Creatively Human Podcast: Ruth Poundwhite Interviews Imogen Roy
In the Creatively Human podcast with Ruth Poundwhite, we talk all about burnout and deciding to do things radically differently. I share ways you can prioritise your energy, move your body, and do what makes you feel good, ultimately leading to your own vision of success in your life and business.
It’s possible to burn out doing what you love. It happened to me. Here is my story of self-employed burnout and how I shook things up in what I call my Year of Magical Living.
“Your health – physical, mental, emotional – is the foundation from which your business will grow and scale and flourish.”
Links Mentioned in This Episode:
Download a free tool to help match your next task to suit the mood or energy state you’re currently in, or ideally want to create
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Book: Do Less by Kate Northrup
Book: Period Power by Maisie Hill
Quote: “Strong back, soft front, wild heart” – Brené Brown
Learn more about coaching with Imogen
Journaling Prompt:
“What experiment could you run to test how your business might work better for you? Let your imagination run wild…what implausible actions, what mad indulgences might yield surprisingly successful results for your life and success?”
Read the Transcript:
Ruth: Today's episode is all about going through burnout and deciding to do things radically differently. It's all about prioritising your energy, prioritising your body and doing what makes you feel good, and ultimately that leading to good things in your business as well. Even that feels scary and talking about this with Imogen Roy who went through a big burnout herself, and then decided to radically shake things up in what she calls her Year of Magical living. I absolutely love this topic, and I hope you enjoy it too.
Before we dig in, let me tell you a bit more about Imogen. She’s a strategy coach who helps entrepreneurial people to be more prolific, productive and present in their life and business. She lives in Paris, France, because she wants to. After experiencing burnout whilst doing what she loved as a freelance marketing consultant, Imogen realised she'd have to take a much more proactive approach to protect our most valuable business asset – her own energy. Now, she helps other entrepreneurs to play bigger in business with more ease, more freedom, and less stress. As a fellow introvert, Imogen is on a mission to help others develop their quiet power and show up for the change they wish to see in the world. You can find her at imogenroy.com or on Instagram @imogenroy. I know you're going to love this episode. Enjoy!
Ruth: The conversation that we have today is all about your burnout, and the decision that you made to do things differently the year following. I would love it if you could just talk a bit about what happened and that decision that you made.
Imogen: So, I had a burnout in November 2018. And at the time, I have to admit I didn't really know what was happening to me, because I was nine months into my consulting business, I was doing very well. I had my first 10k month, which apparently is meant to be success, right? And I was on top of the world, and all of a sudden, I wasn't. And there been niggling physical symptoms for quite some time that had just stubbornly ignored. And then, the sort of mental and emotional symptoms appeared. Like, I went from believing that I was doing what I love to a state of just total apathy. Wanting to end every contract I had going and just say a big “F off” to all my clients, and you know the things that normally lit me up. Like coming up with a brand strategy or writing a brand style guide, signing a new client, those things just suddenly filled with resentment and dread. And I thought, okay, something's really wrong, something is really wrong. And it was a week, when I was in London to do a conference, speaking on stage, and I'm not a nervous speaker, but I was shaking backstage, trembling. My whole body convulsing. And this lovely lady said to me, “Oh dear, you’re really nervous, aren’t you?” And I said, “I'm not, there's something else happening.” And that was a week that I had that and then I was off to three countries to lead three different client workshops within six days. And after the conference, after I gave my speech, I was backstage, and I got my laptop, and I started Googling. “What does burnout feel like,” and I was reading articles and I thought, this is exactly what's happening. I've burned out. And now what do I do? So that was my first experience. I did get through that week. By the end of the week, I had decided to fire my biggest client, which was about 80% of my income. And then in the 14 months that followed, I completely changed the way I did things. And I hope that whatever I share here today will help other people who may be a bit teetering very close to the edge, or maybe have actually burned out before but they didn't know what was happening, or can at least recognise the warning signs before it's too late.
Ruth: Yeah, so what are those warning signs?
Imogen: Well I think it manifests very differently for everyone. There's definitely, physical, emotional and mental symptoms. The body is so ingenious. The body will try and get our attention in a way that it believes we will pay attention. So for me that the first port of call is always old injuries. So, old surgery scars, old ski injuries. And if that doesn't work then my body will try the new things like I'll lose my appetite or I'll develop terrible back pain or shaking, for example. And so I think everyone will have different physical symptoms, depending on their unique style of body-mind connection breakdown. For me to think that I found very shocking was that my productivity just completely collapsed. I was very irritable all the time, I couldn't concentrate, I wasn't sleeping well and everything just sort of fell apart. And then finally, the thing that really shocked me was the total apathy. I don't care about anything anymore. “I don't care what people think if I just stop”, which was really unlike me. And that was for me what made me sit up and think this is really wrong, something's gone really wrong.
