IEP003: How to Honour the Seasons in Business with Emily Thompson

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 and abundant seven figure business. The secret to my success? Making intuition and strategy my entrepreneurial superpower, and 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. In this episode I'm chatting with Emily Thompson who is the co-host of Being Boss and also founder of The Almanac Supply Co. Now, Being Boss is a podcast for creative entrepreneurs where hosts, Emily and Kathleen inspire, write and curate content to help creatives own their path and be more boss. With over 7,000,000 downloads, pretty awesome. The impact of this podcast inspired Emily to go on to co-write her first book, Being Boss: Take Control of Your Work and Live Life on Your Own Terms. And then just recently Emily founded her newest company, Almanac Supply Co where she creates and sells products for natural, seasonal living. 

Now, in this conversation Emily and I talk about how Emily went against the norm and changed the way that she engaged with her clients, opening herself up to even more success in her business. We talk about how intuition plays out in her business partnerships, and then Emily also shares more about how the seasons play a role in our lives, and how she's personally integrated a seasonal ritual into her business. I know you're going to love this episode. So, let's get straight into it. 

All right, so hello, Emily and welcome to The Intuitive Entrepreneur podcast. I am so excited to have you here. How are you doing today? 

Emily: I'm doing so good. Thank you so much for having me, Brigit. I'm looking forward to this conversation. 

Brigit:  Awesome, awesome. Well, lets' kick things off with a big question perhaps, and that is what does it mean to you to be an intuitive entrepreneur? 

Emily: For me, being an intuitive entrepreneur means doing business in a way that just feels right to me. So it's not about following blueprints or going and doing the same strategies that everyone else is doing. It's me sitting back and thinking about what it is that I want to create, regardless of what else is being created in the world, and how it is that I want to create it and market it, and sell it regardless of how other things are being created, and marketed, and sold in the world so that everything is really just being done in a way that feels very much so in alignment with me and how it is that I want to do it. 

Brigit: Interesting. I just wanna dive into this a little bit more because I think that this is something that we can do as more established entrepreneurs. So having had experience and understanding of what works and what doesn't work. Do you think that this is still available and accessible to those who are new to the entrepreneurial world? 

Emily:  Absolutely, I think we all go into it looking up to people, for sure. So we all have business owners or creators, or makers, or influencers, of leaders, or whoever it is. We all have people that we are looking up to and I think we all go into it, all go into business on some level wanting to recreate what it is that they've created, or definitely allowing what it is that they've done to flavor what it is that we do. And I think that's just part of the game. That's how you get started, but I still think you can begin by looking at ahead at those people and thinking, "Okay, this person did it like this. How would I do it?" I do think that we can still tap into that intuition. Tap into how it is that we want to do things while looking at other people. It definitely becomes easier as you learn to trust your intuition in business. It becomes easier to look at those blueprints and go, "Okay, I know that this isn't going to work for me." Or, "I know that there are ways that I can do this better." But I do think that you can start out the gate using these tactics. It just probably is definitely much harder because you have to prove it to yourself first. 

Brigit:  And can you think of a time for you either in Being Boss or perhaps in a different phase of your entrepreneurial life where you've seen the blueprint, you've been taught the strategy, you've learned how to do it and then you've made it your own, and you've customized it or infused your intuitive insight into how you want that to play out? So tell me about that. 

Emily: Yes, for sure. So for about 10 years I was creating websites and doing coaching for creative business owners who were starting out online, and for many years I did the usual like website development. Just web design development in the same way that everyone else was doing it. Like industry standard everything. How I was getting paid, how I was delivering files. I had definitely searched the internet and found blueprints or templates and those sorts of things to help me create what it is, or how it was that I was running that business, and it didn't feel right. I wasn't fulfilled by it by any means and I remember thinking long and hard about how it was that I could make it work for me in a much more fluid and authentic way. And I completely restructured how it was that I worked with clients. I created this offering called Indie Boom and it was six and 12-month projects where I did branding, website, design and development, and online business guidance with my creative business owner clients. 

And I shook up all of the standards. From how it was that I was contracting people to how it was that I was getting paid. Still to this day it's very much industry standard that you get half to begin a project and half upon delivery, and I decided, "I'm never working for free again." Because in that model you are paid for the first half, and then the second half you're essentially working for free until you get that final payment at the very end, and that wasn't working for me. So I even changed how it was that my clients were paying me so that I was never working for free. I changed up everything and whenever I did that it took my business to the next level. That was when I had my first six-figure year. It took me to my first quarter million dollar year. All by taking industry standards, throwing them out the window, creating a model for my business that worked for just me and how it is that I like to work with my ideal clients, and it completely changed my business in every good way possible. 

