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Welcome to Make More Money Without Selling Your Soul. The podcast for bold entrepreneurs ready to simplify scale and reclaim their time. I’m Polly Lavarello, Evergreen scaling strategist and cushy business pioneer. Join me and my occasional guests as we explore the themes of wealth, selling and well-being, because building a business that works for you changes everything. Let’s dive in.

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Hello and welcome back to the show. I’m really excited to share this particular guest episode with you, because it’s the first time somebody’s story actually brought me to tears, and I suspect it’s going to really move you too. But without further ado, the wonderful guest is the wildly brilliant ebony. Allard ebony is a mystic mentor, creative rebel and somebody who’s burned the rule book more than once we are going to be talking about rising, crashing. And when I say crashing, I mean, wow, you’ve got to hear the story, and then rising again, but louder, freer and more ebony, more herself, and what that means for you too, in terms of defining wealth and building a business that doesn’t bore you to bear death. Beth to death. Sorry. Beth. This one’s for the misfits who want success on their own damn terms. Let’s get into it. Welcome ebony to the show. I’m so excited to be having this conversation with you. I am very happy to be here. Thank you. So before we get into the theme of what wealth means to you, which I think is such a valuable conversation in a world where, in the online business space, people are just arbitrarily chasing numbers without really thinking about what they mean. But before we dive into that, for anyone who’s new to you, do you mind introducing yourselves to my listeners, please, I am

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a multi hyphen in so many different ways, but the essence of what I am all about is helping you to become full of yourself. Because who the hell else should you be full of? And really, it’s all about aligning to your unique design, like what you are made of and how you’re made to interact with the world and your soul contract, whatever that might be. And so, yeah, it’s about 360 degree fulfillment, so physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually for me and I help you, and the you is culture makers and that that’s both very specific and quite broad, but anyone who informs the culture around them, and that can be mums or dads in a family, or facilitators or strategists or producers or artists or curators, they’re all informing the culture in which we live. And culture makers are my peeps. I love that. I feel like that’s a whole conversation, in and out of itself, culture makers. But I’m really curious to know, has spirituality always played a big role in how you support people and how you navigate business yourself?

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Yes and yes, absolutely, 100% so much so that it’s the invisible water for me, and so for many years, I didn’t talk about it. I don’t feel like it needs to be named for me. It doesn’t look like how it’s become part of the mainstream and part of fashion in a way that it really wasn’t when I was growing up, right? And so that connection to spirit for me is very personal, and it’s about connection to the earth and something before and after and bigger than yourself, and that means something different to everybody. And so it’s always been a part of the conversation for me, because the conversation is always going to lead to purpose and meaning. And for me, on one hand, everything is meaningful and has purpose. And on the other, I’m, like, completely down with stoicism, like you can do stuff just because, right, like, it doesn’t have to be any meaning. And there’s that whole spectrum in between, which means that, yeah, spirituality and like your spirit, ones, like the life force in you and anything is actually what I’m really interested in in any conversation, yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s what I found so interesting, because I was having a little peek around your Instagram, and I saw things about, I know you referenced star signs, and was it gene codes? Have you referenced those gene keys? Yeah, human design, things like that. And I think that’s what, what I was kind of curious about, because I was thinking in terms of being spiritual and being connected to spirit, and that playing an important role in the life that we’re living. Obviously, there’s different flavors of it and different depths of it, and so I guess I was like, if you’re an ice cream shop, like what spirituality you serving up, but I love what you just shared there.

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If I was an ice cream shop, what flavor my serving, and it’s where art and science intersect that for me is true mysticism. And I am a mystic, not a spiritualist. And for me, the difference is that one starts inside and one is outside, and our wound space, our creation area, the place deep within us, that umbilical cord, that’s what links us to spirit. It’s not sitting around staring up at the sky that’s lovely, and that’s another way of connecting. But for me, it’s where we reconnect with creation itself, which is inside of us. I love this, oh my goodness. I feel like there’s so many different layers I’d love to dive into with you on this. But tell me a bit more about your journey, your entrepreneurial journey, like where you are now and where it all started and what got you there, quite a big question. But, you know, how many years have you been in business? I’ve never had a real, proper somebody else employing me job for more than 10 minutes, because I don’t like trading time for money, and never have, and so I’ve never understood it. And so at like 14, when it was like, you know, my dad said, if you want those shoes, you could pay for them yourself. That is when I first started having a relationship with money of my own and being like, Okay, how does one procure money of one’s own? And it seemed like the paradigm was trade time for money. And I’m like, but I’m quicker than other people, but that’s not fair, like, and my dad’s like, life’s not fair. And so that’s kind of where the journey went. And I have evolved and moved through a million different businesses, and that’s interesting in itself. And been a freelancer, business owner, serial entrepreneur, like everything in between, had a lot, had none hired. People been alone, been through insolvency, been through personal bankruptcy, like everything, done it all and, yeah, I think it really like my journey started with this card has been left blank for your own message stickers that I ordered from the back of a magazine at 14 years old, and made cards and got my siblings and friends to help me package them, and then took them into a shop in Brighton lanes and sold them wholesale. And that was my first, I guess, foray into business, which was a long time ago, 1994 so that’s how long I’ve been in business. I love that. I mean, I’m curious to know, because I’m just imagining you’re young, and everyone else around you is maybe thinking about university, or, like you say, doing these kind of Cafe jobs or working in a bar, and here’s you immediately jumping into this entrepreneurial world. And one of the things that comes to my mind is like resiliency, like, what do you think gave you the resiliency to

