Tell me about the Masterclass of Wellness you run?
Lyndall: I’ve had my own business for almost 19 years and that’s in the spa industry, Aurora Spas. Before that I was at Camp Eden Health Retreat as the program coordinator and health management team.
Shannah: I was your perfect corporate burnout person. I was in corporate sport, then I studied life coaching and opened my own business to help athletes after their sporting career. I now coach CEOs, elite athletes, footballers, business owners. I’ve authored a few books and knew that it was really time to collaborate. At all the conferences I’d been to, there was only one speaker and one skills set and Lyndall and I thought about how powerful we could be if we joined forces.
So we’ve come together to work on this project, the Masterclass of Wellness. We wanted to bring all the skills that you learn at a health retreat and bring them into the boardroom along with all of the life strategy skills that we have and present it as a duo instead of a single person. We talk for five minutes each and just keep swapping so it’s really dynamic.
How did you get your first client on board?
Shannah: Through our incredible network between the two of us. Having been a coach for fifteen years and Lyndall’s business for twenty years. We’ve got a very extensive, broad network and we’ve just co-authored a book that will be coming out next year on confidence.
We went from doing the class for five people to 350 people in a boardroom and have had clients like NAB, Macquarie Bank and Saatchi and Saatchi. It was about believing in the dream and never giving up. I knew we had a great product and I knew our skill sets were phenomenal. We started a list and we assigned ourselves our tasks every month. We’ve just found it to be an incredible business venture that we thought would be a little hobby. We’d love to be going overseas, we’ve got that on the visions board. We’ve got vision boards, we’ve got our goals, we’ve got our lists; there are plenty of people that might not answer the email but there’s enough that do.
Is it stressful? Is taking all of this on adding to your own stress levels?
Lyndall: Well because we’re teaching wellness I’d have to say absolutely no! Authenticity is first and foremost for us so we actually love what we do and I think the other thing is we’re not afraid to say no. We have been offered a tour around Australia and we knew it would just put too much pressure on us and on our families and that’s not why we set out to do this. We’ve seen so many people hit crises over the years and we’re very aware of not letting that happen to ourselves.
What have your biggest challenges been?
Shannah: Probably getting a website going; we sort of procrastinated on a website because we really don’t need it. We would rather go talk and have a coffee with someone who’s a decision maker. Our challenge is to go straight to the decision maker and use our time as wisely as possible. We could spend an hour every day doing our Instagram feed or we could spend an hour sitting in front of somebody, connecting.
Do you have any quick tips that our readers who are small business owners could take home?
Lyndall: It all stems from the fact at the moment that one in five employees now suffer from some form of mental health issue. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself; a start is better than nothing. So many people don’t start their business until they have the perfect plan. Taking one step at a time and focusing on the small things that make a big difference to your life rather than trying to implement 20 things and giving up after a week or two is important.
Shannah: One of the other tips we always talk about is to know your own values and to know who you are as a person without the job. Know yourself to get the best out of yourself; know what your values are, know what your vision is, know what your goals are and spend a lot of time working with the asset and protecting the asset – yourself!
What’s next?
Lyndall: We’re launching a book all about confidence in February next year and we’ve also got our next MasterClass, which is one level up from the foundation level.
We want to be able to deliver more information about wellness into different corporate boardrooms within Australia and then would love to take it overseas. The big push is to really get our profile out there, and we’re going to have fun along the way. We both have children and we both have husbands so we just make sure we’re protecting the asset at all times!
Every day, KBB’s Dannie Doughan chats with an entrepreneur and features their story on our website. If your business wants a ‘Date with Dannie’, email us a quick bit about your biz!
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