What if the key to unlocking your next level of success isn’t in doing more, but actually doing less?

In today’s episode, I’ll show you exactly how to do that as I share insights from my recent mastermind retreat and the game-changing lessons that can elevate both your business and personal growth.

From the importance of gaining fresh perspective to the power of simplicity, self-care, and aligned habits, these lessons have shaped some of my most successful clients.

If you want to shift your mindset and create a more aligned, fulfilling business, this episode is for you.

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh: 

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I cannot believe we are the week before US Thanksgiving. like The holidays are here. Austin, Texas is still 70 degrees every day, which is beautiful, but ah but i am I’m ready for some cold days and to turn my fireplace on for the first time. We are headed next week to San Diego with my family for Thanksgiving. And I was talking to my husband, I was like, how can we slow the time down? Like, I just want the time between now and the end of the year to feel slower and like soak in the holidays. And he’s like we have to do less. And I know that is hard for you. And I’m like, Yeah i i’m all i’m all for doing less but i don’t know what to cut out of my schedule but i’m i’m contemplating taking social media off my phone for the rest of the year except for maybe a few check ins and.

I think what I’m gonna do is dedicate half of a day during the week that I would normally work and make it just to like be, actually not do anything and just hang out with my kids, maybe do a holiday craft, I don’t know, something, because it’s just like every time it’s like Thanksgiving’s here, all of a sudden it’s Christmas and then it’s a new year. And I only have so many holidays with my kids and I just want time to go slower. So that’s my little life update. I wrapped up last week, the elevate mastermind retreat, and it was absolutely incredible. It is my favorite thing in this world to do in-person experiences it’s just the amount of progress that you make in a matter of days when you’re in person is so amazing and.

There is nothing like the level of depth and connection and conversation and just overall growth that can happen in a matter of days when you come in person and you step away from the day to day and you get a different perspective. And so to be able to facilitate it is my greatest gift, I think, and I’m so proud that I did my first retreat in May of this year and I just finished my third on top of my May big live event that we did when we did our company name. so I just love in-person experiences. They feel easy to me. like Everything just flows. It’s not overly structured. it’s a very intuitive experience like I don’t have every single workshop and every single part of the experience planned out ahead of time because I gauge like the group and I gauge the the need of the group and the conversations that are happening and I shift things throughout but they don’t know I shifted it’s like very intentional so I am hosting Embodied Marketing Live in January. And this is a three-day event for the VIP tickets, two-day for GA tickets. And it’s super accessible. My Elevate mastermind is the highest level experience that I have for a few entrepreneurs to be in the experience with me for six months. And so part of that is a retreat. That’s the retreat I hosted last week with the three girls.

But my event in January will be about 40 people and it will be a mix of business strategy, marketing workshops with a retreat like vibe. It’s going to be in a house, a big house um Very intimate, there will be some embodied things like breathwork with my mentor, personal mentor, who they had a session with at the retreat last week. and It is was the most profound thing of the week. It’s going to be amazing. so If you’re interested in being here in January with me, you can go to embodiedmarketing dot.com slash alive and grab a ticket. They’re really accessible tickets, a way to get one-on-one hot seats with me, my team support,

And it will be that perfect blend of tactical business marketing strategy. We’re going to define your 2025 business and marketing blueprint. We’re going to define your goals for the year, like set up your business and life strategy for 2025 and all of the tactics that need to happen to get there. And then weaved in throughout will be embodied workshops such as breath work or diving into your core values and how that is going to be infused in everything that you do. Just like really good deep work that will leave you a changed person and CEO with so much clarity when it comes to your business and your strategy and your marketing. So grab your tickets to that. I would love to see you in person. We are over halfway sold out. So I anticipate in the next few weeks, we’ll be almost sold out. So don’t wait on that. And if you have any questions, feel free to send me a message. And if you’re like, how do I get in the elevate mastermind? Keep your eye out for that. I will be opening up the next cohort in the next six months in January.

