#533: Business ideas I almost started over the years - Tash Corbin, Heart-Centred Business Podcast

Full article and links available at: tashcorbin.com/533

Today on the Heart-Centred Business Podcast, I’m doing something a little different—and a whole lot of fun! I want to take you on a journey through the last 15 years of my entrepreneurial life, sharing all the business ideas I nearly started, but didn’t… and most importantly, what I do with those ideas, what I learned from them, and how my overflowing “idea brain” actually helps my business and my clients.

If you’re anything like me—a creative thinker and entrepreneur—you’ll know the feeling. You see a problem you could solve, spot a gap in the market, and BOOM: your brain won’t let go until you’ve mapped out the whole business! But having lots of ideas doesn’t mean you have to act on all of them.

Let’s dig into what I do with those sparks, why I leave some for others, and why I never want to shut down that part of myself.

Why I’m Obsessed With Business Ideas

First things first… I have A LOT of business ideas. It’s just how my brain works! If I notice something missing in the market, or a way to do things better, my mind instantly starts planning out a new business. What would I call it? Who would it serve? What services or products would it offer? I can go from zero to mapped-out-business in a matter of minutes.

Over the last 15 years, I’ve had dozens (honestly, probably hundreds) of business ideas that caught my fancy—some of them got a little momentum, others remained in the “daydream” stage. Today, I’ve rounded up 18 for you. I’ll share where they got to, why I didn’t start them, and the lessons along the way.

...read the full article at: tashcorbin.com/533

Join us in Noosa at the Heart-Centred Business Conference on 2-3rd September!

Find out more and secure your ticket at: tashcorbin.com/conference

Transcript

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I've got something a little different and a whole lot of fun for today's episode of the Heart Centered Business Podcast. I want to share with you in the last 15 years, all of the different businesses that I have almost started. Now, it's not just a self indulgent journey through all of the great ideas I've had as a business owner, but actually I want to share all of this with you for some very important reason. Reasons because as entrepreneurs, as creative thinkers, I bet that there are a lot of people who listen to this podcast who have had dozens and dozens of ideas for businesses over the years, even so far this year. And that doesn't mean that every single one of them requires action. And I want to let you know what I do when I have an idea for a business, why I do it that way, and also some of the key lessons, lessons I've learned along the way. So come on through this journey with me and let's talk about some of the businesses I hadn't actually started, but I almost got there. This is episode number 533, which means you can find all the relevant links and the show notes for today's episode over@tashcorbyn.com 533 let's dive in. Hello, I'm Tash Corbin, a business strategist and mentor based on the Sunshine coast in Australia. The mission of this podcast is to help Heart Centered entrepreneurs to make more money and in doing so, change the world for the better. This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Gubbi, Gubbi and Djinnaburra people. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. So as you can probably tell from the intro to this episode, I have a lot of ideas and it's one of the reasons why I think I am drawn to entrepreneurship and is because if I see a problem that I can solve with a business, it comes to my brain. If I see that there's a gap in a market, there's some potential for income there. My brain gets very fixated on mapping out how I would set up that business, naming things. It really wants to go through that full process of actually starting the business. But over the last 15 years, there have been dozens and dozens of businesses that I had ideas about but I didn't start. And today I've actually got 18 examples for you. I'm not going to go into depth in a lot of them, but I wanted to share this with you for a few big reasons. Number one is sharing with you what I do when those ideas pop up because it's different depending on the extent to which I get excited about it and the extent to which I actually think I'm going to follow through. But also number two, what why I don't shut down that part of my brain and what I look to do with it instead. So here are some of the ones that I have almost started that they got a little bit of momentum of some sort. And as we go through, I'll share with you like where it ended up going or why I decided not to go ahead with certain ones. So when I first started my business, I thought I was starting a career coaching business. The reason why I ended up changing very quickly into working with entrepreneurs is because in the validation stage of setting up that business, I worked with three people, three clients, and in all three cases I just wanted to tell them to quit their jobs and start a business. I was like, I left the corporate world for a reason. I don't want to try and help people navigate dealing with the men spleen or in the boardroom or some of the gameplay that needs to happen in order to survive and thrive in a corporate environment. I just wanted every single person to quit their job and start their own business. And so very quickly I pivoted my business into focusing on supporting business owners. And at first I actually started working with artists, and then it pivoted again into more service based businesses. So career coaching. Technically I did start it because I received some payments, but it was actually the first iteration of this particular business that I run now, my Tash Corbin business. The second business was a boutique consultancy. Before starting my business, I actually worked in corporate consulting. I was a certified workplace investigator. I also did a lot of work in change management, business planning, executive coaching. So the fit between what I did in corporate consulting and then just starting my own consulting company was actually very clear. It would have been a very easy business for me to start. Ultimately, it probably still is a good sort of fallback kind of business that I could start if I ever needed or wanted to. But again, I'm not inclined to step back into that corporate space or into government agencies instead. I still do get inquiries about consulting and executive coaching from time to time. And I have a range of