2022 was a year of massive personal growth behind the scenes, ending with some huge changes in my business (the latest of which I’ll share at the end of this review). I got more visible than ever before, publishing my book, hosting my first summit, doubling my email list and tripling the number of students in my courses, and took 5 weeks off in the Caribbean. This is my year in review.
2022 was a year of massive personal growth behind the scenes, ending with some huge changes in my business, the latest of which I am going to share at the end of this review, I got more visible than ever before publishing my book hosting my first summit, doubling my email list and tripling the number of students in my courses, and I took five weeks off in the Caribbean. This is my Year in Review. You’re listening to quietly ambitious with conversations about how it really feels to build a business that honours your whole self unapologetically. And that includes who you are, how you feel, what you really desire, the impact that you want to create, and importantly, the money you want to make. I’m your host, Ruth Poundwhite. And my superpower is supporting sensitive and ambitious humans to make more money by fully expressing and owning all of who they are. Let’s dive in. Hi, and welcome to another solo episode of The quietly ambitious podcast. I absolutely love reading people’s Year in Review reflections. And it has always been a supportive and powerful experience to write my own urine review. And if you go on my website, you can find reviews from previous years 2021 all the way through to 2018. And unlike past years, when I planned to write my review as early in January as I possibly could, this year, I actually took the pressure off, and I decided to let it all come whenever it was ready. And honestly, I have been deliberately starting this year of a lot more slowly, after an important lesson that I learned actually at the start of 2022, which I’m going to share in a little bit what that lesson was. So as I was writing this review, I can really feel and reflect on the fact that a lot has changed internally, a lot has been shifting in myself and in my business throughout the whole year. And honestly, I would say that 2022 was the year that I really embarked on a deeper healing journey, the year that I made the most of getting out after staying mostly at home or with a very young child. And then during the pandemic. And the year that I really started to know in my body, the value of myself and the work that I do in this world. And obviously, of course, I did publish your book as well. And I hosted my first ever summit and I also took five weeks off in the Caribbean. But they’re just the headlines, right? If you want the juicy stuff, this is where we’re going in this episode. And I do have quite a huge announcement, which I’m going to share with you at the end of the review. I’m kind of nervous about sharing it as well. Okay, so let’s start by reflecting on my 2022 intentions. So every year I share my word and intentions for the year ahead. And I will be doing that, hopefully next week. For my 2023 Word and intentions. My word for 2022 was embody. And by the way, in the show notes in the blog post version of this review, there are loads of links. So if you want to link to what I wrote last year, if you want to link to anything I mentioned in this episode, go to my website, Ruth poundwhite.com forward slash podcast and it’s all in the show notes. Okay, so my word for 2022 was embody. And the intention really was for this word, to remind me to practice what I preach to remind me to claim my unique magic to live in alignment and integrity with my values and my desires, and to be more in my body and less in my head. And when I say it like that, it seems like a pretty high standard to hold myself to like brilliant and a very high standard, right? That’s easy to fall short of. But the word embodied to me also means embodying my humaneness and being in touch with all parts of me. So not just, you know, the values lead practising what I preach, putting myself out there being in my body, doing all the right things, but also the fearful part of me, the parts of me that might traditionally be described as sabotaging parts of me as well. And honestly, the word embody was so supportive of my desire to be both radically responsible for my own ways of being in an effort to become the most expressed version of my true self, that self that I have been neath the fear and the conditioning, alongside showing myself compassion for all of my current patterns and ways of thinking which can feel hard. And by the way, this is something I’m going to speak about a lot in a lot more detail in my upcoming three day free mini course activate your power in 2023, which starts on January 23. And you can sign up for free at Ruth poundwhite.com forward slash activate. So I’m going to share more of what embody look like in practice in my Full Review. So let’s dive in, starting with winter and starting the year in gratitude. So I started 2022. With a practice that honestly, I now recommend to everyone. So over the course of a few days, I went through all of the photos and videos on my phone from the whole year. So from 2021. And I added the best ones to a greatest hits photo album. And I can’t tell you how much of a difference this this practice made to me honestly, when I went 2021 was first over, and I hadn’t done this practice yet, I was kind of thinking 2020 2021 was a hard year. And I’m glad to see the back of it. But after going through all my photos, after creating that photo album, I felt totally differently. So giving myself this time, not just to process but to remember and to reflect and to see all the little details that you forget about when you’re looking back at it right or when you’re kind of thinking back at it in one big block, I feel makes such a difference to starting the new year in an empowered and grounded way instead of just being swept along by whatever my brain is telling me in the moment about what I achieved or what I should be doing next. Like there’s such a difference in those two different ways of starting the year.