Brigit: Tell me more about perhaps the feelings that you had during that shake-up. Was there that sense of nervousness and fear that maybe this wouldn't work out? It's so against the grain are people going to accept it or did you go into it just feeling 100% confident that this was the right way to go? 

Emily: Both. Can I say both? Because whenever I had the idea for it, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I even think it might've been like an in the middle of the night epiphany of like it came to me how it was that I needed to restructure these projects and I could not sleep for a week. I remember it like it was yesterday. I stayed awake so excited about how it was that I was going to start working with my clients and I had so many things I needed to put in place and I was so excited about, and I knew it was going to make the kind of impact for my clients that I wanted to make, and that it was going to make the kind of impact that I wanted it to make for me as well. But it was scary because I decided that order if I was ... In order to really commit to it, I could not take any more clients under the old model and that I would only start booking clients under my new model, and that was really scary to me but I felt that that was a really important part of the process was to really commit to doing it. 

And there was a lag of about two months where I did not book a new client while I was getting used to pitching and selling, and positioning myself within this new, completely new to everyone model of doing business interesting his way, or in this area of doing business in web design and development. There was about two months where no one was booking and I thought I had made the worst decision of my life. And then people started buying and another one booked, and another one booked, and I never booked another client in the time that I was doing projects like this any other way than this Indy Boom process that I had created. 

So I knew it was exactly how I needed to do it. I was still scared because it was a huge change in my business but I stuck with it, and I stuck with it until it worked and when it worked, it really worked. 

Brigit: And what do you think is the reason for it working so well? 

Emily: Because I knew what I was doing. I had been doing this work for probably three or four years. Maybe five years at this point, and I knew what was working for my clients, and I knew what was not working for my clients, and I knew my clients. Not only because I had been working with them, but I was them. We were the same kind of person. Creative people who are trying to make money doing work that they love doing, and they wanted to do it in the online space. So I had been working with them. I completely related to them and I knew in what areas the old kinds, or the old way of working wasn't working. I knew where people were getting stuck. I knew where the miscommunications were happening, or where the expectations were getting mixed up, and because I knew what was wrong I could identify the solution to the problems, and the solutions to the problems was this new way of working, was this new way of partnering with a client to create these online businesses. 

So I just knew them. I knew them and I had experienced it enough to know that this was the solution to the problems. 

Brigit: And I wonder if there's also something around when you can respect your own boundaries and your own needs, and come into alignment with that, that also your clients will be in alignment with that. And they see that respect that you're offering to yourself and are therefore able to extend to others. How does that resonate? 

Emily: So much, so much. One of the things that I find often with creatives is one, just falling into this idea that industry standards are the only way of doing business, and that's across all industries for sure. But creatives and a lot of times that tends to be women think that the client has a lot more say than I think they should have. Where if we are positioning ourselves as experts, we should be the ones telling the clients how it is that we get results, and that's not going to be the exact same way that this next person gets results, or the person after that. We all have our own individual ways of working and I think whenever we can go into business with this idea that we are going to be the expert of our own process, of whatever it is that we are there to do then we get to define how it is that we best work with people. 

And whenever you know how it is that you get results it's easy for you to, one, attract the kinds of people. And by attract I just mean market to them, talk to them, sell to them. It's easy for people to see what you do and how it is that you get results and go, "Oh, I want to work like this." Or, "I want these kinds of results." So it's easier for you to attract those people and then convert those people into paying customers. A lot of times, and especially in the web design space people have worked with web designers before and did not enjoy the process. I find that every client just about that I've ever had that had a previous experience with a web designer or developer, something went horribly wrong at some point in the process. 

So for me to be able to say, "Okay, I understand this. I know where that problem came from and this is the solution I have." It became, in fact, much easier to attract those clients and to position myself as that expert, because I was grounded enough in my process and in my understanding for others to have faith in my process and my understanding of what I was doing. 

Brigit: That's great. And what I see here is this underlying theme that a lot of this is about bringing in your power. So instead of putting your power out there and putting it onto external authorities, or external figures it's about bringing that back inwards and trusting that you've got the right way for how you're running your business. I think that's super yummy. 