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pursue that path, even when it at the time, I imagine, was enormously unconventional compared to what others were doing? The answer comes 42 years later, and it’s an ADHD and autism diagnosis, which, you know, isn’t interesting and is given, you know, it gives context to me in a load of ways I should add. But I did go into my local shop and say, I would like to come and work for you, please. I need money. And they were like, well, you’re 14, you need to have a national insurance number. And I was like, Well, if I can sell two of those jumpers in the next hour, will you give me a Saturday job? And he, like, looked at me and laughed. And within the next hour, I sold two. And he was like, Okay, come back next week, I’ll pay you cash. And then I started working for every single shop in the lanes, and got known very quickly, and would open and close shops and train staff. And this all happened, you know, very, very young. And you asked me the question of, like,

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how did it feel compared to my peers? I didn’t really have friends, not in that way. I mean, I was really influenced by everyone around me, and I wanted to be normal. Like, my quest for normal was big, and it never really worked. I just don’t get it. I could just, like, I don’t fit in, yeah, and I want more. And it turns out, like, when you’re 14, 1516, and you tell someone who’s running their own business how to do it better, most of them don’t like it. And so, you know, that thing of resiliency, I don’t, I don’t know that it was ever a choice. Hope picker just got up, you know, pat myself down and started again. I mean, I had to say all that lands so easily for me, also as someone who’s undiagnosed but highly likely. Audhd, because similarly, I didn’t have friends to impress. I’ve never been used to impressing people. So I really relate to that sense of, you know, you’re just forging your own path. And I think you reach an age when you you know, when you do have a brilliant brain and a different way of seeing things, where that kind of becomes your superpower and the thing to lean into and the thing to focus on, and you can forget it.

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Out all the rest of the noise going on around you as you start leaning into those superpowers. Now, I’m curious to know you were kind of referencing like a real colorful picture of your entrepreneurial journey over the last, however, many years. That’s not, let’s not name them. We don’t need to do that. So I’m curious to know, like, if you were to start again, is there anything that you would advise that version of you starting out anything that you’d encourage yourself to do differently,

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stop listening to anyone else other than yourself. They do not know what. I spent 20 years looking for a secret thing I didn’t know, right? And that comes from that lens of I don’t get the world. There’s something I don’t get, yes, and that’s been part of my experience forever, right? Like everyone’s in on something I don’t know or I can’t see, makes me emotional, because I wasted so much of my life thinking I was stupid or different,

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when the reality is I was extraordinary. I’m feeling that with you, and I wouldn’t change any of it, because it’s made me who I am. Yes, I’m one of the most opinionated and yet accepting people you’ll ever meet. You set me off now, but you know what I think is really beautiful, and now you’re like making me choke up. What I think is really beautiful is that you can see that you’re extraordinary now. And I think what’s really sad is that there are a number of people who don’t ever reach that realization, who burn out or live a kind of masked life. And when I look at you ebony, I look at someone who does not live a masked life. You live a beautifully vulnerable and raw life where you don’t hold anything back, and that is such a permission slip for others who equally have felt kind of like an outcast. Really, it’s a very hard journey to explain to anyone who’s not in it, but everything you’re saying is touching my heart from every single angle, because I really relate to everything you’re sharing here. So yeah, celebrating you and your extraordinariness. Thank you. And you know that first 1012, years of coaching life, my brand, my business, my book, from 2014 is misfit to Maven, and it was, it was that whole journey, right, of being a mixed fit of being the underdog of being misunderstood. And so much of my work was about, how do I accept myself, except really I was looking for approval, and then what changed and everything now is about becoming full of yourself. And that actually comes off a Facebook ad that I ran the first time. I was like, Okay, I’m ready to scale. I’m gonna go.

