IEP002: How to Get Bare, Speak Up and Stand Out with Susan Hyatt

Welcome to the Intuitive Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host Brigit Esselmont, intuitive business strategist and mentor. As the founder of Biddy Tarot, I turned my love for tarot into an abundant seven figure business. The secret to my success, making intuition and strategy my entrepreneurial superpower. Now, I'm inviting you to do the same. In this weekly podcast, I'll be sharing advice, tools, and real life examples from some of the best intuitive entrepreneurs to show you how you can trust your intuition, align with your purpose, and create a positive impact through your work. Let's make it happen. 

Brigit: Hello, and welcome to the Intuitive Entrepreneur Podcast. Today, I am talking with Susan Hyatt who is a master certified life coach, who has helped thousands of women to transform their bodies and lives. She's gained an international following of women who love her honesty, humor, and fearlessness. She's been featured in Cosmopolitan, A Women's World, Seventeen, and O, the Oprah magazine. She was also a finalist for the Athena Award, which honored her work in the field of women's empowerment. 

Brigit: She's recently launched an amazing book called BARE, which is a seven week program to transform your body, get more energy, feel amazing, and become the bravest, most unstoppable version of you. This book has gone on to sell loads of copies and become a bestselling book. She's also the creator of the BARE Process, the BARE Deck, the BARE Podcast, and also an online community called BARE Daily. 

Now, in today's conversation, which is so rich and I know you're going to love this so very much, we cover how Susan found the courage to leave a successful but unfulfilling career in real estate so that she could follow her calling and become a life coach even when her family and friends thought she was crazy. We also cover how to listen to what Susan calls your body compass, and receive the inner guidance that you need to make really clear decisions. We talk about why women are silencing themselves, and how to finally step out, speak up, and be heard, and also how Susan deals with haters and trolls, and my goodness, does she have her fair share of them. But also, how to feel compassion towards these folks in the process. 

It is such a juicy conversation, you are going to love it. So, let's get straight into it. Here we go. 

Brigit:  Well, welcome, Mrs. Susan Hyatt. How are you doing today? 

Susan: Hello, lovely Brigit. Thank you for having me. I'm delighted to be here. 

Brigit: Oh, so good. I'm so looking forward to our conversation. Let's get straight into it. I would love to hear what you believe it means to be an intuitive entrepreneur. 

Susan: Actually, it's really the foundation of everything that I do. Being an intuitive entrepreneur means following your body compass instead of just your intellect. I think that our culture tends to value intellect over everything, and that's what gets us in trouble. I think your body compass has to work with your mindset. 

Brigit:  Yeah, excellent. Well, tell me a little bit more about like body compass. What does that mean for you? 

Susan: So, body compass means I believe that the body has all of the wisdom and answers that we need, whether it's business or parenting or otherwise. Your body compass speaks to you through emotion and through physical sensation. I receive guidance in a multitude of ways, but my body compass, if I'm paying attention, it's that gut feeling. Have you ever, Brigit, had a gut feeling about someone or something that you ignored, and then later, you were like, "Darn it, I knew it"? 

Brigit: Yeah. 

Susan: I think that our body- 

Brigit: It always comes back to bite you. 

Susan:  Right. Like our body collects so much wisdom, and we sometimes can talk ourselves in and out of things that are not good for us. When I say body compass, I mean your body is literally a compass. 

Brigit:   Yeah, yeah. Can you think of an example of where like your body compass has helped you in your business to show you when something is in alignment? 

Susan: Absolutely. Actually, I just celebrated my 12 year anniversary as a life coach, and prior to becoming a life coach, I was a residential real estate agent. I was doing well, I was making a lot of money, but it was not ... I knew it was not my passion and I knew that I was not fulfilled, but I felt guilty about that, that I should just be happy that I had this thriving real estate career. 

Susan: I picked up a book called Finding Your Own North Star by Dr. Martha Beck, and I still maintain that's one of my favorite, one of the best self-help books ever written. But I read that book, and my entire body, I felt like I was lit on fire, like in a good way, not a bad way. I devoured that book and I started doing the exercises in that book. My life started to get better, and I became obsessed, I had such a girl crush on Dr. Martha Beck. I remember searching for her online, and I found that she had a website. 

I went to her website, and saw that she was training people to do something she was calling life coaching. I felt like the heavens parted and a lightening bolt hit me on the head. I was awake at that moment and decided that I was going to go train to become a life coach. It didn't make any logical sense. I mean, even my husband was like, "What is a life coach? What are you talking about?" It didn't make logical sense. 

