with Robyn Gooding

From a young age, we’re conditioned to believe that success in life and business requires strict adherence to rules. But what if those formulas for building and scaling a business are more confining than empowering? In this eye-opening episode, we challenge the status quo and explore the power of tapping into your soulful essence to create a truly rich life and business.

With a decade of experience in building profitable businesses, our special guest, Robyn Gooding, a global business strategist and feminine embodiment coach, shares her invaluable insights, reminding us that true prosperity lies in embracing our unique essence. 

During our conversation, we delve into the following topics:

• Leveraging your humanness and authentic connection to inspire and lead others on their journey.
• Embracing vitality as your compass for growth and evolution in both life and business.
• Creating a coaching experience that leaves clients feeling truly nourished, satisfied, and supported.
• Breaking free from the confines of the rule book and fully embodying your essence to unleash your business’s true lifeforce.
• Discovering the soulful piece that’s been missing in the quest for business success—a harmonious blend of systems, strategy, and soul.
• Cultivating a cocoon of safety and support that nurtures a business operating within your own unique bandwidth.
• Harnessing the power of embodiment to navigate and heal the emotional and messy aspects of your entrepreneurial journey.

Get ready to tap into your true essence to create a rich life and business.

Resources:

Take the Discover Your Six Figure Superpower Quiz.

Find out more about The Coach Sales System Course.

Bio:

Robyn Gooding is a global business strategist, a certified life coach and a feminine embodiment coach. She works with feminine visionaries who are daring to rebel against rigid business practices and rather lean into their own intuition and wisdom, whilst also being supported by world class business strategy. With a decade of experience, she has helped build hundreds of profitable businesses – at various stages of growth – with the sole intention of reminding her clients that they can build an incredible life and business, their way.

You can connect with Robyn:

Instagram: @robyn.gooding

Podcast: The Profitable Way

Website: robyngooding.com

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Big love,

Amanda xo

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Transcript

Amanda: Welcome back to the Feminine Luminary Podcast. I am so, so, so excited to have this next guest on the show, Robyn Gooding. Robyn is a global business strategist, a certified life coach, and a feminine embodiment coach. She works with feminine visionaries who are daring to rebel against rigid business practices and rather lean into their intuition and their wisdom, while also being supported by a world-class business strategy.

With a decade of experience, she’s helped hundreds of people build profitable businesses at various stages of growth, with the soul and intention of reminding her clients that they can build an incredible life and business their way. Welcome to the show, Robyn. I’m so glad to have you here.

Robyn: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Amanda. It’s great to be here.

Amanda: Oh, you’re most welcome. And for those of you that don’t know, Robyn is actually my beautiful coach and I just feel so honored to be able to bring her onto the show and to be able to share her wisdom cuz I get to receive this. I’m someone who gets to receive the beautiful wisdom, the insights, and having her holding space for me, and I’m so.

Honored to be able to have her and share her with the world because one of the things that I absolutely love about you is you’re this beautiful beacon of light Robyn, you’re this calming presence that I don’t wanna say fixes everything when you’re in her presence, because you don’t wanna run to someone and say, Hey, fix my problems.

That’s certainly not, not what it’s all about. We’re all about being self-led and standing on our own two feet and things like that, but it’s just this aura that you have about you. And your ability to be able to hold space for people, both your clients and I see it in the greater community as well, in your audience and Instagram and your podcast, and everyone essentially that comes into your sphere, I think just feels this instant sense of calm around you.

So thank you much and I can’t wait to share you and have this conversation that I know is going to be absolutely incredible.

Robyn: Oh, That was so beautiful. Thank you so much. And it was probably, Taurus, there’s like the grounding earth side. 

Amanda: We’re birthday buddies We’re about a day apart, aren’t we?

Robyn: exactly.

Amanda: It’s always so funny, isn’t it, when you find these like-minded people that all of these things that just seem to line up, it’s like we’re the same star sign. We almost had the same birthday, and there’s just so many things that are aligned. And I think part of this is really just, well, we know that like attracts like, and when we have this really beautiful energy, it just.

Brings other people into our realm. So I’d love to lead with a question that I’m asking all of my guests, and that is what makes you and your work luminary.

Robyn: Hmm. Yeah. You know, um, the mind wants to up with like a very clever answer to this, but the body, the thing that feels aligned is that I  really, really, really, devote my life to Living an embodied life being deeply myself, my truth, my values, um, what’s honest and real and human and.

By going within to that place. That’s like the true essence of who I am in this world. And by connecting with that part of me, I think it allows other people to connect with that part of them. And so you can be a luminary when you are in your own path and you’re in your own essence and you’re true to yourself.

Because we’re in a sea of sameness, right? Amd to be a light, we have to be willing to see our own light and Lean into it and lead from it. And even if it doesn’t make sense in whatever environment or context we’re in, we have to be willing to say, I’ll go first.