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I did two different ad sets, and I was terrified of being trolled, and I got the same comment by two entirely different people on different things, which both said, Oh my God, this woman’s so full of herself. And again, like autism, I was like, Who else should I be full of? I don’t understand this insult. And, you know, press pause. And it took everything falling apart in my life. And you know that that thing of, I did break, you know, I really did break. And I did, I don’t know if it’s burned out, but I just stopped and was like, This is not me. This is not free. And I, you know, money will get to about freedom. You know, that’s the whole point of everything for me, and I am not

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expressing myself freely. And for me, it’s about empowerment, embodiment and full self expression. And so that shift is what led to what I am doing now, and timeline around that. So how recently was that, in terms of the pressing pause and the readjustment period, everything fell apart in 2022 Yeah, okay, which was when I turned 42 got the dog neck answered the secret to the universe. You know, 42 everything shifted for me. And it wasn’t like everything shifted. It was a very subtle change. But I started again. I made my last business, closed it down, and went through a bank bankruptcy process or an insolvency process, I should say. And that was very difficult and uncomfortable, but it was also a level of maturity and separation emotionally from me and the business, like, Yeah, hang on, it’s just a business. It’s not it’s not me. I’m not dead, I’m here. I’m good. The business can fold and I can build another one. And that has been also, you know, really helpful part of the journey to see to separate me and my own version of success and happiness from the liveliness or health of my business. Yeah, I think it’s also very powerful to face one of your biggest fears and come out the other side and realize that actually it wasn’t as impactful as you as you feared it might be. You know, similarly for me, when I was on benefits at one stage, I do think sometimes the resiliency I have around cash flow and money in business is developed from the fact that I’ve had my worst fear of having nothing, and I’m still here, and I was still able to rebuild.

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World, and actually, like you say, you come out the other side with more clarity, more depth, more strength. So on this journey that you’ve been on, it sounds like you’ve worn quite a few different hats, thrown yourself into various different arenas. You’ve written the book misfit to Maven, and all the pieces that have come alongside that, what has influenced that journey? Because I know we’re in a world where, obviously people regularly talk about pivoting and following your purpose and following your passion or or doing the opposite, and doing the boring thing and repeating it and getting better at it and scaling it. What’s your take on all of that? Like, how have you made the decisions that you’ve made at every single stage in your business? Because I want to get to what you were just referring to, in terms of the burnout and the kind of re but before we get to that stage, what has led all the decisions that kind of got you to the place where you were before that came along, I think for the longest time, my decisions were made by what I thought other people needed or wanted from me, and that that determined success, yeah, that the customer is always right, that people love these things about me, therefore I should give them that right, like, give them what they want, yeah, or sell them what they want and then give them what they Need. Oh, my God, that sentence has ruined my life

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because I misunderstood it probably, you know, it’s, you know, it’s one of those things of, and then what changed it was like, I’ve done everything right. I’ve done everything by the book. I followed all of the rules. I’ve learned all the rules, and I’ve followed them. And at this point, I’m like, meh, just got to do what I want. And just doing what I want was the thing that changed everything, and like really making myself the authority on me, and that has worked for my body, my health, for my business’s health, for all of those different things. And that’s why I love human design so much because it gives us the mechanics, the science behind what is your authority and how are you designed to make decisions and that, where do you get pulled off track? And for me, it’s I have a undefined head, an undefined route, and a completely open G center. And for people who don’t know what that means, my root is that is about being feeling pressured by timelines and other people’s time, and always being like, I’m behind. I’m behind. Open head is other people’s ideas, being like, Oh, they’re doing that. They’re doing that right. And like, getting really distracted by those things. And the open G center, the G center, is our direction, our identity, where we’re headed, and I have no definition there, which means I’m a beautiful chameleon, and it’s been very confusing, of like, but which way do I go? Where’s home? Where do I live? And there is, like, the first time I lost everything. I remember my brother saying to me, but you’re free. You have no possessions, you don’t family, you’ve got no mortgage, you can go anywhere. And I was like, that’s so overwhelming.

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And so it’s always been about this kind of ride with freedom. Like, you know, what is freedom? Is, yeah, because too much choice is no longer free, right? Definitely, I think what you were just referring to about having this amazing level of self awareness, because that’s what I was going to ask you, because I think there are definitely quite a few busy women business owners I’ve met who if you were to say, I want you to do things your way, honor yourself, I suspect a lot of them would turn around and Say, I’ve been a mum so long. I’ve been a bloody blah so long. I’ve been a parent, carer, whatever, so long. I’m not entirely sure I even know who I am anymore, to know what a business design for me even looks like. And I think that’s partly why so many people end up on the wrong path and finding themselves confused and overwhelmed, because like you say, they’re kind of wanting someone else to tell them for them, like, make it easy, to remove that sense of overwhelm and too many ideas. They want somebody to come along and say, this is a good idea, go and do this, and it all makes sense. But at the same time, it’s a dangerous path to walk, isn’t it? So what you’re showing about human design, I’m going to be really transparent. I’m, like, a big cynic when it comes to human design. To Human Design. And I will also say, when I had my reading, because I’m a very open minded cynic, kind of stoic like you say, very open minded. So I had the reading, and I will say it was unnervingly accurate, and that my takeaway from it was ultimately anything that encourages you to look at the lens that you perceive your life through and get really familiar about how you make decisions, how you feel. Like, one thing I was told was like, Polly, you need to sleep on a decision, like, if you make one immediately. And there’s part me, I was like, yeah. ADHD, 100% I should sleep on ideas.