“The thing that surprised me it was that I didn’t believe that you could burn out doing what you love. ”
The thing that surprised me it was that I didn't believe that you could burn out doing what you love. I thought burnout happened to people who worked in horribly abusive environments, really under the thumb, bad bosses, a lot of emotional abuse and stress, and I didn't have that. But what I did have was that I had made the pivot, from corporates to self employment, and I hadn't at all taken into account all the extra responsibilities and all the extra emotional labour I was doing on behalf of my clients. I'm someone who cares a lot, too much probably. I really give everything I have. I think if you're a highly sensitive person like me or a very giving person, it's an emotional labour, that is really taxing, and for me I know that that's what burned me out.
Ruth: Oh, yeah, I can relate to that so much. And, I mean, I feel like, because of that, emotional labour, we need, the self care, but we need – not some fluffy thing. To hold that energy for people and to have them in your mind, and all these things that we do on the admin side in business. It's not just the literal work that we sit down to do – it is massive. I think about this a lot, because personally, I felt like I related to the stuff you said about burnout, in terms of the clinical emotional side of it. And I know that those kind of symptoms you listed, like feeling really apathetic and irritable, trouble sleeping, all of that stuff. They can be symptoms of depression, right? You made the connection between the work that you were doing, and you made certain changes and you realised that burnout was linked to your work. And I have experienced that too. But it was more doing work, no it wasn't exactly what I loved so it's not the exact same experience to you, but it was more like I underpriced myself. I was a freelance writer, and I underpriced myself, I was just writing, writing, writing. So in some ways it was work I loved, because I really like writing, but I was churning it out so it became robotic and meaningless to me.
Imogen: You can have too much of a good thing. And I think as well there's a very important moment in self employment. So at the beginning, you have to say yes to everything, right? You need clients, you need experience, you need practice. So say yes, say yes, say yes. But then once you have a full practice, you have to start saying no. As soon as you're full, you have to make that decision, like, “okay I'm now full. So, what am I going to say no to, what am I going to let go because this isn't actually great and I don't need to keep it anymore.” But the problem is is that many of us don't know that there is that moment. And we don't know to pivot.
Ruth: Yeah, yeah. I just didn't think there was such a thing as being full. I just thought, more work, more work, more money. I didn't even think of raising prices.
Imogen: Absolutely. And I want to get back to what you said about depression, because two things. I have suffered with depression in the past, and I've worked very hard and had a lot of help to overcome it. And I wonder whether, for me, my experience my body felt that those symptoms could get my attention. But I have heard from other people who've burned out that the symptoms are very, very similar. And it's not really surprising because the opposite of depression is play. It's not happiness, it's not even calmness, it's play. And when we don't have any play, we become depressed and even if we're doing work that we love. If it's not play, if we're not playing with life, if we're not making space to just be, then it's very understandable how we can fall into those patterns again. And that's something that I've tried to bring more of this sort of lifeforce back into the whole way I run my business. This understanding that if I don't experience pleasure, I can't actually show up at the most brilliant and fullest version of myself. It's actually a disservice to my clients to work too hard, and to give everything to them. Of course, logically you think, “I've got to give the best of myself to my clients, that’s where my value lies, and we give everything until our cup is so empty, we can't even squeeze a drop out. Then there's the other way of thinking, which is, if my cup is full, is going to be overflowing and I have so much more to give. And I keep filling up my cup, and then I always have more to give to others, it doesn't run out, then that's where you get this sort of abundance kind of thinking, where you don't have to have resentment, because you know getting enough, whether it's financially or energetically, you know that you're not going to run out. And that's what I really learned in this year of magical living, I call it, an experiment that I did.
“The opposite of depression is play. It’s not happiness, it’s not even calmness, it’s play. And when we don’t have any play, we become depressed, even if we’re doing work that we love. If it’s not play, if we’re not playing with life, if we’re not making space to just be, then it’s very understandable how we can fall into those patterns again.”
