141: Live a Life You Love: The Art of Bleisure with Emma Lovell
You started your business to do what you love, right?
To bring more joy into your life, more freedom and flexibility.
Often we can get caught up in the day-to-day of business that we forget about joy and pleasure.
Do you want to start enjoying your business more? To integrate more joy and pleasure into your business (and life).
Join host of the Essential Shift Podcast (Laetitia Andrac) and Emma Lovell (Author of the Book Bleisure) to talk about self-care, pleasure, joy as well as the challenges that come with entrepreneurship (and how to get through them).
If you LOVED the episode, make sure you share this on your Instagram stories and tag me @essential.shift and @emmalovell.au.
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KEY EPISODE TAKEAWAYS
What is Bleisure: understanding Bleisure
Practical tips for entrepreneurs and leaders on how to infuse pleasure into their daily routines
How to integrate small enjoyable activities into the workday
SHOW RESOURCES
CHECK out Emma’s Website - HERE
PRE-ORDER Emma’s Book - HERE
FOLLOW Emma on Instagram - HERE
CONNECT with Emma on LinkedIn - HERE
GET your copy of Light It - HERE
Join our female entrepreneur community in The Circle Membership - HERE
FOLLOW me on INSTAGRAM - HERE
Find out more about how to WORK WITH ME - HERE
If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your Instagram stories and tag me @essential.shift.
ABOUT THE GUEST
Emma Lovell is on a mission to live a life she loves and to support others to do the same. As a coach, speaker and writer, Emma inspires her clients and audiences to focus on what they truly want and go after it wholeheartedly. As entrepreneurs, we don't start businesses to just give ourselves a job - we are here to create a life! Emma shares how she has run a business for 14 years while travelling the world, having a family and making time for herself. She believes you can combine business, travel and self care to live a life you love ... NOW!
Emma's also a speaker and MC, regularly taking to the physical and virtual stages to inspire, motivate and encourage audiences. She's also the host of not one, not two but three podcasts - Lovelly Travels, Live & Love Your Brand and coming soon ... The Emma Lovell Show.
Emma lives on the Gold Coast with her Aquaman husband Mathew, her toddler Finn and their furbaby cat, T'challa.
Bless it be.
With love, Laetitia!
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Welcome to The Essential Shift Podcast. My name is Laetitia Andrac. If you're a mission driven entrepreneur looking to grow your soul aligned business by blending strategy, practical tips, and spiritual wisdom, you're in the right place. Enjoy these conversations about the art of mastering essential shifts and In all areas of business and life, open your heart and mind to all the possibilities that are waiting for you
to this episode with our special guest, Emma Lovell, we're going to talk about the art of pleasure, business and leisure together, and how timely is that as I am. traveling around France. And for the last few weeks, you've been listening to podcasts that I have recorded before heading on my holiday, on my long holiday, traveling around France.
And Emma Lovell, leave that. Two, that value of traveling. Imelodil is really on a mission to live a life she loves and to support others to do the same. She is an author. She will publish her book very soon. That's why I really wanted to have her on the podcast to help her in her book launch campaign. You know how a village.
is needed when you launch a book. And her book is all about the art of pleasure. I'm sure you're going to love this conversation. We are so aligned in our value of how we can combine business, travel, safe care every day to live a life we love now. We don't need to wait. So go ahead and listen to this podcast interview.
I hope you like it and let us know, Emma and I, what you got out of this interview. Keep us posted on social and don't hesitate to share this podcast, leave a review. Thank you. Thank you so much. Without further ado, I leave you to this beautiful conversation about the art of pleasure. Hello, Emma. Thank you so much for being on the Essential Shift Podcast.
Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. It's going to be such a good conversation. First of all, we know each other, so it's always nice to have someone on the podcast that you know well and all of that. So. We are going to talk today about pleasure and I can't wait for you to define what we mean by pleasure, but this is a beautiful concept that you carved.
Before we get into today's topic, I always love to ask my guests to introduce themselves as who they are as a human being. So if you know anything about your astrology blueprint or human design or Ayurveda, whatever, you know, that can help us understand you beyond your title and who you are and what you do, which we'll get into in this podcast.
