Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Elixir Radio, a podcast brought to you by Elixir Media Co.
Speaker: I'm your host, Tanya and Jane, and the founder of Elixir Media Co.
Speaker: And together with my team, we are going to journey with you on this beautiful exploration of creativity, self-expression, business strategy, and what it truly takes to embody and revolutionize your entire brand, business, and life.
Speaker: This is a podcast for the revolutionary heart-led, God-led leader, ready to rise, elevate, dismantle, disrupt, and lead with their edge, their unique God-led brand, their soul essence.
Speaker: Let's magnify the full magnitude of your inner power, your God-given energetic signature and gifts, all of it.
Speaker: There is no hiding any part of you anymore.
Speaker: And no, you are not confusing or too much, even if they said that you were.
Speaker: We, as Elixir Media Co., are here for those who desire to harness the power of their multidimensionality.
Speaker: It is time.
Speaker: It is your biggest strength.
Speaker: We see you.
Speaker: I feel you.
Speaker: It is time to play.
Speaker: It is time to create your own stage and be the showstopper.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: be in deep, sacred communion with the greater collective.
Speaker: Together, we all elevate and rise and revolutionize our golden age.
Speaker: Hello, friends, and welcome to another episode on Elixir Radio.
Speaker: This week, we have an incredible guest on the show.
Speaker: She is a dear friend, a dear copy mentor actually, and also a client in many ways as we both work together within her brand and copy agency as well.
Speaker: I take on special projects as needed.
Speaker: So without further ado, I am so, so excited to introduce to you my dear friend,
Speaker: Rikki Lee Wald.
Speaker: She is the founder of ELOKE Copywriting Agency.
Speaker: She is a marketing expert, a storyteller, an artist, and an adventurer.
Speaker: And recently, she is a proud mama to the lovely and beautiful baby Takara.
Speaker: So we are welcoming you to our incredible show today, Rikki Lee.
Speaker: And for those of you listening,
Speaker: If you are here, if you have been following Elixir, chances are that you're here because you want to deepen your brand expression.
Speaker: You want to deepen your own embodiment with content, with how you write, how you express yourself, how you create and birth yourself.
Speaker: any creative projects, be it in your life or business.
Speaker: And in today's conversation with Ricky Lee, we're actually going to dive deeper into why artistry matters, what it means to be a content creator and also a business owner and infuse these two with each other, right?
Speaker: I feel like we dance a fine line,
Speaker: And it's a beautiful art to be able to infuse thought leadership, artistry, as well as, you know, be that strategic business owner.
Speaker: So I'm so excited for you to hear from her.
Speaker: You know, Ricky Lee created her agency so that there was a home.
Speaker: for conscious leaders who truly desire depth and artistry in their marketing content without losing any timeless principles of direct response copywriting that sells.
Speaker: And I know how important that is.
Speaker: So I cannot wait for you to tune into this interview.
Speaker: Have fun.
Speaker: Welcome to the show, Rikki Lee.
Speaker: Thank you so much for being here today.
Speaker: And I'm so excited for all of my listeners to hear you and to find you and to really immerse themselves in your story and journey because I feel like there are so many of us who will connect to...
Speaker: who you are and I love who you are so I can't wait to show you to the world.
Speaker: Without further ado, tell us about yourself and tell us about your journey.
Speaker: What got you started on this particular venture so far?
Speaker: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker: I'm very excited to be here and I'm like excited for some of my people to see and hear more about you too because I think you're also just incredible.
Speaker: Yeah, so I am currently running a copywriting agency and it is a long, windy road to how I got here.
Speaker: I think the most important thread that I think is so valuable for everyone listening, if you're a creator, you're trying to like tap more into your creativity, but potentially you have that small voice in your head that says, whatever it is, you're not good enough or you don't have the ideas or maybe you just have some of those lapses, those days where you're just not feeling totally on.
Speaker: My story actually starts by never actually identifying with being a creator, with being an artist, with being someone that was good at doing anything creative.
Speaker: I actually, even specifically around the topic of like writing and English, I actually failed my grade 12 English.
Speaker: I wanted to be a singer when I was really young.
