Balancing Motherhood & Entrepreneurship: Asha Bhalsod Talks About Guilt, Growth & Lessons Learned

In this episode of Your Mind Your Business, host Carina McLeod speaks with Asha Bhalsod, founder of Etopia Consultancy, about the raw and real challenges of being a female entrepreneur and parent.

With over 15 years of experience in Amazon and eCommerce, collaborating with global brands like Tomy and Melissa & Doug, Asha has built a thriving consultancy dedicated to helping businesses navigate Amazon’s complexities.

Asha dives deep into:

📍Her Career Path: From corporate Amazon to launching her own business.
📍Balancing Act: Managing the emotional toll of guilt and finding harmony between motherhood and entrepreneurship.
📍Leadership Insights: Lessons learned from building and scaling her team.
📍Defining Success: Staying grounded, embracing vulnerability, and empowering women in business.

This episode is packed with candid advice and motivational insights for anyone balancing the demands of business and family or aspiring to carve their own entrepreneurial path.

🔔 Subscribe for more inspiring conversations on entrepreneurship and growth.

#YourMindYourBusiness #PodcastLife #EntrepreneurJourney #BusinessGrowth #WomenInBusiness #Ecommerce #EntrepreneurMindset #BusinessPodcast #WomenEntrepreneurs #LeadershipJourney #EntrepreneurLife

Follow us on:

👉 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@YourMindYourBusiness/
👉 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/your-mind-your-business/
👉 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/your_mind_your_business/
👉 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@yourmindyourbiz

Transcript

As a mum, as a female, as an owner of a business, I never stop feeling guilty. I'm either not in not present enough for my children, or I'm not giving my business enough, or I'm not giving my staff enough, or I'm not giving my clients enough, or I'm not giving my family enough, I'm not giving my husband enough, you are always feeling guilty. Welcome to Your Mind Your Business, the podcast that dives into the real grit of entrepreneurship. I'm your host, Carina McLeod, entrepreneur and fitness fanatic. And today, we have a special guest, Asha Bhalsod from Etopia Consultancy.

Welcome, Asha. Hi. Thank you for having me. So I'm super excited to talk to you today because I know you as the founder of Utopia Consultancy, but I don't know sort of your whole story as to how you got to become the founder. So if we start off, if you could share with our audience a bit about yourself and where you're at now, then I'm gonna hit rewind and start go back to the start of your journey and understand sort of more about your path to, utopia.

Well, I'll take out some of the fluff and I'll start with, I've been in the Amazon space for almost 16 years. I was at Amazon in well, you and I were both at Amazon together in that real old school Amazon Slough days that we call were great days. I did 4 wonderful years there and worked across, 3 p, and did a bit of vendor there too. It was a fantastic period of my time. I then, had a baby, who's not a baby anymore.

She's 12 years old now, so that's how long I've been doing this for. And Amazon were relocating their offices to London. So with a baby in tow, I couldn't do that commute, so decided to leave Amazon. And the reason I'm sharing some of this is it's actually framed me, some of these decisions I've had to make. And I joined a huge Japanese toy business called Tomy, UK, and I was given the opportunity to manage Amazon from a brand site.

This was a real interesting role for me because, having come from Amazon, I never really understood what it took to manage the brand on the other side of the table. I did that for 4 years and had a baby, another one, who's not a baby again anymore, and went to work for Melissa and Doug shortly after my maternity leave finished. And I became a head of ecommerce for all of Western Europe for a phenomenal powerhouse brand, which is Melissa and Doug. And I did that for two and a half years, fundamentally got sick of corporate life, wanted to spend more time with my kids and felt that there was a real gap in the market for strategic Amazon account management and, decided that I was gonna set up. Actually, there was no vision and dream to have this all encompassing agency that we've got today, that I'm very excited and proud of.

It was only just to be freelance and, to work by myself. That lasted for all of, like, 6 months, and I when I set the business up, this was pre pandemic, I you know, the services were in high demand, and the pandemic accelerated our growth and 5 years on, here we are today. Congratulations. That's awesome. Right?

