🌊 Channel the Flow — Money, Energy & Team Work with grace allerdice

Amelia Hruby [00:00:01]

[Sparky synth music begins to play, overlapping with the introduction to the episode]

Welcome to Off the Grid, a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing all their clients.

Melissa Kaitlyn Carter [00:00:08]

[Music continues to play as Melissa Kaitlyn Carter begins to sing]

Let's go, off the grid. Okay! Let's go, off the grid. Okay! I know that you really want to put your phone away. Yeah! Let's go, off the grid.

Amelia [00:00:24]

[Singing fades out but synthy sounds continue]

Have you ever wish that you could have a successful business without social media? Well, you're in luck. I'm Amelia Hruby, writer, speaker, and founder of Softer Sounds Podcast Studio.

Amelia [00:00:34]

On this show, I share stories, strategies and experiments for growing your business with radical generosity and energetic sovereignty. Download the free Leaving Social Media Toolkit at softersounds.studio/byeig. That's b-y-e-i-g and join us in doing it all Off the Grid.

Melissa Kaitlyn Carter [00:00:56]

[Music gets louder as Melissa Kaitlyn Carter sings again]

Let's go, off the grid. Okay! Let's go, off the grid. Okay! I know that you really want to put your phone away. Yeah! Let's go, off the grid [music fades out].

Amelia Hruby [00:01:16]:

Hello and welcome or welcome back to Off the Grid, a podcast about leaving social media without losing all or any of your clients. It's also a podcast about launching a business with no or minimal social media presence and really a podcast about creative marketing practices and growing our businesses with energetic sovereignty and radical generosity. And today's episode is going to dive into all of that, my friends.

Amelia Hruby [00:01:48]:

But before we get there, I want to share a few programming announcements. So today is kicking off a new interview series that I've got going on on the podcast. This fall, I'm going to be talking to some of my favorite small business owners, artists, and influencers about their relationships to social media and their favorite creative marketing tools and practices. We're going to cover things as practical as how to write a welcome email to as fluidly fundamental as money and community. I'm so pumped to be extending our typical 20 episode season to 30 episodes for season two.

Amelia Hruby [00:02:35]:

I've got so much goodness coming your way for the rest of August and September and I just can't wait. These episodes are going to be so good. So what are we up to today? In today's episode, I have invited back my friend and collaborator and repeat guest, grace allerdice to talk about money and teams. These two things are the topic of our upcoming cohort of our course, Living Systems. It's the Water Cohort and we are diving into all things dream teams and team dreams. We're going to talk about energy flow and management. We're going to talk about money, rituals and systems. And we're going to talk about creative collaborations, how to nourish relationships with your clients, your collaborators, and your contractors or employees. If you have a tiny team.

Amelia Hruby [00:03:32]:

Water Cohort kicks off on September 12th, and you can join the mailing list to get all the info and more in the show notes. Head there if you know that you want to create some beautiful systems and rituals around your money and your collaborations with me and grace this fall. And whether you're interested in living systems or not, I just know that this episode is going to have some nugget of wisdom that you really need to hear right now, especially if you are listening live when the episode releases.

Amelia Hruby [00:04:12]:

It is mid to late August here. I live in the northern hemisphere, so it is soupy, soupy summer. Everybody's energy seems low, lots of planets are retrograde, and I am just feeling that sultry stuckness that only late summer brings. We talk about that in this episode and share so much water medicine for this particular season. So I really think you're going to enjoy this one. Pop in your air pods, find a literal or metaphysical pool to soak in, and let's dive in together to this epic conversation.

Amelia Hruby [00:05:00]:

Hi, grace. Welcome back to Off the Grid.

grace allerdice [00:05:04]:

I'm so happy to be here always.

Amelia Hruby [00:05:06]:

I know. I love having you. Today we're here to talk about money and talk about teams, which includes both our clients, our collaborators, and our contractors or employees. But before we dive into all of that, which is just most of business, it is deep August. This is coming out in like the most Augusty August times. I'm curious, how are you and what are you up to in your business these days?

grace allerdice [00:05:41]:

We were talking a little bit before we started recording about how I feel like the past couple of summers I have made the season a little more cocoon oriented, like taken a podcast break, which I think last summer was my first time doing that. And, of course, I had some jitters around it. I don't know why we feel like our whole community audience will just implode if we decide to not do something, but I did and it didn't. So yeah, I feel like I'm kind of coming out of a real cocoon phase. I've been very internal, not focused on. I was taking a break from one-on-one sessions. I was kind of wrapping up some small cohorts and things, not sending a lot of emails, not publishing podcast episodes. And that's been always just a really fruitful space for me. I get really fueled by internal space. So I'm feeling like a little turtle just starting to peek their head back out with ideas. And it's always a very full feeling, which I enjoy. And I'm resisting the urge to kind of cling to it because I know that it's inevitable that I must reemerge and be fully out there and I can come back in when I need to. So how about you?

Amelia Hruby [00:06:49]:

Yeah, well, folks who have been following along know that I took a three week break in July and that was the first extended break or like first break longer than a week that I had taken since I launched the business two years ago. So I think I also feel like I'm kind of coming back from a cocooning period. It is a really big task to close a business that has dozens of clients and a half dozen team members for three weeks. It was a huge task. I think I underestimated how much it would take to slow the momentum and to really pull it back.