Amanda: Yeah, that’s so true. Being that beacon of light, isn’t it? And when you can actually actually stand in your own truth and just feel within, it radiates throughout. And part of being a luminary, part of being a leader is going first and being that permission sit slip for other people to do exactly the same.

And that’s exactly what you’re doing. It doesn’t need to be anything convoluted. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy. It’s just about. Being true to yourself and understanding your essence. And so I love that that’s what it means to you, because I can certainly sort of see that as something that you’re truly embodying.

Robyn Yeah, I think it’s really like about being willing to the dirty work know, to sit in the mud, to feel the things that aren’t comfortable, to look at the shadows, to feel what’s dark, like to, you can’t, no light without dark, right? And so it’s the duality and it the the being willing to stretch into the discomfort of duality, which I think not many of us are conditioned or prepared or excited to do on our own.

Amanda: Is something that you’ve always done? Is that. Something that you’ve discovered throughout your entrepreneurial journey. I know that you’ve recently become a feminine embodiment coach, been certified in that, and I imagine a lot of the training really was about deepening into the ability to do that.

Where did this all begin? Like how did you actually get into being a business coach? Where did this all come about?

Robyn You know, I look back on my life and I think that I’ve always. My life path has required a tremendous amount of grit and perseverance and resilience from a really young age. I’m an immigrant family.

Uh, we went through a lot of. A lot of personal problems when we lived in South Africa as a family politically, personally. Um, being an immigrant to Canada and always feeling the sense of like not belonging, not wanting to live in Canada, not feeling Canadian and growing up in a family that at home was South African, and then in my social community at in high school and all these other relationships, just wanting to be Canadian and just kind of always feeling this.

In between stage. I used to say I also grew up religious. I used to say I was the worst girl at church and the best girl in the fraternity house. Um, you know, we talk about the good girl conditioning and all these labels that we have on ourselves and, and these identities that we attach to who we need to be in the world.

And the way that ego kind of plays into all of that. And I think I just always questioned everything and I was always unwilling to apologize for doing what felt right. And certainly like leaning into embodiment work into some of the somatic tools I leverage, um, specifically a practice called Heart Breath, which is a style of breath work that I teach and practice. Has allowed me to like drown out the noises, the external noises, and like really feel into what’s true for me, because sometimes that’s so layered and there’s layers of grief to that awareness that few people are willing to talk about as well. It’s hard to sometimes choose yourself when it’s way easier to blend in and and belong in air quotes belong to the tribe.You know

Amanda Definitely. And you mentioned about the the different layers of grief, and I think that’s something that is so important with this work is that it’s not just once and done, it is just. I like to think of it like a spiral. You’re continually spiraling, spiraling up, so you may go through something that you believe, okay, I’ve resolved that problem.

And for me, I believe like my lifelong thing is always going to be my worthiness, my self worth. That’s always going to be the thing for me. And some people have one, some people have more. But once you feel like you’ve gone through something and you’ve resolved that issue, you’ve simply just unlocked it at a deeper level.

And so it’s about being able to be okay with where you’re at at the moment. You go through that healing, you deal with it. You don’t simply bypass it, you work through it. And then the next level of grief, of trauma, of whatever it is that’s going on for you is unlocked

And you’re so right, is that it’s not just something simple, 

Robyn yeah, it’s not simple.

Amanda No, it’s not simple and I, I think that’s what some people sometimes think with this work is that it is just a case of you’re done, but it’s, it’s a lifelong journey and I’d love for you to keep speaking into that.

Robyn Totally. And you know, some of the things, like I work with clients who do all the right things. Follow the textbook, play the rules, play by the rules, play the game by the rules, and have tremendous resistance in very specific areas where they’re just energetically or emotionally blocked. And it is so frustrating for them to just be like, why is it not working?

Why? Am I broken? Why is my dream broken? Why is everybody else able to get X, Y, Z, faster, easier, more creatively, happily, joyfully, with more grace and ease than me? Right? And I’m an Enneagram seven, which if you know the Enneagram, you know, that’s the free spirit. She runs away from pain. Runs towards play and fun and all the things, and, and I think that’s my life’s path, my life’s lesson of how, how much time are you willing to sit in the healing when it’s not fun, when it’s not playful, when it requires sacrifice and challenge, and deepening awareness and, and being really, really uncomfortable. then can we go back to play and levity and light and can we merge the two so that it’s not either or? Right? So we’re not using the fun and the play to bypass the, the wisdom, the experience, the depth of the human experience. But we’re also not getting comfortable with like, Everything needs to be hard.

Everything has to feel hard. I have to make everything heavy and we learn to dance between the two, and it requires that we expand our capacity for both. We, we expand our awareness around where these sensations live in our body, what are responses to them. For me, I’m like a number, like I am a fight or flight, so I very rarely will freeze.

I’m not a procrastinator, but I will either get my armor weapon on battle mode ready, activate all the white knuckling, control, hyper control states of being and go to battle to fix this problem. Or I’ll run away and like, Want to spend every day on the beach, on vacation, totally ignoring the, the reality that I need to look at.