clients who are boutique consultancies and so I just forward those on or make that connection for them instead. The next is a real estate agency. And I must admit, because I do have my real estate agent's license from many, many, many years ago, this one does pop up from time to time. Now that we're Seeing like a huge surge housing pricing in Australia. But again, it was not an environment or an industry that I actually enjoyed working in. And often the reason why it nudges me again to start a real estate agency is more in response to some of the horrific ways that I see people treated by real estate agents or the terrible job that real estate agencies do in managing properties or pitching properties for sale. And just some of the atrocious service that I hear about, it's often more along those lines of there's just no good people in this industry, I need to start something. And then I very quickly remind myself of how horrific my experience was working in real estate. Not my favorite, so I don't ever actually initiate anything there, but it does pop into my brain from time to time. I almost started a stationery store. I think we can all understand why stationery nerd here get very excited about different types of stationery. Often I will get frustrated by certain products that don't work for a left handed person because I'm left handed and also I just connect with so many people over my love of stationery and so I'm often told you should start your own stationery business. Like I would buy anything you recommended cause you just have such an eye for it and that is absolutely lovely. But it's not going to happen and particularly not right now anyway. Maybe one day. I did also almost start a co working space. There are several buildings that I love and I think would make amazing co working spaces and they've been sitting empty for a long time. I don't know that I'll never host a co working space. But especially over the last 13 years running my business, I have been very mobile. I have really enjoyed the freedom and flexibility of the lifestyle that I lead. Right now I don't actually have a desire to be at a co working space all of the time. So it would require the profit model, having staffing and a bunch of other things in place and it's all just a distraction from my core business. So at this point in time, no co working space, but definitely know of lots of great properties. If anyone does want to start a co working space on the Sunshine Coast, I can point you to some brilliant buildings. An events business. So having run the Heart Center Business Conference, having built up some really brilliant processes and ways that we run and facilitate events, I have certainly had that idea pop into my head more than once that I could actually be the leader of or establish an events business and therefore get more event facilitation and events Management work for some of the people that I love in the event space as well. But again, those things already exist, so I'm more likely to just refer people off than start anything of my own in that space. But I did think about it. I did almost do that one. Oh yes, so many ideas, right? There is one that is still bubbling and for anyone who's keeping count, this is up to number seven, and that is the Formula One corporate box event business. So I attended the Formula One in Melbourne in 2025 and in Singapore in 2025 as well, and both times were hosted by the same organization. And my experience in those corporate corporate boxes was not great. As a woman, as someone who actually really loves motorsport and in particular F1, what I realized was, and this is reflective of my experience in most corporate box sporting situations and I've been in a few now over the years. Not everyone is there for the actual sport itself and there's a huge gender issue, especially in male dominated sports like Formula one motorsports, but in a lot of different areas of sport as well. And so based on my experience in those two corporate boxes, I was like, right, I'm gonna start my own and I'm gonna have a women centric Formula one corporate box kind of events business. And actually that one did progress to the point of I had a wait list. I actually enough people wanting to buy tickets to be able to do it all. But due to the rising popularity of the Formula One, the corporate box spaces that I was going to be hiring ended up being sold off as ticketed, which would have increased my costs by fourfold and therefore wouldn't have made it something that would be financially viable for me to run. And so that one is on the shelf for now, thankfully. I don't know if it's good to celebrate this, but last in 2026, the Melbourne Formula One actually didn't sell out their corporate ticketed spaces the way that they did the previous years. And so it looks like the opportunity to host a space may actually come up again. And so if that does come up again, that is something I may explore. But. But it's still an almost started business right now because it hasn't actually started just yet. Number eight, I almost started a virtual assistance agency when I was living in Bali. I was just meeting so many amazing people who had such amazing skills and I had my choice of the most amazing vas in the world as far as I was concerned, and I didn't have enough work to hire more than one. And I just thought, oh wow, Like I could definitely start an agency here and subcontract a bunch of virtual assistants and give people access to highly qualified, highly skilled virtual assistants. In the end, the easier option was just tell people about the people that I had met, tell people about the people I couldn't hire because I didn't have the workload. And every single one of those virtual assistants still is working for someone that I referred them through to. So I solved the problem without having to start a business to solve it. And ultimately I think that that's a big one for me is that sometimes you don't need to take a cut, right? Yes, you could, yes, there would be potentially some financial benefit there. But is it really worth the effort and energy and the pressure and the extra business and the extra admin and the extra everything in order to get your tiny little slice of the action? And for me, no it wasn't. I would just rather refer people through to them directly. Hire this person, don't hire this person. I'm not attached to it. I don't have any like baseline numbers I need to be hitting. I'm not responsible for that relationship in any way. It's just cleaner. And so, yeah, I think that's a really big one. That helps me to assess whether it is worth me exploring it a little further