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But I learned that before I learned about ADHD, and that was a big fat permission set for me to kind of start being able to say authoritatively, no, I don’t make decisions here and there. Like, if I’m on a sales game, like, No, I sleep on decisions. I’m not giving you my answer today. I don’t care about your fast action bonus. You can stuff that where the sun doesn’t shine, because I’m coming back to you tomorrow, and actually therefore informed how I run business, and that I never asked for a decision on a call either. So tell me a bit more about human design. How did that come into your world? How did that kind of come to be?

20:32

Well, okay, so, and I want to add something else into that so, and I kind of do this thing where we have two conversations, but I want to add to the last bit, I think that there are two parts that come together for a very successful business, particularly these days, and that is the, you know, the Creatrix, or the artist and the entrepreneur and or, you know, the business vehicle. And I only have a business as a vehicle for my art, like I am this for me, it is about the living of it and the full self expression and the exploration and the adventure. Ultimately, I’m an artist first, and an entrepreneur second. There’ll be a lot of other people that you speak to who are entrepreneurs first, and they create things to fit the vehicle of you know, for them, it’s the mechanics. They love business. They love money. They love the interaction, whatever it is they love the layers of business I you know, that’s been a side piece at job for me. It’s like something I’ve had to figure out in order to be  in the driving seat of my own life as an empowered

 and free artist, right creator, and whether that is story or product or courses, or it doesn’t matter, but, but those two pieces have also played a big part in my journey of which one first and which one matters more. And it depends who, who you listen to. And human design for me, when I first kind of came along, it was a spiritual mentor, business mentor type person who introduced me to it? And yeah, I was not impressed

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by a system that felt very masculine and was just, you know, was just got, you know, landed in this man’s mind over a period of however many days in Ibiza. I was like, yeah, he was off his head. I’m glad you share that, because that’s where my cynicism comes from. I will say, so I’m glad we’re touching on this because, sure, because I also do think there’s a value to it. So it’s good to kind of address that for anyone who might be thinking similarly,

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absolutely. And I also, so I put it down, right? You know, it’s like, this is very masculine. It’s very in the same way as if we come back to spirituality and religion, right? I am not interested in religion, because it’s some man’s perspective of information, yeah. And that’s what human design felt like at the beginning. It’s like, there might be something here, but the way that you’re telling me it has to be done is hitting all my PDA, thank you. Yes, yeah, yeah.

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And then I went on and ended up learning numerology properly. It was, again, something that really irritates me when people quote all these things, and I’m like, but where’s the origin of this? Like, have you just made it up? Did someone Are you learning, like, Chinese whispers, numerology? Where does it actually go? So, you know, I followed a thread, and turns out numerology is like the original language. It’s frequency, it’s it’s numbers, right? And they are in human design, as are they in the gene keys, as are they in, you know, all of these other things, and the gene keys also links into the codes in our body. And so for me, that was kind of full circle of like, Okay, again, we’re back at this place where art and science intersect. And that is my happy place, that’s mysticism. And so then I was like, Okay, I’m going to come back to this stuff in a different way and see what happens if I listen within with an open mind and take away my knee jerk. No, no, I’m not doing it your way. And so the way that I work with all of these systems is that I speak all of them, and I don’t mind which lens you come into me with. I guess it’s the kind of old HD

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synesthesia. It’s like I experience it. And I don’t mind, which, like, I’ve never been good at language languages, yeah, but really good at this. You know, they just, I can see it, I understand it. It translates in my brain. And so for me, the human design part is just the mechanics. It’s the science of the aura. It’s It’s how our energy is designed, and it’s all about our electromagnetic field, and that fascinates me. You know, it’s science, it’s not it’s not religion, it’s not spirituality, it’s not dogma. There is nothing to learn and everything to remember. Your body knows it. It’s coded into it. And so that made it much more interesting. And so what I facilitate is not dogma, and it’s not me teaching.

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You, and it’s not Chinese whispers, it’s it’s an invitation for you to find your own mastery and remember what you already know. Because there is nothing to learn about your human design. It is just stripping back all the conditioning and everything that’s been placed on top of you. Because, like you said, you know it, you’re like, yeah, that’s That’s true. That’s the most beautiful description of human design I’ve ever heard. So thank you for sharing that.

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I’m really keen to dive into that moment, because I know every listener is going to be curious, because obviously that’s, you know, bankruptcy feeling. Did you feel disillusioned with kind of where you were? I mean, how were you feeling in that moment, in terms of where you allowed that chapter to close, and that kind of messy middle before the new one begins, what was going through your head in that time?

25:51

So there’s parts of it that I’m not going to go into huge detail about, but I’ll give a tiny bit of context, which is that I’m manifesting generator. I knew that the content I was teaching wasn’t exciting and alive for me anymore, but everyone loved it,  and I was not ready to flake on what everyone loved. And I still really believed right, like, if, if the customer wants it, and if they’re buying it, then, then that’s a business and I have to do it. It doesn’t matter if I’m into it or not, I can go and find something else to keep me entertained. Yeah.