People where I live in the middle of America at that time, and even today, like really didn't know what a life coach was or what a life coach did. I knew I had to honor that tug that I was receiving and my body compass was pointing me in that direction even though it didn't make logical sense. 

I went to the training and was riveted. On the plane ride home, I wrote my business plan, this simple five step business plan, on the back of a Delta Airlines napkin, cocktail napkin. I mean, it was all so ridiculous, and I didn't care. Like I knew that it was somehow going to work, and it did. I think it partly did because I just, I was so convicted and I was passionate about teaching other people how to follow their own body compass, how to not just settle for crumbs in their lives. 

That is a big example of a time when it really panned out for me to not listen to my mind, which was going crazy about how are you possibly going to make money at this, how are you going to replace your real estate income, and I just really honored that intuition that this was ... I didn't know how, but I knew that's where I needed to go. 

Brigit: I think it's always easy in hindsight to be able to identify these moments of where you're like, "Well, it was an absolute yes, and I had to really go for it." But also, when you're in the middle of it, just battling the mind, and I'm also curious how were like family and friends around you when you were making this big decision? Were they supportive, were they questioning what was going on? 

Susan:  Well, everyone questioned what was going on. It was interesting because everyone could tell I was my old self, meaning I was happier, I was full of life again. People noticed that and knew there was something to it. But the idea that I would abandon my livelihood to pursue this in its place, I remember calling my father who, he's 80 now, so this would have been, gosh, he was 68 at the time, and he was just getting used to thinking it was a good idea that I was a real estate agent. Then, he was like, "Wait, now you're not going to do that anymore?" I remember him saying to me, "Well, work is hard, that's why they call it work. What do you mean you don't like it? So, what?" Was this very American do your job kind of thing, and he didn't understand what a life coach was. He was very confused by it. 

My mom, super supportive, but also just sort of like, "Well, that sounds nice, dear," but not really understanding like what I was talking about. My husband, super supportive, but he wanted to see a business plan. He was like, "Okay, that you want to do this, but do you know anyone making money at this? Like what's the business plan that's going to replace your real estate income?" My friends were all very supportive because I was happier, they could tell I was happier, but I think everyone thought I had gone a little crazy, honestly, and I had, a little bit, in a good way. 

People were very skeptical, supportive but in a very questioning way. 

Brigit: Yeah. I think it takes a lot of guts and courage and being brave to be able to keep pushing through that because you're continually getting those messages of, "Is this going to make money? Are you making a really dumb decision right here?" Constantly challenge. You have to follow that north star that Martha Beck talks about. You've got to really stay in tune with that. I think that's incredibly like commendable for you having trusted that and followed that on your path. 

Let's fast forward to now because you're doing some amazing things. 

Susan:  Thank you. 

Brigit:  What role is intuition playing now for you? Does it come through in your every day business practice? Is it a one off thing? Like how does it play out for you? 

Susan:  It really is interesting because there are ... I'm very driven by ideas. I get a lot of my best ideas when I'm moving my body, so running or lifting weights or cycling. I really am able to access my best guidance when I'm quiet and when I'm moving. I was never someone who was very successful at meditation where you would sit on a meditation pillow and watch a flame or imagine a blue light. Like I am terrible at that sort of meditation, but I am amazing at moving meditation, and that's part of my daily life. 

There are many, many, many business decisions, and in fact, the entire way my company is structured is against most popular business advice. But I've always chosen to follow what energizes and excites me over what makes sense on paper because I've just noticed that I would rather be excited about something and have it not work for some reason, than just follow a formula that I'm not excited about, just to make money. 

Now, don't get me wrong, I mean, I love to make money, but I find that my success really has come from being willing to say, "I'm going to do it this way," and it's a little different than most self-helpers are doing things. Part of the reason, I was just talking to my husband about this, when I started my company, my kids were six and eight, and they're now 18 and 20. At that time, I didn't travel a whole lot, and there's a whole lot of reasons why. One is, Ryan Hyatt who is a handful and has been a handful to raise, so mama needed to be at home. She needed to be close by. 