Emily:  Yeah it is, and it is. And I think that, again, a lot of creatives go into it thinking that they're creating for the client and on some level that's very true, but you're the boss. You're the business owner, you're the one who gets to own, to have power of how it is that you do it, and I think the sooner you can realize the sooner you find much greater fulfillment in the work that you do. 

Brigit:  I'm curious, have you ever had a time where your intuition or your gut was telling you something, but you chose to ignore it and what happened? 

Emily: All the time. Can I say all the time? Yes, I tend to be quite ego-driven and I have to keep that in check quite a lot, and there have been times I think in particular., here's the example that's coming to mind the most. For a long time it was having this little tickle, this little intuitive tickle to jump into some Facebook advertising, and I didn't do it for a really, really long time. And then whenever I finally decided, "You know what? I will do this. I've finally coming around." It was too late. I think it was too late for Facebook and what advertising had become, and where my business was at that point. And this is around Being Boss. This is several years after the Indy Boom. Indy Boom intuition win and I always find that in moments where either my intuition is wrong, or maybe not completely spot on, or I don't listen to it there's always a lesson there. There's always a really big lesson that I have to, that I had to learn. I had to learn one way or the other. 

And so I really learned going into any decision that I make in business, I've learned to go into it with this headspace of, "I'll listen. I'll make my decision." Because I do tend to look at data just as much, if not more than I do my own intuition. I'm going to do it and if it fails I'll learn the lesson, and I think that's also just business. You will not always get it right, period. You're going to have just as many failures probably as you are going to have wins, but it's only really truly a failure if you don't learn the lesson. 

Brigit:  I am 100% with you on that. In fact, I just don't believe there are failures because if we treat everything like an experiment something might not go right, then that's just information. That's just data that, "All right. I'm not going to do that again. All good." 

Emily:  Yeah. 

Brigit:  Yeah. Have you made a big mistake or something that you regretted doing and then what did you learn out of that? 

Emily:  I think that investment in Facebook ads that one time was probably, like looking at it, biggest mistake. Biggest financial mistake and just like time suck and resource suck, and all of these things but it taught me that, I don't know, I get ... You have to try things out. Just like you're saying. Everything is an experiment and if I hadn't done it then I would've done it later and probably lost more money, and been more annoyed at it. I just think you have to do it and you have to let things go whenever they do go wrong, and keep going but it's all part of the process. 

Brigit:  Yep, beautiful. And then how are you integrating intuition with strategy? So, just earlier you said that you're probably leaning more towards the strategy or data side and including a bit of intuition. Can you walk me through perhaps is there a process that you go through to integrate both? Is it just happening in flow? How does this work out for you? 

Emily: A little bit of all of those things. A lot of it's just me getting quiet and thinking long and hard about what it is. Like getting into that flow mindset of like, "I'm not going to make any decisions right now. I'm just going to see what happens." And sort of follow the path where it leads because if you leave something long, or leave something along long enough movement happens, and you can watch and see usually where that movement starts happening and then check your gut then, or look at the data again then if you need to. I also do a lot of journaling around business decisions. That's something that I do pretty often. Especially around big decisions. I'll spend several days journaling about something. How does it make me feel? What are the outcomes that I want from it? What are the intentions that I'm setting around this decision? I do a whole lot of journaling around any big decisions that I'm going into. 

I also like to use tools like the Tarot to do any business decision making I need to whenever I need to tap in, either a little more quickly or sometimes even a little more deeply I'll turn to the Tarot. So there are a couple of ways that I will, I will listen in. Occasionally I'll also ask for a sign. If I absolutely need to, I will ask for a sign. That's rare and usually around decisions where none of the other things are getting me to the place that I want to be, and I haven't, I guess I haven't made any crazy big decisions based on size, and I'll tell you what even usually happens in that space is while I'm waiting for the sign the first thing that I mentioned which is just waiting for where movement happens, usually happens before the sign does. 

Brigit:  Because I'm thinking of what I think is a crazy big decision, is closing down your Facebook group. You had, did you have like 40,000 folks in there? Or something massive, right? 

Emily:  I think it was like 25,000 which- 

Brigit:  Still impressive. 

Emily:  Still crazy. 

Brigit:  Yeah, so I mean, surely some feeling and some sense of your energy around that came into that decision. Can you walk me through what happened there? 