So I know that’s how my human mind wants to protect itself, how we operate. And so I think through that awareness and deepening the awareness, uh, and also looking at tools of how we can support ourselves through that, you just become so much more. Connected with yourself, and even when storms are big and the seas feel rough, there’s this innate sense of selfie and confidence that you can tap into for the courage that you need to go to that next level.

Because sometimes things get worse before they get better, but when you know that healing’s not linear, you know that no matter how it’s presenting in the moment, in the present reality. You’re going towards where you wanna be and where you’re meant to be in life. It’s happening for you. 

Amanda Absolutely. Life is always happening for you. And even in the moment, and I’ve had numerous moments throughout my life where I’ve thought, what on earth is going on? Why isn’t this working for me? But sometimes you just have to sit in that mess. Like you said, you have to sit in it. You can’t try and fix everything.

I mean, there’s obviously. What you can do within your control. And then there’s releasing what sits outside your control. And sometimes it is just a matter of going, okay, and this takes practice. Of course, I’ve now gotten to a point I know in my own journey is that I can go, okay, universe, what’s the outcome here?

What is the answer? So what are you trying to teach me? And I can sort of just step back just for a moment and really analyze, rather than putting on that armor like you say. Cuz I was very much in my wounded warrior, very much. I would always put on the armor going to fight that battle. The walls were up.

I wouldn’t let anyone in. I was. Stoic. There was no emotions. It was just get in, get it done. I actually had the nickname Bulldog that was my husband. He called me, I dunno if it was a very affectionate name. Thankfully he hasn’t called me that in years. He’s like, you’re a bulldog. You go in there, you just like sort of knuckle in, get it done.

But I’m sure I was probably hurting a lot of relationships along the way. And so yeah, it really does take that growth, doesn’t it? To be able to realize that you know what things are happening for us. Take a step back, just. Allow it to come to whatever it needs to, and it will all work out. But that is just part of the growth.

That is part of actually doing your own healing and getting to a point where you feel comfortable, you feel secure in being able to do that, and that takes a lot of practice. And so what are, you mentioned some of the tools there that you like to use. What are some of the tools that are. Quite simple if someone is just getting into this or maybe they’ve forgotten it, because I know quite often we get very busy and all of a sudden these practices drop out of our lives.

What’s something very sort of simple that you like to call upon? 

Robyn Yeah, so some, some things I rely on heavily is breathwork. Breathwork has changed my life in so many ways and I actually had a really bad experience with breath work, um, when I first sort of started and Not as a protection, but yeah of people say that a lot of people go with quite the aggressive, um, breath work style that really does activate the nervous system and just shows up so much stuff. 

Amanda So what type of breath work?

Robyn For where I was at my nervous system, I, no one warned me about some of the things that could happen. My fingers were quad. I couldn’t unclog them for like two or three hours after the session. I was shaking from feeling so cold. I had the most intense reaction that I felt like energetically didn’t get closed. and so then I was carrying that for a few days and I was just like, whoa. Why would anyone. Why would anyone do that? Right? And I’m also someone That like just loves being sober. I don’t like, Drugs, alcohol. I’ve never gone to psychological escapes in in that sense, so it’s not a familiar sensation for me, and I really, really, really, really disliked it.

And then I started coming back to it with more gentleness, with more. Nourishment with more intuition, more mindfulness. And I started to play with different styles of breathwork that felt really good and in environments that were really supported. And the practitioners were really masterful and, and opened up worlds for me.

And so now I’m also a practitioner of, of specifically that style of breath work, um, embodiment. So it’s called heart breath, and it’s basically, yeah, it’s, it’s a guided breathwork journey that integrates energetics and the heart. As part of it. So it’s not just about being in your body, but it’s really about being in your heart space. sounds good. And allowing your heart. Yeah. It’s about allowing your heart to guide your journey. So sometimes we do need power and fire and activation, and sometimes we need nourishment and comfort and, uh, peace. Right? And so each session’s really guided by what you need. 

Robyn and then embodiment practices. There’s a whole range of embodiment practices that I lean on depending on what I’m working through. If there’s something, sometimes you’re. Consumed by a thought or a problem in your life that you really need to unravel.

Other times you don’t know what’s going on, you’re just feeling out of whack. And so depending on what’s going on, there’s ways that I connect with my myself through that. I’m not a great journaler anymore and I used to love journaling, but it’s something I, I just can’t do After I had a really painful, I’ve had recurrent miscarriages, and it’s something that. Really I couldn’t write about because there was no language, there was no words that could express what was coming up. And so I had to be in my body more than express it, which is so foreign to me because I love writing, I love expressing, I love talking with my hands. Uh, but I just, the pain was just so immense that I just couldn’t.

Couldn’t use language, and so I stopped journaling. I do think journaling is a powerful practice for the right season of life. So if you’re listening and you’re a journaler or you’re curious about journaling, I think it’s really powerful. Uh, for sure. Time in nature, I think is one of the most understated medicines that we can access.

