fine, um, but I'll be specific in relaying my history clearly. Um, so you know, there's nature versus nurture, right, like we've all heard that before, and I think with the scientific research that's coming out, a lot of it is nurture. But there are innate qualities, like you touched on for yourself, that when you observe maybe your family, your parents if that's what you are, you know, specifically pointing to that don't match or aren't really directly related to their, the way that they brought you up and I'd say I was brought up in a very, very loving household um, my mother always, always, you know, focused on love, as the essence is that's that's the greatest gift. Uh, she actually always used to say time is the greatest gift as well. With somebody I actually challenged that and say presence is the greatest gift, not time.
Speaker 2:Um, but you know, I think from that, so, so young, I really remember being young and I also remember questioning her all the time and you know she'd always answer me, but there was something she couldn't answer and you know, talking about her childhood, she didn't really have these burning feelings that I had and still have of, you know, the she's definitely focused on in, on justice, but just the understanding of why, like, why, if I, why does something exist, when you can see that there is maybe quite an easy solution to people's pain points or problems, maybe within their little micro world, let's say the family, rather than let's say well, let's not talk politically or economically that's a whole nother story, um, maybe for podcast round two.
Speaker 2:But I think there are some innate things that I felt that weren't taught, that, you know, sat back in my room, reflected over, really felt that haven't been taught to me, that have just been the part of my DNA and my character, and we all have very different personalities. We're all different spirits and, in you know, having a human existence, um, you've come into this earthly body, so have I, but we're different to our parents. There are similarities, of course, because we're kind of genetically half of them, but we are very, very different. Everyone is completely unique on this planet and there will never be another you and there will never be another me. But obviously there are humanistic qualities that are similar, but some, I think, are felt and delivered and acted upon through certain people, whether I call them vessels, beings, um, than others, and that, again, is determined on your personality, the way that you've been brought up. But I think a lot of my experience as well, with the clients that I have worked with, and the breadth of clients that I've worked with, when they share their family story or their, you know, their upbringing in their childhood, is that there's always this lineage that goes back where somebody could have felt very different to their family or somebody could have felt very connected to their family. However, they have a certain pursuit or a certain, um, passion or drive that is either executed upon and fed, nourished throughout their life, whether that's personally and professionally, aka that person is fulfilled. Um, I rarely work with the fulfilled, but some of them in more areas of their life than others, but then the people I work with is that these areas weren't nourished, um, and for whatever reason that is.
Speaker 2:For me, I have always nourished those feelings and those desires, and for me it's always been about giving, not giving back, because that's too simple. It's about how can I use and get to know my skills, my assets, my facets, my capabilities, my superpowers, and how can I deliver this in a way that feels good to me but also serves a greater good to either humanity or the planet. For me, that's you know, that's really what drives me is we're here for not a short period of time. Okay, 92 years is a long time. I think that's silly when people say that it's quite a long time. So, you know, we have this ability to apply our energy in a very beautiful way that serves a greater good. That's my mission and that's my deliverance on what feels good, and you can see that that happened without my conscious awareness, right back to when I was tiny. My mom didn't do that, I did it.
Speaker 2:She told me to keep that you know, that was my decision and time and time again I have done that.
Speaker 2:I've, you know, I have seen or observed, you know, my personal life and in my professional life where I can apply myself or be in an arena or an environment or a space where I can lend myself and my capabilities and skills and facets to creating a richer, more nourishing environment, whether that's working one-to-one or whether that's on one of my rewire retreats, or whether that's talking to a fortune 300 business, you know, opening, opening up dialogue and opening up space to be curious and allowing those people to feel and also contemplate, maybe, things that they haven't felt or thought before. Now that could be in receiving a gift that I've given at six, or that could be what I'm saying, that it's changed, it's transformed, so it's evolved. I haven't, I have, but I haven't in the root and the essence of what I know I've wanted to do. It's just evolved through my, through my pathway, through my journey, through my purpose, because I've always listened to what really feeds me and where I feel alive and fulfilled, and that has always been in serving others, always it.
Speaker 1:That was that was going to be my second question, because I'm I'm in, uh, in awe in a sense of of what you're saying, because I don't think I'm there as in I've changed a lot. Yeah, like I see the world through completely different eyes, that I was seeing it 10, 15 years ago. Um, and I I'm. It's really fascinating because you're not the first person, um, that sat in the hot seat and had this vision or this burning desire from a very early stage of their journey, um, and they changed, they amplified, they added, they modified and so on. But that's stuck.
Speaker 1:And for someone that's always had kind of like bouncing from one thing to another and having their the way they see the world, um, shift and alter constantly, um, that's fascinating. And what? Why do you reckon that is? Why do you think people could be so different? Because you know when, when you look at people that speak um about these things and they say you need like this, you know, follow this purpose from the early days until you know the, until the end of your life, in a sense, and pursue it, and so on, I acknowledge that I don't identify with that. In a sense, I feel that I've always had different. I've moved from one. I feel like I lived five lives, so you sound like you have as well why do you reckon that is?
Speaker 2:I think I mean it's going to turn into a one-to-one coaching, which I'm really more happy to do. But, um, you know, what I would say is can you reflect back upon why you made those decisions in your life? Let's say you've been flitting. I heard about five. You said there are some movements. Can you reflect back and really understand what fed my decision making in that moment? You know, what was I, what was I pursuing through making that decision? And that often tells you why you made that decision.
Speaker 2:You know critical thinking, but we make decisions and this is something that I teach the future generations. We make decisions based on a kind of a multitude of things, and it could be somebody's opinion, you know. It could be that you think you're doing the right thing, or that you're good at something, or, um, this is what's going to give me x, y and z. It's usually based often, I find, on a lot of external influences, um, and the importance here is to really check in. And this is where you know I came to yoga at 14. Well, kind of like yoga found me. I also got brought up in a very interesting way where I had kind of like Buddhist modalities. I went to a Church of England school. My grandma was Catholic and I had like a melting pot of like religions and philosophers that I could already see the synergy, not the difference, the synergy between them, and I think you know understanding that and, um, being able to check in with myself. And when I say check in with myself, what what I mean by that is what does, what does something feel like for me? I've been touching on feeling quite a lot, very like, I'm very in touch with my feelings and I have been for a very long time. They haven't really ever been suppressed or oppressed, um, and you know in, yes, but I've noticed that and I think, by feeling into what energetically feels right and pure and true for me and this again is another part of education that we do not get taught, which is our emotional vocabulary and also our emotional toolbox it's like learning a different language when you work with your body.
Speaker 2:When I say something to you, you can probably feel the violation in my voice. If I said something in a really angry way, you would feel that, um, but we learn cognitively. It's the words that represent that feeling sometimes and we're not actually tapping into the feeling itself. If we, if we did that if we did that through positive and beautiful things that happened and we really followed like what really feels really kind of beautiful and elevating and and maybe exciting, but just this really lovely energy in my body, then you'd make these decisions that um, you know, are not just going from a somatic place but, I think, really important to attune with your, you know, your prefrontal cortex, your cognition, your understanding, your intellect, your emotional, your eq and your iq. If we really understood that resonance um, and we worked with it rather than against it.
Speaker 2:So many people work against the feelings. They make a decision because they think it's intellectually right and these are the people I work with and then they feel like shit after they've made those decisions, whether it's immediately or they just pursue it because it all makes sense on paper. Five years down the line they're either burnt out, unfulfilled um, making continually, making bad decisions, because that's the only way they know how, and they then have to train themselves or unlearn, to relearn how to connect with that feeling sense in their body of what feels right and what feels wrong. This is intuition as well and working with your gut, and this is another part that we do not get taught. We only get taught our emotional vocabulary and our emotional spectrum and will our intuition and really living what I call a life of alignment um, not in a soft, placid way, but really making decisions that feel true for you, that feel purposeful for you. We don't get taught that at school and we rarely get taught that at home. Right, we go usually through our lives to, maybe when we're 30, 40, 50, and it's the areas of suffering in our lives which have been the catalyst to throw us into forcibly now living a life through this way, which then we have the opposite experience of like, oh, there is another way of living, but usually it either it comes from catastrophe or something dying, whether that's a business, or whether that's a relationship, or whether that's a part of you, or something happening that triggers that evolution.
Speaker 2:I didn't have a trigger of of that I didn't come into. I've had don't get me wrong suffering in my life, like you know, extreme suffering, maybe some would say, but you know just suffering, human suffering, but I have always been feeding that alignment of nourishment and so maybe my journey through those portals of suffering, coupled with my awareness and being able to check in with myself, has allowed a greater healing journey, but also a greater purpose-led and fed journey as well, which I can hand on my heart, say that I have never regretted a decision that I have made. Um, and I've always been. If something hasn't fulfilled me, I've pivoted. I haven't stayed rooted in something that doesn't serve my happiness and in really my happiness serves when I feel somebody else's happiness. It's like that's that interest, it's that infinite, infinite will of exchange. Um, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Can you give me an example of that, if you can, of course, of of um suffering that you've experienced and how that help you build? Hmm, okay, so, and we'll get back afterwards yeah, yeah the multi life and destinies versus one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah sure, big topic of conversation. So the part that I remember the most and the the experience that was most transformative and impactful and awakening and painful was in a relationship and it was a friendship that turned into a relationship. And before I met this person, I was actually ready to go and explore the world and go and travel. I love traveling, so I was going to go and just kind of work um all over the world. At that point I had kind of a, an off, offline, online agency called anti-social um and I would work with people delivering um offline ways of connection or modalities about businesses, brands, but in online ways, so through social media, marketing, and anyway, I met this person and I didn't know at the time, but they were an addict and a really bad addict. When I say bad I don't want to say bad. They were deeply in their addiction. That's the wrong word to use as in drugs.
Speaker 2:I mean, when you're an addict, you're an addict, right, you can be addicted to robina, or you can be addicted to coke, um, but well, there's a big difference. No, yes, there's a bit of a difference. There's a difference difference.
Speaker 1:No, yes, there's a big difference.
Speaker 2:There's a bit of a difference, there's a difference on the substance, but you're still an addict, you still have the addictive brain. But the. But the substance is more toxic.
Speaker 1:Yes, and how you manifest and so on. I'm not going to go and rob a bank to get a a can of coca-cola, right, or I'm not going to get aggressive, um, and I don't know, the rob the store for coca-cola and so on like drugs, have different yeah, so there were drugs.
Speaker 2:There were drugs, alcohol, um, and also anger.