or not is actually to look at, well, based on what that income level could be, how else might I generate that income from my existing business and what is the opportunity cost of the time and energy it would take to start this other new thing compared to the workload and the income that I could generate from that workload being poured back into my existing business. And so definitely again with that VA agency, I'd mapped out all of the model. I'd mapped out the pricing structure and the packaging structure, the onboarding process. Like I mapped out a bunch of things and then I just gave all of those resources to the people who were hiring the VAs, to the VAs themselves. And I just did a big call out and said, hey, I've found some really amazing virtual assistants while I've been here. They have access to amazing training and resources and technology. There was like a co working space where a lot of them had based themselves and so does anyone, is anyone looking for a VA? And I got like 30 or 40 inquiries, shared them all around and just helped a bunch of people to grow their businesses. And like it was a win win on both sides. And I didn't again, I didn't need to take a cut of that pie and it just feels really good to me that I still to this day know so many people I can refer people through to. And I'm just doing it because I want that service need to be met and I know someone who can meet it really well. I don't need to take my cup. I don't need to take my share. The next one is a Facebook ads business. So in 2022 I was really getting into Facebook ads and my partner Davey ended up doing some Facebook ads training courses alongside me because I thought at some point maybe he might take over running all of my ads for me and he was setting up a bunch of my ads at that point in time. I was very unwell in 2022, so I had very limited screen time and very limited capacity. I was really struggling to retain what I was learning in these courses. So I ended up enrolling Davey in all of them as well. And he was doing such a magnificent job of managing mine and I thought, oh well, between the two of us we could actually get this off the ground. So I'd start an organization that would run people, set up and run people's ads for them. And I did a little bit of validation. He helped a couple of people, he did a really good job of doing that. But at the end of the day, it was like the time and energy and workload that was going into not just delivering those services but also getting the clients just it would have been much better to just direct all of that energy into the one business rather than splitting it amongst the two. And so even though he did actually get a couple of clients from that work, I never started the business itself. He already had his webinar hosting business set up and services all set up. And so he took on a couple of clients at that point in time, helped them, got them all set up, their ads, got rocking that they could be self managed. And then we just didn't do another call out for more clients. We didn't explore it any further from there, but definitely got close to almost starting a Facebook ads business anyway. Mindset and EFT clinic. So I became qualified as an eft practitioner in 2020. It was my Covid project, let's call it that. And it was just like a just for funsies kind of thing. Of course, my brain being in the process of learning a modality, seeing the possibility and all of the ways that I could help people with this and being frustrated that a lot of EFT practitioners were just selling EFT sessions instead of bringing all of their genius to their work. I really wanted to role model what a great EFT practitioner business could look like. Ultimately though, I had a bunch of clients who were EFT practitioners and I was just like, I'm just going to pour all of this insight into them and help them become more established as practitioners themselves. And then again, I just have someone to refer people through to and I don't actually need to have the business myself to demonstrate how it's done. Well, I've got so many EFT practitioners I've worked with over the years and I absolutely love the modality so much and I do love guiding people with EFT myself. I do it from time to time in client calls and in group program calls as well. Even in my Progress Art Gym that I ran this year in May and June, I had some little videos that went into the Facebook group and into the community to walk people through setting up a good EFT script and the different ways that you can use eft, especially when it comes to money, uncovering money blocks and clearing out any of those self sabotages that pop up. So didn't start that as its own business. I don't even really advertise a lot that I am a qualified practitioner. I just from time to time use it here and there and it's incorporated into my own business. But whenever someone does want support with Mindset in particular, or they've got a big project that they want to get done and they can see that they're getting in their own way, I have a range of EFT practitioners that I refer through to based on what I think is going to be a good fit for them. Number 11, talent management. And this one, again, like the F1 business, I think it still could be a thing. Mostly because in running the Heart Center Business Conference, one of the most common, common things I get asked for referrals on is speaker recommendations. I would have over 100 requests a year from people saying, hey, who? I've got a conference, I'm who would be a good speaker on this topic? Or do you know any speakers who can talk about this? Or have you got a speaker who's based in Melbourne? Because I'm running an event in Melbourne and I can't afford to pay a big travel fee. And so a few years ago I realised that not only was I recommending a bunch of people for speaking gigs and helping event organisers find great speakers as part of the process, I was often giving a lot of advice to the event organisers about finding and onboarding speakers and making sure they get the best out of them. And also I was helping the people I was recommending as speakers with some advice on how to make sure that they focus in on a certain key takeaway for that particular audience. I would say to the speaker, hey, I've been asked to find a speaker on XYZ and I would really like to put you forward, but can we just have a quick chat about how you would present a workshop in this space? Because I just want to make sure it is the right fit for what they're looking for because I really value giving good recommendations and, and also I could see that for some people they were great