Rather than me trying to squeeze out a little bit of my leisure time around my clients, I decided to book in my fitness classes, my social, my lunches, in my calendar first and then put my work appointments around that.
And all these experimental things I did really putting myself first. And I also raised my prices by 50%. I was scared doing this. I thought that I might not earn money for a year. I might go backwards. I had this huge momentum in my first nine months of business, and it just crashed. I had to start again from scratch. And I thought, oh my goodness I failed. I failed. I tried to do this whole successful entrepreneurial, you know consultant thing and I can't even do it. I can't. What's wrong with me. But those other parts of me this inner wisdom part, who've been really like knocking on my door for a very, very long time, many many years, who finally had a chance to speak and she said, “Not this way. It's not that you can't be successful. It's just that you can't do it this way. There’s another way.” And so I listened to her and that was the intention that came to this year of magical living. And it really was magical. Because it wasn't easy. I still took on some clients that weren't a good fit for me, because I had all this angst about self worth. The fact that I wasn't as available, but I was more expensive. I did say yes to a project I shouldn't have said yes to, because I thought it had something to prove.
But also halfway through the year, my biggest win really was that I started to have a lot of people asking me about coaching them. I've been running my newsletter for a year and a half or so. And I started to have readers write to me and say, “Would you coach me?” And I thought, oh I'm not a coach. I would go and research loads of coaches in their local area that might appeal to them, and then send them like, “what about these three people?” And, luckily, a very persistent friend kept coming back, and telling me, “Imogen, you don't get it. I don't want to work with anyone else. I want to work with you and I don't care if you don't have a programme. Design one before me. I know you can do it.” And so I said yes, and I realised that I'm actually a natural coach, and so I pivoted my business. Within a few months, had a coaching offer, sold out my practice, got my first clients, and suddenly realised that this really easy way of working for me, that feels so second nature and feels so light. Even things like going and making videos on Instagram stories I mean, I'm an introvert just like you are, I never imagined that's something that I would do, but because I was in this totally new mindset, and I had this totally different energy. I was showing up in my life in a different way because I wasn't stressed all the time and wasn't tired all the time. There were so many more doors opened up for me. And I really do believe that, because my energy changed I started to attract different kinds of people. And it was actually, other people who could see better than I could, the kind of work that I was supposed to be doing.
Ruth: That's amazing. So many things come up for me, as I've been listening to you talking about that. And that was one of them. When your energy changes, you are the right person for the people who are right for you. By creating that space in your life, and being yourself, which I guess it came out in the content you were writing to them. Because that's the thing, like a lot of what you've said, your journey, having this experiment trying to do things differently. I like the fact that you explained how it actually was a hard decision for you, because it seems like oh it's easy just to choose different things differently and it all worked out. But it was a hard decision for you and you had to unlearn a lot of stuff that had been ingrained in you. And I feel like I can see parallels in my own journey. As you were speaking I was thinking, I can resonate I resonate with this so much. Firstly, in terms of being an introvert in business and trying to push, push, push against my introverted nature for so many years. And it turns out, like you were saying about going on Instagram stories and stuff, I never thought I would do that either. It turns out that it's quite easy to do it. I mean it's not easy maybe the first time, you have to get used to it still, but it's easy to do it when it's when you're doing it right, you're not trying to be something else, and you're not forcing it. And it's kind of the same, doing things like go doing live videos and stuff. In the past, I was like I’m going to go live every day this time and it doesn't work for me. And when I just decide it's okay for me to just go live when I feel like it, it works really well. These are the kind of things that popped up as you were talking about it.
The other thing, a parallel I had come up in my mind, was after I had my son. I’d already been running my business, and planned for maternity leave, and saved up money and stuff, but I went through a really difficult time with my mental health after having him. It was really interesting because I really wanted to still push get things done in my business, and it taught me massively that I needed to stop pushing so much. I don't know where I'm going with that but it kept coming to mind. These other, more subtle versions of burnout, different things like not being your true personality and not feeling happy. Feeling like there's something wrong, and not knowing what that was for a long time. I really resonated what you said about that.
