the bossbabe podcast - 401. If You’ve Considered Burning Down Your Business, You Need To Listen To This with Lindsay Roselle

Episode Date: July 20, 2024

Join Lindsay for a full recap on our UK Life + Business Reset Retreat. She dives deep into the biggest themes and takeaways from the incredible ceremonies, mastermind sessions, and conversations that were had during the week. Lindsay talks about how to create relaxation + peace on a daily basis, how to break through the habitual pattern of striving for more, creating your definition of freedom, and the power of having the choice in your life/ business. If you’ve been striving and feel exhausted in the process, today’s episode is perfect for you!  TIMESTAMPS 2:00 - Life + Business Reset Retreat Takeaways 6:30 - Integration From Ceremonies + Mastermind Experiences 8:45 - Creating Relaxation + Peace  14:00 - Habitual Patterns of “More” 15:30 - Your Definition of Freedom 19:12 - Having The Choice 26:40 - Apply For The 2025 Retreat  RESOURCES + LINKS Join The Société: Our Exclusive Membership To Help You Build A Freedom-Based Business. Want To Grab A Spot For Our 2025 Life + Business Reset Retreat In The English Countryside? Click Here To Apply. Get Our Weekly Newsletter & Get Insights From Natalie Every Single Week On All Things Strategy, Motherhood, Business Growth + More.  Drop Us A Review On The Podcast + Send Us A Screenshot & We’ll Send You Natalie’s 7-Figure Operating System Completely FREE (value $1,997)  FOLLOW bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis: @iamnatalie Lindsay Rosselle: @lindsayroselle

Hello, friends. Welcome back to the pod. This is Lindsay. Coming at you today with a little life and biz reset retreat recap. That's a mouthful. We just got back from our retreat in the UK. I am back home in Colorado and felt compelled to share some of my takeaways because I don't know, I love retreats. I've been attendee at so many retreats. I've led so many retreats, helped lead so many retreats. Natalie and I were saying that this was, I think, our 10th or 11th retreat together with all of the CEO Mama retreats that we lead, plus the Life Reset retreats. And we learn something ourselves every time we do it. And some of the takeaways this time, I was processing on the plane home and just felt like I needed to share this.

I need to share these feelings with our audience because I think sometimes you see the pretty pictures, you see the beautiful videos. It's kind of aspirational experience. And it is, it was an incredible week in the most idyllic setting. And I'll tell you my takeaways about the UK in a second. But, you know, some of the most profound takeaways I think are simple things that are accessible to us always. And that, yes, getting out of our routines and being in a new place and away from our day-to-day gives us this catalyst to see things more clearly and to feel some of these insights more easily. But it's not to say that you can't come across these lessons

or have these insights about ourselves in our home environment if we're doing the things that we need to be doing to access our deeper layers, to do our inner work, to ask hard questions, to have our boundaries, and to really understand what our definition of freedom is. So that's what I want to talk about today. First off, though, the UK, oh my goodness, when Natalie and I record next, I'm sure we'll talk about it. Because there's just so many things. If you guys are longtime pod listeners, you've heard me learn British words and British sayings and make fun of things like Bob's your uncle, like just the things that Brits do that aren't necessarily common in America. But being over there and being in the countryside was so interesting, because you can really feel the history. And I'm someone who's traveled all over the world. I've been in many, many, many countries as part of my corporate career. And I feel like I'm pretty well-traveled, pretty experienced in terms of being out in the real local in the countries that I traveled to, and

they were resellers of the American software company that I worked for. So I got this very, what I feel like was a very native kind of authentic experience when I would travel, because I would go and hang out with the owners of these small businesses that were local in country. And I would go meet clients out in the country, not just stay in like the US branded hotel in the big city and never leave it. And so being in the English countryside, it was reminiscent of feeling like I feel in lots of parts of the world where the history is so much longer and deeper than American history, right? In the sense that there's been settlements and people

