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Welcome to episode 35 of the Mindful & Driven podcast! It’s all about how to not lose sight of what really matters whilst chasing your dreams.
Episode 35’s guest is Emma Wilson. She’s known as the turning 30 coach. After suffering a little existential crisis when she was turning 30 herself, what she realized is that there is so much pressure when you come to this age and she wants to help other people who are stuck to live happy lives and being secure in themselves and happy of what they have achieved and who they are.
Now, as this episode comes out, I’ve just turned 30 myself so I can completely relate to what she’s talking about. I think you’ll find a lot of value in this episode, especially in the notion of “Shoulds” versus “Wants.”
I hope you enjoy listening to our conversation! I’d love it if you could subscribe, leave me a review and follow me on social channels.
- You can find all my work and socials here: http://amardeep.co
- Download my free Anti-Burnout Toolkit here: http://antiburnout.mindfuldriven.com
- United for Global Mental Health: https://unitedgmh.org/mental-health-support
- Find more about Emma: https://www.turning30coach.com/
- Follow her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-wilson-47b0b667/
- Follow her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/turning30coach
Topics discussed in this episode:
- How to define success on your own terms.
- You don’t have to be successful by 30.
- How to distinguish between the “Shoulds” and “Wants.”
- How to define healthy goals that work for you.
- Why it’s important to seek success inside not outside.
- How to balance your career and life in your 30s.
- How to decide what’s important in your life when you’re 30.
Keynotes:
- Introduction (0:00)
- Ticking boxes and different paces (1:42)
- Struggling herself at 30 (6:59)
- It’s OK to want more and realising what’s important to you (10:38)
- We’re not all robots (16:13 )
- Being authentic (22:09)
- Talking about balance and accountability (25:18)
- Delegation (28:09)
- Giving yourself flexibility and changing your mindset (31:54)
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Intro Music:
“Himalayas” by Mona Wonderlick — bit.ly/youtube-monawonderlick
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
Free download: bit.ly/himalayas-download
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Emma: We do is we start to act from the what I
call the shirts instead of the true desire, so we look around and we see people
who are doing all of the things that we should do, that we’ve been told to do.
And obviously, cause we live in this crazy world now of social media, where I
were seeing the inside of people’s lives all the time. All of a sudden we
forgot what we want. We forgot what’s important to us and we start to live our
lives according to what’s important to other people,
[00:00:35] Amardeep: Welcome to the Mindful and Driven
Podcast, where we help you to not lose sight of what’s really important whilst
chasing your dreams. Today’s guest
is Emma Wilson. She’s known as the Turning 30 coach. After suffering a little
existential crisis when she was turning 30 herself, what she realises is that
there is so much pressure when you come to this age and she wants to help other
people who are stuck to live happy lives and being secure in themselves and happy of what they
have achieved and who they are. Now, as this episode comes out, I’ve just
turned 30 myself so I can completely relate to what she’s talking about. I
think you’ll find a lot of value in this episode and I hope you enjoy
listening.
Welcome to Mindful and Driven. It’s great to have you here
Emma.
[00:01:14] Emma: Thank you so much for inviting me.
[00:01:16] Amardeep: So how I should find out about you
is because one of my good friends is one of your clients, so she took coaching
from you last year and we talked about that before the course started. So we’re
not going to mention her name though she said you got so much value from you
because she was turning 30 and there are a lot of thoughts going on in the
brain that she was struggling with, and I know that you challenge a lot of the
common ideas that people have in their brains, which aren’t necessarily
helpful. Can you tell me some common advice you disagree with?
[00:01:41] Emma: Okay. So I’m not sure if it’s advice,
but it’s more like a perception that is given to us from a young age, often through
advice, through our parents, through society, through our teachers, and it’s
this preconception that success in life is bought through hitting timelines and
ticking boxes. And I was trying to think of how to actually summarize what I
think that underlying belief that we’re told, and I think it’s something to do
with the correlation between success or feeling of happiness coming with age as
well, so we have an, obviously that very much links to what, what I do in my
business. I’m a life coach that specializes in helping people who are turning
30. I think that we have this belief that by a certain age, We should be
successful and that success is driven by the boxes that we are ticking such as
the most common ones that I see are that by 30 years old, we should have a
successful career that will include both financial security and also job
progression, and we should, it should be our passion or one passion that we’ve
been trying to do our whole lives and finding that thing. And the other things
is that by 30, we should be not only in a relationship, but potentially engaged
or even married, if that’s what the benchmark of success is for an individual
when it comes to relationships, maybe children is another one, I think a
mortgage, so owning property. What I’m really trying to say is that we are
given this preconception that our internal state is going to be good and we’re
going to feel better if we’re successful in hitting these milestones.