Imogen: And also, whether it's struggling with mental health after having a child or burnout, or even just throw in to recover after an accident, any kind of unexpected life challenge, when we're at our lowest, it really exposes who we truly are. Because we have no energy to hide anything. We have no energy to pretend anymore and you're reduced to your deepest foundations. While those moments are very difficult, they're very beautiful and they're very powerful. Because it is in those moments that you can finally look in the mirror and realise, ‘I've been trying to be someone I'm not. I've been fighting uphill all the way and it's not working, and I can't do that anymore.’ And there's just a sense of incredible ease and lightness, with which I now live my life. It's so far away from where I was. My life on the outside looked really good and it did feel good, but it always felt like I had to work twice as hard just to keep my head above water. I was even in corporate working with lots of ambitious people like me, but they just seemed to have more energy than I did, always. And it always felt like I was totally running on empty the whole time, but trying to keep it together because I didn't want to be seen as weak. And I just brought all that energy and conditioning into my business.
“When we’re at our lowest, it exposes who we truly are. Because we have no energy to hide anything. We have no energy to pretend anymore and you’re reduced to your deepest foundations. While those moments are very difficult, they’re very beautiful and they’re very powerful. Because it is in those moments that you can finally look in the mirror and realise, ‘I’ve been trying to be someone I’m not. I’ve been fighting uphill all the way and it’s not working, and I can’t do that anymore.’”
Ruth: I like what you said about it being a beautiful thing. I know that if there’s anyone listening who’s going through a really hard time now, than obviously you don’t have to see it as a beautiful thing. It's your experience, and if I heard myself say this while I was going through it, I wouldn’t have wanted to hear it, but I do see it as a good thing. It was difficult, horrible, but ultimately it was exactly like you said. I just had no energy to fight or hide anything, and it was just like, exposing, and I had nothing to lose. And so in that way, it was like the best thing that could’ve happened.
Imogen: Yeah, nothing to lose. Nothing to lose. I think that's the thing isn't it? That that's when you finally have the courage sometimes to make these experiments or try things differently, make a change, because you're like, well if it doesn't work out, the other thing wasn't working out either. Yeah, it's funny that we sometimes have to get to rock bottom to actually recognise what's right for us, but it's just the way it is.
Ruth: Absolutely. I guess I say nothing to lose. I think that’s an emotional state in a way, because we do have stuff, like physical stuff, the income potentially, to lose it. You know, we are sort of taking a risk right? I was taking a risk, I decided to start building myself, businesses, and owning parts of myself that I used to hide away from. And you decided to change the way that you were doing business. Pretty radically. You brought up that you were really nervous about it, and personally I have a story and I think this is so ingrained in our culture, that you have to work hard to make the money you want. And it's really complicated to talk about it because yes, you have to work to make money. But sometimes it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Imogen: Yes, I think it goes beyond work. If you want to be successful, you have to make sacrifices. You can have this, but then you have to give up this. So if you want to have success, you've got to give up good relationships or health. If you want to be really visible, you've got to give up your mental health. We’re always presented with this binary choice. And I just don't believe that it has to be like that. I really don't. Why is there not enough to go around that you have to just take one option? I have an article on my blog all about this, the definition of success by taking the dictionary definition and challenged it. Because it says things like, “a person of high status.” And you think, yeah, but there are plenty of people who have high status in our culture, who are clearly very unhappy. If someone is successful, but full of self-loathing, how is that possibly success? Why is that somebody want to be? Why can't someone be financially stable, be financially abundant, do the creative work they want to do, have a nice life? Why are we told that's impossible? I think sometimes it's believing that you can be successful and have the things you want, just by being yourself. I think that's a story that maybe they've tried to keep from us. Because we do live in this culture of homogenization right? Where it's safer for everyone to be the same, we’re easier to control. Whereas this sense that everyone is uniquely different, and it's up to them to design their life for their own agency, is a less compelling power grab.
“‘If you want to be successful, you have to make sacrifices. You can have this, but then you have to give up this. So if you want to have success, you’ve got to give up good relationships or health. If you want to be really visible, you’ve got to give up your mental health.’ We’re always presented with this binary choice. And I just don’t believe that it has to be like that. ”
Ruth: I’m thinking back to your year of magical living, I guess it was a process of unlearning kind of proving to yourself that it was possible.