Yes, I love, I do an exercise with my clients called I am, and I have the rules that you can't use any roles, titles, no mom, you know, job, this, that from this place. I like if to take all the anchors away and just now what are you going to write? So for me, I'm a, I'm a Leo. And if. If the listeners could see me, I have a big lion's mane of hair.
I'm a, uh, generate, um, a manifester. I always get, people always think I'm a manifesting generator in human design, but I'm a manifester, which is, makes sense. Cause I'm, I am very good at manifesting. Um, I'm a communicator. I think fundamentally, I love communication. I love connecting. I love talking. Um, but I love, you know, Uh, and I love travel because I love, uh, learning about other people and learning about other cultures.
And I think I love travel because those anchors are removed. So you have to meet people as they are, you're not meeting them in the school or the work or the, you know, they just, they are who they are and they're allowed to be who they are. And so, uh, I really love that. And yeah, I think if you ask me, if I had to give myself a title, then yeah, traveler, traveler and writer at heart, traveler, writer, and communicator in my heart.
I love that. Thank you, Emma, for playing the game. So you ran a business for quite some time, and I would love for you to take us back to the origin story of you being a business owner and entrepreneur. What made you start a business? Did you start it by accident? Was it intentional? Can you take us back to the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey and why did you start it?
So I had an accident and then I started the business. You didn't know that. Yeah, so I, um, yeah, it's gonna be fun. I'm writing a book and that's in there, but I also did a speech recently. It was fun to kind of relive that. It's always my fun fact. And people think it's not very fun, but I broke my back snowboarding in 2009.
So I was in university. I was competing in a snow sports competition. in Australia in Thredbo and I went off a jump and I told myself to man up and I hit the jump and I got in the air and I realized I wasn't going to land it and so I, I landed sitting up and broke two vertebrae in my back. Um, so I was forced to rest, which I was, not very good at.
I'm the energizer bunny. I'm always, I'm the manifestor. I'm always creating things. Um, I was studying and I was working and I was traveling and I was feast or famine, rinse, repeat. And I was just, yeah, a hundred miles an hour. And they were like, you know, if you do not rest, you could have permanent damage in your back.
Um, very fortunate didn't, um, still have the ability to walk, but you know, That's the reality could have been that I would have lost that. So it just gave me the time to, um, think and to think about what I wanted in my life. And I wanted the freedom to choose. And I had always been interested in business.
I loved like when I was a kid, like read papers and documents and just pretend I was, I did the garage sale thing, you know, it was a very entrepreneurial heart and I was just very interested in talking business with my parents. So I think it was. Um, always sort of on the cards, but it was like a one day.
And so, yeah, I started my business in uni and I literally was, had my broken back and I had some time, I registered my business name. I already had an ABN cause I was working, uh, sort of doing promotional work. You had to have an ABN to do work. So I sort of realized as well that I'd been running my own business in a sense.
I'd been acting as my own agent to get roles and to manage clients and that sort of stuff. So I just, I had, I'd actually been working for, um, the company that my dad worked for. And so I just asked them to invoice if I could invoice instead of, uh, be paid, pay, pay IG. And they said, yes. So I had a client day one and.
I just sort of did it. And I said, I'm running a business. And then people were like, Oh, what do you do? And I said, Oh, you'll do these things. And I was studying business, majoring in marketing and PR at the time. So yeah, that's cool. How long have you been, uh, running your business for now? It'll be 15 years, September.
It's amazing. I love how, you know, I asked you, did you start your business by accident? And actually it was an accident. I didn't know that. Because of an accident. So yeah, so no, it was, I think it was intentional. I just didn't think it would be when it was, I didn't think it, and then, you know, the message, and it's a very, probably annoying message.
And you and I have both entered wards and I was mumpreneur or was it like, what would you tell your younger self or would you tell somebody starting a business? And my answer is do it, just do it because, you know, there are people who are still starting businesses and they've been starting a business for 10 years.
You know, I started a business and I might not have liked it, but I was 22 and I was like, we'll give it a crack. Yes. Give it a go. Give it a go. And you know, on this podcast, I'm always about inspiring others to just give it a go wherever you are in your business journey. And sometimes it's give it a go to create another business on top of your business, which I'm doing right now.
I'm creating a pure brand new tech startup on top of, you know, because Why just one business? That's boring. Who needs time? Who needs, who needs space? Who needs sleep? Why? Who? Not us. I'm a magician on this time. So this is a beautiful segue to go back to, um, the concept of pleasure, which is why we are here today.
