Welcome back to Season 4 of the Magic Maker Podcast!
I am so thrilled to be coming to you with this season, all about momentum. This first interview I’m so thrilled about because it is with the amazing Denise Duffield-Thomas who is one of our keynote speakers at Magic Maker Live coming up in October.
As I’m recording this intro to you today, it is the first day of Autumn and it actually really feels like it here in the UK. For many of us, this is our favorite time of year. We love summer, right? It’s great, it’s warm, we play, we get outside, but there’s something so restorative about autumn and it’s such a great time to get back to work.
So I’m really excited in this season of the podcast, which is starting in the Fall, to explore the ways that we as entrepreneurs really can create momentum in our businesses and in our brands. It’s all well and good to know the things and to do the things here and there to try and build your brand and build your business,
but it’s really the momentum: consistently showing up and doing the work that really makes the difference.
So as I mentioned, we’re going to kick this season of momentum off with an interview with the lovely Denise Duffield-Thomas. If you’re not familiar with Denise, I’m excited to introduce her to you. She is phenomenal. She is a money mindset mentor. Recently she wrote and published the book ‘Chillpreneur’ (Hay House) but I found her several years ago when I read her book ‘Get Rich, Lucky Bitch!’, which is all about breaking through money mindset blocks.
If you’re someone who’s struggling with money mindset (because let’s face it, we all do)… You might want to check out that book because it really did fundamentally change my life.
But today what I want to chat with Denise about, is connecting to a bit of magic. As you know, this is called the Magic Maker Podcast and unashamedly am a person who is now raising my hand and saying, ‘I believe in magic!’ But what I mean by magic, is a pretty loose definition… but really it’s all the stuff that you can’t totally define or necessarily prove that works, the unseen stuff that really helps you create the change that you’re looking for.
In my definition of magic, it includes everything from whatever your version of spirituality is to using modalities like EFT and Reiki and kinesiology, to manifesting and law of attraction stuff… Whatever it is that beyond the super practical, that really moves the needle on your growth.
It’s taken me a long time to admit that this is what I believe in and it’s only after time and time again this is the stuff that has actually worked for me… You can really only push through with your plans and your action steps and your metrics and your marketing for so long….
At some point, you have to give in and understand that this work that we have to do in our head, rewriting our stories and being able to get out of our own way, comes down to something a little bit more intangible than our 30-day planner.
So today I’m really excited to talk to Denise about this stuff that has worked for her in her life and in building her multiple seven-figure business online. How she’s done that by implementing some of this magic and asking her what is the stuff that has actually really worked for her.
She’s going to give us some inside tips into what she’s used and how she’s used it, as well as a little bit of what life is like for her these days. She’s working on connecting to the title of being an ‘un-busy mom’… and as someone who’s recently had a child, I really liked this idea of claiming the title of ‘un-busy’ because let’s face it, we have a lot going on, all of us, and we can feel really busy. But I believe strongly that what we say and describe about ourselves really does continue to define our reality. So I like the idea of calling myself ‘un-busy’ – maybe that’s something that you can adopt as well, as you move forward into this, somewhat potentially hectic time of year.
So with that, I’m going to break into our interview with Denise. Thank you so much for being here. I’m really excited to bring you so many juicy episodes moving forward into this beautiful season of productivity. But for now, I think it’s time we make some magic, shall we?
Denise Duffield-Thomas Interview
Nic: Hey magic makers. So excited to bring you one of my favorite human beings. Today we are talking to Denise Duffield-Thomas, the original Lucky Bitch, and now the Chillpreneur, and we were chatting about all things magical. So let’s not delay. Let’s get right in. Denise, thank you so much for being here.
Denise: Thank you Nic. It’s so funny. As soon as you hit recording, I was like, my nose is itchy my neck’s itchy. But I love the fact that we can have this technology where in opposite sides of the world from each other and it’s magic. Don’t you agree that the Internet is magic?
Nic: It is. The fact that our time zones are so different and we can just connect. Just here we are in an instant. It’s amazing. Tell us about you, give us a brief bio.
Denise: One of the things I like to tell people at the moment is that I’m an ‘unbusy mom’ of three kids. And I deliberately use that word ‘unbusy’ because when you have a business, and you have passion and you have kids and you have all these things, people really want to put that ‘busy’ label on you. So recently I’ve officially put that into my official bio that I’m an ‘unbusy mom’ of three, I am an author, I’m an entrepreneur, I’m a teacher of women and my speciality is in Money Blocks. So I hope mostly women with their thoughts and feelings about money and their money beliefs so we can all make more and change the world.