Speaker: And there was like these moments where my parents, obviously this is like the childhood beginnings of the whole belief system, would tell me you need to take your life more seriously.
Speaker: Like even as a little kid, the
Speaker: path to being a singer or a songwriter that's not actually quote-unquote realistic.
Speaker: While, of course, they were just protecting me and potentially my voice actually sucked and I was writing the most shit songs ever.
Speaker: That kind of began this journey of focusing more on
Speaker: a different path.
Speaker: And I actually started my whole education journey wanting to be a wilderness guide, wanting to be outside, wanting to be far, far away from entrepreneurship and creativity and just had this love for nature, this love for being outside and being
Speaker: connected with plants.
Speaker: I studied wilderness leadership and I got a whole bunch of certifications and taking people through the back country and really focused on being in the mountains.
Speaker: And that turned into me studying herbal medicine for four years in the clinical training program.
Speaker: I was working with patients with everything from cancer to the common cold and really just at every step of the way being like no to entrepreneurship, no to any sort of piece of creativity.
Speaker: Until I realized that every single thing that I was learning, every single thing that inspired me that I just swallowed the urge required me to turn it into a business in order for me to actually continue doing that.
Speaker: And so I started to actually lean back into entrepreneurship and I started a herbal supplement company.
Speaker: And without going into so many details, you know, one thing led to the next.
Speaker: And a lot of my colleagues started asking for support with marketing and business.
Speaker: And I started tiptoeing into the coaching space and it's wild because it's,
Speaker: When I look back on it, it's a full circle moment.
Speaker: There was this moment where I was doing well in business coaching.
Speaker: I was doing well with our supplement company.
Speaker: We eventually shut it down because we decided not to go the big manufacturing route.
Speaker: And I focused more on the coaching side of things.
Speaker: And this woman said to me, hey, you're doing well.
Speaker: You're doing really great.
Speaker: Your clients are getting great results.
Speaker: But have you noticed that your writing is what is really drawing people in?
Speaker: Your art is actually what's really magnetizing people to work with you.
Speaker: I really think you should try writing for some other people.
Speaker: And I was like, hell no, I am not a writer.
Speaker: I am not an artist.
Speaker: I'm not a creator.
Speaker: There's all these like belief systems started rearing their head again.
Speaker: And, but I said, okay, sure.
Speaker: I'll just try it.
Speaker: I'll put it out in an offer and I'll just see if anybody wants me to write some copy for them.
Speaker: Writing social media posts.
Speaker: This was amazing.
Speaker: four years ago now or so.
Speaker: And Tanya, it was wild.
Speaker: I got so much interest.
Speaker: My company like blew up overnight, like literally in 48 hours, I had $10,000 re-expring revenue and done for you a copy.
Speaker: And I wasn't a quote unquote copywriter, but I didn't realize that I had been seen and recognized so much in my writing.
Speaker: And that's when I was like, huh, like potentially there's something here.
Speaker: And we can go into more of the details about this, but ultimately this did lead to me creating an agency and really owning entrepreneurship and actually my love for entrepreneurship and integrating that with my love and my belief system now that I am an artist, that I love being in a creator's seat and I love teaching and guiding and
Speaker: I actually really like entrepreneurship and the operations side.
Speaker: Now I get to integrate all these pieces together into an agency that helps other people express their message and
Speaker: Yeah, I think to really just tie this back to what I said at the very beginning, like if you have this story that even if you already have this story that you think you're like an incredible creator, you really just want to hone that gift.
Speaker: I just want to encourage you to really look at where some of these belief systems are coming from and ask yourself really, what's the story here?
Speaker: Is this actually true?
Speaker: Because for so long, I operated from an outdated story and an outdated belief that was deeply rooted from like my childhood.
Speaker: And that held me back from years and years of creating art.
Speaker: I'll leave it there for now.
Speaker: There's so much that you said in here that I'm like, we could just pull.
Speaker: I'm just going to pull from what you said because, oh, so funny story.
Speaker: I actually, of all courses in grade 12, my grade 12 English was like, it wasn't like a bad grade, but it was like, for some reason, I got a low grade in that class and I was applying to go to university for English.