So, I didn't travel to a lot of business conferences and I wasn't involved in a lot of things I'm involved in now. I feel like I was very insulated, which really served me because I didn't have a lot of outside influence, I only had my intuition to go by, and I didn't have like a class on sales funnels, and I didn't have a lot of things that you needed to travel to go learn how to do because ... right? Like today, we can just take a class on Zoom, but it wasn't like that 12 years ago. 

I am so grateful for that, I am so grateful for that because I was in this ignorance is bliss sort of bubble where I just built my own thing. Now, I look at it and I'm like, "Oh, thank God, thank God I didn't know any better. Thank God I just had my intuition to go by." 

Brigit:  Yeah, that's really fascinating because I think every year, there's more and more courses, more and more strategies, more and more tactics, the latest thing to do on Instagram or whatever, and I really feel for people who are starting a business in this current environment because it's overwhelming, like where on Earth do you begin? It often leads people off the path, again, of their north star of following that, of following their true purpose. It can completely obliterate all of that trust in yourself. So, I'm just so glad that you mentioned that experience of actually being shut down from it and how- 

Susan: Yeah, right. 

Brigit:  Positive that is, right? 

Susan: I mean, I can remember being like, oh, everybody's going to like whatever summit and feeling FOMO about it, and now I'm like, "Thank God, thank God I did not go to any of that." 

Anyway, I think learning is great and I think techniques that everyone is teaching, including myself, are amazing, but strategy follows intuition in my book, not the other way around. 

Brigit: Strategy follows intuition, 100%. Can you give me an example of something that you're doing differently, that you were guided to do differently that maybe goes against sort of the best practice or status quo? 

Susan:  Well, we can talk about my book tour. That's something that I decided to do very differently. I was so excited to sign with a publisher, and honestly, my publisher has not put any pressure on me to do my book tour any certain way, but the way that it's typically done is that your publisher would line up book signings at various book stores around the country. I know enough, I know plenty of published authors who are like, "Those are a disaster." Hardly anybody shows up, it's depressing to like fly out to Las Vegas and go to the Barnes and Noble and have like five people show up for your book signing. 

And so, I really started thinking about how I like to do events. I love events and how I wanted to do things a little, in a more fun, vibrant way. I decided to do book parties outside of bookstores where people would buy tickets, and it would be an event, not just a book signing. 

With every ticket purchased, you get a couple of books, but there's champagne, there's food, there's music, I'll do a little workshop, selfie stations, dancing. It's like, yeah, we're going to celebrate, this is a celebration instead of a reading. That has proven to really energize the message. The more stops I do, the parties get bigger and bigger and bigger because people are seeing like, oh, this is a fun thing, this isn't a boring author event. 

Listen, I'm a reader, I'm a library person, I'm a bookstore person, like don't get me wrong. I love to go and sit and be quiet and read, but I wanted the message of BARE to be more of a celebration for women to come, bring their daughters, bring their moms. That has proven to really, it's made quite a splash and it's selling lots of books. 

Brigit: Yeah. What's been one of the biggest achievements with your book release? 

Susan:  Oh my gosh, there's been so many great ones. Parade Magazine, which is a U.S. based magazine, ranked BARE one of the top 10 books that every women needs to read this year. That was a major ... I mean, as a kid, I used to pull Parade Magazine out of the Sunday paper, so like we didn't even pitch them. They just emailed me and said, "Congratulations." That was a nice honor. 

Amazon, we were number one in self-esteem new releases for a little while. We hit number seven in women's help. Then, in terms of actual book sales, we have tripled what my publisher expected out of me, which has been kind of fun because I ... and I think my agent, not I think, I know, my agent ran the book scan numbers, and right now, my book came out March 5th, and she went back to all the books that started being released in like October of 2018. My book is their number one seller of all their new releases, going back even to last year. I'm like, "Hey." 

Brigit: I am so proud of you. I think that's so awesome. 

Susan: Thank you. 

Brigit: So good. I's very exciting. 

Well, let's talk about BARE because I think it's a really, really powerful book. While it talks about body image and how we can become more comfortable with who we are in our physical state, I think it has some really powerful undercurrents and underlying messages in it that also very important to us, not just in terms of our appearance, but how we live our lives and how we might run our business. 

Can you talk to us a little bit about what is BARE about what are some of the fundamental principles that underlie the BARE book? 

Susan: BARE is a book about a woman coming home to herself. What I mean by that is, I started out my company in 2007, and a huge part of my business from say 2008 until 2015, I did a lot of weight loss coaching. I like to say that this is a life gain program and not a weight loss program because what I noticed after coaching thousands of women around food and body issues is that I could help a woman lose weight, but it was never enough unless we did inner heavy lifting around her emotions and her thoughts around her appearance and how she used food to deal with that. 