Emily:  That one was always the most definitive gut decision. Like I just knew in my gut that, that Facebook group needed to go, and I knew a year before anyone else on the team was able to make that decision. I've had that feeling in my gut about Facebook for about 10 years, honestly. Where it's just never been a place that I wanted to be. It's never cultivated the kind of community I personally liked being a part of, and it's not the tool for me. So we had the facebook group and we did it based on the fact that everyone else on my team didn't mind Facebook, and that so much of our community wanted a Facebook group. So we made the Facebook group and it immediately turned into sort of my worst nightmare, but also was so very truly helpful to so many people that we kept it alive for a really long time. But it was this pretty half and half mix of really amazing community building, and also just the kind of gross crap that happens on Facebook with people getting into the group who didn't need to be. We had people who were selling their services and people in the group were hiring them and they would take their money and run away. 

And really crazy things were happening in that group along with really amazing things, but all along it wasn't my Facebook group. It definitely belonged to the community and to the rest of my team, but it wasn't something that I was ever really a part of. So whenever it came time to think about what's going to happen with this massive Facebook group? I was always hands down, "Let's just delete it. Let's just delete it." And it took the rest of the team about a year to come around to that. So, for me, that one was always an easy one. 

Brigit: And maybe that's also an example of where you're following perhaps what others want of you, expect of you, "Everybody's creating Facebook groups, we should too." 

Emily: Yep. 

Brigit: But in your gut feeling like, "This is out of alignment. I'll try it anyway. We'll just see where it goes but it still feels out of alignment." And I think as business owners we often have those experiences where like on paper everything looks so good. Like, "Yes, go down this path." Right? But something in us says, "I don't think this is going to work out." And often times you do need to try it out and to see where it leads you or to create, I guess, some kind of tangible evidence to then, "Okay, that's why I felt that way." You know? Yeah. 

Emily:  For sure, for sure. The Facebook group was such a great example of that and but it was also amazing. I also just have to put that in there. As annoyed at it as I was the entire time that it was there so many people got such great value out of it, and it was a really great piece of the Being Boss history and I think a very large part of how Being Boss was able to grow to what it was, to some extent. Or what it is to some extent. So I do have to say in a lot of ways my intuitive niggling that was happening was overrun by the intuitive nigglings of my business partner, Kathleen. And she knew that Facebook was going to be a really great platform for Being Boss, and so it was just as equally true for her as it was for me. I think there was a place in there for both of those things, but whenever it was over she also just knew that it was over. 

Brigit: Actually that's a really interesting one. I guess when you're in a business partnership if you're both feeling an intuitive hit around something, but your intuitive hit is, "This is out of alignment." And Kathleen's is, "This is totally in alignment." And I wonder if it can still coexist interesting that environment maybe, and as it played out for you. Maybe it just means that you are not as involved in that work and Kathleen is because maybe that's part of her story and her journey, and not part of your story and not part of your journey. And again, it all comes back to that just trusting that you have a certain place in how things unfold, and you don't necessarily have to be in everything that may make sense on paper. 

Emily: Absolutely, and I will say that it's even one of the reasons why we've maintained our separate business, because we both know that we both have things that need to happen in our journey that is not together. Because there have been many, many things that one of us has been super excited about and knew that it was the right path, and it was going to be amazing and the other one's going, "I don't feel it." And so either we'll nix it then and there, or we'll actually take it and implement it on our own businesses. So, yes, partnership has made the journey of intuitive business significantly more complex, but we've also been very mindful of giving each other and ourselves space to create together and alone as much as needed. 

Brigit:  Yeah, I'm curious actually. I feel like vision is a really important part of feeling into your business. So being in a place where you have a strong vision of where you want to take the business, and a lot of that can be a lot of like the intuitive feeling into the vision. Did you and Kathleen do a lot of envisioning together? How do you ensure that you're in alignment, you're both vibrating on the same level and you can see the same thing for Being Boss? How did you facilitate that? 

Emily:  It comes and goes. There are definitely times and projects where we both feel it. When we're like, "Okay, this is a thing because we are both feeling it together at the same time so hard." And things like that include just starting the podcast, period. That was an easy one where we both felt it immediately, or whenever it came to writing and publishing our book, Being Boss. That was another one. We were both feeling it really hard. Super excited about it and there have been other things along the way where either one of us was, or the other wasn't. Or maybe even one of us was at one point and then later the other one was, we sort of have to ride the waves and we each have our own cadence of rhythm. So the moments when they actually come together we always know that that's a really special moment. And there have been times where something's really resonated with me and not so much with Kathleen and she's been like, "Okay, let's just try it." We've also learned that those are usually the things that don't go as well as the things that happen whenever we are both feeling them at the same time. 