Nic: Love that. There’s a couple of things I want to highlight about that. The first one is that when I discovered you, which was five years ago or something, now I had money blocks. We all do. I still do. I’ll be safe. But I didn’t know it had a name. And I remember reading Get Rich, Lucky Bitch and this is a thing and it has a name and there are solutions. Holy Crap, this is amazing. It was just so mind-blowing to me that this wasn’t just my shit that was mine, that other people had this, that not alone thing, but also that this particular thing had a name and that you had so many wonderful ways to deal with it. And I’d be interested quickly for you to tell us a little bit about how you discovered the name yourself. You know, that this is a money block and started working through them and discovering that this was sort of your superpower.
Denise: Yeah, well I didn’t know it was a thing either. I just thought I needed to be more ambitious or smarter or get another certificate or work harder. I actually came across the Kendall Summerhawk’s work and she’s amazing. She does a lot of money stuff and she teaches marketing and all of these amazing things. She’s really great. But she was the first person who really told me about this concept of money blocks. And as soon as I heard about it again, you go, oh, of course, that’s why I can’t do all of these things. So, I did do that a bit of an exploration for myself and thought of all of the books that I’ve read about personal development. What if I applied that work just to money. And I feel like for a long time women especially felt like we couldn’t, that they have to be so separate. It’s like this personal development and there’s spirituality and then there’s money and it’s this thing over here that when not allowed to talk about unless we’re an accountant or a financial adviser and it’s separate and it can’t be loving and beautiful and it can’t be funny and fun. Then after I started doing my own stuff, I felt a really strong calling to do money work and I was so scared and did not want to do it. I really felt like I rejected the calling and I could feel it in my body. People were coming to me asking me to teach them. Well, you seem to be doing great in your coaching business, what’s going on? I really felt, okay, I’ll go back to university and I’ll do an accounting degree and then I’ll do it. Or maybe I should become a financial adviser, not realizing that that’s part of the problem is that we always separate money and it’s okay for anyone to talk about money. You have permission to talk about money in your own way. So I literally kind of went, universe, if you want me to proceed with this topic, you have to make it super easy. I’m not putting myself out of my comfort zone to do this. And of course I have lots of ways, but I was just like at the beginning, you bring the clients to me because otherwise, I’m out. And that was how I got started. I wouldn’t say every moment’s been super easy, but I felt like I’ve been on a purpose and that’s such a powerful thing. It doesn’t mean it’s easy. It doesn’t mean that I haven’t had self-doubt, but it just felt like my purpose in the world. This is something that I can really help people with. And until I feel like I’m not helping people with that anymore, I’m going to keep doing it.
Nic: Good for you. Thank God! Key. Right. That’s key. So, I want to ask you a little bit about where you’re at in your life. But the first thing I want to just highlight, which was the second thing that you mentioned is this idea of changing the world, which I know it’s a belief of yours, that wealthy women are going to be a huge part of. And that’s a big part of your work is trying to help more women be wealthy. And I have a similar belief about entrepreneurs are wanting to do good and also be wealthy, that there’s this really deep power within someone who wants to build a business to provide for themselves and to provide for their clients and also wants to make a difference in the world. And I’m curious if you are seeing that happening with the people who are coming through your programs? Are you seeing that there’s this butterfly effect of what the work that you’re doing and helping each one of these thousands of women in the work that they’re doing? Is that exciting? Are you seeing some of the results of these women going out and being more wealthy and being more confident and being able to do the work?
Denise: It’s so inspiring. I’m not taking credit for any of those, any of them, but I like to think that I contributed a little bit to their journey. And one of my wonderful boot camp attendees shared, she got a helicopter to one of her events. I just get so excited when someone says I made my first $10, like their first passive income sale, which we talked about before we hit record. I find that just as exciting as someone says I hit $1 million for the first time. So I do see the ripple effect. I know the research around that too. When women make more money, we tend to hire other women. We invest in our communities. We were philanthropic. We pay taxes. We don’t tend to find ways to dodgily reduce our taxes. And I’m not even generalizing here like this research that shows this. Even recently, I was reading books about climate change and one of the top 10 solutions to climate change is to empower women. Because when women are more educated and have more money, they make choices around their farming practices and how many kids they’re going to have and all of these things and so I love the money factor of women being able to buy what they want to buy. But, I also love the trickle down effect and the work that we can do to help women in every country of the world. Women and minorities as well. We have a lot of people in my work who are non-binary and I do have men who are interested in my work too, but there is research there about investing in women has a measurable impact in country’s GDP and politics. One of the things I’ve discovered now that I’m a wealthy woman because I make several million dollars a year and for five years now I’ve made multi-millions. What’s fascinating now is that you start to see behind the system and you realize that I still get one vote, but I can influence policy with my dollars and unfortunately, there are a lot of bad people doing that. There are a lot of shitty people doing things like that in the world. It’s not just about when we make the money, it’s like we see behind the curtain of the system and we want to change the system. I actually hired a philanthropy coach last year because I realized I didn’t know how to be a philanthropist. I’m not from money. I guess I’m new money type person and I have no desire to spend it on toys, I really wanted to spend it on changing the world and I wanted to get some advice on how to do that. But it’s also okay to start your business to pay your freaking mortgage and like pay ballet lessons for your kid. I think there’s just something there about women when our needs are being met we give out excess time, energy and resources to things that are important to us. And that’s true whether however much money you’re making if you just allow yourself to be taken care of, then you can do so much with your excess.
