IEP007: How to Stand Out From the Crowd with Amanda Daley

Welcome to the Intuitive Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, Brigit Esslemont, 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. 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 aligned with your purpose and create a positive impact through your work. Let's make it happen. 

Brigit: 

Hello, and welcome back to the Intuitive Entrepreneur Podcast. Today, I'm talking with my friend and fellow business founder, Amanda Daley. Now, Amanda is a leading Business Mentor for Health Coaches worldwide. Renowned for her marketing expertise, and I'm talking like 18 years' experience, Amanda has earned recognition by the world's top advertising awards. Plus, she's also built her own 7-figure coaching business in under 5 years. Founder of the successful health coaching business, Fuel Urban Wellness, Amanda combines her business and coaching savvy to mentor other health coaches to start their businesses and learn to make $5K or more per month, and she's also been dubbed the 'leading expert' for health coaches who desire a heart-fueled business and a freedom-based lifestyle.  

Now, Amanda and I first met as part of The Collective, which is a group mastermind of 30 female founders of online businesses, and it is such an amazing and inspiring group of women that we are a part of. Now, Amanda and I clicked instantly because we really shared that passion for business and for more of the soulful path in our businesses as well. So, I was thrilled when she said yes to coming along and to chat with you on this podcast. Now, in this conversation, we talk about how to trust and honour the soul path of your business and also why it's actually different to your own soul path.  

We talk about the dark side of rapid growth in business, especially since Amanda went to $1 million business in less than five years. We talk also about how to truly stand out as a coach in what might feel like a flooded market, why it's okay to break the rules and zig while everybody else is zagging. And also, why it's essential to understand the fundamentals of marketing beyond the latest social media trends in order to be truly successful and adaptable in what is a forever changing market. Without much further ado, let me introduce you to Amanda Daley. 

Welcome, Amanda. I'm so excited to have you here and talking all about your business. How are you doing today? 

Amanda: I'm so good. Thank you for having me. 

Brigit: Yay. Let's just get straight into it. What does it mean to you to be an intuitive entrepreneur? 

Amanda: It's such a loaded question, Brigit, and I've known this is coming. It's just so multifaceted intuition. For me, ultimately it means being on a business path that is actually a soul path. That's what it means for me. 

Brigit: Yeah. So tell me more about that. What does soul path mean for you? 

Amanda: Yeah, look, my belief and I guess my experience in my own journey, it feels very much like a business is ... it's like a job description in many ways that I picture I've been given and I've had this vision many, many times to bring to earth and to play out. That feels to me like it was given to me as a perfect match of my strengths, my weaknesses, my soul challenges, my life lessons, everything packaged up in this perfect job role really that is a perfect match for something that's needed in the world as well. That's the vision that I've had many, many times. It's something I work with my clients on as well. I do find that to be true every time you get to a certain level in business, now there's a next challenge or now there's next lesson. It feels to me like those are really, for my personal development as much as when I worked through them, they obviously benefit the world through the business. 

Brigit: Yeah, and I'm guessing what will be on people's minds, which is how do you know what your soul path is? How has it been downloaded to you? 

Amanda: I remember reading something years ago, how do you know what your purpose is? I remember the answer being it's whatever is here today. It's really, what is the lesson that you're going through? What is the journey that you're going through at the moment? Sometimes, like the theory that I just shared with you now, I've started doing it with clients now in like a timeline, where we do look back at what's been happening the last few years and then looking back at what might have happened in our life to bring us to where we are and realizing, oh, I see. Yeah, there's been lessons along the way and actually they make sense. 

But I don't know what it's like being given a, this is what you meant to do in your business kind of parcel and you just know now I'm meant to be a Tarot reader or now I'm meant to be a health coach or whatever. I very much think that it's following the crumbs if you like, and what you're being presented with today, what you're working through and if you keep doing that and keep listening to that I think you'll be guided to where you ultimately need to go anyway. I don't know if there's one job description, but I do think there's a path. And by the way, this isn't for everyone in my belief. 

I think instead are entrepreneurs who are meant to have this kind of journey through a business or maybe an alignment with a business entity or whichever way you might see that. And I think that can be done in so many other ways in life and is by other people. But it's been my experience, yeah, working through entrepreneurship like the last seven, eight years, that has been very much the case. I can see that now and it really helps when there's challenges and when there's wins to kind of integrate it, but at the same time, to actually not make it that personal, if that is a bit of a contradiction in what I'm saying. 

Brigit: Yeah. So, tell me more about that. What do you mean by not making it so personal? Because I know like soul purpose is incredibly personal. However, I'm curious to understand more about what not personal means to you. 