Amelia Hruby [00:07:37]:

But it was so fruitful and nourishing for me and just really necessary to actually pull all of my energy back into my body instead of it being so spread over so many people in the business. And I thrive in relationship. I created this business so I could work with so many people at once all the time. I love that. It's just that every so often I need to bring it back. And that's really helped me. I'd say since I've been back, I've really felt so much more clarity around where do I want to put my focus and what can really just go away. What is no longer serving me or the business or the clients or my team? And what do I actually want to spend my time on? I just feel so much more sure about those decisions. I guess one way to put it would be like, I just kind of re-upped my energetic sovereignty and now I'm like, okay, I can run this ship again from a place of clarity and flexibility and sureness.

grace allerdice [00:08:48]:

Yeah, that was going to be my follow up question. Like, do you feel a sense of clarity? Because that's something that always shows up for me too. Just feeling a lot more clear from those internal spaces and things that were causing me, like, anxiety, maybe before I took a break. I'm like, well, isn't that funny that I thought that was important? It's usually a perspective that arises on the other side.

Amelia Hruby [00:09:06]:

Yes, 100%. And I would also say, I do feel so much more clear. But it's not like the clarity was suddenly like all these answers and solutions. It just felt like I was ready to even know what the questions were when I came back. It's not like I suddenly knew, like, here's my whole new business model and all this, it's not there. It was like I came back and I could finally ask the right questions for me in this period and start working toward answers. So I have been doing some really big shifts, both behind the scenes and publicly on the Softer Sounds website. Our offerings have changed, our pricing is changing, really some kind of deep adjustments to the business model and how it's working. And I know you're doing something similar, and I think that's a really nice segue into today's conversation and where we wanted to go first, which was talking about the ways that we've set up our businesses to suit our energy and our energy flow, as well as our financial needs and relationships to money. So I'm wondering, what are you offering in your business right now and why have you made choices to offer those sorts of things and how they serve you.

grace allerdice [00:10:24]:

Before I get into the specifics, one thing I really love, which is also something that I love about living systems, is that we are really different in a lot of ways. We vibe in similar ways, but the ways that we actually work and do things are really different, which I think is great. I think we share some underlying principles, obviously, because we can teach something together. But as far as the nuts and bolts of how that ends up going, we often make really different choices and I think I love that. So I'm just going to say I love that about this question as well.

grace allerdice [00:10:55]:

I think a big permission slip, I guess I've had to really give myself that I've learned through some really hard lessons over the past like ten to 15 years of working for myself, is that I do best in project based work. I don't know if it's from being a performer and just being really used to that momentum of like you dream a thing, you prepare a thing, you perform a thing, you close it down and then you think about what to do next. I just really work well with that kind of flow.

grace allerdice [00:11:31]:

Basically, as soon as something is for the foreseeable future and there's no end in sight, energetically, I feel myself contract and shut down and get distraught almost because I feel locked in. I'm a pretty mutable person. I like to respond to things in real time. I feel like as soon as I make, like, a website update it's ready to kind of transform it a little bit to something else and it makes it hard to respond to those kinds of micro and macro transformations when I'm feeling locked in. So most of my work is project based. I don't like working with people forever and ever, amen. Some people cannot buy like twelve month client packages with me. I'm not available in an ongoing way for support because it doesn't serve me, I don't like it. And it prevents what is sort of that ebb of coming back to kind of reground to get that clarity, which I think I need access to on maybe a more regular basis to be myself.

grace allerdice [00:12:32]:

So there's that. So all of my offerings are project based. Whether it's working one-on-one with a three month container, if it's working on like a systems consulting or notion build, that's a project. Small cohorts, what we do in living systems, they're all little capsules, little moments. And for me personally, I feel way more abundant in my energy then because I feel like I can just put everything into it because I know it's not going to last forever. And for me that is a more abundant energy. So of course that would be a really different way of pricing something, of inviting something and it's a really different choice than what you make, which I really love.

Amelia Hruby [00:13:09]:

Before I share kind of how I have structured my work and businesses, I just want to also point to how I've watched you learn this about yourself. You mentioned, like, over the past ten or 15 years, but even over the past, what, three years that we've become friends. When we met, you were running an online community called Kin, and it was all the time having on Mighty Networks, and there were all these monthly events and gatherings, and we had a lot of conversations about how that model was really depleting. Similarly, you were running your podcast weekly, and you never took breaks. Something I admire about you is like, you had those experiments and you realized, this is draining me and this is not working for me. And now you run a radically differently structured business. The themes are similar. Yourself, as the facilitator carries through, but you've changed the shape of your offerings such that they now better suit, you just talked about, your energy and what feels abundant for you, and I just really admire that. And it taught me a lot kind of watching you make that evolution.

grace allerdice [00:14:20]:

Hearing you say that, it makes me feel like the biggest change wasn't knowing that about myself. It was just owning it. It was just being like, oh, it's actually just owning that that's true, and letting that be okay, as opposed to something I need to fix about myself or something I need to just muscle through. If I just get stronger or if I just keep it going. It's like that idea that success must exist in some formula that's different from me. There are little ways that we all kind of embody that at times. Until listening to you say that those were experiments where I was like, I'm still running into the same feeling, even though it's in a different format than something I did before. What if I just owned that and acted like the way that I work will work? And that's sort of been the experiment, and it seems to be true because I definitely feel better, and I think my business feels better too.

Amelia Hruby [00:15:06]:

Yeah. I love this.

grace allerdice [00:15:08]:

So how about you?