[00:03:31] Amardeep: I completely agree because I’m going
through the exact same thing at the moment. So at the time of the recording,
I’m turning 30 next month, and in many ways I’ve got several of the boxes
tipped. So I had a corporate career and I’ve not quit and gone in to do my own
thing, but at the same time, like I’m not married yet, and that’s kind of
playing in my mind a little bit. I think, especially because how we grew up the
timelines were generally earlier for adult people in previous generations,
because life is very different then, and now that we kind of grew up on that
diet of information and the TV shows where people getting married at this age
or that age, but generally the whole society shifted a bit later. Like people
are more focused in the careers. People have got more other options. People can
travel. Whereas before you didn’t have so many options, and that was one of the
things that you kind of ticked off the boxes as you went along, and I’m trying
to think for it now where I know it’s completely irrational to put that day of
like the 30th year, it’s just the 30th time we’ve gone around the sun. It
doesn’t actually mean anything at all, but we still measure life in that way
for some reason, like what does it actually matter, if it’s 30 times around the
sun or 32 years around the sun or 33, and it’s difficult because it’s just the
way we perceive time, I think. It’s useful in some ways, but in other ways,
it’s really harmful because like you said, we put these timelines on things,
which are completely arbitrary.
[00:05:02] Emma: A hundred percent and I want it to pick
up on what you actually said before about how our generation and the
generations below us are doing things at a different pace. We are having more
career changes. Society has changed compared to what it used to be, so people
having children later or getting married later or even not getting married at
all. And I think that for us, it’s becoming more acceptable, but we have to
remember that specifically people who are our age, let’s call it as
millennials, you know, we’ve been beought up by our parents, and by our
teachers, by people who are very much not in that mindset, and it’s the reason
why I think millennials suffer so much from this feeling of being left behind,
and this feeling of being, you know, not doing things at a certain time. And I
truly believe that, it won’t be like this forever, because I think that we’re
going to go ahead and create the change for the next generation, but we have to
remember that we’ve been signaled, and you mentioned also in popular culture,
for sure, TV shows,
movies, everything that we’ve been exposed to that by 30 things should be a
certain way. And it’s so arbitrary, like it really, really is, and I know that
it’s arbitrary as well because, I have clients who feel left behind because
they’re turning 30 and they haven’t done the things, and I also have clients
who have done the things who are in their thirties, who also don’t feel happy.
So I think it’s just really reminding yourself, if you do feel left behind and
that you haven’t done the thing yet, that thing isn’t going to be the thing
that brings you the happiness. It won’t, it’s just an external goal. And the
happiness will be brought from inside, from your mindset, and yeah, your
thoughts and how you feel.
[00:06:52] Amardeep: And what I’m interested in because
you spent so long in the last few years, focusing on this problem that some
people face, did you struggle yourself in the past with when you turned 30 and
the mindsets you had to change in order to kind of accept yourself and, accept
that where you are is okay?
[00:07:07] Emma: Yes. Exactly. Though the reason I even
chose this niche in the first place is because I had a very interesting journey
of turning 30. And I’ll go back to the fact that I’ve always been somebody who
has done the right thing with the corporate job, you know, went to the good
university, got the good grades, became a lawyer. I was living in London. It
was doing all of the things, right. I really thought and saw the path ahead of
me. You know, this is what was going to happen. I’ll be partner. I’m going to
go and live in the suburbs in London and marry somebody, and it was all very
set out. And I should probably mention here, my own cultural religious
background is that I’m Jewish, secular Jewish, but from a very close knit Jewish
community where the timelines and the milestones are even younger than 30, you
know, to be single at 30 is even more, you know, oh my God, it’s more dramatic
than it is, I think than for others. I quit law when I was 27. I moved country.