Speaker 2:That came out as well, um, in a multitude of ways and throughout this journey of being with this person, what was the, the double-edged sword, was that they also opened up to me really deeply in ways that they hadn't with their family, and so I really got to understand the whys of why this person was the way that they were right, so I could understand that.
Speaker 2:You know, back in childhood, you know their father beat them up and that came through the granddad lineage and that came through the masculine lineage, and I could, I heard all of this and I witnessed it, and not witnessed the beating, but witnessed, you know, witnessed this, this clash within that family and within that masculine line, and so, and also you know, the sharing of stories of being thrown out at 16 and x, y and z, and what I ended up doing was I ended up excusing this person for their behavior because I could understand where they had come from. That's the empath and the understanding person in me. It was around a time that you may or may not know, um, but it's called your saturn return, when saturn returns back into your star system of when you were okay when you were born when you were born, the planets are in a certain um constellation.
Speaker 2:Let's say okay constellation and saturn takes up around like 26 to 29 years to come full circle back because it takes that long to travel um in your lifetime. So when saturn saturn represents kind of your path, your purpose, um, your way of being, and people call it about your sat, your saturn return, when it comes back, if there is a big lesson that you need to learn, it kind of teaches you that hard or it shifts you off course. Now I like to be, you know, astrologically informed and cosmically informed, but I won't just fall into anything. I'm, like my own, cynic. So you know I've also working with clients when I'm asking them them, you know what age were you when that happened. There is a pattern that comes up here.
Speaker 2:Anyway, it was around my Saturn return and I was really learning through a lot of pain and a lot of um of me giving, not giving myself too much, but I was serving someone else's needs more than my own right. So if you can hear the story of me, it got to a point where I was being tested and say, okay, what happens when you are romantically involved with someone? You don't have that professional um boundary. I wasn't running the TLC method then, but you don't have that professional um boundary I wasn't running the TLC method then but you don't have that professional boundary. Where you're not, your heart isn't connected with this person. Uh, you may love this person, even a client, but you're not in love with them, and that's an enmeshment and an entanglement which creates a lot of confusion and weird decisions sometimes, and so I really went through like an on-off journey of about two to four years.
Speaker 2:We were living together, I was being thrown out the house, um, and it ended up by this person and I ended up, you know, they had their own business, um, and there was a lot that went in that. I went through that sorry with the way that they treated the staff, but again there was a. You know, this person also decided to go on recovery and start their journey of recovery when they met me and so, and their words were I've met somebody whose life I care more about than my own. So I want to do this, and that journey, you know, is a long journey. It doesn't just happen overnight.
Speaker 2:Recovery and you know, there was a lot of regression. There was a lot of, you know, bounce backs and and falling back into old ways, um, bounce backs and and uh, falling back into old ways. But I think the pinnacle was I could also, I was going back home at that that point. So if I was kicked out or there was a really uh kind of violent energy in a space, I would actually return back to my mum's house. Um, I felt like a nomad. I was very kind of unstable at that time, not in myself but in my foundations.
Speaker 2:I practiced a lot of yoga, um, I remember waking up in the middle of the night and rolling out. I remember specifically this one evening, like rolling out my mat and I could feel like all of this pain. It was because I'm very connected just in my body and just like sadness, and I needed to get it out. And you know, we lived in a tiny one, my mum lived in a tiny flat, so you know she was probably in bed. I rolled it out in the living room. I remember the moon being shining down and you know it lights up and you don't need any light, and I just howled and I was moving.
Speaker 2:But I knew, because of the, you know, the practice of yoga, that all of this needed to move through me and it might, some of it might not, have been my own and I also knew this. So I was moving and moving, and moving and you know, and cathartically expressing and allow, allowing all of this pain to come out of me and at the end it was like it was almost felt transcendental. I was lying there and it just I felt lighter. I went back to bed. I woke up the next day. The next day was a new day, um, and you know, I think those practices really, really, really rooted me back home into what is the truth of the situation. What is the truth of what needs to be expressed through you, within my personal paradigm, which is my body, and how do I work with this? It didn't help me in cutting the cord earlier on right, because I stayed in this relationship for quite, quite a while so what?
Speaker 1:what kept you of going back and continuing? What was it? Was it the empathy stuff, because you understood this person's pain and suffering so much was it the you know, love and affection and emotions bit? What was it?
Speaker 2:uh, I think it was a mixture of everything and it was the proclamation from somebody that is an addict to kind of maybe feel everything and express everything that you want to hear. But then actions don't meet up with words and I was falling back into the romanticism of the words excuse me and them never coming into deliverance in action or environment. And you know there was love there, but that, coupled with understanding that person's history and feeling God, poor you, I know. You know, I know that you're trying, but the trying wasn't really good enough. And then, equally, there were experiences where anyone would have said get out. And I excused that again Like I wouldn't. You know you wouldn't do it If you had a child that was being naughty. You'd tell them off and say don't do that again, like don't hit that dog. If you do that again, there'll be consequences. You know why then do you excuse a human? Because you don't know that dog's history.
Speaker 2:But that and it got basically to the point where I there was something that happened and I was like that's it no more.
Speaker 2:That was, that was the cutoff point, right, that was the catalyst and I actually left everything.
Speaker 2:I left my job at the time, I was freelance, so I left all of my clients, I left the houses that I was living in and I went and did my 300 hour teacher training in Costa Rica, in the middle of the jungle, in the south Osa and right in the middle of nowhere, and decided that after that I was going to practice what I preach and I was just going to surrender basically to life and let life lead me rather than me lead it, and see where that took me for a little bit.
Speaker 2:And that journey ended up being from two and a half months away to eleven and a half months away, and that's when I that's actually the year that the method was born and I ended up getting flown to all of these luxury hotels and spas teaching on work contract as a visiting master. Hotels and spas teaching on work contract as a visiting master their words, not mine, um, meeting these people teaching them yoga, but also discussions of what. You know how I'd navigated, what I'd done in my life up until that point, and I think my vulnerability and my openness, and also maybe what I'd done on paper as well professionally, had really like, pricked these people's ears up and not just their ears and said, okay, I want to. I want to understand, I want to learn more um, that sounds like one.
Speaker 1:These things, the, this evolution right after this relationship, helped you kind of like stay away from that in a sense and helped you build on top of that. The reason why I'm saying is because I, while you were talking about that, I can resonate in some aspects of that. Um, it is a bit like, um, like you're in a prison in a sense when you're with someone, that kind of promises and talks and so on, but their actions are completely different. You know, I've been, I think, on this podcast a couple of podcasts ago.
Speaker 1:I've kind of revealed it for the first time that I was in an abusive relationship back in Romania when I was in my early 20s, um, where I had a partner that had, um, some emotional and mental um issues and that materialized in kind of like physical, verbal abuse and such, so much so that I had to go to emergencies a couple of times and I've kept on going back because, oh, you know, it's like I'm in the hospital, in the emergency room, and you know that person's crying and feeling super sorry and things like that person's crying and feeling super sorry and things like that. And yeah, so if you feel you feel jailed in the city you feel like you're, you can't get out because of that kind of, in a sense, emotional yeah um, attachment and and all of those promises and, like the, the, the thinking and the will of of getting things into a better place.
Speaker 1:For me it was a bit different because once that finished, I was in a very bad place financial and emotional and a bunch of other things and that kind of pulled me back, actually, and it was only when what? Might back the like, just feeling that you're in a better, in a worse state without that individual right than with in a sense okay, right, because at that point there was a lot of things that were happening with me.
Speaker 1:I was in a dire situation financially and you know, I had a period in I had a couple of days in that period where I didn't had a home and I like I was like sleeping in a in an apartment block staircase right, it would go get someone that would open the door and I would just go and tuck under the staircase and sleep there and so on.
Speaker 1:And this was happening after that situation and it felt like I was in a worse place than the bad place. Yeah, um, and I had a couple of occasions where I've kind of wanted that back, um, and felt like maybe that person is better for me than this situation. This dire situation that I'm in, um and I think that's the case with a lot of abusive or toxic or very bad for you relationships is, you know, being able to pick yourself up after that and build positively and get into a place where you feel like you're in a better place than in that, in that relationship, versus some that might actually not have that ability to build themselves up from there and so on. Yeah, but it was. It resonated with me and that's why I kind of like wanted to hear a bit more about that story.
Speaker 2:It's in a different way probably, but still I think, yeah, what I can hear from you, it sounds like that it was almost that, that environment that you had with your partner. Um, there was a perception of the more security right that that you were returning back to, but actually it was the absolute opposite yeah you know, I think for me, um, and the question that you actually asked was like, how did you navigate through this?
Speaker 2:for me it was my somatic practices and it was yoga, it was yoga, using yoga as therapy, really yoga therapy, um, but for me it wasn't the returning back, it was liberating myself. I liberated myself through an experience that was put upon me that you know I there was no way I could have stayed like. There was no way. It was almost. The decision was made for me and also I had planned to go away, like I had already booked this. He was supposed to come out as well at the same time, put his business on hold, come and be the you know the intermediary with coffee and come and like, go to the coffee farms and cut out the middleman and it was all going to be wonderful. And you know, in hindsight I can see that the stress of that, even though he wanted to do that, probably caused a lot of the turmoil as well. But I was adamant, like you could not have told me to not go. I had already expressed this to my partner at the time, that because I hadn't gone on that journey and this actually feeds into what you're asking because I hadn't gone on that journey that I felt I wanted to go on. Before I met him, before we collided and became romantic, I was about to follow my heart, go on this journey where I needed to get away, and then I fell in love and you know, and that held me, that anchored me for like two, three years. It was still there and I left and I went and I went and did what I wanted to do and once I had liberated me from, like you said, a prison but I felt like it was like a, it was something that had tied me, yeah, um. Then all I wanted to do was liberate myself even more and have no, no ties. And what does that look like? It looks like complete surrender, like not leading your life in any kind of way and just saying I trust, like I had. I have a practice, I have a spiritual connection, what, however you want to call that, whether you want to call that connection or whatever to a God, to to a source, to an energy that's above and beyond us. You know, I really have had multiple experiences in my life to give me little flavors of what that connection gives you, and so I just wanted to surrender it to it completely. And that's when, after that, my world started to open up in terms of um. I wouldn't say open up in terms of professionalism that's what I was going to say, because I always had a really strong professional career but I felt like it myself became encompassed in um.