And that is the most intimate way to work with me, which is weekly call, unlimited WhatsApp texting support, the retreat. It is a very intimate experience and I basically am your mentor, coach, consultant in your business for six months. And one of the girls has carried over into both of the cohorts I’ve run. So yeah, I thought today would be fun to talk about my four takeaways from last week. So these are some of my most successful clients. Two of them are multi seven figure business owners. Well, one’s hitting a million dollars. I don’t want to misrepresent seven figure business owners and one’s close to seven figures. so One’s at the six figure and on her way to seven figures. So these are very successful, successful entrepreneurs. And we went very deep last week on all the things. So I sat down and thought through what are my four takeaways that if I were to summarize from our conversations, from our workshops, from their realizations, and from everything that we did last week, what would those things be? So let’s talk about those.

The first one is the importance of taking a step back from the day to day and getting fresh perspective on things that you can’t see. And I feel like this sounds a little cliche, but multiple times throughout the week, one of the girls would make a comment like, Oh my gosh, this is so simple. Why didn’t I see this before? Like, yeah, I’ll just do this and I’ll just do this. And that will solve XYZ problem or thing that I was struggling with. And at the very first thing that we do to kick off the retreat is I have them make a list of everything that they want to get out of the retreat, like problems they want to solve, things they’re struggling with, clarity that they want. And we have that big list and that actually dictates a lot of the workshops that I host.

and how I support them because I want to address every single thing for each of them. And a lot, I would say like 80% of the things that they wrote down were solved within like a five minute conversation about it. So, you know, what should my downsell be? Or how should I do this live launch? Like those business strategy things were solved so quickly with just a simple conversation. And I think this highlights the importance of making sure that you are creating the opportunity for yourself to have fresh perspective.

on your business strategy, on your offers, on your marketing, on how you’re spending your time. Because one of the most powerful things is we don’t know what we don’t know. And so if we operate in a place every day where we do the same things and we don’t expand our knowledge and we don’t expand what we are learning from others who are where we want to be, and we don’t question and we don’t challenge ourselves, then we don’t realize things that are right in front of us because you don’t know what you don’t know. And it’s really easy as an entrepreneur to get so sucked up into the day-to-day, the day-to-day of the emails and the messages and the to-dos and the tactical things, and not even realize you’re doing it when that’s happening.

And then all this time goes by and it’s like, I haven’t actually sat down and thought about my bigger vision or I haven’t solved this problem. And all it takes is fresh perspective. And it takes someone to ask the right questions, to challenge something, to shift your perspective, or to give you an idea that’s like, duh, but I never thought of that.

So I think that’s one of the most powerful things of having mentors or putting yourself in rooms where this is happening. It’s something I do always. I always have a mentor who I can run things by, who I can call up when I have a challenge, who I can get their perspective because I know that I don’t know everything and that I need that challenge to keep things fresh. Second takeaway is self-care. And this one feels like talking about self-care, I don’t know if it’s a me thing, but it feels cliche and overdone to me. Like I think a lot of people talk about, you got to fill your cup and self-care is so important. And the reality is that is true. That’s 100% true.

But I kind of feel like when people hear that they roll their eyes, especially entrepreneurs who are like, you just don’t get it. Like I have my business. I have all these things. Like sometimes I can’t, I just can’t do the self care. But one of the topics that came up a lot for these guys, because the way that I run my retreats is I really encourage the attendees to unplug, to get out of the day to day to one of them, I said, delete email off your phone at least for this retreat and now she’s keeping it off her phone for the rest of the year. Don’t open your laptop, like be present. Get out of the day-to-day and be present. What that naturally does because we weave in a quick meditation in the morning and they have breath work, they’re having these just soul-filling conversations, nice dinners, they’re being fed, like what that does is it creates this experience where you’re starting to relax, to slow down. A lot of them, two ah two out of three of them are moms, so they didn’t have their kids, they were getting more asleep. Naturally, you’re filling your cup in an experience like that.

And one of the girls was also at my Alaska retreat, and she told me that after the Alaska retreat for months, she was like riding a high. She’s like, I was able to show up. like I felt so good. I felt so rejuvenated. And that lasted about two, three months, and then it started to wear off. And it makes sense. You you have an experience like that where you really unplug for that period of time, and you pour back into yourself, and you can show up better.

So the conversation that we had was, self-care is actually not just about you. I believe that when you run a company and you have a team, you have clients, you have students, you have an audience, you create content, you have to energetically show up every day.

