398. A Candid Conversation: The Bossbabe Buyout, Finding Worthiness Beyond Success + The Addiction to Work - Natalie Ellis + James Wedmore
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Welcome back to the Voss Babe podcast. All right, I've been a guest on quite a few podcasts and I have never ever had the response from a podcast that I had from this one that I'm sharing with you. So we've had James Wenmore on this podcast quite a few times. I'm sure you've listened to some of his episodes. He actually invited me onto his podcast

And to say we went deep is an understatement. We actually get into my entire story and really go deep on the boss babe transition that happened a couple years ago when Danielle stepped out.

So we go deep and it was in a way I've not really spoken about before. It wasn't planned. It was really, he said, can we just go where this goes? I was like, sure. And we just went there. And I'm glad we did because I really do feel like a strong message came out of it.

and if I can help anyone to shortcut what I went through, I would love to do that. So as I was speaking, that's really what I had in my mind is let me be as completely honest as I can because if I can help someone else shortcut that and not have to go through that or not have to arrive at a destination and wonder what on earth they did,

then that would be success to me. So that's what we did. So this episode initially aired on James's podcast. And then I asked him if I could put it here too, because I really wanted all of you to be able to hear it

And there's quite a few themes that we go into. I will say there is a trigger warning around traumatic birth. So if that's a trigger for you, this might not be the best episode. We don't go into a lot of detail, but I know for some people it could make you uncomfortable. We go into postpartum depression. And yeah, some themes that we talk about is just when you've been on this magic carpet ride of more without really stopping to ask yourself,

When is enough enough? Like, do I have everything I need? Okay, why am I still chasing like I don't? And for me, I just didn't ever take that pause. It was not like I was always chasing more because I wanted more, because quite honestly, that's not really me and my personality.

It was that I just didn't stop to ask myself that question. I didn't stop to pause. My entire life had been go, go, go. I was so used to being on the go that it just felt like I had to keep going. There was a destination to get to. You know, I was...

just playing this game of business and seeing how big we could grow and how many lives we could impact and what my maximum potential would be. And I think that's where a lot of us get tripped up is we're not necessarily doing all of this for more, but we're doing this because we really want to hit our potential. We're doing this because we feel like it will be a waste of our potential if we didn't. And that's the last thing that we want. And

And so my hope with this episode is that maybe it just has you question why you're maybe doing things and how you could do it in a way that does feel really aligned with you. So with that, I am really excited to be sharing this and I hope that it impacts you and I hope that it speaks to you maybe in the exact place you need it. So with that, let's dive into the episode.

All right, Natalie, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. I'm excited. You have a truly extraordinary story and journey to how you got here and built this incredible brand. So I want to dive right into that. Can you take us to the like the origin story? How did the whole Boss Babe universe get created?

origin like my childhood or the beginning of Boss Babe? Where are we beginning? You can start there if it's relevant. Let's go there. Yeah, I feel like it is. I feel like so much of my Boss Babe journey did start when I was younger. So I grew up in a really chaotic household. I grew up in a household where there was a lot of mental health issues, substance abuse, domestic violence,

really not a great environment for a child growing up. And it was really, really challenging. And my escape was school. My escape was achieving because that's how I got attention and good attention. And so from a very, very young age, I started to correlate, you know, good things and good attention with success and success.

independence and I can figure this out. I can take care of myself. You know, I'll always be the hardest worker in the room and really thinking that would be my way out. And I remember thinking

I moved out of my childhood home when I was 13 and I moved in with my grandparents. And this was kind of the beginning of a very different journey for me. And right around that time I moved schools. It was my third school in that one school year. And I was very used to being the new kid and kind of having to adapt to whatever situation I was put in. I feel like I was a chameleon. I could just, you know, okay, this is a new group. It's a new city, new place. I can just become who they want me to be so I can fit in.

And I remember that was the case. I was at a brand new school and we had this careers day.

And all throughout the careers day, there was teachers and nurses and people doing all of these jobs that I just couldn't see myself in. And I had a story that people like me don't do jobs like that. You know, I grew up seeing a lot of scarcity. I remember my mom struggling to put food on the table. I know that there was times she didn't eat so that we could eat. And so I just had this idea that people like me don't end up doing successful jobs like that.

And so it was the last person who was coming in to do her careers day talk. We were in the hall and I remember hearing these heels come in and I'm like slumped in my seat, like, oh, can we just get this day over with? And she walked in with the most beautiful handbag. It was a Mulberry Bayswater. If anyone remembers those, those were like the handbags back then. And I looked at her and I thought, what is she doing to get a handbag like that? And she put it down on the chair and she started talking.

And she, I remember how she opened her talk and she said, "I was sitting on the stairs, crying into a glass of wine, going through a divorce, feeling like this was the end of my life." And what was really interesting is the place I grew up in British culture, generally everything happens behind closed doors. You don't bring any of that outside. You don't talk about what's happening behind closed doors. And so the fact that she was talking about this,

I could see my house in her journey. And I thought, wait a minute, okay, things aren't perfect for her. And she's managed to turn it around somehow. And I sat up really straight. I'm like, what is she doing? And she told me that she started her own business and became an entrepreneur.

And I remember age 13, I just, this light bulb went out and it was like, that's my golden ticket. I'm going to be an entrepreneur. People like me can do things like that. And that's what really set me off on that path. And I was always the kid that had the crazy ideas. I was selling things at school. Like that was always me. And I had my first serious business when I was 20.