To and it's really interesting because I speak with many a guest, and some guests have a plan. Some have never been in the corporate world. Some have started off being an entrepreneur going into the corporate world, and it's really interesting your story, so very much the fact that you didn't even envisage. I bet you'd never have thought years when you started your career that you would end up being a business owner. Absolutely not.

And super grateful for what I've got in front of me and grateful for, the support I've had to be able to get me to where I am. But, no, no plan. It was always, like, literally at the back of a fag packet kind of situation, but here I am today. Yeah. And that's it.

And now you have a successful business, which is which is really, really interesting. So now I know we can talk about we can say, oh, the business is doing really well, and it's all positives. But I guess the part that we wanna really understand is that real grit. So for people that are listening, they understand that, yes, success comes and you can get a you have a business and being an entrepreneur, but there's also some real challenges that that come with it. Has there ever been a real challenge or setback in your time when setting up your agency that, I guess, on the outside, it looked like it was wasn't such of a much of a challenge, but gave you a lot more, sleepless nights than you would have imagined.

I've had a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of challenges, and I've had you know, even today, I I've got one of those challenges in front of me. I think the outside world always thinks they look at it and think, oh my god. 5 years on, you're successful. You've got a team of people, and you're great at doing what you're doing. I have to be honest.

It's just sometimes it's just a façade. A lot of it is a façade. Nobody truly understands what it takes. Staff turnover, it hurts you. People wanting to leave your business, it hurts you.

I've made a lot of mistakes along the way. And, also, you know, you might have all these great CEOs and MDs in in the world. They have not read hundreds of books to learn how to do that. You learn on the job. Right?

And I have and have been fundamentally learning on the job. Losing clients, that is not a great moment when, you know, clients terminate contracts because of not hitting the goals that you've said that you're going to hit, or your team aren't able to deliver the things that you want them to deliver because there's only so many hours in a given day. There's many times where I've gone, oh god. Have I done the right thing? Should I just be doing this by myself?

It's interesting that you say that. Do you ever go do you ever think, should I do this by myself, or should I go back to corporate life? Do it by myself. I don't think I could ever go back to corporate life. I think I've had the taste of working for myself, and, this works.

Right? Like, when I set the business up, I've done it because I'm a mum to 2 girls who were very little at that time, and they needed to see me. They want I wanted to be present. And that's a choice and sacrifice that I made, which was I was gonna quit a corporate job to be more present. And that has been fantastic because I've been able to support my daughter's ed daughter's educations.

I have been at sports day, parents' evening, all the things that we constantly, as females, feel guilty about. But, actually, just to be able to take my little one to Costa on a Friday afternoon after school, I don't wanna have that guilt, that pang of guilt that I should be buried in a laptop. So I don't think I could ever go back to working for somebody. It is it will it will always be me. Yep.

Definitely. And so how do you manage that, though? Because it's that mental and emotional toll that it takes, right, of so you don't have that guilt. You can own your own time, but those stressful moments, there's gotta be some way in which you have to cope and manage them internally. So you said guilt.

No. Let me say, Corina, as a mum, as a female, as an owner of a business, I never stop feeling guilty. I'm either not present enough for my children or I'm not giving my business enough, or I'm not giving my staff enough, or I'm not giving my clients enough, or I'm not giving my family enough, I'm not giving my husband enough, you are always, always feeling guilty. So it's actually how do you manage that. And you know, I wouldn't sit here and say that I've, you know, I've accomplished it in any way.

Right? I feel guilt guilty that it's, you know, late on a Thursday evening, and I've not picked the kids up today or gonna see them this evening. It's just sometimes it's life. Right? What I would say is when I was leaving Melissa and Doug, I remember having a conversation with Melissa, who is a mom of 5, and she was you know, built this phenomenal business.