And at the start of 2022. Another thing that was going on was we also made a huge personal decision to travel to Barbados for five weeks in the spring. I actually have family in Barbados, I’m so lucky that I have visited maybe eight or nine times throughout my life. And since my son was going to start school later in the year, plus, obviously COVID restrictions were lifting, it really did feel like the perfect opportunity to make it happen. So we booked the tickets at the beginning of 2022. And business wise, I started the year by raising my prices on most of my courses and workshops. And I really remember that I had known I wanted to do this for a while before I actually put it into motion. And looking back. I’m like, I’m so glad I did it like what took me so long. And it is so much easier. It’s so so much easier to make a decent chunk of money when you are launching a programme at three or four figure amounts than to figure him out. Trust me. I mean, it seems obvious, right? But so many of us have this idea in our heads that it’s easier to sell something that’s much cheaper. But in the long run, it’s so much easier when you’re getting well paid for what you’re doing. And honestly, having looked back at my launch stats towards the end of 2022, it didn’t actually make any difference to the number of sales. So I hope that that can be a lesson to us all. And another thing I did at the beginning of 2022 was I took myself to an Airbnb for some new year dreaming and up levelling. And I went to I attended an online three day event, from my coach, Suzie run by my coach Susie Ashworth, a quantum shift event. And it was during this event that I had another pricing desire drop in to my consciousness, I had a knowing that I wanted to raise the price of my one to one coaching calls package significantly. So this happened back in January, as someone with chronic fatigue and a mind that does need taking good care of filling my calendar with too many calls is not good for me. And I know that about myself. So one on one time with me has to come at a premium that is the only way it is sustainable for me. And it’s the only way that clients that clients are going to get the best of me as a coach. But it’s not just about, you know, justifying it with those reasons. It was literally a deeper inner knowing that it was more aligned for me to sell it at a higher price. And spoiler alert, I actually did not raise the prices to the number that I had in mind for the entire year. This was honestly like the biggest inner battle that I have had over pricing since I started my business. And I do think it’s actually really deeply connected to the personal journey that I went on throughout the year, which you’re going to hear all about. But the prices are going up on the 31st of January. So you’ve got until then if you’re thinking about working together, go to Ruth poundwhite.com forward slash mentoring, the prices are going up the first of January. So that was how the year started. Now moving on to spring and preparing for the big trip. So with a big five week gap in my schedule coming up at the end of March, you know, planning to go to Barbados. I had a lot to plan in around it and before it I haven’t mentioned this yet, but one of my projects in 2022 was to publish my book, right? So I had to push the book launch back it should have actually come out probably in 2021 and I’ve kept pushing it back so many times. I’ll share more about that later. So it was frustrating to push it back again. But it was also very necessary. And our trip to Barbados was set to cost us a lot of money. And it really, Barbados is not the cheapest holiday destination, but it personally means a lot to me. So there was nowhere else I wanted to go. But it also meant that money was on my mind. So I made a plan to relaunch my group programme rest and rise. And the launch actually ended two days before we were booked to fly out. Now, I really do not recommend this strategy. But it was the only way that I could make it work. And it was a lot for my nervous system. But it was also an another, another incredible five figure launch. And I welcomed some brilliant new clients, who would you to start once I came back in April. At the same time, I also had several clients renew all at once. And it really like I’m so grateful that all of that happened at the same time because it was exactly what I needed to boost my confidence when it came to money. Before taking such a huge chunk of time off huge in my mind anyway, and I’ll get to that again later. And what that time in Barbados gave me was some beautiful, beautiful headspace and so many lessons. So before I left for Barbados, the people pleasing part of me was really, really showing up. I had thoughts like, what are my clients gonna think of me taking so much time away? And am I being too much by sharing my huge travel plans? Will they judge me and all of this stuff was going on my head. But once I was actually there, it became so clear to me like five weeks away is nothing. But what I have to remind myself of again and again is that the traditional work culture, it runs very deep, even in someone who has been self employed for 14 years, and has also in the past, taken a whole year out of travel, it runs so deep. And also reminding myself acting on my dreams is inspiring to my right people. I honestly was the only one judging myself. And mentally five weeks away, it was the best gift I could have given myself. I reflected when I was there that I had not had that much headspace since my son was born at the end of 2017. I completely cleared my mind