Produced & Edited by - Morgan Brown
Interviewers - Carrie Kwan and Lucy Kippist
Guest - Anna Hastie
Loved this episode of Mumbition The Podcast? Find out more from our special guest.
Mindfulness, Mindset and Meditation
00:00:00:02 - 00:00:19:21
Lucy Kippist
We acknowledge and pay our respects to the traditional custodians of the lands and waters of New South Wales, where we record this podcast, and all Aboriginal elders past, present and emerging. Anna, welcome to Mumbition the podcast, and welcome to Ava, your little sidekick. Thank you for our recording.
00:00:20:09 - 00:00:25:04
Anna Hastie
Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so pleased to be here today. So excited.
00:00:25:04 - 00:00:39:20
Lucy Kippist
We are so excited to tell a bit of your business journey and story, so that's a great place to start. Could you tell us in a nutshell what your story is and how you came to be a business owner?
00:00:39:20 - 00:05:52:00
Anna Hastie
Yes, so I'm originally from Melbourne and I currently live in Broome, which is in the north west part of WA. Somewhere in my early thirties, late twenties, I was like, I have to leave Melbourne, this isn't working for me anymore. Did a whole sea change as you can imagine, diagonally across the country as far as we can go, we get to Broome, was only intending to stay here for a year, have not left since. At the time, I was a remedial massage therapist, my first business.
My first business was working as a remedial massage therapist, and I started that after a year of being here in Broome. It quickly became a successful and thriving business, which was amazing. I was expecting it to be a slow burn, a slow take off, but within a matter of months of sort of promoting myself, getting myself out there, I was quickly generating an income and a business that I just couldn't possibly imagine, it was beyond my wildest dreams. Since being here, obviously my business was about remedial massage, natural therapies, Reiki, energy healing, and it was in that time somewhere about 2019, towards the end that I was starting to feel quite drawn towards sound bar feeling, things like that.
I was in my actual energy healing and just having this feeling of needing to, or just feeling that when it came to working with my clients, doing some sort of toning or vocal sound to help shift energy was coming through and I couldn't really explain it or why. At the same time, I was thinking someone’s going to think I’m really weird if I start going OOOOOH in my healing. Anyway, at the time I was also working alongside or doing lessons and courses and training with another sound healer called Heather Gene, who ended up becoming my sound healing master. I said to her, I'm experiencing these things, I've also got this Tibetan singing goal, which I'm starting to use, and I'm not really sure what that's about, but I'm curious, and she said, “Well, I offer sound bar healing.” I did all her training and was then introduced to the Alchemy crystal singing bowls, which is what I specialise in my sound bars.
Now at this time as well, we're sort of leading into the world of COVID. At the same time, I'm getting this pull and this feeling that my time as a remedial massage therapist is coming to an end, but I don't know what my next life in business is going to look like or how it's going to evolve. It was somewhere during the early stages of COVID in Australia that I was cleaning some windows at my house, listening to a podcast that I got this idea of, you know what? Maybe it's time for me to study NLP and work more on mindset and learning about that so I can help my clients because I realised that what built my business was actually working on my mindset and this was well before I knew what mindset training or coaching was.
I just, in reflection, have felt, “Oh wow, I did a lot on my mindset to get my business to where it was in a very short space of time. So, I studied NLP with Yes Supply coaching methods and came out with this brand new qualification. I decided I didn't really want to do life coaching per se, I really am just fascinated and in love with business. I've never studied business at university or anything like that, but I just loved it. I just loved the ins and outs, the systems, the processes, the things that will circulate around business. Just knowing my own journey and how I've built my business through working on my mindset, I felt, you know what, I need to help others do the same because I feel like this is a really important key that sometimes gets missed, a really important step that gets missed in people's business journeys.
That's where I decided I would more or less focus on helping and supporting women because I was also seeing so many other women around me start and create businesses, particularly during this crazy time of COVID. Knowing that in my belief, and I know you feel the same, that women in business is an actual thing, what I believe as part of a successful, thriving economy and is what will support so many of us. So, just wanting to share what I know, help others shift and move through their beliefs and habits that are holding them back so they can have that successful and thriving business is what basically allowed my business to pivot. So, thank you Covid for giving me all that inspiration and support to move forward. That's how I basically left remedial massage and moved into mindset coaching as well as the soundbar healings as well.