And that was my first foray into entrepreneurship. And I think really, if I'm being totally honest, I always had a chip on my shoulder. I always had this feeling of I don't fit in because in all the schools that I went to, I knew I didn't fit in. I knew what was happening.

for me at home wasn't really common with what was happening with all the other kids when I went to university everyone had these posh accents and I had this very northern accent again and I just continued telling myself I didn't fit in everyone had went to these really prestigious prestigious schools and the only reason I got into my school in the first place was because I went through a program for disadvantaged youth and I just had this constant story of I don't belong I don't fit in and so I just kept working harder than anyone else and I just had this

belief that I'm going to prove them wrong. I don't know who they were, but I'm going to prove them wrong. I'm going to do something different. And I just got into this cycle of achievement, achievement, achievement. But beneath all of that, I don't think I ever felt good enough. I don't think I ever felt like I was worthy of success or even a happy life. I don't think that ever became part of my nervous system. My nervous system from a very young age was wired for chaos.

And I didn't know what it felt like to feel peaceful in my body or happy in my body. And the times I felt most at peace was when I was most in chaos. And for me, I played that out in entrepreneurship. And this went on for a really long time. And listen, we can go into the business success, but, you know, it worked. It paid off. What was the business at 20? The first business I had was a supplement company. Oh.

And, you know, within our first year, we were stocked in over 230 stores across the UK. We were shipping to over 60 countries. It was a wild success on the outside, but on the back end, I couldn't manage the cash flow forecast. I didn't even know what that was. And I think subconsciously I was creating chaos myself because I had all this success on the outside. And I think part of me didn't feel worthy of it. And I didn't even know what I would do with money if I had it. And so everything that was coming in was going straight out the door again. So I was just on this hamster wheel.

And so it looked really successful, but behind the scenes was a bit of a different story. And ultimately, you know, it was a long story and I'm jumping around a bit. But when you ask about Boss Babe, ultimately that's the company that led me to Boss Babe because I...

Felt so lonely in that. I felt like there were very few places I could go other than Google to ask, how do we do this? How am I setting up this? How could I pay for an invoice like this if my cashflow isn't working? And I selfishly really wanted a community of other women like me who were in business. And that's how Boss Babe evolved and came to be.

And I continue playing out those same patterns in Boss Babe, but that's the origin story was really born out of achievement and moreness and proving my worth. And deeper than that, searching for a community where I finally felt like I fitted in somewhere. What time period was this? Like what year are we talking about?

Boss Babe was founded, I think it was 2016 unofficially, 2017 officially. Okay. And what kind of happened from there? Because I mean, obviously millions of followers later, was it an instant thing?

meteoric success or did it take time? Yeah, kind of. So it all started when, so I moved to San Francisco and I don't know why, but I just felt like Silicon Valley is the place I need to be. Like I want to learn from all these successful people. And like being from where I'm at in the UK, that Silicon Valley was like this elusive, magical place. I'm like, plane ticket there, please. And I ended up meeting my now husband within about a month of landing there. And we'd been dating for a

three months ish. But you know, when you know, you know, been dating for about three months and he was in the process of getting his green card, which any immigrants will know that's a freaking hard, hard thing to go through. Is he from the UK? No. Yeah. He's from Scotland. Oh no way. Um, so he was in the process of getting his green card through the company that he was with. Um, and I was still on my student visa. I was milking that student visa as far as it would go. And I was 25 at this time.

and we are three months into dating, and he said one day, can you hop on this call with my lawyers? Because I'm getting my green card, and I'm going to ask if they can get yours too. Like, sure. So I conference call into this call with him and his lawyers, three months into the relationship.

And he says to his lawyers, hey, Natalie really wants her green card. What's it going to take? And they said, well, they joked, they were laughing, said, unless you get married within the next week, she's got no chance. And so on that call, he said to me, babe, does that work for you? And I was like, sure. Are you asking me? And so within a week we were at City Hall, we got married.

And it was incredible, but I didn't realize that going from student visa status to applying for a green card wasn't very legal at the time. And so I had to put all my businesses on hold. Everything had to stop. I wasn't allowed to earn any money until my work permit came in, which was about a year, maybe a little bit longer.

And so in that time, I had to stop everything. I had to stop operating the company I was operating in the UK. If I wanted to run it, I had to move back to the UK. And for me, the vision of being here long-term

was so much stronger than this company I was running. My soul wasn't in it. It was, it was kind of like this golden ticket of like, didn't really want to keep doing it anyway. So in that time is when I had the idea of what Boss Babe became and it was our membership. And so I actually was working on it silently that whole time, you know, not putting anything out. And the day my green card came in the mail, I hit publish. And it was, we scaled very, very quickly. In our first year, we did 1.2 million.

Um, primarily from the membership, you know, we had one offer, it was $29 offer, one funnel, and it really started growing from there. So yes, it was quote unquote an overnight success, but there was a lot of work silently put in, in the background that resulted in that. Yeah. Um, you mentioned earlier, just the, like the, um,

the temperament in the UK. We have a lot of our students and clients and friends that live in the UK. Was it also a challenge? Cause we see this common theme of like the entrepreneurial spirit doesn't seem hot in high regard in over there as it does like in the US. Was that a challenge for you? Were you, did you feel even more different that you were like, I want to make a name for myself instead of just kind of shut up and get in line? Yeah.