Amelia Hruby [00:15:09]:

Yeah, so I feel like I'm still unraveling this question of how my energy works. I came out of an academic world, and so I was very used to a sort of nine month calendar, but also the university I did my PhD at was on the quarter system. So really, like, every twelve weeks, I had a radically different schedule, and I don't think I actually thrived in that much upheaval and change constantly. I learned, I adapted, I got used to it, and I made it work for me. But I think when I came into my business, I realized I don't want everything to change so much every twelve weeks or however many weeks.

Amelia Hruby [00:15:53]:

I also came to my business out of a part time job where we sold courses. And so we were on the launch cycle, and it was like three or four times a year we were all in on these launches and I got so burnt out on launching when I launched Software Sounds, when I opened Softer Sounds for business, I was like, I will never launch a single thing in this business. This is a launch free business because I cannot do that ever again. And for the most part, that's been true. I have not launched things through Softer Sounds at least. And so I feel like those two experiences really shaped how I even thought about Softer Sounds to begin with. And so when I created the offerings for the business, I really built things for the long term. And so the exact opposite of what you're talking about. I work with clients for the foreseeable future. Most of the time, I guess I should say. For folks who don't know, Softer Sounds is a podcast studio, and I have some clients where we work on a seasonal basis, by which I mean they'll say I'm going to make eight or twelve episodes and they'll book the whole season, and that's how we'll do it. But many of our clients are just for the foreseeable future. We start and they just keep going until they decide they need a break or they decide to end their show.

Amelia Hruby [00:17:07]:

I will say that it's not a retainer model, so it's not like they've signed on and they just pay me every month. I've kind of built little mini projects in. People book packages of four, and I really encourage breaks because I think that makes making your show more sustainable. But at any given time, the Softer Sounds roster has twelve to 24 active clients, meaning that I know when their next episode is coming out, whether it's in one week or twelve weeks. That makes me feel really sure and safe in my business, that I always know there's money coming in and that there's an ongoing relationship that will keep feeding the business. Because I don't relish in finding new clients or booking new jobs. I've never really wanted a strictly project based business. And in fact, I've recently decided to stop offering two of our project based offerings. So Software Sounds is no longer offering our launch package that we've done since the beginning, and we're no longer doing the reset packages that we've done because I haven't enjoyed the sort of one-off nature of those client engagements. So yeah, I've really built this business in a very different way, in a really different energy.

grace allerdice [00:18:25]:

Though these models are different, they both make us feel good, and that might be a prerequisite to making dollar bills, or it has been, in my experience. Like, I don't make more money the more miserable I am. It's actually the opposite.

Amelia Hruby [00:18:45]:

Ain't that the truth. But that is the opposite of our training, right? Like often the sign of a successful business owner is that you are…

grace allerdice [00:18:53]:

In actual hell.

Amelia Hruby [00:18:54]:

Yeah, you're burnt out. You're run over by how many clients you have. Your energy is like devastated, decimated, desiccated.

grace allerdice [00:19:02]:

Like, I hate launching, but I'm going to do it and send 25 million emails anyways because that's what everyone says to do.

Amelia Hruby [00:19:08]:

Yes, exactly. And I think that where this goes for me at least. And I'd be intrigued to see if you agree with this. It invites us to be more creative. But I also think it just means that that means we don't have certain types of businesses. Right? Like, neither one of us is trying to run a sort of passive income, self guided courses that get thousands and thousands of people in them business, because the ways those traditionally work are super not suited to our energy and our happiness.

Amelia Hruby [00:19:46]:

And I often think about this in my journey leaving social media. I've just thought a lot about the trade offs and I think about it a lot now. I thought about this a lot when I got a book deal and I've asked myself a lot, would I want another book deal? And then to me, it's like the trade off of like, do I want to have to prove to a publisher that I have a giant audience again? Like, absolutely not. Never. So I have no interest in getting a book deal. Does that mean I'll never publish another book? No, I love self publishing. I would love to do a book my way in the future, but it's just like getting a traditional book deal’s off the table for me because I'm not willing to do, quote unquote, what it takes in this world to get that. So the way I think about these things, there's something like a contractive and an expansive thing. It's like I've contracted my options because they're just more I'm not willing to do. And I've expanded my creative thinking to believe that a lot of things I didn't think I could do, I can just do differently.

grace allerdice [00:20:45]:

Yeah, I think for me, a lot of the kind of eww feelings around those choices for me are just the whole “proving oneself” energy is something that just really makes me feel ick. And some people that's not the case. So I'm not saying it's inherently icky. I'm just saying that I don't do great at that. I'm not shiny in that way. I don't enjoy it. It makes me feel small, it makes me feel insignificant, like I don't matter, whatever. And maybe I could work on that or I could just do it in a way that doesn't feel that way and that way a way that feels more happy or more aligned. So it's like, oh, if it's asking me to step out of that in my own energy, in my own mode, then it's not the thing. But the whole subservience and having to prove myself to someone through their system that I don't even like or believe in. Yeah, I don't really have a lot of space for that or desire around that, honestly.

Amelia Hruby [00:21:37]:

Yeah, it feels bad. So I think we've kind of talked about how energetically our different business models you have a project based business because you really enjoy that sort of start and finish, and you enjoy that sort of like, I get to be with you and then I get to be in my cave and not talk to anybody in this. There's a real dynamism in a project based business model. And we've talked about how, for me, I really like to be a capricorn rising and just go forever. I kind of work in these long term ways, and I have plenty of flexibility, plenty of small breaks here or there, but it's like an ongoingness and a steadiness that I really bring to my offerings and the type of client work that I do.

