Ditch The Hustle

Welcome to the first episode of the Ditch the Hustle podcast. In this episode we introduce ourselves a little bit and explore what ditching the hustle actually means.What does ditch the hustle look and feel like to you? It’s a big question, and the answer is different for each person. It also changes over time and in this episode Amanda, Naomi and Nicola explore how their businesses have evolved over the years and how the ways they ditch the hustle have changed along with that.Thanks for being here, it’s been great sharing this adventure with you. Choose your own adventure in the business world and let’s ditch the hustle together.If this conversation stirred up a desire in you to explore what doing business gently might mean to you, you can get direct support, guidance and tools in the Gentle Business Mastermind. It’s an experience that support new entrepreneurs and existing business owners to grow their businesses gently, sustainably and consciously. Along the way you’ll meet an incredible community of guest mentors and other gentle business masterminds from around the globe who you can get support from and offers support in return, while you explore growing your own business in alignment with your heart, vision, values and energy.Registration for the gentle business mastermind is open in Feb-March 2020. You can find out more about it at gentlebusinessmastermind.com where you can also download the free ‘Grow your Business the Gentle Way’ ebook. It’s full of inspiring tips and prompts to help you do business gently in your own way.

Every now and then on the podcast, we wanted to feature one of our Guest Mentors form the Gentle Business Mastermind. We have conducted a number of live interviews with a variety of experts, while mastermind members are on the line. We then store these interviews in our members portal so that members who couldn’t attend live or who have perhaps joined the mastermind in later years, can listen back to the mentors’ wisdom and experience.This is an excerpt from one of those interviews, and this excerpt features Staci Jordan Shelton. Staci is a coach and a consultant who helps people look at the things that keep them stuck, stalling or sabotaging themselves. In this segment, Staci and Naomi discuss gaslighting and the hustle culture that exists in our society and especially in business contexts.Staci explains what gaslighting is across a number of different contexts, and why we need to stop gaslighting ourselves especially around boundaries. Naomi and Staci dive into the reasons ‘getting free is a process and staying free is a practice’ and how we can apply that in our own lives. Finally, they cover hustle culture and Staci shares how that can keep us from success in business and in life, plus some important questions to ask to help get free of that.If you would like to connect with Staci, you can find her at stacijordanshelton.comIf this conversation stirred up a desire in you to explore what doing business gently might mean to you, you can get direct support, guidance and tools in the Gentle Business Mastermind. It’s an experience that support new entrepreneurs and existing business owners to grow their businesses gently, sustainably and consciously. Along the way you’ll meet an incredible community of guest mentors and other gentle business masterminds from around the globe who you can get support from and offers support in return, while you explore growing your own business in alignment with your heart, vision, values and energy.Registration for the gentle business mastermind is open in Feb-March 2020. You can find out more about it at gentlebusinessmastermind.com where you can also download the free ‘Grow your Business the Gentle Way’ ebook. It’s full of inspiring tips and prompts to help you do business gently in your own way.Thanks for being here, it’s been great sharing this adventure with you. Choose your own adventure in the business world and let’s ditch the hustle together.

Nicola, Naomi and Amanda all share what a gentle work week looks and feels like for them. This is a juicy conversation about rhythms and cycles, tips and tools, and paying attention to what’s working (and what’s not!) over time.All three share practical examples of how gentle working weeks have shifted over time, plus Naomi shares how motherhood and having a 9 to 5 government job has presented opportunities and challenges for working gently. Mandy, Nai and Nic discuss their relationships with working weekends and some of the specific systems, operations and tools they use to make life and business gentler.If this conversation stirred up a desire in you to explore what doing business gently might mean to you, you can get direct support, guidance and tools in the Gentle Business Mastermind. It’s an experience that support new entrepreneurs and existing business owners to grow their businesses gently, sustainably and consciously. Along the way you’ll meet an incredible community of guest mentors and other gentle business masterminds from around the globe who you can get support from and offers support in return, while you explore growing your own business in alignment with your heart, vision, values and energy.Registration for the gentle business mastermind is open in Feb-March 2020. You can find out more about it at gentlebusinessmastermind.com where you can also download the free ‘Grow your Business the Gentle Way’ ebook. It’s full of inspiring tips and prompts to help you do business gently in your own way.Thanks for being here, it’s been great sharing this adventure with you. Choose your own adventure in the business world and let’s ditch the hustle together.