Nic: And I find that even women who aren’t taking care of their needs do it as well. I don’t know if this is just a core nurturing thing where we just want to help so bad because I see that with a lot of entrepreneurs as well who haven’t kind of met all of their needs yet. But it’s such an important part of why they get up in the morning, which I think is so amazing.
Denise: Absolutely, but you can only do that for so long when you’re giving from your deficit and I see people who have such a desire to change the world, but they’re burnt out and they’re broke.
Nic: Yes. And that’s 100% what motivates me to do the work that I do is, it just doesn’t need to be that way. And mostly it’s a choice that we’re making, right? I have to be broke in order to, or it’s all the stories that lead us into that place and to keep us there. So speaking of stories, I love that part of your story right now is that you’re an ‘unbusy mom’ and as someone who has just become a mom and runs my own business, I understand how the absolute beating heart of what busy means and whether or not you want to own that as a title. And it’s been interesting because everyone I’ve talked to said it’s crazier going back to work and as I was sharing with you before we started recording, it’s been really interesting to me to see the impact of just having a child on my work because I had all the fear. And I was repeating Denise’s words in my head that babies bring abundance which is a mantra that Denise shares in her course and I use that as an anchor because of fear that once I had this baby that I was going to be different. I was going to lose my interest in my work, I wasn’t going to have time, all the fears around what this baby meant. What I’ve found, which is what I was sharing with you is that I think because I love her by default. I don’t have to think about it or try, which I feel like sometimes when we’re trying to be compassionate with ourselves, it’s hard work, right? We feel like we used to put a lot of energy into that love. This love is just like on tap, I don’t have to do anything, it’s just there. So I found that it’s been really interesting that because of all that love, because of that high vibration, all that good energy in my life, that I’m just sucking good things to me, like a magnet, like more than I ever have in my life and it’s taken me a minute to kind of look around and realize that this is happening and then be like, oh, this stuff does work, who knew? And actually babies do bring abundance because look at all this love that comes easily. So when people have been asking me how I’m doing, I go through the list in my head of all the things that are hard and all the not sleep I’m having and all the fact that it’s hard to have an eight- week old and work and my husband’s traveling but what I’m trying to reflect instead is, this such a good time. This is just so good. And so I’m curious as you are, what season you’re in right now as a non busy mom of three who actually has a lot of activities going on. What does that look like for you?
Denise: My kids are five, three and one and I’m turning 40 very soon. I would keep on saying it a couple of months, but it’s actually in September, so five weeks. I’m really feeling the season of turning, I really feel like it’s the end of my childbearing, I don’t want to get pregnant ever again and I’m never going to breastfeed again and all of those things so I feel there’s some endings happening. At the same time of coming to the end of nine years in my business, so there’s always some natural endings that come at the end of that cycle and really feeling that too and feeling like some things have got to go and some things I’ve got to simplify and we’re building a house. So when we move at the end of the year, it’s a great opportunity to declutter physical possessions. So this feels like a really exciting period for me because it’s some endings, but I know there’s some big beginnings coming around the corner too. It is full, but I still don’t feel busy. I have a ton of help and I’m very honest about that. I have a wonderful nanny who comes four days a week, I have a housekeeper who comes every day to do the laundry and cook. So I don’t feel there’s a lot of stress that I know a lot of moms feel who don’t have resources, also a lot of guilt around asking for help and receiving help. I don’t think there’s any part of me that I don’t feel like I’m allowed to say busy because I have lots of help. I just don’t like being a busy person. I really like doing things on my own terms and I’ve done parenting and mothering on my own terms.
Nic: Yeah, I imagine that those are skills you’ve been cultivating now for a while is being able to make those very conscious choices. I think that’s part of that money work, isn’t it? Of being able to really know yourself better by having to look inwards all the time and being able to make conscious choices about how you want to show up because I think motherhood entrepreneurship, they’re very similar in the fact that they can just drag you, right? You can just get swept up in them and they can just drag you instead of making any kind of conscious choice.