Cause I really want you to inspire everyone around this concept of pleasure, which you're writing a book about, and anyone was listening to this. Pre order may be available when this is released. If not, just go ahead and book for your book launch because the book launch Event is already on so all of those will be in the show notes, but can you explain to us?
What is pleasure? The pleasure is combining of business and leisure. So hence the bleh, pleasure. People think I'm like, Oh no, you're saying it wrong. I'm like, no, no, no, no. I'm intentionally saying pleasure. Um, but we can say we can interchange, um, business for work. So typically we think of pleasure as like, say someone goes on a conference, uh, or they're sent away for work and then they stay on for a night or two.
You know, and so they make the most of the destination. But for me, I take pleasure as, as with anything to the extreme. And I just think, I think pleasure is about, is about the combining of business slash work. Let's use that work into word interchangeably. So it doesn't matter if you have a job or a business or what type of work you're doing.
You couldn't have leisure and travel and fun. So travel's my leisure and travel's probably my goal. But I think sometimes as well, people take the word travel and they think international travel. But to me, and I think you're the same, we have travel is a mindset. Travel's how we look at the world and travel is about being in awe and wonder.
And I just don't think we need to have such a divide of this is when I work and this is when I play. When I'm with you, we we're playing, we're having fun, you know, A lot of my beautiful business colleagues have become friends, dear friends. And so, you know, I just went on a private, uh, retreat that I organized, a creative getaway, which was to talk about business, but we did it in a leisurely environment.
Yeah. So that is pleasure. Um, you, I rented a hotel to run my retreat. And then after the retreat day finished, my son and my husband came. That's pleasure. That's bringing my family, having some holiday time, but also doing the work. So I just think there's ways and I think it can look so different and that's why I wanted to make the definition of pleasure more broad than go and do your job and then tack on a holiday.
I love that. And it's so important to, so important to stop separating the two, right? Because when you, when you're working and you're weaving into your work, leisure, pleasure, things that nourish you, that can be a nice meal. You know, I know that when I was traveling, even though it may not be far away, when I was working in Paris in consulting, I may go to Strasbourg, which is a two and a half hours, Fast train.
I could do it in one day, but no, I would stay in Strasbourg for the night so that I can enjoy the delicious food that they have in Strasbourg and then come back to Paris. So it's like, how might you weave consciously, intentionally into your work day and every time. I go for a conference or something.
And I know you do that so well too. It's like, how might you then have a coffee or chat with someone that otherwise you may not meet last, um, months, I went to Melbourne for a day for, um, uh, being on TV on a, you know, on a TV show and basically I organize, you know, breakfast and dinner and drinks and like with France.
In business, but then you are doing pleasure. So I love how you weave that because then it's not just this expensive international fancy holidays that we have to take to experience pleasure. It can be anything that we do. Yeah. And the other part of it is I think I'm really anti. I think when I say this, I don't want to sound irresponsible.
I'm really anti the concept of retirement because as an entrepreneur, I don't understand the concept, like I like my work, I enjoy my work, so I don't see a day when I'm going to end it, especially as you know, you're an author, I'm about to release my first book. I can be writing books until the end of my days.
You know, I love speaking, speaking like I, as long as I can speak, I can. That can mean income generation. I love, you know, you're starting a new business. I feel like there's many a business in my future. And so as I said, for the, not the responsibility part, I think it's very important to build your wealth and to take care of your future self, but not that you, you work as I'll work, work, work, and then I'll play.
Yeah. And then I'll work until I'm 60 and then I'll enjoy my life. I just, I do not subscribe to that. I do not subscribe to the four weeks a year annual leave, obviously, um, around my own business. But I think there's a lot of business owners who still fall into the nine to five. Work day, not work day sort of regimen.
And like, then really come down on people like me who say work on a Sunday night. And you're like, why are you working? It's a Sunday night. It's like, cause I don't work on Monday or I didn't work for half today. Like, let me choose what work looks like. Let me choose what, um, That future looks like absolutely advocating.
And that's from my feast or famine days of putting money aside and helping the future self, but just not drawing such a line in the sand between work and life or business and life and business and family and all this siloing of our life and siloing of our time. This is work time and this is fun time.