So it does, it makes for things to be in some ways slower, in some ways more difficult. But whenever it hits right it makes it all the better. 

Brigit: Actually I wonder if that would be an interesting guideline for the future of Being Boss, is that you only move ahead with things that you both feel in alignment with. I wonder how that would play out for you. It could be slower because not everything's always going to be in like that combinational alignment. That maybe that's where you can channel more of your energy and your power. 

Emily:  Yeah, for sure. And I hadn't ever really thought about it like that but Kathleen and I have pretty much gotten into a place where that's where we are. Where used to one of us would come, and usually me. I always have the ideas. Come and be like, "OMG, I'm so excited about this thing. Let's do it." And if she's ever like, "Eh." then I'll either push or be sad, or whatever. But now I've gotten to where we just let it go. Like if we're not feeling it then I don't care. It's fine, we'll try the next one. So it's actually even kind of gotten to that place without us even realizing it. Where we both have recognized that it is that double whammy of high vibing that equals a win. 

Brigit:   Love it. I want to shift gears a little bit. You've started Almanac recently. Or not so recently. In the last year, and part of that has taken you into this space of honoring rituals and honoring the seasons. So can you share a little bit about what that means for you? Like how you're tapping into seasons and then how you're integrating that into your business. 

Emily:   Yes. Okay, so I think this has to start with why I quit all the things I was doing and started something like this, because whenever I was doing Indie Shopography we were winning. We were hardcore winning, but it was not in alignment at all. It never truly felt in alignment. Even whenever I had created Indy Boom and launched it, and was doing them, and was delivering them to clients. I was super loving that but I always felt like I was not a web designer, and I would even do interviews or I would do branding exercises and people would be like, "Do you call yourself a web designer?" And I'm always like, "No." And I could never imagine myself being, for example, a 40 year old web designer or a 50 year old web designer and developer. And not that that's a bad thing. I completely love web designer and developers but I could not imagine myself in that space. I always felt like it was simply a stepping stone. It was something I was doing until I realized what I was supposed to be doing, what I didn't realize was how much that process was teaching me about what it is that I really wanted to be doing. 

So I was doing Indy Shopography, started Being Boss. Was sharing all of these really great conversations and really growing, really, really growing in expertise around creatives who are doing business, and especially in the online space. But what I've always really wanted to do was product. I always wanted to be building the businesses that I was building for my clients but I wanted to be building them for myself, and where this really sort of kicked off for me was when at Being Boss I really wanted to do product. I really wanted to do merchandise for Being Boss. I went into t-shirts, and candles, and enamel pins and all of these things. I took it to Kathleen and she was like, "I'm not feeling it." And I was like, "Well, this time I really, really, really am." Because I had been feeling it for so long. 

And like in my personal life I love going into really great retail stores. I'm always being super judgey about brands and packaging, and retail experiences. I am probably not the easiest person in the world to shop with because I see that world on a totally different level, and I love it. I love it and I really want to be a part of it. So I started Almanac as a result of finally getting in alignment, but first having to learn all the skills that I needed to learn to get there. And it ended up being seasonal living for two reasons. First is because I actually have a degree in geography. So my education, my like quote unquote formal training is in geography. The study of the earth, the cycles of land and air, and communities, and cultures and all. Like that is the stuff that really gets me jazzed up. Can't get a really great job which is why I ended up going and working for myself, or part of the reason why I ended up going and working for myself. 

But that's always been very much so a part of who I am and how I really tapped into this cycle of the seasons, and really the cycle of creation which is fed into it is by being my own boss year after year, after year and having to be really in tune with the ebbs and flows of business. And having to be really in tune with the ebbs and flows of my own energy and my own ability to create within my business. So once all of these things started coming together another one of those can't sleep at, aha moments where I knew I wanted to explore really deeply these cycles of the seasons and connections with the cycles of creation, and how it is that you can tie something like your business, the annual flow of your business to the cycle of the seasons to really have that energy bolster your efforts so that you are able to create but then also rest, and go at these entrepreneurial careers or creative careers in a much more healthy, aligned and supported way. 