I didn’t know what I wanted to do in my career. I did so many different jobs. I
had long-term relationships that didn’t work out and I was lost. And when I was
turning 29, that was when actually I say my turning 30 journey started. I knew
that I wasn’t achieving my potential at that point. And I knew, cause I didn’t
feel happy. I had all of the things. I had quite a good job. I was working in
corporate events on the outside it was a great, it looked great. I was
traveling all over the world. I was running a team. I had a good, nice group of
friends. I like my lifestyle. But It just was, it just didn’t feel fulfilled.
It didn’t feel right. I was really struggling at that time to balance lots of
different things that were going on in my life and on my 29th birthday, I actually,
I got sick straight after for a couple of weeks, and when I got better, I just
was like, enough is enough. I’m 30 next year. This doesn’t feel right. It’s not
a disaster. It’s not one of those coaching stories that say, oh, you know, you
go to rock bottom, and then that’s it. It wasn’t like that. It was just like
something doesn’t feel aligned. Something doesn’t feel amazing. So I’m going to
really, you know, I’m meant for more. And that was when I started to do
coaching. I went and found a life coach who discovered this whole world. I also
started therapy. I just started to ask myself this really big questions that,
okay, how do I want my next decade to look. When I turn 30, how do I want it to
feel? And it was very different from what I was feeling then, and that was an
amazing platform and I’m really happy that happened in my twenties. My year
from turning 29 to 30, it was a very, very meaningful year for me and I ended
up then quitting the job, the good job that I was in and starting doing coaching
courses and going on a whole other journey. Now, the journey is continuous,
right? I’m 34, 35 in a few months, and I’m still learning about myself and I’m
still having ups and downs, but I definitely had a very meaningful turning 30
experience that eventually has led me to working specifically with this
audience.
[00:10:21] Amardeep: Yeah, I’m just finding along, as you
say that because I relate to so much what you’re saying, and you mentioned
about the Jewish community. I think like I’m a problem, the [unintelligible]
community, and it’s very similar because my grandparents got married when they
were like 18. So for them, even at 25, it’s really late, for example. The other
thing you mentioned there about there not being that particular one moment
where everything was terrible. I think we see that a lot in like media and
people’s stories where they hit the bottom and that’s the only way you can go
up, and I think some, even previous guests that said, it said, you need to hit
rock bottom, and then you can come up again. With some guy disagree with
completely because you don’t get to hit rock bottom. Sometimes, it’s like you
said, it’s things look good, but they’re not bad, but there’s just that void
inside. There’s just something not quite right, and in some ways, I think
that’s really all to do with, because if you hit rock bottom, then like the
only way is up. Whereas when you’re like, well, some things already good. Why
am I not happy? Why am I not fulfilled? You almost feel guilty is one thing?
[unintelligible]. I should be more appreciative of what I have.
[00:11:25] Emma: Yeah. I think you really picked up on
something so important there, which is that when you don’t go to rock bottom
and you’re just living, but it doesn’t feel aligned in some way, you don’t feel
fulfilled. You want to make a change, but like you said, maybe you’re doing all
the things you, you know, or the self-help things that you’ve seen online and
you’re journaling and you’re maybe signing up some courses and doing all of
those things, because you’ve not had an extreme change of circumstances and
it’s just life going along. You feel that guilt. And I think it comes as well
from privilege, and I have this a lot with clients is that, you know me and you
would be perfect examples of this, where were privileged people who had good
corporate jobs, who are living life, you know, according to our lifestyle and
it feels wrong in a way to say, oh, I don’t feel good. So people don’t say it,
they’re almost too embarrassed or too ashamed to say this life that I’ve been
living up until now, it doesn’t feel right because what does it mean about me,
that it doesn’t feel right? And that’s what I really aim to do with my coaching
and when I’m speaking to potential new clients in my, in my content is to help
you realize that, you don’t have to hit rock bottom to want to make a change.
You can just want to set new goals and build a new chapter. And it’s okay. I
always say that as well about my journey. I’m not, it was a mediocre journey.