Self-care is essential. it’s like a part of you know I know you can’t always put it as a business expense, but like it should be. It is essential because the more that you have to hold when it comes to team, clients, customers, coaching,

The more important it becomes that you pour into yourself so you can show up better and that you also are evolving yourself. I think it is a responsibility for somebody who wants to teach and be a leader and a thought leader and a creator in their industry that they operate and constantly are doing things that pour back into themselves, both knowledge, wisdom, growth, but also energetically. And this can look like so many different things. I think it should be a ah small practice every day.

And then I think about once a quarter, a bigger experience where you do go off grid, you do unplug, you do reset, whether that’s a retreat or a solo trip or, you know, I don’t know if a trip with your kids counts, honestly, because it’s it’s not the same as when you’re doing this solo time where you where you don’t have anybody else that you’re responsible for. And they say the same thing as a parent. Like you can’t show up and parent your kids fully if you are on empty. I think this is talked about a lot and people start to ignore it because it’s easy to ignore. Like when things get challenging or busy or chaotic or overwhelming, one of the first things that goes myself included is self-care. It’s like, okay, I don’t have time to meditate today. Okay. I’ll, I’ll skimp out on my journaling or I, for me, I don’t do this anymore, but used to, you know, I won’t work out or I’ll give to my kids. I’ll give to my team. I’ll give to my business. I’ll give to my husband, but I don’t I’m the last priority. Now for me, this is not the case anymore. I’m like so big on this and so good about knowing, okay, I’ve i’ve pulled back and now I feel off. But I think a lot of entrepreneurs are not. And I also think if you are an entrepreneur who’s in the early stages, it can be really hard to give yourself permission for the self-care.

because you’re in that hustle phase. And I know for me, a hundred percent, like when I was there, I didn’t have the self care. I was breastfeeding babies. I was staying up late working. I wasn’t eating well. I wasn’t working out. I wasn’t how I was today. And I can learn from that.

But I think even when you’re in that stage where there’s a lot of chaos, there’s a lot of overwhelm, you’ve got maybe kids that you’re taking care of in a business that you’re running and you don’t have a team and you don’t have support, self-care can look like five minutes. like It really doesn’t have to be that you go get a 90 minute massage or you have a full day or a full week. Those things are great and I think that if you can make that happen, it is even better.

But at a minimum, it can be a five minute stillness practice, a 10 minute walk down your street with nothing, five minutes of journaling. And so this came up for all three of them last week because they had all realized that they had fallen off on this, that they were not prioritizing the things that they knew made a huge difference in how they could show up. And so the girl who came to Alaska with me,

realize like I was able to come home and show up better for my team, for my clients that I coach on, you know, I get on zoom and I have more energy. I have more clarity. I’m able to show up better. Therefore, self-care is a responsibility to business owners, a non-negotiable, because it allows you to have a bigger impact and a better impact.

It is so important and the more work that you want to do in terms of coaching, leading, and supporting people, the more you have to do the self-care. I find you know myself when I run a retreat like this, I have to really pour back into myself after.

And i I told them, could you imagine if I came into this retreat and I was stressed, chaotic, frantic, hadn’t taken care of myself, didn’t take the time for stillness, even the mornings of the retreat. I had a non-negotiable of a stillness practice for at least 10 minutes. And then five minutes of journaling, I set an intention for the day for the retreat. And this was all in silence with just myself because I know what is needed for me to show up as the best version of myself in these situations.

I would not be able to go into a retreat on empty. And also that would be out of integrity for me to charge for a retreat and then do that. So I want you to see your self-care as a responsibility you have to the people in your life. And I think that will help people prioritize it. All right, two more. Another core theme that all of them really wanted to talk about and we did workshops on was habits.

and making sure that leaving this retreat, they were clear on their commitments and their habits when it came to their health, their relationships, their business. the Usually the business is like not a problem. Like everybody’s got the business covered in terms of putting work into it. Most people fall off when it comes to their self, their habits, when you know their health, their mindset, their relationships and how they want to show up.

So throughout the week, we did these different exercises that started with identifying their values, their core values as an individual. And then what happens is you sometimes realize, oh, this is a core value of mine, but my actions are not aligning and showing that that’s a core value. So one of the girls said, my number one core value is my health.

And then when we got deeper and I had said, you know, look at your way you’re spending your time and what you’re prioritizing, is that an alignment? Or are you telling yourself my business is my number one priority? And she’s like, Oh my gosh.