Amanda: Yeah, it's my perspective anyway and we're learning, aren't we? So who knows if this is the way. But for me personally, it's like my own journey, my own lessons are what seems to almost feed or weave into the business. But the more that I've grown in the business, I've also learned that I'm not the business. I very much do believe that the business is an entity of its own. And it's kind of in some ways none of my business. It's very much like having a relationship in fact. Well, hold on. Sometimes, for example, you might hit points, but I personally want to go this way and it feels like the business wants to go that way and that can be part of the lesson and part of the journey. 

I don't think I understood that in the early days. And again, I think this is more something that's come to me as I've worked in business, but actually I think sometimes it can be too much weight, that whatever's going on inside is a direct reflection in the business. I don't think that's always 100% the case. I think there is, to a degree, the business entity or energy is here to do its thing, and part of my personal journey anyway, I don't know if it's everyone's, is to learn to kind of relax with that a bit and not have to suffocate that and not have to be maybe so controlling in that.  

Yeah, that they can be separate. What it actually brings to mind for me, and I know I just started to say this to you earlier, is I went through a phase of the business that felt like it wasn't an alignment with me earlier in the year. And then, I think I went into this deep thing of, oh then for this to be in alignment with me, I'll have to let the business go, and the business will have to shrink or fail. There was this kind of connotations almost that if I didn't want to do things a certain way, I wanted to slow down. I wanted to sell on a different way that the business would have to slow down.  

If anything, giving that business more space is being like, "Oh, hold on a minute. There's actually no issue over there. The business is perfectly fine by itself." So look, it's that, and at the same time, I think it's undeniable how energy does feed into our business and that's something that I'm becoming really interested in right now in our marketing and that relationship between us and our businesses, especially as the industry is growing, and I think that businesses are becoming more individual in that way.  

Brigit: Yes, I can so resonate with the concept of our business being a separate entity to ourselves. I know, I went through a similar transition where, initially you start, and your business is you because it's like you at the forefront of the business and then maybe start to hire a few people with the intention that they're there to help you run the business. But there's this tipping point that comes where you're like, oh, we're not actually all working to help me as the leader of this business. We're actually working to help this business on its own and is this separate entity, it has its own destiny and soul path and all of that good stuff. 

And then likewise, I really resonate with, when you go through a personal transition and perhaps you pull yourself back from the business. I've certainly had that worry with Biddy Tarot like, oh gosh, if I go down this path of the Intuitive Entrepreneur and I invest myself in that and I'm retracting my energy from Biddy Tarot, does that mean that the business needs to go on pause or on hold? It's been the complete opposite of that. It allows the business to grow because the business is its own entity. It wants to be fully expressed. So, it's really interesting to hear you having a similar journey as well and again, similar realizations that this entity can operate without you. 

That said, I am curious if over time, do you need to keep re-injecting your energy or has it been enough that we've created this entity that can keep going? What do you think? 

Amanda: It's a great question and sure one I don't have the answer to right now, but I am currently feeling the importance of our energy coming into it or my energy coming back into my business, but in quite a different way. I do know, for example, the last couple of years, I feel like my creative energy, my soul energy probably has felt really stifled actually in the business because my business has grown from ... a couple of years ago I left online advertising, health coaching, and I was making about $35,000 a year for the first year or two and then all of a sudden like a 10X in a year and it was growing and it was growing, and all of a sudden we're running $1 million business. 

That can sound very glamorous on the outside, but what that brings with it is not only fast growth, but teams and lots of clients and products that need updating and all of these systems and all these things that you learn very quickly. I feel like I've been through like an MBA in business in the last few years. If I'm really honest of knowing that that's been hard and sometimes I think you go through these lessons and journeys and that's the way it is, just like in life. But my soul was feeling super, super angry actually, and my creativity because I able to express that. It was almost like the container was already full. Everyone was already busy. 

I was already busy. There was this part of me that had these new ideas and knew which entrepreneurs have. I was really kind of getting quite grumpy at that for a long time. Although I haven't solved that right now, part of the stepping back for me, and it feels like this is kind of rewiring and just let the business do its thing and let me rewire. I love this, yeah, is actually seeing how that ... I feel like I've said the words for a long time, but to live it is a different thing so I can see now that that lack of my energy fueling it, the lack of my new creative ideas or lack of that soul lessons in the business. Maybe we got words okay for the last few years, but I don't believe we can move forward without that coming back in. 

Largely, I've been looking at this across the board and I think a lot of us get help in the business in the wrong way. The very first thing we tend to outsource is our social media. That'll be an easy thing. We'll get someone to just post some stuff for us and put that on Facebook and do this and do that. And many ways, no one can replicate your voice and your energy and your frequency I guess. Even if they're copying your words or pulling from a video or whatever that is. I think this is something I've known for the last couple of years, but all of a sudden I'm super aware of. It feels to me like, okay, well how do you run a business as well as actually keep your energy fresh and flowing? 