speakers, but this would be their first time on a stage of that scale or this would be their first time charging a speaker fee. They previously had only ever done it for free. And so I could see that a lot of what I was doing wasn't just referrals. It was actually really talent management, but also talent development and event support and event resources and tools. I was sharing a lot of the templates and tools that I had developed over the years running conference. And so I came up with this entire business model of how I would train people up to be better quality speakers on stage. And once they'd completed that process, they would then be a registered speaker with me. I would run events regularly, giving those people opportunities to be on stage, stage. We'd do road shows and showcases and all sorts of stuff and then also invite a lot of event organizers to come along to those events. Like I had this whole thing like fully mapped out. Ultimately it would be a big shift away from my existing business and so it may be something that I do in the future, but at this point in time I really need to stay narrow in my focus. I also think that a lot of the speaker training that I've done or that coaching and mentoring that I've done has translated really well into my work with my one on one clients, my work with people inside my programs, and particularly with the heart centered CEO circle now, you know, starting to really get some momentum. Link in show notes tashcorvin.com 533 I can really see that there is probably space for me to do a lot of that with people inside the CEO circle, because that is what I would consider one of those CEO skills, one of those ways that people really can build their skillset, build their expertise, showcase themselves as a business owner as well. So I don't think that I will start another business, but there is already a lot of the stuff that I've done in that space has been poured into the work that I do with clients within my business and to this day still collecting names of potential speakers. So over in the show notes of the episode@tashcorbyn.com 533 I'll include a link to where you can register as a speaker in my speaker network because I have referred so many people through to be speakers for events all around the world. And big shout out. Cause we've got over 400 people on that register already. And yeah, there's a lot of you that I have recommended for speaking gigs and events. And yeah, and it's been so spectacular to see the way that that has progressed for so many people. And also if you are running events and looking for speakers, you're looking for guests in memberships, online spaces, anything along those lines, please do reach out and ask. It is something that I love to do because it's tangible as well, like seeing photos of an event. And the person who's up on stage speaking is the person that I recommend to be the speaker. And you know, seeing the momentum that it builds for them, oh, it just brings me so much joy. And you know, I am a connector. I am a network connector. Which actually brings me to idea number 12. That almost took off. Almost. I almost did it. But it was, it is still in my little toy box. Something that I from time to time look at it and think I could definitely do something like that. But not for today. And that is a networking franchise. So this was in the lead up to the Heart Center Business Conference, the first one that I ever ran in 2017. I had a group of business friends that I had kind of collected from Masterminds I'd run Masterminds I'd been in people who were in that sort of six figure plus business. And we just met up on zoom calls every few weeks just for a little check in and a chat. And they were actually a lot of them were the ones who convinced me to even start the Heart Center Business Conference. And they helped me with a lot of the logistics of getting that first one off the ground. And they were very vocal in telling me that I could monetize the Heart Centered Soul Driven Entrepreneurs Group far more effectively if I sold like a networking franchised business in a box kind of model to anyone who wanted to host meetups in the local areas. Cause at that point in time we had 50 to 60 active meetups around the world where people were at least once a month getting together and hosting something in their local area. And so that does mean that people are almost like it's a subgroup of the heart centered community and people were hosting these meetup events. They had a ready made audience of people who would come to them. It's almost like it was a free opportunity for them to have their own networking events, their own business events and connect with potential clients, but also referrers, that sort of thing. And so in the lead up to that first conference, I actually had a friend and I workshopped through how might I create something that people could purchase as like a business model or a networking franchise that then tapped into that beautiful collective of the heart centered community. The admin and paperwork and processes for starting a franchise are reduced. Ridiculous. With good reason. A lot of franchise models are actually just a complete rip off for poor franchisees. So you know, I understand why it's so regulated and I think it's all with good reason. And then just the spreading myself so thin, the workload, the return on investment, the return on the time and energy and effort, it just. There was just no way I could make the math on it ultimately. For example, if I was to sell off the Sydney Pocket and it was $10,000 for someone to buy, would take 20 hours of one on one coaching with the person who bought it to actually help them get it established, get their marketing strategies set up, all of those sorts of things. And at that point in time I was already charging $1,500 an hour for one on. And so the math just did not math on it. And I also think it would just take away that gorgeous organicness of what actually ended up happening with the heart centered community. And I just had far more important things to focus on and still do. So that one didn't get off the ground. I did also consider having a co working space that was an online version that was a facilitated co working network that was also something that went into the toy box. So a bit like Facebook, a Facebook group, but it had little rooms you could go in to do co working. Hilariously, about six months after I put that idea into my toy box, there was literally an entire technological platform launched that did exactly the thing that I said I was gonna do and wanted to create. And it had the same monetization model, it