00:05:52:08 - 00:06:34:08
Lucy Kippist
It's such an interesting journey and thank you for sharing so much of that. What I was thinking is I actually discovered you via your 50 Affirmations for Business mindset or something on your Instagram page. So, I remember being really quite drawn to that. What I'm interested to ask you is, so you've mentioned a couple of things that you studied in NLP, previous to that you did massage, but what is it that you think sound healing can contribute? Particularly as we were talking to business owning women now, the other forms of energy work or healing can't do?
00:06:35:00 - 00:14:31:19
Anna Hastie
That's such a great question and I hope we've got enough time to really talk about this, because when I reflect on my own self sound healing journey and what sound healing can do for women in business, there’s just so much I can talk about.
So in a nutshell, I'm going to keep this really quick. Firstly, sound bath, what it contributes is that it's about energy, frequency and vibration, and it's something that's actually backed by science. This isn't necessarily metaphysical woo-woo stuff, this has scientific backing from bioenergetics, energy medicine, epigenetics and quantum physics, which is what a lot of people are saying when it comes to talking about manifestation and mindset.
If you were to look at us under a microscope, a very high powered scientific one, you would see that we are just a bunch of atoms all bunched together, vibrating in a frequency to create a solid mass. What sound bath healing does is work on our frequency and vibration. It actually helps us very quickly get out of our thinking mind, works in our brainwave states from going from the beta, which that conscious and elite analytical thinking everyday mind, to working on alpha, theta and delta, which is where we access more of the subconscious mind, which is where all the habits, our beliefs, our processes and all the things that we've experienced in life are stored.
When someone comes to me and they say, “Oh, I'm not very good at meditation, and I thought, I’d just come for the sound bath healing because I’m with so-and-so and they said it was really cool,” And that's when I say “Oh, just lie down and enjoy, see what you experience.” And they come out and they say, “Oh my goodness, for the first time ever, my mind just stopped, I didn't know it was possible. It was like I was there, I was in some place, I don't know where I was, I just could not think of anything.” That is the pure example of how soundbaths can really help us just stop that busyness of our mind, which as I'll talk about in a moment, for women in business, and get us back into ourselves, our own lives, into our own energy, reconnecting back to ourselves, which can get a bit lost in our day to day lives and activities, and in particular working on our subconscious mind.
This is the part, as I said, for our beliefs, our habits and behaviours. So, if we are constantly in a state where we're receiving negative information and thoughts, we're witnessing things that aren't in a high vibration, as in happiness or joy or fear, or we’re constantly across aspects of being stressed or worried, we're in a lower state that can actually have that effect on our energy and vibration.
That's where this fits and when this can occur within our bodies, and as I said, we're a vibrational mass, so it has an effect on our organs and our systems and things like that. So, the way I see it is that when we're starting to hear something, when we come to a sound bath healing, and we’re working on our brainwave state, but we're also working on our physical matter as well.
We're also helping to relieve, and I've experienced this myself as well as heard from others that they've come in feeling discomfort and they've left feeling completely renewed, refreshed and that discomfort has just disappeared. Again, it comes to what is called the law of entrainment. So, sound healing works with a frequency of vibration. So if, for example, something was not in harmony or balance, it would be at a frequency of vibration that might be a bit, let's say it looks like a jagged sharp line, and then sound healing comes in and it may be a nice rolling, smooth line. Just through hearing those sounds and frequencies, it brings our own energy back into that nice, smooth rolling line. So, a great example is when you have several metronomes all set up and you start them all off, they're all at the same speed, but you set them all at different times, eventually they all synchronise, the law of entrainment.
So, coming back to women business and how that all works. That's basically what I think sound healing is to me as such an amazing thing, because it works so quickly and it works so effortlessly, it’s peaceful, it's enjoyable and it's just so nice to relax. Women in business, and I will say regardless of whether you're a mum or whether you're not, we are busy. In the throes of all the ups and downs and all the excitement and the challenges that business can throw at us, this can often sometimes bring us into that place of stress, worry, anxiety, not to mention all the other things that can fluctuate around us in our day-to-day life.
The way I see it is that when we're in that state of flux within our mind, we've got a lot of thoughts, we’re stuck in our head, it's very busy up there. We may be moving into that state of overwhelm, as I like to call it, feeling very stretched, we're not often able to think clearly, operate clearly or take action, and perhaps we're a little bit, hopping for one foot to the other, not knowing where to start, what to do, and things just feel like they're escalating and nothing is getting done. When we're in that state of pace and balance and we're in a place where there can be crazy happening behind us, we can deal with that easily in a way. When we're in that state of fluctuation around us, we can't tap into our intuition, we can't listen to our heart. We're actually questioning decisions we make, maybe making poor choices, our energy isn't as strong, so it's having that ripple effect out towards people and those around us, it escalates.