I’ve had rock bottoms and big things in relationships that have changed and
don’t get me wrong, I have had those times, but my turning 30 journey was just
a story of a mediocre girl, who you know, was not living fully to the extent
that she could live, and I think for anybody listening, if you feel that weird
guilt that we’re talking about, feeling uncomfortable saying that you’re not
happy, I give you permission to say that it’s okay to want more because it is
okay.
[00:13:11] Amardeep: And I think so much of It comes from
understanding yourself rather than what everybody else is saying, and trying to
follow what other people who are doing because I think that happens a lot if
people will see, well, other people are happy doing this and I should be happy
doing this, but that’s not necessarily the case. You’ve got to work out, well,
maybe the Cooper job. Isn’t what makes me happy. Maybe, I see it as well in
travel. A lot of people will travel as a way to kind of fill this gap they
have, and I used to do it right. I’ve been to 50 odd countries, but a lot of
those countries, I was going there because I needed something to try and pick
me up. I wasn’t going there for the enjoyment or because of that good
experience. It was like I needed it. I needed something to look forward to. And
I think when you have that need, it kind of poisons it albeit because you
shouldn’t have to go to another country in order to be happy. You shouldn’t
need to travel. It should be something that you do as part of a more holistic
life. And I always think about it now is that I still would like to travel but
I don’t need to escape my life. And it’s trying to build in that daily routines
and those kind of, what’s the normal standard that you’re okay and you’re
happy.
[00:14:18] Emma: What we do is we start to act from the,
what I call the shirks instead of the true desire. So we look around and we see
people who are doing all of the things that we should do, that we’ve been told
to do, and obviously, cause we live in this crazy world now of social media
where we’re seeing the inside of people’s lives all the time, every, every
minute of every day, almost that were engaging with others on social media, all
of a sudden, we forget what we want. We forget what’s important to us, and we
start to live our lives according to what’s important to other people, so we
see somebody else getting the keys to that new house that just bought a
property. Maybe you’ve never even thought about owning a property before. It’s
just not something that has been relevant for you and all of a sudden, you’re
like, I should own a property. I’m 32 next year. I should own a property. And
it’s really understanding. The shirks versus the ones. Do you really want to,
what, what does it mean for you to own that property? Or is it just something that
you think you should do because somebody else is doing it, or maybe in faith,
what we were talking about before, because your family are telling you to do it
or your community is, you know, signaling you. So it’s really important and
something I do with a lot of my clients is to get clear on the shirks and the
wants in a way that we do that as well as really understanding your values,
what’s important to you? What do you value? So just that you were saying about
the travel thing, is that maybe for some people, travel is a core value,
adventure, you know, exploration, curiosity, that’s somebody, something that
somebody really values, so they should incorporate that into their life, but
for another person, maybe that’s just something they think they should do
because they see other people doing it around them, but actually they really
value security and stability and a feeling of a sense of family or whatever the
other values can be in relation to that. So I think it’s really important to
get clear on what you want, what your values are, who you really are. And then
from that, you should decide what to do.
[00:16:23] Amardeep: Hi everyone. I hope you’re enjoying
the episode so far. I want to take a quick break to ask you to check in with
yourself. There’s many people struggling with balance and it’s nothing to be
ashamed about. It’s tips that my guests might share can hopefully help you
along the way, but if you already feel overwhelmed or burnt out, it’s probably
best that you ask somebody for help too. For some, this might be a friend or
family member, while others might feel like they have nobody they can talk to.
If you’re one of these people, check out the link in the show notes, it’s for
United for Global Mental Health. They’ve got health plans all across the world,
with people willing to listen on the other side. It’s important to let somebody
know how you’re feeling. Now, back to the show.
I know [unintelligible] a kind of digital nomad lifestyle that
you said, you hate the word and there’s some bridge I think, people have kind
of pressured me into doing, I say, well, you can do what you want, now why
don’t you travel the world? Because I’d be doing that because people are
telling me to, because it looks cool, because that would be good for Instagram.
Whereas what I actually value it’s like I’ve got a great set of friends around
me. I’ve got people I care about in this country and I can see them and I can
interact with them. I love London as a city, and I’d rather, when I go abroad,
to completely switch off, because I think if I go abroad and I’m working, to
me, that’s not how I’d enjoy it, like traveling.