living in developing these parts of the world way longer than the United States. And you can really feel that history. So I felt like everywhere we went in the UK, all these little villages out in the Cotswolds that we were driving through every day, I was just stunned by how old everything was, you know, but still really well kept up and so beautiful and so green and, you know, horses and sheep and cattle in every field. And it feels very idyllic and very soothing to the nervous system. And that's something that you can't really describe. It's just this feeling of like, oh, yeah, it feels relaxing here. And relaxing is a theme of what I'm going to talk about today. But it was very relaxing. That being said, it feels relaxing here. And relaxing is a theme of what I'm going to talk about today, but

it was very relaxing. That being said, it was gray. It was very chilly and rainy most days, and the sun came out occasionally, but not for long periods of time, despite being promised by my UK colleagues that this was the summertime and to bring sundresses and light sweaters, which I'm glad I listened to my intuition to bring heavier clothing because like the low 60s Fahrenheit as a high doesn't feel like summer to me personally. So anyway, I was joking all week that like this is not what I was promised from a weather standpoint. And although I was promised sun and blue skies, I still felt like it was beautiful. So anyway, I'm sure you'll hear Natalie and I talk more about this because she

was like, this is the summer. This is so beautiful. This is like great weather. Take your coat off. Just be out in a t-shirt. It's good for you. And I'm like, it's 60. Like that doesn't feel, doesn't really feel warm to me. But we got to do a lot of excursions we had a very British I think quintessential British experience we traveled to skeet shooting we went to a polo lesson we did British bake-off we had incredible British food with this local chef who's really well known in the UK so in terms of experience the retreat really was an authentic British experience. And I loved that. And then, of course, I got to spend a couple of days in London. And London is just one of my favorite cities in the world.

I feel like it is the perfect mix of old. We got to walk around like I'm like, oh, this feels like Bridgerton. I can just imagine, you know, the 1800s and all these people in Mayfair walking around. And so I had my little like American, American tourist moment. And it also has so much modern culture and ethnicity and diversity where it's like, oh, this is a big city like this, this feels diverse and interesting. And like you could have all different types of cultural experiences here. And coming from northern Colorado, you know, that's not as common here. So I love to go to big cities and I love to be out in the world and have that feeling of like there's so much diversity, so much culture here, so many things to learn. So overall, an incredible week. And as I was flying home, I was trying to work and I was getting work done and my brain would get a little bit fried.

So I'd have these periods on the plane of just shutting everything off and closing my eyes and trying to just process and integrate everything that had happened through the week. And if you've ever hosted a retreat, the way I feel about hosting a retreat versus attending a retreat is that as the host, you have to kind of stay a little bit disengaged from the work that you are leading. And in our retreats, we tend to lead pretty deep somatic ceremonial work. And so I don't feel like I can be a participant and a leader at the same time. So when I am leading these retreats with Natalie, I'll support ceremony, but I don't participate in ceremony so that I can hold space and help others integrate. And so what then happens is usually I'm still absorbing everything

that's happening. I'm absorbing everybody else's insights and the takeaways. And a lot of that I integrate then on my own time after the retreat. And so coming home, I'm sitting on the plane, integrating some of the things that had come up during other, you know, during the ceremonies and our masterminding sessions with all the attendees and things that they were, were coming up for them. And I really feel like this kind of woo, but I do feel like when I get into that state, and I'm like in the environment of a retreat, but but holding space for others, I almost feel like I can channel like the message that a participant or a peer of my needs in the moment to hear because I think when you're, when you're in the work, when you're the one in the experience, you're going through the ceremonies,

you're having all the emotions and all the insights come up. Sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees, right? You have so many things that have come up and it's a lot in a short amount of time that my job as one of the leaders of the retreat is to help crystallize all of it into the download, you know, like, here's the thing. And there was a couple of those moments that happened throughout the retreat that I'll talk about that also felt like mirrors to me when I was headed home to be like, okay, that channeling of the insight for her, the participant is also something for me and where I'm at in my life right now that, that I want to hear, you know, I want to like sit with inside of my, my soul and see what is stewing there for me too, because there's a reason that that insight came

