It’s phenomenal that reading one sentence in a blog post can cause a fairly significant sensation of rage, and incite a flurry of activity. But that is what happened to my online colleague Jessica, after reading the following sentence:

“You are a Mom first and foremost.”

Wait. What?

Does that spark any particular feelings for you? 

Some women might nod their heads at that sentence. Yes. They agree. They are a Mother first and foremost. 

However, Jessica is not alone in feeling the rage towards this statement. There are entire generations of women feeling frustrated at what Valeria Luiselli in her novel Lost Children Archive aptly described as “the relentless social pressure to subsume personhood under motherhood.” 

Although I’m aware that this sense of injustice is made possible by our privilege, when Jessica turned to me for support, I felt compelled to weigh in on the topic for both...

After seeing no-one for YEARS, it's been a body health month for me this month. 

And it got me thinking, we don't just give our body over to anybody, we're very protective of it. We're very mindful and strategic about who treats, and how they treat our body.

However, it's far more challenging to have that same protective strategy over who influences, and how they influence, our minds. 

This week my amazing Physio friend Kylie treated some mega lower back problems that popped up. The woman is a magician and she saved my life (ok my week, and my sanity... this week). I've known Kylie my entire professional life and trust her absolutely. 

Yesterday I had my first session with my now favourite Osteo superstar @thesurfing.ostepath who agreed, leave your back management to your physio so we don't confuse the situation with different advice, different interventions, overload of information. He treated some jaw problems (I like to store...

With a world of information at our fingertips and a huge increase in connection via online platforms such as private groups and online communities, it can suddenly seem like everyone considers themselves an expert, or experienced enough to give you advice on what you should be doing in your business. 

If you ask 3 different Dr's, mechanics, financial planners, marketing experts, occupational therapists or any other service based profession for an opinion on something, even when they're a fastidious evidence-based practitioner, you're likely to get three somewhat different answers.

If you ask strangers or even connections online or at business events for an opinion, well, you'll get a lot of different people telling you a LOT of different things. 

So how do you keep your conversations valuable, and avoid overwhelming people with bad, unhelpful, or half-baked advice? Here is my tip:

Ask people to only give advice based on their own lived...

I thought my weight was just gradually going up because...age...and not exercising...and...wine...and...a $10/day Jamon Serrano habit. 

All valid contenders. 

However recently I've got a new fit watch. I resisted all kinds of fit bits for a long time but this one earns me shopping vouchers and flight discounts, so...IN. 

Turns out, unless it's broken, that since I work mostly from home I only average about 3000 steps per day. Even when I do my resistance training (that's new the past couple of weeks).

Today I've been at home filming so at 2pm on this Saturday I'm up to a mere 599 steps.

That's not burning much energy, is it?!

The very first step to creating change is self-awareness. What can be measured can be managed, and now that I know this information, I can't un-know it. 

I'm going for a walk. 

PS. Since I have this watch, any steps taken without it on seem like a total waste, and my husband...

When we decide to pivot and carve out our own path there’s a period of adjustment as we say to people whose opinions matter to us: I’m not going to be the person you thought I was. I’m not going to take the path you hoped I would take.

In choosing freedom, we are choosing anxiety, because we can't see the pathway, we can't predict the outcome.

Feeling some anxiety is normal, but not comfortable.

There are periods where we bravely take action and cast our work out into the world. Then we have the anxious wait about how people will react to it, whether they will react to it at all, and how we'll react to their reaction.

We create things worth sharing, and then doubt their value, and experience the resistance of putting it out there. 

We wake in the wee hours worrying about how much money is going out, and whether enough will come back in. 

When it all gets too uncomfortable we dip back into safety. To remove...

When we're looking for answers on how to do business, marketing, audience building, parenting or lifing in general, we think we're looking for the best way, the fastest way, or the most effective way.  

Logically we know there is no one best way.

What we're trying to figure out is OUR way.

We won't listen to the person who tells us the best way to build an audience is blogging if we've no interest in writing.

We won't listen to the person who tells us the best way to make money is to sell laxative tea for weight loss if it's not in line with our values.  

We're looking for the best way to use our own strengths, skills, interests and values even if we're not yet able to name what they are. 

The reality is that we're going to do business in a way that no-one else does.

To do that we're going to try a lot of different things, we're going to collage together a lot of different advice and training, we're...

When we're trying to create a significant change in our lives, our level of motivation to make the change happen is likely to be impacted upon by our hope story - our level of hope that this desired change is actually possible.

So what impacts on our hope story?

Someone who has been trying to give up smoking/drinking/excessive shopping/overeating may have tried unsuccessfully to give up these habits loads of times before - without success. Every time they don't succeed, their level of hope is eroded a little more.

People who are trying to build their business or their side hustle and have had several failed launches, or are stuck in that cycle where they seem to be taking two steps forward and three steps back, are likely to have their hope story eroded over time. 

Someone who has been trying to have a baby without success for 5 years and then had 3 IVF attempts that haven't worked - well, you can imagine how difficult it is to have hope that...

Not everything that we choose to do is because we want to do it, need to do it or are expected to do it. 

Hosting a party for a loved one is rarely very enjoyable at the time. It takes vulnerability, planning, effort, commitment and hard work. It may have a negative effect on your financial state, or your ability to engage in other projects. 

Caring for a dying relative is rarely enjoyable at the time. The work can be heavy, uncomfortable, demoralising. It takes sacrifice and may have an impact on every other relationship and possibility in your life. 

Making the best man speech at a wedding when you're petrified of public speaking is mortifying on the day. The anxiety of being seen can be crippling and the consequences of getting it wrong feel significant. The commitment, investment and endurance of months of wedding planning - it's huge and consuming. 

Yet millions of us take on these roles every day.

Why?

...

Today I was told by a service I use multiple times per week for the last 5 years:

"When we have more numbers, and they are gradually going up, we'll be able to provide the consistency you're looking for."

"I'm one of your most consistent and long-term current 'numbers', and I'm feeling very undervalued. Right now I'm ready to run."

If you wait until you're ready, you might not have a business. Regardless of your current numbers, the most effective way to increase them is to take those you do have (I like to call them 'people'), give them the best POSSIBLE service you can provide, and then provide some more.

The biggest reason we get stuck or overwhelmed is fear. 

But that's not what we say to ourselves. We don't say "I'm stuck, where is my fear and what can I do about it?" (Ewww, hard!)

In fact, we probably don't say anything beyond "Hmmm. That's hard...

...I wonder who's on Instagram Stories today?"

But once we've procrastinated through Celeste Barber's latest hilarious and inspiring offering (hello, how amazing has her Tom Ford stuff been?) we often seek out a different form of procrastination, hiding, staying stuck and staying small. We tell ourselves we need more information, more knowledge, more qualifications, more strategies, more expert advice or another free podcast, blog post or download before we can move forward. 

When we're stuck, our fear uses logic to persuade us to stay safe. We tell ourselves that all we need are strategies. Steps. A direct path from A --> B. That level of clarity is enticing, but not always effective in getting us unstuck. 

Clarity...