Write This Down with Maddy Birdcage

Birthday Behaviour: The Hot Seat Edition

• Maddy Birdcage

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It’s my birthday — so this one’s a little different.

Sloane and Maria turn the tables and put me in the hot seat with questions about life, business, mistakes, and everything in between. We talk about what I’ve learned (the hard way), the mindset shifts that changed everything, and why growth always costs something — but it’s always worth it.

If you’ve ever wondered what really goes on behind the scenes of Birdcage — or what I’d tell my younger self — this episode’s where I say it.

To work with us, book your client assessment call at https://www.birdcageangeladvisors.com/hire-an-angel/

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Write This Down with Maddie Birdcage. As a global marketing advisory founder, a business educator and psychology-informed strategist with a full family life and an addiction to luxury travel, I'm here to let you into the inner workings of my businesses, my family life, and my mind to show you how to live the good life. Each episode I promise to give you practical takeaways you can take action on right away to get you closer to being that calm, growth-focused CEO in control of your business, your marketing, and your life. So make sure you write this down. Welcome to a special episode of Write This Down with Maddie Birdcage. And today I'm in the hot seat. It is my 35th birthday again, and I have Sloane and Maria, two Birdcage team members here in the Mackay office, who are going to be grilling me, asking me any and all questions. I haven't seen any of these questions, so it's going to be a completely surprised and raw and real. These are questions that have been submitted by you guys, as well as questions that I think the team have always wanted to ask me. And so I'm really excited to dive into this and let's see where we go. So I've been looking forward to this, Maddie. I'm gonna ask the first question. I really feel like this is the most important. Okay. Okay. So my question is I'm nervous. Who is your favorite employee? Is it me or is it Sloan? Just like I tell my children, there are no favorites, there's just winners of the day. Good answer. Yeah. Okay. So it's a kind of that'll be cool.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. Okay, well, we'll start with the the real questions now. Um, so first up, uh, what's the real birthday advice you wish someone had given you before you learned it the hard way?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, a really interesting post popped up for me, which I shared on my stories, which was like so many famous and wealthy and successful people that we see today, we assume that they were like successful from their 20s, right? But you look at Martha Stewart, for example, she didn't start her catering business until she was 40 and she freaking killed it. And so I think it's just like you're never too old, but I would also say you're never too young. I wish I started my business before I did. I was 25, but I wish I started when I was 20. Like I had the goal to do it, but I just I didn't. I did learn from working for other people, but I yeah, I wish I started sooner. Started sooner. So I guess it is not pigeonholing yourself into an age demography to think you can do something or you're not there yet, or yeah. Yeah. Just do it. If you have a like this feeling that you want to do something, just do it regardless of how old you are. Okay, so Link, like moving on from that, if you could wrap up one life lesson with a pretty bow and give it to everyone listening today, what would it be and why does it really matter so much? So one thing that's really been going through my mind lately is this concept that money is a renewable resource. And don't be afraid to spend money on risky moves. I've spent and lost plenty of money in my time, but I know there's more to come. And the biggest thing is it's like if you just believe in yourself that you won't let yourself fail, then it's a pretty safe investment to invest in yourself.

SPEAKER_00:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Love it. Um, so the next question is Mackay isn't exactly New York or London. What's the real story behind choosing to build a life and business up here?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh I guess by default. We we kind of moved to Mackay about 12 years ago from Sydney because we wanted to get out of Sydney and there was opportunity for my husband's work, and then it kind of just came from there. But we have actively chosen to stay in Mackay because I think there's a lot to be said for a regional town. I think I've found, I've got a small group of friends. I think we found our people, and I think that's just really important. Your people exist wherever you might go. Home really is where you make it, and for us, it's just been really important for us to create to have a house that makes us feel like we're in the south of France, which is ultimately the end goal. A workplace that is nice and where you want to go to. We have a really great school, we have some really great friends. We could be anywhere in the world together and it wouldn't matter. Maria being my best friend as well as my director at work. We we like to travel a lot, but it's always nice to come back to a place that's that's calm. It allows me to really keep focused on the business. Like there's not so many distractions here like there would be in other places. Okay, so you could have gotten really hyperlocal living in a smaller town, but you haven't. What made you think bigger? And did people think that you were crazy? People think I'm crazy all the time. I think my mother is probably the number one who thinks I'm crazy. But at the same time, she's also seen how crazy moves work out for me. So she's like, this is just how Maddie operates, and I think she's come to terms with it. And I know you guys are the same. And it's very important for me to be surrounded by people that keep me focused, but at the same time, don't squash the big crazy dreams because that's how you win. In terms of not focusing on the Mackay market specifically, all of my network was in Sydney when I first moved up here, and that's when I really started the business. And so all my connections were still down in Sydney. But then as we grew, the internet is a wonderful thing. We work with clients all over the world. We don't have to be restricted to just our local area. And if anything, I think that our methods and the way that we work probably doesn't appeal to a local market unless they are global thinkers like we are.