When we're in a state of relaxation and peace, we can deal with so much and our creativity shines through, our intuition speaks louder. So, therefore we are actually able to make those better decisions within our business, get all that intuitive download as we like to say, so we can start making new plans and engage in welcoming new opportunities. That's where sound bath healing can do that because it's just so quick, it's so precise. Then of course, the alchemy crystal singing bowls that I specialised in, they're just exceptional and have their own unique alchemy and blend, which I could talk about on a whole other show. They are also within themselves able to help work on an additional aspect rather than of within ourselves, rather than just relaxation, peace, harmony and bring us into alignment, they can also add extra benefits or values to what you're saying within that sound bath.
00:14:31:19 - 00:15:47:20
Carrie Kwan
Anna, I am just watching and listening to you at the moment and it's really fascinating. I was just telling Lucy before that I really wanted to purchase the sound bowls for my two boys over Christmas because I felt that those sounds were actually quite relaxing. It could have gone the other way, but to be honest. Giving your child any musical instrument can sometimes sound not beautiful. It's fantastic to have Ava on the call as well, I think she's got lots to say and contribute to this interview, too.
So, you've been a business owner for more than 15 years now. As a new mum, there's probably been a bit of a transition yourself as well. I'm actually wondering what have you found that you've had to stop doing to keep the flow? Obviously, it's not holding interviews with competency and panache.
00:15:47:20 - 00:19:21:05
Anna Hastie
Well, that is such a great question. I have to say from working with clients over the years who are mums, and I've always had great sympathy and understanding for all the challenges that they bring, that whole thing goes. You never know what it's like until you walk in someone else's shoes.
I tell you what, motherhood has been a complete eye opener for me, going from that carefree individual. “Oh, I can just swan out to a yoga class this morning,” now turns into "I have to plan when I can go to yoga.” But I'd say overall, I've been very fortunate to have such a supportive partner that I have been able to continue doing things that I've enjoyed pre-pregnancy as well as during my pregnancy too, that has kept me with my state of balance.
But what I have noticed and what I have probably had to stop, surprisingly, is not necessarily those activities, because they actually help me as a person. So for example, dancing is a big thing in my life, I love it, I breathe it. Side note, I'm a pole dancer and at 28 weeks I was performing on the stage doing pole dancing. I'm continuing all those activities because I know how important they are to my own physical wellbeing and my own energy and just being a better mum, partner and all of the above.
What I have noticed I've had to stop is actually the mindset around a lot of things that I have previously done in my business and that's 100% stop wasting time, Anna, stop procrastinating on those things, get that stuff done, start taking action. Now being a mum, my time is stretched, it's not like I have hours in my day to fiddle around with emails. No, I now need to get things done quicker and maybe I've only got a short amount of time in my evening to get those things done. So, time management has been a big thing that I've had to do, stop wasting time obviously, and work on my time management. Knowing that perfect, good is good enough, there's no such thing as being perfect anymore. Just get it done and get it out there. People understand I'm a real person, I'm not a machine. Also, stop taking long showers, that's a thing of the past, you gotta be quick, In and out, in and out. Sometimes it's like, “Did I even wash my face today? I don't remember.” So in a lot of things, it has been like an eye opener on my own mindset. Of course, during nine months of pregnancy, I've had time to work on the idea of things are going to change, my routine is going to look different, I have to make enough space for a tiny human being and their needs first and those kind of things, but more so it's come down to just that real eye opener of my own mindset, how I operate and within my business that if I want things to continue, I need to be more efficient with my time, I need to just get over myself in a few certain areas and just get the things done because nothing's going to get done just sitting and faffing. But I would say that's how it keeps the flow in life.
00:19:21:08 - 00:19:30:10
Carrie Kwan
The sense of privacy whilst doing ablutions is absolutely over once you have a baby and a toddler.
00:19:30:10 - 00:19:34:23
Anna Hastie
Oh yes, you can't disappear for too long because they’re like “WHERE ARE YOU? I CAN’T SEE YOU!”
00:19:35:22 - 00:19:51:18
Carrie Kwan
Now, just changing it around a bit, you’ve had different businesses as well. So, I'm fascinated to ask, what does risk mitigation look like in a business like you have now?
00:19:52:12 - 00:23:03:10
Anna Hastie
Oh, yes, that's such a great question. For me, working as a sound healer, first and foremost, I need to make sure I've got obviously my public liability insurance, I need to make sure I've got terms and conditions and liability waivers all set up so that people who attend the sound bath healings clearly understand what they're coming for, what they're going to experience and that kind of thing.