of any thoughts of work of business of growth of money even, you know, sort of, you know, budgeted for the money beforehand. And I only caught up with my clients a few times. So while I was away, it felt so easy. There was no sense of urgency for anything. And my fatigue did not flare up from the travel. It was one of my fears that it would but I guess all the other stuff probably really helped. Now don’t get me wrong travelling with a four year old was exhausting. At times the jetlag was way worse than normal, dealing with him waking up really early. And I also realised I had a painful realisation that actually holidaying in Barbados was much different now at 35 with a four year old than it was when I was 19. And I was free and single and can drink all the rum and visit all the reggae bars I wanted to visit. But anyway, once I got over that I was so grateful that I made this happen for our family. Now moving on to summer, and quietly ambitious the book. So June the seventh team saw the release of my book quietly ambitious, you can find out more at Ruth poundwhite.com forward slash book. And with that, obviously came a lot of feelings. Now I admit to being way more disorganised than I wanted to be with the book launch. I made way more last minute edits to the book than I had planned. And just a side note here. The book is actually based on this podcast. It was drafted and edited by my friend based on podcast episodes, dropped and edited by my friend and mastermind sister Genevieve Parker hill. But I also decided to add a lot to it. And we do there is an earlier podcast episode where I interviewed Genevieve, if you want to hear more about the process of like dictating a book or turning a podcast into a book. It’s a brilliant way to write book. But yeah, I did add a lot to it. And I also failed to send it out to readers for review far enough in advance. So which is you know, you’re supposed to do that. There’s a lot of things you’re supposed to do that I did not do because I was you know doing it so last minute and adding too much and editing too much anyway. I got creative and I asked for testimonials from my clients about what the quite the ambitious philosophy meant to them. And that was a beautiful thing to have done for myself. It’s not the traditional way of doing it. But it was so amazing reading what people had to say about being quality, ambitious, and the podcast. It was really exciting when the book was out there and I was watching those sales come in and I saw my book hit the top new releases on Amazon Kindle. When I first released it was only available on Kindle and then later that day paperback came out. But the biggest thing about launching a book was how much it the process would invite me to properly reflect on my own journey to read my own words and feelings over and over and over again, and to really bed in those lessons. And at the same time seeing how much I have already grown and changed since I originally spoke and wrote those lessons out. And actually, that process of, you know, editing, writing, releasing the book really led to a few big business decisions that I’m going to share with you later, including a new one that I haven’t talked about yet.
Moving on to the summer of music, and COVID. So one of the things I’m actually most proud of one of the personal things I’m most proud of from 2022 Is that I went to two comedy shows and six gigs or concerts for those who don’t know what I’m all about when I use the word gigs. I saw Kasabian, Liam Gallagher I sort of Stereophonics and Tom Jones, I saw Harry Styles, I saw Jimmy world, sort of Coldplay, I saw placebo. And you might notice a theme, if you’re familiar with any of these artists, most of them have been around for a while. Except for Harry Styles. They were bands that I used to love as a teenager. And let’s just say that there were many tears involved. And that my inner teen felt so seen and inspired. It was such a great thing to do for myself, I that was a side effect that I hadn’t expected. But it was amazing. Now, obviously, there is a downside to going out that much, lots of money, spend lots of childcare, and lots of exposure to germs. So I came down with COVID in June, just after my book launch, and just after my third gig of the year, and it was an experience. Obviously, I’m so grateful that I was essentially fine. I had no health complications, very, very grateful for that. But I did find the physical fatigue and the intense brain fog really hard to deal with. And this is coming from someone who already has chronic fatigue. I’ve never experienced it like that, though. And it also had a really unexpected effect on my mental state like my inner dialogue. I had really negative thinking and self talk, which I didn’t realise at first, it was helpful once I realised it was exaggerated. And yeah, it was really difficult to experience at the time. But when I was able to reflect on it a bit more rationally, it did remind me just how far I’ve come. And how much I actually used to think that way on a daily basis, which is just quite confronting to like be reminded of that. Moving on to autumn and my biggest ever event and creating new ways of working. So Autumn was all about the soulful sales Summit. I had had the summit in a box course. Let me give you my affiliate link, it’s Ruth poundwhite.com forward slash URL forward slash summit course, where you can find it in the show notes. It’s a really great course, I had had it for almost a year planning to do a summit and I had been delaying it and delaying it just like I did with the book until I finally made