Speaker: So it did a little number on my mindset and my belief.
Speaker: But then I ended up getting a scholarship for creative writing and English.
Speaker: And I learned quickly in my creative writing course.
Speaker: I did really well.
Speaker: But in the course where it was all about, tell us what you think about this book and all the grammar and all the rules.
Speaker: There was no room for out-of-box books.
Speaker: thinking or if it went against whatever like I always feel like English creativity like writing is so subjective but I feel like when we can be objective about it that's where the magic happens because then you allow yourself to different possibilities long story short
Speaker: We ignore the things that come innately to us.
Speaker: For you, I feel you've always been this artist.
Speaker: You've always been a natural storyteller.
Speaker: And of course, that impact was seen for years.
Speaker: I remember you before Elope days.
Speaker: I remember you from a couple of years ago when it was all about the copy collective, like your agency and your masterminds.
Speaker: And I remember those days.
Speaker: I always remember feeling so lit up when I would read your posts and I'd be like, damn, I see myself in the person.
Speaker: We've had a very parallel journey.
Speaker: And I'm not the only one.
Speaker: There's this beautiful way that you connect with people.
Speaker: And of course, people are like magnetized to that because it's organic.
Speaker: It's real.
Speaker: And I find that to be missing, truthfully, in an industry where it's all about the noise and the flashiness.
Speaker: So you are refreshing.
Speaker: And
Speaker: Yeah, of course.
Speaker: It comes naturally to you.
Speaker: So you're not going to make much of it.
Speaker: And we think we have to strive for something that looks hard.
Speaker: It has to feel hard.
Speaker: Otherwise, it's not worth it.
Speaker: That was one of my stories.
Speaker: It doesn't get too easy.
Speaker: If it needs to be
Speaker: If it's going to be incredible, whether it's monetary-wise, whether it's working with a dream client, it has to be this hero's journey.
Speaker: It doesn't just get to be easy.
Speaker: So silly.
Speaker: Yeah, I just want to say something about what you mentioned earlier about the grammar piece and this very structural English side of things.
Speaker: I think that was also a big piece for me where I felt like for some reason that was required to be
Speaker: really great at writing and I actually feel really grateful because I think it was more important in the past but it's just not today I think one of the number one things that I'm often doing for people is actually trying to help them unlearn a lot of the ways that they were taught how to write because social media especially emails especially even the way we show up on this podcast nobody wants but this like formal
Speaker: super structured grammar like we're not writing four sentence paragraphs on our social media caption it's not and we want slang we want like these unique things to come through and so in some ways I feel like that actually was a it's a disservice to some and it's a service to me because I those are the things that I wasn't necessarily strong at when it's not necessary today to do things well yeah no I agree with that I think I'd love to shift gears into the part where
Speaker: Like, how did it feel for you to receive this?
Speaker: Like you said that your business blew up overnight, but I don't think it's actually an overnight thing.
Speaker: I think the result of you just showing in, showing up day in and day out and just sharing your message.
Speaker: And it's the one thing that I see, and I've subscribed to this myself in the past until I got off that hamster wheel over a year ago, is instant results.
Speaker: People always want, they start something and it's like they want that instant result or something.
Speaker: If they hire copywriters or if they hire creatives or a team, whatever, to do or something in their business, it's not working.
Speaker: Could you speak to that a bit?
Speaker: Because I feel like you've been in so many incredible leaders' businesses too.
Speaker: And you see all ends of the story.
Speaker: Where's the middle ground?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A copy problem, a marketing problem, a leadership problem.
Speaker: Is it that little icky guy in the middle?
Speaker: What is that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'll speak a little bit to the overnight success piece because it was not, it was not an overnight success as much as it felt like that in the moment.
Speaker: It was like things really just clicked in place, but they would have never clicked in place had I showed up over and over and over and over again.
Speaker: And ultimately my writing actually, it got better and my skillset was sharpened because I showed up and I just practiced every single day.
Speaker: without the fear of it being perfect.
Speaker: I think when I look back and even just reflecting on your question now, I'm like, well, that's awesome that I wasn't a copywriter because I got to just write without that pressure of people looking at my writing so closely.