[00:17:37] Emma: I just want to say, we’re not all
robots. So there’s just no possible way that every single person on the planet
who is our age, who is going from their late twenties to early thirties, likes
the same thing. And that’s what we have to understand and sometimes we’re
living a life that isn’t in alignment with our values and that’s when we feel
not fulfilled and that’s when we need to do the work, but sometimes, and the
thing, what you’re saying is amazing is that you’ve acknowledged your value of
your friendships and loving London and the fact that you feel so at home there,
and that you’re living according to actually what you want and you’re not being
that robot that’s looking at everyone else because if we were all robots, how
boring would life be? We would all be doing exactly the same thing, at exactly
the same time. We would all be doing, you know, 30 would look the same for
everybody. And it’s just, it’s really important to remember that we’re not all
robots and about being, I said before I just, the term digital nomad, I don’t
love it, but I’ll use it anyway, say a remote worker. For me, I do it in a way
that combines this, what you’re talking about, that feeling of stability and
having a base and then going away. So, so when, if you’re officially a digital
nomad, often you put your things in storage and you just go, I have friends
who, they just live all over the world. They don’t really have residency
anywhere and that’s it. They just can spend months at a time in one place,
maybe years at a time, but they don’t really see themselves having a base. Now
for me, I couldn’t do that. It doesn’t work. I need to have both. I need to
have the freedom and also the stability. So it’s been, I’ve been working fully
remotely for 18 months now, and I’ve really tried to combine both of them
because, it’s not all, like it seems on Instagram. And I actually really tried
to be honest on my Instagram when I was away last winter in Central America, I
was really authentic and honest telling people about the experience cause it’s
sometimes really hard, like running a business in general, it’s really hard.
Running it when you when you have to move around all the time. And I would be
really authentic and honest about the fact that being a remote worker is really
hard sometimes, and sometimes you find yourself in a new place and you don’t
speak the language and the Internet’s cutting out and you don’t know who to ask
for help, and it’s really daunting. And it’s just about doing it in a way that
feels good for you. So I also really understood that I didn’t want to move
around a lot and ended up finding a house with two friends that I met in living
there for two months, so it was almost like creating a home away from home. So
for anyone listening, who does want to travel to look at that lifestyle, just
to let you know that you can just set that up in whatever way you want, and you
can just trial and test and see what works for you, because I learned so much
about doing it and it definitely, you know, I’m making mistakes as I go along
with the whole digital nomad thing and just learning after that what works and
what doesn’t work.
[00:20:27] Amardeep: You mentioned in Instagram there,
[unintelligible], I think it was new year’s day or new year’s Eve where you
talked about how people set themselves targets for the year and I’ve
experienced myself, I saw so many people posting on Instagram and saying, here’s
what I achieved this year, and listing out all of these different things. Now,
honestly like last year was pretty good for me. I quit my job. I’ve created two
podcasts. I’ve done all these
different things, but at the same time, that’s what makes me happy and it’s
what I’ve been doing, chasing my own ambitions and things I’m enjoying and what
I didn’t want to do is impose that on social media and make other people feel
lesser because they might be completely happy in their nine to five job, and if
they’re happy, then they don’t need to see me being like, oh, I’ve done this
and that, and this and that, like, I’m so happy that I’ve left my job because
you can never be happy if you’ve got a job. And I think it’s quite important as
well, for many people in this space where just because freedom suits us and we
can do our own thing and we enjoy that, many people don’t and that’s okay. Like
I never want to feel somebody listening today who is happy at their job, to
feel that they need to quit to keep up with us or to keep up with people who
are doing that.