I’m lucky to live in a very beautiful part of the world, and although the weather is not always cooperative, I every single day spend time in nature. And I think it’s just like, for me, that’s the play. You know, it’s like the, the connecting with what’s innocent and levity of life. I can always connect with that in nature. Yeah.

Those are kind of my go-to tools. Yeah.

Amanda Yeah. And they don’t have to be anything too difficult, like you’ve mentioned there. And I, I just wanna say, I’m, I’m so sorry about the recurrent message miscarriages. It’s, yeah, certainly something that I have personally haven’t been through, but I know a lot of people that have, and it’s, it’s not nice, it’s not a nice thing to be going through.

There’s a. A lot. It’s the, yeah, it’s a big toll on the body, physically, emotionally, mentally, all of that. So sending you much love to that, and I

Robyn say thank you,

Amanda relate to how. Not having the words for it. And this is where we do need to pick the practice that is right for us in the moment. Cuz I’m very much the same.

I’m someone that will go through a phase, absolutely deep diving into one particular practice and then I go, you know what? I’m just gonna change things up. And so I always like to have like a toolkit is what I call it, around all these different things that I can actually do and bring into my life, into my business and just go, well, what actually feels right for me?

And that’s the big thing. It’s like, what feels right in my body? It’s getting out of the analytical mind because I am someone that would definitely in my past life, sit in my mind it was where all of my decisions were made. It had to be logical. That was what was drummed into me. If it didn’t make sense.

Then it wasn’t true or don’t go down that path. It had to make sense in the mind. And I think this is what is so important with when we do start leaning into the embodiment, is that it takes you out of the mind. It brings you back into the body where you can feel it. And I know for people who may not be that familiar with it, they go, well, how can you feel it in your body?

That makes no sense. But the body is able to actually hold all of these things within it. And for me, and everyone is different where they’ll feel it in their body. Some people feel it in their face, some people feel it in their, their heart, their limbs, wherever it might be. For me, I am very much, I get it in my, my chest.

Uh, and also my gut is the other thing that I get. So they’re the sort of places that I get, um, that, that knowing. But, Bringing it back to the practices, for me, it’s about, okay, well what feels good for me today? And maybe it is something just as simple as I need to get outside, I need to go for a walking nature.

Or maybe it’s just go outside, take my shoes off, plant my feet on the ground, ground in nature, and have the sun shining on my face because it’s amazing what nature does to reenergize us to repower us. And I think I’m sitting here today looking out my window and it’s, it’s rainy. It’s the middle of winter here.

And you often hear about people being so affected by the weather, and I used to think, no, they don’t. That’s just what they’re saying. They’re only talking about the weather. But I think there’s some people that really are affected by the seasons and the fact that there is no sunshine, which is going to be our natural energy source.

I can’t get out onto the grass because. Well, I can, but my toes will get cold. It’s not the same.

Robyn No, it’s

Amanda I don’t have snow like where you are. Here I am complaining about cold. But yeah, it’s, I’m so affected by these things, and I think when you start to get really connected to your natural surroundings is that it’s just so, so powerful.

Amanda And I think what, what we’re touching on here is really that soul piece that comes into your work, isn’t it? Because you are, you are a business coach by title if we wanna call you that, but it’s not business coaching in the traditional sense. There is so much more that comes into it. You, you talk about having your strategy, your systems, and the soul piece.

And I think this is why quite often when we are looking at. Someone’s business and they seem to be, everything looks great, but the textbook, everything seems like as though it should be working. They’ve got a really great foundation in terms of their system. They’ve got really great structures. It should be fine, but there’s something missing, and this is quite often the missing piece.

Energetically, there’s something not there. You’re not going into your own practices or there’s something that does need to be healed, how did you come to actually incorporate the soul piece?

How did you know that that was the missing piece for you?

Robyn Yeah, it was such a great question and I think, you know, there’s a difference between lazy business and lazy entrepreneurs, and I find that lazy business is very formulaic. It’s very prescriptive. It’s very much, you know, one plus two equals three.

Follow the rules, play by the rules. You’re gonna have success and entrepreneurs. That follow that. They’re not lazy entrepreneurs. They’re working really, really, really hard. But the lazy business tools are just so dehumanizing, right? And so they, it’ll work for some people and it won’t work for other people.

And then for the people it doesn’t work for, they’re gonna internalize that, blame themselves, make themselves the problem. And so for me, the systems, the strategy, and the soul is really about starting with the soul piece and. Going within to be like, what? What is my story? What is my energetic blueprint?

What is my, where’s my heart guiding me? And how can I then use that to weave a cohesive strategy where the brand story is congruent, where people resonate with who I am and how I’m showing up, where the work I do in the world is like truly embodied and it’s not prescriptive. And then what systems can I lean on so that I can have more of life?