Amelia Hruby [00:22:26]:

But how does that impact money in our business? So maybe I'll share first, because I already brought this up a little bit. But when I decided to start my own business, I had a lot of fears around scarcity, and I had to do a lot to uncover all these narratives in my head around what it meant to be a business owner. And one of those that was really strong was that running your own business was always feast or famine. I had this underlying belief that my business couldn't be steady. And so I think when I launched Softer Sounds, part of the project for me was just believing that it could consistently support me. And so I really imbued the business with a deep sense of steadiness, and that is what has happened with the way I design the offerings and with how money comes into the business.

Amelia Hruby [00:23:19]:

Now, I also really believe in being flexible and supportive of my clients. So I would say there is steadiness, but there is not rigidity. And our monthly revenue is steady, but it's not the same every month by any means. And to be just, like, fully transparent off the top of my head this year, I would say it ranges between $7,000 something a month. And then we had this one bonkers month where it went up to, like, $18,000, and I was like, I don't know what's happening, and I drown in my own river of abundance. Too much.

grace allerdice [00:23:53]:

Praise be.

Amelia Hruby [00:23:55]:

Yeah. So there's quite a range there, but my goal is generally to be around ten, so the range is steady enough for me. So if I were to use, like, a water metaphor, it's like I think of Softer Sounds as like a wide river. There are some small rapids here or there, but it's like we're just kind of on a tube floating down the river. And that is, like, how I think of money in the business and how I've set up my offerings for the long term and for steadiness long term. I'm curious how you think about money in a more project based way and how you relate to money in your business through that.

grace allerdice [00:24:35]:

I think with me, my energy feels more oceanic. It likes to come in in a really big and when it comes in, it really comes in. I'm just like I got all the ideas and all the words and I'm so excited. I was like, I've been scuba diving for weeks and I have so much to share. And then after I do that, I need to kind of be like, okay, it's time to row my boat back out into the middle of the ocean and go down for a while. So I need a workflow that kind of supports that. So money tends to come in more tidally and the same with it's primarily my husband's construction business, but I help run it and this is, still it's project based, so there's months where there's a lot of money coming in and then there's months where you're like, oh, no, money came in. But is there a way that sort of behind the scenes, the systems and the rituals and the ways that we save money and plan for our life or adjust quarterly or the reviews and things that are associated with that sort of makes sure that we're never hung out to dry, so to speak. Even though money does come in big waves and it fluctuates not always super drastically, but other times it does. But that feeling like we're still okay regardless of what that looks like.

grace allerdice [00:25:50]:

So I would say mine is definitely more oceanic and it has a lot more of a title quality to it, which I think does require some regulation. If one is used to getting a regular paycheck every other Friday that is the exact same amount and can predict their income at the end of the year, at the beginning of the year, that is quite a big shift and quite a big adjustment. But, yeah, it's something that I'm really regulated around and isn't not related. Just sort of the way that I energetically relate to the world and my sense of being provided for and alive and just sort of like the underlying net of trust that's there as well.

Amelia Hruby [00:26:29]:

Yeah, I really love that last point. I think about this net of trust, because I do think that people who transitioned from a steady paycheck job to running their own business and then moved to a project based business, you really do need tools to help yourself feel consistently sustained and supported when money might be coming in only once a quarter or in these big chunks or I think there's also really something, a piece of this we haven't gotten to yet is like when you're starting your business, do you want a few clients who pay you a lot of money? Do you want many clients who each pay you a little bit of money? Do you run a product based business which is truly about getting lots of clients who are spending a small amount of money or building a loyal clientele who is spending more money more consistently at your shop or whatever it may be. I think that is also a piece of this equation.

Amelia Hruby [00:27:30]:

So taking us from money into more of like the team part, the people part that we'll be exploring in Water of Cohort of Living Systems. For me, I like to have like a mid sized number of people, right? I've shared I have like twelve to 24 clients at any given time and part of that is because I have previously worked in models where it's like you have two clients a year and then one of those clients goes away and then panic, stress, anxiety, dread, like the building is collapsing underneath you and that is a feeling that I never want to have. I don't like feeling like my income is coming from one place. I really, in my business, I feel the most regulated and safe when I know that at any given time I could lose four clients tomorrow and the business would be okay. And that makes me feel like I can keep swimming, keep floating down this river. Other people look at my business model and they were like, if I had to talk to that many people at one time, I would run away and hide from this business you have built. So it suits me, an extrovert who loves keeping up with a bunch of people and wants to know that a lot could change and my business can still be financially profitable, but it doesn't suit a lot of other types of people. How do you think about kind of the number of clients you work with in relationship to your energy, in relationship to your money picture?

grace allerdice [00:28:57]:

You're touching on something that I think is really important, which is diversification, which is a principle of the natural world and flourishing in addition to something that we hear people talk about when they're prioritizing their investments in the stock market or whatever they're talking about, right? So they're talking about diversification. And so essentially, whether we're talking about the microbiome or an ecosystem or a garden, the more diversity there is that exists, that lives inside of a system, the healthier it is because there's more checks and balances. It isn't dependent on the one thing. And which is funny because ironically, the way that a lot of our Western culture, anyway, solves any problem is always like, well, there's one fix, there's one cause. Oh, you're sick? It's this one thing. And that's just not how anything in our body actually works. It's never one thing. There's never one thing that's going to fix it, one thing that broke it. That's just not real. And so thinking about like, well, why would we build our businesses that way? Where it's dependent on one thing, where one thing can break it, one thing will fix it. And. We're more complex as that as people. Our businesses are more complex than that too.