BARE is a process that I created about three years ago that helps a woman figure out like where did you get the idea that your beautiful body should look differently than it does in the first place? It's really disrupting diet culture, helping a woman figure out how to take exceptional care of herself, but do it from a place of pleasure instead of a place of deprivation. 

Brigit: Yeah. It's great because it's a disruptor to that whole, as you say, the whole weight loss system. 

I think what came up for me too in this book, because I was reading it, was it started to reflect to me also like on a personal level how much my body image and my thoughts about my body affect the way that I show up, and in particular, how I show up in my business. I know there's multiple ways. For example, I rarely take selfies of myself because I take the photo and I'm like ugh, I don't like it. "Oh my skin's too red," or, "This thing's wrong," right. I'm finding myself only posting on Instagram those professionally done photos because I don't want to show up looking like just ordinary. But it also means that I'm not ... sometimes I'm just not doing like live videos and sharing my thoughts because, one, I'm worried about like I can't be bothered doing make up today or what if I haven't quite gotten my message right, what if I'm sharing something and I don't really say it the way that I wanted to say it. 

I've seen a pattern in myself that there are ways that I could totally be like having a bigger presence, and yet I'm not. I'm hiding. There was a section in your book near the end around a woman feeling like she needed to delete herself almost because she didn't want to be showing up and being seen. 

Can you talk to me a little bit about that? Because I think the concept of women deleting themselves from the public eye is scary. I hope that that isn't a perpetuated behavior. How can we change this? How can we start to really show up? 

Susan: Well, so, what you're describing is what I hear from 9 out of 10 of the women that I work with in business. The story that you're talking about where I say don't delete yourself is a story about a friend of mine who had an opportunity to speak on a stage, and it was an opportunity to speak about her coming out story. There would be lots of young people in the audience, so the potential to help a lot of young people who were struggling with coming out. 

The night before the event, her mind started going crazy with, "Oh, I've put on some weight. I don't want to be photographed, I don't want to be on video." She had typed up an email, she had not sent it thankfully, but she had typed up an email to the organizer of the event, making up a story about why should couldn't attend because she was so paralyzed by this thought that someone might see her on screen not looking her best. 

We had some conversations about it. Don't delete yourself from this opportunity to help at least one person in that audience. You've got to get over what you look like, and connect with the message, which is what she did. She went and she rocked it. There was a young person that did come up to her after the event and say like, "I think you just saved my life." 

But the thoughts crept back up when she almost wanted to say like, "I don't want the video released." There are so many women who, and this was me prior as well, where I wasn't having headshots taken for my business, I wasn't asking for the sale, I wasn't putting myself out there because I didn't necessarily want people to look. 

With your business, Brigit, and with probably 9 out of 10 of the audience listening to this podcast episode, think about all the times you haven't gone for it, whether it's letting people see you in a Facebook live or an Instagram live, or taking a selfie of yourself when you're doing something amazing or you have something amazing to say, but you're like, "Oh, it's a bad hair day," or, "Oh, I'm not wearing any makeup, I can't let them see me like this." 

Here's the thing, is that men, my husband, never has the thought, "I can't go on this sales call today because somebody might see me not looking my best." I mean, like, it just doesn't happen, right? My whole reason for writing this book is so that women can take the time and energy they spend tearing themselves down and weighing their food and weighing themselves and deciding they don't look good enough, and if we can pour that into what we're passionate about, changing the world, our work, imagine what we could do, right? 

Brigit, imagine if you were incapable of ruminating on your appearance. How much more content you would have in the world or how many, I'm not saying this to shame you because I guarantee you, everybody listening to this is like, "Oh my God, I've done that," like nope, not today, I don't look enough. Here's the thing, everybody's afraid somebody's going to judge how they look. That's going to happen anyway. Like you can't get around it. Human beings are going to judge your appearance, so you might as well just put yourself out there. 

I recently had a woman, I get ... people say stuff to me every day, let me just be clear. People have lots to say about me putting myself out there in the way that I do. But I did an Instagram video, it wasn't even an Instagram live, it was just like a little video I took and I put it in my Instastories. I didn't have any makeup on, which, if any of you go to my Instastories, if you go to my Instagram, you'll see all the pretty professional photos. But if you go to my Instastories, you're going to see me sweaty in my workout clothes and me with no makeup almost all the time. 