This is my career. And then this is when I get to enjoy my life. I just, that's what I want to. And I love this. And do you feel there is something around the generation because I can really see my parents being in that mindset of work, work, work. And often when you're retired, but I find more and more of us younger generation, even now the younger generations that I am mentoring and helping being even to the extreme of that.
Like I find I am. You know, since I reached burnout, which was 10 years ago, I really find that now I am playing as I'm working. And every day I'm like, I'm not working towards retirement. I'm working these, I. love my work and I have time for play and I have time for travel and I have time for this and I have time for that.
Whereas I find the new generation being too, even to the extreme of pleasure. And I know recently you went back to the University of New South Wales to give a, you know, a talk about this. What do you find? Do you find there is something which is generational or do you find it's more something That we live because we both sharing this value and maybe we live in a bubble.
Or how do you find this? Because it's your level of, right. It's generational. Definitely. Like it's still, I think, um, my parents know me so they don't challenge me, but, but they still will have that security type conversation. But I think my in-laws even are a little, um, probably challenged by the way that I work.
And you know, it's still these conversations of, and I absolutely, again, agree with. Putting money aside for super and things like that. But I'm like, I invested in a property when I was 30. And that is, that has generated a huge amount of income. I think the young, because, um, the housing market is becoming so potentially inaccessible, people are starting to look at alternate ways to bring in income, to generate income.
So like my only message on that would be like, Um, you can spend, save, have debt, invest all at once. And I didn't realize that it was all like, save for the house. Cool. Now I've bought the house. Okay. Now spend on travel. Okay. Now I've done that. Okay. And then one day I'll put some money in the super and it's like, Oh, I could have actually been doing all four at once.
So I think the younger generation sounds so old to say that, but like 10 years younger than us, they're just more open to, I guess, the work flexibility, um, they digital, they're digital natives. You know, and it's not to be an influence or whatever, but online working online or working on a computer is normal to them.
Physical workplaces are not such a restriction. So I think they just more open into, in that they can see these, all these different ways. I mean, investing in all those sorts of things, you have apps for that now you can get work on apps. You can do, we have much more flexibility that the older generations didn't have.
So then they just have that sort of more fixed mindset around it. Um, and I think there's probably maybe some envy, uh, that will come out of that. Like, you know, well, it's all well and good for you or, Oh, so you can just go and do this. And I'm like, yeah, I have a choice. And thank you for giving me security and a great foundation.
But I do have the ability to have some more freedom and flexibility in how I choose to live my life now and in the future. I love that. So what would be for anyone who is listening to this and is like, okay, I'd really love to embrace pleasure. What would be the one, two, three, how many, you know, you can choose always love a rule of three, the three top tips that you would give them around how to start bringing pleasure more.
Into their lifestyle as an entrepreneur or as a leader. We have both type of listener on this podcast. So I think, I think one, and you sort of brought it up is that, you know, even people who run their own businesses, um, you know, we're going to an event, like a conference say, and the conference starts at 12 o'clock on Wednesday and finishes on Saturday, you know, It finishes Friday night.
So you leave on Saturday morning. Why don't you just arrive in the morning of the Wednesday and stay maybe one more day, like, so one more night, just adding like one and a half more days into it, you know, not getting adjusted at start and then feeling like waking up at seven o'clock on a Saturday morning to rush home.
Now, obviously people will have life circumstances and things like that, but when you're booking a conference or booking an event, you're booking a year in advance. Book yourself. And I did this sometimes last year, finishing a photo shoot, finishing at a conference and rushing back home. And then I'm straight into parenting.
I'm straight into life and I'm drained. Yeah. If I hadn't given myself one more night. Yeah. Get it. Integrate. To download. Integrate. When you go to a retreat, give yourself half a day, one day to just have some time alone, um, to, or to do something like that's not, um, intensive so that you can actually apply what you've learned and apply what you've, you've gained.
Uh, so just give yourself that little bit of extra space. I think that would be number one tip. Uh, number two is, is start looking at the ways. I guess that you're already probably doing it, like you said, maybe just having a lunch with a friend or including a walk in the day or choosing to work from a different office.
Like, don't think of pleasure as digital nomad that you're going to go and work on your computer for three months in Europe. You and I love that, but it's not always possible. So don't think that like it has to look. Like that, like I don't call myself a digital nomad, think it can be done in really simple ways and it might be just going and working.