Imogen: And definitely a big part for me was the mind-body connection that for so long had been so fractured. It was actually my chiropractor, who’s a very very wise man. From our very early sessions, he said to me, “You don't have a neck problem,” – because I've actually had two slipped disc surgeries in my 20s – “You don't have a back problem. You have a serious stress problem in that you cannot metabolise of stress and so you’re just carrying it around with you everywhere. And so together we're going to teach you how to correct your own spine with your thoughts.” At that moment, I thought, oh my goodness this guy's a complete lunatic. I think I’m going to have to find a new chiropractor. But he was absolutely right. And together that's exactly what we've done. Corrected years of back issues, simply by me learning how to manage my stress with meditation, with sending energy to parts of my body, to hearing my body, to connecting with it holistically. And so for me, beyond unlearning ways of working it was also unlearning how I treated my body in the past. And suddenly I realising at the ripe age of 28 or whatever that my body is not just a vehicle to take my head around to meetings to look smart. We're all in this together. And I just totally denied that. And again, I want to go back to pleasure. Because pleasure is experienced in the body. It's a way of feeling, it's the joy of being alive, and you can't just experience that mentally.
Ruth: What are some of the ways you connect with your body?
Imogen: I've move a lot more. So I have a daily practice where I do bits of yoga, some Pilates, some strength conditioning, and I'm very strong now. And meditate, and I really go into my body scan it. Listen for what's trying to get my attention, analysing things. Even when I'm walking around on the streets. I used to be very industrious –listening to a business podcast, making a call, running an errand – and now I try and just relax a little bit. Feel the sensation of my feet walking on the pavement, feeling the wind in my face, and smiling. The biggest thing for me has been this rediscovery of the joy of life, what a privilege it is, and how it's just a simple switch to get out of your head and be in the present moment. I'm an introvert, I'm an over thinker. I’ve spent my entire life either ruminating on the past or imagining the future. And it's really hard for me. It takes a huge amount of effort to actually exist in the present, and to be here right now. Just in this moment. And we might talk about this later, but this is one of the big principles for me about time-bending. It’s something that completely changed the way I experienced time, was changing the way I show it physically, and the way I put my attention on the world has expanded what a minute or an hour or a day used to feel like for me.
“The biggest thing for me has been this rediscovery of the joy of life, what a privilege it is, and how it’s just a simple switch to get out of your head and be in the present moment.”
Ruth: I love it. I can relate so much to everything you said about overthinking and being in your head so much. You mentioned to me when we were going back and forth about talking points for this episode. You mentioned things like tracking your cycle. I first became aware that I wasn't really connecting with my body that much when I first started running. Because I’d never been a sporty person, I’d always considered myself to be pretty lazy and sit down at the computer to do my work. I finally had this sort of epiphany that my body is meant to be active in whatever way that looks like. But for me, the running felt right. I would literally get a high from running. It's kind of ironic because at the moment I'm not running, and I really want to start. But it's like if I could just get that feeling, there's no drugs involved, but it was like, bloody amazing. That was the kind of first time I became aware of it, but I definitely feel like I've got a long way to go in terms of bodily connection. So the menstrual cycle tracking is something that I've been trying, but I've been trying not to do it too rigidly because for me that feels like another thing to add to my to do list, it’s a bit overwhelming. Just sort of like every week, checking in and thinking, “where am I at?” And also, like, “how do I literally feel? What’s my energy like?” I've been just basically doing a really simple like weekly check in, based on the work of Kate Northrup.
Imogen: Yeah, I was about to say, she just changed my life. I came off birth control for the first time in like 14 years in the summer. It's definitely deepened this mind-body connection, and actually one of the reasons I decided to do that was that I had this really strong calling for my body to stop taking this drug. And obviously, there's some risks involved, but I'm just working it out in different ways and that has changed so much for me. I really feel like for the first time in my life, I know what it means to be a woman. Like, literally, it's like day and night. And just like you, the first couple of months I was very diligent about tracking, and then I realised that I didn’t need to. Everything just seemed to be working pretty well. And now it's more like feeling that energy in the moment and thinking, “Oh, I'm at this stage of my cycle it might be a good idea for me to make some videos because I'm really chatty and it feels really fun and cheeky.” This is where I am right now in my cycle, and I can see myself in my screen grinning away and gesticulating. Probably two weeks from now I will be very different. Being able to work with ease and just flow with the natural energy I'm experiencing, rather than as you said earlier, pushing through…I can't stand it. I get clients all the time, who say to me, “I really struggle with motivation. My motivation is not 24/7. And I say, “It's not supposed to be 24/7.” It's not that doesn't happen, we are humans. I think our culture has done us such a disservice by making us believe that just because we’re not machines we have something wrong with us. People get medicated for being inconsistent, you know, as if we're all supposed to be flatlining all the time. I just can't deal with that anymore. And so I encourage my clients, if they’re menstrating humans, to check their cycle and see if they can flow with it, plan your projects around it. Again, it goes back to that sense ease. Sometimes the right way for us, we knew it all along, we just never believed that that was enough.