 This woman didn't like that. She messaged me to tell me that I might want to consider putting on makeup before I post videos of myself. I thought to myself like this is exactly why women are scared to do it. I've become desensitized to it most of the time. But I just was like how sad that you think I need to put on makeup to look presentable. Would you say that to a man? Would you say it to a man that they needed to go powder their nose? No you would not. 

I think that, Brigit, your audience, I want all you all to email Brigit after this episode and tell her that you want to see her beautiful makeup-free face. I think we need to show more of that. We need to show what a real face looks like with no ... right? When I have a photo shoot, it's perfect lighting, hair and makeup done, a wardrobe stylist, right? Like, that's one version of me, that's one version of you, Brigit. But let's own the other versions that are just as amazing and beautiful. We just tell ourselves that it's not. 

Brigit:  Yeah. I think it brings into awareness even more about how we are still silencing ourselves. As women, we've done silence, we've already done it, we're finished, like we ought to be finished with it, right? So, coming into the right to vote and more so-called equal rights for men and women, we are meant to be finishing up this phase and really stepping forward. I think this may be just another one of those layers that we need to shed and to bring more awareness of when, like when are we holding ourselves back simply because of how we might be seen? 

But do you know what I find equally fascinating is when you have like, you've put yourself out there, and then other women are still taking you down because you're presenting yourself in a natural way. 

Susan: Right? 

Brigit:  It's almost as if, is it triggering a fear within those women? Like what do you think is going on? Why is this happening? 

Susan: Well, I do. I think it's all a projection. If they're mad ... because I've had hate mail. I had this one woman, this was maybe two years ago, I had this photo shoot done in New York and it was so much fun. It was in a studio, and I had on these black leather pants and this black lacy blouse and my hair was like they teased it out, it was curly. This woman was so irate about it, she was like, "Who do you think you are? Do you think you're Oprah Winfrey?" And I just died laughing because she was mad that I was doing the photo shoot polished look, and then other woman are mad that how dare you show up in your workout clothes with no makeup. 

It is a projection either way of a woman feeling triggered. Like you see an image and think about, any of you listening, when you're scrolling and you become triggered by either something someone is saying or an image that they put, just thinking about like what is it that's going on within me that makes me want to lash out at this person, right? Because I can scroll, and if I see something I don't like, I just keep on scrolling. But if you're taking the time to stop the scroll, go comment some long rant, like is that how you want to be using your precious energy in this world? Are you building up or tearing down? 

I do think a lot of the time it's this how dare she fill in the blank because I don't feel that I can do that. Like, She shouldn't be in a bikini, what?" Or, "She shouldn't be with no makeup, that's not right." It's like, okay, what story are you telling yourself about that you can or can't do that and what does that mean? 

My Facebook ads are the best source of haters and trolls, like people get so mad. I'm like why are you mad, boo? Like I'm just sitting there in a sweater, like it's all right. 

Brigit: Isn't it funny? Yeah, I just, I find it just crazy what people spend their time on basically. I think the other thing is, it's still like a product of this old conditioning- 

Susan:  Yeah. 

Brigit: Around what's right and wrong and what our expected role is as a woman. Again, I just find it really sad that we are still ... some are still in that kind of victim place. Being a victim of this conditioning where it feels ... I don't know, does it feel good to tear down another woman because they're not doing what we expect them to be doing? Like shouldn't we be supporting each other to be standing out there and being heard and being seen? It's crazy. 

Susan: It is and you bring up a good up a point about the conditioning because I think women are raised to be in competition with one another instead of collaboration. Because we're raised to think that our appearance is our power, then it becomes this manipulation and this competition. Like even lately, I've really had to say to women who are supportive of me but who want to say like, "Oh, look who was wearing the dress you had on the other day," like I recently was in a media appearance where I had on this bright blue dress, and there's a couple of other people that have been seen in the media in the same dress, a couple of other women. A couple of women like want to put it side by side and say, "You wore it better." I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like let's not do that. Let's not say she's somehow less than or I'm somehow better or vice versa, like we're both shining bright. Let's celebrate both women in the dress. But, right, the tabloids teach us to do that, 'who wore it better' is a successful headline and it's always pitting women against one another instead of just saying, "Hey, look, you guys both look so great in this bright blue beautiful dress." It doesn't have to be that one of us is better than the other. 