[00:21:38] Emma: I definitely went through what you are
talking about, what you’re going through with. Maybe not showing up and
speaking about your own personal journeys and successes, cause I did worry that
it would trigger some other people and then therefore, maybe they would think
how it’s hyping myself up or maybe they would think that I was being
patronizing or saying that this is the only way I think that obviously you’re
someone with a high level of self-awareness that you would think about that
before posting. But actually I really reframed that and decided that for me, it
was really important that the people out there, who aren’t ticking those boxes,
that society sets, i.e. either marriage, mortgage, babies boxes, that they see
that as another way to be successful, that they see that there’s another way
that you can live your thirties that doesn’t mean there’s cookie cutter way of
doing all of the things in order, because unfortunately on Instagram, especially
around the holiday times, people are posting all those photos and they are
showing up in a certain way that can be quite triggering and I think I reframed
it to be, if you can, if it can come from a place of authenticity and not
patronizing and not my way is the only way, but it can come from a, look this
is what makes me happy. This is actually what works for me by doing that and
speaking up more. Since I started doing that few years ago, that’s when my
community started building. I think that’s really the core of building a
community, is you find your people.
[00:23:04] Amardeep: Yeah, and I think that’s really
mature as well because some people think their way’s the only way. And like you
said it’s, different things suit different people, and also with the it’s the
inspirational versus arrogance argument. I think I worry about it and it kind
of implies that you do as well, and I think just the fact that you worry about
it probably means you’re on the right side of it, and that’s just the way I think
we need to go through life, right, is that we help the people we can, but we
don’t look down on the people who are taking a different path. So with this new
lifestyle you built and you said it was difficult when you were traveling
around, you don’t think you’re struggling with right now, with the balance?
[00:23:42] Emma: A lot. I think it’s funny because when
you’re a life coach and you have all these clients, they can idealize you and
think that you are this perfect person who has everything in place, and
especially if you’re a life coach, you have this perfect morning routine and
everything’s all fine and dandy. And it’s just not the case for me right now,
anyway. Balance is definitely something I’m planning on working on a lot more
this year. I had a really crazy 20 20 and 2021 business-wise, really have
launched a lot of different things and I’ve got a new course that just launched
this week and a group program that’s going and I also one-on-one coach, and I
have my podcast, and I have my Instagram where I show up every day, and my
business is really thriving and it’s, I’m so lucky and so grateful, but comes
with that is this lack of balance. And it’s hard because I don’t even want to
call it work life balance because, because I love my job, because as cheesy as
it sounds as a life coach, a lot of your job is just living. You know, I
sometimes find it hard to find that line between when my business stops and
when my life starts and I’m struggling right now to give time to the things
that aren’t business and more personal things. I think that my upcoming trip to
Central America will help that a lot because I’m going to be living a bit more
aligned when I go there. I’m not a fan of the winter and it’s quite cold at the
moment, so I feel like give me some sun and I’d definitely be able to feel a
little bit more balanced, but it’s, for me, the struggle is running a business
that is growing quite fast and actually still doing that and being able to have
a life outside of it.
[00:25:28] Amardeep: I’ve got the exact same thing where
earlier on, I think when I first quit my job and I first did this full time, I
had that balance because the opportunities were there, but they weren’t
overwhelming. Whereas now things are going well, it’s almost a victim of success
in a way, right? And the better you do, the more incoming messages you have,
the more things you have to deal with, and it becomes quite hard to keep up
with that. And I know exactly what you mean there where, a lot of my content is
about how to avoid burnout and how to not work too hard, but I find myself
doing it myself, like doing all the things I say that people shouldn’t do, I’m
sometimes seeing myself. And I think one really useful thing is to have to have
an outside perspective of somebody to keep me accountable. And sometimes my
family will do this, like, you always talk about that, but you’re doing it.
Yeah. If you’ve caught me there and just having someone point that out to you,
something really useful because you can make excuses, I was like, oh yeah.
Other people should do that, but I can handle it and is rarely true. Usually
the rules are the same. You can’t handle things that you were telling other
people not to handle and adjusting to that and being honest with yourself as
well, because there’s always that bit of denial, isn’t there? Being able to
admit, yes, there are problems. There are things I need to work out, I think is
the first step to fixing that.
[00:26:45] Emma: It’s the first step to anything. It’s
obviously awareness and being able to understand how you’re acting. Again,
going back to that point, that just because we give advice, doesn’t always mean
that we take it ourselves, so it’s being in awareness, like that’s happening,
but also accepting that it’s okay. And I like what you just said about
accountability. You mentioned family holding you accountable. That’s amazing. I
think also having other colleagues who may be at, other entrepreneurs, is
really important and having that community and also having a coach, you know.