through for her through me. Um, and so on the plane home, I'm, I'm texting with Natalie and I was really taken by two different moments. And the first one was someone who was talking about, you know, having had so many things, right? Just like many of us, there's just so much going on. So many different businesses, kids, partners, friends, family, like so many things and but also having enough success to feel okay and enough and and this question coming up of like when can I relax when is it okay for me to just relax and and not have to always be doing the next thing and I think a lot of us have this come up in ceremony or in when we're in deep work where it's like, where is the origin of feeling like I have to

constantly be doing more? I have to constantly be hypervigilant. I have to constantly be performing towards my full potential or I'm not living up to my, to my worth, you know, like I'm, my worth is only measured by constant striving and constant striving is the enemy of relaxation. And so that was a big theme and conversation throughout the retreat. And, and I was like, wow, this is so interesting because, you know, for me personally, I'm now at a level, like I have my dream job. I love, I love working for Bossway, but I love working with Natalie and our team. And I'm like, I there's like really nothing else, at least right now that I would rather be doing more than this. And so, wow, what an incredible place to be sitting to go. I have what I've been working towards for so long. Like I all the striving and all the effort,

all the inner work that I've done on myself has led me to here. And now I'm here and I don't feel any compulsion to like go do the next big thing. Like I only really want to just do this really, really well and allow the extra bandwidth in my mind to be relaxed, to be calm and peaceful and to have some space in my life instead of following my tendencies and my patterns, which would be, oh, extra space, go fill it with more work. Oh, extra space, Lindsay, like you shouldn't be relaxing right now. You should be doing other things. And so that was one of my big takeaways was, wow, even for myself, like I can give this advice to other people and I can look at someone like one of our participants and go, man, you have had such a full life and you have achieved so many things and had so many successful businesses and raised kids. And like, yes, of course you can relax now. You enjoy yourself, travel, live your

life. You know, like this is, this is the reason to work so hard is to go and it is to be able to enjoy it and to have the relaxation and the peace. And then coming home being like, wow, am I actually living that? And how does that look in my life? What's the truth of that in my life? When I say that I want to be relaxed and I want to be in a peaceful environment in my life, in my home, and I want to have a routine that makes me feel calm and regulated all the time in my nervous system, am I really doing that? And I, am I enforcing the boundaries in my life and, and structuring my day in a way and really holding myself accountable to, to doing that. And so that was one of the things on the plane home where I was like, okay, I, what, what are things in my life that don't feel relaxed? And I made a list of that in my

journal. And I was like, okay, these are things now that like nothing's bad or wrong, but these are things that I would like to come home and over the next couple of weeks, really look at and have hard conversations around and make some tweaks in order to live my truth and live what I preach, which is, you know, like we are entitled to be, to have peace and to have joy and to be calm and to allow our nervous systems to regulate down to a place that feels good. And, and if we constantly stimulate ourselves because we have patterns in our lives that lead us to believe that the only way to, to way to survive is to be in the nervous system excited state all the time, to be in that nervous system fry from overcommitment and constant striving and no moments of relaxation in the day, then we're not actually, what's the point of it

all? And that's another one of our friends in CEO Mama has asked that question recently. She's like, what's the point of it all? And I mean that in a positive way, but like, what's the point of it all? If I'm working so hard, I've done all this work to get to here. And I and I lead others in this work. What's the point of doing any of that if I'm not actually living it? And so one of my big takeaways is, when I look at my individual life and I come back home into my day-to-day routine, what does relaxation look like? How does relaxation show up? When am I relaxed in my day? And I'm not saying like relax as in lay on the couch and do nothing, although that could be it. Coaching work in a relaxed way. You know, cultivating peace in my relationships with my family, my kids, my partner, even

