Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
It’s really difficult! I think it’s really refreshing that more and more high profile women in business are opening up about the reality of running a business and what it really takes for it to be successful.
I am a spiritual person and used to think I would have this dreamy balanced life, setting my own schedule that involved meditation, yoga, walks, essential oil baths and beach time every day, and then catch ups with girlfriends for chai and green smoothies. The reality is far from that! And there is certainly no socializing or long lunches for me.
However, if you want to be the best version of you, you definitely need to have boundaries in place and non-negotiables that keep your cup full, so that you can be the creative as well as the doer of all the things. For me my daily non-negotiables are meditation and moving my body in some way. As I spend so much time around technology and in a high cortisol state, I also have to ground myself in nature or my anxiety goes through the roof. Whether that’s a walk outside or a quick 5 minutes barefoot, hanging the washing out… it all counts! I like to get up by 5 am so that I can fit in the things that keep me at my best.
It’s also important to remember our “why” as we go about our every day, and I always remind myself of that. Some days we forget to just breathe and take a break to appreciate what we are working so hard for! I don’t really have the balance worked out yet as my business is needing me seven days a week, 14+ hours a day. But as the business grows and I am able to outsource some of my tasks and refine processes, I look forward to working towards having more time for friends and some downtime.
The Drive: What challenges have you overcome?
My biggest hurdle at the start was not having the contacts or the information I needed for the fundamental stuff. I felt like a tadpole drowning in an ocean of sharks. I had so many setbacks, there were times I didn’t really know how it was actually going to happen.
Despite its reputation, Google is not wonderful at giving you all the answers you need to run a business. I didn’t want to do what everyone else was doing in the bake mix world, I wanted to include all the wet ingredients in the mixes so that I had a point of difference and I made people’s lives easier. It has been so difficult and extremely expensive trying to find the right production method of our wet ingredients. We are still working on improving this process and as we grow it’s only going to get easier for us to learn from our experiences.
For better or worse: What are the pros and cons of running your own business?
For many people I think the biggest pro is not setting your alarm to get up to go and work on someone else’s dream everyday. I still set my alarm but I get to work on my dream and that’s an epic feeling.
It sounds very fairytale, but it’s far from it! It’s really, really hard work and you never stop working, and you work all day, every day. You never switch off and you have to be the “jack of all trades” and have a general knowledge and understanding of every single role in your business. Obviously if you work for someone else it’s easy to take days off and book in holidays. I don’t see that happening anytime soon, but I do see an extremely rewarding future and that dream is what gives me the strength and energy to keep going. We all have our “why” in life and that is what I am relentlessly working on every single day.
Hopes and dreams: What next?
There are so many exciting things planned for Soulfull Tribe. We have amazing new products in the pipeline as well as an exciting collaboration that we can’t wait to share! We have distributors on board now and will be in stores very soon, which has been an absolute dream of mine.
We are also working on shipping to NZ and being stocked over there as well. So much goodness to come. I really am just so passionate about getting my conscious bake mixes in as many hands as possible and getting them to experience our Soulfull Tribe difference.
The feedback we have received to date has just been overwhelmingly beautiful and my mission is to be of service and to change the lives of as many people as possible, by providing them easy solutions to nourish their body, mind, soul and planet.
You have got to try these high vibe mixes! Head over to the Soulfull Tribe website to see the full range, and become part of their community on Facebook and Instagram.