Brigit:  Yeah. Again, I think this is another one of your like powerful underlying messages of the BARE book in that, it's helping us to retrain in a more accepting way and to see each other as beautiful no matter, like no matter what the physical appearance is, right? 

Susan: Right. 

Brigit: Beauty is from within. I think that has huge impact, again, not just for body image, but for how we operate as women in business and as entrepreneurs because if we can operate out of this mindset, it's much more abundant and inclusive, which can only be a good thing for the future of women in entrepreneurship, that's for sure. 

Susan:   Right. 

Brigit:  I mean, we've touched on the hater and the troll side of things. This often comes up in ... Well, another reason why we may be afraid to put out a certain message is because of the trolls that might say awful and mean things. You do an awesome job at standing up to it and bing strong and being courageous and calling it out. Like how have you got to this point? Because it's hard when you get that first comment, and it breaks your heart. Like how do you go from that to where you are now? 

Susan: Well, I think the number one thing for any woman listening who, because I've had people say like, "I appreciate you sharing that, but that's exactly ..." ... women either are like, "Thank you for sharing that, I feel okay now," or, "I'm even more terrified now. I don't want that to happen to me." The thing is, is to remember that if you are a woman in business online, and you are putting yourself out there, you can count on people disagreeing with you, you can count on people taking issue with your appearance, lots of things that men do to have to deal with online. 

Here's the thing is that, other people's opinions do not pay your bills, and they do not sleep in your bed, and they are not the ones raising your kids. Yes, I would say if I get 100 hateful comments, 99 of them, I'm now able to just brush off and laugh off and say like, "Okay, whatever. I have better things to do with my time." But there's always that one where they'll say something super hurtful. There are times, I will say, it's rare but it does happen, where I'm like, "She said what?" And I will have to do my own work around whatever the insult was. 

But I think number one is count on it, anticipate your obstacles, okay? Number two, you can handle it. You can handle other people. Women do so many hard, difficult things in this world. Somebody with keyboard courage is not a problem, right? That's all they are, is somebody online, deciding they're going to flex, and that's okay. Number three, delete and block are your friends. Most of the time, I just delete and block people. Occasionally, I'll have something to say back to them, like there's a woman who went on my Facebook page the other day and said, "Maybe you should ease up on the F-bombs." I just thought it was so funny because I was like obviously you've been listening to my podcast or you've been watching some of my webinars to know that I drop F-bombs. So, was there any impression I gave that you saying maybe you should do that, I would go, "Okay. Oh my God, I never thought of that. I'm going to clean up my language immediately," right? So, I thought it was kind of funny, and I was like, "Maybe not," that's all I said back to her. She's like, "Maybe you should ease up on the F-bombs," maybe not, right? 

That's kind of a mild one. But I think that if you can remember that the people that you are touching and helping by putting your work out there, 10 times the people who have a negative opinion, then it's easier to keep going. And also to remember that if you are offending people or getting a response from people, that means you're making an impact. It's actually a sign of something really good happening. 

Brigit:  I mean, I remember for a good few years, I was very mindful of keeping a very line, so I wouldn't have a strong opinion either way. My thought with that was I don't want to upset anybody. I don't want to have people saying bad things about me, so I'll just take the middle road and I won't have a strong opinion. Then I was like, hang on a second, like I need to be opinionated so that I can find my, like my real community, the people who are in full alignment with what I stand for. Again, it takes a lot of courage to go, "Okay, I'm going to stand up there, I'm going to have this opinion, and I'm going to be okay with people disagreeing or downright slaying me because I have this certain opinion." 

It is a big shift. I think you can play it easy and safe by taking that middle road, but there is a point at which to really define and craft like your audience and the people who you're here to serve and, as you say, have an impact, that's when I think we need to take more of a stand. Did you feel like, have you had a turning point in your say coaching career where you've gone middle road and then you've gone like no, this is who I am? Can you tell me about that? 

Susan: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. When I first became a life coach, I was very ... Of course, there wasn't a ton happening online 12 years ago. I mean, we were on Myspace, like they weren't even letting us on the Facebook back then. Maybe it came the next year. But, so I was trying so hard to play the role of good life coach. I was still not fully out of my shell, and I distinctly know that I came out with all of it, like my opinions politically, my opinions on feminism, my opinions on religion, all those things around 2012, so this would have been seven years ago. I was like, you know what? I eased into it from 2007 to 2012, but in 2012, I just ripped the bandaid off and everything that I had been toning down, I stopped that year. That was the year, Brigit, that were a couple of friends I lost because they didn't like the unfiltered version of myself, but that's when my business exploded. 