The same with coaching, it's all about making sure I've got digital products and contracts. I engage with a lawyer to get those things set up as well to make sure that I was covered and everything's clear and transparent. That's what I was trying to operate with in my business, that everything is as clear as I possibly can when it comes to email communications. When I type emails, make sure everything's really clear as you possibly can, and just make sure there's so much already set up in the background to highlight or just make all those terms and conditions always obvious.
Again, as a solopreneur, I only really have to rely on myself. I don't have any employees under me, I don't have any other contractors. So, if for some reason I went down and I was no longer able to work, sadly the business would just cease, but I wouldn't be worried about that having an effect on other people, it would just be the situation that set in. So, at the moment I work from home and my only overheads are when I rent a space on a class basis to do the sound bath healings.
I guess the other thing I would say would be part of my risk mitigation is how I take care of myself within my business. This is something that I learned long ago when I was in massage is that if I'm not at my healthiest, my best, I can't work or function. So, for me, I still carry this on today, and with a baby that's hard as it is. But just knowing how much more sleep is important now, but also before, drinking plenty of water, eating well, exercise, working on my own mindset and mental health, for me, that is risk mitigation as well, because if I'm not taking care of myself, I can't then hold space and support others around me. I'm not able to be present. I’m diligent towards the things I do. So that's probably the area of risk mitigation that I've implemented and I sort of hold quite strongly within my business.
00:23:03:20 - 00:23:50:00
Carrie Kwan
There are definitely lots of areas that we need to think through in terms of how to protect not just the actual business entity in our assets, but also ourselves. When you were saying you have to be in the best position for yourself, so everything else can actually run, it's even more of a risk because of that concept of a single person, sole trader type of risk, there's no one else to hand over the baton to now.
00:23:50:00 - 00:24:37:02
Anna Hastie
Absolutely. I just feel like when I'm working with my clients, particularly when it comes to sound bath healing, I'm dealing with energy and I'm dealing with creating a space and holding space for people who are going through sometimes sensitive moments. If I'm tired, I don't function very well. I'm cloudy, I'm not present, I'm not able to connect and to work intuitively where and as I need to.
I feel like I'm dishonouring my services and not able to support them either in what they're needing. So I do feel like, as in the work that I do, taking care of myself is just as important as having all those legal things in place or knowing what to do if, say, for example, I couldn't work on that day and that kind of situation.
00:24:37:22 - 00:24:59:06
Carrie Kwan
That's a really pertinent reminder too. I know that certainly since COVID, a lot of business owners have had to face a raft of business challenges, personal challenges, at home challenges, new ways of working challenges, let alone the sales challenges.
00:24:59:06 - 00:25:30:23
Anna Hastie
Oh, absolutely. I've witnessed that with friends in all different areas of business and how they've had to pivot and think outside the box to keep their business going because their business expands beyond being just a solopreneur who works from a laptop, particularly those who have like a product base or brick and mortar type business. Thinking about how those businesses need to support themselves is really incredible, what has to work in and around that as well.
00:25:32:03 - 00:25:43:14
Carrie Kwan
Now, thinking back, I'm wondering what is the one thing that's really helped you to create visibility for your business?
00:25:43:14 - 00:28:19:18
Anna Hastie
Some people might not like this answer, but I will say it; social media and word of mouth! When I first started my business as a massage therapist, thankfully in a small town, we have quite a few Facebook groups that we can tap into and access. But in this case, I just spammed Facebook, all the Facebook groups in town.
When I first started my business working at the health shop, I had some little fliers up and around. Here in Broome, we don't have letterboxes, so you can't do a letterbox drop. Everything's postal service, like in a PO Box, we don’t have street delivery. So, the only way you can really get yourself out there is just good old Facebook.
Hi, my name's Anna, I offer massage at the health shop, come and find me. It worked because there were a number of people who said, “Oh, I saw you on Facebook and that's you isn't it, that's working at the health shop?” yeah, that's me. I do it even now, I still promote everything I do via these groups and communities because someone you know watching, listening and paying attention.
Then it came to word of mouth. So, this again was a little bit out of my comfort zone. Hello, Networking! I rather just hide under a shell than have to, like, sometimes go put myself out there. But networking, I put on my big girl pants and went and met other health professionals, told them who I was, did little massages so they could see what style of massage we did, then also offered some discounts and promotions to people who came to see me as incentives to either spread the word or to come back and see me again.