had the same sort of format. There wasn't as much in the making sure you're in the right rooms with the right people. It wasn't as facilitated as I probably would have done it, but it was so funny because I was like oh my gosh, that that idea went and blessed someone else, and that's totally fine because there was no way I was actually going to take action on that one. I also in the last couple of years have workshopped out with a tech specifications person starting my own social media platform. Definitely not doing that. Let's move on. A content development service. Definitely wish that I could write everyone else's content and like suck it out of them and help them see how genius they are. I think the biggest barrier between some of my, my favorite business owners and them having content that reflects why I love them so much is literally they just need the right person to extract it out of them. And they need the right person saying to them, this is amazing. You should say that a lot. This is great content. You should get that out there. And for anyone who's done one on one sessions with me where we have touched on content, you've probably heard me say those words to you. Oh my gosh, that would be amazing, Konen. You should share something about that. You should make a video about that. You should do that, you should do that, you should do that. And so I definitely have more than once pulled this idea out of my toy box as well, of actually having that as a particular offer and training up other people to do that same thing for people, but having that follow up and feedback loop of, okay, These are the 16 videos we mapped out. How many of them have you created? Let's get them scheduled. You know, just having that accountability and someone to help deal with any of the technical issues along the way or, you know, dealing with the mindset doubts or whatever might be coming up for people. And I definitely think that there is such a market for this in the business space. I also know that there are plenty of people who actually offer this as a service. They definitely need to do better at marketing themselves. And if anyone is looking for that kind of service, please reach out and let me know what you're looking for because I can definitely make some recommendations. It's like the plumber with the leaky plumbing, right? These people who are spectacular at extracting content out of people and helping people overcome their mindset wobbles and helping people to get their content actually shared with the world and set up and structured really well can often be the people who struggle to write high quality content about their own services. They do great snappy reels on trend with trending audios, but that doesn't actually demonstrate the power of the work that they actually do with their clients. And so, you know, I do think that there's, you know, if you know that you offer that service and you aren't booked out right now. Please reach out, sign up, and work with me. I'll help you. Because there's just so much need for it. Even Denise Duffel Thomas and I have talked several times about running a batching retreat, but both of us just demand such high prices for our time and energy. It would be like $50,000 for five days for anyone to come on this retreat because Denise and I will not get out of bed and put on a bra for a very low, low price point. And so it's not financially viable. But it is a big frustration for both of us that more people don't just, just do it. And it's a really, really huge need. Because you know who doesn't second guess themselves? Creating content. Straight white men. Men who have one brain fart of an idea of something that they observed in one woman now want to tell us that all women are like this online. And they never hesitate. They always share their content. But here, you know, you are going, oh, it's not a bit too salesy if I say it that way. Or have I used the correct terminology here? Or am I gonna upse? You're looking at it from so many angles before you ever let yourself put it on the Internet. And so these straight white men are just out contenting us like 28 to 1 every single minute of every single day. And that makes me very frustrated. So, yeah, certainly can you tell I'm very passionate about that one. Idea number 16, selling my pottery and my paintings in an online store. I don't do that. I'm not going to do that. What I do instead now is I just take them to conference every year and I sell them off at ridiculously cheap prices. And people love it and it's so much fun. Like, the first time I took my pottery to conference, I think I had six pieces for sale and they all sold within five minutes. And I was charging like $10 or $20 or something for these pieces. But it literally I just needed to sell them so I could buy more clay so I could make more pottery pieces. And they were funding my hobby and so I won't be setting up an online shop. I definitely, like Davey talks about all the time. He's like, you should make an online store. People would buy that. And I'm like, yep, that they would. But they're not buying it because it's great pottery. They're buying it because it's Tash Corbin's pottery. And that feels really self indulgent. And also the minute I made a business out of it, I would not do it anymore because I wouldn't like it, because I would feel like I was forced into doing it. And I literally just want money for more clay, money for more art supplies. That's all I'm looking for. So if you do come to the Heart Center Business Conference, I can't guarantee that every year that there will be anything up for sale, but if that is something that you would like me to bring to sell you, please put your request in the number 17. A craft cooperative. So I have this medical building, this old medical building that's near where I live. So it's got a bunch of little rooms, like the doctor's rooms, and then it's got this huge big waiting area and then it's got this huge big storeroom. And the storeroom is lined with what can only be described as the perfect shelves for craft supplies. And it recently just sold. But like, we moved here in March of 2025 and from then until now it has been sitting for sale, empty, unsold, and it's only just recently sold, so hopefully someone put something else in there. But I was like, oh my gosh, I could make it so that like the doctor's rooms, those little rooms could be offices so people could go and get their work done. They could host their Zoom call and they could record their podcasts or whatever. We could have them all soundproofed. It would be amazing. So it's sort of like a co working space, but all