Denise: Well, one of the things as well as bringing abundance, babies bring boundaries and opportunities to set boundaries. And the biggest boundary I had to set was with my partner because suddenly he could do anything he wanted and I can’t go to the gym, go on your lunch break, like working mums do and you’re having between 6:00 AM and 7:00 AM every single day. And I put it in his calendar because suddenly he had choice and I had no choice. So there’s a lot of boundary conversations there that was the start of it before we even really got the help and support that we paid for and that was kind of odd. It was hard for him too because he doesn’t have any role models around what that looks like and he’s the only active dad at school on the [inaudible] day, he’s the only dad who goes to reading groups. He was fearful about what that role is and he’s the only dad that goes to playgroup and it’s a bit daunting for dads to know what that new model of father would looks like as well as for us. My mom wasn’t an entrepreneur, [inaudible] did some stuff on the side but like we didn’t have role models either about what this new space looks like, where this is stuff to deal with around money and if you’re suddenly the breadwinner for example, it’s pretty new.
Nic: Yeah, that’s a great point about boundaries. I can talk about boundaries all day because I think that is one of those keys to really being able to give generously is to have boundaries, right? You’re never going to be able to do one without the other. But I want to dive into this idea of busy and this is a great segue way into the topic that I really want to dive into today, which is one of the things I see with entrepreneurs that I work with, and certainly this has been true for me, is that we have a tendency to go straight to the busy work in order to feel a sense of accomplishment. So, instead of doing some of the mindset stuff or dealing with our money stuff, or especially doing any marketing, we want to just do the busy work, we want to just get the products out the door, we want to just answer our email because it’s easier. One of the things that we’re exploring in this season around these habits to create momentum is consciously choosing to be in a creative mindset instead of a reactive mindset and getting out of that busy work and into doing the really meaningful stuff that 20% that is really going to move us forward. For me, personally, as someone who has kind of moving into this world of magical things that can make our life easier, can connect us with the universe, can help us have a high vibration, even that language is a little bit magical and I feel like we dumb it down by calling it woo, right? It’s the woo woo stuff. So I’m looking for other words to describe it that don’t belittle it because it isn’t something that we should just be brushing aside. But if we’re super practical, super left brain, high achieving high-performing sometimes, obviously it can be difficult to embrace this stuff for the first time in our life if we feel like other people are judging us for it. Or we have to explain why we have crystals all over our house and maybe other people don’t necessarily buy into it. Right? So the conversation I want to have today is first of all, how do we make peace with this idea of magic in general when it’s kind of new to us? And then we’d love to explore a few of the magic practices, habits or tools that have made the most difference for you in your life as an entrepreneur.
Denise: Perfect. I think I was a bit of a skeptic around the law of attraction myself because I’m an intensely practical person. I’m a Virgo. I think now that I know more about astrology, I am prove it to me kind of person. When I started reading books about the law of attraction, I was really confused about what I should do and it made me feel bad because I’m not spiritual enough and I’m not good enough and I’m not a nice enough person for this to work for me. That were my stories around it. What I started doing is, they say you have to feel good. So what would that be? What would that look like in really practical terms? It says you have to fake it till you make it. So I actually start to think about it as brain training and most of the things around the law of attraction and some of the practices that we do in law of attraction, they can be linked to scientific phenomena around how your brain works. I can’t even remember all that baby brain, I can’t remember all of the things. If you want to buy a red car then suddenly you see that red car everywhere. So I was thinking, well, if those things happen anyway, how can I reverse engineer that? So I create things in my world to start thinking more about that red car. And we can talk some practical examples around that. When it came to manifesting a really big [Gulf May] and I wanted to buy a holiday house and I wanted to buy a cottage in the country. So I started feeding my brain images of what that would look like and from a practical point of view, it’s not just about doing a dream board because dream boards are just one thing, right? So I subscribed to a magazine called Country Style and it’s all about people who buy country cottages and fix them up. I started feeding my brain stories of that possibility because I needed to believe that was possible for someone like me. And all of the stories are about people who I never thought I would live in the country and I never thought I would buy a property and I never thought I could afford it, but I fell in love with this place. So that was just one input into my brain. And then I started browsing real estate listings and I put in alert, you can do this on most real estate listings. You can put in what you’re looking for and it will alert you when something comes up. So I was getting these regular alert again and it’s almost like having another person believe that that was possible for me, even though it was a phone app like, here’s this property that you’re looking for and I started to believe that I was looking for that property and I was allowed to look for that property. Then I started going on open houses and I would spend the weekend just going and visiting open houses because again, nothing will bring up your reasons why you can’t have the thing than going and looking at the thing, whether it’s a new car or a new house or going into a fancy store. It will totally bring up your beliefs of I don’t deserve this, I don’t belong here, this is not me. So you have to acclimatize yourself to that space before you believe that you can have it. And that’s why we said people go and do that practical thing, [ghosted] on the couch and because if they go I could never have something like that, we’ll of course you don’t believe that it’s even possible for you. So you have to put yourself into that uncomfortable position. So after a couple of weekends of going to those open houses and saying to people this is the kind of thing we’re looking for, well, we are looking for something like this, they’ll believe you. So I started to believe it, maybe I’m looking for a property. Again, that’s not like magic. That’s just training your brain to believe something is possible. Like an Olympian rehearses their hurdles a million times before they actually go out and do it and there’s studies around that visualization is super important for their performance. Then, there was a property that I found but it didn’t have an open house. It had appointment only viewings. So that challenged my self-belief, are you really looking or are you not looking because it’s free to go look. And I told myself too, I spoke to a realtor friend and she said, we love people who come to just look because a lot of time those people end up buying so she’s said don’t be afraid. But it challenged my self belief, my self perception. So I went to this property and instead of being a cottage that I could just go and hang out on the weekends, it’s a rose farm with 10 acres and commercial buildings and I fell in love with it. It challenged my self belief because first of all, I’ve said, universe, this is 5, 10, 20 years too early, this is the wrong timing. How can I believe to myself that this is possible? So I did two things. I called my mortgage broker and said, how do we make this happen. I invited my financial advisors to come out and see the property because I had to enroll other people in my dream. They all said I was crazy until they came out and they saw it too. But then I did all these other things so it was like rose farm. I put a screenshot of the property on my phone, you pick up your phone, how many times a day? A billion for me. Every time I saw it, I’d get a little.