I'm in a hotel right now, you know, having a night away in a hotel. Like it could be something as simple as that. I'm still working. I'm still having a podcast interview. I'm just doing it in a slightly different way and having some nice things around it. I think the third thing is that probably the biggest one I come up against is like the not being able to afford it or having the money.
And I think you said it in a great way as well. It's like not looking at it as an expense, but looking at it as an investment in yourself, like we can plan for these things, we can budget for these things. And what I did a lot of the time is like, okay, well, yeah, if, if I'm feeling it, like money is more restricted, then how can I, Either cut back on something so that I do have the funds for that or increase my income and potentially that means doing a little bit of extra work, um, doing some extra hours, picking up one more client in that one more client means that's the, this or doing some, I don't know, online surveys for 10 a pop.
And if you do 20 of those, that's a night in a 200 hotel, you know, I think we don't have to be so, oh, here's my income. It's fixed. I can't. Do that big trip. Therefore, I can't do it just finding those little ways to top up the tank and I really have You know, I look at it. Do I go out for breakfast? That's 40 or that's an experience in Italy is do I do this thing for 200 or that's a night in a hotel?
Do I buy this new dress? Do I have those four extra drinks? Like I really start to look at things in terms of a travel cost. Yes So, but I think there's ways to, to cut back and increase your income just slightly that you can find that little bit so that you can't tell me that you don't have the money. I think we can find it when we want it and we see the goal.
I love that. That's amazing. Thank you so much for giving those tips and you know me, I am all about. anti hustle, anti burnout. And I lived this lifestyle because I was groomed by my parents for this lifestyle. And you know, then I was in one of the best business school and then in the best corporate job and blah, blah, blah, until I burnt out 10 years ago.
And this is when I was like, I changed this. You've been doing this from the get go. Whereas for me, I had, I experienced another way of working. And when I jumped into being an entrepreneur, I really consciously decided to cap my time. and to really spend, spend time with my family, spend time traveling, doing the things that I was not able to do when I was in corporate.
So basically going for seven weeks and a half in France, it's like something I would have never been able to do because my job as a general manager was like, you need to be there for the team. You can take two weeks off. I'm like, no. So now it's like really the things that I can do, but also choosing. And there is power in choosing and you mentioned that so I'd love us to cover that a bit more but choosing to design your business and your work around things that give you pleasure.
So, very often we think, and I could do that I could do a project around, you know, redesigning a whole process for a big business and earn a shit ton of money because I am a black belt in lean, I could do that. Do I want to? No. So this is where we get to choose. So I'd love for you to dive a bit deep, you know, a little bit more around, how might we choose to do this or not to do this in our business?
And how do you, you know, how do you help yourself choosing the right thing to do and so on? Because the answer for me would be intuition, but I'm sure you have maybe another way to decide. Well, you know, very frustrating answer. And you know, Kate, she was actually kind of set me off on this path, really love, like seeing that the way that I do the business and travel was actually a skill because you know, when you're doing it, you just do it and you don't think you're like, everyone can do this, but you don't realize that it was actually a skillset or, um, something different.
And so Kate was like, You don't have to answer, but honestly, how do you do it? Like, how are you doing it? And I was like, and I said, it's a really annoying answer, but I choose to. And I do make a choice. And with that choice comes sacrifice. Um, And, you know, you said that you had the burnout and then you changed things.
The thing is, and what I do talk about quite a bit in the book is, um, even a year after that accident. So I broke my back and then a year later I broke my mind. And if you ask me to choose between the two, I'll choose the broken back time and time again. I, you do not have to physically, mentally, emotionally break in order to take a break, but I just went, came out of that.
And even though I was then working for myself and had the freedom to work for myself and had the freedom to travel, I just, again, feast or famine, I went. All in, I was feasting on everything and just, and then just like income, income, income, I'll just like, make it all back after what I did. But then I crashed out and I had to have like, you know, what burnout's like, I had to have like three months.
I couldn't, uh, I had like six weeks and then I had trip booked that I'd already got like planned. So I had like three months, I wasn't working and it set me back even further. And so I've had to, and I still come up against these lessons. I think it's a lifelong lesson of where you take it too far. Um, and you know, it's like burning the candle or yeah, yeah.