our team, you know, like allowing things to be peaceful and calm and productive, peaceful and calm and fun, peaceful and calm and, you know, pushing to the next level when that's our goal. And I think it's really this nuance around understanding what is choice and what is intention and what is regulated nervous system by design and what is not that, like habitual patterns of striving for more without real understanding of why. Habitual patterns of striving for more and always on because that's where you derive your self-worth. Habitual patterns of more and more and more because somebody in your life or some voice in your head has made you believe that if you ever were to slow down, you'd be letting

them down. So my work on this topic coming out of this retreat was really to look at that and to get even more refined in the patterns that I play out in my life. And, and to appreciate this level of success that I've gotten to and go, okay, how do I enjoy this? You know, how do I live in a way that that kind of breaks the cycle of getting to a certain level of success that I have worked for and wanted? And once I get there, it's not enough, right? So that's my work right now is this is enough for me.

This is amazing. Where I'm at in my life is everything I've ever wanted. Now, how do I just live into it instead of constantly looking at, okay, but there's got to be a next level or people are going to start to wonder. It's not true. Okay. So that's the first takeaway. The second takeaway that I was reflecting on on the plane is this conversation we have

a lot at Boss Babe, and I'm sure you've heard if you're a regular listener to the pod around freedom and understanding what your definition of freedom is. And I've asked myself that question a lot, like, Lindsay, what's your definition of freedom? And it came up in a conversation with one of the participants who, she's not a mom yet, but she wants to become a mom. And she has a couple of really successful businesses in her life. And the conversation was, how am I going to, you know, one of her businesses requires a lot of her time. And she's like, okay, I need to replace this income so that I can become a mother. Like I need to have the same amount of

money, but I want to do it in a way where I, I get to, you know, be home with my kids. And, and as we dug a little deeper, it was like, okay, I actually just want to be a stay-at-home mom. Like I want, I want to be able to be with my kids. And I see this future for myself where there's passive income and I get to be with my kids all day. And as we dug in more and more and more, and the word freedom kept coming up, but also this need for financial security. And so she's weighing this question of like, I want freedom and I still need to make this amount of money because our lifestyle is such that, you know, we need this level of revenue coming in in order to feel like we're secure.

And she's talking and I'm listening and I'm like, I get the download. You know, I get the Lindsay, like the big sister Lindsay download. And I was like, look, here's the thing. One is as a mother, you may think that your dream is to be home with your kids and and and only have passive income and never work again that may be what you think right now is your dream and i will tell you that until you have kids and you go through the identity reconciliation and you get into motherhood you won't know what you really want it's very hard to predict ahead of it right and and i think if you're listening and you're a motherhood, you won't know what you really want. It's very hard to predict ahead of it, right? And I think if you're listening and you're a mother, no matter where

you are on the spectrum of I stay at home and I don't have any work outside of the home to I have a ton of work and I have a lot of childcare and I don't spend that much time. I know people along the whole spectrum. I've been everywhere on that spectrum myself. And I think all of us can admit it's dynamic, right? There's seasons where you really want to be able to be home and that that's the choice you want to make. And there's seasons where your ambition comes roaring back in and you feel good and you're through the early years and you want to go work more, you know? And so my first, my first thing was, was there's no way to plan exactly what you're going to want until you become a mother. And I think that's a good lesson for anybody, whether you're a mother or not,

or you want to be a mother or not. It's this idea that, you know, we can make all the plans in the world and you can have all the tactics and all the strategies for how a business is going to play out in life and balance with your life and what you want in your life. And the reality is, until you take the steps and until you get into the present moment with the outcome of those decisions in the business, you won't know how it's going to feel in your life. So it's this awareness of what do we really want and what are we really after when we say we want freedom. It's like we can build tactics and strategies now to create quote unquote freedom in our life and our business. But we may get to that point where we have the outcomes that we've been working