Speaker: And that's where I really started to refine and get used to my voice.
Speaker: And
Speaker: I don't think we talk about this enough because it's not very sexy to market.
Speaker: It's actually the number one way to improve your marketing, to improve the way you actually show up is to continuously show up.
Speaker: And it requires that in the beginning, it's just not going to be close to what you have your vision of, but you're never going to get to your vision unless you start showing up.
Speaker: And it's like the reason why my business quote unquote blew up and I got all these clients really quickly was because
Speaker: of the way I was showing up.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that required years.
Speaker: It was like a couple of years of business coaching and having my supplement company and just trying, like I posted every single day for years, every single day.
Speaker: Like I remember waking up a Christmas morning, my partner being like, really, really?
Speaker: You're posting on social media right now.
Speaker: And I'm like, it became such a ritual for me that
Speaker: it felt really weird not to.
Speaker: It wasn't a chore anymore.
Speaker: It was this thing that became just part of who I was.
Speaker: It was a ritual.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Pause there.
Speaker: Can you share a little bit more about that second part, that question?
Speaker: Because I'm curious what the question was again.
Speaker: Something that I often hear, and I've witnessed this myself, like being in, working in the back ends and just like working with so many different business owners, I feel like
Speaker: We have a, I don't even know what the right word for this is, but I feel like we have this endemic.
Speaker: Let's just go and throw money at the problem, whether it's hiring person after person to write copy or to do systems or like, it's almost like we go into this fix it mode when something in our business isn't working.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: I personally liken that to be a leadership problem.
Speaker: It isn't always that your marketing isn't working for you or your whatever.
Speaker: Sometimes there are other dynamics involved, but I personally feel like it's a leadership problem in terms of how often are you showing up?
Speaker: How do you show up?
Speaker: When you do show up?
Speaker: Could we speak to that a little?
Speaker: What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker: Yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: I think mostly it's a leadership embodiment problem when we talk about messaging and copywriting.
Speaker: I think everything in business comes down to some sort of aspect of leadership.
Speaker: I'm constantly asking myself any sort of things that are being reflected back to me that I don't quote unquote or problems that I see in the agency.
Speaker: It's not
Speaker: a team problem or this person's problem or assistance problem.
Speaker: It's actually, what is this a reflection of how I've shown up as a leader?
Speaker: Because in some way, not that everything needs to be my problem, but usually there's some sort of route at least that started there.
Speaker: But when we're talking about creativity, we're talking about expression and getting your message out there.
Speaker: Ultimately, and I'm sure you see this too, like we can, you and I can teach everyone how to be the best copywriter ever, but that copy is never going to actually land and magnetize until it's an embodied message from you at first.
Speaker: It makes a massive difference whether you delegate it or not.
Speaker: So I think sometimes we want to throw money at a problem or we want to outsource something right away.
Speaker: And that may be the solution as long as you've done the work first.
Speaker: That makes sense.
Speaker: People are connecting, right?
Speaker: If someone's reading the words that are written, they could be the greatest words ever, like depending on who's reading it, of course.
Speaker: But it's if they don't see that energetically in the way that
Speaker: you and this could be anybody it could be me another coach another provider if it doesn't if it's not congruent with how we show up and who we are it's not gonna land there's gonna be a dissonance there and people are gonna feel like there's something funky or oh she's trying too hard or oh they're mimicking x y and z that's the vibe that's gonna come through and i really feel like we're stepping into i think we're already there but
Speaker: the call is so loud right now for people to just be raw and authentic and ditch and cut the fluff truthfully yeah in every way yeah and I think the other like root of a lot of these challenges that we're facing especially in more coaching service-based space is whether you're conscious of it or not the
Speaker: what's the word for this but basically you're comparing and pulling ideas from other people without sometimes even realizing that it's not your authentic truth there's just so much plugged in creation I call it like plugged in from the perspective of you're constantly plugged into other people and you're being influenced and infiltrated by other people's ideas that it could be a leadership problem because you're not actually even giving yourself space to see what's going on with you but also like
Speaker: to be authentic, to be real requires that you actually have that space to sit with yourself, to be away from everything else and that inundation with other things.