Nic: That little jolt.
Denise: Yeah. Which is excitement. After a million times of seeing it again, you start to go, wow. And you can put words on it to say this is me or this is me at my rest home. When I really want peace, so how many ways can I convince myself that is a done deal? I started deliberately creating synchronicities because when you ask the universe for a sign, like, give me a sign. One of the signs I saw was going to the bathroom and I noticed that my toilet paper had roses on it, and that’s the sign. What can I create? How can I create these extra signs? So I started singing songs about roses and I’d get an ear [inaudible] in my head. So I’d sing a song about roses. I listened to some of that roses. I used rose oil perfume. I burn incense that’s got roses in it. I started doing all these things, which sounds, how does that help you? It helps you because you’ve got to build your belief so you think you can do the things that you need to do to get the thing, And to get the thing to get that house it didn’t just necessarily happen by magic. I had to call brokers, I had to move money around, I had to sign contracts, I had to negotiate, I had to get some extra sales that month to pay for it. I could’ve chicken out of all of those things, but the toilet paper said I was going to get a rose farm and you don’t know what’s going to make a difference for you in your self belief. But to me, all of those little micro magic moments that I deliberately orchestrated, they helped my belief to make the phone calls, send the emails, do the things. So when you look at it like that, you made it happen from the action, but it wasn’t just the action. We know that there’s a margin of magic that even skeptics have to believe. Sometimes things just line up and they feel they just meant to be and I believe in creating those as well to get as many of those belief points as possible.
Nic: I feel like overall this feeling of alignment, being energetically aligned with something. I was having a chat with my mastermind buddy the other day and realizing that there’s this thing that I want, that I am fundamentally not energetically aligned with, which sounds kind of fluffy, but the reality is when I think of it, it makes me uncomfortable and it’s such a strange thing. And I was asking my husband the other day, when you think of this, how do you feel? And he was neutral. It makes me so uncomfortable and he’s like whatever, like, that’s weird because it’s not a thing for him. I was talking to my mastermind buddy and I said, how do I become energetically aligned with this thing? I can’t believe it feels uncomfortable, but it definitely does. And I know there is no way in hell it’s going to happen or arrive if I feel this uncomfortable with it. There’s just no way it can exist here if I feel like this about it. So this whole description that you’re talking about with the roses, then with the farm, it’s feels to me like this sort of energetic alignment as you say, it’s already here, it’s a foregone conclusion and it’s known. It just is. Rather than having to make any of these decisions about can I accept this or can I afford this? Those are practical things that have to be considered, but it’s about this magnetic alignment of just bringing it into a space that already exists for it rather than having this inherent discomfort which I think is what a lot of that self sabotage, not making those emails, not doing those phone calls because there’s this self sabotage. I know you talk about that a lot, but I’d love to know, I’d love to explore what are some other, so we’ve talked about these really practical points within the laws of attraction. What are some other modalities or tools that you’ve used to help with the stories or to help take action or to help get you out of misalignment that have been really effective for you?