it happen in October. Now there is too much to say about running a summit like I could do an entire podcast episode and more. And I did do more actually, I have a whole recorded summit debrief that you can buy for $44 from my website, but in short, it added a lot of people to my email list. It generated over $10,000 in revenue. It really helped me to own my authority. And it was an indescribable amount of work, honestly, the most work I’ve done for anything like that. So would I do it again? Maybe Maybe not, I don’t know. But yeah, you can listen to my debrief if you’re thinking of doing a summit. Around the same time after coming off the back of an incredible first experiment with a Voxer only group coaching container that lasted a week, I decided in the autumn of 2022 to start offering one to one Voxer coaching. So no calls just all coaches on Voxer in addition to my package that does include calls but it is a higher price. And this is really in alignment with those realisations I had about my pricing back in January. This was the best decision like such a good decision to go to, to create a package of voxel only coaching. And I knew I knew as soon as I started working with my first voxel only client, I knew it was a great decision. There are actually only a few really specific techniques that can’t be done over Voxer and bearing in mind, I’m trained in a lot of different coaching modalities. There are only a few things that cannot be done over Voxer but otherwise I see incredible growth. So much progress from The asynchronous coaching that I do on Voxer. And just a few episodes back, I was talking to make Harrop about asynchronous communication. So if you want to hear more about that, go and listen to the episode but yeah Voxer coaching is magical, like calls coaching on calls is magical too. But Voxer coaching is just as valuable as call based coaching in my experience. And like I said earlier, by the way, all of my one to one coaching prices are going up January 3 31st, if you want in on the Voxer coaching and just because I didn’t know where else to fit this in 2022 was also my biggest income year, I did not hit my goals. And honestly, I’m always telling my clients that it’s actually normal not to hit every goal you make and it’s okay. But I am celebrating the growth. I also ended the year with my biggest free masterclass with 600. Signups I doubled my email list in 2022. And you can see my cultivate course for more about email marketing. And I now have almost 4000 students in my almost Online Course Platform, which is just blowing my mind incredible. But let’s also talk about the big shifts the intuitive decisions and a shift in identity. So personally, I would describe most of 2022 as a year of growth, a year of cleansing and a year of healing. What I haven’t talked about much, but was actually a huge part of my inner world was the discombobulation I felt at peeling back yet another layer of conditioning and subconscious patterns. I dove deep into understanding my insecure avoidant attachment style, I made huge progress in connecting with myself in a deeper way than ever before. Ultimately, the work that I have done and I’m doing is beautiful, and leads to so much more goodness and colour and joy in life. And it’s really bloody hard when you’re in it. And I actually shared more about that experience in a live I did exclusively for members of my client, only Facebook group the inside, if you want to watch that you can join the group by buying anything they offer, you’ll get invited to the group then anyway, I found I finally came out of the other side of all that confusion in the latter half of 2020, to feeling so empowered and so excited for what was to come. And just finally really knowing in my body, what it means to feel your greatness, and to feel it without needing to dismiss the fearful parts of me. They’re still here, they still ask to be seen. But yeah, it was a real year of discombobulation and just that feeling of coming out the other side. So the culmination the culmination of all of this, the inner understanding the somatic repatterning, the massive up levelling visibility. With the book summit, the audience growth was a decision to change my positioning, so I am no longer talking to sensitive business owners. I mean, you’re going to see it on my website and stuff because I haven’t updated everything yet. But the decision came from a really strong sense during running my Summit, actually that there was no need to describe my audience that way. And actually, I work with so many clients who don’t necessarily identify that way already. The invitation for me, is to be the embodiment of who my right people desire to be, rather than finding the exact right words to describe them. I hope that that makes sense. And I closed my biggest programme rasterize that was a huge decision. I wrote I spoke about it in a recent podcast episode. And it really was a bittersweet decision because I can hand on heart say I loved all of my clients in there. And I had really hit my stride when it came to coaching and a group space like doing in a way that deeply supported them, and really honoured the way that I work best. And at the same time, I am not the same person that I was when I created the original programme. And the original promise of that programme. And I know it was the right decision because I’ve been so full of creative ideas, since I made that decision, but it’s scary, you know, making a big, bold move to close something like that in your business. And finally, today’s announcement, the big one that I haven’t shared yet.