Speaker: I often teach this idea that we need to lead with art.
Speaker: So for a really long time,
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: I was like, no, we have a tart.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And what I mean by this is like for a really long time, my core message in my company was always really great.
Speaker: Art is like equal parts, art and science or art and energy and science, whatever you want to look at.
Speaker: There's masculine and feminine polarities, especially as a personal brand.
Speaker: But what I've found more and more is that the truth is we can't actually lead with the strategy anymore as much as like foundational understanding of your ideal client is important.
Speaker: Understanding these things are important.
Speaker: If we don't actually take the time to step away, understand ourselves, which is how we actually create art that's in authentic alignment with ourselves, then we don't really know how to align the strategy with that.
Speaker: Otherwise, strategy is being aligned to us
Speaker: without us really being clear on what makes that unique.
Speaker: Does that make sense?
Speaker: Like we need to lead from a place of artistry, authenticity, even just saying the word authenticity, I feel like it's gotten so cliche.
Speaker: Like at the root of this, cause I, you guys know I'm like a nature girl.
Speaker: I like to get outside.
Speaker: I'm like,
Speaker: get the hell away from your screen get away get in nature not to find ideas not to come up with more clear messaging for your business not to become like not with that goal the goal is not to find those things the goal is to stop looking for those things and that's when you find them it's yeah a little bit of a mind game to be honest
Speaker: Yeah, no, it's almost like unplugged so that you can plug back in and unplug just for the sake of unplugging because you're not a robot, like you're a human being, not a human doing.
Speaker: We forget that sometimes.
Speaker: And the thing with creativity is that it needs room to know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I almost liken it to a resistance band, right?
Speaker: If you pull it too hard, it's going to snap.
Speaker: But if you, like, apply just the right amount of resistance and you stretch it and stuff, like, you're going to have that masterpiece.
Speaker: So creativity definitely needs to be stretched.
Speaker: And it needs to just have room to flow.
Speaker: It needs to have no agenda.
Speaker: Like, create for the joy of creating.
Speaker: As someone that loves social media, like, I remember hating it.
Speaker: oh yeah very good year or two yes I was hating it and I'm like what this should not be exhausting what happened like why does this not feel fun anymore and I realized that some of the whether it was the people I was creating for or whether it was even creating for myself it was I was always creating with oh what's the plan what's the strategy what's but it was like you forget the artistry and then
Speaker: Over the last two years, so two years ago, I was in this program with one of my other mentors, and it was really more of a container for creative souls to just be creative, become.
Speaker: There was no agenda there of anything.
Speaker: And it really did help me just feel raw, because one of her questions to me was, hey, do you give yourself space every day to just be?
Speaker: And I'm like, no, I don't give myself space to just be, just think or not think, whatever.
Speaker: And that has changed since then.
Speaker: But yeah, that was the start.
Speaker: That was the start of me approaching social media as artistry.
Speaker: And I loved social media.
Speaker: Like I was 13 when we got our first computer at home.
Speaker: And when MSN was a thing and blog.
Speaker: No, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, like I had a blog spot blog.
Speaker: And nobody read it except for like my two or three friends when we're living great.
Speaker: This is great eight for me.
Speaker: And I would, it was more like a diary form.
Speaker: And I remember my mom very clearly saying, why are you putting all this stuff out?
Speaker: Like, you don't know who's reading it.
Speaker: And I'm like, no one that I don't know is reading it.
Speaker: Even if they do, who cares?
Speaker: And I feel we're so...
Speaker: daring when we're younger and like our parents and people because they want to protect us will say certain things and then it just stuck in my mind and then I did this dance of express and then don't express and that's been like I don't know almost like a two three decade journey and it's only now over the last year that I'm all right like we're just going off to the walls but I love that you said lead with the art like lead with art first let the artistry lead
Speaker: Yeah, and also on that note too, it's really important to ask yourself, why does this even matter?
Speaker: And on one hand, of course, it's a cathartic experience to be a human in creating.
Speaker: But I think ultimately, at least in my mind and currently where I'm at in my life, art moves people.