Denise: I think it’s really important to know yourself and know how you like to learn and what’s really powerful for you. I like to think of doing something in each of the modalities. For example, if you’re really are an auditory person, I think they’re really mindful that literally what’s going into your ears. When you get in your car and you plug in your phone to your bluetooth, I think there’s always a song that can pop up. I don’t know if you could do it in iTunes or sometimes it’s the last song you listened to, but I’m really mindful about the things that are coming in. So if you’re an auditory person that’s super strong for you, then look at all the ways that you can hear your goals and dreams. So really easy at the moment. Podcasts, just such a great way to do that. If you want to go deeper, you can do speaking therapy. I think any types of therapy are great, but it’s about finding the one that works for you. If you know that you’ve got some really deep seated blocks that you need to let go of, I’m a huge fan of doing things like therapy. Subliminal audios as well are really great if you’re an auditory person. If you’re more of a kinesthetic person, I think EFT is amazing because it’s the words, but it’s also the tapping. It’s an amazing way to deal with blocks. If you’re more a visual person that’s where it’s really important to have your dream board sorted. Your goals on your phone that you have words around that you can say that you’d have pleasing pictures everywhere of your goal so you can just see it and go, yes all the time. What else? If you’re an olfactory person, what smells remind you of that goal whether it’s incense or perfume, like I mentioned with mine. However, I think that one of the things that’s really super powerful is visualization and when it came particularly to the rose farm, I would try and find the most emotionally charged visualization I could. It’s made of our kids are getting married at the rose farm and my [inaudible] middle name is Rose by the way. And I can’t remember if I found out about the rose farms first or if it was after she was born. I think she was born in June. I think I found out about it in July. So again, it’s a sign. But, I would visualize walking through the property without kids getting married and when I looked at it like that, I was, well, this buying is just easy. It’s just like one step.
Nic: You’re getting all teary thinking about it. So this is obviously a really emotional moment for you. It’s so beautiful.
Denise: But you need something to pull you through. I think business goals are good, are great, but I don’t think business goals in themselves are that motivating. What is that business goal going to allow you to achieve or buy or do. That’s the thing you got to think about because then you can go, okay, here are the things I need you to do for that thing. So my philosophy around modalities is everything works. Everything works in its own way. There’s nothing better or worse, but things resonate differently with each of us. Some people love tapping, some people hate it, some people find it really easy to visualize all that’s [inaudible]. I like to practice what I call lazy manifesting. And it’s really easy to set your phone screen one time and then you never have to think about it again. But it’s just as powerful as sitting in, doing a dream board and cutting things out, which I haven’t done for years. I love using technology as my manifesting tools. Having Pinterest boards, I would see it and browse all of the country cottages. I have a private saved folder in my Instagram of all amazing, inspiring things. So find what that is for you, your version of the rose farm, whether it’s philanthropy or a house that seems to be a very emotional one for a lot of women or a family or helping so many people, whatever it is. But you’ve got to connect to it emotionally I think every single day and as many times during the day as possible. That’s why you’ve got to do those automatic themes that you don’t really have to think about that pop up and surprise you. And there’s been times where I’ve been manifesting things so much I’ve printed out my dream boards, I’ve put them on inside of cupboards so I open my cupboard and oh, I forgot about that. It gives you guys a little excited jolts. But everything works. You just have to try three things, throw three times at it and see which one resonates with you and gives you that little zing.
Nic: I think I’ve heard Denise’s words in my head before because I remember reading in Get Rich, Lucky Bitch, the throw everything at it and that takes so much of the pressure off doesn’t it? Because it’s not this one thing. I have to try this one thing and if this one thing doesn’t work then nothing works. If you’re feeling skeptical and you’re needing proof it doesn’t work that way. I love the idea of lazy manifesting, just throw anything, just try it all, do it all. See what works for you I think is really great. And I think the last question I want to ask you about this, which I think might be the most important is, in my work, I’m helping entrepreneurs find freedom and fulfillment. The secret skeleton key to all of this stuff is really working on self-compassion and self-love which I know you talk a lot about. It’s the only thing, it is. You want to talk about productivity, let’s talk about self-love like it’s the only thing. One of the things I’ve found in my journey and I know has been true for some of my clients is that taking the very first step that allows us to do these things, sometimes feels impossible, actually giving yourself, allowing yourself the time to make a vision board. I was just talking to a friend of mine about creating an intention space and she was like, have you done that yet? No, because my office is now the nursery and there’s no space for me and stories. She was, do it in a box, make a box. That’s your intention space and then you have space that’s your own. Oh, I can do that. But what happens is we stop ourselves from allowing ourselves to have these things or do these things in this withholding, because we don’t deserve it but there’s something that gets in the way of that very first step of being able to do that vision board or to change that password or create that screensaver that we don’t allow ourselves to do that. Do you have any tips for getting through that very first, hardest step of getting past that resistance?