grace allerdice [00:30:02]:

And I think when it comes to income and money, it could be a diversification of clients or a diversification of offerings. It could also be a diversification of income streams. Like for some people it's having multiple jobs or multiple ways that you make money. For some people it's like multiple part time jobs or they make some money doing this and they make other money doing that. And there's just a lot of ways that their overall life, their overall income, checks and balances. I had someone explain it to me when I was like early in my 20s. They're like, it's like a fork. You want to make sure your money is like a fork, not a knife. You want these multiple prongs. And I think that's maybe an image that's coming in here now. But even I think when we're talking about water, that's also a really effective image as well. We're thinking about everything kind of like comes from a lot of different sources and cycles into this one plate. Like there's a lot of pulling from a lot of different sources going on to end up ultimately in the same place.

Amelia Hruby [00:30:55]:

Yeah, many tributaries.

grace allerdice [00:30:57]:

Exactly. So many fingers, many prongs.

Amelia Hruby [00:31:01]:

And I think that as you and I have been working on Water Cohort, we keep coming back to together is this sort of guiding principle of your business needs other people. Money comes from other people, through your clients or your customers who are other people. And you might also need other people to support you and support the work and create a team of collaborators or paid contractors or employees. And so all businesses are inherently interdependent. Yet too often I think we think that our business is just reliant on ourself and doing everything the right way ourselves. And I think the medicine of water here is to remind us that literally all water is connected through the ground or through the air or eventually back to the ocean or an aquifer. And the more interconnected our businesses are, the more ways that water or money or support can flow into them.

grace allerdice [00:32:10]:

Yeah, and it reminds me of when we're initially setting up these Cohorts and sort of the flow of them and what's going to be included. A lot of what we're talking about with the Water Cohort is also we're talking about managing energy. It's like our energy, our team's energy, our clients energy, what are sort of like the cadences and the rhythms, the energy of the money. What are the weather systems that we're sort of finding our little ecosystem in the middle of and how do we manage that really well? If we live in a place that doesn't rain a lot, then we're going to have to deal with water in a different way than we would if you live where I live, where it feels like we have a flood every day, right? Or at least in the summer. That feels like the case, right? And even then, most of what we do, anywhere we go is like, it rains, it goes down a storm drain, it messes up the river on the way to the ocean because it's too much.

grace allerdice [00:32:58]:

There's no kind of, at least in America, where we are, there's no sort of cultural system set up or understanding of, like, how should we manage water? What does water want to do? How is it best served? And sort of a principle in permaculture, for instance, is sort of like how do we keep it on the place where it falls as much as possible? Even if you can get one inch of rain to kind of stay on the site where you are, that's doing better, to slow the water down, spread it out, as opposed to everything just rushing to a storm drain and causing erosion and so how do we store our money and how do we store our energy knowing that a sprint is coming up or that I need to be here for a long endurance race. Like really thinking about those kinds of equations and questions as it relates to these topics and figuring out what works best for the animal that we are, the ecosystem, the jungle that we're in, et cetera, and celebrating that we'll come up with different creative answers. Because we're all different gardeners, we're different animals and have different needs at different points in our life, which I find really exciting.

Amelia Hruby [00:34:01]:

Hi, friends. Amelia here, interrupting myself to tell you a little bit about this course, Living Systems, which you've heard grace and I discuss in this episode. Living Systems is a series of cohort based courses to set up your work and life like a garden: Deasonally aligned, resilient as fuck, and bursting with life. It's for creatives, freelancers and small business owners who want simple, sexy, and sensitive systems that support your most meaningful contributions, not busy work. grace and I designed the course to teach cyclical rhythm design for life and work, and we source the course material from our own research, creative work lives, and personal discoveries into how to live in alignment with our natural world and our embodied limits, while also honoring our interstellar capacities to vision, dream, and bring worlds to life. If you want to feel clearer, more supported, and more integrated in your day to day work, this is a course for you. Head to the show notes for the link to learn more, and make sure that you sign up to join our Living Systems email list so that you know as soon as registration opens. I hope that you're enjoying this conversation grace and I are having. Let's get back to it.

Amelia Hruby [00:35:11]:

Something that's coming up for me here is that I don't want people to hear our sort of conversation around building businesses that serve or suit our energy as a sort of sense of like everything can just be about you all the time. It only works when you are also in community with your clients or customers. And for me, I'm always in conversation with them and learning what they desire, what they need, where the support needs to come from, what are the pretty things that they want. And then I sort of run those ideas through my own energy and I shape them into offerings based on what I feel like I can do well and will feel good to me. I will say that for myself in my business. Sometimes when I just go create in my hermit cave and then put it out there for the world to buy, no one shows up for it because I kind of made it without any connection to the people that I hoped it would serve. I often talk about business as that sort of flow between our energetic sovereignty and radical generosity. Like both being really sovereign in our needs and what we have to offer and also being really aware of who we're offering it to and how we can really get to the root of their desires and where we meet in that conversation.

grace allerdice [00:36:40]:

Yeah, because what we're really talking about is being in relationship. And is there a relationship where I just get to do whatever I want and then everyone celebrates it all the time? If there is, that's cool, I guess, but I haven't yet to find one. Right? It's a mixture of listening and speaking and creating. And also is there a relationship where people just get to bark at me the things that they want? And I'm like, sure, I'll do that. What is that? And so no, it's a mixture of the two things. We're in relationship and we're creating relationships with the people that we work with, the people that we work for. Just like we're also creating relationships with money and the energy that we exchange between those people and between those things and that's something that I think is really important to remember. And for me to feel generous, what does something need to cost in order for me to feel generous around it as opposed to feeling bitter about it?