So all of those things led to me wanting to dive into this practice really deeply. I thought it was going to be a book. I thought it was going to be book number two. After the Being Boss book and the more I got to thinking about it the more I needed to practice it more, and for me, being a business person because business is really how I practice, and how I communicate, and how I see the world I needed to start a business that explored the seasons. I knew that was going to be the most effective and efficient way for me to not only live it myself but also interact with other people on that level. So I started Almanac Supply Company as a way for me to get really deep into the cycles of the seasons so that I can really create that content. I still think it'll be a book one day but what it's really done is it's tied together all the pieces of me into a single endeavor that I get really excited about. 

Brigit:  And I see, like you're starting to teach workshops as well. Like in-person workshops in this space. It's exciting to see it unfold and emerge in many different ways. Tell us a little bit more about how we can integrate seasons with our own businesses. 

Emily:   Yes, please. So this has been something that I've been doing for a couple of years and I'm going to tell you first why you should do this because we're all busy, crazy business owners who are trying to be entrepreneurs and at some point we'll absolutely face burnout. If we continue going at the super., fast-paced, modern expectations of how it is that we are supposed to show up, and show up, and show up, and show up. And that's the thing, for me after, I think I've been in this race for about 12 years now. I've faced the burnout cycle a number of times and I'm tired of it, but what I've found is that by adopting the themes of the seasons and bringing them into your own life and work you're able to slow down and get more aligned, and I think be more productive on a much more long-term scale. 

So the way that you do this, and there are some traditional themes of seasonal living but I like to pair those with the modern world. Like how we're actually showing up and living, and I'm going to do this for northern hemisphere. I'm sorry, Brigit. This can be- 

Brigit:  It's all right. We can always swap it in our minds. 

Emily: Right. Please it's going to be easier for you guys to swap it your minds than it is for me and try to explain it at the same time. So I like to think of the year really starting right at the new year. The way modern humans are currently doing it and it moving into late winter. With late winter being a time when you are relaxing, when you are resting, when you are recuperating and recovering from the year ahead. This is a time when you should be much more quiet. I like to think of quiet preparation. So you're not being lazy by any means. You are preparing. So you're setting goals. You are doing lots of journaling. You're doing lots of research and study. I think one of the things or one of the places where we're getting it wrong these days is that we set those new year's resolutions, or set those new year's goals and we just hit the ground running, and then three weeks in we're done. We've totally given them up, but if you set those goals and then you spend several weeks planning a path, filling them out. Really tapping in and integrating them in every way into how it is that you want to move forward you have a much better chance of success. 

And so that's late winter. I like to also sleep more during this time. I'm saying no to social engagements a lot more. You're doing lots of purging, but really the idea is doing all of that goal setting and researching, and studying, and sort of preparing for the cycles that are coming ahead. Then once spring comes, this is when you can actually start, or when you should start taking action. And this a time when it's traditionally the time of rebirth and new beginnings, and it's a time where you take the inner effort that you've been not really exerting but experiencing in late winter, and you turn it into outer effort. So it's when you take all of those plans that you made and you actually put them into action, and then comes summer. And summer is the time when you're nurturing. So, in my business, or let's go back to spring real quick. 

So spring is the time when you are creating the course, you are putting the package together, you're really hitting it with the marketing efforts, whatever it may be. Summer will be the time when it's all about nurturing. So this is when you are tending your garden. Like you've planted. You did all the action. You just have to make sure the weeds stay out and that the bugs stay away. This is always the time for me whenever I'm really delivering to clients. I'm in the client work, I'm in the weeds doing the thing. Whatever it is. I've set it up and now I'm doing the work. For me, I also tend to be much higher energy in the summer. I think that's also part of this seasonal business model where you need to know in what season you feel most energized. A lot of people that's winter, and some people that's fall. I'm a summer girl all day long and so I like to capitalize on that by really putting a lot of the heavy work that I need to do in the summer months when I am feeling the most energized. 

And then we move into autumn with autumn being the time of harvest. So for many years autumn has been the time when I am working hard to finish up all of the work that I've started in spring, have been busting away at in summer. Autumn is when I start wrapping it up. And as the season of harvest I read once something about how autumn is the season of judgment. How was the time of the year when you see if you put in enough work to actually get you what it is that you want. And so I love this idea of every year having to face if you made the plans, if you took the action, if you nurtured it and if you did, autumn is going to be a beautiful, bountiful time. Which also plays into the theme of gratitude, and or even like our experience. At least in America, and I think Canada. The seasons of Thanksgiving and some of the things we do around those holidays. 