Yeah, I felt very different. I felt like a little bit of a weirdo. Like a lot of people didn't know what the word entrepreneur was. And there was a lot of, you know, who does she think she is? But I will say I managed to find really special small communities.

within the place I lived that actually felt like people that did get me and people who were out there building businesses or were out there working on themselves it's around the same time that I got into personal growth and it was kind of I think it's shifted now but it was the same kind of mindset what is this weird thing that you're up to right it was very weird and very strange but I do see it shifting more and more yeah and obviously that that probably created part of the um

the need that you said to create Boss BAM. So that's really fascinating. Yeah. And the idea for our membership is called the society. The idea really came from when I was at university, we had these things called societies that you would set up based on interests you had. And I wanted to set up an entrepreneurship society because I was like, there has to be more people out there like me

And to set up the site, you had to have nine signatures from other students saying, I'm interested in this. And I had exactly nine housemates who would sign. They didn't even know what entrepreneurship was. We're like, fine, go do your thing. And they signed and I got this up and running. And actually now to this day, it's one of the biggest entrepreneurship societies in the whole of the UK. And, uh, you know, it has its own building at the university now. Yeah. And it's made a massive impact in the country.

And I got a lot of experience from that. And it also was just a big inspiration for me for creating the society that we have now, because that was a place where I got to find my people. Yeah. Wow. Okay. I have a lot of questions, but I want to continue because I don't think getting to a million was the end of the story, the happily ever after. What has occurred since then with Boss Bame?

Boss Babe, I describe as a bit of a magic carpet ride. It was one of these businesses that, you know, I started in a time when I thought hustle was the way through everything and I would work every God given hour. I would take on so much and, you know, ultimately that ended up in a huge business success. And the business every year kept, you know, doubling, tripling, quadrupling, whatever it was, just every year was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Yeah.

And I just was almost on this magic carpet ride. Like I didn't really stop to even look around to think, is this what I want? Is this working for me?

It really fed that part of me that needed that validation and fed the part of me that was, yes, I'll say yes to anything and everything. And it's going to get me into rooms of people that understand me. It's going to get me to be more respected. And I just kept saying yes to all of these things without really realizing why I was doing it. And I don't say any of that to say I regret it because I

Boss Babers had a huge impact on our industry. It's had a huge impact on millions and millions of women. And I'm really grateful to the version of me that was willing to put in that work to serve that many people and to build what it is. But I did neglect myself in the process. And I think I didn't really stop to ask myself, what do I want? And...

I would say Boss Babe changed significantly a couple of years ago. I started to feel some shifts when I was pregnant with my daughter and started to really question, you know, I feel so nauseous and tired and I feel like I can't take any time off. Is this really what I want? But I just kept pushing through because I don't feel like I knew any other way. But there was lots of like,

We were talking about it before, but lots of like God was throwing lots of pebbles at me. Like Natalie, you can barely eat anything. You are feeling like you're going to throw your guts up. Yet you're sitting on Zoom calls all day, every day. Is this really what you want? And that was like even before being getting pregnant. That was while I was pregnant. Was there any writing on the wall before you were pregnant? Like that the success was kind of like blinding you from little red flags, right?

Honestly, no, I wasn't. And if there was, I wasn't willing to look at it. Yeah. But now we're in like this new phase transition in your life. Yeah. I was so perpetually busy. I wasn't even looking at any of that. I was just so busy and onto the next and onto the next, you know, if it was not another launch, it was another event and things were bigger and the team was growing and I was needed here. And probably a lot of entrepreneurs can relate why you feel like you can't even come up for breath.

That wasn't really a time where I could step back and ask myself, is this what I wanted? But I'm curious because you had had the environment and now this like feeling of familiarity of chaos is kind of my set point. Before this transition, before getting pregnant, how did that feel for you that you were always going? Did it feel like, oh yeah, this is what I signed up for and this is great. Like I'm kind of...

craving this in a way. Yeah. It felt exciting. Yeah. Uh, I felt like my ego was constantly rewarded for every single milestone and it was normal. My, my nervous system was very used to always being busy and never taking a minute to stop, never sitting down, never slowing down. It felt really exciting. And there was never really a minute that I could slow down to assess is, is there a red flag here? I mean, was there niggles? Yeah.

that certain things didn't feel right? Yes. Were there niggles that maybe I had got into certain situations in the business that I wasn't super happy with? Yes. Did I make some decisions to take on certain...

in the company when we were running it that maybe I wouldn't have in hindsight. Yes. I remember looking back, we signed a deal to give away a massive chunk of our revenue in this deal so that I could get more marketing support, which looking back now is a decision I would never have made. But I was so, I think, burned out and stretched that it was just, I was saying yes to everything so that we could keep going. But I don't think there was really this big red flag of like, Natalie, this isn't what you want. Yeah. Wow.

Wow. And then you got pregnant. And then I got pregnant and I started to feel the niggle. It wasn't loud, but I started to feel a niggle of, you know, it would feel really good if you could take a nap right now. You know, do you really want to be traveling this much when you are this pregnant? And as my pregnancy developed, my baby was frank breech, which means she just wasn't moving into the position to that I could safely birth her.

And now looking back, I know exactly why all of that happened. At the time, I didn't. But what was interesting as pregnancy was the one thing that I couldn't control. And my birth and all the things was the one thing I couldn't control. So I went into hyper control mode for everything else, setting up my business for maternity leave, making sure I made as much possible money for the company before I left so that the team would be OK. I just jumped in to let me see what I can control, because clearly I can't control what's happening in my body right now.

Now, it probably took some hindsight. You didn't notice that in the moment. So in hindsight, you were able to see that.

Yeah. And it's been a couple of years since that. Um, and I've been able to look back on that journey. I've done a lot of really deep work around it and the, the messages that I've had now, it's so clear. But at the time, I mean, I look back and think, how didn't I see this? But at the time I just couldn't see it. Yeah. I mean, you didn't know any better. I didn't know any better. Yeah. We're learning. So, okay. So you had the baby. What happened? What happened next? Thing.