The quietly ambitious era is coming to an end. So something shifted when I released the book. And it really felt like a chapter of my journey was coming to a close. So this podcast is going to be ending in a few weeks time and I’m going to wait patiently for the next podcast idea and group programme idea to drop in. It makes me feel really good Nervous and emotional actually to share this with you. And I promise you, I’m gonna do my best to do justice to what you and I have created with this podcast before we come to a close. I also want to invite you to please and I would be so grateful. If you could share your thoughts with me. For a chance to be featured in the final, quite ambitious podcast episode, so feel free to send me a voice note on Voxer I’m at Ruth Poundwhite there, or send me an audio file of you sharing a short clip of what quietly ambitious means to you or talking about your favourite guests are talking about your favourite episodes or lessons. And feel free to introduce yourself as your name from your website.com Just give yourself a little plug. I would really love to hear your messages to be featured in the final episode. And yeah, feels like another big bold move. And it’s hard to let go of something that’s been so incredible, like the podcast has been such a big key part of my journey. But we still have a few episodes to come before we’re gonna finish. I’m going to share my 2023 intentions with you next week. We’ve got our season seven bonus guests compilation coming. Bonus guest questions complete compilation. And then we’ve got the final episode. So yeah, I’ve said it now. It’s happening. So that was my announcement. That was my overview of the year. And yes, it was challenging behind the scenes. And it was almost always clear to me throughout the year that there was going to be so much beauty on the other side of the hard stuff. And I’m really excited to see what 2023 brings as a result. So yes, I’m going to save what’s coming in for the year ahead for a future episode. But in short, I am ready for an even greater level of freedom in the way I run my business and express who I am. Starting with my first mini course of the year my free mini course activate your power in 2023 Starting January 23 that you can sign up at Ruth poundwhite.com forward slash activate. And I need to end by showing my 2022 greatest hits. So my top five podcast episodes. Episode 108 Two things to remember when you feel it’s not happening quickly enough. That was the top downloaded podcast episode. Then we had episode 104 2020 Do intentions and word of the year. Episode 99 What your business results mean about you a pep talk for tricky times. Episode 114 Why rest is key to trusting yourself and episode 101 how I do it all and the power of imperfect experimentation. My top blog post every single year is always how to start podcasts that one just does so well on Pinterest, it’s always the top one. I did release a few new freebies in 2022 including the soulful selling workbook and visualisation, which you can get at Ruth poundwhite.com forward slash free forward slash selling. I’ve got some other freebies listed in the written version of this. And the top five programmes I sold were rest and rise, which is no more metamorphosis the magic of you unleashed, which I pre launched at the end of 2022 Quite ambition and the line offers experience. So that was my year. That was my year. In a nutshell, I hope that you found this enlightening, inspiring, whatever helpful, interesting, whatever. And I would really appreciate you sending me an email to hi at Ruth poundwhite.com with your thoughts about the quietly ambitious podcast, ideally, ideally, in audio format so that we can share them in the final episode of yet. And like I said, feel free. Feel free to share your name and your website. So you get a little bit of a plug in there as well. And just thank you for being part of it. And I feel really nervous sharing this announcement with you. But I know it is the right thing. And I will talk to you more about that decision as we come to a close in the next few weeks. In the meantime, you know where to find me on social media. I’m at Ruth Poundwhite COMM And share your thoughts with me. And thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of quietly ambitious. If you have a moment to rate and review know that it really does make a difference. And if you’d like to carry on the conversation, then you can connect with me on Instagram at Ruth Poundwhite Join me in the Facebook group or my personal favourite. Sign up to my newsletter letters to quietly ambitious humans. Just go to Ruth poundwhite.com forward slash newsletter to subscribe and keep doing what you’re doing because your work really does matter.