Speaker: It reminds us what it means to actually be human.
Speaker: It actually...
Speaker: If you connect with something that activates you and moves you, you're going to feel more alive and vital in your life.
Speaker: So if you are being your most true self and sharing the real raw experiences that you're going through, you're going to move someone who resonates with that and they're going to feel more at home in this world because somebody else resonates or somebody else is experiencing the same thing and you've done it in a way that just really moves them and connects them.
Speaker: I don't know if you were on my expressed masterclass recently, but I shared.
Speaker: Yeah, I think you were actually.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I talked about like when I went to the Lumineers concert.
Speaker: And how I love you.
Speaker: Yeah, the Luminaries was just, it was probably one of the best concerts I've been to in my life.
Speaker: It was also the first one post pandemic.
Speaker: So it was also really exciting.
Speaker: But there was a moment where I, there's two really distinct moments.
Speaker: So the one that I'll share right now was when he had written a song about being in a car accident.
Speaker: And then he,
Speaker: his experience around that.
Speaker: But when he told the story, nobody, not everybody in the audience is going to resonate with the fact that he's in a car accident.
Speaker: But the undertone, the message of the whole thing was whatever you're going through right now, you're going to be okay.
Speaker: We're going to get through this together.
Speaker: And that's how he was feeling when he was walking around this accident scene, looking around like, where am I?
Speaker: Literally location-wise, like, where are we?
Speaker: Everything's going to be okay.
Speaker: And so he writes this song and then he says, right before he starts playing, it kind of feels like what COVID's felt like.
Speaker: We're all just going through this crazy experience.
Speaker: But the truth is, we're going to get through this.
Speaker: We don't know really where we're at, but everything's going to be okay.
Speaker: And the lyrics are like,
Speaker: I don't know where we are, but we're going to be okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so the whole crowd is singing it.
Speaker: And I always tear up trying to tell this story, but I look over to my left and my partner Scott is tearing up and I'm tearing up and we're all like holding each other.
Speaker: We're going to be okay.
Speaker: And I look to my right and I look in front of me, I look behind me, everybody in this entire stadium, packed stadium is tearing up because they had in some way their own experience that they can resonate with this message.
Speaker: And that's what I feel like is true art, when you can move people and help them feel more human and connect to what's happening in their own experience.
Speaker: And I think it just makes the world a better place.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: I have full chills as you were sharing that, because that's the power of feeling that resonance, right?
Speaker: Someone once asked me, like, when we, and this is, I used to be a writing coach, not yet, I still am, but
Speaker: Yeah, in my writing coaching days, or my editorial days, rather, something that my authors used to ask me would be, do you write for yourself?
Speaker: Or are you writing for the reader?
Speaker: And oftentimes, like in publishing, they'll tell you like you're writing for your reader, like the message has to be marketable, etc, etc.
Speaker: And then I would go against that grade.
Speaker: And I'm like, you're writing for yourself first.
Speaker: and you're also writing for the reader because you're writing for the reader to see themselves in you or to find a piece of their story in your story and that's that connectivity that's going to make them want to continue turning the page or continue to reach out to you on social media or whatever it is right it's we're not writing with those end goals in mind bring it back to connectivity and to like what's
Speaker: happening internally collectively I got full chills when you shared that I'm just picturing that moment in my brain it really was special it's true though like I think even for coaches I don't care whether you're a service provider or coach or consultant like I think if you can find a way to share what you're so great at but make it about the person reading it while still keeping you in there yeah
Speaker: I don't know that there was a word for that, but bring it back to basic, right?
Speaker: Bring it back to connection.
Speaker: Oh, full gels.
Speaker: Oh my goodness.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I want to switch gears a little bit to what would you say to someone if they're doing the things and they want to get more embodied in their messaging and who they are?
Speaker: Like what are, what is a practice?
Speaker: Because one of the reasons why I love your work and I've loved your work is because you fuse
Speaker: like the actual tangibility, like the writing and all those things, but you fuse it back to the person and the embodiment.
Speaker: So I think this would be really great for anyone listening because I do have a lot of creatives that follow this.