towards and where we sit in our life at that moment, we actually want something different. And so when I was talking with her and we're going through this mastermind session, and I said these words, and this is the takeaway that I wanted to share. And I said, I think what you want is the choice. You want the choice. And she burst into tears. And like a lot of us did, I did too, because I'm like, that's the thing that we want. And it's not just mothers, right? I think if you're a mother, it resonates really deeply that when we talk about freedom and what we want from our business and what we want our revenue and our work to create for us as mothers is the choice to get to choose how we spend our time. And on the days and the weeks and the months that we

want to spend more time devoted to motherhood and less devoted to work, we have the choice and the ability to do that. And in the seasons when our ambition is coming back and our kids are, you know, less needing of our time and attention as intensely as they are in early motherhood season, we have the choice to work a little more and trust that our kids are okay. And whatever that care situation looks like, you know, and, but what really it comes down to is most of us don't have, don't feel like we have the choice. We feel like we have to be diligent and vigilant in our business, or it won't make enough money to support us. And that won't be okay. We aren't safe if that's the case. Or

we feel like if I go too hard into the business, I'm going to regret not spending this time with my kids or somebody is going to shame me for not spending that time with my kids. So even though I love to work and I want to work right now and I want to share the responsibility for child care with either a partner or child care provider. I'm not doing that because I'm fearful that somebody is going to make me feel like I did something wrong. And so we live a lot of us, I think, live in this place where it feels like we don't have the choice. And when when I spend so much time in these spaces with, with high achieving women, and we do this life reset, you know, and we're in this beautiful setting. And we go through these intense ceremonies

and these masterminding sessions where so many ideas come out and everything kind of integrates. It's these moments of the like the one little nugget that I think makes the whole experience worth it. And, and the, the participants get something out of it. I got something out of it. Everybody in the room, it's like these, these little takeaways, these little moments of clarity and softening in the nervous system and permission where you go, Oh, that's, that's what I needed. That's what I needed to hear. And in that moment, it was, you can that moment it was you can build the strategies you can build the tactics but what you really want is the choice and so instead of being so focused on

building towards one specific outcome what if you looked at I want to make it so that I have the choice when motherhood comes along or I have the choice when X, Y, Z thing in your life, whatever you, the listener are prioritizing, whenever that thing comes along, I think what you really want when you are trying to build a freedom-based business is the ability to choose how you spend your time, the ability to choose how much you work, the ability to choose how your business integrates into your life and not feel like you can't change the balance because of some external pressure that makes you, you know, that you feel responsible to. So that was my other big takeaway. And I thought a lot about that on the plane because even now, you know, even at the level of success, this is my personal story, for me personally, like the level of income I have now, the level of responsibility, like the amount I

love my job, I, like I already said, you know, this is kind of it for me. Like I am at the place that I've always dreamed to be, which is so crazy to me because I'm such a, I'm such a striver. I'm such an achiever. I'm an Enneagram three. Like I love a goal. I love a big vision. And, and like a lot of the last 20 years has really been like getting to here now where I am. And I'm like, well, okay, what's next? You know? And it feels really edgy for me to be kind of on the precipice of not feeling the urge to strive and not feeling the urge to constantly be in, you know, that, that energetic forward motion into the future, because I feel like you can never slow down and enjoy where you're at or you're going to miss it. Right. And so when I think about having the choice and getting to a level of success, so whatever that means for you, like whatever your goal is, the place you want to be, the freedom that you're craving in that place is what you really want, just the ability to have

the choice of how you spend your time, of how the business affects your life and how your life affects the business. And if you know that, and that's the insight that you move on and you're like, oh, that is what I like when I, when I say to myself, I just want the choice. And right now I don't feel like I have the choice. If you move on that and you build around that and that's what you prioritize in how you structure your business, how you build your days, how you make financial decisions and team decisions and all those things. I feel like at least for me and journaling about this and why I wanted to share it was at least for me, it feels like coming at the strategy and coming at the marketing and the business growth, like all the tactical stuff that