SPEAKER_00:

How has living in a small town secretly supercharged the way you see marketing and the world?

SPEAKER_01:

Just because you're in a regional town, or even if you're like in a rural, if you're super isolated, you could be on like an outback station with nothing but cows around for hundreds and hundreds of kilometers. If you use the power of the internet, you can go anywhere. And that's why I keep preaching that the personal branding element, having a social media voice, being on social media, that is that's the trick. That's the key. We have this available. 20 years ago, it didn't exist, wasn't a thing. Yeah, it can really open doors to whichever avenue they want to go down. It's a huge opportunity. For sure. Like we have clients in Washington, DC, in Canada. There are I like to call Canadians our cousins, our Australian cousins. Lots of people in Canada, Texas, Texas, like we've got people in Europe, in Dubai, in UK, all over the world. It doesn't matter whether they're in Brisbane, whether they're in Mackay, or whether they're on the other side of the world. It's there are no barriers anymore. So we were talking yesterday about the moment that you realized that marketing was kind of your jam. Yeah. Was what was that single moment, or did it sneak up on you? No, I think I was always meant to be in marketing and advertising. Definitely was always meant to be a business owner. The moment we were talking about yesterday, it was when I I think I was maybe eight or maybe eleven, I can't remember, but we're in the Margaret Margaret River in Western Australia, going through all these wineries with my parents and my grandparents. And I remember telling my mum, oh, I can imagine making an ad here where these ballerinas would dance through the grapevines with these big red ribbons that trail behind them, almost like quantus ad vibes. And I remember she just said, You better do something good with your life. And that's when I kind of realized, huh, that's like a thing, like that's the job. I did think that school, I think we all wanted to be journalists, mainly because of the rom-coms that existed. And also, like journalism was such a thing back then. I kind of got this job through my parents' like an internship at a marketing agency in Sydney, 19, I think. That led to a job, and then yeah, this is all I've done with my life. So you just said, I'm gonna fire a random question out here. You just said that you were always born to be a business owner, which I completely agree with. Were you a good employee? No, I always say I'm the worst employee. Paul and sick, if I just like if the wind was blowing the wrong way. I used to think maybe I just don't have great work. I think that's not the case. I think what you're leading to there is that if you're passionate about something, you love it and you'll come to work regardless. And that's you're not owning your own business, you're deeply passionate about it. So yeah, I think that's the key message really.

SPEAKER_00:

What's their piece of advice that still sits on your shoulder every day guiding your moves?

SPEAKER_01:

Life isn't happening to you, it's happening for you. So every challenge that presents itself, every shitty thing that happens, there's actually an opportunity in there. Whether that's to decide that you're not gonna deal with that kind of shit anymore, and you've got to set a boundary and you're like, nah, I'm done. I'm so fucking done with this. I'm not doing this again. I'm gonna lay a hard boundary and tell them to fuck off, or whatever it is. Whether it is someone else coming up with a similar idea to you, and then what does this mean for me? Instead of, I see so many business owners, let's say sales aren't going the way that you want them to, reflect back and say, okay, what's not working right now? What's not working? Where am I not being honest with myself? Where am I just doing something because that's how I've always done it? This is an opportunity for you to completely shift how you're working and do it better and do it differently and lead a better life. If I didn't go through the financial hardships that we had a few years ago, I would still be so freaking miserable with a really, really big team, which is not, it's not suited to me. A really big team doing really big retainer clients, selling my soul, selling my time for money. Instead, we've shifted into this much more advisory space, our online programs, where there's a lot more freedom and lifestyle that we can attain as business owners, as employees, and more value that we can give to people by doing it a new way instead of just doing how it's always been done. So it's all of our vision, which is great. Um, so let's flip it. What's the worst advice you've ever fell for and what disaster did it cause for you? To have everything perfect before you launch anything. That's why we had this financial disaster a few years ago where I stopped taking action on my big ideas because I was getting advice from someone who was meant to be a manager in the business at the time, insinuating I didn't do it right the last time. And yeah, nothing I do is ever perfect. I know that. My courses probably have bloopers in them. Just because there's an edit in a video that's not perfect in a course doesn't mean the course was any less valuable. The most important thing is the course exists, the program exists, and people can take it and use it. And they don't care if I have like a bit of a cough that didn't get edited out, like it doesn't matter. You don't need to have everything figured out perfectly. You just need to start. I think that's like a lesson that I learned in year 12. Did one subject, extension two English, where I had to write a major work and I wrote a long story, like a mini book. And the teachers told me, just get it down. Just get the first draft down, just put it down onto paper, even if you think it's shit. Because often then you come back to it and you're like, who wrote this? Isn't great. Say that before in other workings in your notebooks. Yeah. As an entrepreneur, your brain is actually the biggest thing holding you back because it will make you doubt yourself. It will keep you in your comfort zone because that's where it feels safe, because it can predict what happens next. And the best best thing you can do is just like feel the fear and just go forward. Well, I, for one, that is definitely a lesson that you've taught me. Um, I like to be a perfectionist, but working with you shows me that it's like, you know, you're better to just do things that don't have to be perfect. Um, although sometimes I still neaten things up here and there. But otherwise, yeah, it stops you from doing the action. So it does. Like perfection actually doesn't exist. Perfection doesn't exist. So it's like get it to a point where you feel like there's value there. Yeah. I think that's the most important thing. It's like you don't want to launch a shitty course or a shitty service. You don't want that. But you it also doesn't have to be as perfect as your brain is trying to make it. As long as there's value and there's something that people can learn from it and benefit from, then it deserves to be in the wild. You learn more from your mistakes than you ever do from your successes. And I can tell you this firsthand because when I first launched the business 10 years ago, it grew quite well organically, simply through referrals. I think it was also a time in the economy in the world where people had money to invest in marketing or take risks and start their own businesses. So we naturally just grew very organically. But I couldn't tell you where our next lead was coming from. I didn't have any control over that process. And so when things got then harder, when the economy started going the other way and when things started shifting and it wasn't so easy just to get a client simply for existing, I didn't know how to get clients. And so by not knowing and by making that mistake of not knowing my own marketing, I then learnt how to actually do marketing better. And obviously that translates into what we do for our clients. Like everything we teach our clients is based on trial and error from our own