Naomi, Nicola and Amanda interview Ellen Ronalds Keene, the founder of Self-Care for Teachers and Perk Digital. Ellen shares her story of chronic illness and career change that led to her becoming self-employed. She shares how having two businesses actually helps her maintain balance, and why she grappled so much with this initially.Ellen explains some of the themes she sees in business owners and entrepreneurs that echo those that come up when she works with teachers, such as the glorification of the hustle, being the martyr and the myth of the quick fix/silver bullet.We also discuss the benefits of policies and procedures in business, and how separating ‘you’ from ‘your business’ helps with boundaries.Ellen also tells us how being a part of the Gentle Business Mastermind community has been so beneficial to her.You can connect with Ellen on LinkedIn or at ellenronaldskeene.comIf this conversation stirred up a desire in you to explore what doing business gently might mean to you, you can get direct support, guidance and tools in the Gentle Business Mastermind. It’s an experience that support new entrepreneurs and existing business owners to grow their businesses gently, sustainably and consciously. Along the way you’ll meet an incredible community of guest mentors and other gentle business masterminds from around the globe who you can get support from and offers support in return, while you explore growing your own business in alignment with your heart, vision, values and energy.Registration for the gentle business mastermind is open in Feb-March 2020. You can find out more about it at gentlebusinessmastermind.com where you can also download the free ‘Grow your Business the Gentle Way’ ebook. It’s full of inspiring tips and prompts to help you do business gently in your own way.Thanks for being here, it’s been great sharing this adventure with you. Choose your own adventure in the business world and let’s ditch the hustle together.

In this episode, Amanda, Nicola and Naomi explore a topic dear to their hearts as they unpack the concept of gentle success: what it looks like for each of us and how we can invite more of it into our lives.Each shares what their relationship with success looks and feels like, and how it’s shifted over time. Naomi explains the questions she uses to help her unpack the concept of success for herself, realising that it’s not a binary and that she can approach it from a mindset of curiosity.Mandy shares why recognising and appreciating what already is here and now is so important, rather than always looking for the next milestone to achieve. Nic tells a story of a road trip with her dog in a van, and the simple exercise that helped her understand where she was going to invest her time and money.All three share what they do to create an environment and capacity to feel successful. Remember that in different seasons in our life, the things that we want to direct our attention towards and that we define as ‘success’ can change, and that’s ok.If this conversation stirred up a desire in you to explore what doing business gently might mean to you, you can get direct support, guidance and tools in the Gentle Business Mastermind. It’s an experience that support new entrepreneurs and existing business owners to grow their businesses gently, sustainably and consciously. Along the way you’ll meet an incredible community of guest mentors and other gentle business masterminds from around the globe who you can get support from and offers support in return, while you explore growing your own business in alignment with your heart, vision, values and energy.Registration for the gentle business mastermind is open in Feb-March 2020. You can find out more about it at gentlebusinessmastermind.com where you can also download the free ‘Grow your Business the Gentle Way’ ebook. It’s full of inspiring tips and prompts to help you do business gently in your own way.Thanks for being here, it’s been great sharing this adventure with you. Choose your own adventure in the business world and let’s ditch the hustle together.