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2022 Year in Review
I adore reading other people’s “year in review” reflections, and writing my own has always been a powerful experience (links to previous years: 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018). Unlike past years, when I planned to write it as early in January as possible, this year I took the pressure off and decided to let it all come when it’s ready. In fact, I’m deliberately starting 2023 off slowly, after an important lesson I learned at the start of 2022, which I’ll share in the “winter” updates below.
As I write this, a lot has changed internally, and it has been shifting in my business throughout the year. 2022 was the year that I embarked on a deeper healing journey, the year I made the most of getting out there (after staying mostly at home with a very young child and then during the pandemic), and that I really started to know – in my body – the value of myself and the work I do in this world. Oh, and I published a book, hosted my first ever summit and took 5 weeks off in the Caribbean!
Reflecting On My 2022 Intentions
Every year I share my word & intentions for the year ahead (that’s coming soon for 2023). My word for 2022 was embody and the intention was for it to remind me to practice what I preach, claim my unique magic, live in alignment and integrity with my values & desires, and be more in my body and less in my head.
Written down that way, it seems like a pretty high standard to hold myself to, and it might have been easy to fall short. But embody also means embodying my humanness, and being in touch with all parts of me – including the fearful, might-traditionally-be-described as “sabotaging” parts of me.
The word “embody” was so supportive of my desire to be radically responsible for my own ways of being – in an effort to become the most expressed version of my true self (beneath the fear and conditioning) – alongside showing myself compassion for all of my current patterns and ways of thinking. Which, by the way, is something I’ll speak about in more detail in my upcoming 3-day free mini-course, Activate Your Power in 2023, which starts January 23rd.
I’ll share more of what “embody” looked like in practice in my full review, so let’s dive in!
Winter
Starting the Year In Gratitude
I started 2022 with a practice that I now recommend to everyone: over the course of several days, I went through all of the photos & videos on my phone from the year before, and added the best ones to a “greatest hits” photo album. At the start of the process I simply thought of 2021 as a “hard year” that I was glad was over. I felt totally differently at the end of that process.
Giving myself time not just to process, but to remember and reflect makes all the difference between starting the year in an empowered & grounded way vs. being swept along by whatever my brain tells me in this moment about what I achieved & what I should be doing next.
We also made a huge personal decision at the beginning of 2022 – to travel to Barbados for 5 weeks in Spring. I have family there and am lucky enough to have visited 8 or 9 times throughout my life, and with my son starting school later in the year, plus covid restrictions lifting, it felt like the perfect opportunity to make it happen and book the tickets.
Connecting With My Business
Business-wise, I started the year by raising the prices on most of my courses & workshops. I remember knowing that I wanted to do this for a while before setting it into motion, and now looking back I’m so glad I did it. Honestly, it’s so much easier to make a decent chunk of cash when you’re launching a programme at three or four figure amounts than two-figures. And having looked at my launch stats towards the end of 2022, it didn’t make any difference to the number of sales – so let that be a lesson to us all!
I also took myself to an Air BnB for some New Year dreaming and upleveling thanks to my coach Suzy Ashworth’s live, 3-day Quantum Shift event, and had another pricing desire drop in. I knew I wanted to raise the price of my 1:1 coaching calls package, significantly. As someone with chronic fatigue and a mind that needs taking good care of, filling my calendar with too many calls is not good for me. So one on one time with me has to come at a premium. But this was more about what it “should” cost – it was a deeper inner knowing about what was in alignment for me to sell.
Spoiler alert: I didn’t raise them to the number I wanted in the entire year (they’re about to go up on January 31st). It was the hardest inner “battle” I’ve had over pricing since I started, and one I think is deeply connected to the personal journey I’ve been on, which I’ll share more about as we go on.
Spring
Preparing for the “Big Trip”
With a big, 5-week gap in my schedule coming up at the end of March, I had a lot to plan in around it. I pushed the book launch back (it should have originally come out in 2021, so this felt frustrating, but necessary). Our trip to Barbados was set to cost us a lot of money – it’s not the cheapest holiday destination, but it did mean the most to me, and there was nowhere else I’d rather travel.