26:29

So I bought three people who were best friends, one of them I was in a relationship with. Two of them are known for 10 years. They’d been through everything, every single program that I had been, they’d been certified in my method, and they were one of my coaches. Brought them into the business to divide it between us so that I would only be in that business a quarter of the time, and I could go off and do other things. And I took a sabbatical at their request so that they could kind of find their feet in it. And also, I’ve been working since I was 14. Need a break. Like, you know, it wasn’t like at their request, it was at their request. And me going, yeah, like, I think, I think a rest would be really good for me. Like, I could do this anyway. I came back and they had spent all the money in the business, not made a single sale and decided they wanted out.

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And so how did I feel? I still don’t know exactly what happened, but it’s that piece of resiliency, right? Like, on the one hand, it’s like, I’ve got a lot of feelings, and on the other hand, let’s not feel anything, because emotions are not going to sort me sort this out, right? Like, actually, I need to step into CEO mode or fixer mode and be like, right? Your feelings can wait. Let’s just figure this out. And so the figuring out piece of like, how do I take back control of this situation? How much do I need to pay to who to actually close things in a way that feels like it’s an integrity to me, was kind of part one,

28:06

and then I took 12 weeks off, or I collapsed in a heap and decided to make it last 12 weeks, whichever way you want to look at it, I actually came back to England for the first time in a long time, and I spent time with my family, and I really just did that thing of coming home to what is actually important to me. And I did do a lot of feeling my feelings and reflecting on all of it, and being like, Okay, where did I go out of alignment, and where did I not and it’s in that time, really, that my interests came forward, and I read a lot of human design, and I, you know, got more into the spirituality, and I started making more art again. And it’s like, I want to do all of this. I want all of this, excuse me, stuff to be a part of my life, part of my business. I want it to intersect. And started dreaming about and allowing myself to play of like, what will I create next? And and who do I want to be? You know,

29:03

most importantly, not, what do I want to have? And am I a massive failure? Those were all there, right? Like my business was on this trajectory for seven figures, and I, all my peers, are doing incredibly and, you know, everyone I kind of rose up with is out there on billboards or whatever, and famous and and I’m back on the floor like, what does this mean about me? And the truth is it means whatever I make it mean, yes, and I really came to understand.

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And this sounds so full of myself, but came to understand that they needed me a lot more than I needed them, that that was a huge part of my autistic female life. Friendship doesn’t last. There are a couple of people who are still in my life, but holding on.

30:00

To relationships from nostalgia isn’t healthy or good for me, and that I am the asset that I have the ability to start again and recreate anytime I want to. And so I did, and the choosing of like, okay, well, who do I want to be? Was Grace was soft, was full of love, not full of bitterness, not full of shame, not that’s that’s not who I want to be.

30:29

So I just started again, and that sounds, I think it sounds really trite, but it wasn’t, no, it sounds so powerful. And I think one of the things I’m celebrating in you is that you took 12 weeks for yourself, which I think some people would panic and throw themselves immediately into something. The fact that you gave space to feel your feelings, to reflect and to dream. When you mentioned dreaming, I was like, my goodness, when you’re a state of fight or flight, you do not have the capacity to dream. So the fact that you got yourself into a regulated enough state to even dream about what you wanted on the other side, and I’m seeing, you know, like, obviously, a huge amount of self trust, like, there needs to be that self trust there to be able to give yourself that space to breathe. So I just wanted to highlight that, because I just don’t think enough women even breathe, let alone, or it will take a week to themselves, let alone 12. So I think, I mean, do you think that played a large role in how you were able to move forward on the other side of that? Yeah. And I think that, again, like coming back to my values, which are really important to me, is it was a part of that, you know, integrity is really important to me, and integrity to me means wholeness. It doesn’t mean anything about ethics, which people often think it means, right? It’s like it’s, am I being whole? Am I being true? Am I complete? And it would not be.

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I could not live with myself offering therapeutic or deep work to anyone from a place of wobble and a place of sorry, like not fullness, yeah, yeah, I have to be able to lead myself before I can lead anyone else. Yeah, that’s integrity, right there. And unfortunately, there’s not enough of that. So thank you again for sharing that. So speaking of all of this, I know earlier on, we touched on the whole wealth piece and what wealth means to you, and I’m imagining that’s played a large role in how you have kind of designed, yeah, I’m use the word design how you’ve designed your business moving forward.