Things really started to shift. I got told I was having a C-section because the baby hadn't moved into her position and I was nervous about it, but I was like, okay, I'm nervous about it, but this is, this is great. I can control the date, the time that I'm having her, you know, I'm in and out. This is actually a really efficient way of having my baby. And God laughed. Um,

And so I won't get into detail because I know it can be triggering for a lot of people, but it didn't end up being the typical C-section that we'd planned. And it ended up being a lot more complicated and actually a really traumatic birthing experience. And it was the moment that changed everything for me. This is a business podcast, but I kind of knew I was going to cry. You know, I feel like I went into that birthing room as one person and I came out a completely different woman and I

For a long time in my postpartum recovery, I knew I was different, but I didn't know how. It was almost like I had met my original soul. I'd met the woman I always was, but she was so foreign to me. The way I describe it and the way I can see it now is, you know, from a very young age, we're all born these perfect little souls.

And from a very young age, I kept putting on these layers of shoulds. Oh, you should, you know, say yes. Even when you feel like saying no, you should please others because it feels really good and you're going to be liked. You should do this. You should do that. And I kept putting on all of these layers of shoulds. And I went into that birthing room and I left every single should in that room. And when I walked out, I felt like this very naked soul.

And that was really challenging to be with. And I took some time off from my business and I experienced PTSD, postpartum depression and anxiety. And that was the first time I really struggled with mental health. And it's such an interesting reference point because I have such...

compassion for anyone that goes through something like that. Because in the past, I'd always been the kind of person that could just figure it out. Book up Natalie, pull your socks up, get on with it, you know, compartmentalize, stay in your head. And in that time, I physically couldn't.

I remember this one night, my husband came in the bathroom. It's about 1am and I was lying on the cold bathroom floor because it was the only thing that would take the anxiety out of my body. And I just lay there sobbing. And I remember saying to him, I don't know who I am and I don't know why I have built what I have built. I don't know why I cared about all of this because everything's changed. I lost myself in the process. And I

If you could have given me a magic wand, James, in that moment to say you can bypass all this pain to become the person that you were, I would have taken it. And I would have said, get me out of this. I don't want to do it. Now you couldn't pay me a million dollars to go back. But it was a really challenging time to go through. And I really changed who I was fundamentally as a person and the way that changed the business. And to be honest, a lot of things in my life is changed.

I, I knew I needed to make a lot of changes and I knew a lot of those changes are going to be uncomfortable. And I knew they were going to change a lot of the relationships that I had in my life. A lot of the relationships I had in my life had felt quite businessy and transactional. And I was just not available for that anymore. And things had to be different. And I remember, I remember there was just this moment where

I looked around and I was in this beautiful house with a man that I adore and this perfect baby. And I just thought, what more could I possibly want? Like this was happiness to me. This was it. And it's the first time that I felt this calm in my nervous system. It's the first time I felt so calm.

peaceful and connected to my soul. And I chose from that moment, I was going to operate from that place. And I did have this story that I couldn't operate from that place and still run a business because my experience of running a business and achieving had very much been wrapped up in this hustle mentality and, you know, doing it at all costs and growth at all costs and like my foot being on the accelerator. And that was all I knew. And I had a zoom call and

with my team and I resigned as CEO and I said, I'm done. I want to be bought out of this company. I don't want to do it anymore. And, um, I didn't go onto the zoom call thinking I was going to say that. Yeah. I went on to the call holding it together. I was wearing, I remember I was wearing this like oversized boss babe hoodie that hadn't been washed in an extremely long time.

I had baby sick on me. You know, I hadn't washed my hair in days. And I got onto this call just thinking, Natalie, just channel, channel Natalie. She's a, she was a boss. She can do this. And I was trying, I was trying, I was trying and I, and I just broke and I just burst into tears. And it was almost like I was watching myself say the words I'm done. I resign. I'm out.

And that was the best thing I ever did. And ultimately, you know, fast forward six months, I ended up buying the entire company and I would never have thought that that's the way any of this would go. But I, I, I was willing to do things a different way, but I was never willing to go back to do things the way I was doing them. Man, this is okay. This is so interesting. So you didn't necessarily come on that call going, this is the decision, but some part of you, it's like, it just had to compulsively, like, if I don't say it, I'm never going to.

But at that moment, it's as if like you at least knew that I just can't do things the way I. Yeah. How did the team react in that moment? Because you had a business partner. Yeah. So she was she heard that, right? Yeah. On that call. Well, it was first with my business partner and one of our advisors. And then within a week, I think we had told the entire team on individual calls. I think it was a shock to everyone, really, you know, when.

When you go through your own growth and transformation doesn't mean everyone else is. And people knew one version of me. And then there I go and disappear for a couple of months and come back as a completely different person. And so I'm sure it was a shock and I'm sure it was really hard for people to hear and deal with. Wow. But you didn't end up resigning and walking away. Yeah. So tell us what happened next. Yeah.