I think it is like fuel and petrol in the business because ultimately that's what people can feel. The reason I'm excited about this right now, although I don't have the answers as far as like how you completely refigure things, but I know that you had asked me the other day, like, the industry's growing, for example, every person seems to be a coach, everyone just seems to be putting out the same thing. I think that it's going to become more and more important that we come back into our hearts, be speaking just from our truth. We can't control that the algorithms are getting harder and Facebook ads are getting harder and all these things, but I do think the one thing that will be almost forced into for good is to come back and just be me. Just kind of talk, just kind of share, instead of trying to fit the marketing formulas and those pieces. 

I feel that's what's going to make the point of difference in businesses that continue to rise and really how we can all stay relevant in a crowded marketplace. It's just like a flavor. Ice cream was something that we want that day. It's like, I want to feel that energy, I want to hear her voice. I think that gets diluted when everyone's trying to copy the same marketing formulas. I've just seen that, not just intellectually, but energetically over the last couple of months like that's, and I got much bigger thoughts on it too. That's where we're going and I can see where that was where I was out of alignment. And there's the perfect example of, so it is a reflection of me and my journey that's affecting the business. Is the business harmed? No, the business is actually still doing really well right now, but I wouldn't choose to keep running it if I wasn't able to bring that back in. 

Yeah, it kind of starts tying to get out. It's like ah, and all along, it didn't have to be small. That's actually what was needed. Light bulb. 

Brigit: Yeah, and I really want to pick up this point also around how to stand out in what I believe is now a very crowded market, particularly in the space of health coaches where you're really supporting health coaches, but whether it's life coaches, coaches anything. It is such a flooded market. I think the biggest mistake that people can make is, oh, just do all of those marketing strategies. Oh, just learn it in a course and then I'll pump it out just like the next person next to me. That just may have worked five, six, seven years ago when there weren't as many people in this space, but in some ways it's actually opening up to something that is really beautiful and it's really calling on authentic leadership. So, talk to me a little bit more about this. How do you think coaches really need to show up now in this current environment and perhaps in the next couple of years? 

Amanda: I'm like, how many hours have we got? I've thought about this a lot. Look, I just want to stay on a base level before we go into the expansive side. We're a maturing market as coaches and especially I'm very passionate about health coaches. I think the whole coach teach coach to teach coaches model will die out and burn out. But I'm very passionate about health coaches particularly because I think there's a massive gaping hole in our system, in our health system. A lot of the reason that health coaches have struggled to start with this because they are the first and there's no leaders, and they don't really believe in themselves because they're comparing to doctors and other things that exist. But that system's not working. More and more what we work on in my communities and what women are really starting to step into is no, this is really dominated. 

I could talk about health coaching a lot, and maybe I will for a second, because I'm very passionate about the basics. We all say "Yeah, I know how to be healthy," but are we actually drinking the water? Are we actually sleeping that many hours deeply? Are we actually eating the veggies? Are we actually doing the exercise? It's like, if we're not, we're kidding ourselves. And can I go on a tangent for a second? I want to tell a story. 

Brigit: Yeah, let's do it. 

Amanda: Because you went there. We were in South Africa a few months ago with our beautiful mastermind group, very honored position that we were in, in the middle of the South African, what would you call it? Game Park, I guess at night, sitting around a campfire with Richard Branson. And someone asks him the question like, "What are the two biggest issues in the world?" I mean, these are not small questions. He replies and he says, "Global warming and threat of nuclear war is my summation." And okay, so then these are pretty big. The next question says, "Okay, we're business women, you know, there's a lot of business women in the world. Now, we don't have a lot of money. How can we impact that?" 

His answer, at least in the way that I heard it, was basically the only thing we can do in the world, to impact the biggest things in the world is take care of our own health. There's not an experience going on in South Africa, I was like, my whole body's just like tingling. And he's like, "Yeah, I mean, mental, physical, emotional health. What else can we do? That's all we actually have control on and we're actually responsible for doing that ourselves." Once we've done it for ourself, he said you do it for your family.  

Once you've done it for your family, you do it for your community. And we're all doing our own little circles, which that can create an impact. So, and there was another conversation, I probably don't need to go into here today, with him the next day, I was like, oh gosh, yeah, like this is just total, we all need to just live it and step into this as health coaches. The reason I share this first is I'm a passionate believer in these new models that are coming through in the world and in our society that need it. 

Even we had a conversation this week, top functional medicine doctors, you can pay all this expensive money to work with and the research is now done that most people don't follow through because they pay all this money and they get a one off session and then they're sent home with supplements and things and they don't implement or they get stuck on knowing what to do. So, it's like an ecosystem. Health coaches don't have to be the top of the pyramid, but they can have a massive, massive impact by helping people implement food, nutrition, sleep, breathing, I mean stress. 