I was always doing pretty well, like I was always making great money, doing really well for a life coach. But in 2012 when I really was like, "You know what? I'm going full throttle with who I really, really am," that's when everything took off, took off. So, I have a lot of real world evidence either way, right? There are going to be some people that aren't okay with it, and that's all right. There were many, many, many more people like you're saying that once they could really hear my real message because I wasn't hiding it anymore and playing that safe vanilla kind of 'I just want to help everybody' kind of vibe, then all my real people were like, "Yes. I like her." 

Brigit: And you finally stand out. I mean, especially these days given there's like a new coach every like half a second. 

Susan: Right, right. 

Brigit: You can really absolutely stand out. I love that. 

Susan, tell me what is emerging for you over the next 12 months? 

Susan: Something amazing, which is followup book to BARE. As we've talked, BARE is about a woman loving the skin she's in, and what's been beautiful to observe is moms giving this book to their daughters. BARE is absolutely appropriate for teenagers, and even some preteens, but I'm writing the preteen version, so for 9 to say 12 year olds, I'm writing a book for them. I'm working on it with my daughter who's 18, so she's going to write more from a young person's perspective and I'm going to write from the mom's perspective, but it's basically a book for younger girls on really how to disrupt diet culture right when they're starting to diet. 

Brigit: I think that'll be fantastic because, I mean, it's happening earlier and earlier- 

Susan: Yeah, it is. 

Brigit: That girls are becoming more aware of their body and different shapes and so on, so I think that will be such a important contribution. Then, what else is happening for you? I mean, you're writing the book and in coaching still moving ahead as always? 

Susan: Yeah, yeah. The company's growing and I have a BARE coach certification program that has grown leaps and bounds since the book came out. Then, I also have a program called Clear Coaches, which helps life coaches make money. I not only train coaches on how to coach, but how to make money in this business. I'm still running some international retreats and it's busy. It's busy, busy. 

Brigit: Those international retreats look amazing. They are like- 

Susan: Yes. 

Brigit:  Super luxy and- 

Susan: Yeah. 

Brigit: Beautiful, amazing retreats. Have to check them out. 

Brigit: I'm also just curious, one last question, given all of this that's happening over the next year, what new aspect of yourself do you feel that you're beginning to express? 

Susan: You know what? I am really stepping into my power as a CEO. With this added book tour and everything for the book has been like an extra part-time job, and it's required me to hire more people, and it's really required me with that to be a much better manager of people. I have ... what's really grown within myself is my ability to direct people to have boundaries, to say like no, this is my vision. That has been really interesting to observe. 

Brigit: It's a very new role, I think. It's a different role, going from being entrepreneur and business owner to CEO, which is also leader- 

Susan: Right. 

Brigit: And visionary. I think that is a huge step, so it's exciting to see you like really moving into that. 

Susan: Thank you. 

Brigit: I can just imagine what you're training your team, how to handle all kinds of things, setting boundaries, it'll be fabulous. 

Awesome. So, Susan, where can people find out more about you? 

Susan:  To find out more about me, they can go to shyatt.com, that's the hub. If they want to learn more about BARE, the website for BARE is letsgetbare, B-A-R-E, dot com. 

Brigit: Awesome. It has bee so good chatting to you. I've loved where this conversation has gone today, super cool. Thank you so very much for being a part of it. 

Susan: Thank you for having me. 

Brigit:  My pleasure. All right, see you. 

Thank you for joining me for today's episode of the Intuitive Entrepreneur Podcast. If you loved this episode, please leave an honest rating and review on iTunes, it helps to get the word out, and of course, I read every single comment. If you want to discover how to plan your next big launch using the cycles of the moon, make sure that you download my free guide, Lunar Launches. You'll find it over at brigit.me/lunar-launches. That's B-R-I-G-I-T dot me, forward slash lunar dash launches. 

Now, these are the exact strategies I've used in my business to create six figure launches time after time. Now, you can use them too. You'll find it all inside of my free guide Lunar Launches over at brigit.me/lunar-launches. 

All right, that is it for now. I cannot wait to see you next time. Bye for now.