Denise: I think doing it with a friend can be really helpful and encouraging each other to do it. Or if you’ve got a supportive partner just to sit down, like go through the book together or if you’re doing my boot camp and just say we’re both going to do that and have that accountability. But the deeper thing there is, is self-love [inaudible]. I think the gateway drug for me into this world was Louise Hay and you can call your life with so many of us. That’s how gateway because it was so simple. She just talked about self love and acceptance and I approve of myself. I didn’t realized that I needed that and even now when I get headspace where I think I’m not doing enough, I’m not helping enough people, I’m not doing the right thing, I’m not doing it perfectly. I’ll put my hand on my heart and just as Louise says, all is well and it calms my nervous system down because otherwise it is just about well, I’m not good enough. I’m not enough in every way. I think that’s just a base practice for everyone, no matter what your journey is. I feel like I still have to do it all the time myself. So it’s like having a shower, it’s just basic hygiene. It’s so easy not to love yourself. So easy to blame yourself and feel like you’re not doing enough and society perpetuates that. It’s not cool because no one’s perfect, but we’re enough for right now and we can always improve. But if you love and approve of yourself, if you don’t have anyone in your corner at least be in your own corner, well at least be one person in your own corner because it’s the only person you can control. Once I really got that, I think a lot of things shifted and changed for me because then I could allow myself good things. I could allow myself money, I could allow myself the gift of time and space to work on my business.
Nic: That’s a big one. Allowing myself time. Everyone asks me that all the time. How do I find time? I’m sure you hear that too. It’s like, you’re not gonna find it. You’re never going to find it. You got to make it.
Denise: I was meeting up with a friend for lunch today. She’s my entrepreneurial girlfriend and we were talking about how a big lesson for the moment is allowing ourselves to hire really competent, amazing people because I was an amazing employee but for about six months because then I’d get bored because I’m an entrepreneur. But like I would pull things out of my butt last minute and I would just make it happen. We were saying how we shield our employees from that because we feel we’re the only ones who can do that and how we just would love to give that up. And it’s just that feeling of, I’m not allowed to have the support, not allowed to have A+ rock stars working for me to really fully, truly support me. I’m not allowed to have that. I have to struggle and if I could nail that, I just think the sky’s the limit.
Nic: There’s that big letting go pieces in there that we were talking about that I was saying my word for having had a baby is surrender. That there’s just points of it where for the first time in my life I’ve had zero choice but to just let go, like there’s no other option. I’m numb from the waist down. I think part of that for me anyway, that whole rock star employee thing is that if someone else is a rock star, you have to let them run with it. And that is so hard.
Denise: I was always the lone wolf as well when I was in a corporate. I’ll just do it all myself. I still have a really small team and I know that’s just that same story of, I’ll just make do and I’ll do it myself. I can make anything work and I can, but I don’t want to anymore.
Nic: We’ll close this up in a second, but this is so relevant. I have to say that one of my favorite business podcasts is James Wedmore and he’s got this whole concept about the death of the entrepreneur and the rise of the CEO, that there’s this moment in your business often when you’re pursuing seven figures where the entrepreneur has to die and the CEO has to take over and that hit me in the gut. I will never let go of my identity as an entrepreneur. That is just like, I’m a hero, I’m a bootstrapper. That was a huge moment for me. Interesting.
Denise: I love James so much. My story about James is we met in Dallas in 2011 at Allie Brown’s event and we were both not baby entrepreneurs, but we’re really getting started on our journey. And he said, you can’t get to six figures just doing it all yourself. And I said, watch me. And I was like, dumb. Why? What’s the point of doing it all yourself? I totally did it by myself and then I got to a million dollars with one part time assistant. Could I have done it quicker or easier with some help? Probably. Now I want to go from three to ten and I think it could be easier. It’s about really funny [inaudible] amazing people and allowing them to be amazing and not like, let me take that away from you.
Nic: That’s his own form of magic, isn’t it? That’s one of the things that I’m learning that so many of us are so programmed to connect. As humans, we’re programmed to connect and part of that letting go piece and finding those people and hoping they’ll stay. All the fear around people when it works that magic, it’s just impossible to be, isn’t it? When you’ve got that support and when James talks a lot about handing things to other people and letting them do, letting them run with it and letting their genius shine through and that’s what it is to be a team. It’s not you at the top doing all the things and then just delegating the stuff you don’t like to individual people to do individual tasks. You know, that’s not really a team. Anyway, I feel like we could talk about this all day. But you’re a busy gal. I’m not a busy Gal. So one thing I just want to mention quickly before we go is you’re going to be joining us in London for the magic maker live conference and we’re going to continue this conversation there because I know the people that I’ve spoken with so far just can’t believe they’re going to get to see you in person since you’re on the other side of the world and we’ve been waiting for you to come back, which is amazing.
Denise: Yeah. Well, it’s one of my favorite cities. So I am thrilled to be coming back and I can’t wait to meet everybody.