32:25

So tell me a bit more about that. You know, you abandoned the things that didn’t feel true to you anymore. You’ve leaned into this way that feels much truer. What does that look like? I know you mentioned your values, but tell me a bit more about what does that look like for you, in terms of how you manage your day, your week, your clients, what you choose to prioritize. Give us an overview. I want to hear

32:46

I don’t even know where to start, but what happened is that somewhere in that the build the boring business piece has stuck, and it is really true, and I really wanted to answer the question for myself, how do I build a boring business without being bored. Yeah, what parts of it get to be a machine, or get to be a conveyor belt, or get to be, you know, I’m not

33:11

going to spend all day washing my clothes by hand. I’ve got a washing machine. But do I like, you know, are there some things that are far too precious to put through the washing machine absolutely and so it was really that it was like going through the business and being like, okay, which bits of this am I willing to turn into a funnel or a process or, you know, and which bits of my client journey, if you like, do I want to be with them for? And which bits I love my analogy, by the way, so good you go. And, like, you know, you chop wood, carry water. You don’t need me for that bit. This is the lesson. This is the class. This is the funnel, right? Like, go do that bit. I will sit on the mountain, and I will be here when you come back. And part of the that is from my human design, and I’m a mountain environment. And so there is all these little pieces that just allowed me to relax into the truth of who I am and mix them together. And I got really clear about the things I’m good at and the things I enjoy.

34:14

Again, let’s just be really for myself. I’m good at everything is very difficult to outsource when you’re better than everybody else at the thing that you’re out, sort of tell me about it. And do you know how many people want a lot of money for being worse than me?  It’s very like the hardest part, genuinely, of building a business is people and teams. Oh, 100% Yeah.

34:38

Business is not difficult. People are  and so it’s there’s been a lot of decisions. Like, the hardest part for me has been cutting away and getting really clear on, like, What do I like the most, which bits that do I really want to be engaged in, and which bits Am I happy for someone else to do?

34:57

Maybe not as well as me, But. I won’t have to be doing them, yeah, and it doesn’t matter. And, and you know what? That freed up people who are actually better than me at these things, which is great, I love my team, but it’s really, you know, I had to release the idea that I had to be like everything had to be perfect before I could get there. And so, you know, really came down to things like, I don’t want to work Fridays. Friday is a Venus day. I go for a massage every Friday, and I enjoy my life and go and buy flowers and sit in coffee shops when not everyone else is doing it. And that’s really important to me. Yeah, I know. I keep my Fridays that way too. Wouldn’t, wouldn’t change it for the world. It’s not freedom otherwise, is it? No, Saturday and Sunday, you know, one of those days I don’t speak to anyone that I can’t speak to without clothes on, right? Like it’s a, it’s a very like, restful day. I love that, but I wish I could say I had that. I do not. I don’t have children. And, you know, at this point, it’s a choice. It wasn’t for a long time. But yeah, so I spend a day a week where I don’t have input, and that’s very important to me. And then I have one day of those weekend days where I nurture my friendships and my community and my family and like do have output and don’t put work into that and really nurture that. And then during the week, I have Mondays where I work on the business and deal with my inbox, which I won’t let anyone else look at. And so, you know, you wait. If you miss Monday, you wait a week, and it can be ages to get an email from me. It’s just the way it is. Tuesday and Wednesday are client days, and I do clienty things, and that might be sales as well, or it might be, you know, nurturing, or it might be writing funnels, which I’m doing a lot of at the moment, and then Thursday is a pure content day where I do stuff like this, or I make content that goes into my programs. And that batching is or having specific focus is really, really important to me, because the other thing I’ve worked out particularly as I get older, so I can do everything, but not on the same day. And the more I context switch, the less energy I have for life, less joy I have. Yeah, yeah. So doing things in one go and or like, one type of activity, is really, really important for me. I love that you said that that’s so relevant, because I remember last or No, it wasn’t last August. There was a period where my kids were away, and I was like, You know what? I’m going to make it feel more like a holiday, and I’m just going to forget my batching, forget my systems, and I’m just going to do and I guess I didn’t have client calls, because it was like some time off. I was like, I’m just going to do whatever. And actually it felt like everything took three times as long. My brain actually felt really rinsed by the end of the day. And I was like, I can’t believe my holiday approach to work actually ended up feeling harder than an actual just normal way I structured it. So finding ways that work for your brain is so pivotal to I don’t want to say productivity, but yeah, ultimately productivity, okay, but I’ll do it the other way around, because it’s not productivity, it’s digestion. It’s even more important than that. You know, if you snack or graze. I don’t know if this is true for you, but if I snack or graze, I still need a meal. I’m like, I don’t feel like I’ve eaten. I like, I haven’t I haven’t had a thing. I’ve just had lots of little things. And that is how it is with work for me as well, if I do lots of little things, I get to the end of the day and I’m like, I don’t feel like I’ve done anything. So that satisfaction, that sense that I need of progress or accomplishment, or joy from having, like, been involved in the ecosystem that is, you know, the life that is my business. I don’t feel regenerated. It isn’t synergistic, and so I can’t snack in my business. Occasionally it’s necessary, but I, yeah, it doesn’t work for me. Ebony, you are the queen of analogies, and I am totally here for it. So tell me. You know, we kind of started this conversation talking about what wealth means to you. Tell me what wealth means to you now, aside from, obviously, your Venus days, and how you structure your week, what does it mean to you in terms of what it enables you to do, what it looks like in the bank, what it looks like in terms of the relationships you have with your clients and the areas you do focus on when you are working.