Yeah. And I mean, ultimately looking, looking back on all of that, I don't think the business was, was built in a way that I could have just walked away. You know, my face was always on the business. I've always been the face of the business from the beginning and you know, all of the marketing and sales and strategy really was, it sat with me. And so I thought I could walk away, but I think ultimately looking into what that would take, it just didn't seem to be a reasonable option, but definitely me and my co-founder,

Then because of that went into a lot of conversations about visions of the business and just realized we had fundamentally different visions of the business. No one being right or wrong. Just, we see this going a very different way and we both couldn't continue running this together. One of us would have to leave and, you know, fast forward six months of talking about it. It made most sense for me to take on the business because it had always been primarily my face and me running it. Um,

And so that's the decision that we made. And it happened very fast, that decision, you know, for six months, it was me leaving. And I remember like, I felt anxious going on social media because I was getting messages every single day. Are you no longer part of the company? Because I was nowhere to be seen anymore. And it's not, I didn't know. And so I like wasn't going on social media. I was avoiding all of that. And then toward the end of negotiations, I ended up buying the entire company and it happened

very, very quickly. I feel like I went from no longer running this to within a week. Oh my goodness, this entire company is mine. What am I going to do with it? Yeah. And also like, am I going to go back into that old way of working, which must have been kind of a fear and lingering in the background, right? I don't think it was a fear because I don't think I could if I wanted to. Okay. I think I had changed so much. I don't think I would have even dropped into that. My biggest fear was

Can, is this business even going to succeed? Right. Cause there's no way I'm going back to that. So can I succeed doing this another way? Yeah. I mean, I had so many fears, like being really candid. I was like, well, if people find out that, um, it's just me, are they all going to quit? Like, does anyone even want to be part of this business if it's just me? Um, you know, is this business going to fail? Can I do this on my own? Am I cut out for this? Like that was my fear. Can I do this alongside being a devoted mother? That was a really big question that I had. Um,

But so it was more of that. And I just thought, I remember looking at it thinking, did I just make one of the worst decisions of my career? Am I going to run this thing into the ground? Like, is this, should we have just dissolved the company? I just didn't know.

Yeah. Yeah. So, but you did it. Yeah. You bought it. It's all yours. And this is like not that long ago. No, a year ago. It's a year ago. Yeah. Yeah. Holy cow. So while you were taking all that time off, like what was before, you know, buying it solely back to you, was it still doing well without you? Like if you're the face, how did it do during that time while you're...

you know, maternity leave. Yeah. It wasn't, it wasn't doing very well. Um, and I also would say that's part of, you know, when you're going through business negotiations like that, I'm sure it's like, it's just hard to focus on keeping the company afloat when you're spending so much time doing that. So I think there was so many reasons for it. The business was like this toddler that was no longer getting any attention and was running riot, writing on all the walls. Um, so no, it wasn't doing great. And so when I bought it, I was just like, what

I do. Like, this is crazy as you tell me this, because I'm looking at you and I was looking at you a year ago. I would have, there's like, I would have never known. Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a journey to go through. And I would have never known you'd just come out the other side of that. Yeah. And, and for me,

For other reasons, we didn't announce it until I think it was September, October of last year. So this all happened in the March, but we didn't announce it for all of this time. So it was kind of just like something we were doing. I was dealing with in secret. And what was your audience's response to the news and...

The changes. It couldn't have been more supportive. And we drafted up a joint statement together and we really put our heart into this. And we both were chatting at the time when we put it out and we were both saying like our hearts in our mouths. We have no idea how this is going to go. You know, I'm sure she had just as many fears as I did.

And I was just bracing myself. Were people going to comment saying, I want to cancel my membership if it's just Natalie? Like, I just didn't know. And I remember just sitting there feeling so nauseous, pressing post. And then I just sat there refreshing the comments. And I didn't see a single negative comment. And it was just this...

outpouring of love. And I, I just burst into tears and I kind of, I didn't tell anyone that that was happening that day because I was so nervous about it. I didn't tell my husband at the time I had, um, our COO, she was staying at my house and my sister-in-law who works with Boss Babe 2, she was staying at my house. There was so many people in my house and I didn't tell anyone and I posted it and then I left the house and I just needed some space to be on my own. Um, God, all this makes me so emotional. It's just like so fresh to talk about. Um,

So I left the house and I came back that night and like my husband was being weird. He was like, text me when you're on the, on your way home, when are you coming in? And like, no one had like really talked to me about what I'd just put out on the internet. And I was like, Oh, I wonder if they know what happened. And I text my husband to say, Oh, I'll be home in five minutes. And I walked in the door and

And they had all the lights dimmed and there was candles on in the house. There was music playing. And I remember walking into the kitchen and there was like all of these flowers and they handed me this card and I read it and it was...

And all of my family and all of my team talking about how proud they were of me and, you know, what a big risk to take this on and just how far we'd come as a company and how we turned it all around. And it was like a ceremony. It was like walking into, it was like taking off the load that I'd been carrying and walking into a completely different,

different season and they just held the most beautiful space for me. And I sobbed and I mourned the end of this really, really hard season. And I started to celebrate all the things that I was really excited about. Um, and what's been really amazing throughout this whole journey is, um, you know, stepping more into the version of myself that I feel like I always was, was really scary because I lost relationships because of it.

But the depth and the relationships that I've gained because of it have been, there's something to be said about the people that love you for exactly who you are. That are always there in all the seasons. Always there in all the seasons. And they clap for you and they cheer for you, even if they're not benefiting from it. And that's really special. And I would never settle now for relationships that don't,

that don't feel like that. Yeah. I would never settle for a relationship where I can't fully be myself and be loved for all versions of myself. You know, the version of myself crying on the bathroom floor, thinking there's something wrong with me to the version of myself that's winning and being celebrated for women for winning. And it's been on the other side of beautiful journey, but whoo,

When you say dark night of the soul, I'm like, how many nights are we talking? Yeah. Can we just get this done in one night, please? Thank you. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So did you take the company down after you bought it?

I mean, I burned it to the ground. Yeah, okay. But I resurrected it in the most beautiful way. In fact, last year when I bought the company, I think we doubled our profit from the year prior. And this year, so we just wrapped Q1. We've actually 6x the profit of Q1 last year. It's more profitable than it's ever been. It's more...

than it's ever been. And this is like just the beginning. It hasn't even been like, now it's a year. Like now it's a year, right? Yeah. I have three team members who've came back to the company who previously left. We have the most beautiful culture. We have a family at Boss Babe and it's, I could never have imagined. And honestly, I didn't even think I was capable of this. And I didn't think I was capable of this while being a devoted mother and wife and all the other hats that we wear in life.