Nic: Yeah, it’s going to be so fun. And we’ve got Ash Ambirge as our day one keynote speakers. So I think having you two ladies on the same stage is going to be a little bit, a little bit amazing if I’m honest.
Denise: We’ve never met in person either, but we have connected online, so I’m so excited to meet her in person.
Nic: That’s awesome. Cool. Yeah. So, just want to mention that you can get more information about that at magicmakerlive.com tickets are on sale now. And for those of us out there who maybe aren’t familiar with you, and this is the first time we’ve met you, where can they go to find out more about you?
Denise: Yes, I’m at denisedt.com, tons of resources there and that’s my social handle everywhere. So Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Denisedt stands for Duffield-Thomas. I love Instagram and so I always ask people, if you hear me on a podcast take a screenshot of the [inaudible] for this podcast and tag myself and Nic and tell us in [inaudible] that you’re actually going to implement. That’s the best way to connect with me online because again, Virgo, I love being of use. When someone’s like, oh, I took this thing and then I did it, I’m like Virgo-gasm. I was of service to them. That’s so cool. So yeah, please do that.
Nic: Love that. That’s a great idea. Thank you. And you have a new book out.
Denise: I do. So I’ve got a book called Lucky Bitch about manifesting a book called Get Rich, Lucky Bitch around money. And my newest book, Chillpreneur is all about business and doing things in an easier, I’m not going to say easy, just easier path of least resistance way. You can find them in the normal places, Amazon and all the places that books are sold. And the other thing I love is when people send me a picture of where they see my book out in the world because I mean Newcastle, Australia and someone sends it to me the other day that’s in Calgary and I just thought, that’s so cool.
Nic: That’s so cool. I used to get that with my book as well and it’d be an all these little random bookshelves. I got one the other day where it was on the coffee table in the HGTV show. It was just sitting on a table. Someone screenshotted the TV and oh my God.
Denise: I want that to happen. That is my bucket list. Okay. Thank you for giving me another idea
Nic: Now you’ve got something to manifest. I can send you the screenshot and you can replace my book with your book
Denise: So cool. One of my friends, she was in Orange Is The New Black. She was on the TV in one of the scenes.
Nic: And the last thing I’ll say is, obviously we’re going to have your book at the conference and if you come to the conference, you can have Denise sign your book there. She’ll put her, or any book you want to bring because I got a lot out of Get Rich, Lucky Bitch as well. It’s a great manual. Thank you so much for the time Denise, really appreciate it. Thanks for sharing your wisdom with us and we can’t wait to see you in London.
Denise: My pleasure. Thanks Nic. Bye.
Attention all UK based magic makers. I want to share with you this amazing conference that we are having October 15th and 16th in London where the big promise is that we are going to get you crystal clear on your purpose, your products, and your communication so that you can go out there and attract and convert your ideal client with more ease. I am so, so, so excited about this event where I will be leading this incredible group of really tell it like it is women who are going to help you get past blocks in your business who are going to help you with that communication, understanding your products. I’m going to lead you through learning more about your why. We have the amazing Ash Ambirge on day one who’s going to help us get brave, the fantastic Denise Duffield Thomas on day two who’s helping us with having a more chilled business and working on that belief that money has to be hard to earn, as well as the fantastic Janet Murray who is helping us look at our content.
Jessica Lorimer who is a seven-figure sales coach who’s going to help us get past her fear of selling as well as Catherine Watkin who is a heart centered sales coach who’s going to help us make the sale, not so salesy and we’ve got Lisa Johnson, the passive income queen, my business partner from America, Jane Harrell who is an amazing digital marketer helping us with some of the more data driven parts of our business. You would not believe the people we have on our rebel panel as well. We’re going to be talking about Instagram. We’re going to be talking about what it’s like to be a mum who’s an entrepreneur. We’re going to be talking a little bit about the pet space. We are going to be diving into so many ways that we can help you get that momentum and that consistency moving forward as we work on your communication, your purpose and your products.
So I hope you can join us. We are offering some incredible really short term offers, some giveaways and some discounts and all you need to do to get access to that is jump over to our free Facebook group. And that is where the conversation is happening. We have a two for one deal on tickets. It’s only good until October 1st but we’re helping match people up with buddies inside that group. So I’d love for you to come pop over there. If you’re interested in coming to this conference, make sure you get involved and reach out over at facebook.com/groups/magicmakershq and if you’ve already got your ticket, I am so excited to see you there. If you’re interested in upgrading to VIP where you get to have an incredible drinks reception with Ash, an amazing intimate lunch with Denise as well as a whole third day of masterminding where you will receive our 2020 magic maker printed planner. This beast is amazing. It comes with some extra planning calls throughout the year, which is our gift to you as a VIP guests. Then hop over to that group and let us know there, or email us at [email protected] and we will help you get upgraded to VIP. Hope to see you there. Bye.