Amelia Hruby [00:37:37]:

You know, that takes us into another layer of this relationship. Which is that if you're a service provider, which grace and I are both service providers, people sure they are paying you for the service, but they're really paying you for how doing it with you or having you do it for them will make them feel. Last week's listener Q & A episode of Off the Grid I actually talked about sales in this way a little bit. So often, if we focus too much just on the fundamentals of the service, we kind of just end up writing these info pages that are like, “you get this many”, if I use Software Sounds, “this many hours of editing, this many show notes, this many this”. But we forget that what the person's actually buying is all of the feelings wrapped around that. And so I was talking in that episode about the difference between an info page and a sales page. And an info page is just like the presentation of information versus a sales page is like taking someone on a journey of the transformation that it will give them.

Amelia Hruby [00:38:43]:

Going through that process of actually writing a sales page for me gives me so much clarity on everything I'm trying to bring to my work and everything that Softer Sounds is uniquely doing in the space and how that makes people feel. And for me, it's really actually honestly reframed sales pages for me from this, like, “Oh, I don't want to write that. It's going to be so hard. I have to get it right. I have to be persuasive.” It's like, fully transformed that into like, “Okay, great. Now I really get to figure out what we're doing here. Now I really get to help myself and the potential client discern if we're a good match.” Because everyone who lands on my podcast editing page wants an editing package. But not everyone also wants our softer approach to podcasting. And what's at the heart of that is that relationship and that connectedness and that flow that comes through the offering.

grace allerdice [00:39:47]:

Yeah, I mean, I think something that's been coming up a lot in our super sacred Voxer thread that's really yeah, I know.

Amelia Hruby [00:39:54]:

Like church of Voxer.

grace allerdice [00:39:56]:

Yes, like our church of two Voxer. Is that for me personally, I'm just like, yeah, resonance is more important than marketing, and resonance is something that's created between people. It can't resonate with something if it's not creating with something. In the spring, I was feeling really like, I just couldn't and didn't want to launch a thing or sell a thing. The launch doesn't even capture the energy that I was meeting it with. I was like, you can sell something without pushing, without launching a rocket into space. I was like, I don't really want to write a sales page. And so I didn't and I sold it, and it felt great. But it's like, why? Because it's like there's resonance there. And I think something that's been shifting for me is my relationship with clients and with either selling something or being with people in a space, regardless of how I do it.

grace allerdice [00:40:47]:

My number one job is to create resonance so that people can just tell whether on an intellectual, cognitive, or just an intuitive, like, energetic way if I'm the container that they need. And my job is to be authentic, which to me just means to be honest about what's going on and what they're getting and what they're not getting. And those are my only two jobs, whether that comes through a podcast or this kind of page or an email, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that I'm doing those two things and that I'm creating true relationship. I'm setting myself up to have a great time and giving these things to people and for them to also really have a transformative experience, which means that my job on the back half of offering the service is going to be so much easier and so much more fulfilling and more beautiful, which is kind of the only boat that I'm really interested in being on these days.

Amelia Hruby [00:41:36]:

Yeah. And I feel like that takes us back to where we're talking about just like the importance of being regulated around money, around pricing, around the energetics of any offering and the importance of having these systems and rituals and structures for how we navigate the flow of money and the flow of other people's energy into our business ecosystem. Because I think my reflection, watching you sell that offering through email, the vibe I was picking up was like, it wouldn't have worked if you were coming at it from a place of, “oh yeah, but I really got to get ten people in here so that I can pay for this.” Right? It wouldn't have worked. But because you had shifted the relationship to money in your business and you were really able to just be open to, of course, you had set a sort of minimum energetic threshold. Like, “this is the minimum that this offering needs to hold.” But you weren't in a sort of scarcity place where you were really dysregulated and then suddenly offering all these discount codes to get those last four people and then really stressing about it.

Amelia Hruby [00:42:49]:

And I don't say that to shame anyone who's ever been there because I think as business owners, most of us at some point or another have probably offered a discount because we were stressed we weren't selling enough. Like I have 100%. I'm not critiquing or shaming that behavior, but I do think it's just symptomatic of a different relationship to money or a focus on scarcity or a feeling of scarcity in our business. And I think that that is really key if we're trying to do business differently, we have to really cultivate that regulation and the ability to stand in doing it differently even if it doesn't have the results, perhaps that we wanted or the results that we were promised if we did it the way everybody else does it.

grace allerdice [00:43:34]:

Yeah, I think nixing that last story has been the most empowering thing for me. It's like, well, if you just do these three things and X, Y and Z will happen. Like ditching that whole just like all of that, putting into the trash can, has been the most empowering thing for me personally as a business owner and someone who does do their own, quote “marketing,” I guess if you could even call what I do that. But I think also something that you're, which is sort of different with project based work in a lot of ways, sometimes with notion building or systems consulting that's on a project by project, client by client basis. And so I don't have a per hour rate. I'm not like oh, this is going to take me 5 hours and then I charge by the hour and then that's the price. So part of the thing that gets into the mix with value based pricing is like how much do I need this work? Do I really need this client to say yes? Or am I so booked right now? Especially even with construction work recently it's like we're really booked out for months. And so we really don’t need this work and so if you really want us to do it's going to have to A: Cost more and you're going to have to wait. And if you're in a hurry it can't happen unless you're willing to pay a lot more. And all of those things are just things that kind of get weighed in the balance of the volume up, volume down metrics of all the things that come together to be like how much do this cost? How much is it going to cost my energy, the people that work for me, how much time do I actually have? How much do I need this work? How much do I not need this work? Which is a little different than sort of crafting like an offer that sort of sits there on a pedestal as this singular thing.

grace allerdice [00:45:08]:

But I think that being said, even in crafting an offer that sits on the pedestal and as this thing that people can access it will, those questions I think should still sort of get poured into it with the same level of care and attention and then this is what it costs. Now how often do I go back in and check on that? More is not more necessarily. And I think sometimes too, with money too that we feel like the more we put into something, the more money it will make, the harder it is, the more money it will make. And while diversification is something that's important, sometimes having more clients isn't more money. Sometimes having more offers doesn't mean more money. And I think a really simple thing that a lot of people don't do in their work, we just say yes and yes and yes and yes, especially gig workers. It’s like sitting back to look at what are people actually paying for? How much work am I putting into selling this thing?

grace allerdice [00:45:55]:

And often the thing that they're working the hardest to sell is not making the most money. Like they have something that's bringing in money that they're not working that hard on doing. And maybe you should just focus on that for a minute. And that's a really simple sort of evaluation and awareness that's really simple but it requires some sort of back-level, backdoor system ritual rhythm in order to be really alive in what's happening. Because I think we talked about this in our last recording, I think, is that aliveness is really what's the thing that people are responding to. I think especially as our relationship with the Internet is getting more sophisticated, the things that people want are really changing. People don't want another 16 hours course just full of things that they're going to have to do on their own and figure out, we don't have the time, we don't have the desire. Nobody wants to do that. I don't want to do that. That's what I have to say about that.

Amelia Hruby [00:46:50]:

Yeah, I think a few things you kind of pointed to in there. I do feel like kind of a big choice we get to make as business owners, specifically as service providers, is: Are we choosing a sort of like, “This is on my website. It's available for purchase. It has a price and it's there all the time” model or a custom proposal model? And you can have both in your business but for every offering, you will have to kind of choose how it is functioning. And I loved how you pointed to some of the differences there and I think that energetically. Those are just very different things and they map onto our differences in business that we'd open this conversation with. Right? Like at Software Sounds on the website, you can see what our editing packages cost at any given time. Now you can't just buy them. You have to go through an intake process and I have to see if we have space for you and when you want to start and all these things. But the price is there and it's the same and it's readily accessible.

Amelia Hruby [00:47:53]:

To work with you on systems consulting, it's going to be a custom quote every time, even at Software Sounds. If you want to do a launch with us now, you're going to have to inquire and we will custom quote you. And I think you're so right, grace, that a piece of that quote is how busy are you right now? It's about your entire ecosystem. It's not about like doing this with me always costs $2,500, always costs $15,000. The end. The reason we do custom quotes is so we can take a lot of that into consideration while at the same time, that's not to say that that's better than selling something on your website and having a price for what it costs. That just is the price for what it costs. And I know both of us have that in our businesses in different places. Like, if you want to buy the water medicine course, you can buy it on your website and it just is there with the price and you can buy it. It's not custom quoted every single time.

Amelia Hruby [00:48:44]:

And something I think a lot about in my business is just kind of like right sizing and right timing things. And to me that is also a water lesson, right? There's a rainy season and there's a dry season. People live in watery ecosystems or in deserts. We could think about either one of our businesses as either one of those ecosystems. So much of this is, again, just getting to know yourself and how you relate to money and how your energy works such that you can create systems and structures that work for you.

Amelia Hruby [00:49:19]:

So you just said this like letting go of all of those, like, “this is how I'm supposed to do this thing, and this is what it's supposed to get me or for me.” I really just try to own like, I run this type of business because it makes me feel safe around money. Right now, I feel supported, secure, and safe when I have money coming in in this way. And for a long time, I felt like bashful about even saying or admitting that to myself because I felt like I should just feel safe, secure, and supported around money no matter what was happening. And I was like, It's okay, it's okay to just acknowledge that I have needs and this is what they are, and this is what I want, and I can provide that for myself. It's actually been really empowering to realize this is what makes me feel supported, and I can provide that for myself through my business.