And she said something to me that has stayed with me, which is, Asha, you don't need to have, your children watching all these pop stars and that for them to become role models to your children. By doing what you're doing, you are gonna become a role model. And that statement lives with me, which is, yes, I feel guilty. Yes, it's hard work. Yes, I'm always, like, spinning multiple plates, but I have now become a role model to my girls for doing this.

I absolutely love that because that's so that's your spark. Right? That's the motivation that, I guess, when you're having those days, when you're feeling, why did I do this? Actually, I did it because I'm becoming a role model for my or I am, not it's that you're becoming. You are a role model for your children.

And, actually, I see it within my girls right now that they work hard, but they play hard, and they appreciate what we've got because they see that, actually, mom is always working, whether it's on her mobile phone. And we've got to also embrace technology these days. Right? Like, gone are those days where you have to sit behind your laptop morning till night to make you feel as if you've worked. As the owner of a business, and, Karina, you'll feel like this, you're always working.

Whether you're sat on the sofa watching a TV programme, you're probably thinking about the next client that you could go and pitch to. To. It might be the next LinkedIn post that you might do. It might be a creative idea of how to challenge your staff or change the culture of something going on. Your mind doesn't stop.

As an entrepreneur, you are always on the go. And, yes, you might have switch off times, like on holidays or whatever, but actually for me, that's when I get the most creative because I'm able to not be in front of my laptop too. So do you find that your brain's always going how like, even at waking up in the night and you've got an idea? 100%. Yeah.

My best my team, I do tell them this a lot. They do laugh at me. My best moments happen when I'm in the shower in the morning. Yeah. Those are light bulb moments that you get.

Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. And how do you so, you know, did you ever envisage well, you didn't envisage having sort of that agency, but you started off as a freelancer. When you started off freelancing, did you ever think that you would scale to become larger?

Was that ever the plan, or was it always to just sort of have your free freedom? This is it's an interesting question because I think I always had the hunger and appetite to want to have an agency, but I wanted to do it in a different way. I didn't wanna just be another Amazon agency. I wanted to stand for something different. And, you know, Etopia and what I stand for is about strategic consultancy.

So, I think in the first couple of months, I was just excited to land clients. I didn't even think I could do that. So, you know, forever grateful for those first few clients that that embraced me, actually, and allowed me to learn on the job because that's the reality of it. We learn on the job. I think this I think after I was spitting out strategic consultancy, it became very apparent that I was good at this, and, actually, I could coach and develop people to help me grow this further.

So, you know, my first hire, Merlin, I will always remember him because, it's not a very traditional Amazon person that you find on the books these days. It was far from it. But he took a plunge into coming to work for me and being my first hire, and I took a plunge into training and developing him into the Amazon space. And he taught me so much, right, which is what it's like to have a member of staff that is part of my business and what I could do to coach and develop him and grow him in this space. And I can honestly say it spiralled out of control almost after that.

That's amazing. And you said something interesting a bit earlier where you sort of said that you were really sort of grateful to those clients that took you on at the start because and then you learned that you were good at that. Did you ever have that question of self doubt at the start? Right. All the time.

It was, you know, my journey of why and how I started the business was a lot of uncertainty within me at that time. Right? And, you know, I was put in a bit of a predicament at that time because I was almost faced to choose between being a mum and having a career. And I remember that feeling at the pit of my stomach thinking, why are women always put in these spots? Why do I have to be the one to choose between having a career and being a mom?

Well, actually, I'm sorry. I'm gonna have both. I'm going to do that. And I remember saying to my husband, I'm gonna I'm gonna freelance. That's what I'm gonna do.

And I also made the cardinal sin of telling him that I was only gonna work 4 days a week. Like That didn't last long. I was gonna say, has that actually No. Happened? No.

Maybe in the 1st few months, I'd say. Right? I was, like, religious about it. Fridays is my my day to myself. That didn't last very long at all.

But it's, you know, you always have imposter syndrome. Can I am I good at this? You know, look at all the other people that are doing this. Can I do this? Can I be good enough?