And then comes late winter. Late winter is the time of endings. It's when the year is ending. Which should mean the time of celebration and if you did everything right and you were able to, you were able to put in all the work and reap everything that you wanted to reap from all the hard work that you did. Then winter really is the time of celebrating. I like to spend this time by taking the month off. So I like to take December off. For me, that is my celebration, my reward for all the hard work that I have done every year, and we also have holidays that support that as well. I also like to think about this time, Christmas giving, gift giving has gotten a bad rep lately. But the thing that I like to re-position there is this idea of giving from your abundance and that being a theme of early winter where you've completed your entire cycle. You have some left over. Some excess and you're able to share that with others. I think that really brings it home in a really great, intentional way. 

And the thing that I like to do in my business, this is the time when we may do more charitable giving or where we are taking time off, or giving our team good time off as well. It's a time when we can all take advantage of all the hard work that we've done every year. And then we start it all over again by after celebrating all the holidays are over, we get really quiet. We reflect and we start it all over again. 

Brigit:  I love that concept around Christmas time and it is the giving after having received abundance for the whole year. That energetically feels really, really good. I'm curious too in that for me, summertimes here are super hot, right? And our house doesn't have air con all the way through it. So we're kind of like hot, sticky, and there's a lot of sun and I think for many, maybe many Aussie's or people who are living in hotter climates summertime is often not so much a time of activity but a time of rest, and in fact, winter becomes the time of activity and in some ways I don't think that actually really matters, but what I do think matters is honoring the cycles, because if you stay in that place of activity for 12 months every year then there is no downtime, there is not time to celebrate. And I think what I enjoy most about this seasonal honoring is that we are looking at a cycle that takes us from activity to rest, to activity to rest, and so on. 

Have you got any thoughts about that? So if others are thinking, "Well, I'm not really sure I'm aligned with those exact seasons and activities. Where do I find myself in this?" 

Emily: For sure. So I was just talking about the one facet of work, and where like summer girl I'm totally feeling more energized around work in the summer. Summer is traditionally a yin season. So it is traditionally a season where you are going to be much more quiet. It's going to be much more inner work. I like to think of summer even for those, because I'm strange. I love the heat and the humidity. I love it when it's sunny and sticky. I get it, oddball. Not most people think that. This is a time when you are usually doing more travel. I think we can all agree that traveling is a lot of the activity that happens in summer, and also social engagement. So you may not be working as much. It may not be very heavy in your work but it is going to be in other parts of your life, and I will say too that the difference between this yen work of summer and the yong work that happens in spring and fall is that spring is where you set up the work. Which kind of takes more action than the actual doing of the work. Which is just one of plug and play. 

You come in every day, you do the work. You're not thinking too hard. You're just doing it. And that actually makes it a little less active than what's happening in the spring with really getting geared up and the fall which is the transition of gearing down. And everyone experiences them differently. That definitely is the sort of traditional mix with modern views of what the themes of the season is, but I know people who completely flip them. Who feel the most energized and are doing the most work in winter, or autumn is their season. And that's the thing about living seasonally is that we're all not going to experience the exact same way. What I've explained to you is sort of a baseline for it, but everyone experiences those things differently. Everyone has the height of their flow in a different time. The trick is identifying when yours is and optimizing it, and that can only happen when you're tapping in and listening, and paying attention. 

Brigit:  100%. Definitely. I think what's also interesting is say for me, obviously I'm in the southern hemisphere. That's my summertime when it's winter time in the US. Most of our customer base for Biddy Tarot is based in the US, and so we're quite mindful about our launch patterns, and making sure that we're honoring those different seasonal cycles as well. So I think that's, it's another, well, it's another couple of layers to think about. Asking, what seasonal cycle is your customer in? And how does that play out in terms of what you're launching, what you're sharing, and the content perhaps that you're giving to your community or your audience base? And then also being aware that sometimes it might be the opposite of where you are depending on which hemisphere. So many complexities but I think at the end of the day it's just this seasonal awareness helps bring in that awareness around cycles in our lives, and we can't always have foot to the pedal the entire time. It's not sustainable in any possible way. For sure. 

Emily: No, no. It's definitely not and whenever you go into a year expecting these ebbs and flows, and even planning for them my taking December off has been a standard for several years now. Whenever you can go in planning for it it's a lot easier for you to be proactive about burnout, or overworking yourself, or whatever it may be that you need to be more proactive about, the seasonal ebb and flow is really great for making those sorts of plans. 

Brigit:  And so we're coming into your springtime. I'm curious, what new projects are dreams are coming into your awareness for this year? 