“Our culture has done us such a disservice by making us believe that just because we’re not machines we have something wrong with us.”
Ruth: Sometimes it’s the smallest change that can make all the difference. Sometimes it’s as simple as, you’re in that luteal phase, you’re thinking, “Oh my god, I'm rubbish, I need to quit my business.” And you’re like, wait a minute, it’s fine. It’s the hormones.
Imogen: And also being able to channel that in a more positive way since you’re thinking, “I've got this very analytical, critical mind right now. So what are some things that actually need editing or cutting out?” And rather than just seeing the negative sides, “How can I bring this energy to a task where it'll actually be useful?” It's really quite magical if you think about it because men don’t have this. If we use it correctly, this could really be a superpower.
Ruth: Absolutely. I wish they taught us this stuff at school. I can’t imagine thinking of it this way when I was in school. It was something that I was just wanting to hide. I didn’t want anyone to know I was on my period. You just don't talk about it that much. It would have made a huge difference, and knowing that you have these ebbs and flows of energy.
Imogen: I know. When I read Maisie Hill’s, Period Power, I was filled with rage. I felt I’d been robbed. And there's not really anyone to blame. Most people didn't know this stuff, or those people weren’t listened to, but I'm happy that this stuff is out there and is changing lives. Thank you, Maisie Hill for everything you do and Kate Northrup as well. But, I just feel like half the population now can suddenly realise that not only is it okay to be different and to ebb and flow, but it can actually be an incredible gift if we know how to use it. And we know how to support ourselves and we know when to rest and when to ride the highs. It’s like anything. It's just like anything. Learning how to learn the language and play with it.
Ruth: Absolutely. So, in terms of connecting more with your body, introducing more play in your life. What were the tangible results that you saw?
Imogen: Definitely taking more risks. So I found that as I strengthen my muscles and strengthen my body, that physical strength gave me this emotional strength and this mental strength where I felt more confident going off to bigger things and feeling a lot less worried about hearing no. This was a mindset switch for me that I found super useful. I actually got it from one of my clients who has a ‘collect the no’s’ kit, where you can put a gold star every time you hear ‘no’ because you've made a big ask. Because, of course, lots of no’s is the way to yes, The more no’s you get, inevitably the more yeses you're getting because you’re asking. And so I started this practice of reframing it. Okay, I'm going to try and get three no’s this week. And inevitably, what I was asking for, where I pretty much expected to hear no, started saying yes. That’s how I'm ended up recording a video with Seth Godin last year, I’m doing a book proposal that I’m handing in at the end of March, you know all this other stuff where I was like, “oh I have nothing to lose. I'm just gonna go for it.” And then, people say yes, and then suddenly you find yourself doing these things that you never believed were possible. And I think that came down to building my physical strengths and connecting with my body and trusting in myself. Feeling that I had this strong foundation that I could trust and I could rely on and that were on the same team was really, really important for me.
Ruth: I love that so much.
Imogen: Yeah, there's a beautiful, beautiful quote from a Brene Brown book. I can't remember which one now, but when I read it – this was about three months into my year of magical living and I'd just gone on an artist date by myself to the seaside in Normandy to swim in the ocean. It was early March, and absolutely freezing and I’d had the most beautiful day, and I was reading this book on the train back to Paris – and the quote was, “Strong back, soft front, wild heart.” In that moment I was so overcome with emotion, I just realised – this is my mantra. This represents everything I'm trying to do right now to heal all of this. It was no irony that I had had terrible back problems and two back surgeries, and there was trying to build a strong back, and as well I'd been in therapy and I'd been trying to let go some heavy emotional baggage I’d been carrying for many, many years, and I was trying to soften my front, to drop my armour. And finally, I was trying to live with more of a wild heart – less fear, taking bigger risks, playing more, loving more. And that has really stayed my raison d'être. Am I building a strong back, a soft front, and a wild heart? And the wild heart part for me – it's very interesting after my burnout, I took up ballet again, I took up ice skating again. I actually got an ice skating coach every week and we would go to the ice rink, and I would humiliate myself with all of these children spinning around. And there was me doing my beginner thing and it was just so much fun. It was so indulgent and fun to just be on the ice, being silly, trying to learn these really difficult moves with zero expectation of any result. I wasn't there to train for a competition. I wasn't there to prove anything. I was just there to dance. And I hadn't let myself enjoy my body in that way in such a long time. Ruth, I was raised as an athlete, so from a very young age, I've always been really physical and really enjoyed being my body but it's always had this mindset of performance and expectation and pushing yourself to the limit. And I saw my body as a tool to win and to get to a certain state. And it's really taken me a long time to just love my body just being a body, and to just play. And that's a big thing for me.