Speaker 2:What I was doing as, let's say, an active service or work, right, it was me. It wasn't I was working for someone or working for other clients, it was me, and I always knew. I always knew that I, even though I was doing all these amazing things and there were some agencies and people that I were working with that I, even though I was doing all these amazing things and there were some agencies and people that I were working with that I absolutely love and still do and still have great connections with it was like the pieces of the puzzle weren't all fitting. It was like, oh yeah, that's a good piece and like that's a good piece, but they weren't fitting together to make the shape. And then, until I let, completely let go and said, okay, well, show me how this, show me. That's when it all fit into place and I suddenly had this aha moment of, oh okay, everything that I've navigated through through my life, everything that I've ever learned, everything that I've ever felt, everything that I've ever believed in, is now coming to fruition. But it's coming to fruition in me having my own business, and this is what the business is and this is how it enables and serves others. Oh, okay, oh there, yeah, that makes total sense, because I knew that I was qualified in things and I also had the authenticity of living through things and also speaking to people in businesses.
Speaker 2:You know I'd worked for a VC enterprise rocket internet. I'd worked in agency. I'd worked at L'Oreal. You know I'd worked for a vc enterprise rocket internet. I'd worked in agency. I'd worked at l'oreal. You know I'd had experience of working in-house what were you doing for for these companies?
Speaker 1:um I what multiple things so well let's start from the, from the early days. So when you started your professional career, what did you start with?
Speaker 2:so I started advertising and marketing at university at Bournemouth. Um and uh, graduated in that and then I went for a gap year and my first ever job was at an amazing um PR agency actually it was. It started to be a communications agency, because that's when everything changed. Pr had to become communications. It's called PR Co.
Speaker 1:Is that why you know Lucy?
Speaker 2:No, it's not actually no, but it was. It's luxury travel. So they looked after Taj, sofitel, four Seasons, huge clients. We had an in London, in Moscow, in Milan, um, and I fell into the clients that were medical spas and um. We also then additionally brought in fitness clients, um, and I was, how old was I then? I was like 20, was I 21, 22 and so? But before that I'd done internships in advertising because I wanted to be like the female madman. I love the psychology of advertising, like the female madman have you watched mad men before?
Speaker 2:mad men, it's about the history of advertising and it's kind of a glorified drama. It's amazing, watch it. But anyway, yeah, I wanted to be like the female version because advertising was historically very masculine and, you know, quite patriarchal as well. The women were the receptionists, the men were like the advertising gurus, and I always got fascinated that you could and this is the psychology of it, right, this is deep into me and into humans and the psychology of humans that how could you and how could you make somebody feel that they needed something, when actually it was a want, that they needed something, a product, and I found that fascinating. And so I was like I want to go into that world. And it was super creative. I am quite creative, I am a creative, and and then I just didn't like the culture. So this is again me acting on my needs. I really didn't like the culture.
Speaker 2:It was very, very kookyie, it was very and this is what's cokie so I very like you know they was just coke was rife, like drugs were rife oh, cokie, as in, I was like what's that objective?
Speaker 1:notorious for it, you know, and it was just drugs infused.
Speaker 2:You know, it was all this banter that you know I could put up with and I could give as good as I got and I always can, and I can hold myself around like bolshie men as much as like soft, beautiful, feminine women. But I didn't want to be in that space and I was like this culture is definitely not serving me, and so I then, you know, I went into this job, which was more holistic, it was PR, it was communications, but I was in a space where these clients that we that I was working on were actually improving people's health and vitality. And you know we're talking about the FX, meyer and Moore in Austria, which is, you know, one of the greatest places on earth that does something called the alkaline cure like many of the royals went there and ananda spa in the himalayas, which is the go-to place in rishikesh, on the foothill of the himalayas, where you know oprah winfrey goes and spends a lot of time there. It's like the birthplace. Rishikesh is the birthplace of yoga, but where people go and really find themselves but kind of like the elite right, it was luxury travel. And then we brought on uh, if you've ever heard of it barry's boot camp and myself and my team launched barry's boot camp, which so we bought it from america and we launched it in london again health optimization, but with through fitness.
Speaker 2:It was the beginning of the studio world. I mean, that was like when my name kind of dropped in the fitness and health world in industry. It's when influencers started to pick up um, you know probably loads of names that people might recognize in the health and fitness world, like you know, alice Living and, um, lots of people really there's Chessie, there are loads of influencers were there and it was, I mean, they had like 5,000 followers, which is something that I still have, but you know, that was their world and I moved then after that because I loved the company, I love the culture, I love what I was doing and the varied set of clients I was working with. But it got to a point where I wasn't really being, um, not appreciated but I was doing a job that was above my means. I was basically got to the point of being a senior account manager and I really wanted to then be promoted again.
Speaker 2:And my boss at the time who amazing woman, victoria Fuller we're still dear friends. She actually supports me and mentors me. Now she kept a little beady eye on me and she always kept it. She was like I like your energy, I like your spirit. So you know we I didn't know what was going on at that time within the company and I'm not going to share that, but you know they couldn't do it. She literally was like, had her hands tied and so I left and I had an opportunity to co-found a luxury travel business called Gadabouting with a friend of mine. It was angel invested. So I went and said if you're not going to promote me, I'm leaving. Um loved it was the best company I've ever worked for. Um and so I did that. So then I worked at Gadabouting for a year. Actually that was a big lesson.
Speaker 2:Cut a very long story short working with a friend in an angel invested business where he had set it up and then brought me in as the commercial side because I had luxury travel. You know I could speak to the journalists, I could launch it, basically get the sales and the revenue in. But the partnership between founder and co-founder was only synergetic when he wanted it to be and also there was just personality traits within him that didn't. Didn't um work as the partnership, you know, taking loans out of the business, going off to amman to shoot because we had gadabat in studios, which was a studio um business within the luxury travel um. It was an it was a click to call platform and then developing into an app. You know that didn't work out and he just wouldn't talk to me as a co-founder and just make these decisions behind my back, so I decided to leave. I was like this is unhealthy did you had um?
Speaker 1:what was the? Did you had 50, 50 or no?
Speaker 2:I had best I actually left before most of my vested shares 50, 50, or was it no, I?
Speaker 1:had best. I actually left before most of my vested shares, so it was a big for me.
Speaker 2:Um, I learned hard, a year a year okay, yeah, um, I learned the really hard way again. I didn't have anyone to teach me any of this. You know, only child mum, bless her heart, gave me all the love but didn't ever, was never entrepreneurial, never in the founder world. I was obviously in and I didn't have anyone to lean on as support. So I just learned the hard way. Um, but you know, I was like fine, went away, and then I think I took myself away. I think I went, like I always do, I take myself away on breaks. I can't remember where I was. I think I was in Brazil when was this what?
Speaker 1:what year?
Speaker 2:god, this was no, I didn't go to Brazil. This. I can't remember what year was this must have been like 2015. And then, oh, that was it. Then, after that, I brought some clients on and people wanted to work with me because of my PR and my marketing that were in the sector. So I worked with a guy called Tony Riddle, who's the natural lifestylist you may have heard of him he's just launched a book amazing guy. I did some of his retreats, pr right at the beginning stages and then had some other wellness clients with me and then it was getting to the stage where I was bringing people on ad hoc.
Speaker 2:I was being very nomadic, kind of that freelance, nomad life of like having an agency. It was lovely and I remember having advice and people saying you should get an office, like you're getting bigger now, and I was like I don't want to. It's serving my life, like it really was a lifestyle business, um. And then I got headhunted. I actually got headhunted by um rocket internet, which is a vc, one of the biggest vcs outside of china and india and, uh, and america, sorry, and it was for a they're they're german born, so they're based in berlin, and it was for a business called so much more, which was like the copycat of class, which gives you access to loads of I don't know if you've heard of it.
Speaker 1:I've heard it. Yeah, A lot of yoga training. So you're.
Speaker 2:B2B I was very B2C, right, so yeah, so they gave you access to gyms and you could go and like. Instead of having one gym of membership, you can have access to hundreds of gyms in your local area where you lived and where you worked. So much more came in and it was the holistic class pass, so you would get access to gyms but at the same time you get access to acupuncture and massage and sound therapy and you know, group meditation and I was like I love this. So they brought me on and they knew I can't remember what they knew, but I came on with a very small team Sebastian Nienaber I remember him, the country head, and Johannes Closset, who was the founder, and then Alexandra Gios, and I love both of them. I really got on with Johannes, who was this and still is this philosophical, deep, deep human who had this just desire to bring more health and vitality into people's lives, but through tech. It was really interesting. He definitely had a business side to him, obviously, and so fell into that, but I burnt myself out like I was burnt out and I again.
Speaker 2:It was probably just over a year and they wanted to move me to Berlin and in that time I basically developed from. I was community manager at the beginning within London, within so much more, and I brought on obviously all of the like Barry's boot camp, all of the studios. I knew they were like ding ding, this is great for the membership. And then they started to shift operations round and, um, basically my name within the industry that I wanted to, I knew I wanted to stay in, which was health and wellness, was beginning to get tarnished because I bring these people on. And then they shifted their operations and then their kind of ops manager that client ops manager would then change but they weren't informed. There was a bit of. There was a lot in vc which I realized from angel. There's a lot of throwing money at problems and going really fast but at the same time you lose so much quality of the nature of the startup and what it set out to tell me about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, tell you about it.
Speaker 2:So I was there like it wasn't my business but I could see what was going on, coming from the angel investor background as well. But then I was being impacted because it was my name and so you know I'd get people call me up. I remember again, I'm still friends like Paola from Paola's Body Bar and she was like Natasha why have I got like this person that's in Germany and they have no idea about like my sales and my bookings, when I had this person in the UK and I haven't been told of the change. So there were things going on. There were things going on within, I think, funding rounds, within the investment within London versus the other areas that we were investing in in cities. And I just called it quits.
Speaker 2:We'd launched, we'd, we'd basically um. We had launched in five cities in five countries in a year. So we'd done London, we did London um. Paris, spain, madrid, um. We wanted to get into New York, but that was obviously where ClassPass had come from. And then what was the other one? I've forgotten the other city. And then there was London and I ended up becoming the um director of community and basically was managing all of the community managers in all of these countries and then being flown to Berlin and working. And then they wanted to launch a magazine and I was doing that as well. So I was managing a lot and, as you know, in a fast-moving um startup world, you literally just act upon whatever is given in front of you you just you just do it, do it, do it.
Speaker 2:Um, and I loved that. It was solution provision at a very, very like quick pay, at a very quick pace, which I thrive in, but I was the person that suffered at the end of it, and so you know we had had conversations. They wanted to move me there to Berlin and I the pay was less and, um, I just said no and then I went to. That's when I went to Brazil, went to Brazil and um, yeah, and then I went just kind of like found myself again, restored, came back and then I started to just do things again independently and then fell into this relationship and then I went off in like 2018, 2019, and then that's 2018 is when the method was born and everything, like all of my walks of life, all of the experience that I'd had, like I said, I was at L'Oreal for an internship, then I was at PR co, which was a creative agency, pr agency, then angel invested, then VC invested business.