So I made a plan to re-launch my group programme, REST & Rise, ending TWO DAYS before we were booked to fly out. I do not recommend this strategy, but it was the only way I could make it work. Honestly, it was a lot for my nervous system, but it was another 5-figure launch and I welcomed some incredible new clients who were due to start once I was back in April. Coupled with several client renewals, it was exactly what I needed to boost my confidence before taking such a huge (in my mind anyway) chunk of time off.
Beautiful Headspace
Before I left for Barbados, the people-pleasing part of me was showing up, big time. What will my clients think of me taking so much time away? Am I being TOO MUCH by sharing my huge travel plans? Will they judge me?! But once I was there it all became clear: 5 weeks is nothing, but traditional work culture runs deep, even for someone who has been self-employed for 14 years and has taken a whole year out to travel. And acting on my dreams is inspiring to my right people – I was the only one judging me.
Mentally, 5 weeks away was the greatest gift I could have given myself. I hadn’t had that much headspace since my son was born at the end of 2017. I completely cleared my mind of any thoughts of work or growth, I only caught up with my clients a few times and it felt easy, there was no sense of urgency for anything, and my fatigue didn’t flare up from the travel as I had feared.
Don’t get me wrong, travelling with a 4-year old was exhausting at times, the jet lag was way worse than normal dealing with his wake-ups, and I realised that holidaying in Barbados was much different now at 35 with a 4 year old than it was at 19 when I was free and single and could drink all the rum and visit all the reggae bars I wanted. But once I got over that, I was so grateful I made this happen for our family.
Summer
Quietly Ambitious: The Book
June 17th saw the release of my book, Quietly Ambitious, and with it a lot of FEELINGS. I admit to being way more disorganised than I wanted to be, making way more last-minute edits to the book than I planned* and failing to send it out to readers for review far enough in advance. So I got creative and asked for testimonials from my clients about what the “quietly ambitious” philosophy meant to them, and my goodness was that a beautiful thing to have done for myself.
It was so exciting watching those first day sales and seeing my book hit the “top new releases” in Amazon Kindle (the paperback came a little later). But the biggest thing about launching a book was how much it would invite me to properly reflect on my own journey, to read my own words and feelings over and over again, and to really bed in those lessons while seeing how much I’ve already grown and changed since I originally spoke and wrote them. In fact, that process eventually led to a few BIG business decisions that you’ll read about later.
*the book is actually based on my podcast, drafted and edited by my friend and mastermind sister Genevieve Parker-Hill, but I decided to add a lot to it – listen to our podcast chat about this process here.
The Summer of Music (& Covid)
One of the things I am most proud of from 2022 is that I went to two comedy shows and six gigs (or “concerts” for those who don’t know what I’m on about). I saw Kasabian & Liam Gallagher, Stereophonics & Tom Jones, Harry Styles, Jimmy Eat World, Coldplay, and Placebo. You might notice a theme if you’re familiar with these artists: most of them have been around for a while. They were bands I loved as a teenager, and let’s just say there were tears involved and my inner teen felt so seen and inspired.
All of that takes toll of course – lots of money, lots of childcare, and lots of exposure to… germs. I came down with Covid in June, just after my book launch and my 3rd gig of the year, and it was an experience to say the least. I’m grateful that I was essentially fine, with no complications, but I found the physical fatigue and intense brain fog hard to deal with. It has an unexpected effect on my inner dialogue, leading to very negative thinking and self-talk, which, though really difficult to experience, reminded me just how far I’ve come and how much I used to think that way on a daily basis.
Autumn
My Biggest Ever Event & New Ways of Working
Autumn was all about the Soulful Sales Summit. I’d had the Summit in a Box course (that’s an affiliate link) for almost a year at this point, delaying the event again and again (just like I did the book) until I finally made it happen. There’s too much to say about this for a short paragraph (and I have a whole recorded debrief for $44 here), but in short it added a lot of people to my list, generated over $10k in revenue, really helped me own my authority AND was an indescribable amount of work (seriously). Would I do it again? Maybe, maybe not.
Around the same time, after coming off the back of an incredible first experiment with a Voxer-only group coaching container lasting a week, I decided to offer 1:1 Voxer coaching in addition to my higher-priced package that includes calls (in alignment with my realisations back in January). This was the best decision I made, and I knew as soon as I started working with my first brilliant client. There are only a few specific techniques that can’t be done over Voxer, but otherwise I see incredible growth and progress from the asynchronous coaching I do there. It’s magical, and honestly just as valuable as call-based coaching. (By the way, all my 1:1 coaching prices are going up January 31st).