Gosh, if we could just bring the stress levels down in the world, we would probably change the whole energetic makeup, right? 

Brigit: Yes. 

Amanda: So, I'm a big passionate believer in health coaches, so I don't want us to go into the mindset of, oh my gosh, like the coaching industry is going to burn out or whatever. It makes me think of my mom as a hairdresser. She had a hair salon for, since she was 18 to 60, whatever that is. A lot of years. 40 something years in the same block of shops in Auckland, New Zealand, small little block of shops, and at any one time, there could be up to seven other hairdressers in that block. And in would come the trendy hairdresser or the male hairdresser or the like whatever different one, and she never had an issue with business. But at the end of the day, people pick up on a vibe, they want to go to the homely place or the trendy place or the male funky place. And its essence, its frequency, it is brand, but ultimately it's the humans who are running that. 

People can feel where they want to be, where they want to hang out. I don't think there's a scarcity is for, as much as it's a new industry, we don't go around running thinking there's too many personal trainers or too many whatever. I just think we're at this funny tipping point where right now maybe there's more coaches than people who are ready to buy them because that kind of tipping point where it's not quite mainstream. I do find that anyone who, we talked about soul purpose before, that really feels this is their work, will stick with it and really be like, "Well, too bad. This is what I'm educating people on. This is what needs to get out there." Those are the ones in my community that I see starting to make really good incomes now and really good businesses when they're really stuck with it for a reason.  

So, I don't think that coaching at all, whether it's any healing profession, actually if you get into it for money, at this stage is not going to be sustaining for you. You've got to really be coming from a place that you are so passionate about it. But don't get me wrong, if you're coming from that place, the money's also going to unfold and I believe especially health coaching and life coaching will be big industries in coming years, but we're going through a maturity phase for sure. Right now that is an issue with how we differentiate and visibility, which is probably really where your question was going. 

Brigit: Yeah, and I think just this contrast between going in it for the money versus going in it for really deep soul purpose, vision and so on, I think this takes us back to that place of, when you go in it for the money, you're looking at what's marketing strategies can I put in place? And then you go through the run of the mill and you do all the things. And it doesn't necessarily get you the results because there's hundreds if not thousands of people doing exactly the same kind of thing, following the same blueprints and formulas and what-have-you. But when you're in there with the soul vision, a soul purpose, I've experienced this where it doesn't matter what someone else is doing because you are so clear about what your role is to do like what you are here to do on this earth in this lifetime. 

It doesn't matter what anybody else is doing because you are so in alignment. I think this is a fundamental part of the intuitive entrepreneur model that you are so in alignment with your purpose, that you will naturally attract the right people who are also in alignment with how you can serve and help them. It really is important that we are ready and willing to be vulnerable, to be authentic, to show up and allow that part of ourselves to really come through. If it's different to the sort of cookie cutter model, that's okay. That's a good thing. I don't know, tell me, have you experienced this either personally or maybe you've seen it even with your clients, the people in your classes of where someone has taken that bit of leap of faith and express them in a really authentic way? 

Amanda: Yeah, totally. Look, people come all the time wanting the step by step process. I do get that. It can be easy once we're at the level we are in business to forget how much we've learned or how important marketing principles are, and they are needed. Absolutely. There are frameworks, but these frameworks change all the time of course. But the difference that I see in my program is those who take action if we keep it really basic for a second. I will provide business training, I'll provide laser coaching, masterminding group. What's the difference in those who get results basically as those who take action? 

It's not about what we said at the beginning knowing, well, this is my life purpose and I've got the folder, it tells me what to do. But that passion, if you get out of bed in the morning and stopped telling people what you do, you will get clients. In the first month or so of my program, the difference in people who get clients are those who get out there because they're passionate and they start just talking versus those who are sitting there telling me like, "I'm waiting for the social media module, then I'll be able to put myself out there." 

It's like, yeah, but if you weren't able to just talk to someone when we were doing in-person conversations or whatever, that passion is what actually sells the passion. If we come back to the nice, where we decide for a bit is actually the frequency. People are going to be like, "I want that." And it's not a fake passion. It's not a fake like I've got to be all high in life. But when you're really lit up by what you're doing because you're in alignment and you care about it, people feel that difference. More times than not they want that. Like, "What are you having? I wanna learn from you. I just feel good around you or I feel inspired around you." That's the difference. So, there are business strategies of course, as you and I know and what we can scale on, but in a beginner business, I don't recommend websites, I don't recommended funnels, I don't recommend Facebook ads, not until you're making probably at least $10 a month as a coach.  

You don't need any of that. And it's a great place to hide. It's a great place to try and copy what other people have done and hope that something's going to work and it just won't. At the end of the day, we need to start talking about what we're here to educate on, which can be of course where that inner work comes in, but people want it. I've watched it more and more, even though the market's more crowded, my clients are getting more clients than ever and it's largely from speaking up more, educating more. I think, yeah, there's more coaches like we said before, but societies have somehow open to it, there's both. 