Ruth: I love that Brene Brown quote, and I feel like I can just see why all of this has led to you trusting yourself. I think it’s so crucial to trust ourselves, especially if we're going to do the big things that we want to do we’re going to have to trust ourselves and take risks. And you started by taking the risk of deciding that you were going to do things differently for a year and that snowballed. I can't overstate the importance of trusting yourself in building the business you want.
Imogen: And trust has to be built in you first. So my background is brand strategy and so I was always telling my clients, you’ve got to build the like, know, and trust factor. And then I suddenly realised one day, I'm telling people who don't even like, know, and trust themselves. How on earth can they convince clients to believe in them, if they didn't believe in themselves? That was one of the reasons I decided to switch to coaching because I just saw this unmet needs to actually helping people to build this foundation of self awareness from which all of their entrepreneurial activities and projects can flourish. But if they don't have that basic self trust – I know it’s an overused word, but self love and commitment to their own desires – they're not going to get very far. I think there's a piece that lot of people forget or they leave out or they just don’t know, that ultimately being successful in business has to start with you. Believing in yourself.
Ruth: If someone came to you found and they found it very hard to trust themselves, what would be the first step for tuning into themselves and learning to cultivat that trust?
Imogen: That's such a good question. So every time I work with a client, we always start on self awareness. And a lot of the time it's about focusing on them identifying their strengths, so some people do know that a lot of people don't. And often we've been focusing on measuring ourselves against the wrong things, focusing mostly on what we can’t do as opposed to what we're really good at. A lot of people have these incredible gifts and strengths that they're not using because they don't believe that those are enough.
And then the second part is a daily practice. I often prescribe creating a ‘what I trust list’, which is a list you can literally pull out or have on your phone for those moments of self doubt, where you've written down, whether it's past achievements, or things that you know you can do really well, people you can rely on, purpose you rely on, beliefs in yourself, and you can pull them out. “Okay. I've got this. What am I talking about? I've done this so many times and worked out great.” I'm always asking people to use these tools and frameworks and structures, and my thing is making big, intangible, foggy concepts and the big questions, and actually bringing them down, breaking them down structuring things to find the answers, and guiding people through these frameworks to answer these big questions for themselves. And a lot of the time what happens is a client comes, wants to start their own business or they've been in business for a while and it's not working as well as it used to, and they come in with one idea about what they want to achieve, or the kind of business they want to create, or the kind of services they want to be offering. But after a few weeks of working together, that plan is often totally abandoned because there's been this wilder, bigger, more audacious, beautiful dream inside them that they haven't even let themselves, believe in. And they suddenly realise that is totally possible, because they have all that within them already. They have those strengths. They're building that trust, and they're going to show up with the energy of someone who is in their zone of genius, who is doing what they're meant to do. And it's so, so attractive. They're just unstoppable. So really, my job is to give people permission to yes to themselves ultimately, and to lean into that calling and not to be afraid of it.
Ruth: Yeah, absolutely. And I love what you said about when they so up in that energy it’s just irresistible. And that’s the thing, because a lot of this stuff sounds very woo, but I know we can all feel that energy. I always go back to the example of a teacher who just loves their subject. They draw the students into that. And on the flipside you have teachers who don't seem to love what they're doing and that shows. And I do think it's a very, very tangible thing. And when you said how you started this experiment and put yourself out that and people came to you and wanted to work with you. And I felt like this is so important when you feel like you’re a bit different, or you’re an introvert but you wish you were an extrovert, if you just embrace that part of you, you’re going to show up as the right person for the right people.