of the shared spaces are very craft and arts oriented and so it's like, come out to the shared space. Yeah, sure, you can sit in the shared space and work on your laptop if you want, but wouldn't you rather crochet something beautiful and colorful and we'd just like do crafts and drink cups of tea and oh my gosh, that'd be so much fun. Didn't do it. Not gonna do it. But it was super fun for me to daydream about that one and then the other one. And this is the last of the ones that I'll share. Number 18 was I wanted to start a social enterprise so it would be like a not for profit, where we spent time. Like people gave their time and their money to give good content creators on social media more algorithmic reward and like paid for ads for them and all of those sorts of things. So I wanted to come up with this collective kind of space where you would. I own the URL for this too. Where you would Sign up and you could sign up for free and contribute algorithmically by everyone would get an email each day saying, please go and engage on these six pieces of content. And we would all go and engage on those six pieces of content. And in return you could submit a piece of content each month. And then there was another layer where you could spend money and that money would go into funding ads for amazing content creators that were sharing really brilliant content that just wasn't getting the reach that it deserved. And particularly first nations creators who are doing spectacular work at helping us to unpack privilege and white supremacy and understanding real inclusion. Creators who were sharing exposes on corruption inside government agencies and contract, you know, no bid contracts that were going on and all this, oh my gosh, the dirty dealings of political lobbyists and oh, there's so many amazing creators out there and, and social platforms suppress their content, but also a lot of the content that they're creating, it's not that rage bait, clickbaity kind of content. And so it doesn't perform as well. And so I had this whole plan of how I was going to fix the algorithms by enlisting kind hearted, good hearted people who want to make a difference in the world and create this wave of change. Anyway, didn't do that. And I feel a bit disappointed in myself that I didn't. But ultimately Tash needs to look after Tash for a little bit longer to rebuild her capacity to start looking after the rest of the world. I also think that with AI slop and bots and those sorts of things that I actually don't know that social media in its current form is actually going to last that long. But that's a whole nother conversation. And so I think that what we'll see is a fracturing of engagement into a range of different spaces and people will be a lot more siloed for quite a while. So that's going to be different too. Anyway, as you can see, a lot of different business ideas and a lot of them never made it out of what I've been calling the toy box. What is the toy box? Well, it's literally a folder on my computer called Toy Box and in it there are subfolders of all these different things that I want to play with. Right? They're my toys. And so in my toy box I have new business ideas, I have products, freebies, offers, marketing campaigns, all sorts of things that like, fun idea, would love to play with that. Not a priority right now. And the way that I use that toy box is aligned with what My brain needs. Because as someone who is neurodivergent, when I get an idea for a new business, for example, it might not be a business. It could just be a product idea or a new inclusion inside a program or, you know, leads at speed was in the toy box for a while. The imperfect post project IPP was in the toy box for a while, right? I was like, oh, I really want to teach people how to do this thing. But right now I've just got to focus on what's a priority for me right now. And so let's say I had one of these business ideas. Well, my brain won't let it go until I do something with it. So usually what I'll do is I will set aside 15 to 20 minutes, I will open up a new document, put it in a new folder in the toy box, right? So it's the social network algorithm fixie thing. Maybe some of them have got great names that I own the URLs for, maybe some of them don't. I will start a Word document in there and I will set the timer for 15 minutes. Or depending on what I'm wanting to map out, I'll set a timer. Sometimes it's longer and I just dump everything I've thought about it onto that Word document. If I've got a particularly great name for it, I will sometimes go and grab the handles on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and then also by the URL. So I buy the domain, I put all of that into all the data, all the info of what I've got into the top of the Word document, and that is enough for my brain to give it up, right? It's like I've captured enough of that information and enough of that idea that now I'm not ruminating on it. It's not interfering with my day, it's not interfering with me trying to get to sleep at night. I've given it that time and space. And so I'll just save all of that, that in the toy box. And then most days, because I give myself three to four things to do per day, and it's, it's very doable in the morning. Most days I'll end up with a little bit of time at the end of the day to do something extra that I want to do for my business, something else that I want to do for my business. This afternoon, this is what I'm doing. I'm recording a podcast. And some afternoons I will pull something out the toy box and play with it. And so every now and then I will go into the toy box. I'll just have a little scroll through all of those things in there. I think, what's something I want to play with today? And I will pull that out. I will work it up a little bit more. I might start crafting a business case for it or I might look at how I could integrate it into something existing. So with leads at speed, I was like, this is what the takeoff students need. I'm going to put this as a bonus event inside the takeoff program. I'm going to run it as a live event. We're going to do this leads at speed and everyone's going to get a bunch of leads and then it can live in the bonuses of the takeoff program. And that's where it goes. And so that was in a toy box afternoon was how I went from I've got this idea for like this six step process to generate a ton of leads in a very short period of time. I'll just put it in the toy box to then having pulled it out of the toy box, developed it up further, realizing who needs it, it's takeoff students. How would I do that within takeoff live event and