Speaker 2:I'd walked many lives of, like you know, different business lives and different arenas. So it gave me the ability to if I met somebody I could really speak with experience, like I see you, I know where you're coming from. They're like oh, you know, I'm the founder of this multi-billion or million pound business. I'm like cool, yeah, I kind of get the pressures. Or I'm a partner at I don't know KPMG or wherever. Yeah, I get the pressures. Um, I can see that. So I wasn't somebody that. I think when it got to that point of people really wanting to work with me for my way of living and navigating life, um, and kind of like self-healing and awakening, is that, yeah, I could speak with authenticity and integrity.
Speaker 1:Um, and that came from this. This transition in, in a sense, in your professional identity came from from what I understand is, you've had customers, you were working with founders and individuals and professionals from in the world of pr and but you weren't I suppose you were.
Speaker 1:You weren't just like, oh well, okay, so I can do this pr thing for you. You've had quite good deep conversations that you've. Eventually some of these customers or employers kind of were like, well, I really love how you, how you listen to me, how you help me with this on a deeper level than, say, just the PR stuff. I would want to work with you. Is that what happened?
Speaker 2:yeah, it wasn't necessarily the PR. So when I went away in 2018, I was teaching yoga, so I'm qualified. I've been teaching yoga for over 11 years.
Speaker 2:It wasn't ever my PR. I'd say in my like, let's say, when I was talking about skills, facets and capabilities, right in my qualification skills bucket, I would say I have. You know, I've been CIM marketing practitioner. I am also a yoga teacher, 500 hour plus trained. I also have worked within PR, but I haven't got a PR qualification. But I know the world of PR experience in startups, vc and angel invested from the ground up, grassroot level. Um, also, yeah, what else would there be marketing? Uh, and then my, and then I'd say, as well, like, I studied into neurobiology just because I'm interested in it.
Speaker 2:So what I had was I had, like, these personal and professional buckets that when I spoke to somebody but I was delivering yoga when they were telling me all their problems, which are basically work related or personal related. I could empathize, but I also had skills and tools to be able to equip them.
Speaker 1:I see, so you've been through the ringer, I've been through the ringer, babes, I've been through the ringer.
Speaker 2:And I say the ringer babes, I've been through the ringer, uh, and I haven't let it affect me and I've taught them how right I've taught them how I have done that and and I can speak from experience and, you know, they know that I'm not just preaching something that they're like shit. She's really lived through that. She gets me and high influential people as much as somebody that is maybe at the beginning stages of their startup life. Really, you know, I've worked with celebrity comedians, I've worked with musicians, I've worked with people within, like I said, like 14 300 businesses. I work with future generations, I work with teenagers, so I and I can speak and help these people and help them really transform their lives.
Speaker 2:They all have like I've got a whole like list of testimonials and they're like you've changed my life and but I think the life-changing thing, if I really think back to this and I had a conversation the other day with a friend and they actually asked me and kind of like interrogated my method they said what do you think, though, in your method is like the cat is the life changing part and really, if I look at it, it's the, it's the yoga and it's the, it's the, it's the tools that not just yoga is, asana is movement, but it's the tools that a yogic life give you.
Speaker 2:When applied in different environments, you can have a yogic approach and be a multi-business owner. You can have a yogic approach and still be a very successful musician or artist or engineer or partner of a huge law firm. You know, what really enables is the self-mastery of the personal, wherever that personal is positioned. You know, and so that's really the fault, that's kind of the areas of a lot of people suffering so your, your friend asked you what would be the most impactful component of your method.
Speaker 1:I'm going to ask you the next question is why and talk to me like you would talk to a five-year-old that knows nothing about yoga, because I know nothing about yoga so why is yoga such an impactful tool and something that can really help professionals?
Speaker 2:Because yoga first of all. I'm going to flip that back to you.
Speaker 1:What's your understanding of yoga?
Speaker 2:Well, you do exercise, you sit in various positions, yeah.
Speaker 1:Breathing exercises, yeah. Is that okay? And some have more of a. Some yoga programs have more of a spiritual kind of like trait to it. That's it.
Speaker 2:That's all I know I know, I love, I adore you and I love that because I you know I know you adore me from the no I'm breathing to center myself. Actually, I'm not breathing because of you, I'm just breathing to like listen, okay, um, so what you've touched on is a lot of people's perception of yoga that yoga is physical, primarily in practice. Um, which is partly right, but there's so much more to yoga, so do you know what yoga means? The word yoga? No yoga means to yoke, so to bind yoke like okay right.
Speaker 2:It means to yoke. So it could be to bind, to create union, the coming together. So yoga focuses on the, the coming together in the union and the yoking of the mind, which isn't just your brain, it's the mind. So we have I mean we. I won't go into it, but we have many intellectual portals within our body. Intellectual brain yeah, we know that one, but there's also the heart. There's also the gut, which we understand, the gut biome and how important that is. Sending messages and the food that we eat to the brain can actually really dramatically help improve people that suffer with depression, anxiety. They haven't eating the right food, they're not absorbing the right nutrients. You know lots of omegas, lots of dhas. Then there's in women, the womb. The womb is also an intellectual um portal. So there's this resonance. Yoga incorporates all of this as well as, so that that's kind of like many intellectual portals.
Speaker 2:And the body, the fascia that sits around the bone, which we now know through I think there's only been a decade's worth of research that the fascia is the emotional tissue which sits in our body. So emotions can actually sit in the fascia. I'll tell you more about fascia later, but this is the mind. That doesn't just sit in the brain. And then there's the spirit, which we can understand. Spirit as um, or how I explain it is energy and essence of life. We can people can really become, uh, can understand it in a tangible way when I talk about energy and we start to unpick that, because everyone talks about energy right so you can talk about energy, but the spirit of of who you are.
Speaker 2:You could say somebody is a spirited person. What does that look like and feel like to you? Right? We can't just look. We have many different senses to observe someone, which is another part of the yoga as well. So it connects the mind, the body and the spirit. But I think and the body is our physical body, it's our, it's our matter, it's our limbs, it's everything that's that we can feel. And so what yoga does is through many somatic practices, and what I mean by somatic practices are body-based practices. That when I say body, what I mean is I call it being. You're hearing, I don't call the body a body, I call the body a being. It's a living being.
Speaker 2:When you talk about body, people think about the physical, matter, part of it, and they don't think about the mind and the spirit. So when you talk about being, it in a united way for you to have a very intricate, nuanced awareness of how you tick, of how you exist, of how you breathe, of how you function. And by when you go into that deepened practice of self-inquiry and awareness, you're not only understanding more about yourself, but you're also understanding more about the world around you. So you're understanding. We are part of this huge, beautiful cosmos, universe, planet. You know there are synergies between the way that we work and the way that the natural world works, because we are the natural world so we can. Then, once we understand the intricacies and the beauty of what's lying within, through these many, many, many practices that yoga teaches you, we then see people in different ways. We can see their nuance, their intricacies, their depth. Maybe they can't even see it themselves, but and then you see the world in a different way. Just like you said, when your eyes open, your eyes open even more, but your heart open. Everything opens when you practice yoga because you are not just focusing on physicality, on body, which is so what this kind of earthly societal system teaches you. We are a body and a brain. We're a body and a brain.
Speaker 2:You you can't really when you feel, let's say, we tap into that physical practice that everyone talks about, which is called asana. It's part of the eight limbs of of yoga, right from the vedantic trail. But when we practice the movement which we think is a yoga class, there are many different feelings. When you practice yoga properly, that will come through you. That will pass through you. I have people burst into tears in my class, or I have people giggle with joy, or somebody it sounds like she was having an orgasm at the back of the room, or you know. Or people go into a different place where they're in shavasana, or they they kind of push themselves through their limits, but not in a forceful way, in a way that they are very mindful and connected to their body and they feel the strength and they feel they can feel things, because the practice of that physical practice of yoga is very mindful. So we're teaching you constantly what I was taught and then now teach tap in.
Speaker 2:Whereas if you go to the gym you're kind of doing the weights, if you go to a personal trainer, they'll tell you to, okay, isolate your shoulders. When you're doing an overhead press, really feel into your lats, like, extend the neck, make sure that there's space and feel your whole body as you inhale and then exhale, do the movement right. Or a person, a shit personal trainer, you'll come up to and they'll be like yeah, you do this. Yeah, great, good movement. Yeah, 10 more. So it's. It's the difference. They'll have an embodied practice.
Speaker 2:A really good personal trainer, a yoga practitioner will take that. Two levels, three levels, four levels. They will say feel the body now, tap into your breath now, try and feel the sense, feel the connection beneath your skin, try and actually feel the energy. So, halfway through a class, I will always the people that everyone will be standing before they may be going into another flow and I say right, stand into dasana, which is mountain pose, come into your body. They're usually their breath is increased, their heart rate is increased, but they're breathing through their nose, so they're controlling everything. Their mind could be elsewhere. I don't know where these 36 people are right now, but hopefully in the room with me. But I'm saying and now now feel into your body. Can you feel heat? Can you feel tingles? Can you now go one step further? Can you kind of feel that's something called values? You can begin. When you do this to a depth, you can begin to feel the energy move around your body. Right?
Speaker 1:can I ask something? Yes this sounds very familiar. Is there any connection between this yoga um instruction and hypnotherapy? Yeah, because, like I, I've done hypnotherapy yeah um, and I've actually quit smoking because of but, this. This was like back in 2015.
Speaker 1:Yeah a long time ago and I was a heavy smoker but how you described an instructor, yoga instructor, kind of like talking to and kind of I won't call it instructing, but guiding is very similar to how I got um, hypnotized into quit smoking, which was pretty much these, um, this guidance and these instructions of visualizing and feeling certain things and and kind of diving into my unconscious self and so on.
Speaker 1:So I just wanted to ask the question because when you started talking about that, I just had a flashback into um, that experience yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2:Um, so yoga can be used as therapy, which is, you know, hypnotherapy. Um, there's actually a, a limb. When I call a limb, let's say there's a part or a practice of yoga called yoga nidra, yoga meaning to yoke, nidra meaning sleep in sanskrit. So what I was just um replicating just then in my explanation was actually like a class I teach locally in our city, um, which is a combination of two disciplines called yin and yang, which is very relaxing and very energizing. So when you're feeling the energy, it's, you know, but I'm taking that person in the hip. Really, the, the part of yoga that is actually has been equated to hypnotherapy and as powerful, if not even more. But the difference is is, instead of hypnotherapy, where the hypnotherapist is in control, in yoga nidra, you are in control, so you, I am just the guide. So what this does is it takes you into what you've tucked in there.