Am I adding value? And, actually, I realized quite quickly I do know my stuff. I do know my Amazon. And I also have a very different mindset about Amazon. And one of the very first topics I kept talking about in in controversial topics I kept talking about is agency versus in house.

And ironically, there I am 5 years later with an agency, and I can say I still talk about this. Right? Which is what's the best of both worlds? Which one should you have? There's things that I started doing that nobody was doing, and I, you know, slowly started believing in myself.

How do you get to that point where you believe in yourself? Do you because you seem, you know, very self aware and that you have openly have those conversations. Is that do you manage that with yourself? How do you manage to kind of turn around those thoughts of can I do this versus actually I'm good at this? I don't think it's something that comes naturally quite surprisingly.

Everyone thinks that, you know, you see a confident person, and you think, oh, they're just confident. That's not something that just happens. I think I have fire in my belly. That's the key. I'm ambitious.

I'm driven. I am self motivated. But failure also isn't an option for me. I think those little mottos are statements. And people are like, oh, they're just statements.

But it's what sticks with you. Right? I want to make a better life for me and my family. I wanna look back at my career and say I've had fun. And that's the thing that we haven't even touched on, which is, do we enjoy it?

Right? And if you're having fun, you put more passion and energy into what you're doing. And actually, I'm having fun. Do you which is fantastic, and that is so important, right, is being able to get up in the morning and have fire in your belly. Because if that goes, where does the passion go?

And there's been moments that it has gone. Right? I cannot sit here and say that for 5 years, I have not gone, I love this every single day.

No. No. There's been many moments where I've gone, I'm not really good at this, actually, and or this is too hard. I can't do this anymore. Many moments.

But I think that failure isn't an option. Also, it stays with me in my head, and then I think, right, I've gotta find a new way. Definitely. And so you started off freelancing and then you grew a team.

How did that first feel? Like, you mentioned Merlin as your first hire. Did that was that a scary moment? Yeah. Very.

Oh, yeah. Like, it was like just paying him for the first time. Like, no one teaches you these things. Right? No one teaches you HR rules.

No one teaches you, you know, do a passport check, and no one does that. Right? We learn. So, yes, you know, it was it was an it was an amazing feeling, actually, that elevated me.

And, you know, a few months after that, I made high at number 2, and some of that went south and some of that carried on and, you know, the churn of staff carried on. And, you know, I've got it wrong sometimes, but I've also got it really, really right as well sometimes. I like the fact that you say that you got it. You're not afraid to say, 'I've got something wrong.' And you even started when you started introducing yourself, you know, 'I've made mistakes', which I guess just being open and aware of that is so key because a lot of people aren't necessarily sharing that, which is kind of the reason for the podcast. And when you go on LinkedIn, there's all these shiny success stories, how amazing certain people are.

How do you manage all of that, you know, when you're going through potentially, you could be going through a dark time in the business. You might have lost a client or a hire, and there's all these people sort of blowing their trumpets on, on social media. I think I've learned to see through a lot of that crap, to be honest. And, you know, the more mature I get and in my role, the more that I actually understand that everybody has challenges. Actually, I'm surrounded by people that I can comfortably also say it's not been a great year.

Like, you know, you're one of them. We sat together recently. We both were like, it's just tough, isn't it? And it is tough. And actually, by me being more transparent to peers around me, I feel like that allows them to do that.

And actually, if I that doesn't mean if somebody's having a good year, they can't celebrate their success. I wanna celebrate everyone's success. Why not? But let's also be real with one another, please. I love your the transparency, and it's almost showing an element of vulnerability as well because, that's what I like when we caught up recently was actually there was quite a few of us in the room, and we were all really open about how things were in managing agency, and it felt like a therapy session.

Yes. I've said it before. Right? We I think, I think there is a side. Right?