While still making great money, working less, and helping more people. Mm. So the systems are the piece that give us life, but the sole piece is the thing that gives the business life, right? Because our business has its own life force, and when we try to follow formulas or prescriptive models of success, it doesn’t always nourish or tap into or activate that life force.

And so then we’re always trying to squeeze our business into this monolithic formula. That is so suffocating of it and we’re not really co-creating with it. We’re not really birthing something that’s honest and true and deeply of service to the world because it’s not coming from an embodied place.

It’s coming from this mental gymnastics place of like, how can I make a business so I can make money? And it all works out. It just, that’s not the way to build a sustainable, long-term nourishing. Deeply of service profitable business. And so that’s where I like to hang out. 

Amanda Yeah, you’re right. I mean, we, we can do something that looks good on paper, it should work, but I think. Particularly, this industry is just growing so rapidly that people don’t want that anymore. You mentioned they, they’re human, and that’s what we need to see into their humanness, and they’re becoming so much more discerning in, in their decision making, what it is that they want.

There are a plethora of different options out there. And so if we are simply just creating these cookie cutter businesses that are the same as the next and as the next, as the next, and devoid of soul and devoid of who we are when we’re not bringing our magic to it all. We’re not gonna stand out from the crowd.

We need to actually then infuse our essence into it, not only for our clients and for the longevity of our business, but also just for ourselves. If we’re not enjoying it, if there’s no pleasure in what we are doing, we are gonna come to the point where all of a sudden business now starts to feel easy because we’ve spent a couple of years, we know how to do things inside and out.

It’s no longer taking out that mental bandwidth. And if we don’t have the joy, if we don’t have the fun, we don’t have the pleasure in it, what’s the point? We’re not gonna love it.

Robyn And it.

doesn’t allow us to evolve with our business because who we are is always going, or should always be evolving and life will change and, and we will need to make pivots.

But when you’ve squeezed yourself into this, Box, there’s no room for you to show up authentically in your evolved versions of you, and you are gonna continue to evolve and pivots are going to be necessary. And that’s another weird construction, um, that we’ve received from, you know, I don’t know where the world, but that how we operate within business or economic structures has to always be the same.

And so if you are a multi hyphenated person, if you are a multi-passionate person, if you are someone who. You know, manifesting generators, like 

Amanda Yep, me as well. same.

Robyn exactly, uh, like both of us. If you are someone who’s just vibrant in a lot of different ways, your business is not going to be a place of fun and play and nourishment for you because you’re always going to feel squeezed and suffocated by it. When we build from the life force and it’s a co-creation of what’s real and true.

It allows us to be honest in that growth and bring people along for the real journey of who we continue to become as leaders of our business and as the face of the brand and as people, humans with heartbeats and dreams and families and challenges and all the things that come with that. We allow ourselves to have more of life and more of humanity when we’re being.

In the, the life force energy of the work and not just the prescription of it. 

Amanda Yeah, I love that the allowing us to be who we become, because as you said, we’re always evolving and I think this is really what goes back to the essence of a lot of my work is that. It is not just about the business we are, it is so much bigger than the business. Is it about the person behind it? You as the leader of your business, you are always going to continue your to evolve and grow and expand.

And when your business enables you to do that, you’re not gonna feel confined. You’re not gonna feel boxed in. You’re gonna be able to just live, oh, such an incredible life and. I think in terms of our community, when we actually bring our humanness into our business, they’re gonna follow us along for that ride.

They’re not simply gonna say, well, you offer this really rigid structure that came in a box and that is your business. I want that business. They’re gonna say, no, I want you. I want you and your new evolution. I want you in who you’ve become, and I’m gonna follow you to the ends of the earth. And I don’t know that that just absolutely.

Inspires me. The fact that I get to not play by any rules. I get to just create the business and the life of my dreams. That is going to just be phenomenal. And I know this is something that you talk about a lot as well, the being able to create a rich life. And rich is not just in the sense of money.

Like how do you describe rich life? How do you define that?

Robyn Oh yeah. You know, it’s something that I’ve redefined over and over and over again over the years, but to me, one of the biggest reasons I wanted my own business was so that I didn’t have to wake up to an alarm.

It’s the silliest thing, but for me it was just so triggering to my nervous system. I would have so much pressure the night before of like, oh my God, I have this wake up. I’m just, the whole day would go in front of my mind and I would be overwhelmed and stressed and then I wouldn’t sleep, and I just felt this like huge loss of control over my time, which is.

Our most precious commodity is our time and our energy, right? And so I, I think that to me, a rich life and a business that supports a rich life is one where there’s abundance of time for you to be. In choice about how you’re spending that time. There is abundance of energy that gets allocated in ways that are nourishing for your community, for your business, for yourself, for your family.

And not to say that there’s not going to be seasons of hustle. There’s not going to be seasons where you are maybe operating more in one camp over the other. You know for sure last year I was more in my personal life than I was in building my business, and there’s been other seasons where I’ve been way more involved in building my business than in my personal life.