39:08

Wealth looks like synergy and reciprocity.  Nice. It looks like giving and receiving when I want to for a long time after the end of the last business, I couldn’t find any ambition. I couldn’t find any schutzburg. There was nothing. I was like, this is never going to happen again, right? I’m done. That’s it. And then the lovely Susie Ashworth, I was at one of her events, and I think I might have been at retreat with her, and I suddenly realized that in not this was a little time ago, but I was like, oh, in six years, I’m going to be 50, and something about that made me go, Okay, and what does that mean? And I was like, well.

40:00

Now I want at 50, I want to be able to pay myself five grand a month to take home no matter how much or little I’ve worked. In fact, I want that for the rest of my life.  And if I want to take home five grand a month no matter how much or little I’ve worked, then I need to create some systems that put that in place that mean that when I’ve got more to give, I can give more. And when I want to lie on the sofa or the beach for a week, I can when I want to create something and be really present and like in and like, I’ve got all this urge to give and to share and to show up and to be present, then I absolutely will. And when I want to step away and go and travel with my nieces or hang out in Sicily with my friend’s daughter and eat ice cream, that I can totally do that. And I like to be 100% present in whatever I’m doing. And so wealth for me is the ability to do that. It’s the security and the state, like the security and the safety to have fun and to play. Yeah, I you know, what I really like about what you’re sharing here is, I think sometimes, like people often see me very much as, like, the super logical, businessy person who also likes to play, but like hearing what you’re sharing about intuition and honoring oneself and how systems can play a role in that, particularly with the presence piece. Like yesterday, I went to an event, and I barely took any photographs or videos. I went out for a lovely dinner, lovely cocktails, again, no photos, and I was slightly chastising myself for it this morning, thinking, Polly, if you were like all the other online business mentors, you’d be sharing all of that and but then there was another part me being like and I celebrate myself, the fact that I have systems and funnels that allow me to be present, so that I don’t need to be doing that. So I think it’s really gorgeous to kind of, yeah, speak to the piece where it doesn’t have to be one or the other. And I think that’s where your washing machine analogy fits in beautifully as well recognizing some things can be systemized, and you still get to hold on to those pieces that are sacred. And do you feel like having those systems? Do then allow more space for play and pleasure and following your intuition and honoring your own bodily cycles and all the other pieces that come with that?

42:17

Yeah, we’re not there yet. They’re not where I want them to be. I’m really in this process at the moment of training my brain to understand that if I was present at the time of creating that message, content, video, whatever it was, that when it receives someone, or when it meets someone, they will receive that presence and that I so I don’t have to be present for them to have it. And just because my ADHD brain cannot remember what was in that book or in that video or in that email doesn’t mean that it wasn’t gold. Yeah, I, by the way, I’m so guilty of doing that too. The amount of times I was sharing my like accelerated clients the other day, I was like my guilty like, my guilty habit in my business is continuously revising my funnels where there isn’t necessarily a need, but like you, what you just said expresses it so clearly. And I never really put it down to that, but it is that sense of like, but it doesn’t feel fresh to me because I said this ages ago, and I feel like how I’d communicate it now would be different, even though how I said it, however many months ago, was perfectly adequate. So yeah, I feel your pain with that one.

43:27

This is like, and I know that this is not relevant to you anymore, and I don’t hang out on them anymore, but it’s like, when I’m on a dating website, I’m the person who refreshes my photos, right? Because I’m like, This is not an accurate representation of who I am today, and everyone else is, like, they’re about a month old, right? Whereas, like, most guys on there have, like, pictures from, you know, 1997 and I just don’t know how. I don’t know how to do that, like, it has to be, yeah, now, because I knew really evolving and changing. And it is, it’s that piece of presence, but I am really working on what is enough. And you know what you said? You know perfectly adequate.

44:05

I used to really hear like enough or perfectly adequate as well. There’s there’s still not good enough. And what I actually know to be true, and I’m using logic against myself beautifully here, is that our brains fill in the gaps, and people will see whatever they want to see. And so mostly when people come into my world at the beginning, they’re completely in love with me or fascinated or mesmerized or something. So they’re going to read everything I write in all in with that view and lens. They’re not reading it with the like, oh, I wrote this ages ago.

44:41

That’s not how they’re reading it, you know? Yeah, that’s the autism lens, isn’t it? Where we think other people know what we know which they don’t. And so like you say, the fact that it’s several months old, they don’t know that. Okay, this has been such a gorgeous conversation. I love everything you shared, from the resiliency and the kind of particular.