Like, in the Amazon agency space, there is so much I don't wanna use the word façade, but there is a lot of smoke. Out there. And it is nice when the few of us do get together, and we're just open and honest and say, although we're competitors, we don't have to be in that moment. Actually, we're just former colleagues and that that are understanding each other and what we're all going through. Your prob your the problems you have in your business, I guarantee, are the similar problems to either I have in my business.

Why can't we be a bit more transparent about that those problems? And, actually, if one of your staff member wants to leave and join my agency, why shouldn't I be able to call you up and say, what's your thoughts? 100%. Because, that that's really important. Right?

But, but sometimes that yeah. It can be it can be distracting with, with those stories when you're in those place, but it's great that you were able to almost see, as you say, see through it and not get drawn in to it. You do have to find, though, what your own victories and what your own successes are. Right? And it's also about managing expectations.

It's who you are and what you're trying to achieve in your business. Like, many people ask me, what's next? Like, I've done this for 5 years. Well, people were asking me this at year 1. What's next?

Grow the business, I said. In year 3, people were asking me, what's next? I was like, grow the business. People were asking me in year 5, okay, what's now? Are you gonna sell it?

What? What are you gonna do? Honestly, Corina, I don't know. I'm having fun.

I'm enjoying it, and we're growing. That's all that matters. If I continue to tick those boxes, that is what success looks like for me. Whereas all the other stuff that you see on LinkedIn, etcetera, etcetera, that's great for them. That's their success.

I measure my own success in a different way. I love that. I love the way you're able to block that out in your you come across as someone that's very clear in your mind what's important to you, your values, what motivates you, and what success looks like to you, which is great, and it's a great position to be in. And thank you. It's nice to hear you say that.

Like, it but every year also, can I say, people have different goals and different ambitions? For me, this last year, it's been about the development of my team and the growth of women in Amazon Business. And the more females I'm coming across and they're talking to me about their stories, this is this gives me a new spark and a new energy, a renewed energy of what I'm doing out there in the market. And to be able to coach, develop, and support fellow females in this space, it reenergizes me, actually. So why is it different a different journey then for you?

You know, some people manage it as in, oh, the success I've done x million on as a business, and I'm going to exit. But, actually, you get more of a buzz in in other ways. Right? And this is why I said everyone's successes are linked in different ways. Do not get me wrong.

The growth of the business of Etopia is fundamentally really important to me. Retaining our clients, bringing in new clients, growing our team, that to me is my bread and butter. That doesn't go away. So that is the things that get me out of bed every single day. But if I was just doing that, I don't think that would be enough for me, because actually it can get a little bit boring.

It can get very depressing, actually, because if you're not bringing in new clients, if you're not growing your team and you're constantly reading all of your other competitive agencies doing that, it can become depressing. So for me, success is also linked with seeing fellow females growing in this space and being able to coach and mentor them. I think that for me is the bit that really excites me now. So in terms of then strategies, like, you mentioned then about the times where let's say you're not getting any new clients, you lose some clients, or make that bad hire. How do you not let that get you down?

Oh, I get down, Karina. Come on. Why are we gonna sit here and say it's not I get down. But I need to get down to be able to get back up.

So if you're constantly on a high, how do you know what bad looks like? So I need to sometimes have those bad and dark days because then that goes, right, what's your outreach plan, Asher? What are you doing here? What shows are you going to? What how are you gonna build your network?

If you've gotta have those dark times to be able to give you some of that. Absolutely love that because I can really resonate with what you've just said. You know? You do need to, and you can feel those dark those times when you go down, but you come back up fighting. Yeah.

But also it's who you are as a person. It's you know, some people can't don't do well with dark days, and we have to fully recognize that, that those dark days bring spirals almost downwards. I'm not the type of person that those dark days spiral me downwards. Those dark days, I need to remind myself of to almost give me the fire in my belly again. And that gets me going again.

Do you I mean, we talked about sort of your mind not switching off and always going. What sort of things do you do to manage that so it isn't just sort of work, work, work? Yeah. Gym for me. Gym is my therapy.