And, just because I didn’t know where else to fit this in, 2022 was also my biggest income year. I didn’t hit my goals (and I’m always telling clients that it’s normal not to hit every goal you make!), but I am celebrating the growth. I also ended the year with my biggest free masterclass (with 600 sign ups), doubled my email list in 2022 (see my Cultivate course for more about email marketing), and now have almost 4000 students in my online course platform, which is incredible.
Bold Shifts, Intuitive Decisions & A Shift In Identity
Personally, I would describe most of 2022 as a year of growth, cleansing and healing. What I haven’t talked about much, but was a huge part of my inner world, was the discombobulation I felt at peeling back yet another layer of conditioning and subconscious patterns. I dove deep into understanding my insecure “avoidant” attachment style, and made huge progress in connecting with myself in a deeper way than ever before.
Ultimately this work is so beautiful and leads to so much more goodness and colour in life AND it’s really bloody hard when you’re “in it” (I shared more about that in a live exclusively for members of my client-only Facebook group, the Inside, which you can join by purchasing anything I offer). I finally came out the other side of the confusion in the latter half of the year feeling so empowered and excited for what was to come, finally knowing in my bones what it means to feel your greatness (and without dismissing those fearful parts of me that are still here and still asking to be seen).
The Culmination
The culmination of it all – the inner understanding, the somatic repatterning, and the massive up level in visibility (with the book, the summit, & the huge audience growth) – was a decision to change my positioning.
I am no longer talking to “sensitive” business owners. There’s too much to say here, but I had a strong sense during the summit that there was no need to describe my audience that way (and, indeed, I work with so many clients who don’t necessarily identify that way). The invitation is to be the embodiment of who my right people desire to be, rather than finding the exact right words to describe them.
And I closed my biggest programme, REST & Rise. As I spoke about in a recent podcast episode, it was bitersweet. I can hand on heart say I loved all of my clients, and that I had really hit my stride coaching in a group space. And yet, I am not the same person I was when I created the original programme and promise. And I know it was the right decision, because I’ve been full to the brim with creative ides ever since I made it.
Saying Goodbye to Quietly Ambitious
And finally – this is the big one that I haven’t shared yet – the Quietly Ambitious era is coming to an end. Something shifted when I released the book. It really did feel like a chapter of my journey coming to a close. So the podcast will be ending in a few weeks time, and I’ll be patiently waiting for the next podcast and group programme ideas to drop in!
I promise you, I’ll be doing justice to what you and I have created with this podcast before we come to a close. I’ll also be inviting you to share your thoughts with me for a chance to feature in the final episode (feel free to Voxer me or send me an audio file of you sharing a short clip of what Quietly Ambitious means to you, your favourite guests, episodes or lessons, and feel free to introduce yourself and give your website URL)
We still have a few episodes to come before then, including my 2023 intentions, our season 7 bonus guest compilation and the final episode.
What’s Next?
So that’s an overview of my year. Although it was challenging behind the scenes, it was almost always clear to me the beauty that was on the other side of that challenge, and I’m excited to see what 2023 brings as a result. I’ll save what’s coming in the year ahead for a future post, but in short I’m ready for a greater level of freedom in the way I run my business and express who I am. Starting with my first new free mini course of the year, Activate Your Power in 2023, starting January 23rd.
Top Investments I Made: another year of group coaching with Suzy Ashworth, Elizabeth Goddard’s Profitable Playground* (*that’s an affiliate link)
Quietly Ambitious
If you enjoyed the podcast and want to share on social media – thank you! Can you use the hashtag #QuietlyAmbitious so that we can continue the conversation on social media, and so that I can find you? I’d love to see what resonated with you after each episode!
Ask Me Anything!
I’m also planning to make Q&A episodes a semi-regular part of the show, so if you have any questions make sure you’re in my private Facebook group, as I’ll be calling on you to send those questions my way.
When you subscribe to updates you get access to 3 bonus episodes of the podcast – exclusively for email subscribers – that dive behind the scenes of my business (I talk about failures, money, community & more!)