So it’s not always a balance, but the point is that you get to choose what’s important to you and what nourishes you and your life at each stage of your journey. And. I think that’s a rich life. It’s choice, it’s options. It’s having a voice and a say in where you wanna be and who you wanna spend your time with, and what money gives you.

You know, they say money doesn’t by happiness, but it certainly takes us a very, very, very long way towards options. You know, not having to work soul fucking jobs, not having to worry about housing, not having to worry about. If you live in America, for example, and you don’t have any health benefits, what about insurance or when your health needs support by a medical system that is exceptionally greedy?

There’s just so many ways that the world opens for us when we can control our financial. Abundance when we can write our own paychecks, when we can choose how we wanna spend our time and when we can expand our energy in ways that are nourishing for us and our goals and our dream, and our and our people personally or professionally. 

Amanda yeah. and so much that comes back to what it is that you value when you’re creating that rich life. Like what is it that you need? I mean, there’s obviously some base level requirements that we have. I mean, I remember my. In marketing days, learning about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it feels like years ago now where there are some basic needs that we have.

Housing, clothing, food, healthcare, all of those things are gonna be your base level needs. But when you then start to move beyond that and you start to then look into, okay, the realm of possibilities, it really starts to open up so much. And as you mentioned, it’s about understanding what it is that. How you define it, what, what it is that you value.

And it can be something as simple as just not having the alarm clock. And just as a side note, those alarms are so triggering. I’m exactly the same.

Robyn Right. 

Amanda But why do they come with such triggering alarms? I know they need to wake us up but…I remember years ago actually looking into. There’s a, there was this product that was essentially meant to mimic the sun rising.

So it was like this globe that you had in your room that was meant to elum slowly illuminate the room so that you were tricking your body into rising with this pretend sun. I never got there. I think I quit my job before then, but I was getting really desperate. I was like, I cannot stand this alarm anymore,

Robyn No. And the funny thing is now that I have my own business, I obviously have, I have a daughter and she has school and you know, we have structure outside of what I would have in my business, but my body just wakes up before any alarm clock because it’s at peace, it’s regulated, it’s driven by something more than.

The handcuffs of economic structures to pay a mortgage to live in a city I don’t wanna live in. And all the, all the things that come up when we, when we feel that loss of control over our lives. 

Amanda Yeah. And so one of the things that you talk about there is about still having the structures in your life. And I remember very fairly, very early when I was first in my entrepreneurial journal, I was like, you know, I’m gonna throw everything out the window. We’re gonna be live this free nomadic life. We’re just going to go and do what we want whenever we want.

There are some structures that we do need to have in our life, and particularly when you have kids, they seem to thrive in a little bit of routine. So how do you, how do you strike that balance between what it is that you desire to create, having that freedom in your personal life and being able to have enough structure in your business that’s still going to then achieve those ambitions.

I know you mentioned last year’s very heavily in your personal, and then there this year has been more in your business. How do you actually determine that? How do you go, okay, well this is what I need to be able to achieve these particular goals and strike that balance.

Robyn Yeah, it, so I think like when your personal life is big, you don’t really have that choice.

Uh, if you don’t want to dishonor your body, if you wanna be in your integrity with your clients, if you want to operate. An ethical business, especially if you’re holding space for people. And so for me, that was like really capping the number of clients I worked with, really being in my integrity about, uh, supporting myself, nourishing myself so that I could hold space from the purest place of me.

And I take that very, very, very seriously and always prioritizing that over money has always been my, my thing because, You know, there’s nothing worse than going to someone’s house for dinner and leaving Hungary, and I think so many people have that experience in the online business world. Whether it’s buying a course, whether it’s working with a coach, whether it’s joining a mastermind, they’re starving for something, they’re excited to sit at the table with whoever they’re investing in, and they’re left feeling hungry.

They’re left going, I didn’t get fed. I don’t feel nourished. I didn’t come. Um, I didn’t leave with what I came for. And, and so I literally lead my business by that vision of generosity. And I want every single person who enters my business world, whether they’re engaging in my free resources, my podcast, my opt-ins, or a course where they’re not having direct access to me all the way through masterminds into one-on-one.

I want each one of my clients to feel nourished, and so that’s my metric of where I need to be in terms of personal or professional capacity. Structures are things that I always rebelled against, but I do believe especially in this like feminine movement of feminine embodied business, that there is this real risk of. Not really giving people the true answer for what it takes to succeed. And like everything is ease and everything is flow, and everything is spontaneous, and everything is like intuitive. And if you’re running a business a hundred percent like that, you’re probably not getting anywhere. You’re probably not feeling sane in your business.

And if you’re too much in the structure and the rules and the. Playbook and the formulas, you’re probably really unhappy in your business and you’re also probably not getting where you wanna be. So I think it’s that balance of how do I create healthy structures that don’t suffocate me, but that liberate me so I can bring more of me to the table so that I can preserve what matters to me and so that I can stay sane.