Emily:   All kinds of things. All kinds of things, I have been very intentional this winter about being very slow and quiet, and resting as much as I can. Like and I'm a super fiery, passionate like go get them kind of person so winter is seriously different for me and it ends up manifesting emotionally and psychically, and all of these things. But I have learned to honor it as much as possible but that doesn't mean that I'm not so stoked for spring to be here for sure. So I've been sitting on several new launches and things that are coming out. We're focusing a lot on Almanac this year and we have several new products coming out and some fun new collaborations that are coming to light. And I'm waiting till spring which at the time we're recording this is like days away, and I'm just sitting here twiddling my thumbs a little longer for spring to hit so I can really jump into that season of action, and I'm seeing it. I'm seeing like whenever I'm talking to friends or I host a mastermind group with some other bosses. Everyone is starting to feel a little more energized, and energetic, and excited about what's happening. 

So it's fun to very practically see that energy coming to fruition. I'm waiting to get started and products and collaborations are what's on my plate. 

Brigit: Exciting. And I want to ask you too, what new aspect of yourself will you be expressing this year? So what new aspect will you express? 

Emily: I think I'm diving much more into teacher this year. Which is really funny considering what I've been doing at Being Boss. Many people would consider that teaching and even at Indie Shopography, many people would consider that teaching but I feel like it's next level this year. And it is around Almanac in this sort of, this evolution of an expertise where I have been working with and talking to creatives for over decade. And whenever I connected these cycles of creation with the cycles of the seasons, again, it was another one to those can't sleep epiphanies. And this is the year that I really get to, get to begin expressing it. This content's been sort of drumming up within me for probably a year and a half now. So and this is the year where I actually started sharing it. It's actually started coming out of me which is really nice, and it feels much more in the teacher realm than anything that I've done before. Where before talking about email marketing, or social media marketing, or how to start a podcast. Those sorts of things were teaching but it was the kind of where like everyone's teaching those. Like I'm just adding to a conversation. 

But I really feel like this content is new and different, and it's not something that is all over the internet at the moment. It's not something even where you can really go pick up a book and read about it. It's really personal content that's come from research and experience that I've done myself, and that's not something that I've ever had the opportunity to share and be a part of before. 

Brigit: How does that feel for you? Stepping into this new, really a new identity and a new expression. How does that feel? 

Emily:   Incredibly boss, also incredibly scary. 

Brigit:  I can relate. 

Emily:  Right? Because in a lot of ways ... Right? I'm leaving behind an old identity that has served me very, very well. Indie Shopography and Being Boss have been a very, like have been my life for a really long time, and they've given me everything I wanted. Everything I wanted to so to leave a lot of that behind and go into something new is incredibly scary, but to just like when I decided to launch those crazy projects all of those years ago. I feel that it's very right and I feel like this is the next level of what I'm here to do, and I know that in my gut. I know that in my gut because I know whenever I start sharing this content, when I start talking about it people get really excited. And really excited in a way that no one ever gets excited about email marketing. This is really good stuff, and again, it's the kind of content that doesn't come from reading a couple blog posts and putting some facts together. This has come from, at this point, 15 years of my life. Of getting that geography education, of working with creatives, of creating myself over, and over, and over again. 

It's sort of putting all of these pieces together in a way that I hope will continue to serve my creative crowd in a new, different, exciting way but also expand the crowd that I'm able to reach because it's not just for creative people who are doing because, but it's really for anyone who wants to live more closely with nature and embrace the seasons in a way that is fulfilling and exciting, and very intentional. 

Brigit: Fabulous. And if this is resonating with our listeners where is the best place to find out more? 

Emily:   Almanacsupplyco.com is where you can visit our shop and see a lot of our content. I'm also hanging out a lot @Almanacsupplyco on Instagram. 

Brigit:  Nice, and of course we'll post those links in the show notes as well. And of course, we can find Emily still at Being Boss and working up a lot of magic on the microphone. Awesome. 

Emily: Yes. 

Brigit: Thank you so much, Emily. It's been such a good conversation. I love diving into all of these different areas with you and I'm excited to see what emerges and unfolds for you over the coming years. 

Emily:  Thank you, Brigit. This was a ton of fun. 

Brigit:   Yay. Thank 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. And 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 brigt.me/lunar-launches. That's B-R-I-G-I-T.me/lunar-launches. And these are the exact strategies I've used in my business to create six-figure launches time after time, and 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.