I've, you know, recently, you know, really got into weight training, done my back in, and you know? But gym, I think that's super important for me. I think cooking. Cooking is my therapy also. Socialising, always having a holiday planned.

That is super important to me too. I think I think normal things, I would say. You know, it doesn't have to be anything out of the box and special. You know? Just putting the latest Netflix show on and relaxing, actually.

It has to have some red wine in there somewhere as well. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. And do you so those are things that that help you then, I guess, switch your mind off from do you feel that you've kind of mastered it when it comes to boundaries?

Yes and no. I go through phases where I'm really good for boundaries, and I go through phases where I just totally slip. So I'll give you an example. Earlier on this year, I felt like, I've got a garden office, and I felt like when I entered back in the house, I'd be cooking and I would always be on a call with the AirPods on cooking and the kids are in the background asking me questions, but I'm on a call and I'm doing cooking, being mum, and being on a call. And I was like, almost take a step back and went, what am I doing?

Like, I'm spinning again multiple plates and not being present for any of those 3, actually. So I made a rule. When I come into the house, I put my phone on do not disturb, I leave it somewhere that it's out of my reach, I am present with the children, I cook dinner, And we have a family meal. And can I say that's a staple thing for me? We always eat together as a family, spend time together, tidy up, do the things that we've got to do, and then I'll turn my phone back on again.

And I did that for a good 3 to 4 months, and I found such calm. Because what was happening was when I was coming back in the house, I was either turning the kids off or I was getting more agitated and more stressed about everything and anything because I was just trying to do too much. So I'd say putting those boundaries are super important for me. I think the mobile phone thing is a big thing for me because, we're all guilty of it, but actually, mother of a teenage daughter, you know this more so than anyone else as well, that they're always on their mobile phones. But they're actually looking at you.

And I'm on my mobile phone all the time. Right? And I don't put it down. Even when we're watching a movie, I'm not putting it down. So creating boundaries where I've got do not disturb on my phone, when I, switch my phone off in the evenings, that's important.

Can I say I'm not perfect at it because it slips? Right? Things happen. And you're like, no, no, I've got to do this. I've got to do this.

I would also say that going on holidays, I had to create some boundaries because, you know, I felt like I had to always be on. So, actually, one of my team members taught me this this year. She was going on holiday, and she said, hi, everyone. Just to let you know, I'll be deleting the Teams app off my phone so I will not get any notifications.

And I was so inspired by what she did that I actually did exactly the same this year. So I switched it off. I have got a very adequate team. My clients know that I'm on holiday. There is no fire that is important at that time.

How did you feel when you first did that? Terrific. Let's be honest. It was really tough for me, but I had such a fantastic holiday because I was able to switch off. Yeah.

And do you think that when you asked you know, I love the way you said you have dinner with your family. You put your phone on silent. Has anything changed in workload, or is it just how you look at it? Nothing's changed in workload. It's the way I look at it.

I think the type of person I am, I always feel like I need to answer everything really quickly there and then. It's everything's urgent. It's one of the ethos's of my business. You know? Drive urgency.

I teach my team this all the time. But actually, I'm too urgent. I'm too present. I'm finding everyone's solutions. But, actually, taking a step back, people can find their own solutions, and I need to learn to let them do that.

Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. And those times when you know, we talked about those challenging times and those sleepless nights. How do you then make sure like, you've got you're managing your team, that when you're feeling those tough times that you it doesn't then sort of have, like, a a halo effect or I don't know if halo effect's the right word, but a domino effect on people around you.

Oh, it definitely does. Right? Like, I can see it on my children that I'm stressed out, they become stressed out. I guess it helps in one way. Like, my husband's the complete polar opposite to me.

He's my calm. He doesn't get stressed out very often and actually often just reminds me. He's like, why are you getting stressed out? So it's finding that it's actually having people around me that can help me establish my balance and my norm again as well. But also with my team, recently I've got a new business coach.