Amelia Hruby [00:50:05]:

But it was also equally important for me to learn this type of business is not making money and I am feeling awfu.l I had to learn that to ever get to this place I'm at now. And at some point, I'm sure this structure I've created will start to feel like it doesn't suit me anymore and I'll change it up. I'm doing that at Softer Sounds right now, right? Like I'm letting go of a lot of our package work in favor of custom proposal work, because I needed to mix it up. I needed a different flow. And that's the aliveness again. That's like meeting ourselves where we actually are right now.

grace allerdice [00:50:37]:

Yeah. Oh, it rained a lot this year. Oop, that means I need to do this. Oh, it didn't rain a lot this year. It means I need to change this. Oh, we had a bug moment. Like, that responsiveness. Just talking about my garden again. That responsiveness, I think, and yeah, I think is something that's really important to keep in mind. And even if the business stays the same, your role might change in it, which is also something exciting to think about because we change. Our needs change. This summer when I was taking a lot of breaks from one-on-one sessions, which led me to really also own that I just really love small group energy so much. I just thrive with a small group more than anything. And if I want to work one-on-one, what do I want that to look like?

grace allerdice [00:51:50]:

And so while I'm really taking a lot of public facing things and stepping back from them, the thing that's really supporting a lot of my business right now is the custom Notion work and systems consulting and stuff like that, because I don't market a lot for that. I don't really make content around it. People find me relationally through referrals. I work like zero hard at selling that part of my work, so I don't need to manage a lot of people. It really lets me sort of have soft focus over the things that are normally a lot of upkeep but still have money coming in and working with others in a way that is sort of suiting my needs for right now. And so I think, yeah, the biodiversity, the resonance, the responsiveness, the aliveness. And I think a lot of what we're talking about with water here is just the interdependent energy that is needed in order to, I haven't come up with a word besides manage, but I would like to because it doesn't feel like managing necessarily, but to just really be, I guess, in sovereignty with the flow between us and others.

Amelia Hruby [00:52:12]:

Yeah. I feel like what we're bringing to this conversation and to living systems is this softer, more fluid approach to how we think about money and energy and other people in our businesses and all of the different decisions and feelings and vibes and ideas and emotions that flow into that.

grace allerdice [00:52:35]:

Yeah, it's like if I just went outside all of the time and I expected at the end of the summer, I was like, well, I went outside all of the time, and then I expected there to just be this perfect garden full of all the things that I planted in the spring that I never touched or tended to or gave attention to or like, what would I expect to happen? Right. And there's a way that we can do that and plant the things that we like and harvest the things that we like and pay attention to where we are. But just going outside on a regular basis doesn't magically get you a garden. And I think there's especially a level of that too. Like, if you're paying other people or employing other people, there's a level of stewardship and an invitation towards even more mastery or awareness, which does not mean that everything goes perfectly all the time. That I think is really important to really just kind of own and step into if you want to be able to sort of share that harvest with others.

Amelia Hruby [00:53:32]:

Yeah, and I was just thinking, too, no matter how hard you work at your garden, if there are not any pollinators there, it will not yield fruit. It requires the consideration and care of the bees and the bugs as well. Like, we need all of it.

grace allerdice [00:53:49]:

Got to think about the whole thing, not just your thing.

Amelia Hruby [00:53:51]:

Exactly. So on that beautiful note, I want to just take a moment to invite folks to join us in our upcoming Water Cohort of Living Systems. If you're listening to this when it comes out, the week it comes out, registration will open next week on August 28th. If you're listening in the future, it will be open until September 8th. So that's your window, August 28th to September 8th to join us. The Water Cohort will be happening September 12th through 22nd, and in that cohort we are going to talk about flow collaboration and energy management, including money and teams and everything that you heard us talk about today. We have a beautiful water oriented framework for how we'll be thinking through the energy flow through money in our businesses or creative practices or personal lives, as well as how we'll be thinking about collaborating with others, whether that be a client or a team member or a creative collaborator.

Amelia Hruby [00:55:03]:

In these courses, we do lean into our love of Notion and provide Notion templates and resources and ways of creating systems around money and teams in Notion. But you don't have to be an avid Notion user to really learn and implement a lot of the course teachings. So if you'd like to learn more about the course, there's a link in the show notes to sign up for our email so that you'll get information when registration opens and we'll tell you a whole lot more about the course on that list.

grace allerdice [00:55:36]:

That's the primary way that we communicate about all live cohorts when registration is open and any future offerings that we have, and that's the best way to be in touch with us.

Amelia Hruby [00:55:45]:

And if it isn't clear already, Living Systems is a live course. So this cohort will include four live classes with us, as well as coworking sessions. It's okay if you can't come to all of them live, they are recorded and you get all the materials or links to everything after each session. But we really are trying to bring the living nature to Living Systems, and we already have a beautiful group of folks signed up to be joining us. And if you enjoyed this conversation, we hope that you will be among them. So thank you, listeners, for being here. Thank you, grace, for joining me again, I look forward to our next conversation on the pod. Everybody, go get on the list for Living Systems and until Water Cohort, we will see you off the grid.

grace allerdice [00:56:37]:

Bye everyone.

[00:56:39]:

[Melissa Kaitlyn Carter begins to sing over sparkly synthy sounds]

Let's go off the grid. Okay! Let's go off the grid. Okay! I know that you really want to put your phone away. Yeah! Let's go off the grid.

Amelia [Music continues to play softly] Thanks for listening to Off the Grid. Find links and resources in the show notes and don't forget to grab your free Leaving Social Media Toolkit at softersounds.studio/byeig.

This podcast is a Softer Sounds production. Our music is by Melissa Kaitlyn Carter and our logo is by n'atelier Studio.

If you'd like to make a podcast of your own, we'd love to help. Find more about our services at softersounds.studio. Until next time, we'll see you Off the Grid.

[Melissa Kaitlyn Carter sings the theme song again] Let's go off the grid. Okay! Let's go off the grid. Okay! I know that you really wanna put your phone away. Yeah! Let's go off the grid [sparkly synthy sounds fade out].