Speaker 2:You said the unconscious. It's actually the subconscious. So in conscious levels, you have unconscious, which you spoke about here. So think of unconscious as the bottom. Then you have subconscious here. Then you have this very liminal part or stage that comes here, which is just above the subconscious, which is called the hypnagogic state. Which is the hypnagogic, is this very absorbent if you think of it as a sponge. It's like this liminal passage between deep sleep and awake. That's where yoga nidra takes you, that's where hypnotherapy takes you, and then you've got conscious, and right now we're conscious, we think we're conscious.
Speaker 1:But yeah, right, maybe you hypnotize me. You know our decisions are like.
Speaker 2:Pretty much. Like you know, 90% of our decision making is subconscious, which is wild right.
Speaker 2:That statistic which I know lots of people know. So yoga has been used as a type of hypnotherapy. That's a very concentrated form and I use Yoga Nidra with many different clients and students. It's a very, very, very deep relaxation tool. The equivalent of one hour of yoga nidra is four hours rem sleep. So if you just get that into your head, you know when people kind of go for the coffee and the quick hit you can go and practice yoga nidra for 45 minutes to an hour and you've your body, on a cellular level, has actually rested for four hours genuinely. So it's very deep, it's very, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful practice if you're very stressed or your your days are very combined and compact and you're very tired and fatigued at the same time.
Speaker 2:It also does something because we're in that hypnagogic state. It takes you into this liminal space where your auditory sense is just connected, but all of your other senses have kind of not shut down, but they've quietened and actually your brainwaves have changed. So in yoga nidra, the same as hypnotherapy, your brainwaves go into something called theta state. So we have alpha, beta, delta, theta, right, theta is where we're sleeping. You look at you, I'm doing it to you now very absorbent. Um, it's where you know when you have a massage and you kind of drop off. That's theta and that's where we can let if, in yoga nidra and hypnotherapy, all of we call them samskaras in yoga therapy, but all of the impressions that are made within your consciousness, within your subconscious, within your psyche, they bubble up like memories, like in hypnotherapy, but you can begin to perceive them almost like a film on the back of your eyes, on the back of your eyelids. Sometimes people have that or they have sensations. I've had people feel like they've had ancestors touching them or weird things happen, or they felt like they were floating. Your body starts to experience all of the subconsciousness that's been held in your body and held in your psyche, in your consciousness, um, as like memories, as like dreams, and they start to release. So it's very healing as well. It can be really, really healing. So it can heal you from traumas, from addictions, from self-sabotage behavior.
Speaker 2:And there's a process that yoga nidra. I won't go into it now, but there's a process that yoga nidra goes into which is, you know, based in neuroscience and neurobiology. So you learn about the little man on the top of the head. So, where you know, I don't know if you've ever heard of this concept in neuroscience, but you're. It's like if you drew the man. It would be like a tiny head, big hands, big feet, because it's where the nerve endings are, and so it will take you.
Speaker 2:The rotation of awareness, which is the scripture within yoga nidra, actually walks around like the left and the right hemisphere of the brain, because it takes you the left and the right hemisphere of the body and it starts to quieten the lobes and the brain waves into that state where it's then right, you're receptive, and then we take you there. So if some people do fall asleep, but it that is, like you said is yoga a kind of. Can it be equated to a form of hypnotherapy? I'd say yoga nidra can. I'd say yoga in itself is an acutely heightened awareness tool of your own being and the world around you, which thus makes you more observant and able to navigate life a lot easier and with more peace well, yeah, I suppose, because because, from what I hear, you're probably not guiding into kind of like reaching the and talking to the subconscious like you do in hypnotherapy no, you don't talk directly to you, don't like you, the, the guidance that's provided in in yoga.
Speaker 1:It's here in the conscious state, I suppose in the conscious no, whatever is conscious you are, so I will be conscious.
Speaker 2:So if I had you lying down here, I would the practice of yoga nidra, and the practice of yoga nidra is different to what you think is yoga. So a yoga class, no I was referring to yoga to your.
Speaker 1:Oh, the practice comparing um hypnotherapy to yoga. So you're not.
Speaker 2:You're not talking to the subconscious in in yoga depends what state you're in, I'd say, within your yogic practice, um you could be. We're definitely tapping into subconscious uh, through yoga, when you, when you're deep in it but you're not instructing it, because that's what that's what hypnotherapy is you're instructing um one subconscious in in a certain way yeah, you're not.
Speaker 2:You're not instructing it, you are flowing, you know. I'd say that, yeah, it's not a subconscious. You're definitely conscious when you're practicing yoga. But again, you know, meditation is one of the limbs of yoga. Yoga is the lifestyle. Yoga isn't the physical practice. There's meditation. There's actually two stages of yoga. Yoga is the lifestyle, yoga isn't the physical practice. There's meditation. There's actually two stages of meditation. What we call is meditation now in society.
Speaker 1:What?
Speaker 2:we think is meditation? Is society, headspace, whatever? It's not. It's mind management, it's that's just a form of quieting the brain which is so powerful. But actual deep meditation isn't that. And I think lots of people think that they're meditating. They're not. They're quietening their brain, which is the beginning stages.
Speaker 2:We call it in Sanskrit dhyana. Then it goes into dharana, which is full-on meditation. I mean, I've done vipassanas which are 10 days long and you're meditating for 10 hours a day. And I'm not meditating for 10 hours a day. I'm trying, but not trying at the same time I'm allowing my brain to rest, that it goes into those liminal nothingness passages. Um it, you know, it takes consistency, it does take work to be able to meditate properly.
Speaker 2:Um, but I would say, you know again, yoga is a meditative practice. It is a practice of playing with all the different conscious realms. It's not just we're not just conscious when we're practicing yoga, we're conscious, we're subconscious, we. There are many different forms of yoga that you can, you know tantra, kundalini, vinyasa, these are kind of the more physical parts of it that we associate to yoga and they all conjure different, but also the same. If I think about like strategy, if you think about like Maslow's hierarchy going up to one point of samadhi enlightenment. There's many different ways of getting to that one point. You know there's.
Speaker 2:It could be that's why people you know having these experiences. It could be that they find their meditation or their yoga and yoking, through art and creative expression or movement or a plethora of different things that takes them into this peaceful, happy place um of awareness and understanding and acceptance and everything in between, um, I think what yoga does pass through personal experience and what I know as a practice, is that it enables you with heightened awareness of what a situation is, what the truth of the situation is rather than what your romanticized illusion is, whether that's work, relationships, whatever life part of the life part you want to talk about and apply it to. And it also equips you with tools to self-master and manage every facet of your being emotions, energy, physical body, ailments. Um, all of these parts, which is the part I see us lacking?
Speaker 1:it sounds like making you more leveled in, in a sense, on more balanced.
Speaker 2:Balanced, yeah, level, yeah, definitely, and do you?
Speaker 1:find a lot of founders, a lot of entrepreneurs, um unbalanced, I was gonna say. If you find them, uh, if you find um, it helps a lot of um founders and entrepreneurs because and entrepreneurs because we're the most unbalanced yeah, I know, yes, it does.
Speaker 2:It helps you manage your stress, it helps you manage conflict, it helps you manage teams, it helps you manage every part of the founder journey, 100% it. You don't have to be a founder like it helps parents, it helps children, it helps every single person on this planet because our humanistic suffering is all the same. Really, you know, we don't have you don't have a different sadness to me. It's, you know, the experience of what's created, the sadness in your body or within your being, should I say, has been triggered differently. Our emotions when I see you cry, I will feel emotional and probably want to cry. When I see you laugh, I want to laugh I do that all the time.
Speaker 1:I kind of like um mirror. Yeah, like I can't, like I I don't think I've had um a single founder on this chair that got emotional and teary and I didn't get emotional in theory right, exactly.
Speaker 2:And why do you think that is?
Speaker 1:empathy, yeah, empathy, probably empathy. Is there anything else? It could also be kind of like surfacing some own emotions and kind of like resemblance in terms of emotions, like you might have something. Like you know, I've had conversations with someone that got emotional about a specific topic and not only their emotion got me emotion, but just flashbacks of my own situations, that kind of like bubbled up so a similarity yeah you're right, in experience and feeling.
Speaker 2:So we're not so dissimilar. So even though you've had a different experience, it's been. There's been some synergy there. So yoga can be applied to humans, to the species, because we think that we're so different and we have different problems and they might specifically or contextually be different, but really expressed through the body and how that problem manifests within the body is the same. Um, somebody could get very stressed by an abundance of notifications or a conversation with their brother, but that stress is still the same stress. So so it targets.
Speaker 1:Do you think so? Do you think that the intensity level of someone's stress is matched by another's, no matter the situation that they're in, if that's the intensity level that they ever um experience?
Speaker 1:so like if someone has like a meter of intensity yeah, right, like a kilometer yeah yeah, and they've experienced their let's say their max intensity, with a situation um that someone else's meter would be halfway right if they would experience that, but their maximum was this other, more intense thing for them. Right, but do you reckon that max is actually the same feeling?
Speaker 2:it would be the same. Yeah, it would be very similar. So stress can come out in different people in different ways. Um, for example, it can come out in physiological ways. People can say I'm not stressed. Then suddenly they get rashes or their hair starts to fall out or whatever, and they're like, but I'm not stressed. People can feel stress in different ways.
Speaker 2:I would say that the stress that is expressed through the body has different. It's gonna, you know, you're gonna have different stressor levels, but that stress in itself and what is happening on a cellular level and what's happening biologically within you is the same. It's the same experience, the same stressor experience. It's how it it might manifest differently, right? So what we want to do is how do we navigate whatever that stressor is so that we can not, we don't have to experience stress. We can see whatever is stressing you and manage it differently. And that's what yoga can help with, because you begin to observe whatever that stress it is differently, and then you also have tools to down regulate your nervous system and stress gets experienced within the fight or flight, right? So when you're stressed in the chest, start to breathe everything less oxygen, feeling really tense in my body when, okay, relax. Maybe can't concentrate on my exhale because this was really. I'm up here on my peak. So squeeze your hands, come in, you know, start, start to move, even take yourself out into a different environment, because where you experience the trigger of stress, that environment's now becoming unsafe with your body. This goes a bit above yoga. Go and literally take yourself out into a different space, take yourself outside, and you will already start to down regulate. So there are different ways that you can do it and yoga teaches you some of these which are very powerful.