And something, again, that he has taught me has stayed with me, which is when you're in the trenches, don't try to find the solution. Because when you're in the trenches, everyone's looking for reactions. Everyone's trying to but actually, that's not healthy. So coaching helps as well because that that makes me realize it makes me more self aware that I almost wanna be too erratic and that everyone feeds from that energy. And sometimes you don't need to be like that, actually.

Yeah. Definitely. That's good. And it's good that you've got a coach as well. I know for I've had my coach for a number of years, and it was completely life changing.

Yeah. Absolutely agree. He's taught me so much. I'm so grateful for actually my own self for having that spot, but I needed this as well. Yeah.

Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. And so you've got your business and your business is in a good place by the sounds. And you seem to be, you know, there's that sort of 3 to 5 year mark.

Right? And you've you're hitting that and you're growing as a business. Do you ever get any questions in your head as in or what happens if we don't grow anymore or we take steps back or the opposite of what happens if we go, grow, and we become double the size. All of that is fear.

Growing too much too quickly, growing not enough, going backwards, that's all fear. And, yes, it lives with me every single day. What can I do about it? I can use that energy and carry on driving it the business forward.

I don't wallow in it. I don't worry about it. I think, again, it goes back to what I said is, what is success? What is that measure of success? And some people and some agencies out there, success for them is tripling the business every year.

Fantastic for you. Actually, I'm in a very fortunate position. I own my own business. I make my own targets. So do I hit my targets?

Yeah. If I don't hit it, I do give myself a kick up the ass to say, go, come on. Figure this out again. But I'm not in that environment where, you know, I've got investors, and I've got to, you know, reach those. So actually, I I remind myself of that too.

You don't need that craze sometimes. I'm very grateful and very happy, but I'm also very ambitious, and I will continue growing the business. There isn't even a I will try. I will do that. I like the fact, that you pull out the word fear because that's an interesting one, isn't it?

You can use fear to fuel you, or you can use fear and sort of it can just make you sort of almost, take steps back. It sounds like fear fuels you. Yeah. I think it does, and I've probably not thought about it like that. This feels like therapy now, correct me.

We go. Yeah. I guess it does. And failure isn't an option, though. True.

I remember you saying you said that earlier. And so therefore yeah. I guess it does, it does it does really does motivate me, actually. But you sort of say you're clear on what success looks like for you.

Are you clear, would you say, on what failure looks like? Because failure could sort of be seen in different ways as well, like success. Yeah. I think I'm clear in my mind what failure looks like. It's not having actually what I've got today.

But also, I'm more I feel like, you know, my parents are very humble people, and the background that they've got and where they've come from where they are now, that's taught me a lot to be grounded. So, I feel like I am a very humble human being. For me, it's also about have I got my health, have I got my family, and that is also what failure looks like to me. Everything else is almost redundant.

Yeah. Definitely. We talked earlier about your career being very much you've been in that corporate been in corporate life until really, I would say, what, 5 years ago. If you were to go back to the start of your corporate life knowing where you're at right now, is there any pieces of advice you would give yourself? Would you do things differently?

Oh, yes. I would tell my tell my young self, Tone down. You know? I was very ambitious. I probably rubbed up a lot of people the wrong way.

You know? But, actually, I would also say to myself, dream big and go for it. Tone down. Would that be talk more about talk to me a bit more about your the tone down. Literally the word tone, I would say.

I've been told many a times my tone is a bit rough. Actually, somebody said to me once, I'm rough around the edges. And I remember feeling quite insulted by that. Now, when I look back at that, I think, yeah, I was and probably still am rough around the edges. But I'm really good with that now.

I don't need to be smoothed out. This is who I am. So going back to the tone down, I think, you know, I think I was a people pleaser too much too quickly. I always wanted to prove myself to people and probably, you know, came across a bit aggressive, a bit too in your face, maybe.

So, you know, I had some coaching. People always said to me, do you need to watch the way you speak? You do need to watch your tone? So to my younger self, I would probably be saying, you don't need to be behaving like that. Do you think that that's helped you, though, in terms of your where you're at now?