Like, yeah, I’m basically saying my business is more important than my health. If you look at how I’m spending my time. And so throughout this, we went through this process of identifying their values, looking at how they’re spending their time and is there a misalignment there? And then defining habits and commitments that they have when it comes to their self, their health, their wellbeing, their mind.

the relationships that are non-negotiables and we walked through what those are and then we walked through what’s going to get in the way of them that we can predict because it’s happened before and then what can we do to offset that and then towards the end one thing I really focused on is what is your bigger devotion because if you’re just doing habits to check it off a checklist eventually they’ll fall off probably sooner than later but if you understand the deeper why

I’m devoted to this practice, this goal, this commitment, this dream, this core value. Now my habits become more important. And so what are our commitments? And I like the word devotion over discipline.

It’s one that I have replaced in my language that I use because discipline feels negative to me. It has a negative like you have to force yourself and, and push and there’s no flexibility. There’s no flow. It’s just, I don’t know. Like the connotation to that word is, is more dark and structured and pushing.

Devotion to me, when I hear that word, is more from a place of love, of commitment, of light energy and a bigger purpose and it’s like flow, ease, but you’re still accountable. So we talked about what are what are you devoted to leaving this week? What are you clear that you’re devoted to? Whether that’s a goal, a dream, a value of yours. Like what is that bigger devotion and that why that should be driving your habits?

So that’s a question for you guys to sit with, but that was a big theme for these girls was actually habits and the day-to-day commitments that they were going to have that supported them and making sure we went through a lot of processes around keeping to those commitments when they left the retreat. Final takeaway is simplicity scales.

for all of them, different ideas, different strategies, different things that they were going to implement, a lot of it came down to let’s simplify it. And that doesn’t always mean easy. Easy and simple are not the same things. Simple can be challenging, actually more challenging. There is still accountability and commitment in simplicity, but I used to, I had a mentor, I can’t remember who it is, so I can’t give them credit, but they would say simplicity scales, complexity fails.

And it’s so true with anything, business, life, the more complex you make something, the less chance you have of success. So we would look at their business and how they’re spending their day or their marketing strategy or what they were going to do. And a lot of it was like, Oh, that’s so simple. Like I was overcomplicating it. And my belief is I think a lot of entrepreneurs actually thrive in complication and thrive in challenge.

and make things harder without realizing they’re doing that. And I’m 100% guilty of this. It’s like instead of keeping things really simple, I will go the hard route because it will feel like it’s not enough unless it’s hard, unless it’s a challenge, unless it’s like you have to push.

And so there was one one of the girls especially there, it’s like she’s so attuned to challenge being the only way that without realizing it, she’d create things into a challenge. And we’re starting to undo that and look at it like it gets to be this easy. And she said that so many times, is it really this easy? Is this really what I have to do? And especially someone who’s made multiple six figures, like you’ve built that foundation, you’ve gone through the hustle phase,

It does get to be simple. Are you still going to run across challenges? Yes, but it’s not complex. It doesn’t have to be so many steps and so overwhelming. And again, I think that what happens is a lot of entrepreneurs, nervous systems are literally only comfortable in that space. And so they reject simplicity. It’s like, Oh, that doesn’t make sense. There’s no way that’s going to work because that’s never worked for me. So it’s, this is where like,

The true change as an entrepreneur comes from those deep beliefs and nobody really realizes this, not nobody, but a lot of people don’t. They’re like, oh, it’s the marketing strategy or it’s the business strategy. And I’m telling you, like once I get in rooms with people, 80% of what we do is identify those core beliefs and the things actually driving the marketing and the business strategy because that’s what moves the needle. That’s what actually gets the results.

And that’s why I love this work so much because it’s not going to just make a week long or a month long change. It’s a lifelong change. like All of these girls took home shifts in their beliefs and how they show up in their being that not only impacts them, but their family, their kids, their team, their friends, their relationships. like It’s so amazing when you do that work. So those were our four takeaways, my four takeaways from the week that were themes, big things coming up. And I hope that gave you some things to think about to bring into your own business. I’d love to see you guys at the January live event, EmbodyingMarketing.com slash live. It will be a version of an experience like this, like my in-person experiences are next level.

and I’m very proud of them. So I can’t wait until January. Alright everybody, have a beautiful rest of your day and I’ll talk to you on Thursday.