Speaker 2:But it's about how we manage these different parcels of suffering. Let's say stress, sadness, isolation. You know, burnout, depression, anxiety. Lots of these are an experience that we've had from the external world and you know anxiety is when we're in the brain. Stress can be that we can actually create stress by thinking about something too much, which manifests through the physical body. Or we can be physically impacted and there's a stress in the body. You know, you've been in a car accident. The adrenaline goes. Yeah, that is fear, that's's fight or flight, but there's a reason. So it's how do we create balance and equanimity within the being, which yoga enables you to do, and it also enables you to see that whatever is thrown your way, whatever challenge, whatever, whatever that is painful or hard to deal with you, will you now have the tools to alleviate that and work through that and prevent that again from happening and heal from that. And I think this is why people come to the practice so much you speak with such passion about well-being and about yoga.
Speaker 1:Do you see yourself doing this for the rest of your life?
Speaker 2:yeah, I'll be hopefully 98, um still teaching yoga. It's a part of me, a very, very deep part of me. I mean I came to it when I was 14.
Speaker 1:I got gifted really yeah, how old are you now, if I can, 35 35. Uh, I've been, so it's been a the large portion of your life, huge yeah, and also 14 is the rite of passage age. So for you, you know what's right of passage, rite of passages? I mean, I know what rite of passage is, but what is in this context?
Speaker 2:so, when you're in your adolescence yeah right and I work with teenagers. Part of the reason when you're in your adolescence, um, in tribes and in kind of eastern uh, in the eastern world still today, there will be a rite of passage where the boy or the girl will change into a woman or a man. For the boy, they're usually sent out on a quest or like a second vision quest, which we do, we do now over here, um, but you have to pay for that experience.
Speaker 1:It isn't just done uh, inherited, uh through history and I was about to say who's sending their 14 year old.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's really important guys no, you laugh, but it's actually really important because there are many um, um, there are many ways of living, I'd say, and there's many ways of journeying through life. But what this teaches the boy is that you now go off. This sounds quite extreme and it can be quite soft, but you now go off and it's the time where you become the man. So usually what happens is they're given a certain amount of food and water and they have to go and like fend for themselves and then come back but that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that happened here.
Speaker 2:No, I mean people do do that. Yeah, they do want to experience what this rite of passage is. People that are 35 I mean not teenagers.
Speaker 2:I do know people that do controlled environments of rite of passages that aren't super extreme, where the person, the boy, would die, but they learn to be self-resilient and they learn to use what they have. And you know they have mentors and guides that teach them and prepare them for this. It's not that they just go out, it's like in a tribe, in an ease. They would prepare the boys to all like throughout their journey, to then go for this rite of passage. When they come back they're apparently the man. I mean, for women it's differently or for girls it's different.
Speaker 2:We have our monarchy right. We have our first bleed, we come into menstruation. That's our kind of right of passage, biological right of passage from girlhood to womanhood. Um, but right now, you know that is absolutely coupled with shame and you know bleeding into your pee, pants and boys and everyone laughing at you and not knowing what to do because we're not taught it, and then maybe telling you know, when I was there, it's like you put a pad in or a tampon and that's it, you're done, and then you get on with your life. That's literally what you do every month.
Speaker 2:You don't get taught to work with the seasons, that in a spring, in a summer, in autumn, in a winter, that your hormones change, that you, you know your different phases, your l know ovulation, follicular, like you don't get taught that different foods and movements and ways of living can support your journey every month. I mean, we are lacking so much education in so many arenas of how to biologically live well in society, within society, and thrive and feel peaceful and happy and aligned and well, that we have to discover this. And this is what the TLC method does. You know as well as like let's look at your professional arena. But how can we biologically thrive and professionally thrive in these arenas?
Speaker 1:Sounds like you have a lot of work to do.
Speaker 2:It's just yeah, I do.
Speaker 1:And also, by the way, what does TLC stand for?
Speaker 2:Transformational Life and Leadership Coaching with Tender, love and Care. So, transformational Life and Leadership Coaching, the TLC. Everyone told me you're super direct, you can really talk to me directly and I listen, but you do it with quite a lot of love. It came from feedback from my clients, um, and I loved that and I was like what do I do? And I was like, oh, my god, tlc, tlc method. And I was like that's what it is and it's life and leadership, because that's what I was like that's it. And I was like that, literally was it. I remember I was in a hotel room in st lucia, very privileged, but I was, and it just came out of me when I had these three men that were saying, I when, give me your start date, like what's your price, let me work with you? And came back and then they sent me emails from their companies, which I won't name, but it was just hilarious. I was like, oh right, and then it started to feed through their culture and then word of mouth and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:So how did you, how do you get there? And I'm asking this because there will be founders, professionals, potentially quite a few, that resonate with you and your story, but don't have that, the, you know three individuals in a row that say, oh my god, tell me your price I want to work with you what was the contributing factor or factors to these individuals wanting to work with you so so badly?
Speaker 2:you should ask them um, I would say that they had gone through different um therapeutic disciplines, therapy, cbt, whatever they did had maybe coaching at work, mentoring, and nothing was really working for them, and so they wanted to try something different. And I was the different thing because I sounded like what they wanted and needed but did you have the tlc method at that point? No, because it sounds like it was before that that they wanted.
Speaker 1:So I was mentorship, so I've been I've been a.
Speaker 2:I've been, I've been playing with the method, unconsciously, unconsciously, throughout my whole life, right, okay, so, um, I have, I was doing frameworks, which I later learned, like literally 15 years later from when I was doing them, like 16 year old, in my bedroom, that it was ikigai. Like I'm not even joking, I've still got the a3 cartridge paper that I wrote it on from when I was that young, um, and I want to frame it, uh, because this is goes a bit deeper, if you're ready, but I'm ready, hit me what I've learned through being in touch with some of my greatest teachers Sir Sue Champandi, who has taught me everything for yoga.
Speaker 2:Very, very prolific Swami Dr Dan Siegel you might know he is an incredible. He was actually a psychiatrist clinician but he is kind of best friends with Gble matte, who's the trauma specialist, but he talks about the formation of the, the child mind. Um, I have noticed that everyone is coming out, even rick rubin, who has just created a book. I've been reading his book recently. Uh, it's about the creative art of being everyone's regurgitating the same stuff, myself included. There is rarely anything new that's coming out in terms of the way that we can manage ourselves. It's just really old ancestral wisdom regurgitated in a new way. And that's what I realized.
Speaker 2:Like you know, dan's wheel of awareness. I remember seeing him at esalon and being like that's yoga nidra. Did you know that you're doing the rotation of consciousness? But you're just talking about it in a psychological, using psychological terminology. He didn't know because he hadn't had a yo-yo background. We need to go back to the root and this is what I think people were in maybe impressed or it's touched, made an impression on them that I had that awareness and um, and so I think they wanted to work with me. Going back to your question of like, why did these people? What was the reason? Is that they didn't feel supported through the the things that they were doing to support themselves, and then I offered a way that had obviously worked through myself and given them like we're sitting here talking hours of conversation where they really knew the depth of where I've been and also what I've observed and the convergence of everything that I'm thinking and breathing, and they but you weren't selling.
Speaker 1:I wasn't selling, you were helping I was helping.
Speaker 2:I don't like selling. I hate it. I find it really hard. I know um. You look like you need to do some breath work yeah, potentially um, so you're 35 yeah you've been.
Speaker 1:Sounds like you've been on this journey since you were very young yep what? What was your biggest success, your biggest achievement? What would you say is your biggest achievement so far? And the first thing that comes into your head. I don't want to put any guardrails or constraints.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Biggest achievement so far Birthing a business, thelc method and rewire. That's creating the change that I've always hoped for within others right on point answer awesome and you've started TLC method when 2018.
Speaker 1:2018. So there's, oh, six years. I was about to say four years. No, it's six years ago.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God 2018 is so far away. Yeah, and how did your business evolve so far? Is it yourself? Do you work with the team? Tell me a bit about this, uh, the logistics, and and then we can. We can kind of like go into the ending ceremony from there. I feel that there's so much that, yeah, I'm like a sponge, but it is so fascinating for me to just hear you not just the topics that you're talking about, but just your passion on how you talk about it, and I can understand why people want it thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Um. So what did you, I suppose?
Speaker 1:you. You started when, when you've got to this method and you had a couple of people that really wanted to work with you oh yeah, my team helping them, and so on. Where are you today? How did that evolve?
Speaker 2:so, um, I pretty much it was me doing everything um for a very long time. I'd say only two years ago did it really change, and it's also been in flux. So it's me myself and I I've been the founder and director of the TLC method for from when it began, um, I haven't received any investment. I've done it organically myself. Um, I have also creatively thought about who I needed when um in a very flexible way, so that I've never been tied down to give me the freedom to be agile in my business and work with needs in terms of what the business needs, but more so because it's driven by people, what they need. And I have a team.
Speaker 2:At the moment I have a retreat director who runs my retreats. I've worked ad hoc with somebody, um in community management, social media, but I kind of have to do that. I am, I've created, if I'm perfectly honest, I've worked with a web developer, but I do my own website, I do my own social media, my marketing, business development, um, I also pull upon my contacts. So, throughout my history which you've probably like my career history before TLC I have a lot of amazing people that I've met along the way, um, who are supporting me now and who I can just have a conversation with um, which I find really helpful. I'm looking. I have a team of practitioners who facilitate rewire um, which are the retreats for teenagers which teach them life skills they don't get taught at school and that is about it. So pretty much on my team I would say it's the retreat team and then anything tlc is me.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah how do you have time to to do all of these like your website, marketing, social media, this, that, and also, do the deed, do the I actually don't know sometimes, uh, my partner has now witnessed this and oh, hold on, you also have a partner. And here, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh he's amazing.
Speaker 2:He's the most supportive person I've ever met in my life um and loveliest human on the planet. But I don't really know. I think I. I don't actually know. I just get it done I've always long hours.
Speaker 1:I mean you do. We were just texting the other day, they were talking hashtag.
Speaker 2:Uh, yeah, I do, but I love it like I've never known. I've never not known that and when I love my work, don't get me wrong. There are going to be, you know, times in my life and I can. You know recently, like this retreat that I just ran for teenagers uh camp wo wo the the getting there is was ridiculous. But I'm four months pregnant, so you've actually got an exclusive now.