Is that part of, like, what your spark and that fire and ambition as well? Well, people always tell me I'm very direct. Right? And I'm very transparent also. Now who knows, Corinna, if I wasn't as direct, if I wasn't as assertive?

Actually, that reminds me of a staff member. I asked him for feedback recently, and he said to me, you're very assertive. And I was like, is that a positive or is that a negative? But I don't know. I don't know if these are good traits to have.

I don't know if these are the traits that makes an entrepreneur. I don't know if these are the traits that makes somebody that's got the grit to run a business. Because if I was softly spoken, if I wasn't assertive, if I wasn't direct and transparent, would I be successful? I don't know. It's really interesting and I wanted to pick on that because I completely resonate.

I mean, I resonate with a lot of things that you're saying, but the directness definitely, from an assertive perspective as well as in and sometimes it's seen, you know, and I don't know how if that comes across sometimes as you say, aggressive at times. But, actually, that's always been my given me that, the fire in my belly to move to move forward as well. But some people call that confidence. Right? And, actually, if you really, really knew me, well, actually, we can say openly, what did I say to you at the start of this podcast?

It's a façade. Didn't I say that? Yeah. Because we, call it we because, you know, I've got to know you so well recently. We're very similar.

We're both very direct and assertive women. But actually strip us strip it down and peel the peel the layers, we can sometimes not be that confident. And that is who we are. Yeah. And that's great, but the thing is the interesting part is you mentioned about the direct being direct and transparent.

That transparent has given you that all that self awareness and that ability to sort of manage everything because, you know, it's interesting that you say that because I would say if I look at you now, you seem like you have everything under control. Maybe that's the façade. You're doing very well. But it seems like you've gone through you've gone through that journey, right, over the years of that 5 years. And, you know, you know, the journey has not been easy.

You know, any entrepreneur that says they've had you know, all they've had is growth, come on. They're just lying. You know, I've had 5 incredible years at utopia that but there has been some serious pain along the way. And I'm sure that that will also carry on. You know?

But it's actually about the resilience that you have to how do you fight back, how do you find a new calm, how do you turn the page, and all of that. I think that is super important. And actually, that comes with confidence because if you didn't have the confidence, you wouldn't be able to do that. So then I would say, yes, I am very confident. Yes, I am very direct.

But my transparency, that is the bit of feedback that I get constantly, which is they love working with me or for me because I am transparent. And actually, I feel like I do have a problem. If I've got a problem and I've got something to say, I'm not that type of human that is able to just suppress it. Unless it's spoken, I can't turn a page with you. Yeah.

And that's great that you get the feedback from your team as well. Yeah. And I ask for it because as well, you know, I do make mistakes, and maybe I shouldn't have dealt with the situation in the way that I've dealt with it. And, you know, feedback's important all the time. And it doesn't matter how old you are or how many years you've been doing what you're doing.

We have to also remember we're getting older. And there is a new generation that we're coaching. And they wanna do it a different way. So we do have to adapt and evolve. And, actually, if you're not adapting and evolving, isn't that boring?

Hats off. Yeah. A 100%. It's been awesome talking to you today. I usually wrap up and ask for a piece of advice, but we've gone through the advice for your younger self.

And we've gone on we've touched on something that's actually really interesting in terms of it's not just about I would you know, when I talk about best advice for your younger self, a lot of people will say, oh, well, I would have had a business plan and everything. But what we've touched on today is a lot about sort of behaviour and how you manage things, from an emotional perspective as well, which I think is something that is so important. And I love that the fact that you're you've gone on a journey of self awareness and you've grown with it. And, yeah. Thank you for sharing all your, your journey with us today.

Thanks everyone for listening today and thank you once again, Asha, for joining us. Thank you for having me. Love this episode. Don't miss out. Hit subscribe on our YouTube channel and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Instagram as we continue to keep it real.