So, and I say all this 'cause I really want anyone listening who does have that doubt in themselves, like, "Who am I to do this? Or can I really do it?" You are capable of so much more than you think. - I know. - Like looking back, I'm like, "Oh my goodness, if you told me this would be the result, I would have said you were lying. I would have said you were just saying it to make me feel good in a hard time." But it's possible. - Yeah. I'm curious, what would you attribute

I got to like to say both in the 3D, which is like things that we did differently. And then like the 5D, like the things that like, even if someone had a video camera, documentary film, your life couldn't capture on that camera. What do you say you would attribute to an immediate growth since reacquiring the company, burning it down and like rebuilding it the way you have? Like what are the causes there for you? Okay, so on the 3D,

really taking a look at the P&L. There were so many things we were spending so much money on that was unnecessary. And also so much time being spent on things that were nice to have versus needle movers.

So I really took a look at the P&L, the way the company was running. You know, I had everyone write out their day-to-day rhythms, their weekly rhythms, their monthly rhythms, and ask the question, why are we doing this? What is this actually supporting us with? That's so good. Just like an audit of your own business, like clean house. We've got to slow down so we can speed up. That's beautiful. Clean house. And I closed down a lot of things that we were running because I also realized we were bringing in money from so many different directions. Yeah.

And it was exhausting. And I thought, well, what if we just brought in revenue from a couple of different things instead of all of these different things? Would that actually result in more revenue? Which it did. Less is more. That makes me so happy. So you shut down things that even though I was making money, it wasn't as much as like the membership or...

Exactly. Your primary revenue sources. Yeah, exactly. And so I made a lot of decisions that really like people be like, that was not wise. And we even reimagined the entire membership, like changed everything, everything in the business. So I took a lot out first and I audited. And so from buying the company in March,

We didn't relaunch anything of our own until September. And when we relaunched, we relaunched our membership, which we'd always had, but it was very, very different. And the reason I took all of that time is I wanted to feel into what do I want to do and what do I care about? I've changed. And as I was sharing more of how I changed with my community, they were sharing to me they've changed too. We've kind of grown up together. And so the things that they were feeling, I was feeling and vice versa changed.

And so in that time, I knew we still needed to make revenue. And we decided to work with you to do an affiliate launch, which was phenomenal. It was a product that I wholeheartedly, one, needed at the time, and two, could really put all of my

um, effort behind as you guys, there is something to be said for having a business that you design yourself and you're very intentional of. And so we did things like that to bring in, um, revenue where I'm not then being caught up in all of the delivery to like, let someone else deliver, let someone else deliver, like, like send your community to someone that you really trust and let them guide your students through transformation while you're still transforming yourself. Like you're not in a position to lead anyone, Ali. Um,

And in that time, I personally, and we talk about the 5D, I was doing a lot of inner work, a lot of inner work of figuring out

what do I want out of my life? What do I want my days to look like? What do I want my time to be filled with? What message do I want to put out into the world? And, you know, going through stages of grief and all the things like, I mean, all of it in that time. And it was really uncomfortable because my team kept asking me, where are we going? What's the vision? What's, I didn't have one. And I remember having one meeting with my team and saying,

I need you to trust me. I know I can do this, but I can't do this overnight. And if any of you need immediate answers and you want things to be the way they were, I don't think this is a place for you. I don't think our company is the company for you.

Those of you that stay, I'm going to protect your jobs and I'm going to make this work. I don't know how yet. And I really need the grace to figure that out. Did anybody leave? Yeah. Yeah, totally. And it was meant to happen that way. Huge. I've definitely been there where like, yeah, you make so many changes and there's something to be said about that.

The psychological safety, the foundation of expectations and clarity that a team requires in order to follow you into the unknown. And sometimes you gotta just be like,

You got to hold your breath for a little bit. We're going through something. Yeah. And my people pleasing self in the past would have totally would have made sure everyone else was okay. And this time I was doing it differently and I was making sure that I was okay. And I was building a business that I'd be excited to run 10 years from now. Yeah. I wasn't willing to continue to, uh,

self-sacrifice in the name of everybody else. And I was willing to lose people. And what's beautiful is we had three people rejoin the team that were all like my favorite people, uh, because the culture had changed and the business had changed. And we got back to a lot of the core things that we got into the business for. Um,

So yeah, in the, in the five day, a lot of it was just really me up leveling, getting really, really clear on my vision, getting really clear on where I wanted to spend my time working on my frequency. Like I, I believe in all this stuff. Um, and that was really, really powerful. And honestly, I think that's been some of the biggest shifts that we've had with our last launch. This was our first, cause we, we relaunched the membership in September and listen, old Natalie,

would have been like, if we're in launch or in launch, I'm going to throw everything I've got at the wall. We're doing a big conversion event. We're doing this, that, all the things. And I was not willing to do that. And so I said to my team, cool, we're going to relaunch the membership. We've spent so much time reworking it. It's ready to go. I'm not doing a webinar. I'm not doing anything like that. Just tell our community what we've done. Send an email.