then store it in there as a bonus? And also like even then, like what parts of what I'm teaching need to come over onto the podcast as well. Because I don't just gatekeep everything ins the takeoff program. Some of those key ideas, key concepts in short bite sized chunks can make really brilliant podcast episodes that are going to help a lot of people. So often when I am playing with something in the toy box, it does end up having a range of different spaces in my business where it ends up going, that's how it happens is it gets pulled out of the toy box and I play with it and I craft it up a little bit more, I develop it a little further. Something else that can happen though when I do this, this is I realize that what I've done is completely developed an entire business case and business model for a business I will never start. And I often end up having a client work with me or a sales conversation with someone who wanted to work with me. And the thing that they're describing is the thing that I've got in my toe box. And, and to tell you that in the last 15 years, more than 20 URLs that I have purchased with their accompanying handles on socials, business strategy, marketing strategy, key messages I have gifted to other business owners, right? It is such a joy to go, oh, that's where that toy needs to go. Here, play with this. And I have done that more times than I can count. And, yeah, even in putting this podcast episode together, I was like, how many of them could I actually think of now? And I got to 20. I went, there's so many more than that, but there's 20 there. And sometimes it's not the whole business idea. Sometimes it's like, I came up with an idea for a free resource, but it doesn't. It doesn't fit my business, it's not for my niche, or it doesn't actually do the job that it needs to do for my business. And then the amount of times that I finish it up and I conclude this is probably not for my business. And within two weeks, I have a conversation with a VIP client or a conversation with someone on a group call, and I'm like, this is exactly the thing that I just built. You need that. I'm gonna reach out. And so I will. I'll reach out to them privately. Now, some people reject that. Them. I will be honest. Some people reject them, and that is absolutely their prerogative. But most people are like, oh, my gosh, you've done all of the. This is exactly what I was thinking. You've done so much for me here. I've even had someone offer to pay me thousands of dollars for what I sent them to, which I said no, just, like, tell people to come to conference. At the time, I was very desperate to sell conference tickets. Please tell all of your fans and crowd to come to conference. And they did, like. Like a conference promo on their socials every week for six weeks as their thank you, which was wonderful. But, you know, I think that it really is something that it's just the way our brain works and to bring this podcast episode home. If you are someone who sees all of these ideas as a source of frustration that none of them have really gotten left, or a source of frustration. Why does my brain keep coming up with 16 new business ideas every week when I can't even see through the ideas I have for my one existing business? I want to encourage you to pay attention to the way that you treat yourself in those moments. Because the reason why I decided to give these ideas time and space and put them in the toy box or give myself the time to actually map it out in a bit more detail was because I don't ever want to shut down the ideating creative center of my brain. These business ideas that I've shared with you existed and came into my brain because they met A need. Either a need in the market or they solved a problem that wasn't being solved, or that my brain just could see a logical solution to a problem or a logical monetization strategy for a service or a product. And I don't want my brain to ever stop seeing those things, to ever stop seeing that possibility. And it's the same lesson that I learned about being a. Being neurodivergent. It's the same lesson that I learned about my sacred money archetypes. I'm a romantic connector nurturer in the sacred money archetypes. And it's the same lesson I learned about my personality and my desire to be lazy and to do things the easy way is ultimately, I started out very frustrated with myself and wishing that I was something else. And then over time recognized that actually the reason why I live the life I live, I experience, the joy I experience, I have the freedom that I have, is because of the very thing I wish I didn't have. So my neurodivergent brain, when I first recognized some of those executive dysfunction areas, when I first started to explore the different accommodations that I might need and the different ways that my brain worked to a neurotypical brain, I was so frustrated. Like, why couldn't I just get a normie brain? Why? I was like, you wouldn't have a business if you had a normie brain, Tash. You wouldn't have taken the risks that you took to start your business if you weren't neurodivergent. You wouldn't have just got hyper fixated on this idea of being self employed if you were neurodivergent the way that you did. And it's because of my, my pathway to having a business that I'm talking about. I'm not saying that only neurodivergent people have businesses and neurotypicals don't. There is definitely an over subscribed population of neurodivergent people with businesses, but there's some neurotypicals who have spectacular businesses too. Look at me trying not to offend the neurotypicals. Oh bless. But I was so frustrated with my brain. And then I realized it's the, that frustration with my brain and that way that my brain operates is the reason why I can be so quick to turn something from an idea into a fully fledged product. And guess what people who work with me value and pay me big bucks for it's for that speed, that pace at which I can solve problems, that pace at which I can ideate, create out of nothing. The amount of businesses I have imagined in my brain, I just conjured them up out of nothing, out of one tiny experience or one tiny idea. And I've conjured up an entire business plan, an entire business model in a 15 minute writing session, putting it in my toy box. And actually for me, in my business in particular, that's a good skill to keep practicing for my clients. When people book a 90 minute one on one session with me, more than half of them, we end early because we have done so much, we've solved so many problems and we've come up with so many strategies in the first 45 minutes or in the first hour