marketing. So that number one makes our services better. But now it's like, oh, what do we got in the next three months? Oh, we probably need to fill that funnel up a bit. Boom, push that button and we know how to get people coming through. I'm just gonna skip down to a few because I want to get a little bit tooth here. Yeah. What's one dusty, outdated marketing truth we all need to set on fire? I think it's this whole difference between marketing as like a box to tick versus marketing that's actually gonna grow your business. So many times we've lost potential clients because we start with a strategy piece, which is an extra investment for them. All of our clients obviously see the value in that, but there are some clients that are like, oh no, I'll just get someone who can come in straight away and start doing social media or start running ads for me. They're impatient and they think that just by doing the social media, doing the ads, doing the emails, that's going to get the results. But that's not true. It's the strategy piece that happens first, which yes, it is an extra investment. Would you build a house without a plan? But it's not providing the value that you were talking about before. It's like you can put it out there if it's got value. But if you haven't done the strategy, the content doesn't have the value. You you're better off just not. I literally say to people, and I think they think that I'm just trying to sell them into our business, but I literally say to them, if you're not gonna go with the strategy first the way we do it, just don't do anything. Because honestly, it's better. Yes. Because rather than paying someone 500 bucks a month, which yeah, that's a lot cheaper than what we do it for, but you're not gonna get anything for it. It's gonna be a waste of time. It might make you feel good, might make you feel like, oh look, there's posts going out, that's not gonna do anything. Yeah. So just don't do it at all or do it right. Unless someone is where you want to be, do not take advice from them. Unless they are living, unless you would trade places with them tomorrow, do not take advice from them. Okay, Maddie. So you put up a post recently that said that everyone someone told you that everyone hates you. I was actually with you at the time, so it was very sad for me to hear this. It was really hard to take on. How did you take that on and deal with it? Yeah. It's not the first time someone said this to me. The person who said this before said it to my husband. And it's both being people who were once close to us who we then decided to cut ties with for whatever reason. If you think about the source of where these comments are coming from, they're coming from people that used to know they're old you, and then you've decided to s put a boundary down and cut ties with that person, and then my life is it's always getting better. And so for them, I think about the motivation behind that. Obviously, they're feeling hurt, maybe left behind, maybe whenever people say that shit to you, it's more a reflection on them than it is on you. I'm sure I've rub people up the wrong way, particular people, but that's strategic. That's on purpose. And if anything, you don't need to do it as hard as I sometimes do it. If people hate you, then there's also a subset of people that will love you for what you are. And the more authentic you can be to yourself, the more you're probably gonna piss people off, especially people that you knew as your old self. It's not actually about me, it's about how they reflect on their own circumstances. I'm not gonna lie, it did kind of rattle me a bit. Went back and started scrolling through all my content. I'm like, am I really that polarizing? Am I really that annoying online? And then I kind of just looked at it and I'm like, nah, I don't fucking care. I'll use it as a piece of content to get engagement because I'm sure if you're doing anything good or great or big, the worst thing that can happen is that no one thinks about you at all, or that no one looks at you and has an emotional response to you. You know, like if you're just can always playing it safe or always trying to please everyone, that tells me that you're really actually denying your own authenticity and that you're denying what you could be capable of achieving if you're just trying to please everyone. I also think hate is a very strong word. I feel like it was more disagrees, perhaps, is more in the word that and that is fine. We all had people who disagree with us, and that's fine. I just think the choice of words were harsh. Yeah. So well, the other comment that I received from an another friend that we had, they said everyone thinks Maddie's a joke. Does that mean you're like really funny? Yeah. Just to joke soon, really jokes come out of your mouth. So And the maybe it's a compliment. Pimple in the family, we always have an argument in our family who the funny one is. And I definitively believe I'm the funny one. You believe that. Does anyone else believe that? Well, there is some argument around who is the funny one, but I am the funny one.