It’s been amazing for me to help grow my business and something I work with,
worked a lot with in 2021 when we, my business coach was this. It’s this
concept of balance and understanding because you know, at the end of the day,
working too much is just the symptom. It’s not the cause, the cause is coming
from some limiting belief about how much I need to work in order to sustain the
business. It’s coming from mindset. So often we try to solve things by making
more pretty to do lists or buying more pretty calendars, or, you know, doing
all of those things that we should do, airplane moding our phones, all these
things that are great pieces of advice, but actually it’s coming from some deep
seated belief that if you don’t work X amount of hours per day or per week, then
actually you won’t see the same amount of success in your business, which is
another outdated piece of advice that we’ve been given, going back to the first
question. And I think it’s really important that if you do struggle with
something like balance that you look at those beliefs and ask why, like, why,
where is it coming from?
[00:28:20] Amardeep: I think I saw this on, probably your
Instagram account a little while ago, It’s that you’re looking to hire somebody
that’s coming forward part time to help you out with all this stuff, and I’m
doing the same for myself at the moment. So starting up in the next couple of
weeks, and I think it’s one of those things, especially for people who are
doing their thing, who are entrepreneurs is letting go of some of these tasks
because we have the way that we want things to be done, but it doesn’t make
sense for us to do them all the time. And it’s that control element of, we want
things to be in our control, but that also means that we’re working too much,
we’re burning out, so instead of focusing on the bits that really fill us up
with joy and really make us happy, we’re sitting there doing admin or doing the
taxes or whatever like that, which that’s not like that’s not why I quit my job
is to sit there and do admin for how many hours a week. How’s that? What was
behind the decision with you?
[00:29:11] Emma: Wow. This is such a personal challenge
for me, what you just said and you’re right. I have just hired someone actually
starting with her this week and it’s been a huge big step for me. Not even just
practically speaking, but mindset speaking because of this one word that’s very
emotive for me, and it has always been, is delegation because delegation is for
me very uncomfortable because it’s all about control and trust, and I resonate
with everything you said. I think it’s just really, really true. I think a lot
of us do have this thing of if I just do it myself, like, what’s the, what’s
the saying again? It’s like, I’m better and better if I just do it myself, there’s
no point. We have these beliefs in our head like, by the time I’ve told
somebody else how to do it, I could have just done it better myself. And it’s
hard to let go of that control and to actually give it to someone else and
delegate to somebody else, but it’s so necessary. And it’s so essential. And
it’s funny because I’ve been meaning to hire somebody for months and months and
months, and it’s just been sitting on the to-do list to do it. And I’ve pretty
much been running the business. I do outsource, so I have you know, a podcast
editor and I have somebody who helps me with my Facebook ads, and I do have a
team. I have someone who does my website. Like I have a team of amazing
entrepreneurs who are helping me, but I’ve not really bought somebody on board
and to Turning 30, into the brand. I was coaching a, my group have a group
program called reclaim, and one of the women in the group came to me with an
issue that had business couldn’t grow and it couldn’t move forward because she
needs help, but she couldn’t let go, and I did this really powerful coaching
with her and literally pressed up on the zoom meeting, and I was like, okay,
Emma, you need to take your own advice. You need to hire somebody, and it was
literally the next day I went on my Instagram and I shared the post and I hired
somebody that week. So I’m learning and it’s an ongoing process. I think it’s
going to be a huge step for creating balance in my life and in my business. I’m
really excited about it. And actually the minute that I decided, it was like a
huge weight off my chest. Maybe you’re struggling with this as well, but
there’s that weird, like buffer period where when you hire somebody, you have
to train them, so you have to actually work even harder to give more time, and
then obviously you’ll make that back in the future. So I’m going through that
right now. And I think it’s just such a lesson in so many different things, but
the truth is is that if you are an entrepreneur and you want your business to
grow, you have to understand that you can’t do it all alone. And especially as
a coach, there’s only one of me. So I’m the one who has to run all the actual
coaching sessions, so I can’t delegate that to somebody else. So like you said,
it, the admin and everything surrounding it can absolutely be done by someone.