Brigit: You think about like 10, 15 years ago there wasn't media and people were still making money out of coaching, so I guess they were talking to people in-person and didn't have to wait for all that to be in place. Right? 

Amanda: And then, I'll give you an example. There's a lady a few weeks ago, in general, I'm not a big fan of group programs or online programs for beginner coaches. That's largely because the incentive is normally to make passive income where I sit at home and don't have to do anything and it's very ungrounded in the fact that you would need big numbers to get people in a group. You need a lot of people to be ready at the same time. It's much harder work. If you want to get a really streamlined business model, learn as a coach what you're good at, what they're wanting, I recommend one on one as long as possible. But I can think of a few examples where people have gone group either because it was there ... Like, there was a lady that was working with me. She had three kids under six and obviously was like, "Where the hell am I going to build a business in this time?" 

She was just like, "Amanda, it's my truth. I've got an hour and a half on a Tuesday morning, so that's what I'm going to put out. I'm going to put out a group program Tuesday morning while the kids are at school and I'll do some marketing mom the other day while they're at school, whatever. And she made $12,000 in the first 12 weeks working with me because she was in alignment. As much as I would sit there and say, this is what I recommend, this is what I say, you got to do what's in alignment. And a lady recently was like, "Oh well, you were telling me I couldn't do group coaching." I was like, "If someone tells you couldn't do group coaching, you do group coaching. Don't listen to me. I'm not like the God." I'll tell you what the marketing pieces are, I'll see what is working in the industry, but you've got to know what's right for you. 

We keep looking back to where we started today. This is why you've got to do your own ... you've got to really learn to connect with yourself and I guess come in and out of that state, make smart business decisions, but also be checking in, is this actually going to make me happy? Is this going to have me talking about it? Is this what I want to do? 

Brigit: I think this is really important, especially for those folks who are at the earliest stages. Because I remember the start of Biddy Tarot and just drinking in all the strategies that everybody else was doing and thinking, oh gosh, I'd listened to a podcast about YouTube. Okay, I've got to have a YouTube channel. Oh my goodness, I've got to do all of this, even though maybe I didn't feel that great about being on video at that time. Or I'd say something about podcasts and the time and I wasn't quite ready for it. And I said, "Oh, I've got to do it." I think it's really easy when you're new to sort of the business or online business to think that you need to outwardly project your energy onto others so that you're looking at what other people are telling you to do, right? 

But something that happens with trusting intuition, trusting your inner wisdom is that you are now reclaiming that power and saying, "You know what? I have it within me to be able to make the decisions that are in fullest alignment with what's like in terms of my purpose and path and so on." I think that takes a lot of courage and it's so nice to hear about your client who had the courage to say, all right, well Amanda told me not to do or suggested not to do group programs, but I'm really feeling this. I'll do it. That is the intuitive entrepreneur, that is the person that can assess, not just like the intuition of what's in alignment, but also, you know what? I'm connecting with other moms who have school aged kids so it's likely that they're also going to be available at this time. We can do a bit of rational thinking around it and then it all kind of comes together in a beautiful way and it's not that cookie cutter model. I think it's great. 

Amanda: Absolutely. Can I just say, when you just said like connecting with other mothers, I just got to go into one of the things I'm passionate about in business and that's target market. I know the word target market gets thrown out in every program you could think of and like people think it's a woman who's 30 with three kids and a corporate job or something like that. The biggest single breakthrough that I see for all my clients, even for myself, is when we truly feel connected to the person we're marketing to. Truly feel connected. There's a very big difference me talking to you right now, and it does feel like we're literally just like hanging out together than if I'm often the [inaudible 00:31:14] like, "Oh yeah, well there's ..." you know, it's just two different energy. Time and time again, it sounds like such a basic concept and this is why I still love laser coaching live. Every week I'm such a coach. I'm looking for those energy pieces. 

I can see the difference and when someone's truly connected to their ideal client Like one person that they believe they're talking to is so different than a blanket. Like, I work with moms who struggle with energy. It just doesn't connect. People do this because they're like, they think they're going to cut off the rest of the world if they just talk to one person, but there's an energetic match. It's like a magnet. When you're in that like magnetic frequency, if you like, other people are attracted to it. It's like they just feel it. They hear the words, but you've got to really believe. Not only believe, that comes back to the caring factor. You've got to feel. This is actually someone you're talking to who is sitting there struggling with their health, for example, has been down to the pharmacy today to try and get some stuff on it.  