Speaker: What would be like an embodiment ritual or thing?
Speaker: Yeah, it may be a little less body based than what you're expecting.
Speaker: But I think one of the most important things we can have that's going to actually support us in our writing is just like an endless source for curiosity and reflection.
Speaker: I think the most powerful way to show up is to be endlessly like asking ourselves bigger questions, not in a way to victimize ourselves, but to learn.
Speaker: So my, I think this probably is done for childhood.
Speaker: I had what I thought at the time was very annoying, but now I've learned to really love it.
Speaker: We're an aunt.
Speaker: I had an aunt.
Speaker: She would message me or she'd call me and whatever she'd saw, see me, she'd make me and all my cousins tell her what we learned that day.
Speaker: What is the new thing that you learned today?
Speaker: It was like, Oh, I don't know.
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: But it's the same thing.
Speaker: We talk about, oh, journaling and for, oh, tracking and reporting.
Speaker: What you've created for the week or the month is important to see how you're doing things.
Speaker: But ultimately, like, I'm going to get off this podcast or I'm going to get off the coaching column and I ask myself important questions like, what are some new things that I realized or what's something new that I learned or.
Speaker: How do I want to actually reframe this thing?
Speaker: Or if I go through an experience during the day, I'm like asking myself, what did I learn?
Speaker: And how can I actually teach this?
Speaker: I think that practice is going to help you integrate the learning.
Speaker: So it becomes more of an embodied experience.
Speaker: You're going to live it more, but it also gives you the tools to write more powerful copy from a place of thought leadership and not just from a place of regurgitating facts.
Speaker: And then to really ground this more in a tangible space, what you want to be constantly asking yourselves is like, what is my core message?
Speaker: And is that something that's constantly being woven through everything that I share?
Speaker: I look at this from like a high level and a macro, like a macro level and a micro level, but a high level, what does your brand stand for?
Speaker: What do you believe to be true about the work that you're doing?
Speaker: And so if I say that one of my core macro beliefs is that great copy,
Speaker: is art led, like you start from art, then what are all the ways that transfers into the words that I'm writing, the topics that I'm talking about?
Speaker: And then from a micro level, when I'm running a social media caption based off a reflection or a teaching or an experience that I have that I think is really important to share, constantly ask myself, is this an alignment with my high level macro messages?
Speaker: Is it still giving that same theme, that same idea?
Speaker: So I might
Speaker: have an experience walking in nature and want to share about that and why that actually reinforces this idea of leading with art.
Speaker: I might not even say leading with art, but it's the same pillar.
Speaker: So I'm not sure if that 100% makes sense, but definitely from an embodiment standpoint, I think one of the things that has really given me that unique advantage is just like a constant reflection and curiosity practice.
Speaker: I love that you said curiosity because I think that's one of the most important traits or values any business and any leader can actually hold.
Speaker: Because if you're curious, you're willing to go deep into the layers.
Speaker: And it was this, I remember this was in grade school.
Speaker: We had this class called moral science.
Speaker: This was when I was in Dubai.
Speaker: But it was all about like, yeah, leaders.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We didn't have religious studies there.
Speaker: Like I would attend, I guess, like my, because in Canada, you have the Catholic
Speaker: schools and they teach you here in schools but I would attend my Sunday school at church and the school system it was more secular and so it was all about learning about kindness and integrity and ethics and the moral code and all these things so I remember one of the lessons that he had one day
Speaker: He was asking us the importance of asking why and critical thinking.
Speaker: And he presented us with a story or a problem that, whatever, he made up a thing.
Speaker: And then a few of us were like, why?
Speaker: And then he kept answering things, but he wouldn't give us the answer right away.
Speaker: So we had to ask him why.
Speaker: Over and over.
Speaker: And then he got to the root and I'm like, oh, okay.
Speaker: got it gotcha and like one of the things i remember him saying was asking why will oh like over and over again it's not a bad thing get curious be willing to overturn every single stone leave nothing like unturned i'm like yeah if you're willing to get curious you can be in a bit of
Speaker: You'll always be ahead, rather.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And like a perfect example of this is for the last couple of years, I've been talking about the importance of being innovative and creative and being different and standing out.