[00:32:03] Amardeep: Is there any other changes you’re
gonna make in the future you think? In terms of balance, you said you’re going
to Costa Rica and you’ve got a new assistant. Are there any other changes you
want to make?
[00:32:14] Emma: This is the first time actually that
I’ve launched something that’s passive, passive income. So everything I’ve been
doing has been active income up until now, and now I just on new year’s Eve new
year’s day, I launched my new course, the next chapter, and it is a course that
you can sign up to, and everything’s prerecorded. There is a live aspect to it,
where you can, you can actually come and, there’s a Facebook community and I’m
going live in the community doing live coaching but the majority of it is
passive. And that I think will also make a difference because it will take less
actual say frontal hours that I have to be, be on screen and, and coaching, so
I’m excited about it. And I think that I’m actively because I’ve acted, actively
set it as an intention for the year, there’s going to be a lot of things, and
I’m sure there’s also things that I’m going to do for balance that I haven’t
discovered yet that I will.
[00:33:03] Amardeep: That’s great. It seems like you’ve
got the right ideas now. And I think that experimentation phase is so important
because sometimes if you set something regionally, right from the very start,
you don’t give yourself that flexibility. See what actually this is working, or
this is more engaging for me. I’m going to do more of that. What’s like one
mindset shift you think people listening today can make, that would make a
positive difference in their lives?
[00:33:25] Emma: I think, a mindset shift that’s really
fundamental for anybody who wants to do the work and who wants to show up
differently in their lives to build something different in the future, whether
that’s career, relationship, or just an, a different internal world, is just
the mindset that you can, the mindset that it is possible to change what you
think because if you believe that truly, if you truly believe that you can
change your thoughts and therefore you can change your results, then you can
change any mindset, you can believe anything. So I think it’s really important,
and I think a lots of people are cynical or have got to a point in their lives
when they just think that’s just what there is.
[00:34:17] Amardeep: I completely agree because nobody is
condemned to be sad or to be unhappy. It’s always something that can be done,
whether it’s through something that they’re shifting in themselves or whether
it’s through getting coaching, or getting like pressure therapy or something
like that. There’s always something that can be done. And that is really
important. I think, to have that belief in life to kind of keep yourself having
that hope. So it’s been a pleasure to talk to you today, Emma. Where can people
hear more about you who are listening today?
If you would like to see more about the, my content and my
business and just get to know me a little bit more. The main place to find me
is on Instagram. My handle is @turning30coach. The 30 is the numbers and my
inbox is always open there. I have a really active community, so I really
recommend checking that out. I also have details of programs and courses on my
website, which is turning30coach.com. And I have a podcast called the turning
30 podcast, which I, is my passion project I say, because I absolutely love it.
I want to say every week, but sometimes it’s not every single week, but I try
and do a few episodes a month. I have solo episodes and also guest episodes,
and yeah, that’s another really good place to learn all about what it’s like to
feel good about turning 30.
And then the final question is what’s one small thing that’s
brought you joy recently?
[00:35:41] Emma: It’s actually a big thing, but it’s
small as well that I learn a new process of manifestation last year, and I used
it to manifest my new apartment, and when I say new, I did move here a few
months ago, but it was a huge thing for me. I had condemned myself to not
living in a nice place after I came out of a serious relationship 18 months
ago. And it’s physical environment is very, something very important for me.
Every single day that I wake up and walk into my living room and have these
amazing, like arched windows, they’re really incredible, and it looks over onto
another building opposite that has these amazing, like bright pink flowers, and
it looks like a painting. And every single day I wake up, I just feel like a
little bit of joy that this is where I get to live. So that’s what I would say,
something that brings me joy all the time.
[00:36:40] Amardeep: If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts,
I’d love it If you could leave me a five star review, it really helps get the
message out further. Wherever you’re listening, it would be awesome If you
could subscribe and share in your social media channels. If you want to see
more of my work and advice, you can find all of the links in the show notes.
Thank you again for listening and I hope you have a lovely day.
Amar is a coach, podcast host and writer. He helps ambitious people to grow without burning out. His articles have been read millions of times and he’s interviewed founders of companies such as Netflix and Twitter.
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