And I kept things so simple and I wasn't willing. People kept saying to me, why not do a webinar? Do you know how much money you could make? Do you know how much money you're leaving on the table? All of that. And you know, it felt so freeing to just acknowledge how much money I was leaving on the table and how peaceful it felt. And it was amazing. And guess what? The launch was a success. But this time around, this year was my first

running a big launch really since I went on maternity leave and we did the conversation event. We did all the things. Um, and before every single event, instead of going through all my slides and making sure I knew my material and I was doing the things, um, I laugh cause I was spending about three hours, um,

getting in the zone, meditating, writing out my vision, like really checking in with my nervous system, taking care of me. And my assistant, I was like in my room and I said to my assistant, if I fall asleep, can you make sure I turn up to my webinar? Because I just really want to be with me and I want to do this differently. And I was like...

Let me just, you know, I hear all of these things about manifestation or, but let me just put it to the test. I'm like, universe, show me what you got. And I put it to the test and I execute that launch in a way that I've never executed before.

And it was one of our most successful launches to date. In fact, we closed the cart early, a week early because I started to get worried that we weren't set up to take on this many students. And so we closed the cart and I was like, okay, universe, God, I trust you. I'm listening. I'm doing it this way from now on. So just bringing in a lot of different elements to the business, bringing pleasure and fun and playfulness and lightness to

and letting it be fun. I remember going into launches dreading, oh my God, you know, my life's over for the next month. And this time I was like, this gets to be fun. And if we make money and help people, amazing. But let's have a good time and

Everything has shifted. Yeah. But man, that manifestation stuff. I mean, try it out, you know, see what happens. Worst thing is going to happen is you just feel good more often. How dare you feel good. Okay. So looking back on all of this, you know, the like slightly awkward question I want to ask is there, um,

There has been this, like, it seems to be, you know, I'm not a babe, so I can't really, I'm just observing. You can be a baby if you want to. Thank you, Natalie. Thank you for that.

a, a like counterculture to that boss babe identity. Um, you know, one of like challenging that or, or scoffing at that. Um, and here's this beautiful story you've shared where you reinvented yourself. And it's like, there's probably such a reflection in

who you are and who that boss babe is. So as you've been reinvented, I'm assuming boss babe itself and what that stands for is reinvented. So what would you say in a sentence or two, like who was a boss babe then and who or what is a boss babe today? I think a lot of the boss babes then can relate to

And I'm so grateful to the feminist movement for getting us to where we are and giving us rights that we should have always had. And all of this beauty and giving us this chance to really live out our potential in the world as women. But we grew up hearing you can do everything. And I know I did. And I know so many women in my community did. We translated that into, so I'll do everything. I can do anything, so I'll do everything.

And that's what I did. And that's what I see a lot of women doing, hustling every God given hour, taking on more and more responsibility. You know, now more than ever, we have more female breadwinners in the country than we've ever had. And on one side, that's absolutely amazing. And I take a huge stand for women earning more money, more of that, please. And

They're still the ones, you know, having babies and often being the default caregiver, holding their entire households. We know what the mother load is and we know it's a real thing. And even women who aren't having babies, the amount that women do and are capable of is phenomenal. I'm sure you as a man still look at women. You're like, whoa, women are amazing. Women seem to have this endless capacity. We are nurturers. We are, you know,

The gender that thrives in community, that thrives by giving and taking care of, whether it's our businesses, our teams, our clients, communities, kids, husband, all of it. And the boss babe then was the boss babe that thought she had to do it all. The boss babe now is the woman that gets to choose what she does. She gets to choose what does freedom for her look like? What does impact for her look like? What does a good life feel like?

And if that means building a wildly successful business, amazing. But if it also means you're doing that alongside multiple other things and therefore you trade off in decisions and you have certain seasons of doing certain things and certain seasons of not, that's okay too. And so for me, the way I define a boss babe now is someone who is unapologetically ambitious, but not just in business, across the board. Right.

And I feel like I've really changed and I've noticed that big change in a lot of my community because a lot of the, I can do anything so I'll do everything has led to burnout. And has led to a feeling of, I don't think I can do anything because I certainly can't do everything.

Right. And that is not the right way to reconcile that. We as women work very differently. We are cyclical beings. We work very differently. And when we try to work like men and run our businesses like men and run our lives like men, we run into burnout. Yeah. When we acknowledge we are different, we are biologically very different. We struggle.

we start to do things very differently. We make decisions very differently. It's almost like a permission slip to stop saying no, stop saying yes to everyone and everything. Stop pleasing everybody else and actually unapologetically claiming your own worth. Because I truly, and I think this is true for humans in general. I know this deeply for women. When we truly, truly know our worth,

and we live in our hearts and we get out of our head, that is when we access our true power. And man, women are powerful, really powerful. And we can do so many things and we can run the businesses while birthing the babies and taking care. We can do all of that if we take care of ourselves and we fill ourselves up first so that we're not doing all of this from a place of depletion. Because what I've seen in the past is doing all of this from a place of depletion and burnout has been a badge of honor.

Have you seen how hard she can work? Did you see how many hours I put in last week? That to me isn't a badge of honor.

Me, you know, walking out my office to go and spend time with my baby, feeling really filled up and present that success to me. Success has very much changed for me. And I think it's changing for a lot of women across the board. Oh, that's so beautiful. And am I hearing correctly too, that what you're applying now in terms of universal principles, manifestation and whatnot, wasn't really so present in the old, the pre-baby days? Yeah.