Speaker: And then I started asking myself, wait, why is that even adding?
Speaker: Why is that even important?
Speaker: To me, it's like beautiful, something you can romanticize.
Speaker: But why does it even matter, especially for business?
Speaker: And that's when I started actually uncovering a deeper message about our moving people.
Speaker: And then I just told you that story today.
Speaker: And that came from the curiosity and asking myself why.
Speaker: These messages that are potent and powerful, they come from a place of curiosity, especially for thought leaders.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I love that.
Speaker: This has been so rich.
Speaker: Like I have two last questions before I like, before we close off.
Speaker: So, you know, if you had to share a message with your younger self or with someone starting out in business, doesn't matter what their business, like what would be your piece of wisdom that you'd leave them?
Speaker: I would tell myself and everybody else to actually trust yourself and your intuition, oftentimes more than your coaches and your mentors.
Speaker: Use coaches and mentors as guides, but not the facts.
Speaker: And it's got to go two-hand because if you trust yourself, then you're going to consistently show up from that place of trust, which is going to result in more success.
Speaker: more easily quote unquote and sooner not that this is going to be an overnight success but had I trusted my intuition and trusted what I know works for me in business and the business model and the marketing yeah I would have experienced success earlier and I think we want to learn from other people there's nothing wrong from learning other people but always be discerning right always asking yourself why really asking yourself why and being curious about like where this comes from and this is actually an alignment for you there's
Speaker: You have full permission to do things differently.
Speaker: Like really trust that voice.
Speaker: It's so cliche, but I really honestly know that.
Speaker: Okay, random little tangent for everybody.
Speaker: I closed down my agency a year ago, two years ago, a year and a bit ago now.
Speaker: And then reopened it because I realized that I should have never actually done that.
Speaker: And when I really look back, it's a journey.
Speaker: I learned so much other than that.
Speaker: I can rewrite that whole experience to mean, but ultimately the route was actually.
Speaker: Fully putting trust in somebody else who didn't actually understand what was best for me.
Speaker: And then creating a story around that to make it feel okay.
Speaker: We're all going to go through loops and changes and situations that you're going to learn from and you didn't necessarily fully act on your own intuition and your own inner trust.
Speaker: But as much as possible, I think that would be what I'd love to leave you all with.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: You're so right because your intuition and trust, like that voice, however you feel that in your body.
Speaker: I talk a lot about human design here and just in general, like the wisdom of us.
Speaker: whether it's that voice, whether it's that feeling, however your intuition communicates with you, I think paying attention to that and never ignoring that and learning to just lean in into it little by little, if that's what it takes.
Speaker: I love that you shared that.
Speaker: So thank you for reaffirming that.
Speaker: One last question.
Speaker: Where can people...
Speaker: find you?
Speaker: How can they work with you?
Speaker: So Instagram is the best place to hang out with me.
Speaker: My DMs are always open.
Speaker: Literally, if you want to send me a hiking video or you want to just say hi, I'm like always available in that space.
Speaker: My Instagram is rickelywalls.
Speaker: And then
Speaker: I run ELO is the copywriting agency that I run, and that's the only way to work with me and my team right now.
Speaker: And we're really focused on supporting thought leaders.
Speaker: So coaches and consultants writing social media captions and emails.
Speaker: We do other copywriting services, but we're really experts in supporting you in writing those like super thought leadership, depth, innovative, story rich copy without it losing your voice, but it still sounds like to you.
Speaker: and giving you more of that spaciousness to focus on your client work.
Speaker: So yeah, if you want support in that area, you can message me.
Speaker: That's really the best place to hang out.
Speaker: Thank you so much for making the time to be here today.
Speaker: I appreciate you so much.
Speaker: Thank you so much for tuning in and allowing us to inspire and infuse life and creativity into you.
Speaker: You've been listening to Elixir Radio, a podcast brought to you by Elixir Media Co.
Speaker: If you loved today's episode, please take a screenshot, share and tag us on Instagram at Elixir.
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Speaker: Until next week, stay conscious, stay fiery, and go express yourself as you are bold, unapologetic, and activated.