that I say we don't need the rest of this time, that we're just going to yap around in circles. Now let's cut this session off here and we'll come back and we'll finish it another time because you've got homework. And it's so funny seeing the relief in someone's face like, oh my gosh, I had no idea we were going to get this far this quickly. Oh, we solved everything. And that's a superpower, right? That's such a skill. But it happens to me over and over again. My laziness is your efficiency, right? But when I first really paid attention to my desire to be lazy and to my love of a shortcut, I was really frustrated. Like, why am I so lazy? And a lot of that, like labeling lazy as bad actually just came down to perception because laziness as a child was perceived as like a moral failure. And laziness and a focus on efficiency, let's call it, in the workplace was rewarded with more work. If I got stuff done quickly at work and then was just sitting about, I would get more work. If I was efficient at work, my hard work would be rewarded with more work. So I became very good at masking and making myself look busy at work work because I also have a high justice drive. And so it felt unfair that I was doing six times the workload of old mate Steve, who sat next to me. And whenever my boss needed something great done, needed something done quickly, who did they give it to? They gave it to me. They didn't give it to Steve, despite the fact that I'd outperformed Steve by 9am most days. And so there was a lot of reconciling I had to do around the way that I had been treated. When I was efficient, when I was fast, when I was speedy at school, I was the source of a lot of Consternation and eye rolling for my teachers because I finished too quickly. I got stuff, I understood concepts too quickly. They had to catch everyone else up. I even remember my teachers created this race around the world. Kind of once you finished your work, you can go and do. It was like, where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? But in physical form, you got a passport. It was the most spectacular thing. I'm so, so glad. Grateful for their crafting abilities and what they did. But they had created like the first 10 leaps. And I did the first 10 leaps in the first day. And so I remember I had two teachers. We had like a grade 5, 6, grade 6, 7 composite class. And so we had two teachers for two sort of classes, but they switched and swapped out things. And I remember distinctly hearing my two teachers, teachers whinging about me over a cigarette outside the school fence going, can you believe that? Natasha has done the whole thing. I'm going to be up till midnight tonight making more countries for her to go and jump to. She's too fast. And I was like, whoa, like, they hated me, right? Because I was too fast. So those things that frustrate me about all this, too many ideas, too many things, too many problems that I can see and solve, too many business ideas, I own too many URLs, right? Actually, no. The reason why I'm so good at my work is the exact same reason as to why I come up with all these business ideas. So, takeaways from this episode. Number one, if any of those business ideas were very exciting to you and align with your existing business, go for it. I'm not going to be upset at you, I promise. Number two, if you also are a multiple business ideas collector, give yourself the gift of a way of doing something with that information. Number three, not every business idea requires an entirely new business. Sometimes that business idea belongs with someone else. But a lot of the time it actually ends up being a product idea. And if you actually just made it a free piece of content or a free resource, it would do a very good job of expanding your audience, of nurturing your existing audience, of generating leads for the core business, the core services that you offer. Not every genius idea needs a price tag. You don't always need to get a cut of the pie. You don't always need to charge for something for people to value it. And so one of the final takeaways that I have for this episode for you is I want to let you know that one of the things I also recognize when my brain is in overdrive of coming up with new ideas is that it's doing it because it's craving something. It's craving innovation, creativity, it's craving time in ideation mode. Creating a business is so fun, right? New ideas are fun and if I'm really honest with myself, it happens a lot when my day to day in my own business is a bit boring, it's a bit drudgery. And so if I can tap into that creativity in my marketing, I meet my brain's need for newness and innovation and problem solving and ideation and all those fun things. My brain isn't busily crafting new business ideas on the side. Instead I'm directing that energy to something that's really useful for my existing business. So if that hits home for you as well, I would definitely recommend that you direct your creative juices, your ingenuity, your ideation into the marketing and content strategy of your business and give yourself the gift and the joy of not needing to know exactly how it's going to be monetized. Not needing to know exactly how this fits into your overall business model right now, but give yourself the gift of boundaries around it as well. So if you came to me and said, well for the last two weeks I've done nothing else but come up with this amazing new webinar idea, I have no idea how it's going to sell more spots in my program, I have no idea how it's going to attract leads. It has really a really loose, tenuous link to my business. I'm not going to be happy about that. But I do think that some boundary time directed at free thinking, free play, you know when you're at school and they had like free play time, that kind of thing. But it being within the realm of I'm playing with whatever ideas come to mind to market and grow my business and I'm going to give them a bit of airtime and I'm not going to to pressure them to do a job or perform or hit certain metrics. Right now I'm just going to play with it. And so I encourage you to put some time aside and do that for yourself and for your business in the coming days and weeks. Now do make sure that you come over to the show notes of today's episode@tashcorbyn.com 533 because I will have a link to register as a speaker or update your speaker profile in my speakers register but I will also have there a link over to the heart centered CEO circle if you haven't heard about that just yet. Thank you so much for joining me today. Until next time. I cannot wait to see you shine. Big love from me and bye for now.