we teach and that we talk so much about. If we come at that stuff with a little softness and a little bit more relaxation and peace like we've already talked about. And we go, you know what? What I really want from this business that I'm building is a year from now, I want the choice to do this. Two years from now, I want the choice to do this. And that to me is more freeing and more liberating and more achievable, honestly, than saying, I need this income or I need this amount, I need this income, or I need this like amount of hours a week of work, or I need this many clients. Because where I feel like that starts to fence us in is that that means that if we don't achieve those things, we aren't truly free. So takeaway, hopefully, with this long-winded

explanation of everything that happened is, what if what you're building in your business, what if what you're building in your life, what if your definition of freedom has something to do with just having the choice? I feel like it's so liberating because it means that you get to define. You get to define what that is. You get to define every single day what choice today feels like. And you get to check in with yourself every day and go, do I feel like I have a choice today of how I spend my time? And if the answer is no, it's like, okay, good data. Six months from now, I would like to have the choice. Three months from now, I'd like to have the choice. What do I need to do in the business today that's going to give me more choice in how I spend my time three months from now? Okay, do that.

And keep showing up in the present moment, asking the question, do I feel like I have the choice of what to do today? Am I choosing the, and in having the choice, am I choosing the thing that keeps things feeling peaceful, that keeps things feeling regulated, that keeps things feeling joyful and abundant, like all the things that we want our business and our life to do for us? Or what's the point? Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity, which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier

because now everything is in one place. So it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all

of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial. Go to kajabi.com slash Boss Babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's kajabi.com slash Boss Babe. So anyway, all of this is to say the life and business reset retreat is incredible and if you have the opportunity to come we would love to have you we've already booked next year's retreat at the same location it's the first week of july that's the 30th through july 4th in the uk in the cotswold at the same location applications are open so you can DM us, email us. We can get you all the information.

Spots have already started to fill, so definitely reach out if you're interested. But I think getting in rooms, you know, quote-unquote proverbial rooms like retreats, getting out of your comfort zone, going and doing these ceremonies in geographies, and in locations that have this richness and depth in the history and in the aliveness. I don't know. There's just something about being in the countryside that just felt so alive and so grounded and so peaceful. And I think if you have the opportunity to get out of your normal day-to-day, come to an environment like that, and go through some of these ceremonies, you can come away with these really profound, simple insights like, what does relaxation look like in my life? And how am I actually living in my truth day-to-day in relaxation, in regulated nervous system, in peace and joy. And when I'm building a freedom-based business,

what I really am building towards, what I'm really wanting is to have the choice. And so what does that look like every day that I show up in my business? How am I building a business so that I have the choices that I want, that I have the ability to make the choices that I want, knowing that my choices might change. So it's not necessarily the goal of sitting here today and saying two years from now, this is what my life, what I want my life to look like. It's going two years from now. I want to have the choice to do what I want when I want. And in order to get there, here's what needs to happen in the business. I'd love to have you at the next retreat. And in the meantime, I love that you're here on the podcast listening. And if you want to ask any questions about the retreat, feel free to DM me. I'm also an open

book on all of these nervous system topics, inner work topics. I love this stuff. I live for this stuff. So shoot me a DM. Otherwise, I hope you have a great rest of your day and thank you for listening. Wait, wait, wait, before you go, I would love to send you my seven figure ceo operating system completely free as a gift all you've got to do is leave us a review on this podcast because it really supports the growth of this show this is my digital masterclass where i'll show you what my freedom-based daily weekly and monthly schedule looks like as an eight-figure CEO, mama, and high performer, and I'll walk you through step-by-step how to create this for yourself. It includes a full video training from me and a plug-and-play spreadsheet to literally create your own operating

system. It's one of our best trainings and it's worth $1,997, but I will unlock access for you for free when you leave us a review. I know, wild, right? All you have to do is leave your review on the podcast, take a screenshot of it, and then head over to bossbabe.com slash review to upload it. And then you'll get instant access to the seven figure CEO operating system. Again, head over to bossbabe.com slash review to upload your screenshot and get access. We are so, so grateful for all of your support and can't wait to hear how the podcast has supported you.