I'll just power through this bit and then I'll get my rest. So it's like, I'm learning and I'm saying, I'm not, I'm never going to sit in my ivory tower and say I've nailed it, but I'm like, but I knew when I realized that self care was so important and self care looks different to everyone. And so building in that rest, choosing breast, choosing to invest time in yourself, choosing to have space.
Sometimes. It seems like kind of counterintuitive at the time because you're like, Oh, that job is so good. And that money is so good. And I could do all these things. And, and it actually becomes a choice of like saying no is such a powerful thing. And it's such a gift, but when you start, it's really hard.
So there are times I've said no to opportunities that would seem ridiculously good. Um, Because I need to take care of myself and there's other times where I've said yes to things That don't seem again sensible like it seems a big thing and it's like maybe yeah financially or whatever It doesn't seem like the the thing It doesn't seem as right, but I'm like, but it feels great.
And it's going to light me up. And, you know, we took a trip last year and I have to explain this more, but like, we didn't really have the money. I knew the money would come because we were selling our investment property. So I wasn't completely irresponsible, but it was like, I felt like the only way I could really switch off and have time with my boys, which is what I needed.
We'd had a very full on family year with my, my nephew's terminally ill. It was a lot. Um, and it was like, is it the smartest thing to spend 20 grand on a three and a half week trip right now? Maybe not. But I felt like. I just felt broken. I felt like I couldn't continue. And I came back from that trip. So inspired, so encouraged, so motivated, so lit up.
Um, sold half the spots to my retreat, which would be to my next retreat, which would be 20 grand. So. Um, you know, it's, it's sometimes not as clear cut as that, but I had to trust that putting myself, putting my family, choosing that time, which was an expense, um, and that's the cost. And that was the sacrifice.
And that was the risk. I needed that. I needed that to keep going. And that lit me up, inspired me, topped up my tank so much to get me through the next patch. I love that. Thank you for sharing that and, uh, sharing your vulnerability. It's, it's really important. And. I always say that actually we make decisions in those moments that we don't know why we're making them but then at some point they really make sense to us.
I know for me it was like quitting this big job where I had my, you know, my lineup to be partner and I was like, nope, going to Australia. See you guys packing my stuff and moving to Australia with no job and nothing. And it was the best decision. You know, sometimes I love to go back and look at the five top decisions that I've made in the recent years.
And this is always one that stays, even though it was 10 years ago. And since then I've made amazing other decision. This one will always stay as a pivotal moment, which was this moment of. in a meditation feeling cool to just change everything because changing my habit was not enough to change how I wanted to live.
And I know if I was staying in Paris in this apartment that we had in this lifestyle with other people expecting me to be that top performing consultant or if I'm moving to another firm, that would be my reputation still. I needed to move and change my environment. And sometimes this is what we need.
We need to change the environment and it doesn't have to be as extreme as going 24 hours away or going for three and a half weeks around Europe and Asia like you did last year, but it was beautiful. Yeah, but your shift was powerful to notice and you know, anyone can go and you know, my business is called Essential Shift.
So anyone can find their essential shift. And it doesn't need to be as extreme as what we went through. And sometimes it can be a simple shift, like, you know, changing the way you are dressing up, changing the coffee you're going, changing the book you're reading, changing the TV you're consuming, changing those kind of things really, really help.
Thank you so much for saying that. So I have one question that I always love to ask the guests, which is before we go in the fire question, which is what is your biggest fucked up in my book? I call that a light bulb moment in your business. So a moment in your journey where like, Oh my gosh, this is turning bad.
But then actually in hindsight, it was a light bulb moment. It changed everything. Oh, it's fine. Um, I guess. I think I already knew it was bad. I just didn't know how it was going to go. So I was, um, started 2019. I've been in business for almost 10 years and I was just, um, doing all the things, doing all the things.
And it's like, I was running a pet sitting business. I was running, um, my communications business. I was, uh, partnering with the Indian travel company. I was actually in India. I was on the phone to a business coach and just crying because it was like, you know, eight clients are managing as well as this, as well as that.
And it was just like, I'm tired of doing all the things. Um, and so. Just having that, um, getting to the point of just being so sick of how you're doing something. And yet, and you can feel like, yeah, how can I undo this? And how can I change this? And how can I, I built this thing, the beast, how can I continue to feed the beast?