She's googling. She's in pain. I see so many people go into making it all about themselves. What people are going to think of me and just losing that connection. I actually think it's the number one piece because your target market gives you all the answers. If you talk to them, if you listen to them like them. Like, then your marketing's written forever, then your marketing's kind of done forever and it doesn't matter what platform. You do it on, it's where they are and what they need to be served with. That what's going to continue to connect.  

Brigit: Yes, and I think oftentimes the easiest path is a version of yourself a couple of years. I think that's where we typically tend to lean too. I'm curious whether we can have target markets that are not an aspect of ourselves. It could, my target market be males who are 50 plus. Is that a possibility? Can I do that authentically? 

Amanda: I think you can when you're really connected to it. I don't know if I can explain why, but from what I've seen, there's a lady I'm working with right now, and for whatever reason, she's similar age to us, she's totally been through our own health journey, functional medicine practitioner. Ironically, her marketing is actually going up there for a woman and kind of prenatal. But she's attracting men after men in his sixties. And so, look, I'm not saying that that's necessarily her path or whether that's her dream target market. It may be an example of when you're in real alignment that the magnet attracts people. But I think it's also important just to ... you follow the step, do what you can and be open to what's coming to you. 

Brigit: I'm going to get a bit woo on you, which is what just came to mind is, it could even be like a karmic cycle, right? So, you may in a previous lifetime have been serving males over 50 or whatever and in this lifetime you're here to serve that masculine energy. Again, who knows? I'm just putting that there. 

Amanda: Nice. Who knows? Again, I think all we can do is checking on that at the moment. Does this feel in alignment right now? I think it does, and move forward with it. And business is all about testing and finding out too, right? 

Brigit: Yes. It's one big experiment. 

Amanda: It reminds me of when I was health coaching, so I was in online business, online advertising for my whole career. That time, I guess it was like 13, 14 years, and I was burning out. So, I was spending every moment that I could try to heal myself, trying to fix myself so that I could stay in that job. I never considered leaving. So, when health coaching came along, I was like, oh my gosh, like this is what I've been training for all these years and I'm going to be a health coach. The first nine months, I had no fricking idea what I was doing. No idea. Even with all my business experience. I remember at that stage having like a reading or something like that and someone saying to me, your audience just isn't here yet. 

At the time that made no sense. They were like, "Your audience just isn't ready for you. You got to keep following the path." When I look at where my business is today and who knows where it's going, but where it is today, like I was one of the earlier, not the first, but earlier health coaches, definitely here in Australia, but even in the steam of things, there was no health coach audience to help. I had to go through my own journey of that and I had to go through those years of people asking me for business and me thinking business was the devil one, like my own integration of my skill in Australia, of my strengths and my values. 

It was only when I integrated that in myself that I was like oh, because I wanted to take on the world as a health coach. I didn't understand at that time that maybe me helping others would be the bigger effect and I couldn't see my own skills. So, that was a personal journey. But that many years ago, there wasn't the audiences ready. They weren't health coaches ready to serve in the way that I do today, and who knows? Maybe everyone in their own spiritual growth or whatever could be something else that people are ready for in a few years. I see this a lot with healers who I work with or like kind of intuitive life coaches. 

I specialize in health coaching, but I guess it blends. What's a health coach anyway? A lot of people who want to work more in that root deep feminine space, healing space, there seems to be a bit of a timing issue. I've said to many ladies over the world what that healer said to me that day like, "I think your audience just isn't here yet. Keep going. You're clearly meant to do this work, but it's like we need to allow our own journey, our own maturation I guess and who knows what's waiting for us two years down the path or how there's now a new movement." Yeah, Who knows what's coming. So, all we can do is just keep going where we are now and if there's a men's market waiting around the corner or who knows, we might be perfectly primed at that time. 

Brigit: I think that goes back to the concept of like trusting and surrendering to that path. So, even though like your brain's going oh, but I don't have a market because they're not here. But trusting and surrendering, knowing that if you continue on this path, you continue to do the work, then you're building awareness, you're building a market even as you're doing that. I think this is happening in the business space too. So, see, in the past few years, courses have been very much about tactics and strategy and of course it's still all of that. But what I'm seeing is a shift also towards more integration of personal development and growth with business and entrepreneurship. I suppose that's where I'm feeling into here with the intuitive entrepreneurship too, is how do we bring more of ourselves, our fullest whole selves into how we run our business? I don't know if you're noticing a trend. 

Amanda: Yeah, actually I spoke to a very masculine marketer about two months ago and was the last person I'd expect to be saying this, and I was sharing about what I do and I really do believe that's [inaudible 00:38:21] in a job, but of course you need the 20% business. By the way, and my course is six months, that is all you're learning. You need that. I'm not discounting that, but I was sharing with him about largely what I do is the inner work and talking about wanting to get that out there more. And he was actually saying coming from very different masculine marketing sector. He's like, "I think everyone these days knows that they actually need the inner coaching and they expect that from a business coach." So, now it's more about, he used the words personality. Which personality are you going to get your personal development from? 