Every now and again on the podcast, Mandy, Nic and Naomi want to feature one of the guest mentors from the Gentle Business Mastermind. Throughout the year-long program there are a number of interviews with a variety of experts while mastermind members are on the line, then these calls are stored in the members portal to listen back to the mentor’s wisdom and experience.In this episode, we hear from Naomi’s personal business coach and strategist, Lena West. She has made such an impact on Nai’s life and business that it felt selfish to not share that brilliance with mastermind members. Masterminders loved the first mentor call with Lena so much that we brought her back again in the second year of the mastermind upon popular demand.This episode is an excerpt from the 2019 mentor call with Lena West, a Business Coach for Entrepreneurs who want to do things differently. Lena shares with us some of the ways the online business world can be misleading, unhelpful and even dangerous to those starting out in business, and what to do instead.We discuss why the world needs the introverts, HSPs and empath to be showing up as ourselves in the online world, and the power of doing this collectively (not just individually).Lena also explains how we can look at changing business models so as not to uphold old, patriarchal, hierarchical ways of doing things and why we should be reimagining what CEO means. We discuss doing so while striving for courage over fear-less-ness, and how as CEOs we need to protect our confidence and surround ourselves with people we trust.We hope you found this segment of the interview with Lena as useful and inspiring as we did. If you would like to connect with Lena you can find her work at LenaWest.comIf this conversation stirred up a desire in you to explore what doing business gently might mean to you, you can get direct support, guidance and tools in the Gentle Business Mastermind. It’s an experience that support new entrepreneurs and existing business owners to grow their businesses gently, sustainably and consciously. Along the way you’ll meet an incredible community of guest mentors and other gentle business masterminds from around the globe who you can get support from and offers support in return, while you explore growing your own business in alignment with your heart, vision, values and energy.Registration for the gentle business mastermind is open in Feb-March 2020. You can find out more about it at gentlebusinessmastermind.com where you can also download the free ‘Grow your Business the Gentle Way’ ebook. It’s full of inspiring tips and prompts to help you do business gently in your own way.Thanks for being here, it’s been great sharing this adventure with you. Choose your own adventure in the business world and let’s ditch the hustle together.

We’ve now wrapped on Season 1 of the Ditch the Hustle Podcast. We hope you’ve loved it so far. We will release the second season in the New Year and we’re really excited about the episodes we have planned.In the meantime, we send our love and best wishes as we approach the holiday season. We really hope that you have a nourishing break and that you’re gentle with yourself through a period of the year that we know is especially challenging for some folk.We will be thinking of you and hoping that the end of the year, the holidays and the birth of the New Year is kind to you. If you’ve enjoyed this season, we’d love it if you could subscribe and leave us a rating and review for the Ditch the Hustle Podcast.Thanks so much for coming on this ride with us on the Ditch The Hustle Podcast and we can’t wait to connect again in 2020.If this conversation stirred up a desire in you to explore what doing business gently might mean to you, you can get direct support, guidance and tools in the Gentle Business Mastermind. It’s an experience that support new entrepreneurs and existing business owners to grow their businesses gently, sustainably and consciously. Along the way you’ll meet an incredible community of guest mentors and other gentle business masterminds from around the globe who you can get support from and offers support in return, while you explore growing your own business in alignment with your heart, vision, values and energy.Registration for the gentle business mastermind is open in Feb-March 2020. You can find out more about it at gentlebusinessmastermind.com where you can also download the free ‘Grow your Business the Gentle Way’ ebook. It’s full of inspiring tips and prompts to help you do business gently in your own way.Thanks for being here, it’s been great sharing this adventure with you. Choose your own adventure in the business world and let’s ditch the hustle together.