45:00

Lens that led you to being, the entrepreneurial spirit that you are, the role that spirituality has played in your journey, the kind of low and the where everything fell apart to then come back stronger, and what you’re building now and what what your priorities are now, in terms of what wealth truly means to you and how you get to do things differently now, based on everything you’ve already done, is there anything I should have asked you today that I haven’t asked you that you would like my listener to hear following on from everything we’ve just talked about? You don’t have to be one thing or another, and I never have been, and I’m really realizing that now. And it’s that intersection that is bliss point. It’s that intersection that the confectionery industry, you know, the bliss point they’ve been chasing between, you know, salty and sweet forever and you do not need to be. And not only do you not need to

45:59

be, we are not either light and fluffy and spiritual and creative or scientific and logical and La, la, la, we are everything. And you get to pick out and pull out whatever parts you want to employ at this particular moment. And I think there’s also this thing in the business, entrepreneurial, feminine, whatever space of becoming someone new and retiring the old. You and I’ve got no desire to retire any parts of me. They all still exist. They’re all still there. I can go and talk to them, reclaim them, use their wisdom, have their knowledge. You know, I’ve not upgraded. I have no intention of being and that thing again, with technology, it’s like I’m not upgrading and becoming a hologram of my old self. Yeah, I’m all of them. You know, there’s, there’s, there’s tons and tons and tons of versions of me all existing on many, many, many timelines. And that’s much more expansive for me than feeling like I get to have like one life, and it’s a lot of choices, and I’ve got to have FOMO of everything I’ve not able to be present for. You know, It all exists. You’re just being really present with whatever is right now. And that’s where the beauty is. You know, there is no like such. I know it’s such a cliche, but the destination is not as important as the journey. And I’ve spent a long, long time thinking, When am I going to arrive?

47:32

When am I going to be seen? When am I going to be accepted? When am I going to be acknowledged or visible, or rich, or, you know, whatever it is. And the truth is, as soon as you are present with yourself in the now you’re already rich. Oh, Mic drop.

47:47

That’s beautiful. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That is just, I have a loss for words, because everything you shared there, I was like, just stick it in a book already absolute perfection. Know what? There is a new book coming, but I am also not putting myself to timelines, but I think it’s had a million different names, but at the moment, it’s under the everything, everything sold, contract, cheat codes,

48:10

but it is like all of that. And it’s also not to say that the money isn’t great. I do think it’s great. And I’m, you know, there’s part of me just going I said I only wanted five grand a month, but forever minimum, you know, and it’s not about the amounts. It’s, for me, it was very much about, can you choose in the moment how much or little you want to show up. That’s what I want. Yeah, people to really understand that freedom is it’s like, particularly as women who’ve been told you need to be consistent over a 24 hour period when that’s not how we were designed. You know, it’s like, I am really consistent over 28 days, or at least I have been for a very long time. And now that’s changing. And it’s like, well, it’s always going to evolve. Everything’s going to change. And so the only constant is now, I mean, the other thing is, how much do you really need? There comes a point with money where you just have money, for money’s sake, you just buy. Like, I’m not interested in cars. I’m very happy. Like, you know what I mean? I think it’s, it’s an interesting one. Like, someone once said to me about money, like, you know, it’s just, I don’t know, just more stuff to buy, more things to have. And it’s not necessarily everyone’s priority. And I also think there’s an argument for, like, when you have a looser grasp on these things, that everything actually just flows in more easily anyway. So whatever is meant for you will come to you. But I think when we arbitrarily choose a number and kind of drop all our principles and do everything to get towards it, that’s when you become a miserable millionaire, right? The best times of my life, because my love language is not stuff, it’s experiences, and what I want is all the stuff money can’t buy, and so chasing money has never really worked, and there have been times in my life where I’ve had no money, but I’m being put up in five star hotels and flown around the world and eating my favorite food and spending time with my friends.

50:00

Like, I’ve been richer when I’m not rich than when I’m and that stuff is the stuff that’s led me to where I am today, to a place of the money is less important than the resource. And we are resourced in a million different ways. And the best resource I have is the life source, you know, the Chi, the whatever you want to call it, the vitality in me is the most important resource I have. Yeah,

50:28

and that is the perfect way to wrap up this conversation. Thank you, Ebony so much for anyone who’s listening and already falling in love with you. Where can they find you? Um, if you want to actually hang out and have real conversations with me. I am on Instagram as ebony alchemy. Most days. I love to check in and have those little combos ebony Allard COMM And I also have YouTube channel, which is either ebony alchemy or ebony Allard. So yeah, come find me. There’s one of me on the internet. You’ll see me, and we’ll drop all those links in the show notes, so you’ll be able to find ebony with absolute ease. Thank you so much for the conversation today, ebony. I think I’m going to be mulling on it all afternoon now.

51:07

Thank you. You know, it’s the first podcast I’ve done in ages where I’m actually leaving going, No, I have nothing else to say. So thank you. Excellent. Well, what a ride Ebony’s take on self, trust, sovereignty and real freedom. Absolute gold. All her links are in the show notes. Go soak up more of her magic. And you know, if this one hit home, share it, review it, or send it to the rebel entrepreneur in your life who doesn’t want to be put into any kind of box. In the meantime, I’ll be in your ears next week. Keep it cushy.