And for me, that’s. Been pretty simple and clear. I have routine for what I work on in my business on each day of the week. I have very firm boundaries around what hours I work every week. Um, I do school drop offs, school pickups, all of that. So work hours happen between those hours. I always take Fridays off.

Those are my days for me. And, uh, my husband is a pilot, so he doesn’t have a regular schedule, and I used to operate my business so that I would accommodate when he was home versus when he was away. I no longer do that. It’s. Always my, my schedule, my systems, and he flows in and out depending on where he’s at.

And so I just think it’s about honoring again, what’s important to you and not seeing the systems or the structure as. Controlling and suffocating and this really awful fence that’s caging you. But how can we be more liberated? How can we create more spaciousness? How can we create more abundance by creating really healthy, supportive systems that make us feel safer in our work, in our, in our business, and also in our personal relationship?

It’s really about safety. When you, when you have this cocoon of, of support, You feel safer to then roam freely within it. 

Amanda Yeah, and it doesn’t always, when you first start out doing that, it can actually feel a little bit restrictive. It can feel quite closed in, and it can feel. Unsafe when you’re trying to create that sense of safety, because you’re putting yourself out there, and if you don’t have that confidence to be able to say, well, these are my boundaries.

I’m not doing it in a rude way. I’m simply just doing it to protect my energy so that I can better serve you. It starts to change the narrative a little bit more, but it takes a while to get there. And it’s like anything that we’ve talked about here, it. It sounds as though it comes so easily, but this is not what it’s about.

We’re not talking about, yes, you get to have the ease, but it’s not without laying the groundwork first. You need to actually build that self-confidence. You need to have done that inner work in order to actually then create that environment where you feel safe and you feel secure to be able to hold those boundaries, to have those conversations.

Just say, and I’m sure you’ve had the conversation with your partner, that it is, this is my schedule. You are gonna flow in and out of it rather than me pandering to you. And I’m exactly the same. My husband works away a lot, and so same sort of thing. It’s very much a case of this is our routine when he’s away and then when he is home.

I still try to keep my routine, but it wasn’t always that way. It involved a lot of tough conversations. It involved a lot of me standing up for myself

And feeling just confident and feeling that I was able to do that in order to create that safety that I craved and that I needed to really create. The things that I needed and wanted to have.

Robyn And I think this is exactly what we, we need to say here, is that you can give yourself permission to play with us and to experiment and to find your own bandwidth and your own boundaries and permission to change when life changes or you change. Change of priorities change as well, right? Like I’ve definitely seen my husband go through more intense, uh, career changes that required me to be more flexible and that was something I could accommodate then.

And so it’s about being a little bit more fluid and flexible within the boundary, uh, and not just getting stuck in it because it’s now a boundary. It doesn’t have.to be so firm all the time that you can negotiate that for yourself. Absolutely.

Amanda Yeah. This is something that I talk about a bit is being able to change your mind and just do experiment.

and I’m sure my husband was like, what is she doing now? It’s changed again, but he’s gotten used to it. These are all the conversations that we’re having in the background and. He’s used to that now he understands that that’s the way I operate and that just makes me feel good.

It allows me that freedom and the flexibility to do what I need to do to carry on in life, carry on in business, and to, to feel good about it all, which I think is the, the key to it, isn’t it? That is what a rich life is for me, to have a life that just makes you feel good.

Robyn Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love that. I use the word vitality a lot because it’s, it’s more of life, but it’s more of a liveness and the pleasure and the enjoyment of life. 

Amanda Exactly. That’s what we’re here for, to enjoy life. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Robyn Totally. 

Amanda What’s  point of doing something that we don’t enjoy?

Robyn Yeah.

Amanda So Robyn, I’d love to know what is it that you’re working on at the moment? I believe that there’s a really incredible quiz that you are about to put out into the world. Is that right? Your superpower power quiz? Tell me a little bit about that.

Robyn so it’s a revised version of a, a one that I launched years ago that was super, super popular. Uh, but I’ve evolved, my work has evolved. It’s deepened and the kind of clients I work with has also evolved significantly. And so it’s a revised version, but it’s essentially a discover your six figure superpower quiz.

But it’s really about how can you leverage that to take your business to the next level. And so there’s different archetypes that will. Present and most, most of the time we’re a little bit of everything. So it’s not like you’re all this and you’re none of that. But there are dominant traits and there’s, there’s different dominant skills that you can leverage in your business depending on where you are oriented.

And sometimes it changes. As I’ve said, I’ve had people who did this quiz three years ago that were oriented in a different way than they are now. Normal. Uh, but as I said, we have this true essence part of who we are, and the quiz is really about giving yourself permission to tap into that part of yourself, bring that to your business, and move away from the formulas and the prescriptive ways of doing and being.

Uh, a very specific example is just people saying, I wanna be marketing online, but I’m just not funny. I’m not entertaining, I’m not going to do. You know those cameo style reels, and the whole point is that you don’t have to, if that’s not honest and authentic to who you are, it’s not gonna be received in the way that people who are naturally gifted in those areas will be received, right?