And it was hiring the business coach actually. And then, um, Having somebody see me, I think I hadn't invested in myself, to be honest, in the 10 years in business, I was always in the black, although sometimes things were tight. I was always business wise, like, you know, I'd never gone into debt in the business or anything like that.
And so, but I hadn't been invested. It was like, when I have money, I'll do this when I have money to do that. And I think I had the money, but it was still a big, you know, like working business coaches, a decent final financial investment. Yeah. It was non negotiable. It's like, I'm not, I don't know what to do.
And so it was her that, uh, she combined could see how my skills combined and how I could serve, um, people niche. And that's when I stepped into personal brand and then, you know, and I, I, like, I started doing it and then. Was sort of moving towards it, but then kept doing the things that I was doing. And I, and I had to stop everything and I had to give away all my clients.
I had to stop all the other things, which is terrifying. But to allow the space to, for the new thing to start. And so, yeah, not, didn't feel smart to like stop any income coming, but I knew that something had to change. Then again, I had like an epiphany around the same time. It was very, I was walking down the street in Austin, Texas, as you do.
And. I had this light bulb moment, probably walking under a street lamp. And I went, I'm in this, I'm asking people to invest in me, potentially 3, 000 a pop. You know, I'm asking people to invest in my service. I have never invested in my business. I had always had contra deals. Like I would do your words and you do my photos.
I'll do your this, you do my logo. Uh, you know, pet sitting in exchange for a logo. Like I was, which is smart to a degree, but. I'm not showing the universe that I'm, and I'm not showing my clients that I'm willing to. And so I invested in my website, I invested in things and, you know, just took it to the next level.
I love that. And I have really witnessed you in that journey. I remember the first conversation we had. We, we were having this conversation about you shifting from doing all of those things to focusing on one. And since then, I have witnessed really the shift and the growth in you. So I'm very, very proud to say that you've done it darling.
And it's only the beginning of, you know, we're going through transformation every single day, every single month and becoming an author. I am here to tell you it's going to be changing a lot of in your business. So can't wait to witness all of this. So now I'm going to go through the fire question. And then after the fire question, I'd love for you to explain to everyone how they can follow you, join your work, and of course, get your book, because that's what we want.
We want to get pleasure into everyone's hands. So intuition is. Intuition is essential. Okay. Essential. Thank you for saying that. All that could come. I let my intuition tell you what strategy is. Um, over complicated in that the people don't really know what the word means. It's again, it's essential, but I think people don't understand truly what strategy means and they overcomplicate it.
Um, And that a lot of people like to think they're strategic and no strategy, but they don't. When you've seen strategy, true strategy in action, it is impressive. Yes. So game changing when you can be truly strategic. And I don't think you can be, uh, you might think differently. I don't think you can be, do your own strategy.
I think you need help. You're too close to it. I think having. Other people, I totally, I totally agree with you. Like a strategy. And this is the thing with strategy. I'm trying to explain to people what is strategy and what it is not. And a lot of people think strategy is a tactic. It's a short term thing, a thing you fix, like put a bandaid on this.
No, a strategy is actually a longterm. It is a vision. It is a big roadmap. It is a big plan. This is your strategy and you cannot do your own strategy. You need to help to do that. So that's where I help people do that. And I have my own strategy consultant in house, my husband, because we used to work together and he's a fucking good strategist.
So I'm very lucky to have my husband helping me with the strategy, but it's so essential. So now business is fun. Of course you say that. I was going to say business is leisure. Yeah, business is, you know, yeah, no, business, business is and can be fun. Yes. Something I wish I knew sooner is. Uh, is how to manage personal and business debt or personal and business finance.
I wish there was, um, more education about this and I've been seeking out this in education for two years and it's stuff that I'm not the person I'm directing to the people because I need the help as much as possible. I just, I think I've been so hard on myself. Um, and probably so like lost in some ways over the years, um, I'm trying to be really gracious to my younger business self, but not knowing because how would you know?
And I'm so grateful for this second chapter of my business where I'm able to have very open and honest conversations with fellow business people who are being transparent about what. Um, and personal finance really looks like. Yeah. There's a lot of smoke and mirrors. So, um, yeah, I wish, I wish I knew more about that and, but it's not too late to educate yourself.