I think as humans, it's like we need to grow now. The energy, we've got no choice. So, for those of us back to where we started today, who feel like entrepreneurship is that path, we need a coach who can get that side of it. We need a coach who can nurture our soul or personal development in whatever way to whatever degree I guess we want or wanting. So, he said personality and I guess, yeah, I'm starting to feel into all the idea and concept right now. It's really frequency, like what do we need at the time? What energy do we need to receive? I think that needs to come with your business coach if you like. 

Brigit: I think it is important to note that the two go hand in had, intuition and strategy, or that personal growth and the business, the tactics, the strategy, they have to be present both of them in like in my opinion.  

Amanda: Yeah, and I think that's why I just mentioned, don't get me wrong, my program is there because I'm obviously passionate about that side and I know it's a point of difference for the people who resonate with my work as those would resonate with yours. Like, you've got to find that right fit. But equally, there's marketing foundations that you've got to get. One of the issues I've seen in the online space in the last several years is that phenomenon we've seen of people taking an online course going, "Oh, I get that," and regurgitating it is a coach themself. Where I think that will start to crumble if it's not already is it's not really built on sound business and marketing foundations. I'm coming back like I'm going to sound really old, but my first job was in the Ebay, the startup team of Ebay in the UK. 

I won't give you what year, but working from there and then in traditional ad agencies and the different pieces of worked in, there's business principles that were around well before there was Instagram or even Facebook and you need to understand those so that you can then apply them to whatever platform is trendy right now or to whatever pieces there. So many of the business courses out there are teaching from the top down. Teaching, this is how to get a following, this is how to put your post out there. I know it's kind of a threat that we all say, but Facebook could go away anytime or Instagram could go away. But I mean, I was reflecting with friend the other day in 2012 the way you got business was who could comment on the blog post that got posted today? 

As soon as someone posted a blog post, like a popular blogger, everyone would flock to the comments. That's how you got seen only seven years ago. So, things do change and I think you need to understand your real foundations of business in marketing and know how to apply those, especially if you're in it for the long game. 

Brigit: Yeah, I think that's what facilitates being adaptable and adjustable because it is a highly changeable environment, because as you say, like strategies that worked just five years ago, you'd like wouldn't even dream of doing that now. Right? But the way to be flexible and adaptable in that environment is to understand what are the core principles of how you actually market to someone? How do you connect with someone authentically as well? Yeah, I think that's really important beyond just what's the flavor of the month and getting into that. 

Amanda: Yeah, totally. Before, when you said about the coaching mark and getting flooded, and I wanted to reiterate that I know, there's no doubt, no matter what I see happening in the business, and sometimes I freak out too, I'm like, "Oh my God, it's too flooded. The industry's over." I know there's no doubt in me that this where it needs to get out there. There's no doubt that the health coaching work needs to get out there, but beyond that, the deeper work of all of it stepping into our feminine embodiment leadership, all the inner work that many of us as business coaches or as different business leaders have really been doing to get our businesses out there, that's not going away. That knowing and that trust is what gets me through the hard times when I'm like, "Oh my God, this doesn't work anymore," or something. 

I want to share that to say it's a growing industry, it's not going to go away. There might be refinements and there might be alignments for sure and things are changing radically and quickly. Part of, I think I shared with you earlier in the year, I went through a bit of a like, "Oh my gosh." I think I rang you one day pretty much like, "Brigit." Because there's alignments in the industry that are happening, there's alignments in myself that are happening, there's alignments in the earth frequencies that are happening. Yeah, let's not sugarcoat it. Things are changing. When I'm looking around at what's changing and what needs to shift, having those foundational pillars that we were just talking about are what keeps us grounded. 

I could now apply that to YouTube or Google or LinkedIn or whatever the current new way of, or experiment with those because I've got my foundations versus if I set up an Instagram business, it'd be very hard. But when you have your product stable, your messaging, so everything from the ground up, I'm not saying it's easy. This is part of being in business. You've got to work out what it is changing and be ahead of all of that and another reason to be with a business coach, right? I wouldn't know how I would be going through all the pivots if I didn't have all of that mastermind sisters and some of the smartest business people in the world on WhatsApp to kind of go, "What's happening here? What's happening here?" 

I think without that network of people around you and without coaches who are ahead of you in the game, it does get harder. So yeah, it's getting flooded, but I think it's important to stay in our networks, stay being mentored and get those foundations. I think those are some of the things that are going to move us forward if we want a sustainable business along with what we've talked about being more us, getting more of our frequency and energy into our business and not having to play by the rules as much. I think especially as we're all going through a bit of a transition. I mean, yeah, let's play, let's say what's working. Let's not take it so seriously and be held by that trust that this work is going to get out there if you're coming from that service place. 