Welcome to Season 2 of Ditch The Hustle, and welcome to a new year and a new decade! thank you very much for being here with us. And we can't wait to share this new year with you in this new decade. And we'll see you in the next episode.In this episode, Naomi, Nic and Mandy share a little bit about having a gentle New Year: what they’ve been up to during the break and the rituals they’ve been using to support them all in doing business gently.Mandy and Naomi share how they both ended up working more than they planned over the break, because they found the time out from ‘business as usual’ gave them space to be inspired and dig into some projects and plans that otherwise get put off. Nicola shares how she spent much of the break engaging with and feeling heartbroken about the bushfire crisis in Australia, and the daily practices that helped restore her during time of such bad news.All three mention some resources that they’ve been inspired by or finding useful and helpful during the holiday season and beyond, including for daily gratitude practices, content planning and business reflection and leadership for the new year. They discuss some of the struggles they’ve experienced over the holiday period and how they support themselves and each other through those as well.Naomi also tells us her words for the year, and Nic and Mandy explain the rituals they do in the new year. All agree on the power of and importance of community and connection, and how much they enjoyed connecting with Gentle Business Masterminders in the new year too.If this conversation stirred up a desire in you to explore what doing business gently might mean to you, you can get direct support, guidance and tools in the Gentle Business Mastermind. It’s an experience that support new entrepreneurs and existing business owners to grow their businesses gently, sustainably and consciously. Along the way you’ll meet an incredible community of guest mentors and other gentle business masterminds from around the globe who you can get support from and offers support in return, while you explore growing your own business in alignment with your heart, vision, values and energy.Registration for the gentle business mastermind is open in Feb-March 2020. You can find out more about it at gentlebusinessmastermind.com where you can also download the free ‘Grow your Business the Gentle Way’ ebook. It’s full of inspiring tips and prompts to help you do business gently in your own way.Thanks for being here, it’s been great sharing this adventure with you. Choose your own adventure in the business world and let’s ditch the hustle together.

Every now and again on the podcast, Naomi Nic and Mandy feature one of the members from the Gentle Business Mastermind. You may recall that we spoke with Ellen Ronalds Keene in season one of Ditch The Hustle.In this episode we're really excited to introduce you to Sharyn Holmes. Sharyn is a gutsy leader, anti-oppression consultant, coach, artists, speaker and writer; “not for the faint of heart,” she writes on her website. Her work dives deep into social justice, spirituality and personal sovereignty.Sharyn’s anti-oppression courses such as “Unpack your privilege” are truly transformational. All three of us have learned so much from Sharyn over the years, and we really do love her to bits.In this particular conversation Sharyn shared with us the important role of storytelling in business, nuances of vulnerability in building a gentle business, the power of community and connection, how the mastermind has supported her to give words to her experience, Sharyn’s approach to self care, the importance of being in a space with people who have similar intentions and values, how to work through feelings of overwhelm, and a bit about the framework for unpacking your privilege.You can connect with Sharyn at www.gutsygirl.com.au or follow her on Instagram @sharynaholmesIf this conversation stirred up a desire in you to explore what doing business gently might mean to you, you can get direct support, guidance and tools in the Gentle Business Mastermind. It’s an experience that support new entrepreneurs and existing business owners to grow their businesses gently, sustainably and consciously. Along the way you’ll meet an incredible community of guest mentors and other gentle business masterminds from around the globe who you can get support from and offers support in return, while you explore growing your own business in alignment with your heart, vision, values and energy.Registration for the gentle business mastermind is open in Feb-March 2020. You can find out more about it at gentlebusinessmastermind.com where you can also download the free ‘Grow your Business the Gentle Way’ ebook. It’s full of inspiring tips and prompts to help you do business gently in your own way.Thanks for being here, it’s been great sharing this adventure with you. Choose your own adventure in the business world and let’s ditch the hustle together.

In this episode, Mandy, Nic and Nai discuss the power of community—both online and offline—for gentle-hearted folk and business owners.Nicola shares some of her experiences in her younger years, both positive and negative around community, and the various ways living on a boat is actually much more communal than one might initially assume.Naomi shares how she has grown into herself and now is much more intentional about the community she creates, as well as the wonderful experience of meeting people in person after getting to know them online.Mandy shares a bit about how she can see the benefits in both the deep relationships built with a small group of supportive people (often online), as well as the more surface-level interactions that come from living in an apartment complex or in-person community.All three discuss not only the ways finding genuine community has helped shape their success, but also the joy and comfort that can be found in connecting with others in safe, sacred spaces.If this conversation stirred up a desire in you to explore what doing business gently might mean to you, you can get direct support, guidance and tools in the Gentle Business Mastermind. It’s an experience that support new entrepreneurs and existing business owners to grow their businesses gently, sustainably and consciously.Along the way you’ll meet an incredible community of guest mentors and other gentle business masterminds from around the globe who you can get support from and offers support in return, while you explore growing your own business in alignment with your heart, vision, values and energy.Registration for the gentle business mastermind is open in Feb-March 2020. You can find out more about it at gentlebusinessmastermind.com where you can also download the free ‘Grow your Business the Gentle Way’ ebook. It’s full of inspiring tips and prompts to help you do business gently in your own way.Thanks for being here, it’s been great sharing this adventure with you. Choose your own adventure in the business world and let’s ditch the hustle together.