Read things, talk to people, be open, ask questions, keep learning, you know, but if, if I were to invest in something from day dot, it would be a bookkeeper and it would be financial learning. Yes. Yes. I love that. And something I want to share with everyone. Oh, I thought you were like, what do you want to share?
No, something I want to share with everyone is the last fire question. And then I say, you know, the, I, so something you want to share with everyone. Well, pleasure. And then, and through my book, The Art of Pleasure, I want, I want everyone, and I don't want people to just be like, I think the question I'm answering the book is, Oh, it's all well and good for her.
I think people look at me and think that it's, Um, I'm just lucky or something when actually what I want the book to show is that I have chosen this life. I have made this life. I have made sacrifices. I face challenges, but I choose it every day. Um, and I think that, um, other people in however way, whichever extreme they want to take it.
I think that it is so possible. And that's what I want to open people's eyes to is. It's this lovely world of pleasure, the art of pleasure. So anyone who's been listening to this and they're like, Oh my gosh, I loved it. How can I enter the Emma world? So how can they find you? Where can they get your book?
You have a podcast, which has been a guest on. Can you share all the magic of Emma for our listeners? Well, I've tried to make things simple. So my name is Emma Love. My website is Emma level au. My Instagram is Emma level au on LinkedIn. I'm Emma Lovel. Uh, Facebook. I believe my page is slash emma level au.
Um, and then the book is, uh, we will end up having a book page, but it's not up there yet. So, but it'll end up being something like Emma level au slash book. For now it's book launches. Uh, or book launch because the book launch is live. Uh, we're having an event in Sydney and Gold Coast, which I invite your audience to come to.
I think we are gonna have a lot of fun. It's a celebration for, for me, and inviting you to celebrate and, and celebrate your milestones as well. Um, and then, yeah, we'll have the, the book available everywhere. So the Art of Pleasure, the art of pleasure, and I highly recommend anyone to. Really give it a go.
Go and explore Emma's world and uh, I will be at your book launch in Sydney, so if you wanna see the both of us just come there. It is really a powerful moment to be here and witness someone launching their book. I am actually grateful for everyone that showed up last year for my book launch and that's why I'm really committed to go to as many Bush book launch as I can.
'cause it's always a beautiful moment to be in community and surround the author with. Love, because writing a book is not for the faint hearted, hey? It's really vulnerable. And it's really like, I did a podcast, so my podcast is the Emma Lovell show, also easy to find, I hope. Um, I did a podcast about I need a cheerleader, because I think people see you, you see you and me, see people out there because you have to be with, when you're in business, you have to be out there and you go and you show up.
And so then they think. That you just, you know, confident and unstoppable and untouchable when, and then just think that they can say whatever. And it's like, actually, I need, I get a lot of love and a lot of people in my corner, but I'm like, I need you to, to ramp that up times 10 because I am being. So vulnerable.
And this work is so big and it is life changing. And I said to my husband, I'm not trying to be dramatic, but I was like this book, it's before the book and after the book, it is taking it in a new direction, our life in a new direction, our book, the business in a new direction. And are you ready for that?
And so just understand that when someone's doing something big, even if they seem to be doing big things all the time, um, there's some sort of statistic where it's like 70 percent of people are writing a book. 16 percent of people are like actually, or want to write a book. 16 percent of our people are actually writing the book.
1 percent of people publish a book. Woo. I didn't know I was part of the 1%, but it's really true for me. In my experience, they were really a before and after Light It. I wrote Light It and I finished it. And I launched it and now, you know, we will celebrate the one year of the book on the 21st of September.
So it's not yet a year out. And the number of copies we sold, the impact it has, how it's elevated my brand and clarified my positioning around, I am here to teach strategy and intuition together, and that's it. That's my craft for now. Maybe another book will come at some point. It would be something else.
And I'm open to reinventing myself every, every day, as I said, but it's really changed everything. So I can't wait to witness you stepping into This universe or becoming an author and seeing your business again, evolving. Thank you for letting me be by your side and interviewing you today. It's always a joy to see you, Emma.
Thank you. And that's a wrap. Thank you so much for tuning into the Essential Shift podcast today. I hope you enjoyed it. Please subscribe. leave a review, and even give it a shout out on social media. You can find me at essential. shift on Instagram. Until next episode, blessed be