And so the quiz helps you illuminate what is your unique essence, what is your unique strength, and also how you can support yourself in areas where you may not be as strong. 

Amanda Oh, that sounds incredible. I’m gonna put the link to that in the show notes for sure. It really is just, it encapsulates everything that we’ve been talking about, and I’m definitely not one of those people that would get on there and do the little skit style TikTok. Cause I remember when they first came in, I was like, oh my gosh.

I sat down and I wrote a script one, and I was like, I just can’t do it. I can’t do it. That’s not me.

Robyn No, 

Amanda so glad I didn’t looking back on it. But it was just one of those moments of do I follow the formula? Do I do what everyone else is doing or do I lean into who I am? So it was one of those, yeah, I can go either way, sliding door moments, but I’m so glad I didn’t, cause I 

Robyn it, Me too

Amanda and that would’ve felt like a fool.

Robyn and anybody else who’s listening and resonates with that, what is say do those people is that is more important to focus on presence versus performance? A lot of the time, the, the reason that we start to feel that yucky feeling or that imposter syndrome type, like yuck.

It’s really because we’re doing something we think we should do and we’re approaching it from a performative place versus being in our embodied presence and essence and just showing up from that place of I’m here to be of service so we don’t have to perform. 

Amanda Not at all, and social media sometimes feels like that in order to get our ourselves out there, especially if we’re. Someone who is a little bit sort of quieter spoken. We are someone who isn’t necessarily loud and overt. We think that that’s what we need to do in order to be seen. No, we are seen for who we are when we actually get to be who we are.

Robyn So I love that.

Amanda Love that you’ve mentioned that. And another thing I just wanted to quickly mention as well, Robyn, is your A course that I recently did of yours, which is absolutely phenomenal and I think we should definitely mention it on there. Cause I know for me, Sales was always something that just felt sticky in my body.

Again, this is that whole sort of like visceral feeling in the body once you get out of the mind. It was like, oh, the chest tightening, the throat tightening just felt, ugh, and this is something that I did. And it was just that ah, instant relief. It was that permission slip. It just felt so good and it’s the coach sales system.

So I’ll get you just to mention that one very quickly as well.

Robyn Yeah, so the coach sales system is really a self-paced course.

You get access to everything right away. There’s no direct coaching with me, but the content’s designed to take you through a process that’s going to help you lean into ethical sales that are not manipulative, that are not cringy, and that are proven. There’s so many shiny objects in the online space.

I’ve been doing work in the peripheral. Industries of this for over 10 years. I think it’s 11 years now. And so these are tried and true timeless sales principles that also leverage the embodied women’s wisdom, and it’s not the patriarchal manipulative. Hyper masculine approach to sales at all. So if sales feels cringe, there’s hope that you can learn to love it, that there’s, um, support in this course for any skill gaps that you may have.

But there’s also so much support to just help you feel really confident that you’re selling in an authentic, ethical, and heart-centered way that’s actually really, really, really beautiful for the people that you’re selling to. 

Amanda It’s bringing in that soul piece again.

Robyn Exactly. There’s strategy system soul. Yes. Yeah. 

Amanda it. And again, I’ll pop that into the show notes. Robyn, where can everyone find you? Where can my community find you? I believe that you like to hang out on Instagram the most. Is that correct?

Robyn Yeah, I love Instagram. I’m @robyn.gooding and my website is robyngooding.com. I believe Amanda will link these  in the show notes.

and all my, All my everythings are on my website. So that’s my online home hub.

Amanda Amazing. And I’ll also pop your incredible podcast in there as well because Robyn likes to drop weekly episodes and um, I know that you love, listen into those if you’d love this chat.

Robyn Thank you

Amanda So Robyn, is there anything that you’d like to leave us with? Any parting words of wisdom or anything like that?

Robyn You know, I, I think I’ve been involved in business for so long and I think women are just so. Magical at business and yet think they’re bad at it. And so I just encourage anyone listening who feels like they have something to offer, the world that wants to be of service to people that dreams of building, uh, financial equity for their family and a better life for themselves and their families. To just lean in and get curious about how they might actually be brilliant for a business and not feel held back by any skill gaps because those are so easy to teach and we need you. We need your wisdom. We need what you have to offer the world, and I think you’re probably better at business than you think.

Amanda I love that skills are easily learned. That you and your essence, that is just something that you have. That’s the magic within. Love that so much.

Robyn Mm-hmm. 

Amanda Oh, Robyn, thank you so much for coming on the show and, and sharing all of your wisdom with my guests. I know they’re going to absolutely love this episode.

There is so much in here to take away and to really just bring into their lives and be that permission slip to just be all of them. So thank you again so much for coming on the show.

Robyn Thank you for having me. It’s such an honor to work with you, to see you behind the scenes, modeling everything that you share with your community.

You are an exemplary leader and a really beautiful luminary for so many of us, and I’m so happy that your work is now getting in front of more people. Amanda Thank you. I’m receiving that.