Every now and then on the podcast, we wanted to feature one of our Guest Mentors form the Gentle Business Mastermind. We have conducted a number of live interviews with a variety of experts, while mastermind members are on the line. We then store these interviews in our members portal so that members who couldn’t attend live or who have perhaps joined the mastermind in later years, can listen back to the mentors’ wisdom and experience.This is an excerpt from one of those interviews, with Bari Tessler Linden. Bari is a financial therapist, mentor, coach, mama-preneur and founder of the Art of Money, a year long money school that she lovingly leads each year. It’s also the name of her book, The Art of Money: a life changing guide to financial happiness.Bari has guided thousands of people to new, empowered and refreshingly honest relationships with money through her nurturing body centred approach. Her methodology weaves together personal, couple and creative entrepreneurial money teachings intone complete tapestry.Nic has been following Bari since back in 2012 when both were enrolled in Marie Forleo’s B School. Since then, she read Bari’s wonderful book ‘The Art of Money’ and loved it so much that she then enrolled in her year-long program of the same name.Bari’s is a beautifully integrated, gentle approach to money. As a result of her teachings, Nic has experienced enormous shifts in her relationship with money that has supported her through transitions and growth in her business as well as opened up a deeper, more connected way of talking about finances with her husband.In this excerpt, Bari explores a vast array of topics including money shame, how we compartmentalise money as non-spiritual, and how money practises and money dates can support us. She also covers how earning more money doesn’t automatically solve all your money problems and issues, plus the power of healing your money stories and beliefs.Our hope is that this conversation sparks ideas, inspiration and clarity for your personal relationship with money and how you can cultivate that relationship so money is a supportive, nurturing area in your life and business.If you would like to experience some more support around your business and building it gently, there are some exciting things happening at the moment. Sign up for the free Gentle Business Challenge, and join us for a Virtual Retreat day where we’ll get together and work on a project in your business.Registration for the gentle business mastermind is open in Feb-March 2020. You can find out more about it and join us in the Gentle Business Challenge and Virtual Retreat at gentlebusinessmastermind.com where you can also download the free ‘Grow your Business the Gentle Way’ ebook. It’s full of inspiring tips and prompts to help you do business gently in your own way.Thanks for being here, it’s been great sharing this adventure with you. Choose your own adventure in the business world and let’s ditch the hustle together.

Support and accountability can look like a lot of different things for different people, different seasons of life and business, and different personalities and tendencies as well. Mandy, Nai and Nic discuss what support and accountability looks like for each of them and how they like to bring it into both business and home life.Each share how the support they have needed and sought out in business has shifted over the years based on what’s needed, possible and appropriate. Support can be about education and learning, it could be support in implementing the admin side of your business, bookkeeping, team members that you bring on, or investing in courses, coaches and mentors for personal and professional development.Mandy shares some suggestions for getting support without paying money for it, through bartering arrangements, volunteering, pro bono options and sponsorship. Nai shares how she has asked for support from family with childcare and how that’s shifted over the years as her little boy has grown up.Nic shares how during her latest launch it became obvious to her that rather than getting more support outsourcing in business, what would feel most supportive was going out to eat and not having to worry about food preparation on a boat!They then share a bit about each of their relationship with accountability, including a quick overview of Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies Framework which has to do with the different ways people feel commitment to goals and expectations set by self and others.Finally, Mandy, Nic and Nai discuss how they review and revise their support and accountability as needed, and the wonderful types of accountability and support that they have create in the Gentle Business Mastermind.If you would like to experience some more support around your business and building it gently, there are some exciting things happening at the moment. Sign up for the free Gentle Business Challenge, and join us for a Virtual Retreat day where we’ll get together and work on a project in your business.Registration for the gentle business mastermind is open in Feb-March 2020. You can find out more about it and join us in the Gentle Business Challenge and Virtual Retreat at gentlebusinessmastermind.com where you can also download the free ‘Grow your Business the Gentle Way’ ebook. It’s full of inspiring tips and prompts to help you do business gently in your own way.Thanks for being here, it’s been great sharing this adventure with you. Choose your own adventure in the business world and let’s ditch the hustle together.