Imogen: Let's not forget that it is a process too. I mean, if someone's listening to this, and they think I sound I'm very confident and sure of myself, It has really been a very long journey to get here. And I really feel that at the age of 29 I'm finally back at my nine year old self back home, but it took me 20 years to get out and come all the way home again. Because I am a very deep thinker, I am very in tune with energy and very intuitive and empathic, I've always been very interested in what makes people different. So I've had this very heightened, keen interest in self awareness, how different types of people interact with each other, and what motivates people differently, and so on. So this is a world that I've been in for quite some time. But I think there's another more practical element – and it goes right back to what you said before about the mind and being able to drop into the body to actually stop just being a head – is we can't show up fully as ourselves just from the head or just from the ego. It's a full body thing. And so for me I feel that actually doing that work to reconnect to my body, I’ve come home to myself. Because I've been reminded that I am a body who has a head. It’s been so much easier to embody that deeper inner wisdom.
Ruth: I feel like there's so much I want to dig into, but I feel like we’re going to need to wrap things up. I was thinking about this question that you asked because feel like this is a good time to bring it up. I'm just gonna read it out. I feel like it's a really good thing for those who are listening to journal and see what comes up.
“What experiment could you run to test how your business might work better for you? Let your imagination run wild…what implausible actions, what mad indulgences might yield surprisingly successful results for your life and success?”
I would encourage everyone who’s listening to try that based on everything we’ve talked about and see what comes up. I guess asking that question in itself is quite playful.
And I’m sorry to cut you off; we had so much on the list, and I feel like I could talk to you about this all day. I feel like we talked a lot about the body connection and that in itself is really really powerful.
Imogen: Also I want to add for anyone listening who wants to continue this conversation with me, or if you are a body worker, please reach out to me because I am just beginning of this journey I would love to talk with people who've had either experiences with this, or they work in this realm. Because there's so many synergies between entrepreneurship and bodywork, so don't hesitate to reach out if you feel called.
Ruth: Actually I just remembered what I was going to ask you before we get to the actual last question is, is there anything you just want to add when you feel like you haven't said and you just wanted to bring up in terms of what you feel like it's important to hear in terms of honouring your body and prioritising your energy.
Imogen: Well there we go, that's my cue. That is exactly what I was thinking, going back to the year of magical living and the lessons I've learned is something I tell all my clients now is reminding them that you are the number one priority in your business. You are your business's most valuable clients, and you are the economic engine of your business, you and your body. Because if your body breaks down, or your mental health breaks down, that's everything gone. And you risk losing everything. So, your health – physical, mental, emotional – is the foundation from which your business will grow and scale and flourish. So I ask people to think about that. Think about, “Are you putting yourself first enough in order to not just sustain your business but grow your business?” We didn't choose this life, this freedom to just get by and survive. We chose it to be able to live a life that wasn't possible for us when we were in corporate, or in another kind situation. So it seems crazy to me that we still try and live under these external pressure or rules or expectations as entrepreneurs, when we don't have to.
“Your health – physical, mental, emotional – is the foundation from which your business will grow and scale and flourish.”
Ruth: That’s so powerful. I feel like the key word that keeps coming up for me is choice. We choose it, and we have to keep choosing it.
Imogen: Even though we're all on this deconditioning journey – you spoke very eloquently about the unlearning of entrepreneurship, and so much of that unlearning everything we’ve learned up until now – but the deconditioning is an active state. You have to put attention into it all the time because the conditioning goes so deep. You can't just get rid of it. The algorithm has been running for so long ago you can’t just override it. But I’d say my mantra, along with the beautiful Brene Brown one is, “When I take care of me, my business takes care of itself.”
Ruth: I love that, so powerful. Okay, I’m just going to ask you a final question, “How do you get in the way of success?”
Imogen: I would say, when I take myself too seriously. When I isolate myself. When I try and take it all alone. And when I wait for someone else to make the thing or change I want to see in the world. That's been a huge shift for me. I've gone my whole life thinking, “I wish there’d be more this sort of thing, or I wish people would be more like this, or I wish more companies who care about this,” and then actually very recently, six months ago, I suddenly realised that if I want something, then maybe it's up to me to make it happen. I can't just go around blaming everyone else for not doing the work to bring things into the world that I would like to use and enjoy and share. So I would say not answering the call, and when I do answer the call, taking myself too seriously, and isolating myself.
Ruth: Thank you. I could’ve spoken to you about all of this stuff in double the time.
Imogen: And it would have been a pleasure to do that. Next time.
Ruth: I can resonate so much with a lot. So yeah, thank you.
Imogen: Thank you so much.
I’m Imogen, and as a Strategy Coach, I help entrepreneurial people to be more prolific, productive and present in their life and business.
If you’re ready to start living a life that’s true to yourself, learn more about my online course, Vision of Success, or book a free call with me to talk about coaching.
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