Speaker 2:So I've not announced it to anyone. So hopefully by all, yeah, but anyway. So in that stage I I realized that what I was doing, historically, in the way that I was working, my energy levels were just like natasha, you cannot do this, you're at bandwidth now. So it was really hard to do what I've always kind of just got. Got it done where it felt. It felt like a struggle because I wasn't in an energetic space. I was just dating. I'm just dating a human. Right now I'm brewing a human. So you know that is going to take some of my energy away, whereas my business had that, and so, in a real wake-up call, I've had to.
Speaker 1:Actually, it's now pushing me into more support, which is beneficial for my business and myself, and it's coming in thick and fast, which is beautiful, so that that's interesting that one day you'll be like um talking to your child and be like thank you for helping me scale my business, because I wouldn't have done it myself.
Speaker 2:I was doing everything honestly, and you know they say your children are your greatest teachers. Like who knew that in 18 weeks they'd be teaching me something and haven't even come earthside? But um yeah, I, I think, when you can do it alone, I'm also an only child, so I'm I. It's in my nature, in my genetic being to help yourself to just do it, to just get on with it and not have a sibling to support you or whatever to hold your um ladder to reach the cookie jar exactly or even asking.
Speaker 2:You know, it's been my. I'm human. Even though teachers teach and amazing things, we also are human and this is something that's really passion. I'm really. It means a lot to me to to share that, just as somebody maybe these girls or someone looks up to in terms of what I'm coaching and teaching them as life or leadership skills, I am also human. I am also. You know, I also get tired. I I'm not like superwoman, even though sometimes I feel like it in my ovulation stage, but talk to me when I'm not, and I'll have times I'm like I just want to go to bed.
Speaker 2:You know we all do, and I think it's really important to bring in the this journey is of of entrepreneurship and journeying through life as a purpose-driven. I call myself a purpose-driven founder, um, and it's just knowing when to kind of switch that dial off and switch that dial on, I think. But I am learning to ask. I'm all of my personal things that are coming out right. So asking and receiving, rather than the giving, which there is the balance, um, and and not also letting go of perfectionism. I'm massive perfectionist and so you know that, again, this is not uncommon in the founder story when you've got your baby, basically, and you've got it to where it is. And so when you start to bring other people in and they're maybe not as attached to your baby as you are your business baby or your brand baby, you've got to understand that there'll be ebbs and flows. It's literally like working with if you have children like you. Just they're going to learn. You're going to learn from failures and x, y and z, and I've been on that, but I think it's. I'm now ready to let it be the organism that I feel like I've nourished it to the point now where it's it's starting to thrive on its own. It doesn't need me as much and I'm really excited at allowing people into that world, not just clients, but other people and being like you know, especially the future generations.
Speaker 2:How do you see this growing and kind of almost like passing the baton? Because it's important. I think it's important for founders especially to see their businesses as living, breathing organisms that they give back to the world, that they're not attached to. There'll be a certain attachment, which is necessary in order for it to exist in the world, but then there's a part where you have to become aware again of when that time is where you're like okay, hold on a minute, I can now detach from it. And you see the founders that don't do that and still hang on to it, and then it's like they're causing their own suffering but do you, do you feel like you um came to that realization or are you in the second part, um, and it was?
Speaker 1:it is a specific future which is your baby, child, your child and congrats again. Thank you, my love, that kind of like pushed you down the path of okay, I need to let go a bit more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that 100% that I hate to say it, but I think it also from.
Speaker 1:It sounds like it made you realize. You know, it pushed you, but it also made you realize well, you know, I should at one point not just do everything on my own and yeah have some help and let it explore. And even if it's a lifestyle business, right, okay, whatever, do everything. But also if you have the burning desire to help and impact as many people as possible. It's kind of conflicting with the kind of like lifestyle business just do it on my own because you're limited to you yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you've touched on something really interesting there. I think I've always known that. You know I've worked in startups like, and I have my own. I wouldn't say it's a startup anymore, but I know that to scale what you need to do, um, I think I have had to be forced into that situation because my the TLC method was my baby, it was my priority. You know I didn't have Sam, my partner, who is my priority. I have never in a million years, in my whole 35 years, ever thought or ever put somebody beyond my business or my ventures, like as in in my romantic yeah, yeah, I haven't.
Speaker 2:I'm like you know that, might I? Just it means so much because I know the work that I'm doing. I'm not creating, I haven't. You know I haven't got like a beer brand. It's not or no offense, beer brands I think are great, but you know I'm not creating toxicity in and attachment and addiction in people's lives. I'm creating the opposite. So because I know of that selfless service, it almost feeds me to prioritize it even more because I know the change that it's making. And so it took somebody and now someone else to prioritize them before the business and say you mean more to me now than this business.
Speaker 2:And that happened last year. You know, 30 years, 34, but the right time this is where it goes up to, you know, divine timing. That was a year that the rewire was born, my retreats for teenagers, which are creating educational, safe spaces for teenagers to unplug from their horrible reality that they're experiencing at the moment and rewire again into a new one. And you know all of these things are coming at the right time. It doesn't feel like it's forced or anything, because I've let them happen organically. And that's another thing with my business is, I've always had it happen organically. I haven't ever forced it. It was birthed through organic means, which means that it's going to take the organic way, which might be slower, but it will definitely be more sustainable and it will last longer, and that's what I meant for.
Speaker 1:It's. It's great that you're wise enough to realize that, because I'm not like I'm always trying to infuse artificialness into my. Even with the podcast, a lot of people told me well, let it, you know, let it grow, podcast, grow over time. It's, it's, you know, it's a waiting game and just put put in the good work and so on. I'm like no, lucy, come over, pr this.
Speaker 2:I think that's great, I think that's amazing. And you know there's a reason that you're sitting here today and you, you know you've achieved what you've achieved. You know in terms of I don't know. Know in terms of I don't know I haven't got to know you that well yet, maybe I'll dig a bit deeper but you know you have achieved in terms of business and in terms of what you've wanted to create. It seems that you have. You are still achieving, but you have. You have reached goals that you've wanted to reach, which is really impressive and I think be proud of yourself for that.
Speaker 2:And there's not a there isn't a shame around pushing things like using art. You're what you're doing is. You're using the tools around you to support what you're doing more and actually at a faster pace. But you're residing in the tech world, right? Your podcast resides on a platform that is on the internet, that is also on our phones. That is tech driven. I'm, you know my business plan is like yes, it will be supported that way, but mine is very much person to person and we can support through tech great.
Speaker 2:I think it's important to let things can support through tech great. I think it's important to let things. It's different, let things grow organically. But also not let that forcing through tech support affect your own relationship with yourself and with it. You know, I think it's great. Otherwise you're just kind of turning a blind eye to all of the, to all of the support out there, the tech support out there and the ai and everything. But just take a note to see if this is having a personal implication and whether your pace of life can stop with work or whether it's actually fed. There's a there's a discomfort and I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm talking about and an unease that's personally writhing through your being, because that's when you need to become aware and go okay, something's unhealthy here. If I can just leave it at work, cool, but if it's affecting me, let me just take a look at this right now but that's what.
Speaker 1:That's what it was that made me that I'm like I'm, I can't, I, I cannot just let it organically. That was for me.
Speaker 1:It was like that unease and I'm like, okay, I need to, I need to scratch this itch in a sense, right, I need to try to do more than just posting there and doing a couple of events and so on and um, because if I don't, I'm, I have this itch, right, I have this jitter and so on. At least I know after I've tried that I've done that. Yeah, but anyways, good, save for lucy. Yeah, you have a good friend, friend, you didn't go and say organic is the righteous way, okay, if it's lucy, maybe, um, awesome, um, let's get into the, the ending ceremony okay um, I think there's so much more, but also I don't want to keep you here until tonight.
Speaker 1:So I don't know if you like quotes or use quotes and so on, if you're anecdotal and such, but is there a quote that you live by? Live by wow, which is quite, I know it's quite strong, that's a very strong word, um.
Speaker 2:There are many quotes that I think are powerful, that reflect certain um experiences that we all kind of live through. I would say I'm just trying to think, yeah, I'd say there's one baba ramdas. Do you know baba ramdas? He was a great teacher, um, a great, uh kind of buddhist teacher, but also married in in Hindu philosophy as well. He's just amazing man, um.
Speaker 2:He said many things, um, but he had this really simple sentence that just struck me personally, and it's follow your bliss. And in times of perplexity, in times of overwhelm, in times of a lot of things happening, a lot of the time, all the time, I kind of close my eyes and just take a deep breath and I'm like follow your bliss. I'm like, okay, what is the most blissful passage right now? What can I do right now to create more bliss in my life? And it might be that I literally get up and go for a walk or I make a tea or whatever. It's usually that I'm disconnecting from my work and I'm creating more space and that really helps me manage my life better. Um.
Speaker 1:I don't follow. I don't follow my bliss enough. Yeah, I do. I acknowledge what you're saying and I do do that sometimes. Sometimes I'm like like in chaos and I'm thinking to myself what is the best thing now? Yeah and I get this voice or this image, and, and I need to do that- yeah, one thing yeah and that kind of helps helps you get become blissful and yeah and then come into a situation with a different type of energy totally, and I think I get it as well.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, where it you know it could be that I'm taking space or time out for myself, or that I prioritize something differently, I'd literally breathe in, breathe out, and it's like follow your bliss. It's like, okay, I'm gonna do that now. Or it just reorganizes what I'm doing to create more bliss in my existence, in my life, in that, in that day, in that moment, and then everything becomes more manageable. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Very often that follow your bliss whisper is for me just go and cuddle and pet my Jack Russell Exactly, Go and have a cuddle with the dog Totally, and you know, and then I'm always like I have a cuddle with the dog totally and it, you know, and then I'm always like I love a feeder of science, I'm like, and then that means that your oxytocin is rising and your serotonin. But this is what me, that is the bliss, right, that is the bliss. So, and I think life as a founder can get so busy and manic and exciting at the same time. The excitement creates that you're like development, scaling business, and you're like this is so cool, and then you're like whoa, and there will just be moments where you have to check in and be like hey, follow the bliss yeah what makes my life easier yeah, for sure, I think I do do that a bit more than when I was running jigsaw.
Speaker 1:I was like um, young and wild, um and intense, and I feel I'm hoping that at least this time the business that I'm starting is a bit more you know I, I take care of my well-being a bit more um, this time around, you've always got me around the corner.
Speaker 1:Well you you've managed to to to convince me. I told you that I can see why those um individuals in the early days like oh, this, because I think it's it. It's pretty much and and it's not specifically to your industry or your type of but anyone that talks very passionately about something that they love and they exist, live and breathe right, people feel that and it's a no-brainer for you to get opportunities from that and that's what, and that's often that's what I advise everyone that asks me about content creation, about marketing, about being on social media and so on.