But I would say 100% it was social media. I didn't build my website until two years into my business, it was all through Facebook pages, and now Instagram has a grand old time with this business side of social media. But yeah, all on Facebook, and that's how I started my business. Because I've transitioned into, even though I'm still within the natural therapy realm, I've been able to continue my followers into this line of business as well. I've still been able to continue the traction and momentum without having to start from scratch again, which is just so wonderful. It's great actually being in Broome because we're very, very community minded up here, which is a great appeal to me.
00:28:20:04 - 00:29:47:11
Carrie Kwan
You said a couple of things that we hear a lot. The networking has to start when you're a business owner and I hope that once we get over those initial sort of trepidation, a lot of women actually end up loving networking.
When Instagram and all the social media channels came out, they created this direct channel for business owners as well, and which was very empowering, I think, for a lot of women business owners. You now don't have to have big budgets, you can actually create a direct channel with your customers and you can communicate it in a way that is very authentic to yourself, it's you, you don't have to be anything else but you. So, I don’t think you need to apologise for creating your business on these social networks. I think obviously, your customer target is also other women, so these are the channels that other women are playing around, that's where we're at, and we meet our customers where they're at. I think it's probably been a really empowering journey, these platforms, to allow business owners.
00:29:47:23 - 00:30:33:21
Anna Hastie
100%. The fact that when you look at business many years ago, everything was in the Yellow Pages, TV and radio ads, fliers or something in the classifieds in the newspaper. I remember looking at the first ever massage course I thought I would do when I finished high school and the information session was advertised in the newspaper. But nowadays you have so much access and in all different scopes through social media that it's incredible, like you said, how easy it is to advertise yourself without having to spend a lot of money on it and just effortlessly in a way that's creative and authentic to you.
00:30:33:21 - 00:30:59:05
Lucy Kippist
I love that. I just wanted to touch on something you mentioned at the beginning of the interview, and you were talking about your genuine passion for business, which is obviously coming through in all of your answers and how much consideration are you giving to what you're sharing. I'm wondering if there's been a book that has really influenced you in terms of business writing. Please share it.
00:31:29:23 - 00:34:00:13
Anna Hastie
I love business mindset books. They're all on my bookshelf, I hardly have any other books about business mindset. The one book that I love to recommend and it's a little bit different from your traditional, like how to kind of books, or money mindset or something like that. But it's called The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer, and it's a fantastic book about a man who basically just wanted to be a yogi. He just wanted to do yoga, meditate, live in a forest and just live his life simply.
But through his lessons of meditation, he learned that just surrendering to what life brought forwards to him, would take him on this magical journey. In the end, he became CEO of a billion dollar tech company that he built in America, through just the whole idea of my life and just surrendering to the things and the opportunities that come to me.
Then it got caught up in legal proceedings where he ended up going to the federal court and he could have gone to jail. But through his practice of meditating and surrendering, the outcome of the whole process was just incredible. It's such a great book because there's so many lessons in there about when we are in a state of meditation, when we are in a state of relaxation, when we are tuning into our self and our inner wisdom, as opposed to getting caught in the flux and the busyness of the mind. I just think it's a great book to read, I was actually recommended to read it during a business mastermind that I was in and I just love it.
00:34:00:13 - 00:34:22:09
Lucy Kippist
I will look that one up, thank you so much for the recommendation. Now, I'm going to ask you one last question. If we can get it, we'll get it. If we can't, it's no problem. We at Mums & Co speak about harmony as a triangle of ambition, livelihood and well-being. What would the shape be of a great life for you if you had to describe this?
00:34:24:17 - 00:35:04:09
Anna Hastie
Love, support and adventure, straight up the three values that I have in my life. Not only to give, but to receive. So, love in everything that I do and for the people in my life. Support, knowing that I can give support to my family and I'm receiving support, not only business, but family as well. Adventure, life has to have a lot of play, a lot of adventure, a lot of fun. That's pretty much my upbringing anyways, travelling, adventure, doing crazy things. That's what I really want to bring into Ava’s life as well, just have lots of adventure and do lots of fun things together.
00:35:04:09 - 00:35:21:03
Carrie Kwan
Beautiful answer.
00:35:30:07 - 00:36:08:06
Anna Hastie
This is the Lemurian Singing Bowl in platinum single from Crystal Tones. It just brings through the wisdom of Lemurias, all the information recorded in time as well as palladium, which brings back that childlike joy, fun and adventure within us as well. She also works on our third eye as well.
00:36:50:20 - 00:37:04:18
Lucy Kippist
Beautiful. Thank you, Anna, for lending us Mum for so long.
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