Not really. I always had a witchy spiritual side, but it was always kept in a box and it was never brought into business. It was always like this secret side of me that I would tap into when it felt appropriate, when there was an appropriate container. And then I would put it back in the box and get back on with like day to day life. Whereas now I feel like I embrace all those sides of myself and I bring in a lot of more of those spiritual principles to the way that I do life in general and

And it feels so good. That's beautiful. So amazing. So I know you didn't, you just kind of gave some, some high level overview of some of the things that you went through as a child. Do you feel like looking back that there's been a lot of, of healing there that, that that was part of your work was to let go a lot of what trauma occurred there, stories that got created in your life. And do you see a correlation there?

to healing that in the way you're operating today. Yeah, 100%. I've done so much work on that little girl and those experiences she had growing up. And a lot of that I've really seen translated more in how much I value myself, how much I think I'm deserving of, how much I see my worth outside of my achievement. And I don't,

feel like the person who never fits in anymore. Like I fit in with me. I fit in with the people that love me. And that shows up so much in my business.

you know, the amount of things that I say no to now, like in the past, I would have so much FOMO of if I got an invite and I didn't attend and I wasn't in that room and I'd be like, oh my goodness, am I left out of these conversations? You know, even leaving LA. Um, oh, but like, that's where everything happens. You know, that's where all the best podcast guests are and the networking and

I didn't give a fuck. I was like, I don't care. I no longer feel like I need to be in certain circles and in certain rooms. I don't have anything to prove. I don't have any formal because I am happiest right here where I am. And I think all of that came from childhood, like healing those childhood wounds and healing, um,

That little girl has then given me the confidence to not give a shit about the rooms I'm not in and, and saying yes to things that feel like a yes, but I'm not willing to sacrifice what truly matters to me and my real priorities for any of that stuff. That's so beautiful. Yeah. It also sounds like you broke that, you know, what people call like generational curse of, of trauma or patterns, um,

Do you feel like that's an accurate assessment as you're now, you know, a mother and creating an environment for your child that it gets to be a very different environment?

environment than the one you grew up in. Yeah, 100%. You know, all of this trauma goes back so many generations. I have conversations with my mum about it and it blows my mind. And, you know, I look at some of the women and just family members and I just see so much strength in everything they've been through. And I know I wanted it to stop with me. And what's really beautiful is as I'm reparenting my daughter,

In this really beautiful, different way, I'm reparenting myself. I look at the way that she grows up and, you know, when I give birth to her, I was looking at her and I was so terrified because here was this little being that I loved more than life itself that I didn't even know a second ago. And I had so much fear around, like, am I going to be able to do her best?

a real service in this world, am I going to be able to show her love the way I feel it? Because I didn't really know if I could and the way that I've been able to step into that and show her such a different way of doing things. I'm so grateful for everything that I went through and for every single generation that broke more and more and more trauma. Even my mom, you know, the things that she went through and the things that she broke. So

So that I didn't have to go through as much as she did. I'm now passing off to my daughter and reparenting myself in the process. And it's beautiful.

And it's all because we decided to start a business. Who would have known? Honestly, entrepreneurship is the biggest personal growth journey. Oh, wow. This wouldn't have happened in a nine to five. Yeah. No kidding. I mean, like you said yes to a bigger life and it's like, it's like, God's like, okay, well you got to learn. Are you sure? Yeah. Are you sure?

- Well, that's so beautiful. And I think like why I'm so happy having you share your story is most people are somewhere in the middle of that right now. And it's hard to see the forest through the trees. It's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel when you're going through that in your middle of that. It's so much clearer in hindsight in the rear view mirror. It's like, look at who I am today because I went through that.

And I think what really does separate the successful from the unsuccessful, and I think that's why you're here today and you've created the results that you've created, is because no matter how hard it got, you just kept going. And I want to acknowledge you for that because I think that ability to just keep showing up and saying yes to yourself and have that resiliency to endure and go through it is not easy. It's definitely not easy, but always worth it. Somehow, bizarrely...

uh, worth it in the end and who you are today. It's just incredible. So thank you so much for, for sharing all of this. Do you have any final like thoughts on your mind or on your heart that you want to share with, with our listeners, maybe advice for them if they're still going through something challenging, like their own dark night of the soul? Cause Lord knows a lot of people have been going through some challenging stuff lately. Yeah.

Yeah, I do. And like I shared earlier, you know, if you had given me a magic wand in the middle of all of that to say, you can stop all of this right now and go back to where you were, I would have said yes. And I say that because it doesn't sound sexy. And in hindsight, it's like, really? You would have? And I share that because there's probably a lot of people going through something where they're like, stop the bus. I want to get off. I don't want to keep going through this. And what I would say is the more you resist it, the louder it's going to scream at you.

And the minute you just surrender into all of this and say, okay, I'm listening. I'm willing to go where I don't want to go. And I'm willing to have my faith be a lot bigger than the fear that's in me right now. You will get to the other side so much faster. And on the other side, you can trust yourself to show up. You can trust yourself to get to a much better place. But the more you resist it, the louder it's going to get and the harder it's going to be. When I resisted these identity shifts, I

It just got harder and harder and harder till the minute I said, okay, I don't know who I am and that's okay. Let me just go through the waves of this. And it all unfolded so much faster. Yeah. And it did seem like at some point you were able to look back and see the, um, just the like synchronicities of it all. Like it's really, you know, people, there's a lot of people that want to criticize and call it like, um,

Pollyanna kind of rose colored glasses to have that sentiment of life is happening for you. But that context doesn't mean everything's going to be wonderful and peachy all day. It means it's trying to teach you something. It's trying to show you something. And I can really hear from your story that there's no aspect of it that you haven't seen as a gift and like owned as something that like,

was beautiful, even if it was uncomfortable. And I think that's, that's just another lesson I want our listeners to take away is that you may not see that now, but in hindsight, it's an opportunity to see it as the blessing that it is. So that's really beautiful. Wait, wait, wait, before you go, I would love to send you my seven figure CEO operating system completely free as a gift.

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