Speaker 1:Just I'm like, just find that one thing that you're super passionate and can talk for days about and be passionate and talk for days on social media, on this, on that, on that, and people will recognize that and you know you, you get opportunities because that's exactly what I'm doing with the misfit founders and so on. I, I I love talking about, um entrepreneurship and I'm also a sponge. I love hearing other people's journeys and I think that's the most authentic self that I can be out there. Book that changed your life.
Speaker 2:Again, I'm coming on with a heavy jobs here. No, there's one that that drops in for me Blue Mind by Wallace J Nichols. What is it about? Blue mind is the science of being in on, and by the water and how like we're here and how it generates more happiness and health scientifically within your body oh really it's an I again.
Speaker 2:This was on the journey. I actually met Jay Everyone calls him Jay At Estalon in California. It's a very established like I don't know transformation life transformation center and a lot of professors from like Berkeley and in Oxford and Cambridge and loads of just go over there. He is an amazing biologist who studied the science of being in, on and by the water and what it does to the neurobiology of your brain, what it does you know biologically, what it does physiologically, um, within you, and I remember reading this book and just being like, oh my god, this is why I feel the way I feel about water.
Speaker 2:And you know, going back to what I did, I created a path of I was going to exhaust every single beach possible on the planet that also offered an environment that created a good energy for, or space for, uh, entrepreneurship and creative activation. So I was looking at california. I was thinking, la is a really good place. I saw costa rica. There are people going over there. Like all of the founders, I wanted to go and try all this. Hawaii was rich and, like the american startup world, I was like, oh these, I need to exhaust all of these beaches before I decide where I want to live. That's what what I was going to do and um, and I met him and the some of the statistics I can't read them off now, but some of the statistics are just wild.
Speaker 2:I think one of them and I knew that I wanted to be by the sea and I'm a water baby and I now knew why it kind of tethers me. I always say elements are either like your teacher, your kind of tethers me. I always say elements are either like your teacher, your inspirer, um, or your healer, the elements, and I really feel the element of air inspires me. Water and the sea is my healer and the earth is my teacher. And he was talking about, obviously, the element of science of water. And just to give you this, can I give you something? So when you look out, you know when you feel really calm, when you look out to an ocean or maybe a wild lake, just water do you ever feel that feeling when you're just, you're looking and you know I don't ocean.
Speaker 1:Okay about the ocean. I I feel that on a beach, okay with the, with the waves moving, but if I look um in the distance, at the horizon, I get a bit of phobia because I have a bit of a thing with being in water and submerged and things like that.
Speaker 2:There's trauma around water for you. Yeah, yeah, okay, but lakes.
Speaker 1:Looking at a lake, looking at the waves on the sea, that's very calming for me and it's weird, because there's a difference, the waves, or with the ripples of the water that you see in front of you so the reason that it's very calming as well is because you're seeing an expanse of color and you're not being activated in a way that we are right now.
Speaker 2:Lots of lights, lots of messages. It's just blue, it's just one, and so that's all that your brain is taking in. So it's very, very peaceful. Um, and I think it has the. The pace at which it can affect your brain waves is something like within 15 minutes or 10 minutes. It's super fast. So there's just many, many statistics about how it improves hormone hormonally, um, improves all the happiness hormones and encourages them to to activate in your body and also the synergy that we have with water, the element of water. It just blew my mind and we did, and when I met him, we also did practices where we went under the water, submerged on a VR screen, watching whales. It was weird. So you were feeling you were in the water swimming and then seeing these whales and you felt like you were swimming with whales and it was just beautiful. And he's a great, great, great teacher for the natural environment as well and being immersed in it and what it does for us. So, yeah, I'd say Blue Mind, read it. I have like five copies.
Speaker 1:I'll give you one, okay as long as it doesn't trigger, um, my phobia of the deep, uh, deep ends of the ocean and stuff. Maybe, yeah, um, potentially um. Last question yeah, I've been thinking of how to phrase this because I don don't want to give you the standard question. The standard question is a good habit that you advocate for, but I know exactly what you're going to say, so let's switch this up a bit. Tell me a good yoga practice for entrepreneurs and founders, for entrepreneurs and founders that, let's say, someone that has nothing to do, has never done yoga, doesn't know anything about it what would you say for for a beginner would be the most effective and rewarding yoga program or practice that to help them?
Speaker 2:specifically for founders specifically for founders which we know kind of like the traits of stress and this and that yeah, it would be um, a meditative practice, um, that incorporates focus on the exhale rather than the inhale and incorporates connecting with sounds and your senses outside of yourself and then connecting with where that was experienced from. So some people call this sense meditation. So meditation is a form of yoga, but you can do it in your chair. Um, a lot of founders are overactive in the brain. They're actually quite energetic because they have to move around a lot. They've got a lot of them have a lot of energy. You have to be quite dynamic. It's the brain that really pucks them up. So it's how do we manage the brain? And then the emotional and the nervous system, the down regulation.
Speaker 2:So, uh, yeah, like I said, it's been called sense meditation, it's called, uh, sensory meditation, it's called environmental meditation. There's loads of new terms. The original is pratyahara um, which means sense withdrawal, and I would teach them to, whilst they are going through this meditation, to breathe from their belly, to hold their stomach and maybe left hand on heart and right on belly and breathe, but make sure that their focus is kind of pressing the belly out, so that they know that they've got really deep inhalation, exhalation happening that is full capacity and parasympathetic, so that they're coming to the rest and digestion at the same time. I'd guide them through um. I can do it with you now if you want yeah, let's do it should we do it?
Speaker 1:yeah, okay. So so you said you, you put, you, you push with your hand.
Speaker 2:So left hand on heart, right on belly okay yeah, yeah. Or does it feel comfortable the other way?
Speaker 1:No, it doesn't.
Speaker 2:Okay. So relax the shoulders, Just relax. So uncross your legs, soles of the feet on the earth, and just allow yourself first of all just to be comfortable in your seat. So that might be really hard for founders as well, because there's a lot of tension in the body when you're stressed. So just kind of relaxing, maybe wriggling, moving, moving the head and really then closing the eyes down, and then feeling the palm on the belly and as you take your next breath in, I want you to see if you can feel the stomach move before the chest, so breathing in and then out of the mouth and then back in slower and maybe out of the mouth again, and then maybe this time you seal your lips and this time you're breathing in through the nostrils, long, deep and slow. So try and slow it all down and then out of the nostrils and I want you to just keep that pace of breath in and out and you can every time just slow it down so you can just see how slow can I make this breath as it comes in and out, kind of at the same time, relaxing your facial muscles, just feeling really embodied and in your body. And then I'm going to draw your awareness now to the wind outside, so outside of you. I want you to connect to the wind and just hear it as sound. Don't give it a label I already have, but just hear it for the sound that it is outside of yourself now and keep all of your awareness there. So don't allow your mind to wander. But if it does, just come back to that sound and then shift that awareness maybe to the hum of a monitor, let's see if we can even intensify that sound. So try and find it in the room and bring all of your awareness there now and now.
Speaker 2:I want you to see if you can bring your awareness to the experiencer, experiencing. So let's see if you can feel your eardrum. Bring all of your awareness to your eardrum now. Might be one, might be both, might be right, might be left.
Speaker 2:Just see where your body takes you when you bring your awareness to your eardrum. Really try and feel it and then shift your awareness to taste. I want you to taste everything that's in your mouth, with absolute focus and a relaxed breath. You might feel the temperature of the mouth, the saliva, and now bring your awareness to your tongue and really feel all of your tongue now. I'm not going to take you through all of the senses because we'll be here for a little bit longer, but just gently allow yourself now to come back to your breath. Maybe take a deeper breath in and out of the mouth and just allow the hands to drop in the lap, so palms just up, just relaxed, and then really in your own time, just allowing your eyes to flick open, but really heavy, so just allowing the light to come back to the eyes, really, really, really gently, and then come back to the space. So that does three things.
Speaker 2:Hopefully you feel a little bit more relaxed yeah, light, lighter um, what I'm doing is I'm, at the same time as bringing you into your parasympathetic system so you'll rest and digest, aka not stressed. You're also connecting to things outside of your current situation that you can bring all of your awareness to. So you're focusing and conjuring and cultivating more focus and attention to one thing, because we become very distracted as founders because we manage multiple things, and then, at the same time, because I'm bringing you into something called your sense experiencer so the experiencer experiencing I'm also creating detachment from your experience.
Speaker 2:So what I was just doing there, slyly and silently, is enabling you through a practice if you did it regularly to create the detachment we were talking about that you need at one stage, but it will just feel natural because you're you've already been experiencing it in your day-to-day life, so it starts to just feed into your life yeah, we've, we've, uh tried, and I think nikki was doing it for a longer time.
Speaker 1:What was the app that?
Speaker 2:Insight Timer Calm.
Speaker 1:There's an app for meditation.
Speaker 2:Headspace.
Speaker 1:Headspace. Yeah, so we've done that for a bit. When we were in the craziness of building the business and Nikki was was like we need breaks, we need to detach and so on, and we've done that a couple of times and I was like, no, I'm too busy at one point. There you go. She kept on doing it for a bit priorities well. Thank you so much for this conversation and also for enlightening me on and just opening the door to a topic that I'm completely alien to. I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:You're so welcome.
Speaker 1:I have something for you. You did not know about the gift.
Speaker 2:I did not know about the gift. I actually have a gift for you.
Speaker 1:No, I have a gift for you. No, but I have a gift for you. I bought it, hold on.
Speaker 2:That's so sweet. This is a medal. Thank you, a coin, not a medal.
Speaker 1:Number 38 I'm, yes, imagine if it was 35 the year that I am um amazing.
Speaker 2:Well, you missed that.
Speaker 1:I know that you know who that was. Who was M Lucy?
Speaker 2:No, it was 35.
Speaker 1:And actually.
Speaker 2:I have. This is so cool. Now I need to get your present.
Speaker 1:If you bribe me? Wow, if you bribe me. No, she forgot it here. I can't. No, I can't do that. I feel like.
Speaker 2:I can't do that. I can't, no. I can't do that. I feel like I can't do that. I can't no. This has been given to me for a reason.
Speaker 1:But she forgot. I gave it to her over the podcast and she forgot it downstairs in the kitchen, so maybe that's a sign. Maybe, you can just put that coin in here and no one will ever know.
Speaker 2:No, I can't, I'll let her have. 38 is a good, 38 is a beautiful number. What's?
Speaker 1:gonna happen at 38. I'm gonna have to let you know in three years. Yeah, um thank you so much.