SPEAKER_00:

If you weren't in marketing, what wildly different job would you secretly crush?

SPEAKER_01:

I am selling my own house at the moment, so I guess real estate, but that's kind of not wildly different. Real estate is like that's watch this space. If you're a real estate agent, watch this space. We we're gonna come and help you. I did. I didn't record you the other day talking about your wild dog business. My dog business. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's always something that I, if I like didn't have to work anymore, I would have a farm with just all the rescue dogs. That's what I would do. Disowned, I would just take them and put them on the farm and people could come and adopt them. Rescue dogs. Or I'd be an artist. Oh yeah, I can see you doing that. Like I'd be some crazy installation, like crazy installation artist. There's still time to that. These are funny for me to ask you because I know you so well. But anyway. What do you think future you would beg you to start or stop doing today? You could probably answer that better than I can. Okay, stop. That's easy. Stop doubting myself, stop playing small. No, I'm not ready, I'm not good enough. And you'll hit that at every single level for the rest of your life, especially if you're a woman, I think. But also for men as well. It's just like you never think you're ready or you're good enough, or you're the one to take it. But that's why it's so important to see other people that you relate to achieving the things that you want. If they can do it, I can do it. I feel like I'm good at starting things. I don't know. What do you think? Beyond about writing a book. My book? Yeah. The book has been put on the back burner for a little bit and I have to start about book. I know. That's why I'm saying. Book. I can't decide if I want to write a fiction. I have to give you something inspiring. Because if I said to you right now, oh, start a new course or start a new business, like you would do that tomorrow or in the next few hours. So I am safe. Yeah. Yes. But something that's challenging for you and takes a bit longer would inspire you more, so I would think. Do you know what else I would also love to start? A marketers association. I know that one exists in Australia. We're a member of it, Australian Marketers Institute. Apart from the public liability insurance that we get for the membership, I see I've had no value come through from there. You know how our campaigns have these memberships that they have to do, and even personal trainers have to do so many credits all the time to look. Like I want to start a marketing association where you join as a marketer, you get held to a higher standard, it differentiates you from all the fucking cowboys and cow gals out there that are just in it just purely for the cash. And it's like in order to stay a member, you need to do X amount of training every year to like get your knowledge happening. And then we have award. Give away too much. Then we have awards, then we have your idea will be taken. Yeah. I don't know. I girls pop up on TikTok tomorrow. I feel like I feel like there is just such a need for regulation in the industry. From hearing what you've shared with me, degrees have come a long way since Marie and I back in the um the black and white days. The marketing book was about this bit. Yeah, Marie putting her books. I just I know I heard from someone who works at a uni that they have to set their curriculum like 12 months in advance. And it's like how, like the system isn't designed to support such a fast-paced industry. They're not but then I think okay, well, why don't you teach them psychology and consumer behaviour and all that kind of stuff? But that's like a postgraduate collective. Yeah. That's why I loved HR because it was based more on psychology of why people act the way they do and purchase. I just created this conceptual idea that I I think it was a year ago, I said to Maddie, I love the fact that I was thinking about if someone asked you to draw a tree, I would draw it as close to a perfect tree as possible. So I'd probably go in and I'd look at a tree and I'd sketch it and I'd be like, I wouldn't be very good at it, but I would try my hardest to get it right. You would have another idea of it. I feel like Maddie would be like, I'm not drawing a tree and uh two lines and a f and a fluffy thing over the top, and that would be my tree. Or she would rip it up and she would turn into a piece of our working on her wall. And I think that's the biggest thing. It's like you're learning university, but what she teaches is think outside of what you're learning and get your own ideas and be authentic in the space yourself because marketing is all about how you do it differently. And the value I see that uni does, like I've obviously employed a lot of people in the last 10 years. Uni teaches you to number one, think a certain way. I hope it does. Mine didn't, mine was rubbish. Um, but number two, it shows you to stick out boring ass shit to start something and see it through to the end. When you could just drop out, you could just not go to class, you could just not do assessments. It like teaches you sticking power. I feel like it teaches you. Well, personally, it taught me a lot more about the world because I went straight out of school to university. Yeah. Taught me a lot more about the world because I did electives in advertising, HR, tourism, law, accounting, economics, all of that opened my eyes to so many things, and I I feel really helped me on how I look for I looked forward in my future. It also helped you to reference and learn to read other materials before you come up with your own outcome or hypothesis on things. How can we create a group of like-minded people, the ones that come through, come to us for advisory, come to us for our birdcage certified program, put this together and then showcase we are a better quality of marketer. We have principles that we need to adhere to. We're not gonna rip you off and take your money and ditch you to the curb. We're not gonna ghost you after you pay your deposit. Like there's just so many shitty stories that exist, and it makes it harder for the marketers that actually are doing good work. Okay, my next question. I'm going off script now. So they're boring me. So sorry, Sloane, all your hard workers, but they are they are good, but I think it's good to just randomly spark your hearts and sound. Is that okay? Of course. Carry forward. What has been your most perfect birthday to date? The one that's made the biggest impact and you've enjoyed the most? So it's probably So there's last year I was in Portofino. I spent an absorbent amount of money at this oceanfront hotel that was like the most incredible family-run luxury hotel you could imagine. Like they had slippers in every size for the kids and robes. And Jack organized breakfast in the morning. Literally, there's photos on my Instagram, like a spread of every food you could imagine. We had it out on the balcony that overlooks the med. We're in our roads. I think we're in our robes, and I had this big bunch of flowers. I didn't actually get a physical gift, but it was actually my best birthday ever. And then we went to dinner at this um restaurant, which is like an iconic, iconic hotel in Portofino where the celebrities go. And we had the most beautiful, and there was literally a rainbow behind us. So that was obviously that was number one. And making it this interview about me is also I love that. Yes. Yeah. What would your perfect Sunday look like? Everyone leaves me alone and I rush in this. That's not true. No, I think for right now, at this moment in time, it's probably true. I really love alone time. I don't know if that's like a childhood trauma response where I just needed to be alone a lot, but I do really I call it my blank space-time, where I'm literally like don't have a deadline to be anywhere or do anything, and I can just like lie in bed. I actually don't watch hardly any TV. Journaling, reading, organise a cupboard, go for a walk, play with my dog. Obviously, at plans. You know, set plans, but just no demands on me. And I think that's just maybe the season that I'm in with like growing the business, then having small kids and like just all that kind of stuff. It actually sounds lovely to me. Yeah, yeah. I do like that as well, where you can wake up and there's no set agenda and no one asking you for anything. Yeah, it's a free bird. That or waking up in the south of France, going to France, going to the Pink Beach Club. Okay. Affaroles from the Beach Boy. Yeah. That's also would be number two. But again, it's a similar concept where it's like the kids are taken care of. They can go to the ice cream stand at the beach club and go get the food, they can order whatever. Jacket I've got freedom too. That's yeah, so you've got freedom and they can take like the little paddle boats out, other kids that they can't speak each other's language, but they seem to just understand. They seem to just bring that as a child, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Language not in Sudden. I'm like, I don't actually know what you're saying, but I still get you. Yeah. Okay. I think we're done.