Brigit: Yes, I love it. Amanda, what's emerging for you over these next 12 months, perhaps in your business or even personally as it relates to your business? 

Amanda: Well, I do wish I had a crystal ball, but I'll tell you one big thing that I'm definitely going through. In the past, I ran my business in a launch only model and I did that largely because I loved the cycles of it. I loved the all in. I could be all in my masculine, all in my go, go, go driver that I am, and then I could have massive times of reset and massive times of retreat and not having to be out there in public in all that way. I loved that. Even though a lot of people didn't like the launch models, I did like the cycles of that. It worked really well in my life. 

But for a while now, that started to feel out of alignment with me and it was a goal and very flimsy goal for the last few years. Like, yeah, yeah, I want to get it so I can be evergreen. I think it's this great concept, isn't it? And then sales coming all year, but this year I'm feeling very driven. Like it's coming from a deeper place back, like what we said before, in myself, I've been healing a lot of people or nothing tendencies. It has to be all on or all off or all good or all bad. I realized that launches were reflecting that for me. So, I'm not saying that I won't launch, but I'm opening up to be more fluid and flexible.  

An example is like my program normally runs once or twice a year and a few weeks ago, I was like, "You know what? People want to join right now. Let's just open the doors. I'm just going to run a Webinar and I'm just going to do this." I'm still playing with that piece I said before because my soul is like, yes, I can just be creative like it allows flow and it's awesome. I do have to balance that with little hat on. I've also got to run a team that I'm just throwing a whole lot of new stuff at, but other than that, I mean, yeah, we've welcomed in some really beautiful ladies into the spontaneous little behind the scene's intake. 

You would argue that on number has done better than a launch numbers. I think there's an example of there's no plan. I don't have a crystal ball, but the feeling of this year is to break that all or nothing to break that harshness, to actually commit to the energy I want in myself more, which has to be more relaxed around, to flow more. It's relining the business on that outside to support me in that way as well. I don't know how that's going to unfold, but hopefully, we'll see more flow. Also, I will be clear, I want to do that because I know there's new iteration. There's new things that I'm meant to be teaching beyond this amazing curriculum that I care so much about the health coaches. That part of getting their on flow will also mean without the all or nothing that it can be run by my team, how by my team more so that I can have space again for the new ideas that have been trying to come through for the last couple of years. And yeah, we'll see. 

It feels like I've kind of surrendered to these and going, "Okay, I'm going to do these." I thought this side would die, but actually that side's flourishing, so we'll see. I don't know. 

Brigit: I can very much relate, very much. Yeah, it feels like you're allowing flow to come through a lot more and more creativity instead of kind of being locked into certain launch dates. It's more like if I feel like launching, I'm going to launch and if I don't, I don't have to.  

Amanda: Pretty much. Yeah. Look, there's no right or wrong. Launching is great in many ways and all things are different. Yeah, I think the marketplace is also matured and doesn't want things like hard launch dates put on them as much and [inaudible 00:49:17] dates and all that kind of thing. I mean they can be beneficial, but right now anyway, in my community, this just feels like a much nicer way. And honestly I'm sharing completely honestly here publicly I got no idea where it's going. I've got my intentions and I'm honest with people in my community about that. I don't really know, but the doors are open now.  

You want to come in? Do it. I also want to find a way, I'm so in love with coaching that it would be the easy business option just to wrap that up and put it on an evergreen and achieve a thing without me in it. But I just care so much about being there and working on the inner work and all of that side. So, I think what you can probably hear is I'm getting clear on the bits I want to do and then I'm going, okay, business, where you work yourself out around me this year. That's kind of how it's feeling. So, how that unfolds, I got no idea. Should we do a check-in? 

Brigit: It's great. I love it. So good. Awesome. Well, Amanda, where can people find out more about you? 

Amanda: My website is amandajdaley.com. That's just the letter J in the middle of my name. I've got a Facebook group, Healthy, Wealthy Society. That's where we play the most, so I'd love to welcome anyone there or I'm on all the normal channels. Amanda Jane Daley on Instagram and Facebook and YouTube. 

Brigit: All right. Awesome. Thank you so very much. I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. I feel like, we just scraped the surface, but there will be many more, so thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. 

Amanda: Thank you so much for having me.  

Brigit: 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 really helps to get the word out and of course, I read every single comment. Now, if you're an intuitive entrepreneur with a desire to build a business fueled by purpose, passion, and profit, then you're invited to join me and an intimate group of female business owners in the Intuitive Entrepreneurs Mastermind. All you need to do is add your name to the wait list and you'll be the first to know when applications are open. So, head on over to brigit.me/mastermind. That's brigit.me/mastermind. I'll see you there, and bye for now.