Every now and again on the podcast, Naomi Nic and Mandy feature one of the members from the Gentle Business Mastermind. They have so much wisdom to share themselves so we didn't want to hide them from you.In this episode, we're excited to introduce you to Terri Connellan from quietwriting.com Terri is a writer and life coach living in Sydney, Australia. Her business Quiet Writing is all about journeying deep into wholehearted stories, working through self and leadership strategies such as writing, personality type, Tarot and reading as a creative influence.We had a great time chatting with Terri about how knowing your personality type can assist you in growing your business gently, in moving gently through transition periods and having fun on social media, on self leadership tips and so much more as well.You can connect with Terri at quietwriting.com or on Instagram @writingquietlyIf this conversation stirred up a desire in you to explore what doing business gently might mean to you, you can get direct support, guidance and tools in the Gentle Business Mastermind. It’s an experience that support new entrepreneurs and existing business owners to grow their businesses gently, sustainably and consciously.Along the way you’ll meet an incredible community of guest mentors and other gentle business masterminds from around the globe who you can get support from and offers support in return, while you explore growing your own business in alignment with your heart, vision, values and energy.Registration for the gentle business mastermind is open in Feb-March 2020. You can find out more about it at gentlebusinessmastermind.com where you can also download the free ‘Grow your Business the Gentle Way’ ebook. It’s full of inspiring tips and prompts to help you do business gently in your own way.Thanks for being here, it’s been great sharing this adventure with you. Choose your own adventure in the business world and let’s ditch the hustle together.

Welcome to the final episode of Ditch The Hustle. In this episode Mandy, Nai and Nic share a little bit about the Gentle Business Mastermind and what you can expect if you’re thinking about joining them for 12 months of support in your business. The mastermind is about support for your business, to be accountable and get things done, to have people around you who have similar values and who also want to grow their business in a way that feels good and that challenges that hustle culture as well.They explain the different types of support the mastermind involves, including the weekly accountability thread, the community coaching calls exploring monthly themes, the expert mentor calls about all sorts of topics in business, the resource library of checklists and tools and reviews, as well as scheduled virtual retreats and coworking time.Mandy, Nai and Nic also share some of the feedback from previous participants in the Gentle Business Mastermind who explain how the experience has made an impact in their life and business.The Gentle Business Mastermind starts on the 9th March 2020 and we would be thrilled to welcome you into this beautiful community and uniquely supportive space.If this conversation stirred up a desire in you to explore what doing business gently might mean to you, you can get direct support, guidance and tools in the Gentle Business Mastermind. It’s an experience that support new entrepreneurs and existing business owners to grow their businesses gently, sustainably and consciously.Along the way you’ll meet an incredible community of guest mentors and other gentle business masterminds from around the globe who you can get support from and offers support in return, while you explore growing your own business in alignment with your heart, vision, values and energy.You can find out more about it at gentlebusinessmastermind.com where you can also download the free ‘Grow your Business the Gentle Way’ ebook. It’s full of inspiring tips and prompts to help you do business gently in your own way.Thanks for being here, it’s been great sharing this adventure with you. Choose your own adventure in the business world and let’s ditch the hustle together.